Dragon Ballhas entered a dark period following the conclusion ofDragon Ball Daima. With rights disputes and a manga hiatus still looming over the franchise, things may not look great at the moment, but there will be moreDragon Ballone day, without a doubt.
Dragon Ballremains one of the most popular anime franchises of all time, andDaima’s quality animation has only reinforced that.Its last movie,Super Hero, was a success, and the gameSparking Zerohas been very positively received by the fanbase. By all appearances, things are pretty good for fans, even in spite of Akira Toriyama’s tragic passing last year. However, there’s a dark cloud hanging over the franchise right now, as no one really knows what comes next. This uncertainty has some fans worried, and while they might be right about the short term, it won’t be that way forever.
The Problems Facing Dragon Ball’s Future Are Real
Fans Have Good Reason to Be Concerned
Akira Toriyama’s former editor, Akiyo Iyoku, left Shueisha not long ago, and formed a new company called Capsule Corp Tokyo, named after Bulma’s fictional company in the series. This occurred after he was shuffled to a new position at Shueisha, which he was unhappy with, causing him to go independent. Toriyama trusted Iyoku greatly, and was displeased with Shueisha’s treatment of him, and as a result continued dealing with Capsule Corp Tokyo until his death. Iyoku acted as something of a spokesman for Toriyama, but now, with Toriyama’s death, there has been confusion.
The publishing rights for theDragon Ballmanga belong to Shueisha, and always have. However, it’s not clear nowwho has the right to representDragon Ball’s intellectual propertyin legal matters. This has been a major headache for other parties licensingDragon Ball, such as Bandai Namco, who are now forced to deal with both parties, who firmly disagree with one another. Ultimately, the only ones who can clear this up are the executors of Akira Toriyama’s estate, but the grieving family are hardly in a position to decide such a matter. The situation seems likely to end up decided in court, though when is anyone’s guess.
As a result of this complicated legal situation surrounding the rights, it’s unlikely that any newDragon Ballcontent will be made while things remain unclear. The last thing either company wants is to start working on a project, only to unexpectedly have the rights ripped away midway through production. While this doesn’t seem to precludetheDragon Ball Supermanga from continuing, since those rights are firmly Shueisha’s, the manga’s hiatus is occurring independently of these proceedings.
Dragon Ball Has Been Through Dark Times Before
It’s easy to forget now, what with the abundance ofDragon Ballcontent released in the last 10 to 15 years, but there was quite a long period where no newDragon Ballcontent was made during the early 2000s and the tail end of the 1990s.Dragon Ball GTactually ended in 1997, despite not airing in the US until the early 2000s, and there were no new manga or anime untilBattle of Godsin 2013. Despite this,Dragon Ballmaintained its popularity throughout this period, and many games and other related projects were released within this window.
Dragon Ball’s revival didn’t start until the 2010s, when a one-shot manga about Goku’s father Bardock was created, and soon Toriyama was back involved with the franchise withBattle of Gods, which eventually morphed intowhat we know as theDragon Ball Superera of the series. Since then, there’s consistently been aDragon Ballmanga or anime series running, but withDaima’s conclusion, that streak has finally come to an end. So, what do fans do now?
Dragon Ball Will Emerge From This as Strong as Ever
The Franchise is Simply Too Profitable to Remain Idle for Long
While there are rumblings that another movie may be on the way, fans should prepare themselves for an indefinite period of time without newDragon Ballcontent. It’s impossible to say when theDragon Ball Supermanga will resume regular serialization, although it does seem like it will continue at some point. Hopefully, it will pick up again some time this year, but without any official word, any guesses are just that. New anime series take a long time to produce, so even ifDaimais given a second season, fans shouldn’t expect to see more episodes any time soon, either.
During these droughts of content, it’s important to remember thatDragon Ballhas been here before and will recover from this eventually. The series is still wildly popular all around the globe, as well as in its home nation of Japan, and what that means is that there’s still a lot of money to be made off ofDragon Ball. The real question being argued over now is who gets that money, Capsule Corp Tokyo or Shueisha. As soon as there’s a clear answer to that, whoever wins will no doubt go back into producing new content as soon as possible. But these kinds of legal matters can take a long time to be decided.
There’s still plenty to speculate on, about howDaimacan connect up withSuper, or howSuperwill continue whenever the manga ends its hiatus andreturns with Toyotaro at the helm. Fans have material to discuss and tide them over as they wait out this situation. And there will be other great anime series to enjoy in this time period as well.Dragon Ballmay not have much going on in the short term, but a bright future awaits once the dust is settled. It may well mark a new era of the franchise, the first post-Toriyama era ofDragon Ball, charting a course into unknown waters.
Dragon Ballmay be on the back burner for now, but the series will return sooner or later, and hopefully, it’ll be worth the wait.
