Do New Forms Actually Sell Merchandise?

[Zephyr]

Every time a new transformation appears or is revealed, ten thousand people crawl out of the woodwork to repeat the mantra:

"They had to sell new action figures"

This, of course, ignores the simple fact that they do not, actually, need new forms to make and sell new toys. Old forms sell new toys too! As someone who buys a non-zero amount of merch and who knows people who buy a lot of merch, the well for making new merch based on older content and material does not seem to be close to drying up any time soon. I could be wrong about this, but I can't imagine there's ever been that much internal corporate demand to give Goku a new form if, say, "Super Saiyan 1 Goku" merch is selling just fine; and since there's seemingly always merch of Super Saiyan 1 Goku, I am inclined to assume it sells well enough for it to continue being trotted out. They also (thankfully) keep making new Tao Pai Pai merch, so I can only assume he sells well enough that they haven't felt the need to give him a new form to sell toys of.

Now, naturally, having a new transformation does add to the list of things they can make merch of, but.....so does everything else as well! New characters, new outfits for existing characters, new designs for existing characters, new vehicles, new MacGuffins. Any new story is a rich opportunity for merch generation, transformations or not. In Daima's case, we have Glorio, Panzy, Goku (Mini), Vegeta (Mini), Piccolo (Mini), Bulma (Mini), and more. In Super's case, we had Beerus, Whis, Shisami, Jaco, Zeno, Zamasu, Gowasu, the Gammas, and more alongside new outfits for Bulma, Videl, Goku, Vegeta, Trunks, Goten, Pan, and more. Take the sentence "they made this new form so they could sell more toys" and replace "this new form" with "Goku (Mini)" or "Vegeta's RoF armor" and it's probably just as true, but more transparent in its (lack of) intellectual content. New stuff sure does exist to make money.

To be clear, I'm not saying not to voice criticisms of new transformations in general. But "oh this design is bad, obviously they just wanted some new merch" is not only lazy and thoughtless, it's also not even necessarily accurate. For all we know, the powers that be genuinely thought they were cooking when they wrote and designed [that one new form that you, the reader, REALLY hate].

Suffice to say, I think "they needed to sell new toys" is less than a nothing criticism regarding new forms. But let's pretend that it was a good and serious angle of critique for just a moment and ask the question: does it even work as a money-making strategy? How well does it work? Do action figures and other forms of merchandise for freshly debuted transformations outsell those of older forms, or characters without transformations? Or is it a bad financial strategy, because new forms don't actually sell like crazy (or at least not to any unique extent)? And if it's a bad financial strategy, how much sense would it make to continue assuming said strategy as the impetus for any given new form's existence (and only the new form, apart from new stories, outfits, designs, characters, techniques, etc.)?

These are genuine questions and/or food for thought. I do not have any relevant sales figures, and I wouldn't know where to find them, but I would like to if anybody has them and/or knows where to look. Partly because this is such a cliche talking point that it deserves to either be definitively vindicated as a valid truism, or tossed in the bin so that discourse can improve just that little bit. I know Baggie_Saiyan was pretty knowledgeable about the various merch that's been announced and released, but I don't know if he was also knowledgeable about their sales figures (he also seems to be on hiatus from keeping up with this stuff anyway).

[JulieYBM]

I definitely think that merchandising—not to mention promotional work—is a big part of it. Transformations are also just an easy and digestable way to show a characters' change and development over the course of a story. Works like Dragon Ball are part of the media mix culture in the anime/manga/video game/light novel/et cetera culture. While clearly it isn't like new merchandise isn't be sold based on older forms and moments, it isn't as if new forms aren't going to also help give variety and prevent burn out on marketing new figures based on older characters. We see the same thing with Pretty Cure, Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, which continue to receive new series with the express purpose of selling new toys to a younger audience. Bryan Hikari Hartzheim's paper Pretty Cute and the Magical Girl Media Mix actually does go into this a bit.

Ultimately, I don't really have an answer to cure cancer or whatever that I can implement, so I tend to focus on the story side of things. Media mix properties like Dragon Ball will ultimately not turn down a new transformation—even if it's something that the creative side want—because a new transformation is going to be something that a Bandai producer can sell—and that's the point of their very existence as a producer.

[goku the krump dancer]

Funny enough when you read some of these tidbits about how Toriyama came up the with designs for some of the villains and their respective forms, the idea of “ Ya know, little Toshio-San would LOVE a new look for Freeza to go next to his Gohan action figure” is never mentioned. Granted that’s not to say that didn’t come up in certain conversations but you can’t take away that for majority of the forms in the original story all have narrative merit behind them, both for the heroes and villains.

