On October 11, 2024, Dragon Ball Daima will be the very last anime released that the franchise’s legendary creator Akira Toriyama worked on before his passing on March 1. The question is what is the future of the franchise after Daima and who did Toriyama entrust the rights to the franchise. The Japanese finance magazine Weekly Toyo Keizai has released an article describing the rights to the franchise as “up in the air.” The article says that there is currently a custody battle for the franchise between Shonen Jump’s publisher Shueisha, Toriyama’s former editor Akio Iyoku, with video game company Bandai Namco being the third interested party.
Some important details we know are that Shueisha chairperson Marue Horiuchi visited Toriyama’s residence prior to his passing in an attempt to get the rights signed over, although this attempt failed. Part of Shueisha’s worries are related to them transferring Akio Iyoku away from the Dragon Ball franchise in 2022 to have him work on other manga. According to Weekly Toyo Keizai, Toriyama himself was upset with this decision. After the transfer, Iyoku left Shueisha and he formed Capsule Corporation Tokyo, a company that handles intellectual properties, notably Toriyama’s. Conversely, Weekly Toyo Keizai seems to be portraying Iyoku’s transfer as punitive for clashing with Shueisha executives and greenlighting a film adaptation of Toriyama’s manga Sand Land without Shueisha management approval.
Video game publisher Bandai Namco has called for a meeting to
give clarity on who owns the rights to the franchise. Weekly Toyo Keizai did not specify the details of said meeting. It sound like lots of drama is unfolding and how this affects the Dragon Ball Super manga, future anime adaptations, and the like is unknown. We have no idea how long it will take to resolve these difficulties. What is certain that the franchise will be completely different in a post Toriyama world, whoever wins this battle for the rights.
