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![]() (He’d done some character design work for previous films but had largely stepped back on the anime.) Even more surprising than that was that Toriyama himself was, for the first time, deeply involved, writing the story and collaborating on the screenplay. In 2012, Toei Animation (keepers of the Dragon Ball anime flame) took to Weekly Shonen Jump to announce the franchise’s first feature film in over a decade. Apart from that and the occasional new game, the story of Goku and friends was stagnant. A near-lethal blow came in the form of 2009’s live-action Dragonball: Evolution, which dropped a white Goku into high school while stranding poor James Marsters under layers of makeup to play Piccolo. There were threats to the momentum as fandom subsisted on a finite body of material. so many AMVs), made Goku and company into pop culture icons in the West as much as Japan. That constant TV presence alongside the various anime films, the manga (published in the US by Viz which, once the Raditz Saga began, renumbered and retitled it as Dragon Ball Z to avoid confusing kids), the merch, a near-yearly stream of tie-in video games and a constant, passionate Internet fandom (that ranged in everything from fan art to Team FourStar’s glorious Dragon Ball Z Abridged YouTube series to just. The series, and its later HD-remastered and recut form, Dragon Ball Z Kai, have been a staple of cable (and occasionally broadcast) programming ever since, with Kai currently airing on Adult Swim and the Saturday night Toonami block in the United States. (And by some people, I mean me.)ĭragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT, an anime-original sequel that had minimal involvement from franchise creator Akira Toriyama, were released and dubbed as well, but it was Dragon Ball Z specifically that cemented Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo and the rest in the wider global consciousness. Some people are still holding on to the Krillin figures they got from an early-2000s Burger King Kids’ Club promotion. A merchandise craze amplified the Western fandom vortex funk/R&B weirdo Thundercat’s 2017 song “Tokyo” is all about how a Goku slap bracelet picked up at the dentist turned him into an otaku (and finishes with the immortal line, “Goku fucking ruined me”). Dragon Ball Z exploded in popularity once it began airing on Toonami in 1998, while DVD box sets (which you’ll still find) lined Best Buys, Targets and box stores around North America. Cartoon Network, for all the success Dragon Ball Z bought it, was the series’ third broadcaster, with previous attempts on syndication and UPN (yes, UPN) falling flat.īut once the franchise stuck, it stuck hard. And it took multiple tries to catch on: a 1989 dub of the original Dragon Ball anime by Robotech creators Harmony Gold and a 1995 Canadian-produced version by Funimation both failed to find audiences. For one thing, the series wasn’t even shopped around to American broadcasters until after the manga and Dragon Ball Z had already concluded to Japan (finished shows being easier to sell to foreign markets). How Dragon Ball c ame backĭragon Ball’s life in the West - specifically, America - is an odd one. But to better enjoy the triumph, it’s worth reflecting on the long road it took to get here. Given that us Millennials are now in the prime of life as far as advertisers are concerned, and that the majority of them grew up watching anime - either on TV or fansubbed online - this sort of thing is a long time coming. That’s an impressive feat, and a long time coming. ![]() ![]() The 20th Dragon Ball film and the first to tie into the recently ended Dragon Ball Super anime, the film was the highest-grossing movie in America the day it opened and eventually racked up over $30 million at the U.S. ![]() One of the more bemusing box office successes of 2019 is Dragon Ball Super: Broly. ![]()
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