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3,853 Posts & 2,435 Pages Documenting Dragon Ball, since 1998. We've got you covered!
Published by 21 February 2018, 9:44 AM ESTComment

Each month, Toyotarō provides a sketch — as well as a brief comment — on the official Japanese Dragon Ball website for a character that has not yet appeared in Dragon Ball Super. Thus far, Toyotaro has provided sketches of #8 and Lunch. For his February entry, Toyotarō has contributed a sketch of King Chapa (alongside Oob, who has been referenced in the television series, and explicitly shown in the manga):

CHAPA: You are certainly gifted. How about entering the next Tenka’ichi Budōkai?
OOB: Huh?! Me?

TOYOTARO: It’s King Chapa (what I think he looks like now)! Maybe King Chapa was the one who trained Oob until he turned 10! Their clothes look similar, so I kind of figured they came from the same region.

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

Published by 21 February 2018, 9:27 AM ESTComment

In its third week on sale (the reporting period of 12 February 2018 to 18 February 2018), Dragon Ball FighterZ pushed another 5,975 copies on the PlayStation 4 to hit the #17 spot on the Media Create Sales list, bringing it to 88,943 total copies sold.

By its third week in November 2016, Dragon Ball XENOVERSE 2 pushed 87,105 total copies. The first Dragon Ball XENOVERSE pushed 72,838 and 54,442 total copies on the PlayStation 3 and 4, respectively, by its third week in February 2015.

The 3-on-3, “2.5D” fighting game is developed by Arc System Works for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC (via Steam). The game runs at a 1080p resolution and 60fps frame rate, with higher resolutions available on the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X consoles, as well as the PC. Playable characters include Son Goku, Son Gohan (Cell arc design), Vegeta, Freeza, Cell, Boo (Good), Trunks, Piccolo, Kuririn, #16, #18 (with #17), Yamcha, Tenshinhan (with Chiaotzu), Ginyu (with teammates), Nappa (with Saibaimen), Gotenks, Son Gohan (Boo arc design), Boo (Pure), Hit, Beerus, and Goku Black (with Zamasu), as well as “Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan” (SSGSS, or “Super Saiyan Blue”) versions of Goku and Vegeta that can be accessed early via pre-orders or unlocked through gameplay. The Akira Toriyama-designed “#21” has also been revealed as a new character central to the game’s story mode. Upcoming paid DLC characters are set to include Broly and Bardock, along with at least six other characters.

Dragon Ball FighterZ was released 26 January 2018 in North America and Europe, and 01 February 2018 in Japan.

Alongside its Japanese release, Bandai Namco announced that they had shipped two million copies of the game, making it the fastest-shipping game in the franchise’s history.

Arc previously worked on Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butōden for the Nintendo 3DS, as well as the Super Sonic Warriors games (Bukū Tōgeki and Bukū Ressen) on the Nintendo Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. The developer is otherwise known for their Guilty Gear and BlazBlue series of fighting games.

Published by 21 February 2018, 8:57 AM ESTComment

Shueisha has unveiled the cover art for the forthcoming fifth collected volume of Toyotarō’s Dragon Ball Super manga, due out both in print and digitally in Japan 02 March 2018:

The artwork is sourced from a composition originally created for a bonus poster included with the January 2017 issue of Saikyō Jump (released 02 December 2017):

Additionally, select stores in Japan will offer alternate covers for the manga; a list of stores will be made available alongside the book’s release date next month.

The fifth collected volume of the Dragon Ball Super manga will pick up with chapter 25 and will retail for ¥400 + tax.

The Dragon Ball Super “comicalization” began in June 2015 as a promotional tie-in for the television series. The manga runs monthly in Shueisha’s V-Jump magazine, with the series’ thirty-third chapter available today in the magazine’s April 2018 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 to act as further promotion for the television series. Viz is currently releasing free digital chapters of the series, and began their own collected print edition early last year. The third collected volume is due out in English from Viz in July 2018, while the fourth collected volume was released by Shueisha in Japan back in November.

