Roughly every month, Toyotarō provides a drawing of a Dragon Ball (or related…!) character — as well as an accompanying comment — on the official Japanese Dragon Ball website. Following up on the wealth of characters already drawn, for his June 2025 entry, Toyotarō has drawn Shallot and Giblet in celebration of the 7th anniversary of the mobile game Dragon Ball Legends:
Though there is no accompanying comment on the drawing itself, Toyotarō made a brief tweet about it:
ラクガキですー
シャロットは前にも描いてますが
ジブレットは初めて描きました☆
Just a quick doodle. I had previously drawn Shallot before, but Giblet is a first for me.
Roughly every month, Toyotarō provides a drawing of a Dragon Ball (or related…!) character — as well as an accompanying comment — on the official Japanese Dragon Ball website. Following up on the wealth of characters already drawn, for his May 2025 entry, Toyotarō has drawn the Goku (in Ultra Instinct) and Vegeta (in Super Saiyan Blue Evolution) as a collaboration with and in celebration of the 7th anniversary of the mobile game Dragon Ball Legends:
The illustration is distinct from the usual monthly drawings, and similar to his July 2024 drawing in conjunction with Comic-Con International: San Diego, there is no accompanying comment on the drawing itself. The Dragon Ball Official Site, however, includes a brief Q&A with Toyotarō about the drawing.
Later in the same article, an earlier draft of the sketch is shared, with a note about the detail put into each character’s respective expression:
The drawing is set to be included as a poster in the August 2025 issue of Shueisha’s V-Jump magazine, hitting Japanese shelves 20 June 2025.
Following up on last month’s announcement of S.H.Figuarts entries coming for Shallot and Giblet — both characters designed by Akira Toriyama for the mobile game Dragon Ball Legends — Bandai Namco has announced that Shallot will also be coming as a downloadable character for the video game Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO:
Shallot will be available next week starting 26 June 2025, with “early access” available to “Season Pass” owners three days prior.
The standalone release of Shallot marks a brief reprieve from the ongoing Dragon Ball Daima downloadable content packs, with the first Daima pack hitting back in April, and the second still yet to be formally scheduled. The game’s $34.99 “Season Pass” originally kicked off with Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero content back in January. No individual price or availability for Shallot was mentioned in the original announcement outside of the “early access” period for “Season Pass” owners.
Dragon Ball Legends, originally launched in 2018 and available on mobile phone platforms, is a “one finger card action battle” game developed in conjunction with Dimps (previously of the Budokai and XENOVERSE game series). The game’s title should not be confused with that of the 1996 PlayStation and Saturn game Idainaru Doragon Bōru Densetsu (“The Great Dragon Ball Legend”), often and colloquially referred to in English fandom over the years as simply “Legends”.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZEROreleased on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (via Steam) 10 October 2024 in Japan, and 11 October 2024 internationally. As opposed to the completely separateDragon Ball Z (“Budokai”) series developed by Dimps which came before it, the Sparking! series — developed instead by Spike — featured 3D arenas with an over-the-shoulder camera angle. The new game’s title of Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO falls more in line with the original trilogy’s naming scheme in Japanese. The three Sparking! games — the original, NEO!, and METEOR — hit the PlayStation 2 over the course of 2005 to 2007, with the Nintendo Wii also receiving ports of the second and third games. The game series was released numerically under the “Budokai Tenkaichi” moniker internationally. A fourth games — Tag Vs. in Japan; Tenkaichi Tag Team internationally — was released on the PlayStation Portable in 2010. Spike (as Spike Chunsoft) later went on to also develop the crossover fighting games J-Stars Victory VS in 2014 and Jump Force in 2019.
Episode #0524! Mike catches up with Randy from We Gotta Podcast, who is celebrating a 100+ episode milestone. What brought them all together, what keeps them going, and why are they just so gosh darn nice?!
Following relative radio silence after the game’s beta period last year, the game was re-announced last week as Dragon Ball: Gekishin Squadra, with an expanded home console release: the game will now come to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 in addition to the previously announced iOS, Android, and PC (via Steam).
The game’s title contains the Japanese word “Gekishin” which is written out in katakana as ゲキシン on the various official Japanese websites. The word is typically written in kanji as 激震 meaning a violent earthquake (or tremor or shock), though it has been written with different characters as 激神 for the second Dragon Ball Z game on the Nintendo Famicom, meaning “Violent God” (in reference to Freeza in the full title “Dragon Ball Z: The Violent God, Freeza!!”). A separate spelling of 撃針 refers to the firing pin mechanism within a firearm.