Hell even with the post Z stuff the topic of “how can we make Goku look more awesome always comes up before the notion of whether or not the fans need a brand new hair colored form of him to sit on their desks.”

“It’s made to sell merch!” seems to only apply to Heroes, if nothing else because there’s a cagillion and one Super Saiyan Goku toys out there.

[SupremeKai25]

Really? That argument's serious? I thought people were trolling with that argument.

New transformations are obviously introduced to develop the story, not to sell merchandise. Even Super Saiyan Blue, which constantly gets criticized for making the previous form "redundant", exists in order to have Goku merge God power with his old Super Saiyan forms. Even Super Saiyan Rage exists to give Trunks a larger role in an arc literally named after him.

Anyway, since they keep making merchandise and videogames centred around those forms after nearly 10 years since their debut, yes, I would say confidently that they make profit.

[Kid Buu]

I mean, new forms give new chances for merchandise, but I don't think new forms are made only to sell merchandise.

Plus I think new forms is a staple DBZ trope at this point, like how Super Sonic was made as a homage to DB.

[WittyUsername]

Selling merchandise definitely wasn’t on Toriyama’s mind when he included all those transformations in the original manga, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that a lot of the post-DBS transformations we’ve been getting have been at least partially influenced by Bandai.

[JulieYBM]

Selling merchandise definitely wasn’t on Toriyama’s mind when he included all those transformations in the original manga, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that a lot of the post-DBS transformations we’ve been getting have been at least partially influenced by Bandai.

The purpose of the comic is to sell more issues of JUMP, and we already know that Toriyama would often have people who weren't even still his official editor telling him to change how characters look, so it really isn't a leap to think that the additional transformations weren't suggestions to sell more issues and keep Dragon Ball popular.

[AliTheZombie13]

By rule of thumb, most new forms and designs in kids' anime exist only to sell merchandise.
Especially in Toei's case, where we have interviews that prove that a lot of characters and forms were introduced to Super by virtue of nothing other than the fact that it would sell well.

In Dragon Ball's case, if they don't exist just to sell merchandise, then they're even more pointless and make the story feel even lazier than I thought. I mean, at least "We need to make money" was an excuse, but what is the excuse to seeing the writer write themselves out of a scenario where they made it near-impossible to beat the villain without a magic ass-pull?

[SupremeKai25]

but what is the excuse to seeing the writer write themselves out of a scenario where they made it near-impossible to beat the villain without a magic ass-pull?

I don't know, what was the excuse when Toriyama wrote himself into that exact situation in the Namek and Cell sagas and Toei in the Baby saga?

Are we seriously arguing that Super is the only series that pulls the "asspull miraculous form to beat the near-impossible to beat villain"?

[AliTheZombie13]

Are we seriously arguing that Super is the only series that pulls the "asspull miraculous form to beat the near-impossible to beat villain"?

I said we have interviews that prove that Super added designs, characters & transformations by virtue that it would sell well, and we do.

I don't know, what was the excuse when Toriyama wrote himself into that exact situation in the Namek and Cell sagas and Toei in the Baby saga?

I don't like transformations in Classic Dragon Ball either.
They're a lazy crutch often used to end a conflict quickly.

[SupremeKai25]

Are we seriously arguing that Super is the only series that pulls the "asspull miraculous form to beat the near-impossible to beat villain"?

I said we have interviews that prove that Super added designs, characters & transformations by virtue that it would sell well, and we do.

Which is literally no different than Toriyama changing the villains of the Cell saga twice because the first two sets of villains were deemed too ugly or lame to become popular.

I don't know why you would expect Super to be any different from what came before it. Of course writing does not exist in a vacuum but exists within a capitalist society driven by profit, that was the case during the original series as well and is not going to change.

[AliTheZombie13]

Which is literally no different than Toriyama changing the villains of the Cell saga twice because the first two sets of villains were deemed too ugly or lame to become popular.

I don't know why you would expect Super to be any different from what came before it. Of course writing does not exist in a vacuum but exists within a capitalist society driven by profit, that was the case during the original series as well and is not going to change.

Can you please not start writing an angry tirade to declare how the original was just as bad at something every time someone barely mentions Super, as if that changed the main argument, at all?

Like... OK? The original was just as bad? So, what now? Am I supposed to start thinking transformations franchise-wide are now OMG GOAT SUPER AWESOME COOL because the writing decisions in the original were just as bad as Super? No, I still hate them.

Let me repeat it once again:

I don't like transformations in Classic Dragon Ball either.
They're a lazy crutch often used to end a conflict quickly.

