Either the Dragon Ball franchise has unveiled some next-level marketing or the Saiyans have arrived to conquer Earth.
At least, that is what fans of the classic anime have speculated after a mysterious ball washed up on a beach in Hamamatsu City, Japan earlier this week. Authorities have yet to determine what the sphere is, only that it is made of rusted metal and that it seems to be entirely empty, but Twitter has been quick to point out its striking resemblance to Dragon Ball’s “Saiyan Pods.” Also referred to as “Attack Balls” or “Uchū Poddo,” in the anime, the Saiyans used round spacecrafts for intergalactic travel while seeking out distant worlds to conquer or destroy. They were used throughout the series by some of its most iconic characters, including Vegeta, Broly and protagonist Son Goku.
While in the Dragon Ball world, the arrival of a Saiyan Pod is bad news, anime fans have been sharing some lighthearted fun with this particular story. Theories have ranged from Raditz searching for Goku, to the sphere actually being the “Rolling Stone” stand from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, with tweets warning people not to touch the cursed sculpture. Meanwhile, some of the more pessimistic anime fans on Twitter have proposed that the ball is a Godzilla egg or one of the black spheres from the psychological horror anime Gantz. A few party poopers have pointed out that the object is almost certainly an old oil drum or naval mine, and not a sign of extraterrestrial life or anime crossing over into the real world, but the realists haven’t stopped the flow of theories and memes rolling in from the online otaku community.
Dragon Ball Z Meets One Piece
Real-life Saiyan Pods aside, Dragon Ball made the news recently with the announcement of its One Piece x Toriko crossover episode, which will finally debut in English on Adult Swim. The special first aired in Japan way back in 2013 but has been unavailable on North American streaming services like Crunchyroll and Hulu for nearly a decade. According to One Piece studio Toei, English language fans can catch the crossover during the Adult Swim Toonami block on Saturday, March 4. Getting the special on the air has been celebrated as a major victory by Toonami staff like co-creator Jason DeMarco in the wake of the Warner Bros. Discovery content purge.
Even if fans can’t catch the crossover episode, the rest of Dragon Ball Z, as well as the follow-up series Dragon Ball Super, is available to stream on Crunchyroll.
Source: Twitter
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