Kazuhiko Torishima, one of the most important editors of “Dragon Ball” in the Weekly Shonen Jumpdid not walk with Rodeos when talking about the movie “Dragon Ball Evolution” of 2009, describing it as the greatest failure in the history of the magazine. This strong opinion came out during a recent episode of the Kosakoso podcast, which Torishima co-hosta with Yuji Horii, the creator of “Dragon Quest”.
Torishimawhich is known for being very direct, He explained that the film got out of control because Shueisha did not invest enough to have the rights of the final product. For him, if Shueisha had invested five billion yen (around 50 million dollars of that time), they could have had voice in the script and the final result of the film. But, according to Torishima, that investment was unthinkable for the company, especially after the failure of the movie “Daijoubu, My Friend” (1983), which caused Shueisha to move away from the film industry.
Although adapting Dragon Ball to a live film was very complicated, Shueisha decided to move forward with the project, hoping Hollywood could take the franchise to a global audience. This film coincided with the launch of the Shonen Jump in North America, but both attempts ended up being failures. Torishima recalled that, when he consulted with lawyers in the United States, they clearly told him that without the rights of the final product, Japan could not change anything, and that was what he considers the big mistake.
For Torishima, “Dragon Ball Evolution” is the greatest failure of the Weekly Shonen Jump, and sincerely does not believe there is a worse movie. In spite of everything, he expects a similar error not to be repeated with the theme park of “Dragon Ball” that they are building in Saudi Arabia.
Although the film was a disaster, somehow, it served for Akira Toriyama to return to “Dragon Ball” with “Dragon Ball Z: The battle of the gods” in 2013. And if that were not enough, Justin Chatwin, who played Goku in “Dragon Ball Evolution,” apologized to Toriyama for the film after his death in March 2024.