[SupremeKai25]

Which is literally no different than Toriyama changing the villains of the Cell saga twice because the first two sets of villains were deemed too ugly or lame to become popular.

I don't know why you would expect Super to be any different from what came before it. Of course writing does not exist in a vacuum but exists within a capitalist society driven by profit, that was the case during the original series as well and is not going to change.

Can you please not start writing an angry tirade to declare how the original was just as bad at something every time someone barely mentions Super, as if that changed the main argument, at all?

Like... OK? The original was just as bad? So, what now? Am I supposed to start thinking transformations franchise-wide are now OMG GOAT SUPER AWESOME COOL because the writing decisions in the original were just as bad as Super? No, I still hate them.

Let me repeat it once again:

I don't like transformations in Classic Dragon Ball either.
They're a lazy crutch often used to end a conflict quickly.

I didn't declare that the original was "just as bad".

I simply declared the original did the same.

I never said it was a bad thing to care about profits when designing a story.

[Luso Saiyan]

I do think new forms help sell merchandise. And when people say that a new form was made to sell merchandise, the point they are making is that it was created not because the story called for it, but just to give something to the fans that they (and I'm generalizing here) want. Was Vegito (Blue) in Super something the story called for? Was the Ultra Instinct transformation? Was SSG Vegeta? Was SS3 Vegeta? People might disagree but I think it's pretty obvious that it was done solely for the fans, and they do eat it up (visually and commercially). It is what it is.

[SupremeKai25]

Was Vegito (Blue) in Super something the story called for?

Literally the only example of a fan-service form in Super.

Too bad that a fusion itself as a concept is pure fan-service. It's just taking the two strongest fighters and putting them together, like a lego figurine. It's not a deep or original concept.

All the other forms were necessary for story purposes. SSG Vegeta was necessary because it's compulsory to attain SSGSS. It was also necessary for Vegeta to use it in the Goku Black saga because of his strategy with alternating between SSG (speed and low power consumption) and SSB (strength).

Ultra Instinct obviously was required to showcase why the Angels are so special and was set up as far back as RoF.

[Luso Saiyan]

Literally the only example of a fan-service form in Super.

Too bad that a fusion itself as a concept is pure fan-service. It's just taking the two strongest fighters and putting them together, like a lego figurine. It's not a deep or original concept.

I don't think fusion itself is fan service. Storywise, it was a creative way to temporarily offer a more powerful fighter without continually powering up the existing characters (which was the expected thing to happen). I do think the way it was presented in Super was first and foremost to pander fans (we eventually got confirmation of that too).

And that's not to say that it wasn't cool seeing Vegito again. But I understand why it was done.

All the other forms were necessary for story purposes. SSG Vegeta was necessary because it's compulsory to attain SSGSS.

Yet it's pointless after having internalized SSG and attained SSGSS, which happened in RoF. Same with SSG Goku after the events of BoG.

It was also necessary for Vegeta to use it in the Goku Black saga because of his strategy with alternating between SSG (speed and low power consumption) and SSB (strength).

Come on. That's the contrived explanation they put in there to rationalize its inclusion. BoG should have been the last we'd seen of SSG as a transformation.

Ultra Instinct obviously was required to showcase why the Angels are so special and was set up as far back as RoF.

But not as a transformation, just as a state of being. But a state of being is not as marketable as a visual power-up.

[WittyUsername]

Was Vegito (Blue) in Super something the story called for?

Literally the only example of a fan-service form in Super.

Too bad that a fusion itself as a concept is pure fan-service. It's just taking the two strongest fighters and putting them together, like a lego figurine. It's not a deep or original concept.

All the other forms were necessary for story purposes. SSG Vegeta was necessary because it's compulsory to attain SSGSS. It was also necessary for Vegeta to use it in the Goku Black saga because of his strategy with alternating between SSG (speed and low power consumption) and SSB (strength).

Ultra Instinct obviously was required to showcase why the Angels are so special and was set up as far back as RoF.

In terms of the anime, I’d say Super Saiyan Rage and Saiyan Blue Evolved were definitely fanservicey forms. It’s also not technically a transformation, but Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken probably didn’t need to exist either. Then there’s Super Saiyan Blue Gogeta, Gohan Beast and Orange Piccolo.

[AliTheZombie13]

I didn't declare that the original was "just as bad".

I simply declared the original did the same.

I never said it was a bad thing to care about profits when designing a story.

Except Toei is a multi-million dollar company, and Toriyama is not a struggling artist.
And stories that are largely driven by profit and nothing else are rarely any different than AI slop.
Heavy disagree on that.

