As hard as it is to believe,Dragon Ballis already 40 years old. Little by little, the franchise is rolling out celebrations for its landmark anniversary. One of the biggest ones, however, was announced this week via theDragon Ballofficial website. Themanga series that started it allis being re-released in a 42-volume box, and every issue comes with two covers: the original one drawn byfranchise creatorAkira Toriyamaand a second one illustrated by a new artist. The massive box is already available for preorder, and the intended release date is June 19, 2025.
The special edition will come in four separate boxes that can be lined up in order to form one big illustration that has the titleDragon Ballmixed withsome of the most popular charactersin the franchise. The celebratory boxes will also come with eight original dividers and a double-sided 42-card set featuring both the original and newly drawn covers in postcard size.
The special covers don’t necessarily recreate the original covers fromDragon Ball, but rather celebrate the legacy of the manga series and allow fans to see a representation of Goku and his friends through the eyes of other famousmangakas. The final issue, for example, was redrawn byOne PiececreatorEiichiro Oda. Other artists that collaborated for the new covers wereYoshihiro Togashi(Hunter x Hunter),Tite Kubo(Bleach),Tatsuki Fujimoto(Chainsaw Man),Takehiko Inoue(Slam Dunk),Gege Akutami(Jujutsu Kaisen),Masashi Kishimoto(Naruto),Kohei Horikoshi(My Hero Academia), and many others. The illustrations used for these double covers were originally drawn for Saikyo Jump’sDragon BallSuper Gallery — a monthly event during which artists were invited to drawDragon Ballvariant covers in their style.
TheDragon Ballmanga was originally published in 1984, and the 42tankōbonvolumes compile all 519 chapters from the story. Because of how big the franchise has become, the original publications are worth huge sums of money these days. Just recently, one edition of the magazine that published the first chapter of the mangawas sold for a whopping $26k— the original cover price of the magazine was a little more than $1.
Even though fans can hardly complain that they don’t have enoughDragon Ballcontent to keep them happy, they are keeping their eyes peeled for any announcements regarding the future of the anime franchise. As popular asDragon Ball DAIMAwas,the new series was planned as a one-and-done deal, so for now we don’t know how Goku and his friends will return to our screens.
TheDragon Ball40th anniversary edition is alreadyavailable for preorder. The box is slated to be released on August 09, 2025.
