Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Creator Reveals Review of New Movie

Dragon Ball Super is now making its way across theaters in Japan with its newest feature film, and the original series creator behind it all opened up about all of their thoughts behind Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero! Series creator Akira Toriyama first started work on the newest Dragon Ball Super movie shortly after Dragon Ball Super: Broly hit theaters four long years ago, and thus has been knee deep in the various stages of the film’s production. But now that the movie has finally fully released in theaters, the creator has been able to check out the finished project.

In a special message relayed to fans via Dragon Ball’s official Twitter account (as translated by @Herms98 on Twitter), series creator Akira Toriyama began his review of the film as such, “I’ve finally been able to see the completed movie! In short, it’s an amazing animated film! Well, I’m the original author, so perhaps it’s not too convincing for me to say stuff like this, but even so, I got carried away watching it! I may be an old man, but I got really excited.”

“Prior to this the stories have taken place out in space or other large-scale settings like that, so this time I wanted to bring things back to their roots, and set the story in only a small area of Earth,” Toriyama continued. What’s more, the enemy is the Red Ribbon Army, who didn’t make much of a splash back during the manga’s original serialization. And to top it off, Goku and Vegeta aren’t the leads. While I tried to make it an interesting story, I was worried the whole time that it might be a bit plain.”

Elaborating on the animation staff further, Toriyama noted, “That’s when director [Tetsuro Kodama] and the outstanding anime staff came along. While the story might’ve been small scale by recent Dragon Ball standards, they managed to turn it into an amazing movie unlike any before, thanks to their rare flair and cutting-edge imagery! The battles in the second half gave me goosebumps, like the fight scene out in the pouring rain. The skillful composition was so intense, I went numb from adrenaline!”

As for what stood out the most, it seems its leads jumped out, “Piccolo’s so cool! And Gohan’s so cool! And Gamma 1 and Gamma 2…everyone’s just so cool! I don’t usually get excited about my own works, but I ended up thinking thoughts like this before I knew what hit me. It’s the first time that’s ever happened to me. At that moment, I realized that all the trouble I went through hashing things out with my editor was worth it.”

Toriyama then ended the review as such, “This is all thanks to director Kodama and the anime staff, who worked far harder than I did, and also to the many staff members and voice actors who supported them, as well as my editor at Shueisha, who played a major role in making this the best movie possible. I have nothing but gratitude towards them all. I am truly satisfied. If anyone out there is hesitating and thinking, ‘Dragon Ball huh…?’ then just take my word for it and give it a watch, I guarantee your heart will be racing by the time you leave the theater!” 

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is now screening in Japan, and will be hitting theaters internationally beginning this August. But what do you think? How do you feel about Akira Toriyama’s review for the movie? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!