If you're willing to make your story uninteresting and boring because money told you so, then don't cry when people call your story uninteresting and boring.

[Zephyr]

Selling merchandise definitely wasn’t on Toriyama’s mind when he included all those transformations in the original manga, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that a lot of the post-DBS transformations we’ve been getting have been at least partially influenced by Bandai.

The purpose of the comic is to sell more issues of JUMP, and we already know that Toriyama would often have people who weren't even still his official editor telling him to change how characters look, so it really isn't a leap to think that the additional transformations weren't suggestions to sell more issues and keep Dragon Ball popular.

By rule of thumb, most new forms and designs in kids' anime exist only to sell merchandise.
Especially in Toei's case, where we have interviews that prove that a lot of characters and forms were introduced to Super by virtue of nothing other than the fact that it would sell well.

If it wasn't clear, I'm not trying to argue that merchandising considerations are a non-factor in the creation of new transformations. But I am questioning the default assumption that this is the only (or even primary) factor in their creation.

Like Julie said:

Transformations are also just an easy and digestable way to show a characters' change and development over the course of a story.

Even if you think this is a hacky approach to storytelling, that's not the same thing as making it for the merch. Those can align, but they are distinct things.

Further food for thought comes from this 2021 (?) conversation about the production of Battle of Gods between Kenji Yokoyama and Masahiro Hosoda. Around the 2:33 mark they're talking about having to cut things to reduce the runtime:

Why did they increase the time so much?

Hosoda: Akira Toriyama asked me if I could take a few more steps for Goku's evolution.

He wanted Goku to go through two stages of change, but he increased it to three, but then we ran over the length of the movie, so we had to go back to two steps. That's why I thought that scene was a little underdone in the movie version.

I suppose you can interpret this in multiple ways, but it sure sounds like Toriyama wanted there to be two stages of Super Saiyan God in Battle of Gods. I've seen speculation that this would have occurred when Goku turned into normal Super Saiyan in space near the end, and that this idea ended up developing into SSGSS for the next film.

Either way: did Toriyama want there to be three "stages of change" in order to sell more action figures? I mean, possibly, but like Ali said, he was not a "struggling artist", so I doubt he was thinking "I need to make more money off of this, so add more forms". I also doubt John Bandai or Joseph Toei would be using Toriyama as a middleman to feed their merch agenda to the production staff; they'd probably just ask Toriyama to draw another form and tell the staff to incorporate it.

--

Further, I am also questioning the tendency to invoke this factor's existence as cause for criticism of new transformations but not other elements. I haven't seen anyone say, for instance, "Glorio only exists to sell new merchandise", even though everything said about new transformations here is applicable to new characters as well, or even entire stories. Like Julie also said, Dragon Ball was originally serialized in a magazine where the goal was to get more copies of the magazine sold. In a sense, the work itself is a form of merchandise. And when we understand that, saying something "only exists to sell merch" has about as much valuable semantic content as saying something exists at all. It's true, but it's not really saying anything by itself.

Something existing solely to generate merch (such as magazine sales, so that the guy drawing it can afford smokes) doesn't mean it is without aesthetic or creative merit. That's why we even endeavor to critique and analyze Dragon Ball's story at all.

The line is between creative and corporate decisions is blurrier than many seem to give credit. There are poor creative decisions, good creative decisions, poor corporate decisions, and good corporate decisions, and these can exist in any possible combination. For instance:

Was Vegito (Blue) in Super something the story called for?

In the case of SSGSS Vegetto, I think that one is something the story called for. That story prominently featured the Potara, and its ultimate antagonist was a Potara fusion. Vegetto appearing only made sense, and since both of his halves use SSGSS as their standard state in combat, it also only made sense that he too would use it. An instance of Chekov's Gun™ nearly on the level of the Zeno button.

Knowing that Toriyama didn't intend for him to appear and that his appearance was motivated by fan service doesn't change that. I think Toriyama was going to make a poor creative decision there. This is a case of the good creative decision and the good corporate decision aligning.

And Ali, don't just mention interviews. Not everyone has read every interview. Please link them! Having the words that were actually said in front of us all to look at only improves the conversation.

[JulieYBM]

Ooh, I hadn’t seen that discussion between Yokoyama and Hosoda before. I wonder how they had planned on portraying the full extent of Gokuu's evolution in Battle of Gods? It doesn't sound like that idea was repurposed for the TV series at all.

I seem to recall that Gokuu hadn't been using ki in Super Saiyan God form, which makes me wonder if they removed a bit where he would have to relearn how to use ki blasts?