Times Dragon Ball has been on Disney+

[angeldreamZ004]

Toei actually owns/controls the Dragon Ball anime, though. Shueisha licenses out the rights to adapt the manga, but they don't distribute the anime themselves.

Hmmm no, you might remember who were the entities behind the right dispute 3 years ago. It's Capsule Corporation Tokyo that owns / controls the anime, while Toei has the approval and rights to make the anime. But Shueisha is always involved, i would say the most appropriate way to actually talk about a agreement, would be between External Company and The DB Rights Owners.

If you think about it, it's similar to how the rights of the Pokémon franchise work. CCT and Shueisha would be akin to Nintendo and Creatures Inc., while Toei (and Bandai Namco) would be akin to Game Freak, they have the rights to make the anime and games, but they aren't the higher autorities, they are just hired to make such products, but the actual owners would be CCT and Shueisha.

It's not the perfect comparison, there are differences but that's what I immediately thought of, so when it comes to making deals with external companies, like Disney, the responsible parties would be Shueisha and CCT, or one of them individually (since it's anime, it could be CCT, but I think Shueisha's involvement in the agreement is quite possible), it's very unlikely that Toei would have a major role regarding this, I at least don't know enough evidence for it.

Basically, anything Dragon Ball related needs these two companies working together (CCT - Shueisha), technically they have enough independence / authority to do Dragon Ball without Toei and Bandai if they wanted, but the inverse (Toei and Bandai dealing with Dragon Ball without Shueisha and CCT) is not possible. Shueisha used to be the ultimate rights owner but that changed with the arrival of CCT. Which is why I believe an agreement with Disney or other external company would need the two or at least one of them.

Daima wasn't a manga adaptation and still had the Shueisha mark on it.

[LostTimeLord]

Daima wasn't a manga adaptation and still had the Shueisha mark on it.

Dragon Ball Daima is an adaptation of the Dragon Ball manga. It being a 'sequel' doesn't change the fact that it's an adaptation of said manga.

The anime is distributed by Toei. Kind of like how the The Super Mario Bros Movie is distributed by Universal Pictures even though Nintendo owns the underlying IP and has more control than a licensor typically would. Look at the packaging of the DVDs, for example - generally Shueisha isn't named but Toei is.

A worldwide first-run (or possibly co-production?) deal with Disney for Sand Land won't have anything to do with Disney also getting the streaming rights to random different Dragon Ball series/movies depending on the region. Plus, Daima had a global streaming release and it was on Netflix, not Disney Plus.

[M16U3L2015]

Daima wasn't a manga adaptation and still had the Shueisha mark on it.

Look at the packaging of the DVDs, for example - generally Shueisha isn't named but Toei is.

I'm not sure if you're talking about whether it has a logo or not, but all of DB's home video releases always include the text:

©Bird Studio/Shueishia

[angeldreamZ004]

Dragon Ball Daima is an adaptation of the Dragon Ball manga. It being a 'sequel' doesn't change the fact that it's an adaptation of said manga.

Well if doesn't change the fact that it's an adaptation of a manga, then it also doesn't change the fact that Shueisha owns the IP because that means any sold product using Dragon Ball characters would need their approval, that includes Toei trying to do something with the license to make it available in certain platforms. Toei alone doesn't have enough power to take such actions, especially now that CCT is their ultimate leader.

A worldwide first-run (or possibly co-production?) deal with Disney for Sand Land won't have anything to do with Disney also getting the streaming rights to random different Dragon Ball series/movies depending on the region. Plus, Daima had a global streaming release and it was on Netflix, not Disney Plus.

I know, I didn't say it's the same situation as Sand Land, I only mentioned that series because it had Shueisha involved, which might suggest they were also involved in Dragon Ball being available on Disney Plus if it's not anything reminiscent of the deal with the old 20th Century Fox. My point is, if it's available now then maybe a new agreement was made which allowed some Dragon Ball content to be released there, and such decision would require the fingers from Shueisha. Maybe Disney requested exclusivity for Sand Land and Shueisha gave them, but not for Dragon Ball, supposing a scenario that Disney also desired exclusivity for the series. Or it was a intermediary making the bridge between the two companies, this could potentially be Toei, but again, they very likely don't have enough control to do this by themselves. It's just speculation though, but Shueisha is definitely the right holder of both series, so they might be involved in any agreement at least to some degree.

all of DB's home video releases always include the text:
©Bird Studio/Shueishia

This, thank you.

[LostTimeLord]

all of DB's home video releases always include the text:
©Bird Studio/Shueishia

Okay, my original post was a wall of text and I must have made a mistake in the wording when I cut it down.

Yes, the manga and overall IP is owned by Shueishia; the Blu-ray of Super Hero has the copyright for the franchise, "©BIRD STUDIO/SHUEISHA", followed by the copyright for the film itself, "©2022 DRAGON BALL SUPER Film Partners" which (according to the credits) comprises "SHUEISHIA, TOEI, TOEI ANIMATION, Fuji Television Network, Bandai Namco Entertainment and BANDAI SPIRITS". But the distribution is handled by Toei, which is why the movie opens with the Toei logo and ends with the credit "Distribution: TOEI".

When Jerome Mazandarani talked about licensing the anime for Manga UK, he made it clear that he was negotiating with Toei specifically and only approached them after the company’s success with Naruto, which as far as I can tell probably was licensed from Shueishia (it's distributed by Viz Media in the US, one of Shueishia's subsidiaries).

To again use the Mario example, when the Illumination film was licensed for 3D Blu-ray, the publisher did indeed need approval from Nintendo, but they were still licensing the film from Universal Pictures because Universal is the film's distributor. Hence it was licensed alongside Dreamworks and Illumination productions that are also distributed by Universal but have nothing to do with Nintendo.

[angeldreamZ004]

(If your post was a wall of text, then I wonder what mine are)
LostTimeLord that's a good summary, my bad if I made it seem like you were wrong about saying that Toei had nothing to do with distribution. My focus was more on how much control they have over the IP and a possible involvement of Shueisha and these agreements from the Japan perspective, they always have a finger no matter how small it is, it explains what you said about Viz Media, which is owned by them. In the end I believe we are both talking about the same thing and both correct.

I don't know anything about the distribution in different countries, so my part ends here.