Toei Animation, a leading Japanese animation studio, has announced that a new Dragon Ball Super will be released in 2022. This announcement comes on the occasion of Goku Day (9 May), the annual Dragon Ball celebration.
The anime based on the well-known manga by Akira Toriyama debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1984 with a sales record of 260 million copies worldwide. The popularity of Dragon Ball enabled the manga to be developed into TV animation, movies, and games. Now 37 years after the launch of the original manga, Dragon Ball continues to evolve and is set to reach new heights starting with this new large-scale movie.
The new movie will be the second film based on Dragon Ball Super, a sequel to the original Dragon Ball manga and anime series which launched in 2015. The first film Dragon Ball Super: Broly directed by Nagamine Tatsuya and scripted by Toriyama was released in 2018 and garnered a worldwide box office collection of over $120 million.
Planning for the new film project was kicked-off in 2018, before the release of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, with the goal of telling a large-scale story that would build on the enthusiastic response for the previous theatrical series and the current global fervor for Broly. Akira Toriyama himself has picked up his pen to deliver a fascinating story that fans desire. From the magnificent story composition to character design to the lines of the script, Toriyama has worked passionately with the greatest attention to detail and highest quality standards – creating a Dragon Ball movie unlike any other in its history and one that will surely be a blockbuster with fans.
In a statement to Dragon Ball fans, Toriyama said, “I’m heavily leading the story and dialogue production for another amazing film. We’ll be charting through some unexplored territory in terms of the visual aesthetics to give the audience an amazing ride.”
The Dragon Ball Super: Broly chronicles the adventures of Goku. The story depicts that the Earth is at peace after The Tournament of Power but Goku continues to train, knowing there are ever-stronger forces in the universe. With the arrival of a Saiyan warrior named Broly, Goku and Vegeta face their most dangerous challenge yet.