The Dragon Ball Super television series airs Sunday mornings at 9:00 a.m. on Fuji TV in Japan and is set to conclude with the series’ 131st episode next month. The series receives weekly simulcast streams on services such as Crunchyroll. FUNimation has also announced their American streaming and distribution license for the series, with the English dub beginning earlier this year on Cartoon Network, while the home video release also kicked off last year.

Published by 20 February 2018, 10:21 PM ESTComment

The official Dragon Ball website’s twenty-seventh entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is the Son Goku sketch that accompanied his thank you message in the seventh Daizenshuu in February 1996:

Toriyama’s message begins in the traditional fashion but essentially ends up as an apology for never being able to write back to all of his fan letters:

So many, many people have helped me out with Dragon Ball through the years. Obviously, there are the fans from all over the world who’ve cheered me on. And I’m particularly indebted to my three editors (Torishima-san, Kondo-san, and Takeda-san). Then there’s everyone involved with Shueisha, the comics, the special collections, the animation, TV, movies, toys, games, merchandise, events, etc. And then there’s my wife, family, and friends, all of whom I am tremendously indebted to. Goku and the rest of the characters all did their best, as well. I truly am a happy man.

Thank you all so very much!!

Come to think of it, even though I’ve received tons of fan letters and presents from everyone, I’ve never written anyone back. How rude of me! Let me take this opportunity to apologize: I’m sorry.

Well anyway, farewell.

–Akira Toriyama, December 1995

Published by 20 February 2018, 9:47 PM ESTComment

The official Dragon Ball website’s twenty-sixth entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is the February page from a special Dr. Slump-themed calendar included with the 1982 No. 3-4 double issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump in Japan (released 22 December 1981, as opposed to the printed date of 11 January 1982 as noted in the official website’s update).

The calendar’s images — which span thirteen total pages including the cover — are said to pop off the page due to the thick pen used.

Toriyama’s author comment that week pokes simultaneous fun-and-frustration at those buying the issue solely for the calendar and/or not enjoying (or able to enjoy) the magazine to its fullest:

ミニカレンダー、どう? 買えなかった人、満足してもらえたかな <明>

How was the mini-calendar? I wonder if those of you who couldn’t buy this issue got your fill. <Akira>

Chapter 101 of Dr. Slump — “Penguin Village Wars: Part 1” — was included in the regular lineup this issue.

Published by 20 February 2018, 9:39 PM ESTComment

The official Dragon Ball website’s twenty-fifth entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is a page from V-Jump‘s Tobal No.1 Part 1 Playing Manual, which went on sale the same day as the game (02 August 1996).

The specific page cited comes from the book’s “Super Fighter List”, detailing the origins and motives of the characters Chuji Wu and Oliems from the 1996 fighting game as they prepare to compete in the planet Tobal’s 98th tournament.

As with games such as Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger, Toriyama contributed character designs for Tobal No.1, a fighting game developed by DreamFactory for Square.

Toriyama’s robo-persona — used both as a self-insert character in various series as well as in otherwise “real-life” depictions — makes an appearance as a hidden playable character in Tobal No. 1, requiring the player to complete Udan’s Dungeon in the game’s quest mode.

Tobal No.1 received heavy promotion from V-Jump in 1996, coming at an advantageous timeframe between the end of Dragon Ball‘s manga serialization, the on-going Dragon Ball GT television series, and other Toriyama-related ventures.

Tobal No.1 received an American release that September, and was perhaps most notable to an outside audience for its inclusion of a Final Fantasy VII demo. Tobal 2 would see a release on the PlayStation in Japan 25 April 1997; the sequel unfortunately never received an international release.

Published by 19 February 2018, 8:06 PM ESTComment

The official Dragon Ball website’s twenty-fourth entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is a citation from the 2002 book Genius PC Cram School.

The book explains how to draw comics on a personal computer, and begins with a joint Akira Toriyama & Ei’ichirō Oda feature explaining how to color, using pictures of Goku and Luffy as examples.

