Dragon Ball Debuts New Cover Art From Rookies Creator

Dragon Ball will be kicking off its special 40th anniversary celebration for its manga later this Fall, and helping to celebrate is a new take on one of Akira Toriyama’s volume covers from Rookies creator Masanori Morita. The late Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball first hit the pages of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1984, and has since become a massive franchise in the decades since. This October marks 40 years since that initial debut, and Shueisha is going all out to help celebrate the manga’s impressive milestone with some fun new projects, art exhibitions, and much more. 

Dragon Ball will be hosting a special art exhibition in Japan later this Fall, and it will feature all 42 covers of the volumes done in different styles through Shonen Jump’s other creators. Previously recruiting the likes of  Jujutsu Kaisen creator Gege Akutami, Black Clover creator Yuki Tabata, Tokyo Ghoul creator Sui Ishida and more, the newest cover art has been revealed to be a new take on Dragon Ball Volume 24 from the creator behind series such as Rookies and Rokudenashi Blues, Masanori Morita. Check it out below: 

What’s Next for Dragon Ball’s 40th Anniversary? 

This won’t be the only event happening for Dragon Ball’s 40th anniversary as the franchise will be returning to screens with a new anime. Dragon Ball Daima is a brand new anime series set to release some time later this Fall, but has yet to confirm a concrete release date as of the time of this publication. The late Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama helped to craft the original main story and character designs for Dragon Ball Daima with Yoshitaka Yashima and Aya Komaki directing the series for Toei Animation, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru adapting Toriyama’s designs for animation, and Yuuko Kakihara supervising and writing the scripts.

Masako Nozawa is returning to the anime to once again provide the voice for Kid Goku, and she is currently the only confirmed member of Dragon Ball Daima‘s voice cast announced so far. Akira Toriyama previously teased the original story for Dragon Ball Daima as such before his passing, “Due to a conspiracy, Goku and his friends are turned small. In order to fix things, they’ll head off to a new world! It’s a grand adventure with intense action in an unknown and mysterious world. Since Goku has to make up for his petite size, he uses his Power Pole to fight, something not seen in a long time.”