“Dragon Ball Hoshi is the new official Dragon Ball series.”

Have you heard of this before? The internet is abuzz.

In this Google Trends image you can see that searches for “dragon ball hoshi” became a noticeable trend in July, 2011. Searches rose sharply in August before taking a dip, and then increased dramatically in early November to December.

So what is it about? Is it even real?

Today you’ll learn what Dragon Ball Hoshi truly is and find out why it matters so much to Dragon Ball fans!

What is Dragon Ball Hoshi?

The official FUNimation forum has the first verifiable post discussing Dragon Ball Hoshi on June 10, 2011. It states that other forums had been discussing it for a while, and traces it back to a DeviantArt profile that has since been deactivated, named “Goku9.”

Here is the exact rumor often added to YouTube video descriptions.

“Akira Toriyama is to be making a new Dragon Ball series alongside mangaka Naho Ooishi, the creator of the 2008 Dragon Ball Z special, “Yo! Son Goku and Friends Return,” called Dragon Ball Hoshi. Ooishi will be making a manga that continues the Z Manga past the Buu saga. It will have a newly designed Super Saiyan 4, and even a Super Saiyan 5. Akira Toriyama will be assisting her and backing off. The events in Japan (earthquake, tsunami) slowed this down. Now Toriyama is taking care of that. Launch in 2012, 2013.”

Wow, a new Dragon Ball series?! Time to get excited!!

But wait, hold on. There are a few problems with this rumor.

The first is that it’s an outright lie in every single way!

It’s not mere speculation or even grapevine gossip originating from an official source. It’s a bold faced lie! None of it is true.

The second is that it would be illogical for Toei to announce “a newly designed Super Saiyan 4, and even a Super Saiyan 5” before it actually appears in a new series, as this would ruin the story, build up and development of the characters. They would lose viewership and profits.

The third is that you can be guaranteed that a new Toei produced Dragon Ball series would have an extremely specific launch date. Not some vague “in a year or two” like we’ve been hearing about the rumored Dragon Ball AF over the last 15 years.

There would also be an enormous marketing push, with press releases, media coverage, and so on. None of this has happened.

To state clearly, there have been no official announcements of any kind regarding Dragon Ball Hoshi or this rumor.

But that hasn’t stopped people from looking for Dragon Ball Hoshi news.

According to Google AdWords Keywords Tool, there were an average of 49,500 global monthly searches for “dragon ball hoshi” over the last 12 months and 18,100 for “new dragon ball series.” But because these numbers are an average, and the number has recently risen sharply, I believe the current numbers are higher.

In short, a lot of people are hearing the Dragon Ball Hoshi rumor and looking for news on the internet.

What are they finding and then sharing with others?

Let’s take a look.

Dragon Ball Heroes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7fHmw6pQUo

This is labeled “New Series Dragon Ball 2012 Hoshi *All Trailer* Original”

What is it really?

Dragon Ball Heroes, an arcade game in Japan where players insert collectible cards to perform moves or summon allies.

The game has had several big marketing pushes, each one accompanied by a short promotional video with newly animated scenes, like you see above.

Did you notice that the singer continuously repeats the jingle, “Dragon Ball Heroes,” as the videos play? This is because it’s the name of the game, Dragon Ball Heroes. NOT Dragon Ball Hoshi.

As you’ll find with most of these videos, they are missing the beginning and ending. This is done on purpose so that you don’t see the title cards and identify what the animation really belongs to.

The main character of Dragon Ball Heroes, named Hero, is the one you repeatedly see interacting with Goku. He’s a new character made specifically for this game.

Most of the videos you’ll see here are by the same small group of people, primarily the YouTube users “DragonBallHoshi1,” “SuperDragonBallAf2” and “DBHoshi.” They may even be the same person, as the videos have the same descriptions.

They have created multiple videos with misleading titles, all aimed at building up hype and confusing viewers.

Sometimes if you try to comment on their videos to tell people the truth, the comment has to be approved first, and it never will be. Only the “I’m so excited” and “Dragon Ball Hoshi looks awesome!” type of comments are approved. Or comments are disabled outright.

This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi.

Dragon Ball Online

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph9ZY2C5E3Q

This video is labeled “Dragon Ball Hoshi New Series 2013 Original.” It has 1.4 million views.

And you know what it really is? It’s the intro to Dragon Ball Online, the new MMO currently being played in Korea and Taiwan.