The stylized “Squadra” (with the middle “A” striking a resemblance to the number “4”) refers to the fact that the game features 4-vs-4 battles.
Per the game’s official website, Gekishin Squadra will feature cross play, progression, and commerce across its various platform releases when its releases sometime later this year:
This product is Cross-Platform Progression compatible.
After creating a new account for this product and linking it with a Bandai Namco ID in-game, upon playing the game on a different platform you will be able to link your BNID to carry over your save data.
Dragon Gems can only be used on the original platform it was acquired.
Also, Dragon Gems purchased with real currency can only be used on the original platform it was purchased.
However, any content purchased using Dragon Gems can be used on all platforms.
Dragon Ball: Gekishin Squadra is in development by Ganbarion, who previously developed 2016’s Dragon Ball Fusions on Nintendo 3DS, 2006’s Jump Ultimate Stars on Nintendo DS, and 2005’s Jump Super Stars on Nintendo DS.
Episode #0523! Mike catches up with Zénpai, who is now the official translator for an all-new Dragon Ball manga release in Portugal! How did this all come about, how is the release going, what has the feedback been, and what all benefits do we as a broader international community get out of it?!
Episode #0522! Mike speaks with David Evelyn, translator on the new English language release of “Dr. Mashirito’s Ultimate Manga Techniques” from Viz. What are some of the fun stories and lessons from the book, and what other great stories does David have to share? Grab the book, tune in, and find out!
The new set covers the original, full, 42-volume tankōbon run of the Dragon Ball manga with two versions of its cover art: the dust jacket portrays the 40th Anniversary Tribute “Dragon Ball Super Gallery” submissions by various artists used for the back covers of Shueisha’s Saikyō Jump between 2021 and 2024, while the book itself is printed with the updated version of the original tankōbon cover art that Shueisha began printing in 2009.
The new books come in a four-part box that features both the original and 2009-updated spine art. The box also comes packed with eight dividers and a 42-card set of postcards with both the original and tribute artwork.
Though the original gallery pieces were not printed in any sort of chronological order, the list of artists that correspond to the actual run of 42 volumes in order includes:
Following up on the previously-announced “Summer 2025” timeframe, Bandai Namco has announced that the first pack of the two-part Dragon Ball Daima DLC expansion for Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot will hit 17 July 2025:
The release date applies to all major territories, including North America and Japan.
Unlike past DLC expansions, the title for this pack remains largely the same between its original Japanese (魔界の大冒険! or “Great Adventure in the Demon Realm!”) and its official English title (“Adventure Through The Demon Realm”). The new trailer also reiterates that a “Daima Edition” of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot will be released, which itself includes access to the two-part expansion. Access to just the Daima pack (covering both parts) is priced at $34.99.
Developed by CyberConnect2 for Bandai Namco, the action role-playing game released16 January 2020 in Japan and 17 January 2020 internationally on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC (via Steam). A Nintendo Switch edition came later in September 2021.
Two season passes worth of content — with six individual packs in total — have come out since the game’s release. In the first season pass, the Battle of Gods and Resurrection ‘F’ DLC entries were much shorter with a focus on boss fights and level increases, while the third entry — that of Trunks’ future timeline — told a comprehensive, multi-part story. The second season pass includes entries for the original 1990 Bardock television special, the 23rd Tenka’ichi Budōkai, and the 28th Tenka’ichi Budōkai.
Reviews of the base game, Trunks DLC, Bardock DLC, 23rd Tenka’ichi Budōkai DLC, and 28th Tenka’ichi Budōkai DLC can be found on episodes #0481, #0490, #0497, #0505, and #0509, respectively, of our podcast.
Dragon Ball Daima — whose broadcast concluded back in February with 20 total episodes — was first revealed at New York Comic Con in October 2023 by way of a trailer and comment from original franchise creator Akira Toriyama. The “Daima” in the series’ title is a made-up term, though the individual kanji that make up its spelling would be 大魔; in Toriyama’s own words, …”in English would be something like ‘Evil.'” The series debuted 11 October 2024on Fuji TV in Japan (with multiple worldwide streaming options), and features an original story by series creator Akira Toriyama, character designs by Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, script/composition by Yūko Kakihara, and series co-direction by Yoshitaka Yashima and Aya Komaki.
Episode #0521! Mike speaks with Von from France about the Made in Asia convention from March 2025, which had Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru and Chikashi Kubota in attendance. We get the scoop on some behind-the-scenes production tidbits, pressing fan questions, and a whole lot of great chat about artwork over the years!
