Manga fan competes with official 'Dragon Ball Super' sequel

• Dragon Ball Kakumei

  is a French manga fan who has been pursuing the main plot of the

  Dragon Ball Super

  anime for a year .

• In one year, this manga has accumulated 80.4 million readings in French, English and Portuguese.

• The success of the work is such that many fans consider it better than the official sequel.

One year of monthly publication.

506 pages scripted, drawn, published and nearly 80.4 million readings.

Figures that could very well be those of a serialized professional manga, but it is not.

is the result of the work of Poisson Labo, Renko and Darkows, three French fans of

, Akira Toriyama's famous manga.

This is the unofficial sequel to an official sequel.

A little lost ?

We recap.

An unprecedented success for a French manga fan

This dôjinshi (Japanese word for manga created by fans) project was born in 2018, after the broadcast of the last episode of

, the official sequel to the mainstay of the manga that is

.

Darkows, then a YouTuber specializing in Mangas and a fan of the series, posted an announcement on the forums to continue the story with a manga fan.

He recruits about ten people including Renko and Poisson Labo.

A first version of the project is born, but after two chapters, it stops.

Following the project of @DarkowsOff and his team, Mangadraft has been in PLS for a few days.

That in itself is quite a good thing!

In order to greatly improve the performance, I will invest in a much more powerful server and I will set it up tomorrow if all goes well!

pic.twitter.com/F1Pf6UxEC8

— Mangadraft.com (@Mangadraft) August 28, 2021

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"Two years later, I sent a message to Darkows and Renko to offer them to take over the project as a threesome," says Poisson Labo at

.

The machine is then gradually put in place.

After several months of work, on August 25, 2021, the first chapter of the final version of

is published on Mangadraft.

The success is such that the site could not stand the massive influx of the public and had to upgrade its servers twice.

Never has a fan creation generated so many readings as soon as it is published.

A Japanese publication rhythm for this French manga

"Before, it was casual," recalls Renko with humor.

Now, each member of the trio has a defined and complementary role.

“Darkows and Renko have a Google Doc with the scenario, they write page after page what happens in the chapter, then I adapt during the storyboard before moving on to the final boards”, explains Poisson Labo, 17 years old. .

An effective division of tasks which enabled them to publish ten chapters, the equivalent of two volumes.

The eleventh chapter is currently being written and will be released on August 25.

One year to the day after the start of the adventure.

“At the beginning, we had three chapters in advance, but today we produce one chapter per month, we are on a Japanese publication rhythm”, confides the designer.

A rhythm that requires adapting your work and study time to advance on the boards.

"I found little strategies to free up time for drawing," continues the illustrator.

Everything related to classes, I do it in class, an essay on literature, I can do it during Spanish class (laughs).

Sometimes I print the script and draw the storyboards in high school.

»

The screenwriters are not left out, the writing is done throughout the day: “The Kakumei team is the very example that you always have time to do something, explains Darkows.

Renko works 35 hours a week and I have 40-45 hours at work, but we always have time.

Coming out of the shower, during the lunch break… And it works.

» A sustained rhythm, which requires a break of one month every five chapters, but which is a reason for the success of this dôjinshi.

Dragon Ball Kakumei

succeeds where

Dragon Ball Super

fails

“There is a real artistic approach.

It's not just fans having fun, it's really fans who want to tell something with

"analyzes Alvin Labecot (alias Chef Otaku), youtuber, author of the manga Arena and fan of the first hour of the work of Akira Toriyama.

explores the script elements left aside by the official sequel with maturity and real sincerity.

Conversely,

seems, for Chief Otaku, to have been born of a simple marketing will.

“They are looking to sell miniatures, attacks for cards.

has really become a derivative of a license.

Indeed, the series pays off enormously.

It is the most lucrative license from Toei Animation (Japanese production studio) and Bandaï-Namco (video game and toy empire).

With such economic stakes, the creative aspect of current manga is necessarily limited.

The scenario becomes a tool to allow the characters to unlock new transformations, which are all new designs and therefore new figurines.

Dragon Ball Kakumei Blazes DBS Shamelessly He Does A Monster Job Of Him

— 𝕊𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕤𝕙𝕚 (ℝ𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕞) (@utsusutami) July 11, 2022

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Dragon ball kakumei puts a maddening speed to Dragon ball super and it's made by French people.

pic.twitter.com/LcdBtY1y6u

— Nangaim 🇭🇹 (@nangaim1) June 26, 2022

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Can we compare a fan manga and a professional manga?

“I enjoy reading

more than reading

, of course.

But it's different.

I know the former is a fan manga and enjoys the freedom of a fan manga,” Chief Otaku points out.

This artistic, screenplay and thematic freedom

and its authors, Toyotaro and Akira Toriyama, do not have it.

“Can we really compare?

recalls Darkows.

We are completely free.

We have no marketing constraints, we have no censorship.

We would be in Japan with guys behind our ass checking each board, it would be much more complicated.

We would be less good, I think.

Their only goal is "to make a fan manga for fans".

A dôjinshi which revolutionizes the French fan manga, hence its name which can be translated as Dragon Ball Revolution.

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