Dragon Ball Online is an official video game that continues the canon Dragon Ball story. It takes place after the end of the original Dragon Ball manga (DBZ anime), and completely ignores Dragon Ball GT.

Akira Toriyama is involved in its production. He spent over 5 years working on the character and world designs.

The game is massively multiplayer and allows you to select from several races and classes from within the Dragon World, including some new ones, and then train them to have different skills. You take your character and go on adventures, team up with others, make friends, and chase after the dragon balls.

An English release has not been announced, but there are English modifications that allow you to play the Korean version.

This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi

Yo! Son Goku and Friends Return

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu1oMJ6LrIw

This video is labeled “New Series Dragon Ball Hoshi 2012.”

It’s actually “Yo! Son Goku and Friends Return,” an animated special from 2008 in Japan. It tells a short story about Goku and his friends battling against a new bad guy and introduces Vegeta’s long lost younger brother, Tarble.

This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi.

Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Tenkaichi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AplTH454H7c

Here’s one called “New Series Dragon Ball 2012 (Dragon Ball Hoshi) Real Full HD).” It has 2.8 million views.

What is it?

It’s the opening for Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Tenkaichi [aff] in slow motion, because apparently that makes it better.

The two characters fighting Goku are personifications of the types of characters you can create in the Hero character customization mode.

This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi.

The Episode of Bardock

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIoxUjhjiBc

This video is titled “New Series Dragon Ball Hoshi Episodes 1 Real Full HD 1080p.” It has 214,000 views.

But what is it really?

The Episode of Bardock.

A single animated episode based on the 3 chapter manga created by Naho Ooishi, that tells an alternative story of what happened to Bardock after Freeza killed him and all the other Saiyans.

Instead of dying, Bardock goes back in time and faces off against Chilled, Freeza’s predecessor. In the process, he becomes a Super Saiyan.

The manga had appeared in V-Jump, Shueisha’s Video Game magazine, between August to October, 2011.

Why a video game magazine? Because Bardock was going to be transformed into a Super Saiyan for the very first time in the new update of Dragon Ball Heroes, the arcade game mentioned above.

As you can see in this image, Bardock, Chilled, Freeza and King Cold are positioned next to the Dragon Ball Heroes arcade unit.

The Episode of Bardock premiered in Japan during the Jump Festa event from December 18 to 19, 2011. It then streamed live on Bandai’s website for another week.

These guys on YouTube recorded the stream, added subtitles, and then labeled it Dragon Ball Hoshi.

This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi.

The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans

Want the official version of The Episode of Bardock? It was distributed on a disc as a bonus in the March 2012 issue of Monthly Saikyo Jump, published by Shueisha.

Also included on the disc is the recently re-animated film, The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans. This is a special film that originally appeared as animated clips on a Dragon Ball video game for the Playdia console in Japan in 1993, called Zetsumetsu Keikaku (Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans).

The scenes were reanimated as a bonus for Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 [aff] on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and this is the first time it has been published outside of the game.

This film was also streamed online, on Sheuisha’s Official V-Jump Website. But it’s region blocked for those in other countries.

Naturally, The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans is also passed off as Dragon Ball Hoshi, as you can see in this clip where they overlaid all the sound with Dragon Ball Heroes music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cqm6cPZPCE

This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi.

Dragon Ball SD

The first issue of Monthly Saikyo Jump was also the premiere of a new, official, Dragon Ball manga, called Dragon Ball SD.

This one is actually real!

The manga is done by Naho Ooishi, with supervision by Akira Toriyama. The series retells key moments of the Dragon Ball series in a SD (Super Deformed) style, where the characters are shrunk down and cute. It’s made to appeal to little kids.

Saikyo Jump was released as a quarterly magazine for 1 whole year before it turned monthly on December 3, 2011. The Dragon Ball SD manga therefore had 4 chapters. The story retold Goku’s training with Kame Sennin, his fight against Freeza, against Cell, and against Majin Buu.

Now that it has appeared monthly, it has returned to the beginning of Dragon Ball and is retelling the story in a cute style.

It’s unknown how many issues are planned.

Luckily nobody is trying to pass this off as Dragon Ball Hoshi because it’s a manga. But just to make it clear…

This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi.

Dragon Ball SSSS

In early January, Bandai announced a new project called SSSS, which stands for Saikyou Super Saiyan Secret.

