Chikashi Kubota, the animation director of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero movie, while speaking at the recent Japan Expo held in France, made a big behind-the-scene revelation regarding the movie’s animation style.

He said that Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was initially planned to be created using only 3D elements, and he was not at all impressed with that aspect of it. Kubota felt this was a “shame”.

Naturally, he put out a condition regarding his participation in the film. He wanted to add some 2D sequences to the animation of the movie. And in the end, the producers agreed, which resulted in the movie getting a 2D animated flashback at the start of film.

According to Kubota, it is easier to put in more emotions and make the animation more expressive using 2D sketches.

By making this choice, Chikashi put himself on an edge as the deadline was getting closer, and he had to make a lot of corrections, by checking the movie cuts one by one, in addition to drawing the 2D parts himself.

But unfortunately for Toei and fortunately for him, the animation studio was hacked, buying him 2 more months to work on the movie, giving it the final touches it much needed. He also mentioned that he doesn’t understand the power levels in Dragon Ball and that his job is to make them seem powerful on screen.

Chikashi further added that if Toei ever considers to make a remake of Dragon Ball by diving into to the series’ past, he wanted to be a part of it.

Kubota’s next project is an original animated film, which he wishes for his son to see. Before he was passionate about Dragon Ball, he was drawing Doraemon or Per-man.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, directed by Tetsuro Kodama, produced by Toei Animation and written by Dragon Ball series creator Akira Toriyama, released in Japan on June 11, 2022. It is the twenty-first Dragon Ball feature film.

It took one and half years to produce DBS: Super Hero movie.

The film grossed $86.6 million worldwide, becoming the second-highest grossing Dragon Ball film to date.

Source: Twitter