Our latest translation for the archive comes courtesy of 2005’s penultimate Dragon Box release in Japan: the Dragon Ball GT television series.

In a special “GT Back Then” interview, producer Kōzō Morishita speaks about the sequel series’ original concepts, gradual transitions, and simultaneously treading of both new and old ground.

In light of recent products like Battle of Gods, Resurrection ‘F’, and Dragon Ball Super, it may be interesting to hear that the original idea for Dragon Ball GT was also to exploit the large gap of time seen in the original series between the defeat of Boo and the 28th Tenka’ichi Budōkai:

The last chapter of the original manga is set ten years after the battle with Majin Boo, so initially the idea was to have anime-original stories depicting the events of those ten years, and various such stories were planned out. Content-wise it was thought that the plot would revolve around the exploits of characters such as Pan or Trunks; in other words, the next generation of children.

Equally interesting in light of the current Universe Survival arc in the Dragon Ball Super television series, Morishita speaks to the idea of an ever-growing universe and cast of characters:

When it came to the problem of a sense of scale, outer space was better than the Earth, and the worldview of the original manga was vast enough to allow any sort of character to turn up there. If we could continue it out there, then the series could keep on going for another 10 or 20 years (laughs). With all that in mind, we made space the setting.

Morishita also candidly speaks about the series’ sometimes divisive response among fans and critics and its inevitable comparisons to Toriyama’s original work:

There were many fans who valued it for the way that it took the “anything goes” plot progression of the original manga and went even further with it. At the same time, there were those who said it took the “anything goes” attitude too far. There were fans who wondered “why are you ruining the original?” and also those who thought that the “ruined” parts were what made it interesting. Perhaps Dragon Ball GT pushed away some of those who had been fans from the very beginning of the manga’s run, but it also created many new fans, and maybe Goku has been very important to them too. Thinking about it now, perhaps Dragon Ball GT appears separate from the sense of security of a “Akira Toriyama work”.

This interview has been archived in our “Translations” section. Some suggested reading after checking out this 2005 Morishita interview:

Stay tuned for additional (old!) translation work in the near future, including (perhaps…?!) more from the Dragon Ball GT Dragon Box release.