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Published by 17 February 2024, 10:09 AM ESTComment,

Three volumes of various collected Dragon Ball manga series are all set to release 04 April 2024 in Japan.

Dragon Ball Super — Volume 23

The twenty third collected volume of the Dragon Ball Super manga series by Toyotarō will release 04 April 2024 in Japan for ¥528 + tax. Following previous volumes, the upcoming volume should pick up with chapter 97, and (in line with prior volumes covering four chapters total) likely span through chapter 100.

The Dragon Ball Super “comicalization” began in June 2015, initially just ahead of the television series, and running both ahead and behind the series at various points. The manga runs in Shueisha’s V-Jump magazine, with the series’ one-hundred-second chapter coming next week in the magazine’s April 2024 issue. Illustrated by “Toyotarō” (in all likelihood, a second pen-name used by Dragon Ball AF fan manga author and illustrator “Toyble”), the Dragon Ball Super manga covered the Battle of Gods re-telling, skipped the Resurrection ‘F’ re-telling, and “charged ahead” to the Champa arc, “speeding up the excitement of the TV anime even more”. Though the television series has completed its run, the manga continues onward, moving into its own original “Galactic Patrol Prisoner”, “Granolla the Survivor”, and now “Super Hero” arcs.

Viz is currently releasing free digital chapters of the series, and began their own collected print edition back in 2017. The company’s twentieth collected volume was just released this month.

Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultra God Mission!!!! — Volume 4

The fourth collected volume of the Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultra God Mission!!!! manga series by Yoshitaka Nagayama will also release 04 April 2024 in Japan for ¥572 + tax. Following previous volumes, the upcoming fourth volume should pick up with chapter 16, and will likely span through this particular series’ end to chapter 20.

Yoshitaka Nagayama debuted in a supplemental booklet packed in with the December 2013 issue of Saikyō Jump, with “Dragon Ball Heroes: Rookie Charisma Mission 0” depicting the daily life and “training” of Engineer Yoshito and new Battle Navigators Tsubasa and Momo-chan in a cartoony style. The Charisma Mission series eventually received its own standard serialization in Saikyō Jump beginning in the July 2014 issue, followed by traditional story serials beginning with Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Dark Demon Realm Mission! beginning in the September 2016 issue, Universe Mission!! beginning in the May 2018 issue, followed yet again by Big Bang Mission!!! beginning in the May 2020 issue, and yet again by Ultra God Mission!!!! beginning in the April 2022 issue. Following its own completion in the November 2023 issue of Saikyō Jump, it was announced that another new series — Meteor Mission! — would take its place in the following issue.

The various Dragon Ball Heroes manga series remain without an official English translation and release.

Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Avatars!! — Volume 4

The fourth collected volume of the Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Avatars!! manga series by Yūji Kasai will also release 04 April 2024 in Japan for ¥594 + tax.

A prototype/one-shot for Avatars debuted as a single chapter in the January 2021 issue of Saikyō Jump (under the title “Super Dragon Ball Heroes Side-Story: Avatar Story!!”), followed by the serialization of Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Avatars!! beginning in the September 2021 issue, coinciding with Saikyō Jump‘s refresh. Much like Charisma Mission before it (and likewise similar to DeSpo FighterZ for Dragon Ball FighterZ), the Avatars series showcases a group of young protagonists taking on the world of Dragon Ball Heroes with comical showcases of the various cards and mechanics.

As with Yoshitaka Nagayama’s various series, Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Avatars!! does not have an official English translation and release.

Published by 15 February 2024, 9:05 AM ESTComment

Bandai Namco Holdings has posted a ¥8.231 billion profit for the third quarter of fiscal year of 2024 (and ¥60.398 overall for the fiscal year thus far), down from a ¥17.887 billion quarterly (and ¥84.444 three-quarters) profit this same timeframe last year.

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By way of an investor Q&A session, it was noted that the company has shelved five titles that were in development, recording a loss due to those works and other reorganizations at the company. The likely underperformance of Blue Protocol has also been cited as a possible contributing factor. On the flip side, the company noted the strong opening performance of Tekken 8, and the ongoing development of new content for Elden Ring, as well as a new Dragon Ball game in development (likely referring to the forthcoming Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO).

Dragon Ball came in as the company’s second-best-performing franchise for the time period, pulling in ¥99.3 billion (behind the Mobile Suit Gundam at ¥108.3 billion). This is a slight drop from Dragon Ball‘s performance during this same timeframe last fiscal year at ¥102.2 billion. The company is projecting a full fiscal year total of ¥135 billion, however, which would be down from last full fiscal year’s ¥144.5 billion.