This is a collaborative project with Toei to do cross promotional Dragon Ball video games and animation. The streaming of Episode of Bardock was the first result, and they are working on new video game titles.

Since it’s a secret, very little else is known.

There are already videos out there being titled SSSS that consist of other content. So don’t be fooled in the future when you see more.

This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi.

Why does Dragon Ball Hoshi Matter?

By now it should be obvious that Dragon Ball Hoshi is none of the things you’ve seen above.

So I’m sure you’re dying to know, what IS Dragon Ball Hoshi?

The truth is that there is no such thing as Dragon Ball Hoshi. It was a lie from the beginning!

That’s right, the cake is a lie!

Dragon Ball Hoshi merely consists of recycled clips from other Dragon Ball properties. That’s why most of them are so shallow and there are never any title screens.

It’s not even a fan made creation like Dragon Ball AF, where people have created new characters, illustrations, manga, action figures, original videos, and even video game modifications.

Nor is Hoshi like the other fan creations, Dragon Ball AE, Ultimate Z , V, SF, X, Absalon, Neo, or H, that contain stories or illustrations.

Dragon Ball Hoshi is nothing. It is an empty name devoid of substance.

Dragon Ball Hoshi only matters because it exists so prevalently.

Put an End to Wild Rumors

Even with Dragon Ball Hoshi clearly explained, you may still wonder, “Why then is there all this content on the internet labeled as Dragon Ball Hoshi, and so many people talking about it?”

I would ask, “How can something so fake still fool so many people?”

Is it because of the animation quality? Because of the crafty editing and withholding of valuable information? Because of the deceptive lies?

Sure, these contribute. But the real reason is because Dragon Ball fans inherently WANT to believe that there will be a new Dragon Ball series.

Deep in their hearts they seek to relive the same experiences from the first time through Dragon Ball, and they want to reconnect with their favorite characters. Everybody wants a new Dragon Ball series!

Dragon Ball is still relevant to its fans, and the new releases of films, video games, and re-animated works like Dragon Ball Kai continue to excite their interests without fully satiating them.

Unfortunately, just like those who promulgate Dragon Ball AF as the next official series, these YouTube guys are con-artists and attention seekers. They either want you to click on whatever they are advertising, or watch their videos and be fooled into believing it so they can get a laugh.

Or they’re just plain dumb and honestly don’t know what they’re doing.

Just look at this conversation on the unofficial Dragon Ball Hoshi Facebook page, which has 3,858 likes.

Mason says, “They are making a new dbz series.” Robin replies, “Mason, they are not..” and the owner of the page says, “if dragon ball hoshi was fake than why did they make it. Common sence if i was fake i wouldn’t of putting this page in the first place. Duhhhh.”

Yeah. I rest my case.

The same thing happened with AF between 1999 and today.

To point, the Dragon Ball Hoshi rumor is so prevalent because once a rumor is started on the internet, it’s hard to kill.

Spreading rumors and gossip is wrong in the first place, and knowledge of truth is the remedy. So now that you know, please stop believing and telling others about it.

There is no value to Dragon Ball Hoshi’s existence.

Unless a new Dragon Ball series is finally made, the rumors may never die. But let’s try to end them, shall we?

When official news comes down the pipeline you’ll be sure to see it across the web on legitimate news sources. There’s no need to make up stories.

Remember, all you have to do the next time you see something labeled as Dragon Ball Hoshi, is close your eyes, tap your heels together three times, and think to yourself…

“This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi. This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi. This is not Dragon Ball Hoshi.”

Then you’ll be whisked away by Kinto’un and magically wake up from this illusory dream.

Follow Up

Posted on Sept 7, 2012: Will There be a New Dragon Ball Series?

Follow Up 2

Posted on Sept 22: Kyle Hebert, the Narrator of DBZ, says that Dragon Ball Hoshi is as fake as Dragon Ball AF.

Resources

The Truth About Dragonball Hoshi

Dragon Ball Hoshi New Series 2012 (New Character)

New Series Dragon Ball Hoshi 2012

Daizex.com forum post on “New Dragon Ball Series

Saikyo Jump Official Website

Kanzentai.com article on Dragon Ball SD

FUNimation forum post about Dragon Ball Hoshi rumor

Dragon Ball Hoshi Facebook Page