South City

South City
南の都 (Minami no miyako)
Manga Anime
English Name(s)	Metro South (Funimation) Southern Metropolis (Viz)
Manga Debut	Dragon Ball Chapter 32
Anime Debut	Dragon Ball Episode 19
Appears in	Manga & Anime
Locational Data
Area	C-2
Planet	Earth

South City is a major metropolis in the world of Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama located in the Southern Sea in Area C-2. The city was initially visited in Dragon Ball Chapter 32, but subsequent chapters and later guidebooks appear to contradict the initial depiction. This confusion was finally resolved by Toriyama himself in 2014. South City is located close to both Amembo and Papaya islands.

General Overview

One road out of South City leads straight into the desert.

A wooded area near South City from Dragon Ball Z Movie 2.

South City is a tropical city on the southern coast of a small continent in the Southern Sea. It is nestled between a desert and the sea. Until Age 762, there was a large wooded area not far from the city, but it too was turned into a desert by Dr. Kochin and Dr. Uiro. The city is located close to Papaya Island, close enough that their names may be used interchangeably by non-locals. The full geography between South City and Papaya Island has not been established, but the Turtle Hermit is depicted as taking a taxi directly from the airport to the tournament grounds. Amembo Island, an urban island only nine kilometers away, is sometimes also considered part of South City.

At some point in the past, Mister Satan and his martial arts master fought Tao Pai-Pai at a bar in South City after his master insulted the assassin's hair. Satan's master was killed and Satan himself badly injured by Tao Pai-Pai. This event has not yet been depicted in any narrative form.

On May 12, Age 767, Amembo Island was attacked by No. 19 and No. 20, destroying much of the island and its population. Son Goku attempted to shift the battle away from populated areas, but did not make it far as the Artificial Humans set down just outside of South City. Vegeta destroyed No. 19 and forced No. 20, now understood to be Doctor Gero, to retreat.

Continuity

It seems that the fourth volume is a Dragon Ball "world guide". I think that the staff all worked very hard, particularly on the building's geometry, the maps, and whatnot. On top of just drawing things in a hit-or-miss fashion, there are many things that not even I had precisely determined. Were they not a bit fed up with how things didn't come together consistently? I'm very sorry.
-- Akira Toriyama, in the introduction to Daizenshuu 4

Initial Depiction

The Turtle Hermit reveals their destination: South City.

South City was first introduced in the Dragon Ball manga in Chapter 32, when the Turtle Hermit informs Son Goku and Kuririn that they will travel there for the 21st Tenka'ichi Budōkai. The trio, plus Lunch, are depicted driving to the airport, flying to the city, and taking a taxi directly to the Tournament grounds. It is not implied in the dialog that they have traveled anywhere other than South City or just stopped in South City en route to somewhere else. Wherever they go, the group remains there until Chapter 54 when Son Goku leaves on his second dragon ball hunt.

When this sequence was adapted for the anime, the connection to South City is strengthened: it is mentioned earlier and more frequently in dialog (beginning in Episode 17) and more emphasis is placed on the size of the city and Goku's awe at being there. Bulma explicitly names the location as "South City" in Dragon Ball Episode 29. Together, these references place the tournament and adjacent adventures within that city. In the anime, the city appears to be located on a large landmass and adjacent to a sizable desert.

22nd & 23rd Tenka'ichi Budōkai

Now, the tournament is on Papaya Island!

Three years later, beginning in Chapter 113, the manga establishes that the 22nd Tenka'ichi Budōkai will be held on Papaya Island. No mention is made of South City in these chapters. The aircraft announcement says that "this time" the tournament is being held on Papaya Island, allowing for the possibility that it was previously somewhere else. Despite this, the tournament complex looks nearly identical to what was depicted in the prior chapters. No further references are made to "South City" in the manga until the appearance of Future Trunks. The manga does not name the location of the 23rd Tenka'ichi Budōkai, but the anime continues calling the location "Papaya Island".

Artificial Humans Arc

South City is not mentioned again until the arrival of Future Trunks. He warns Son Goku that Artificial Humans will arrive on an island nine kilometers southwest of the city. Although unnamed in the manga, this smaller island is named Amembo Island in the Dragon Ball Z anime. Unlike the Dragon Ball-era depiction of South City as being Indonesian-inspired, Amembo's architecture and design more closely resembles that of the other "modern" cities in the series such as Bulma's West City. The Viz translation of Dragon Ball Chapter 338 implies that the urban area on Amembo Island is called "South City"; this description is not in the original Japanese text.

Guide Books

The discontinuity between "South City" and "Papaya Island" inspired the authors of the guide books to "solve" this problem, however their explanations themselves do not paint a consistent picture:

• Daizenshuu 4, released in 1995, describes South City and Papaya Island as separate locations. South City is placed in quadrant C-2, at the southern tip of a small continent and surrounded by deserts. Papaya Island is a smaller location to the east in quadrant C-3. The depiction of South City on a small continent and adjacent to a desert aligns with the view in Dragon Ball Episode 29. Although this would appear to fix the problem by stating that the tournament moved between Age 750 and 753, the Daizenshuu further states that South City was never depicted in the manga and that all of the tournaments were located on Papaya Island.
• Daizenshuu 7, released two years later, attempts to correct this again but adds further confusion. It re-iterates the description and map provided in Daizenshuu 4, but also adds a contradictory explanation that South City is the capital city of Papaya Island, thus putting them together as a single location. The two explanations in Daizenshuu 7 cannot be reconciled together.
• Chozenshuu 4, released in 2013, does not attempt to further fix this disparity and retains the explanations given in Daizenshuu 7.

Toriyama Interview

Q5: What sort of place is South City, which was attacked by the Artificial Humans?
A. The Tournament Arena for the Tenka’ichi Budōkai is nearby!
A metropolis on a large island floating in the southern sea. Papaya Island, which is where the Tenka’ichi Budōkai is held, is nearby.
-- Interview in Dragon Ball Full Color: Artificial Humans & Cell Arc Volume #01 (04 April 2014)

This confusion was brought to a close in 2014 when Toriyama resolved the question in an interview. He stated definitively that South City and Papaya Island are separate but nearby places. This contradicts the depiction in both guidebooks.

Name

South City is one of the four cardinal-direction cities mention in the manga, including West City (Capsule Corp Headquarters), East City (destroyed by Nappa), and North City (near Doctor Gero's lab). In Japanese, 南の都 (Minami no miyako) does not need to be read as a proper noun and could also be translated as "southern city".

External Links

TBD