NBA Star Shows Dragon Ball Love with Custom Vegeta Sneakers

One of the more welcome aspects of anime breaking more into general pop culture in the 2010s is [...]

By Nick Valdez

One of the more welcome aspects of anime breaking more into general pop culture in the 2010s is the greater amount of public showcases of fandom from notable stars in various industries. The kids who grew up with major series like Dragon Ball Z and the Toonami programming block are now growing up and making their way out into the world, and they have taken their love of anime with them. It's been great to see especially considering how being an anime fan used to come with a huge stigma that made it an outlier even from other fandoms.

But one superstar athlete who has never been afraid to show off his love of all things nerdy and fun is Utah Jazz small forward Royce Khalil O'Neale. Previously stunting with a pair of Dragon Ball Z custom Goku Nike sneakers, he recently impressed with a new custom pair of Nike KD 12 customs featuring Dragon Ball Super's Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta from artist @andr3wtl (who you can find on Twitter here). Check it out below:

These customs show off two sides of Vegeta with the more stoic and stern side holding back Vegeta's presence, and one where he's filled with rage. Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta was one of the coolest additions to the Dragon Ball lore (even more so than Goku's Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan form, to be completely honest), and Vegeta even went beyond this to an even more sparkly version of this blue later in the series.

It's a blue that makes for some great looking shoes! It certainly begs the question of why there aren't more of these out there officially though. What do you think of Dragon Ball's breakthrough into the NBA? Wondering what Dragon Ball characters O'Neale will give a shout out to next? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!

The Japanese-language and English dub releases of Dragon Ball Super are now complete and available to stream with FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. Viz Media is releasing new chapters of the manga at a monthly rate that can be read entirely for free through the Shonen Jump digital library, and Dragon Ball Super's big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. Fans in Japan are also able to enjoy fresh non-canon adventures from the franchise with new episodes of Super Dragon Ball Heroes' promotional anime series.

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