Dragon Ball’s future reportedly unclear due to “extremely stressful” rights dispute

The Dragon Ball franchise could be in flux following the death of Akira Toriyama, as rights to the property have become tied up in a messy negotiation.

Dragon Ball Daima, the latest anime show featuring Goku and his friends, arrives this October. As Akira’s swansong from the iconic story he created, expectations are high.

We should probably enjoy it while it lasts, because the future of the legendary Shonen appears unclear due to unresolved issues surrounding ownership, according to a new report from Weekly Tokyo Keizai.

The outlet states that, per an insider at Shueisha, the Dragon Ball IP is being pulled in two different directions. Shueisha owns the rights to the original manga, but a second company called Capsule Corporation Tokyo was founded in 2023 with the explicit intention of handling Akira’s works going forward.

Akio Iyoku, a former editor at V Jump who led the Dragon Ball Room at Shueisha, set up Capsule Corporation Tokyo after leaving the latter. He had a close working relationship with Akira, who purportedly “trusted” Akio more than anyone else at the company.

But that still left Shueisha as a hurdle to any future releases, and now that Akira’s gone as a negotiating partner, conversations remain ongoing.

“Meetings about Dragon Ball were organized very vaguely, with ‘all relevant parties’ being invited, which subtly included both Iyuko and Shueisha representatives, making the coordination extremely stressful,” an unnamed insider stated.

“The disputes have been ongoing and remain unresolved.”

In addition to Daima, we’ve got the new fighting game in the franchise, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, coming October 8, 2024. It’s a good year for fresh entertainment involving the Z Fighters, and it looks like we might need to relish that for the time being.

We have guides on the Sparking Zero roster and who Sparking Zero should focus on to get you up to speed on the game while we wait for launch.