Toriyama first began thinking about using a computer to aid his illustrations in the mid-1990s, joking with fellow manga author Masakazu Katsura in the Shenlong Times accompanying Daizenshuu 7 in 1996:

But, once I get a Macintosh, it’ll be amazing. I’ll leave people like you in the dust, Katsura-kun. It seems like I’ll be able to do a lot of interesting things, too. If I say, “Put the main character in a running pose!” into the mic, maybe it’ll go ahead and draw it for me? That sort of thing would be the ideal.

In his 2003 Son Goku Densetsu joint interview with Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, Toriyama noted the difference between his standard comic drawing process and the computer-aided illustration process:

No, I do comics with a pen and paper, same as always. I think comics are faster to draw with a pen, and then fill and tone by computer. But my illustrations are all done via computer. I even draw the lines on a tablet. Up to a certain point with the Kanzenban illustrations, I was drawing them with a pen, then scanning them and doing the coloring, but that also gradually became a nuisance, (laughs) so now I just use the tablet. When I started drawing the cover illustrations for the Dragon Ball Kanzenban, it had been so long that I had to start by looking for my pens. I turned the house upside down, shouting, “My Zebra pen-nibs are gone!!”

In his 2004 Dragon Ball Landmark interview, Toriyama noted how computer-aided drawing helped keep him going:

However, since I started using a Mac, my method of drawing illustrations has changed. In drawing it, even I think that it’s got no flavor, but without new things like computers, I’d probably have turned against drawing completely. I get the feeling that it’s probably because I discovered how enjoyable it is to express all sorts of things by computer, that I’m still able to keep drawing.

Toriyama recalled this same timeframe and feeling in his 2013 Chōzenshū 4 interview:

In terms of the way I drew the cover illustrations, for the first half, I’d scan the inked drawing into the computer, and color it using a program called Painter. For the latter half, I’d draw on a graphics tablet starting with the inking, and paint in the colors with a program called Photoshop. As for why I changed my drawing technique between the first and second half… it’s simply because I got tired of it. (laughs) I’m often told that coloring by computer “has no flavor”, but it’s not like I’m drawing a work of art here, so personally, I feel that right now, this is the best for me in terms of expression. If it weren’t for the computer, I suppose I would probably have gotten sick of it already, and would hardly be drawing anymore.

Published by 15 February 2018, 6:54 AM ESTComment

Following the tragic death of voice actress Hiromi Tsuru last November, the official Dragon Ball Super Twitter account has announced Aya Hisakawa as the replacement voice actress for Bulma in the Dragon Ball franchise.

今後の「ドラゴンボール」シリーズのブルマ役についてご報告です。
TV「ドラゴンボール超」では、2月18日放送予定の第128話にご生前の鶴ひろみさんに演じて頂いたブルマが登場いたします。
今後は後任として久川綾さんにブルマ役を演じて頂くこととなりました。
今後とも宜しくお願いいたします。


Information regarding the role of Bulma in the Dragon Ball series from this point forward.
In episode 128 of the Dragon Ball Super TV series airing February 18th, the role of Bulma will be portrayed by Hiromi Tsuru-san prior to her passing.
Following that, Aya Hisakawa-san will be her successor and take up the role of Bulma.
We ask for your continued support moving forward.

The announcement comes on the heels of a short preview of Bulma within last week’s next-episode-preview for episode 128 of Dragon Ball Super, and more specifically the perhaps-unintended release of a commercial for Kaoh cleaning products featuring Vegeta and Bulma; in the commercial, Bulma appeared to be voiced by Hisakawa. The tweet (and respective video) have since been removed from their original sources.

[Reserved sales, quantities limited] Dragon Ball collaboration: Fight against filth! From this day on, you too are a cleaning warrior!

Hisakawa is perhaps best known as the original voice of Sailor Mercury in the Sailor Moon franchise, and has performed in a variety of shows including Ah! My Goddess, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Trigun, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. Hisakawa played the minor character “Chiko” in episode 16 of the Dragon Ball Z television series.

