Our latest addition to the translation archives takes us back to 2006 with the final “Dragon Box” release in Japan. “Dragon Box The Movies” covered all seventeen of the franchise’s films up to that point (three for the original television series, thirteen for Dragon Ball Z, and the 10th anniversary film), and like its fellow DVD box sets in the previous years, came with a “Dragonbook” packed with production information, interviews, image galleries, and more.

This “Dragonbook” featured a “Theatrical Story Q&A” with Takao Koyama, scriptwriter for all thirteen of the Dragon Ball Z films and series composer for the vast majority of the franchise’s animated adaptation. Koyama spoke to the actual production process as well as naming schemes and scenario inspirations.

When we made the episodes for the theatrical features, first the scriptwriter, the producer, and Toriyama-sensei‘s supervising editor would get together, and meet about story concepts, such as what to do about the main villain. Then I would put together a plot based on the content of what we’d talked about. I’d send that plot to Toriyama-sensei and get his opinion on it, then start writing out the scenario — that was the typical flow. Once I got to writing, I’d be joined at the hip with the producer.

…

It would take about three months’ time from the planning stage until the completion of a single movie’s scenario. Dragon Ball Z had two movies shown each year, in spring and summer, so that works out to me having been writing a theatrical movie scenario for over half a given year at the time. (laughs)

Koyama also spoke at length about Broli, a villain that appeared in three of the later theatrical films.

Even including the TV anime, nobody exists in the world who’s stronger than Broli. I mean, even Vegeta, Prince of the Saiyans, was trembling in fear. (laughs) I felt that there’s no way that kind of mightiest being would die in a single outing. After all, there were kids who cried at Broli’s overwhelming strength when they saw Burn Up!! at Shueisha’s preview screening. (laughs) It’s always difficult coming up with an enemy for Goku, because I’d constantly have to escalate their strength. So, he ended up appearing three times.

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Koyama’s thoughts on Broli at the time are interesting to put in comparison with a 2013 blog post in which he reviewed his experience watching Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, a film he had no involvement with, where he contrasts that film’s antagonist Beerus with Broli.

This “Dragonbook” Q&A has been archived in our “Translations” section.

Three new translations enter our archives today: one comes courtesy of a recent television special, one is actually a stealth-addition that has been up for a little while in conjunction to some deep “Manga Guide” work, and the other is an old tidbit from the era when Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball technically co-existed!

Last month, Fuji TV aired Showa vs. Heisei!?: Anime, Tokusatsu, Manga Hero & Heroine Top 20, a special program counting down favorite characters based on a multi-generational survey.

Dragon Ball‘s own Son Goku was ultimately named the number one hero. Original author Akira Toriyama provided an original sketch featuring his character side-by-side with his namesake Sun Wukong from Journey to the West, along with a celebratory comment:

Even though I knew that battle manga went over well with readers of shōnen manga, I still stubbornly decided to do a Journey to the West adventure manga. Since it’d be a bit drab to just leave things as-is, I changed the monkey to a human with a tail and started off a modified version of Journey to the West where they search for the seven Dragon Balls.

But sure enough it didn’t get very popular, so I had no choice but to obediently change course to a battle-centric manga. Afterwards I got rid of the tail (it was in the way) and so in the end only the name “Son Goku” remained.

Thank you very much for selecting that Goku as the number one strongest hero!!

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As with Battle of Gods before it and the various films and TV specials in the past, the 2015 theatrical film Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ received an “Anime Comic” later that same year. These “Anime Comic” (occasionally “Film Anime Comic”) releases arrange their respective film into comic book style with dialog bubbles. They occasionally include extra character biographies and supplemental franchise information, and even more rarely comments from original author Akira Toriyama himself.

The Resurrection ‘F’ comic ends with a brief “Message From Akira Toriyama”:

With Battle of Gods last time as well as with this Resurrection ‘F’, I wrote the story but didn’t make it into a manga, so there’s no collected edition. In other words, this anime comic is the only way you can read new Dragon Ball in book form. And it’s in glorious full color! Please enjoy reading it! I’m sure you will make new discoveries that you didn’t pick up on in the big screen.

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In May of 1985, the eighteenth and final collected volume of Akira Toriyama’s Dr. Slump manga saw its release in Japan. At this point, no collected volumes of Dragon Ball existed yet (the first would hit later that year in September), and the original Weekly Shōnen Jump serialization was only just wrapping up the first arc of the series.

The final Dr. Slump volume contains two brief promotional, optimistic look-aheads to Dragon Ball, including one closing comment from Akira Toriyama himself.

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With this, Dr. Slump has come to an end. Continuing onwards, please look forward to Dragon Ball.

(Kame-sen’nin)
I reckon it’ll be coming out this year!

Thank you so much to everyone who read all the way to the end!!

I’ve drawn Arale so many times I’ve lost count, but this one is the last.

Now then, let’s meet again in the collected edition (at least I think it’ll be coming out) of Dragon Ball.

–Akira Toriyama

These messages were added for the tankōbon edition, and were not reprinted in the kanzenban and eventual digital editions of the series.

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These items have all been archived in our “Translations” section.