Next Time on Dragon Ball

Playing with a Manga and Anime Franchise

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by Vincent Haddad

Type

Stories

Subject

One Film > Dragon Ball (TV Series)

Keywords

animation, TV Series, franchise

Publishing date

2026 (August 18, 2026)

Publisher

University of Minnesota Press

Collection

Mass Markets: Storyworlds Across Media

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 248 pages
6 x 8 inches (15 x 20.5 cm)

ISBN

978-1-5179-1955-9

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Book Presentation:
How media production and fan play interact to shape the aesthetics of a global anime franchise

Since its debut in 1984, Dragon Ball has become one of the most popular, influential, and lucrative media franchises in the world. In Next Time on Dragon Ball, Vincent Haddad investigates how the franchise has maintained huge global demand despite its formulaic plotlines. Examining its exhaustive repetition of storytelling forms across comics, TV series, games, and merchandise, Haddad argues that the convergence of play, fandom, and narrative made Dragon Ball an unlikely success―and a harbinger of broader shifts in the media landscape of franchises from the 1980s to the present.

Haddad conceives of Dragon Ball as a “franchise toy,” a corporate media property that is constantly remixed by its fans in ways that its owners resist but also ultimately embrace: appropriation is essential to the franchise’s popularity. Over the past forty years, Haddad argues, Dragon Ball’s deployment of familiar tropes, cultural references, and narrative forms―from classical Chinese stories and the films of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan to American franchises like Superman and Star Wars―has invited unique transcultural play. Through diverse examples of how fans use its characters as “playthings,” Haddad shows how Dragon Ball travels across international networked fandoms, highlighting the queer, gendered, and racialized dimensions of this play.

Parsing the dynamics of “sites of conflict” between authorized media and fan content, Next Time on Dragon Ball illuminates how fan engagement across the Americas changes the parameters of what a manga and anime franchise is and can be.

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About the Author:
Vincent Haddad is associate professor of English at Central State University. He is author of The Detroit Genre: Race, Dispossession, and Resilience in American Literature and Film, 1967–2023.

Press Reviews:
"Vincent Haddad’s study of Dragon Ball’s global circulation will become a foundational work for transnational media studies. But at times it’s possible to forget how much painstaking research and quirky theorizing went into this book because it’s so damn entertaining. Next Time on Dragon Ball feels like a (hugely knowledgeable) fan talking to other fans, and it will appeal to academic and popular audiences alike." ―Andrew Hoberek, author of Considering Watchmen: Poetics, Property, Politics

"Next Time on Dragon Ball takes stock of the complexities and interdependencies of the Dragon Ball series, exploring theories of play, ‘transculturation,’ the ways fans interact with the original material, and how a series originally targeted at children has become popular to the point of obsession among adults. With close readings of presentations of gender, sexuality, and race, Vincent Haddad offers an impressive, exemplary work of cultural criticism and analysis." ―Steven Shaviro, author of Fluid Futures: Science Fiction and Potentiality

See the publisher website: University of Minnesota Press

See Dragon Ball (TV Series) (1986-1989) on IMDB ...