New Dragon Ball box set will feature 42 alternate covers by some of the manga industry’s most popular artists.
Manga publisher Shueisha is getting set to rerelease the entire Dragon Ball saga, bundling all 42 volumes of creator Akira Toriyama’s beloved martial arts adventure epic into a massive box set. Pre-orders are set to open soon, and to celebrate, Shueisha has staked out a huge stretch of one of the corridors in downtown Tokyo’s Shibuya Station.
▼ The eye-catching promotional mural can be found outside the gates of the Fukutoshin subway line, in the corridor that leads toward the 109 building and exits A0 through A12.
Since the box set contains all 42 volumes, the mural shows off all 42 covers…but it actually contains 84 pieces of artwork. That’s because the re-release is called the Dragon Ball Double Cover Box, with each book having two cover illustrations: the original drawn by Toriyama, and an alternate version from a different manga artist, with the alternate presumably printed onto the cover material itself and Toriyama’s gracing the dust cover wrapped onto it.
It can’t be overstated just how phenomenally popular and influential Dragon Ball was, and as proof, the alternate covers have been drawn by some of the most successful and famous artists in the manga industry. An especially cool touch is that rather than designing new covers from scratch, most of the participating artists used Toriyama’s original as a guide for the composition and theming of their alternates. This results in some very interesting opportunities to compare and contrast art styles, seeing how Toriyama’s aesthetics trickled into manga/anime as a whole, and also providing a peek at how Dragon Ball might have looked if it had been drawn by a different artist or in another time.
The mural also creates a challenging de-facto otaku quiz. For each pair of covers, Toriyama’s is shown on the left, and the guest artist’s on the right. While the artists’ names are listed, if you can avert your eyes from that part of the mural you can test your knowledge by seeing how many artists you can identify through their styles even when they’re drawing Dragon Ball’s characters (although a few are made much easier to guess through the inclusion of characters from the guest artist’s own series).
So with that, let’s start the quiz!
▼ Volume 1: Featuring……
▼ …Masakazu Katsura, creator of Video Girl Ai and DNA².
▼ Volume 2, featuring…
▼ …Tatsuki Fujimoto (Chainsaw Man).
▼ Volume 3, featuring……
▼ …Koji Inada (Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai).
▼ Volume 4, featuring……
▼ …Akira Amano ( Reborn!).
▼ Volume 5, featuring……
▼ …Yoshihiro Togashi (Hunter x Hunter).
▼ Volume 6, featuring……
▼ …Hiroshi Shiibashi (Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan).
▼ Volume 7, featuring……
▼ …Mikio Ikemoto (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations).
▼ Volume 8, featuring……
▼ …Sui Ishida (Tokyo Ghoul).
▼ Volume 9, featuring……
▼ …Kenta Shinohara (Sket Dance, Witch Watch).
▼ Volume 10, featuring……
▼ …Shun Saeki (Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma).
▼ Volume 11, featuring……
▼ …Masahi Kishimoto (Naurto)(
▼ Volume 12, featuring……
▼ …Yusuke Murata (One-Punch Man, Eyeshield 21).
▼ Volume 13, featuring……
▼ … Kohei Horikoshi (My Hero Academia).
▼ Volume 14, featuring……
▼ …Tadatoshi Fujimaki (Kuroko’s Basketball).
▼ Volume 15, featuring……
▼ …Tatsuya Endo (Spy x Family).
▼ Volume 16, featuring……
▼ …Hideaki Sorachi (Gintama).
▼ Volume 17, featuring……
▼ …Takehiko Inoue (Slam Dunk).
▼ Volume 18, featuring……
▼ …Naho Oishi (Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock short anime film manga adaptation).
▼ Volume 19, featuring……
▼ …Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro (Toriko).
▼ Volume 20, featuring……
▼ …Yusei Matsui (Assassination Classroom, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo).
▼ Volume 21, featuring……
▼ …Yoshifumi Tozuka (Undead Unluck).
▼ Volume 22, featuring……
▼ …Posuka Demizu (The Promised Neverland).
▼ Volume 23, featuring……
▼ …Kyosuke Usuta (Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar, Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoi yo!! Masaru-san).
▼ Volume 24, featuring……
▼ …Masanori Morita (Rokudenashi Blues, Rookies).
▼ Volume 25, featuring……
▼ …Kazue Kato (Blue Exorcist).
▼ Volume 26, featuring……
▼ …Boichi (Dr. Stone).
▼ Volume 27, featuring……
▼ …Tite Kubo (Bleach).
▼ Volume 28, featuring……
▼ …Osamu Akimoto (KochiKame).
▼ Volume 29, featuring……
▼ …Takeshi Obata (Death Note, Bakuman).
▼ Volume 30, featuring……
▼ …Nobuhiro Watsuki (Rurouni Kenshin).
▼ Volume 31, featuring……
▼ …Kentaro Yabuki (To Love Ru).
▼ Volume 32, featuring……
▼ …Koyoharu Gotoge (Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba).
▼ Volume 33, featuring……
▼ …Hirohiko Araki (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure).
▼ Volume 34, featuring……
▼ …Yasuhisa Hara (Kingdom).
▼ Volume 35, featuring……
▼ …Hiroyuki Asada (Tegami Bachi).
▼ Volume 36, featuring……
▼ …Katsura Hoshino (D.Gray-man).
▼ Volume 37, featuring……
▼ …Shuichi Aso (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.).
▼ Volume 38, featuring……
▼ …Ryuhei Tamura (Beelzebub, Cosmos).
▼ Volume 39, featuring……
▼ …Toyotarou (Dragon Ball Super).
▼ Volume 40, featuring……
▼ …Yuki Tabata (Black Clover).
▼ Volume 41, featuring……
▼ …Gege Akutami (Jujutsu Kaisen).
▼ And finally, Volume 42, featuring……
▼ …the successor to Toriyama’s status as reigning king of shonen adventure manga, One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda.
Of course, as cool as this artwork may look in photos, it’s even more impressive when viewed with the naked eye. It’s unclear how much longer the Shibuya Station mural will be in place, but the cutoff date to order the Dragon Ball Double Cover Box, which can be done through the links on the product page here, is August 3.
Related: Shueisha
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