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The story
Signs have emerged that the Dragon Ball theme park planned for France may not have obtained approval from the rights holders. On 5ch, discussion centered on its relationship to the earlier Saudi Arabia project — officially announced by Toei two years ago — and on which party actually holds the copyright: Toriyama Akira’s family, Shueisha, or Kodansha.
What people said
A state-backed scam still isn't a crime.
Obviously Capsule Corp is the rights holder. Couldn't be more obvious. (joking — Capsule Corp is the fictional company from the show)
It's Toriyama's own company, right? I don't think even Shueisha has a hand in it.
You really think something from 500 years ago still has copyright?
The real question is whether Wu Cheng'en got permission from Yu the Great before using the staff in Journey to the West.
Sure, there's no copyright — but that doesn't automatically mean it's fine to use it freely and profit off it.
Plenty of works are based on stuff whose copyright has already expired though.
By that logic you'd have to call out every piece of fiction that freely uses King Arthur or mythology — sounds exhausting. One Piece borrows mythology names without permission too, you know.
That's like Tokyo Disney Resort building Shanghai Disney without asking the American Disney for permission. (a jokingly absurd comparison)
I'd like to believe negotiations were going well enough that they just went ahead and announced it a little early.
China's the one whose reputation is climbing the most right now.
Re: #41
So the point is, isn't this much still fine?
Dragon Ball is copyrighted, so no, that's not how it works, kid.
Do you have any idea how much Dragon Ball rakes in every year?
They'll just have to eat the loss quietly, gramps. (i.e., no real recourse)
Ah, okay… if that's what you believe, sure, whatever you say.
What do you mean 'normally'? And assuming they'd just roll over and cry about it is weird too.
Depends on the contract terms. If the rights holder messed up, it's possible blanket overseas-expansion rights got granted. Though I doubt that would happen these days.
It's 70 years — but wasn't the old black-and-white Disney stuff already copyright-free?
Japan doesn't have that kind of money. And foreigners get nothing out of building it in Japan, so of course they won't. Pretty obvious, really.
It could pull visitors away from Disney and USJ, so that country won't allow it to happen.
And thus, Barbapapa Land is born! (Barbapapa — a classic French children's cartoon)
Kodansha making bank off this, lol.
Background and Key Points
Signs Emerge That France’s Dragon Ball Theme Park Doesn’t Have Rights Holder Approval
The background here is that Dragon Ball’s rights aren’t held by a single company. Author Toriyama Akira died in March 2024, and Dragon Ball’s IP now runs through several separate parties: Toriyama’s own production company (Bird Studio), publisher Shueisha (which serialized the manga in Weekly Shōnen Jump), and Toei Animation, which produces and licenses the anime for overseas ventures. A Saudi Arabia-based Dragon Ball theme park was already confirmed by Toei roughly two years before this news, and the same Saudi company is reportedly tied to the new French park — which is why posters read the French project as a probable extension of an existing, already-negotiated deal rather than a rogue unlicensed venture. Under Japanese copyright law (and the Berne Convention baseline both France and Japan follow), protection runs 70 years after the creator’s death, so Toriyama’s death does not put the work anywhere near the public domain — a point the thread had to correct itself on.
Where the thread actually splits is over intent versus procedure: some posters treat “no approval yet” as proof of a scam or unauthorized cash grab, while others argue it’s simply an announcement that got ahead of paperwork, pointing to the existing Toei-Saudi relationship and Dragon Ball’s own official site already referencing a theme park as evidence a deal is effectively in motion.
What the thread never nails down, and what readers should know, is who actually controls merchandising and location licensing versus animation production rights — these are frequently split rights in anime IP, meaning “Toei announced it” and “the rights holder approved it” are not necessarily the same thing, and the confusion in the thread over Kodansha, Shueisha, and even Sega reflects that murkiness rather than any confirmed fact.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Live News G) thread “[Sad News] Signs Emerge That France’s Dragon Ball Theme Park Doesn’t Have Rights Holder Approval”.
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