With this year being the 40th anniversary of the Dragon Ball anime, we’ve been graced with a new video scored by Hans Zimmer and details on a new anime series.
Firstly, the new video (shown below) chronicles the narrative history of the Dragon Ball saga and the initial Superman-esque origins of Goku.
It then proceeds to display a sort of “greatest hits” of the saga, which is also scored by the musical maestro that is Hans Zimmer.
Secondly, the original run of Dragon Ball Super is being updated with new footage and narrative changes in Dragon Ball Super Beerus, with its new trailer also being rather impressive (shown below).
However, the really big news is that we will also be getting an all-new Dragon Ball Super series called Dragon Ball Super: The Galactic Patrol, which deals with the events from the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga from the original manga.
If you are unfamiliar with the Galactic Patrol in Dragon Ball, its most notable member is the adorable Jaco, who got his own criminally underrated manga and became a more recent fixture in the recent anime iterations of Dragon Ball.
The Galactic Patrol logo is also shown on both the outfits for Vegeta and Goku (shown top) for this new series.
As we all know, Toriyama had a thing for American comics and science fiction, with Goku’s almost Kryptonian origins being among them; the Galactic Patrol itself is also likely a reference to E.E. “Doc” Smith’s series of Lensman novels.
These were also adapted into an anime in the 80s, first as a movie, then as a TV series. However, the estate of E.E. “Doc” Smith wasn’t properly informed and legal battles ensued.
The interesting thing here is that the Galactic Patrol in Dragon Ball is a fascinating organization, and the main villain, called Moro from the manga, I think will make for a very engaging opponent for the Saiyans once adapted into anime.
Obviously, all of this news is in stark contrast to the fact that the creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama, died back in 2024. So I can only hope is watching from afar and at least happy that his work lives on.
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