Saudi Arabia Is Getting A 125-Acre ‘Dragon Ball’ Theme Park
Saudi Arabia’s Qiddiya Investment Company has revealed that it plans to build the world’s first Dragon Ball theme park.
The park is being developed as part of a giga-project sponsored by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), established to diversify the region’s economy away from fossil fuels. Other areas that have received significant backing from PIF include real estate, tourism, sports, and entertainment. For example, PIF owns a 6.03% stake in Japanese One Piece producer Toei Company.
PIF projects are often scrutinized by Western media and accused of having the dual purpose of whitewashing Saudi Arabia’s grim human rights record by exploiting popular culture from other parts of the world.
The announcement of the Dragon Ball park comes just weeks after Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama’s death on March 1 from a subdural hematoma. The level of detail in today’s announcement and accompanying assets makes it clear that plans for the park have been around since before Toriyama’s passing.
Among the assets accompanying today’s announcement, the investment group released a brief teaser video featuring Dragon Ball fans from around the world making the trip to a cg-animated concept of the park.
The release also included several concept art images.
According to the company, the park will cover over 500,000 square meters (around 125 recreating the most recognizable locations from the original series. Included among them will be the Kame House, Capsule Corporation, and Beerus’ Planet.
The park will house five rides and more than 30 attractions featuring Dragon Ball characters and iconography, including a 230-foot-tall statue of Shenron, the wish-granting dragon at the heart of the show’s main storylines. The statue will integrate a rollercoaster, as seen in the video above.
In addition to the park’s rides and attractions, Qidiiya plans to build themed hotels and restaurants to house and feed its guests.
Dragon Ball is arguably the most popular and influential anime franchise of all time and spearheaded a rise in the art form’s mainstream popularity in the West.
Toriyama created the Dragon Ball universe in 1983 with the two-part story Dragon Boy, published in Fresh Jump’s August and October issues. The comics were well received immediately, and a year later, elements of Dragon Boy and another Toriyama one-off strip titled The Adventure of Tongpoo became Dragon Ball, which was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995.
Over 11 years, Toriyama produced 519 chapters of Dragon Ball, which were collected into 42 volumes. The series is one of the best-selling manga ever and has sold over 260 million copies worldwide, leading to spinoffs, adaptations, video games, and a major merchandise empire.
Iconic Japanese studio Toei Animation adapted the stories into the anime tv series Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Z Kai, and Dragon Ball Super. The studio has also made several feature films and specials based on the franchise, making it one of the highest-grossing Japanese animated franchises of all time.