In terms of general toys and hobby merchandise (non-video games) for Japan, the Dragon Ball franchise pulled in ¥18 billion (behind the Mobile Suit Gundam and One Piece franchises at ¥51 and ¥46.3 billion, respectively). This is roughly in line with Dragon Ball‘s performance during this same timeframe last fiscal year at ¥17.9 billion. The company is projecting a full fiscal year total of ¥21 billion, which would be down from last full fiscal year’s ¥22.5 billion.

Published by 05 February 2024, 8:49 PM ESTComment

The September 2021 issue of Shueisha’s Saikyō Jump magazine kicked off a “Dragon Ball Super Gallery” series in commemoration of the Dragon Ball franchise’s upcoming 40th anniversary. The celebration aims to have different artists all contribute their own spin on the original 42 tankōbon covers, with the images and an accompanying comment published as the magazine’s back cover.

Following the previous thirty entries, this month’s March 2024 issue brings us Yoshifumi Tozuka (Undead Unluck) and their take on the series’ 21st volume cover:

Yoshifumi Tozuka commented:

I love the tense battle royale vibes of the Freeza arc. I think Dragon Ball‘s theme of “every character is doing whatever they can as best as they can” is something that influenced my own manga.

Special thanks to Tatsunoboshi Horoko for the translation on this month’s comment!

Saikyō Jump is currently a monthly magazine published in Japan by Shueisha under the “Jump” line of magazines. The magazine began as a quarterly publication in 2012, went monthly in 2013, went bimonthly in late-2014, and returned to a monthly format in 2021 (including a digital release for the first time). The magazine’s focus is spin-off and supplementary manga series aimed at a young audience, while also including game promotions, news coverage, and more. The magazine currently serializes content such as Yoshitaka Nagayama’s Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Meteor Mission! manga series and Yūji Kasai’s Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Avatars!! manga series. For calendar year 2019, Shueisha reported Saikyō Jump‘s circulation down at 130,000, with readership as 58.5% upper elementary school, 28% lower middle school, 11% middle school, and 2.5% high school or older.

Published by 28 January 2024, 10:11 PM ESTComment

Following a live performance of past songs from veteran vocalist Hironobu Kageyama, Dragon Ball franchise executive producer Akio Iyoku was then welcomed to the DRAGON BALL Games Battle Hour 2024 stage for a “Dragon Ball Daima Special Panel“.

After kicking off with a repeat of the original trailer first showed at New York Comic Con back in October, a new trailer showcasing various bits of action was played.

Character designs from Akira Toriyama then followed with some brief discussion from Iyoku. In the notes alongside the Goku and Kuririn designs, Toriyama noted how the characters are shortened, and that Vegeta and Kaiōshin should be within the same overall height.

頭身を縮め、道着を少しブカッとさせています。 顔の雰囲気も変えています。

ちなみに、ベジータと界王神も同様の大きさでいいと思います。


I have shrunk their proportions, and made their clothes a bit too big on them. I have also changed the air of their facial expressions.

Incidentally, I think Vegeta and Kaiōshin should also be fine at this size.

Various unnamed “opponent” designs were also showcased, and though lip service was paid to the atmosphere of it being like a grand role-playing game adventure, few specifics were given.

Dragon Ball Daima is an upcoming animated series, though no specific debut timeframe beyond “fall 2024” or release/broadcast platform has been announced. The series was first revealed at New York Comic Con in October 2023 by way of a trailer and comment from original franchise creator Akira Toriyama. The “Daima” in the series’ title is a made-up term, though the individual kanji that make up its spelling would be 大魔; in Toriyama’s own words, …”in English would be something like ‘Evil.'”

Published by 28 January 2024, 6:34 PM ESTComment

In conjunction with this weekend’s “DRAGON BALL Games Battle Hour 2024” event, Bandai Namco has released a new “Goku VS Vegeta – Rivals” trailer for the forthcoming DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO video game:

The trailer appears to use recycled audio in at least certain portions for its dialog — in both English and Japanese — including that of the long-since-corrected English “Kayo Ken” pronunciation for Kaiō-Ken (which originated in FUNimation’s original 1996 syndication broadcast of Dragon Ball Z, and lingered with the in-house Texas voice cast for a period of time beginning in 1999).

