Dragon Ball shakes up: Editor breaks with Shueisha and takes over rights to the saga

Dragon Ball has been one of the most famous manga licenses since its inception in the 80s. And despite the fact that there are hardly any new releases in anime format lately, apart from the latest superhero movie - remember that the Dragon Ball Super anime series is still at a standstill and seems to be going on for a long time - the license remains at the top in terms of profits, even ahead of One Piece. However, at Shueisha, the company responsible for publishing the manga, the waters are far from calm. In fact, the company’s editor, Akio Iyoku, head of the Dragon Room division, has resigned and assured that he will take the brand and its rights with him to his new company: Capsule Corporation Tokyo. The controversy is served.

Goku’s future at Shueisha is uncertain

Iyoku, the editor of the Dragon Ball Room - the Shueisha department in charge of planning and making decisions about the brand created by Akira Toriyama - has had enough of this uncertain situation and has taken the Dragon Ball brand to his new company with the intention of securing its future. In addition, he takes several employees of his former department along with the Dragon Ball rights in order to realize his projects.

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It seems that Shueisha will continue to maintain the Dragon Ball Super manga with Toyotaro as artist and Akira Toriyama himself as scriptwriter and supervisor, a collection that will continue to be published monthly in V-Jump magazine, along with the rights to the original manga. Shueisha has already reacted and is in full negotiations with Iyoku to try to not split the rights of the brand.

“It is said that the copyright of the Dragon Ball manga will remain with Shueisha, and that the games and video-related work will be transferred to Capsule. It seems that negotiations are still going on as to how far we will be involved with each other,” a Shueisha employee told Bunshun.

Akira Toriyama, for his part, can do little about the rights to his work, although he distances himself from Capsule Corporation Tokyo without commenting on the matter. We will see what direction the brand takes in the coming years in terms of manga, anime and video games.