The Dragon Ball Super Gallery Project has released a new manga cover from Spy X Family creator Tatsuya Endo.
Endo recreated the cover for the original Dragon Ball manga's 15th collected volume, which shows Goku and his best friend Krillin enjoying a joyride in a classically styled race car. The volume was originally released in Japan in 1988 and deals with Goku and Tien Shinhan's on-going battles with the assassin Tao Pai Pai. While some of the other artists who have participated in the Dragon Ball Super Gallery Project, such as Demon Slayer creator Koyoharu Gotouge, have used Akira Toriyama's original covers as a loose inspiration for their tributes, it seems as though Endo opted for a more faithful rendition of Toriyama's original work, maintaining the subject matter and composition of the original cover while simply redrawing the characters in his own iconic style.
DRAGON BALL Volume 15 by Tatsuya Endo (SPYxFAMILY).
— Shonen Jump News - Unofficial (@WSJ_manga) March 3, 2022
This is part of the DRAGON BALL Super Gallery Project to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the series. Every month, different mangaka will redesign one of the 42 covers of the series until November 2024. pic.twitter.com/tq5INQB1az
The Dragon Ball Super Gallery Project was started by Weekly Shonen Jump publisher Shueisha to celebrate the upcoming 40th anniversary of Dragon Ball's 1984 debut. Shueisha has selected Japan's top manga artists to redraw the 42 covers from Toriyama's celebrated martial arts epic, and has been releasing a new cover every month. The celebration will conclude with the release of the 42nd piece of art in November 2024. Previous artists who have released illustrations as part of the project include Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto, Bleach's Tite Kubo, Beelzebub creator Ryuhei Tamura and Chainsaw Man and Look Back creator Tatsuki Fujimoto. The previous cover came from Kenta Shinohara, the writer and illustrator behind the comedy series Sket Dance, who redrew Volume 9's art, which features a young Goku and Bulma riding some sort of dinosaur creature.
Tatsuya Endo is best known for creating Spy X Family, an espionage-themed comedy that has been one of the biggest hits to emerge from Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ digital manga service. The manga has sold over 12.5 million copies worldwide and is currently being adapted into an anime series by Wit Studio (Ranking of Kings) and CloverWorks (My Dress-up Darling).
The classic Dragon Ball manga, as well as its on-going sequel series, Dragon Ball Super, are both available in English from VIZ Media. The next animated entry in the long-running franchise, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, is scheduled to be released in North America next summer.
The Spy X Family manga is also available in English from VIZ Media. The anime is scheduled to premiere in April, and Crunchyroll has announced plans to stream the series outside of Japan.
Source: Twitter