Bandai Namco announced 24 characters alongside the trailer’s release, though the roster at the end of the video showcases 40 characters within 164 total blocks (several of which were showcased both earlier within the same trailer, as well as during the game’s previous trailer last December).

As opposed to the completely separate Dragon Ball Z (“Budokai”) series developed by Dimps which came before it, the Sparking! series — developed instead by Spike — featured 3D arenas with an over-the-shoulder camera angle. The new game’s title of Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO falls more in line with the original trilogy’s naming scheme in Japanese. The three Sparking! games — the original, NEO!, and METEOR — hit the PlayStation 2 over the course of 2005 to 2007, with the Nintendo Wii also receiving ports of the second and third games. The game series was released numerically under the “Budokai Tenkaichi” moniker internationally. A fourth games — Tag Vs. in Japan / Tenkaichi Tag Team internationally — was released on the PlayStation Portable in 2010. Spike (as Spike Chunsoft) later went on to also develop the crossover fighting games J-Stars Victory VS in 2014 and Jump Force in 2019.

Published by 28 January 2024, 6:02 PM ESTComment

In conjunction with this weekend’s “DRAGON BALL Games Battle Hour 2024” event, Bandai Namco has announced the third and final downloadable content pack within the second season pass — and sixth overall — for Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, covering the 28th Tenka’ichi Budōkai (and thus the end of the original manga serialization’s content):

The downloadable content pack’s title in Japanese is “And So, After 10 Years” (そして10年後 Soshite Jūnengo); as with the previous Bardock and 23rd Tenka’ichi Budōkai DLC packs, its title is a direct nod to a prior work’s title, in this case being the exact same title as Dragon Ball manga chapter 518. The English localization will instead sport a title of “Goku’s Next Journey“.

Though the trailer simply notes the DLC pack is coming soon, Bandai Namco’s YouTube description pegs the release date as sometime in February 2024.

Developed by CyberConnect2 for Bandai Namco, the action role-playing game released 16 January 2020 in Japan and 17 January 2020 internationally on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC (via Steam). A Nintendo Switch edition came later in September 2021.

Reviews of the base game, Trunks DLC, Bardock DLC, and 23rd Tenka’ichi Budōkai DLC can be found on episodes #0481, #0490, #0497, and #505, respectively, of our podcast.

Published by 18 January 2024, 10:27 AM ESTComment

Following up on previous chapters, Shueisha and Viz have added the official English translation of the Dragon Ball Super manga’s 101st chapter to their respective Manga Plus and Shonen Jump services, continuing onward into the brand-new “Super Hero arc”.

After three chapters worth of original prologue material, the manga version of the arc covered the full events of the respective film, and has now transitioned into even more original story content.

Alongside other initiatives including free chapters and a larger archive for paid subscribers, this release continues the companies’ schedule of not simply simultaneously publishing the series’ chapter alongside its Japanese debut to the release date, but to its local time in Japan alongside its serialization in today’s March 2024 issue of Shueisha’s V-Jump magazine.

The Dragon Ball Super “comicalization” began in June 2015, initially just ahead of the television series, and running both ahead and behind the series at various points. The manga runs in Shueisha’s V-Jump magazine, with the series’ one-hundred-first chapter hitting today in the magazine’s March 2024 issue.

Illustrated by “Toyotarō” (in all likelihood, a second pen-name used by Dragon Ball AF fan manga author and illustrator “Toyble”), the Dragon Ball Super manga covered the Battle of Gods re-telling, skipped the Resurrection ‘F’ re-telling, and “charged ahead” to the Champa arc, “speeding up the excitement of the TV anime even more”. Though the television series has completed its run, the manga continues onward, moving into its own original “Galactic Patrol Prisoner”, “Granolla the Survivor”, and now “Super Hero” arcs.

Viz is currently releasing free digital chapters of the series, and began their own collected print edition back in 2017. The company’s twentieth collected volume is set for release in February 2024.

The Dragon Ball Super television series concluded in March 2018 with 131 total episodes. Crunchyroll (by way of the merger with FUNimation) owns the American distribution license for the series, with the English dub having wrapped its broadcast on Cartoon Network, and the home video release reaching its tenth and final box set in 2020. A complete steelbook “Limited Edition” was released by Crunchyroll last year.

Published by 09 January 2024, 1:26 PM ESTComment

The September 2021 issue of Shueisha’s Saikyō Jump magazine kicked off a “Dragon Ball Super Gallery” series in commemoration of the Dragon Ball franchise’s upcoming 40th anniversary. The celebration aims to have different artists all contribute their own spin on the original 42 tankōbon covers, with the images and an accompanying comment published as the magazine’s back cover.

