One of the biggest debates among the Dragon ball fandom, if Dragon Ball GT Whether the anime series should really be considered a classic or not, the answer is at last. The timeline for the full story of the series, provided by Shueisha herself and shown at a 2017 event shocked fans as it also included the events of Dragon Ball GT.
Dragon Ball GT is an anime that debuted in 1996, a year after the Dragon Ball manga ended. Due to the incredible success of the anime adaptation of Akira Toriyama’s masterpiece, Toei Animation decided to create a new anime series based on an original story, with character designs designed by Toriyama. GT has never been considered a standard part of Dragon Ball, but since the story in the anime begins right after the manga ends, exactly five years later, and it uses the same characters, it’s controversial. decades-long has begun among the fans. those who consider GT canon and those who don’t. The launch of Dragon Ball Super, the actual, official sequel to the original series, should have lightened the air, because it’s a completely different story from GT, but things aren’t as simple as they are. So.
Dragon Ball’s publisher made GT Canon with official timeline
In 2022, thanks to fans like @DBGTLegacy, photos have resurfaced on the Internet from the 2017 version of an event called Dragon Ball Tenkaichi Budosai, a Japanese festival dedicated to the series, including an exhibit on the history of Dragon Ball. Shueisha, the manga publisher, provided the official Dragon Ball Timesheet and surprised everyone, which not only includes the events shown in Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super but also including the events of Dragon Ball GT, complete with images of the most popular characters from the anime, such as Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta, as well as future descendants of Goku and Vegeta. This is possible because of the fact that Dragon Ball Super takes place right after the end of Z, while GT is set 5 years later, so the timeline remains coherent up to the present time.
In the timeline, Dragon Ball GT takes place between 789 and 889 according to the Dragon Ball calendar (for reference, the battle with Frieza on Namek took place in 762). However, this is not the first time GT has been considered a standard part of the franchise. In 2013, the timeline was included in Chouzenshuu 4: Dragon Ball Super Encyclopedia, an illustrated guidebook to the franchise, identical to the timeline used for the Akira Toriyama: The art exhibition World of DRAGON BALL is held in Tokyo and Osaka. Both timelines cover events in Dragon Ball GT, so the timeline used in 2017’s Budosai is just further confirmation that, according to Toriyama and Shueisha, owners of the franchise , this much criticized anime is truly a classic.
Even Akira Toriyama considers the GT “Canon”
In fact, one of the reasons many fans don’t want to consider GT as part of the norm is because anime is the least underrated part of the Dragon Ball saga, bringing significant changes to the franchises. famous characters and introduce rare new characters. success. However, Toriyama himself has stated that GT is “a small part of the Dragon Ball story” and was personally involved in some of its creation. Perhaps the best answer might be that GT actually takes place in a parallel universe, a concept that was introduced in Dragon Ball Super. Super Saiyan 4 also appears in Super Dragon Ball Heroes, a manga set in another universe. Until there is an official statement to the contrary by Toriyama or Shueisha, fans of Dragon ball should consider Dragon Ball GTits story as a classic part of the franchise, as this official timeline proves.
Source: @DBGTLegacy.
