The status of the Dragon Ball franchise is more complicated than ever
It's almost time for Jump Festa, the annual event where Japanese publisher Shueisha showcases its most important manga and gives fans exciting updates for the future. Except that this year, Shueisha's most famous property, Dragon Ball, will barely be featured at Jump Festa. Fans speculate that the franchise's complicated status could be the reason, and that surprising changes could be on the horizon.
The original Dragon Ball manga by Akira Toriyama ended in 1995. A sequel, Dragon Ball Super, began publication in 2015, with story and supervision by Toriyama and art by Toyotaro. Dragon Ball Super was initially an adaptation of the anime, but it soon took its own original direction, producing story arcs that have yet to appear in anime form, like the much-anticipated Galactic Patrol arc. After Toriyama's sudden death in 2024, the manga went on hiatus, and it still hasn't come back.
After Toriyama's death, the status of the Dragon Ball franchise became quite muddled. The rights to the IP are split between the Toriyama estate, Shueisha (publisher of the manga), Toei Animation (which produces the anime), Bandai Namco (for toys, merchandising, and video games), and Capsule Corporation Tokyo, a company founded by Akio Iyoku, a former Shueisha editor who was Toriyama's right-hand man for many years. Fans speculate that this complex situation is why the manga is still on hiatus, while projects that originated before Toriyama's death, like Dragon Ball Daima , saw the light of day.
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