Dragon Ball Is Reportedly Mired In A Rights Dispute After Creator’s Passing

There’s some shocking news about the future of Dragon Ball coming straight out of Japan.

The latest issue of Weekly Toyo Keizai has a report on a dispute regarding the rights to the manga, anime, and video game franchise, written by Soichiro Morito, and translated by SupaChronicles on Twitter.

We essentially depend on SupaChronicles for accuracy on this report, which is itself based on unverified insider information. Hopefully, the companies involved will share an update to the public.

Akio Iyoku was a former editor-in-chief for V Jump, and in that capacity, worked with Akira Toriyama to make Dragon Ball, as well as his other manga. This does not include the work he did for original video games, such as Dragon Quest. V Jump’s publisher is itself a big Japanese conglomerate named Shueisha, and in 2016, Shueisha made him head of Dragon Ball Room, the division in charge of Toriyama’s works.

But everything was not OK in the company. A Shueisha insider told Morito:

“Without consulting his superiors, Mr. Iyoku unilaterally decided to make a film adaptation of Toriyama-sensei’s ‘SAND LAND.’ He always focused on serving the author, for better or worse. At the same time, there was a criticism from anime production companies and TV networks that he had a condescending attitude.”

Iyoku also did not act on initiatives to bring Dragon Ball to metaverse and AI. That’s something us fans should definitely be thankful for, but it did not endear him to Shueisha management. Iyoku was reassigned to the business department as a result.

Iyoku  was obviously unhappy about this, and he left Shueisha May 2023. Toriyama then sided with Iyoku, making him his official representative to talk to Shueisha. Iyoku also founded his own company to now handle Toriyama’s affairs independently. Fittingly enough, Iyoku named the new company Capsule Corporaton Tokyo.

“Toriyama-sensei was also dissatisfied with Iyoku being removed, as he trusted him the most. Chairman Marue Horiuchi of Shueisha even went directly to Toriyama’s residence in Aichi Prefecture, but he couldn’t persuade him to stay.”

So now Shueisha was having trouble with Toriyama, and having to deal with the employee they just fired. Bandai Namco was licensing Toriyama’s comics for video games like the upcoming Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO, and they are now caught up in the middle of all this. An insider in the video game company then told Morito:

“Meetings about Dragon Ball were organized very vaguely, with ‘all relevant parties’ being invited, which subtly included both Iyoku and Shueisha representatives, making the coordination extremely stressful”

Unfortunately, Toriyama passed away last March before this was all settled. Some industry executives are now hoping that consulting the family will put an end to the dispute.

It was truly unfortunate that Toriyama had suddenly passed on, for his family, and his fans. But now it appears that his own body of work is now also in jeopardy as a result of it. We can only hope that the parties involved can find a resolution, not only because the fans want to keep getting more Dragon Ball media, but because continuing Toriyama’s works would be the best way to honor his legacy.