Following the previous twenty-nine entries, this month’s February 2024 issue brings us Yusuke Murata (Eyeshield 21, One Punch Man) and their take on the series’ 12th volume cover:

Murata commented:

“While obediently following his masters’ teachings, Goku seeks to win the Tenka’ichi Budōkai. After training hard, he then enters and wins the tournament, and, in so doing, ends up defeating Demon King Piccolo, saving the Earth from his designs on world domination.” This is the plot of the first half of Dragon Ball (right before the Saiyan arc). Even with just the plot, don’t you think the fun of Goku’s unassuming nature — being somehow laid-back despite being insanely strong — comes right out? He manages to defeat the Demon King, who’s trying to destroy the world, all without actually breaking the tournament rules. That’s what’s so great about him. Since he’s so strong, he ends up prioritizing things other people don’t. This might be what “being above it all” is all about, in the end. And this might be the same attitude that characterizes Toriyama-sensei himself, someone who created an international mega-hit while famously thinking things like, “I wanna get this manuscript over with so I can go build more plastic model kits!” or “inking his hair black all the time is a pain, so I’m just gonna make Super Saiyan have white hair.” And this isn’t limited limited to just manga – “the person” shows through in anything one makes. If you want to make a comic this thrilling, then you first need to be a thrilling person yourself. That’s how I see it.

By “white hair,” Murata is of course referring to the original black-and-white comic incarnation of Dragon Ball. Toriyama — and a variety of other staff associated with the franchise — have often told the story of how removing the necessity of inking in Goku’s hair for the Super Saiyan transformation was as much a time-saving decision as anything else.

Saikyō Jump is currently a monthly magazine published in Japan by Shueisha under the “Jump” line of magazines. The magazine began as a quarterly publication in 2012, went monthly in 2013, went bimonthly in late-2014, and returned to a monthly format in 2021 (including a digital release for the first time). The magazine’s focus is spin-off and supplementary manga series aimed at a young audience, while also including game promotions, news coverage, and more. The magazine currently serializes content such as Yoshitaka Nagayama’s Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Meteor Mission! manga series and Yūji Kasai’s Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Avatars!! manga series. For calendar year 2019, Shueisha reported Saikyō Jump‘s circulation down at 130,000, with readership as 58.5% upper elementary school, 28% lower middle school, 11% middle school, and 2.5% high school or older.

Published by 24 December 2023, 5:35 PM ESTComment

Each month, Toyotarō provides a drawing of a Dragon Ball (or related…!) character — as well as an accompanying comment — on the official Japanese Dragon Ball website. Following up on the wealth of characters already drawn, for his November and Devember 2023 catch-up entry, Toyotarō has drawn Akkuman from Dragon Ball… and Ackman from Go! Go! Ackman:

Akkuman

One of the warriors working for the Fortuneteller Crone. It’s kinda fun to think what would have happened if he used his Akumite Beam on the villains that appeared after him!

Ackman (Go! Go! Ackman)

This is the Ackman that Toriyama-sensei featured in a V-Jump series back in the day!

Both characters’ names are spelled as アックマン in Japanese, with “Akkuman” and “Ackman” both being legitimate transliterations of the name (which is a play on 悪魔 akuma meaning “demon” or “devil” and the English word “man”).

Akkuman appeared during the Fortuneteller Crone arc of Dragon Ball, while Ackman is the titular character of Akira Toriyama’s Go! Go! Ackman manga series, which ran from the July 1993 to October 1994 issues of Shueisha’s V-Jump magazine (and was later collected in 1997’s Akira Toriyama’s _____piece Theater, Vol. 3).

This drawing and comment set has been added to the respective page in our “Translations” archive.

Published by 24 December 2023, 1:50 PM ESTComment

Show Description

Episode #0508! Mike brings on Ken and Ajay for an all-Daima extravaganza! We break down all the scenes in the debut Dragon Ball Daima trailer, trying to figure out who all is involved and what Toriyama may have in store for us, as well as dive into all the currently-announced production staff. We’re still a long ways off from actually seeing the show, but they certainly have our interest at this early stage!

How to Listen

Our podcast is available via Apple Podcasts and/or Google Podcasts, or you can pop the direct RSS feed into the program of your choice. You can also listen to this episode by directly downloading the MP3 or by streaming it on Spotify, or YouTube. We invite you to discuss this episode on our forum.

 

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