Sales of 120 billion yen! Why is “Dragon Ball” still so popular 27 years after its serialization ended?

　Do you know what is the monster content that has increased its sales more than 10 times in the last 10 years?　
　The correct answer is the “Dragon Ball” series.

　”Dragon Ball,” the original manga series which ended more than a quarter of a century ago, has been raking in more than 120 billion yen a year and is now entering its most prosperous historical period.

　The latest movie, “Dragon Ball Super Super Hero,” opened in theaters on June 11, and as of the 27th, had an audience of approximately 1.21 million and a box-office revenue of approximately 1.6 billion yen.

　I was surprised at the wide range of people who came to the movie theater, which I had expected. There were people who seemed to be in my generation who have been following the film since its serialization, as well as young people who seemed to be in their 20s. Above all, there were many families with two generations of parents and elementary school-aged children.

　　Please forgive me if this is a bit of a spoiler, but the enemy force in “Dragon Ball Super Super Hero” is the Red Ribbon Army, familiar from the original manga, and the film is full of developments that will make fans drool. In this film, the main character Son Goku and his rival Vegeta do not appear in many scenes, but instead, Goku’s son Son Gohan and his mentor Piccolo play the main roles in the story.

　The highlights are the unveiling of Gohan’s new form “Son-Gohan Beast” and Piccolo’s new form “Orange Piccolo,” and the unexpected return of the evil enemy character Cell in the form of “Cell Max“. Also, as those of you who know me will understand, I was personally very excited to see “Ikiri-han” for the first time in a long time. It would take too long to explain, so if you want to know what “Ikiiri Rice” is, please Google it.

　This is the first CG animation work in the “Dragon Ball” series, and there were some negative comments from animation fans who prefer hand-drawn animation. However, the CG animation does a good job of reproducing the touch of Akira Toriyama, the creator of the series, and I was impressed by the smooth movement of Toriyama’s drawings.