‘Dragon Ball Super’ Movie Director Teases Akira Toriyama’s Epic Script

Dragon Ball Super: Broly is a milestone release for a lot of reasons — it’s Dragon Ball Super‘s first movie, it finally makes the character of Broly an official part of canon, and it was heavily shaped by Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama himself. That latter part has Dragon Ball fans especially excited, as anything with Toriyama’s stamp on it is considered to be the most official and sacred part of Dragon Ball mythos.

In a recent interview translated by Kanzenshuu, Dragon Ball Super: Broly director Tatsuya Nagamine spoke about Toriyama’s script for the film, describing it as no less than an epic piece of Dragon Ball storytelling.

“It may be presumptuous for me to say so, but he truly is the greatest when it comes to making manga, right? And with this movie’s screenplay, I can see that he’s utilizing his talents for production, art, and character design, along with his own storytelling style… That’s why I think it would be an enormous task for anyone but Toriyama to create this. Even now, I feel the heart-pounding excitement I felt as a kid when reading the manga in real time in Jump… And I feel like this new movie is bringing out those feelings again,” Nagamine said.

“With the exception of action scenes, we’re adapting his screenplay pretty much as-is… We’re adamant about delivering as much of Toriyama’s script to viewers as possible, so we were able to extend the run time a little bit,” Nagamine added.

In the interview, Nagamine reveals that Toriyama didn’t just create an exciting Dragon Ball throwback story — he actually created enough for two stories, or rather, two movies. That led to some extensive editing on the part of Nagamine and the film’s producers to get Dragon Ball Super: Broly down to the standard 90-minute runtime of a feature-film. If anything, it sounds like an exciting story has been distilled to its most exciting parts, which is pretty much the highest hope we could have for Broly!

For newer fans or mainstream viewers interested in this standalone tale, an action-packed and streamlined movie experience will be enough; however, the deeper richness of Dragon Ball Super: Broly is how Toriyama is going back to the series’ deepest roots, and will tweak aspects of the mythos in ways that could open exciting doors to the future. That includes Broly’s origin story, and its connection to Goku’s own origin, as well as the most pivotal event in the history of the Saiyan race of Universe 7.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly will hit Japanese theaters in December, and is expected to arrive in the U.S. around mid-January 2019. Dragon Ball Super is currently airing its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m. It is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on Funimation, VRV, and Crunchyroll.

Edit: A previous version of this article accredited Kanzenshuu for the interview. Edits were made to clarify Kanzenshuu is the translation source for the original interview.