Present for over three decades with numerous anime series, movies, and video game series, Dragon Ball is one of the most popular anime franchises by Toei Animation, and their popularity has created an enormous fan base who are immensely dedicated to the franchise.
The studio initially used 2D animation in its series and movies which made the Dragon Ball series nostalgic and gave the series its unique appeal but the studio has been relying on 3D animation now, and they made a bold decision of making Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero solely with 3D animation which was quite a risk because it was their biggest franchise, and everyone in the production studio was unhappy about it.
Tomohiro Hayashida discusses why Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was Made with 3D Animation
Toei Animation is beginning to use more 3D Animation in its movies and they are using this animation style in Dragon Ball movies as well, this technique was briefly seen in the final fight sequence between Gogeta and Broly in Dragon Ball Super: Broly and they liked it so much that they made their newest movie using this technique in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero despite the production team being against it?
Tomohiro Hayashida addressed this problem stating that the production of the DBSSH was so high in 3D that it would have been more cost-effective to make the movie using 2D animation because, they had to make four pilot films, as a result, a number of staff members did not like the idea make the film using 3D animation, but some of the higher-ups in Toei animation told to “try it.”
Chikashi Kubota also stated that staff members who were referenced by Tomohiro Hayashida believed it was a shame that the movie is being created by using 3D animation, and if they used 2D animation techniques, they would have made the animations better. Moreover, using 3D animation delayed the film as it took a year and a half to produce, Kubota compared the duration with One-Punch Man’s season 1 which took him a shorter period of time, that is only six months and six weeks to produce.
What Does Akira Toriyama Think of 3D Animation?
Akira Toriyama, who is the original creator of the Dragon Ball series stated that the higher-ups were keen on trying 3D animation, and they began working on the film in 2014, and Toei Animation made four pilot films and they made each pilot film only after Toriyama checked each version gave the green signal to them.
Out of the four pilot films, Akira Toriyama liked the pilot version that was directed by Tetsuro Kodama, he directed “Dragon Ball Super: Super Heroes” as he got positive feedback such as “If you develop based on this, you may be able to make a good work.” The creator of the series loved this pilot version because it had better “character movement” as compared to the other pilot film variations Toriyama praised Mr. Kodama who has been researching this 3D cel-look animation for ages, and his experience has been put to good use.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero can be streamed on Hulu.
Source: Shueisha
