Highlights
- Theme parks have been popping up for anime and gaming fans in the past five years – from Nintendo World to Studio Ghibli.
- Saudi Arabia will host a Dragon Ball theme park, breaking the trend of these parks being in Japan, offering fans a unique experience.
- The park will be massive, covering over 123 acres with seven themed areas, bringing iconic locations from the franchise to life.
The past five years have been great for anime and gaming fans when it comes to theme parks. First, in March 2021, the Nintendo World part of Universal Studios Japan opened, welcoming fans of Mario and more into a fun playground. Then, in November 2022, the Studio Ghibli theme park opened, letting fans of the beautiful movies step inside of them and experience them firsthand. Nintendo World is in Osaka, Japan, while the Studio Ghibli park in Aichi, Japan.
Now, as reported by the official Dragon Ball website, the next theme park to open for otaku will be a Dragon Ball park. Despite being a Japanese franchise, though, the park will not follow the pattern of other anime and gaming parks, and it will not open in Japan. Instead, it is going to open somewhere you may never have guessed – Saudi Arabia.
A VERY Short History of Dragon Ball
If we went into all the history of the Dragon Ball franchise, you would be reading for a while, so we are just going to go over the basics for anyone who needs to be brought up to speed. Currently, Dragon Ball has 6 anime series with another (Dragon Ball Daima) slated for 2024. There are also 21 movies, numerous video games, card games, and more. The first series, simply called Dragon Ball, aired from 1986 to 1989, and the franchise has been going strong ever since.
Because of its popularity and the sheer number of properties in the franchise, Dragon Ball is one of the highest-grossing franchises of all time. Its manga is also one of the best-selling, with over 420 million copies sold around the world. The franchise has been praised by critics around the world and has even been credited with helping bring anime to the world outside of Japan, and helping spread interest in manga and anime to international audiences due to its popularity and wide reach.
The Dragon Ball Theme Park
The news about the Dragon Ball theme park is still very new, so we do not have many details yet. However, the website has reported a few things to get our imaginations rolling. First, the park is being built by the Saudi Arabian company, Qiddiya Investment Company. It will be the first theme park in the world to be entirely for Dragon Ball, despite the franchise’s long and beloved history internationally.
The Dragon Ball park will reportedly be over 500,000 square meters (around 123.5 acres) when it is completed, with seven different themed areas. To put that into perspective, Tokyo Disneyland is 115 acres, and Universal Studios Japan is 130 acres, of which Nintendo World is only a part. The Dragon Ball park is going to be huge, especially for a park focused on just one franchise!
The Dragon Ball theme park will feature recreations of some of the famous buildings and locations from the franchise, including the Kame House from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, and the Capsule Corporation building, both of which have already been mentioned. The website claims that the park will give fans a chance to immerse themselves in the world of the anime, with series from Dragon Ball to Dragon Ball Super all represented.
A concept video has already been released by the Qiddya group to announce and advertise the park, which is completely in English. The video does not have any real footage of the park yet, but instead uses a mixture of live actors and 3D animation to show the vision the company has for the park. 3D experiences and roller coasters are both featured in the video, and its goal seems to be to create a park where Dragon Ball fans from around the world can come together and have fun. Some of the buildings like the Capsule Corporation are also visible in the video.
There is sadly no date yet for when the park is going to be open, but there are plenty of concept images that you can check out and dream about in the meantime. Considering this is the first piece of news we have had so far about the Dragon Ball theme park, we imagine it is still a long way from opening, but we will be keeping our fingers crossed it opens sooner than we expect. In the meantime, at least we have Dragon Ball Daima to look forward to this year.
Source: Official Website