Shueisha's 'Dragon Ball' Room, New Department Focused on Dragon Ball

[sangofe]

I just read the translation from Kanzenshuu:

According to materials distributed at the planning conference, the Dragon Ball Room is a section for handling all mediation between the author and foreign or domestic licensees and helping with editorial supervision and contracts relating to filming and commercialization of Dragon Ball and other works by Akira Toriyama.

- Filming, huh?

As a result, “they decided to establish a new section for contacting Toriyama-sensei and other things to keep the franchise going indefinitely”.

Nice, this sounds like Toriyama will get some input when he's out of ideas. I suspect someone form this room were behind the Trunks arc idea.

[Noah]

Interesting, but I fear for the franchise become something like Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh!

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Interesting, but I fear for the franchise become something like Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh!

It will. Well, it'll be more like One Piece, but it's fine either way. If things ever gets too ridiculous, it's easy enough to ignore the new material.

[Noah]

it's easy enough to ignore the new material.

Yeah I don't consider anything that came after 2008 as canon either, but I do enjoy some of the current content of the franchise nevertheless. I would appreciate if they go by the Star Wars route by making spin-offs and OVAs.

Imagine something like that, it would be awesome!

[sangofe]

Nobody that reacts to "filming?

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Nobody that reacts to "filming?

It's still not specific enough to warrant a reaction from me.

[sangofe]

Nobody that reacts to "filming?

It's still not specific enough to warrant a reaction from me.

What could filming be? Interviews? Production? Live action? It's got nothing to do with anime or manga, has it?

[Cipher]

Full-on lumbering zombie franchise mode gooooooo.

I am so excited about products.

Give me more stories about characters I recognize doing advertising things.

If I ever catch my grandkids reading something original, I will tear it out of their fucking hands for the 2057 Hyper V-Jump manga about Tenshinhan being a girl.

DRAGON BALL MUST OUTLIVE THE GOD DAMN SUN AND NEVER LEAVE US AGAIN.

[Bansho64]

I'm gonna hold off on my judgement for now. I wanna give this a chance and see what happens. For me, there's not enough evidence here for me to have an extremely negative or positive response. For now, all I can do is wait to see where this goes.

[TheMikado]

I'm gonna hold off on my judgement for now. I wanna give this a chance and see what happens. For me, there's not enough evidence here for me to have an extremely negative or positive response. For now, all I can do is wait to see where this goes.

While I agree with the sentiment, it's still a little disconcerting that they specifically have a team who is specializing in how to further "commercialize" the franchise rather than organic products being produced.
To explain what I mean, there's a difference between making the first 3 Star Wars films out of love vs making the next 3 for money. No it's not that black and white, I just saying I'm taking a wait and see approach too.

[Gog]

I'm pretty excited for the development of this 'dragon ball room'(tm) as it means I can get *more* stories centered around dragon ball, prehaps even some cool what ifs.

Or I could be completely wrong and this turns out to be a titanic failure.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

...it's still a little disconcerting that they specifically have a team who is specializing in how to further "commercialize" the franchise rather than organic products being produced.

There's no contradiction, every good product in modern times has been a hybrid of genuine creativity and pandering. Besides, Dragon Ball in its organic form dies a long time ago, arguably sparking back for a moment with BoG. However, even that was pretty much reactionary because Evolution was just that bad.

[sintzu]

“they decided to establish a new section for contacting Toriyama-sensei and other things to keep the franchise going indefinitely”

I'm really happy and nervous about this.

I'm happy cause my favorite franchise isn't going to die anytime soon and to make things better it seems like Toriyama will continue to be involved with it so a certain standerd of quality will remain intact.

I'm nervous because I don't know how long Toriyama can keep up with it and it's obvious that him leaving won't be the end so it'll more than likely be like Pokemon and YuGiOh where it just goes on forever without any real goal other than $$$.

[Chuquita]

Nobody that reacts to "filming?

It's still not specific enough to warrant a reaction from me.

Same. I'd like another movie, but the time and number of skilled people aren't there (and if they are they're busy on One Piece or "saving" Precure after what happened to this past year's season.)

[ekrolo2]

Let's hope these various spin-offs and side projects end up like the various novels and comics Disney is releasing for Star Wars, it'll make the mainline stuff choking to death in mediocrity far more bearable.

[Cipher]

There's no contradiction, every good product in modern times has been a hybrid of genuine creativity and pandering.

Woah there. Is this limited to Dragon Ball, wherein it's probably true, or creative output as a whole?

Dragon Ball in its organic form dies a long time ago, arguably sparking back for a moment with BoG.

Yes.

Let's hope these various spin-offs and side projects end up like the various novels and comics Disney is releasing for Star Wars, it'll make the mainline stuff choking to death in mediocrity far more bearable.

I guess I don't understand it with Star Wars either -- which arguably a much more malleable and expansive universe -- but is there any reason to want to spend more time in Dragon World than what the main series already gives us? It's just a silly martial-arts fantasy world held together by spit, wishes, and the idiosyncrasies of its original author.

Or is it just, "These are characters I recognize, so I need to keep seeing them in new things"?

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Woah there. Is this limited to Dragon Ball, wherein it's probably true, or creative output as a whole?

I was being hyperbolic, but I'd say it's a general rule for creative output as a whole, at least in modern storytelling.

[Cipher]

I was being hyperbolic, but I'd say it's a general rule for creative output as a whole, at least in modern storytelling.

Read more small press stuff then (or watch or listen to content put out by smaller artists and publishers, depending on the medium). There's a wide, wide world of narrative art that's concerned with commercial potential as a secondary element, if one at all.

It's easy to lose track of that discussing a commercially driven mega-franchise like Dragon Ball, but material that captures mass attention is a drop in the bucket of professionally published creative content. You don't even have to dive too far into the worlds of books/films to escape it.

And even Toriyama was once a show-offy artist drawing largely for personal amusement, hoping to strike it big with the kind of content he enjoyed. That attitude even managed to come through Dragon Ball's original run, despite its editorially mandated beginnings. I bring that up to point out that there is a difference between the core story that brought us onto this forum and the kind of future promotional fiction we seem destined to get; it needn't be glibly accepted taken as a given. This isn't just Dragon Ball as usual.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Read more small press stuff then (or watch or listen to content put out by smaller artists and publishers, depending on the medium). There's a wide, wide world of narrative art that's concerned with commercial potential as a secondary element, if one at all.

I don't read or watch a ton of small, independent content. However, most of it I've seen still takes time to pander to someone. If you have anything specific in mind, you could PM me some of your suggested reading material.

[precita]

Guys, this doesn't mean Super or any future Dragonball anime will go on forever. It's talking about merchandize.

Just like GT ended in 1997 and there was still Dragonball merchandize for 15+ years until Kai/Super came out.