Dragon Ball Super: Broly has been one of the most successful movies of the Dragon Ball franchise, and for good reason. The renewed introduction of Broly caught the attention of many fans, and his character development was well-appreciated.
In fact, Akira Toriyama fleshed out the movie so much that the staff were in a major dilemma. Why? Because adapting it whole would have made a short series instead of a movie.
Akira Toriyama’s Screenplay for Dragon Ball Super: Broly Was Cut Short
Tatsuya Nagamine, the director of the Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie, was interviewed in 2018. In the interview, he talked about the intricacies of the movie. The director had an extremely interesting answer when he was asked about his experience with adapting Akira Toriyama‘s screenplay into the movie.
Nagamine admitted that, with the exception of action scenes, they had tried to adapt the rest of the screenplay as it was. Despite wanting to be faithful to the source material, they ran into the obstacle of limited time.
When we first made storyboards for the entire screenplay, a movie that was supposed to only be 90 minutes turned out to be double that length. Enough for two whole movies (laughs).
The director further explained that it was not possible to forcefully smoosh together so much content. If they had done so, it would have looked like a clip show rather than a movie, which would have made the film extremely boring.
Thus, after a consultation with the producers and related staff members, it was decided that the scenes would be cut short as much as possible to bring it down to a proper length.
We’re adamant about delivering as much of Toriyama’s script to viewers as possible, so we were able to extend the run time a little bit.
In the end, the runtime of the movie came down to 100 minutes after the staff tried to honor Toriyama’s script as much as possible.
Broly’s Improved Character in Dragon Ball Super: Broly
According to Tatsuya Nagamine, the first movie in which Broly appeared was directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi, who was Nagamine’s mentor. So when he heard that Broly would appear in a new form under his direction, he did not believe he could one-up his teacher.
However, Akira Toriyama’s script came through the challenge.
Toriyama has imbued Broli with more of a sense of character than he had in the past, so I’m carefully sticking to that basis, and also making sure he’s ridiculously strong.
Nagamine wanted Brol to use a variety of attacks and wanted to make him feel like an overwhelming force.
That intensity led to me drawing lots and lots for the storyboards, and Broli’s action scenes alone grew from 300 to 400 sheets (laughs).
The director holds great respect for Akira Toriyama, and it is visible in the way he treats the mangaka’s scripts.
You can read Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Super on Viz Media and watch the anime on Crunchyroll.
