Takao Koyama is a name that is likely familiar to most of the Kanzenshuu audience. Having been the main writer for all thirteen previous theatrical Dragon Ball Z films as well as the “series organizer” for the Dragon Ball Z TV series, the man is quite intimately familiar with the franchise.
The new film Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods was written by newcomer Yūsuke Watanabe, however, with plenty of input from original manga author Akira Toriyama. In this case, Koyama was approaching the film much like any other audience member.
After seeing the film, Koyama penned a post on his blog, Noppo no Zakkan (“Noppo’s Various Impressions”). In it, he details his thoughts on the villain of the movie (Beerus, God of Destruction) and its “issue at hand”:
On Sunday the 7th, in the middle of a spring storm, I headed out to Apollo Cinema 8 in Tennoji, Osaka, near my regular lodgings, and watched it surrounded by children. It was a little embarrassing.
It was my first experience watching from the audience a Dragon Ball Z theatrical feature that I hadn’t handled the script for myself. It felt a bit strange.
Next to me, a young couple watched cosily together. I bet they could scarcely imagine that the old fogey with thinning hair sitting next to them was the one who handled the scripts of all 13 Dragon Ball Z theatrical movies.
But that’s not important to me.
And so, the movie began.
I was surprised right from the opening.
Once it started with the familiar “waves crashing into rocks” opening that is a byword for Toei, it then went into the 20th Century Fox opening, and continued with a credit for Toei Animation. Such wonderment. Actually, it’s because 20th Century Fox was involved in the production. I know the situation and some behind-the-scenes stories concerning that, but it’s top-secret information, so I can’t write about it.
And so, as for substance of the issue at hand…….
In handling the scripts for the films, what I always worried about each time was the problem of what to do about the opponent Goku fights against. That’s because, at the very least, they had to be stronger than [the ones from] the previous movie.
After much hard work, I was unable to come up with an opponent stronger than Broli, and fell into a rut where I made him appear three times.
That is to say, there’s the matter of questioning the idea of Broli as the strongest. As you are well aware, vehement opinions on the subject have been flying back and forth on this message board, as well as a variety of [other] websites.
For this time, Goku’s opponent, designed by Toriyama-sensei, was even a God of Destruction.
In the world of Dragon Ball Z, that’s a setting where even Broli, before the God of Destruction, would face a gap like that between a Yokozuna and the very bottom of the sumo ranks. That Broli, reduced to a pushover.
Only, from the impression I got of the character on the screen, Broli was scarier, no contest. Am I the only one who found that Broli looked overwhelmingly frightening? Or am I just biased towards my own creation?
Any more than this would become a spoiler, so I’ll hold off on it, but Noppo would like to hear the impressions of the Broli fans….
By all means, please see this work, which had a turnout of one million people in the first six days it was out.
The online Japanese fandom has come to refer to this as Koyama “dissing” (ディスる) Beerus and/or Battle of Gods.
We have archived our translation of this blog post in the Battle of Gods section of our main “Translations” page.
Koyama had previously participated in a roundtable discussion with Akira Toriyama and Masako Nozawa in the TV Anime Guide Tenka’ichi Densetsu back in 2004.
