Bandai revealed a new set of Dragon Ball shikishi boards.
The new set of collectible mini-prints were shared online by Twitter user @Baggie_Saiyan, who frequently posts about new Dragon Ball merchandise. The images showcase several new Dragon Ball portraits that will appear in Bandai's next wave of official shikishi boards. The art spans several decades of Dragon Ball history, from a new piece that shows Goku and a young Gohan enjoying a trip on the Flying Nimbus, to portraits of Broly and Super Saiyan Blue Gogeta from the Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie.
Yoooo the new Shikishi Art is sick!! pic.twitter.com/rLJxb5X82M
— Baggie S (@Baggie_Saiyan) February 18, 2022
Shikishi boards feature original art printed on high quality "shikishi" card stock. In recent years, boards with official art printed on them have become a popular collectible among anime fans, as the prints are generally of a higher quality than a standard paper poster or fabric wall scroll. Bandai has released multiple waves of original Dragon Ball art on mini shikishi boards in recent years. Bandai's shikishi boards haven't been given an official release outside of Japan, though they are available online through numerous import and specialty retailers.
The shikishi boards are just part of the multi-million dollar merchandising machine that Dragon Ball has spawned, which also includes video games, apparel, food, and an endless stream of new action figures, figurines and statues. The new boards are just one of the many products the Japanese toy giant is releasing this year to tie-in with the franchise's next movie, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, which is scheduled to premiere in Japan on April 22. An international release date for the movie has yet to be announced, but the film's producers previously promised that the wait between its Japanese premiere and its global release would be as short as possible.
Dragon Ball originally premiered in 1984, and was created by Akira Toriyama, who previously achieved great success in Japan with his comedic manga Dr. Slump. Dr. Slump's popularity would eventually be eclipsed by Dragon Ball, however, as in the almost four decades since its debut, Toriyama's imaginative take on the class Journey to the West story has become one of the most beloved and influential anime and manga franchises of all time. It is the third best-selling manga series in history, with over 260 million copies in circulation worldwide, and is widely cited as a key influence to the generations of shonen manga that came after it. The series' second anime adaptation, Dragon Ball Z, was one of the breakthrough anime series of the 1990s and is credited with helping to popularize anime with mainstream audiences around the world.
Source: Twitter