Tsuru had also played the roles of Bra and Tights during their various appearances, as well as the crying voice of baby Trunks.

UPDATE: Amazon Japan issued an apology later that day for their accidental early posting of the commercial, which was intended to go live on the 19th (and later did as planned).

Published by 14 February 2018, 8:26 PM ESTComment

The official Dragon Ball website’s twenty-third entry in “The Nearly Complete Works of Akira Toriyama” — an on-going series highlighting rare and important pieces of the author’s work over the years — is the cover for the Dragon Quest IV strategy guide — released 11 February 1990 alongside the game itself — featuring an original illustration from Toriyama himself.

The website’s writeup mentions the fact that Toriyama drew both the cover and title page for the strategy guide, which was rare for him, making this book somewhat special.

As with the prior three games — see previous citations in this series for Dragon Quest II, Dragon Quest III, and Dragon Quest VI — Toriyama provided character and monster designs for Dragon Quest IV.

Toriyama’s comment in July 1989 alongside chapter 233 of the Dragon Ball manga references an early look at the game:

ドラクエⅣのデモ画面を見ました!スケールの大きさ、面白さにビックリ!早くしたい!!<明>

I saw a demo screen of Dragon Quest IV! I was amazed at its large scale and the fun of it! I want to play it soon!! <Akira>

Toriyama’s comment in October 1989 alongside chapter 245 of the Dragon Ball manga references him having an opportunity to play through the game early:

なんと!!ドラクエⅣの見本版を借りて最後までやりました!!面白い!!期待通りの◎(にじゅうまる)です!!<明>

Whoa!! I borrowed the demo version of Dragon Quest IV and played it to the end!! It’s fun!! A perfect 10, just as I anticipated!! <Akira>
Published by 14 February 2018, 11:17 AM ESTComment

In its second week on sale (the reporting period of 05 February 2018 to 11 February 2018), Dragon Ball FighterZ pushed another 14,237 copies on the PlayStation 4 to hit the #8 spot on the Media Create Sales list, bringing it to 82,968 total copies sold.

By its second week in November 2016, Dragon Ball XENOVERSE 2 pushed 80,402 total copies. The first Dragon Ball XENOVERSE pushed 60,627 and 47,203 total copies on the PlayStation 3 and 4, respectively, by its second week in February 2015. By its second week last September, the Nintendo Switch port of XENOVERSE 2 had pushed 27,827 copies of its own (and now sits at 114,728 total copies sold).

The 3-on-3, “2.5D” fighting game is developed by Arc System Works for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC (via Steam). The game runs at a 1080p resolution and 60fps frame rate, with higher resolutions available on the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X consoles, as well as the PC. Playable characters include Son Goku, Son Gohan (Cell arc design), Vegeta, Freeza, Cell, Boo (Good), Trunks, Piccolo, Kuririn, #16, #18 (with #17), Yamcha, Tenshinhan (with Chiaotzu), Ginyu (with teammates), Nappa (with Saibaimen), Gotenks, Son Gohan (Boo arc design), Boo (Pure), Hit, Beerus, and Goku Black (with Zamasu), as well as “Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan” (SSGSS, or “Super Saiyan Blue”) versions of Goku and Vegeta that can be accessed early via pre-orders or unlocked through gameplay. The Akira Toriyama-designed “#21” has also been revealed as a new character central to the game’s story mode. Dragon Ball FighterZ was released 26 January 2018 in North America and Europe, and 01 February 2018 in Japan.

Alongside its Japanese release, Bandai Namco announced that they had shipped two million copies of the game, making it the fastest-shipping game in the franchise’s history.

Arc previously worked on Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butōden for the Nintendo 3DS, as well as the Super Sonic Warriors games (Bukū Tōgeki and Bukū Ressen) on the Nintendo Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. The developer is otherwise known for their Guilty Gear and BlazBlue series of fighting games.