In an exciting addition to the Dragon Ball Super Project Gallery, Jujutsu Kaisen creator Gege Akutami gets a chance to put his spin on the iconic manga. While Akutami and Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama are vastly different creative minds, both share a love and skill for depicting deliciously mesmerizing fight scenes.
In celebration of Dragon Ball’s 40th anniversary, Jujutsu Kaisen creator Gege Akutami redrew the cover of Dragon Ball volume #41. Akutami’s finished work appeared on the back cover of the November 2023 issue of Saikyo Jump. Saikyo Jump is a sister publication of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The cover depicting Buu laughing at Piccolo can be seen in a post by X user Shonen Jump News.
Saikyo Jump launched the Dragon Ball Super Gallery in August 2021 to commemorate the series’ upcoming fortieth anniversary in November 2024. According to the Dragon Ball Wiki, Akutami sais of his interest in Dragon Ball and his opportunity to participate in the Dragon Ball Super Gallery:
Manga Artists Unite To Celebrate Dragon Ball
Each month, for the 40 months between the beginning and end of the project, a different mangaka will present their interpretation of the Dragon Ball Tankoban volume covers. These volumes, which were printed in 2009, are themselves an update to the original 42-bound volume covers of the 1990s. It is important to note that because Dragon Ball distribution in the United States splits the original saga into Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z – volume numbering for the Dragon Ball Super Gallery is different. For instance, the redrawn cover for Dragon Ball Volume #17 is, for American fans, the redrawn cover of Dragon Ball Z Volume #1.
A Shared Interest In Fighters And Facial Expressions
The index of creators and artists who have already participated in the project is like a who’s-who list of the manga industry’s best and brightest. The very first entry in the project was submitted by none other than Naruto / Boruto creator Masashi Kishimoto. Other notables who have already participated in the project include Demon Slayer‘s Koyohru Gotouge, Spy x Family‘s Tatsuya Endo, and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s Hirohiko Araki.
For fans of battle manga, few participants are more intriguing than Akutami. This is due to the fact that Akutami and Toriyama are two of the best in the business when it comes to visually recreating fighting and the facial expressions of fighters. As such, even without redrawing a cover, comparisons between their two sides have long been a topic of discussion between their fandoms.
Akutami is the 28th mangaka to contribute to the project, which means he only had 15 of the remaining covers to choose from. However, the covers for Volume #30 (DBZ Volume #14) and Volume #41 (DBZ Volume #25) seemed particularly good matches for comparison. Akutami ended up choosing Volume #41’s cover and took it in a much different direction than Toriyama’s classic 3×3 character portraits. Now, fans of both Dragon Ball and Jujutsu Kaisen will finally be able to compare the artistic expression of both creators – side-by-side.
Dragon Ball Super
Dragon Ball Super is a sequel to the original Dragon Ball series as well as the fan-favorite Dragon Ball Z anime. Dragon Ball Super takes place ten years after Majin Buu is defeated and follows Goku and his friends on all-new adventures. Much like its predecessors, Dragon Ball Super was praised throughout its 131 episodes.
