Cartoon series, feature films, video games, derivative products... The
Dragon Ball
manga series , whose creator Akira Toriyama died on March 1 at the age of 68, gave birth to one of the most popular Japanese licenses in the world.
This powerful little boy with a monkey tail and impeccable fighting technique has won over millions of fans and helped popularize the world of Japanese manga and cartoons in all four corners of the world.
Since the beginning of the adventures of Son Goku and his friends, published between 1984 and 1995 in the weekly Shonen Jump, nearly 300 million copies of the 42 volumes of the manga have been sold worldwide, including 30 million in just France,
editor Glénat tells Le
Figaro .
“In terms of popularity abroad, Dragon Ball has been by far the best, even among all Japanese content known to be popular on a global scale
,” said specialist journalist Tadashi Sudo.
“Dragon Ball is universally popular all over the world, regardless of nationality, from North America to Europe and from South America to China and Southeast Asia
,” notes the specialist .
Part of its appeal, he says, is that the action could take place anywhere.
“It's not like the show is obviously set in a particular region of the planet, like Japan or the United States.
On the one hand, it seems familiar and we can identify with it, but on the other, it also gives this feeling of strangeness
,” he adds.
The last volume may have been published almost 30 years ago, in 1995, but the success is such that the Dragon Ball license still sells.
The latest animated feature film,
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero
, released in 2022, grossed $85.6 million at the box office.
As for the video games
Dragon Ball Xenoverse
and
Dragon Ball FighterZ
, released in 2015 and 2018, they have each sold more than 10 million copies.
The success of the Dragon Ball Z series
The Dragon Ball license has been able to reinvent itself and stick with the codes of its time, notably with
Dragon Ball Z
, whose 1990s series marked a generation of children glued to their television to follow the adventures of Goku.
Seven series, around fifteen films and dozens of video games have been produced around the universe imagined by Akira Toriyama.
The rights for the Dragon Ball license abroad brought in more than 40 million euros per quarter for the Toei studio, which manages the rights.
In forty years, the franchise would have grossed nearly 30 billion euros, making Akira Toriyama the second richest mangaka... behind the unbeatable Eiichiro Oda, author of the
One Piece
series .