The official title of the new Dragon Ball Super movie has been announced, and it confirms that a familiar and fearsome foe will be returning, to many fans’ delight!

Back in March, there was quite a bit of excitement when a worldwide release date for the new Dragon Ball Super movie was announced, along with a teaser image and short trailer.  And fans had every reason to be excited, as this would be the very first movie based on the Dragon Ball Super TV series, and also the 20th feature-length film in the Dragon Ball anime franchise.

▼ Here’s the short teaser video that was released in March:

Since that announcement, there’s been much speculation regarding the identity of Goku’s foe in the trailer, who appears to be an extraterrestrial Saiyan, like Goku and Vegeta. Well, now we know who the main villain in the movie will be, and indeed, he’s a Saiyan, and one that Dragon Ball fans are quite familiar with. That’s right, Toei Company recently announced that the new film will be titled Dragon Ball Super: Broly, confirming that the it will feature the legendary Super Saiyan Broly, who proved to be a formidable enemy when he appeared in two of the previous Dragon Ball films back in 1993 and 1994.

Although Broly is a made-for-anime character who doesn’t appear in the original Dragon Ball comics, he’s certainly a fan favorite, considered by many to be quite possibly the most powerful adversary in the entire series.

▼ They also released the image of the main poster for the movie:

The poster image shows Goku and Vegeta in Super Saiyan Blue mode, with Broly pictured in the back, and the prominent tagline on the left reads, “The greatest foe is a Saiyan.” As the catchphrase indicates, the movie will be a story that focuses on Saiyans, in this case, three Saiyans each with a unique background: Goku, a Saiyan who grew up on Earth among humans; Vegeta, proud prince of the Saiyans; and Broly, the legendary Super Saiyan. The film will also touch on the past history between Frieza and the Saiyans, which should certainly be of interest to fans, as not much has been told so far of the story there.

In addition to the above announcements, Dragon Ball series creator Akira Toriyama has also released the following comment regarding the new movie:

Hi, everyone. Are you familiar with the character Broly?

He’s a super-powerful Saiyan who appeared only in the anime films way back, and I apparently did the character design for him, but as I was mostly uninvolved with the anime side of Dragon Ball, I’d completely forgotten about the story surrounding him.

But this Broly is apparently still very popular both in Japan and overseas, and it so happened that my editor suggested, “Why not make this next movie about Broly?”

I then watched the movies from back then, and I felt that the idea (of a movie with Broly) could be quite interesting if we could present it in the right way, so I went ahead and created a story that would allow us to do that with the Dragon Ball Super series.

I didn’t want to disappoint Broly fans, so I tried to keep the old Broly in mind while adding a new side to him and “revamping” him, and I think I’ve been able to make Broly even more attractive than before.

Of course, there will be some fiercely awesome fighting, but you’ll also see what turns of fate bring Goku, Vegeta and Broly together, as well as the history of Frieza’s army and the Saiyans, which plays an important part in the story. It’s quite dramatic on a grand scale, really.

So you’ll get to see Broly, the most powerful Saiyan, again. And we’re filling the movie with other twists and fun bits that fans should love as well, so please wait a little while longer until we finish making the film. 

Getting excited yet? And if you have plans to buy tickets for the movie extra early, the first advance tickets will go on sale at movie theaters across Japan starting July 20. These will be the first batch in a series of special advance tickets that come with a bonus gift, beginning with the “God Change Miniature Charm Strap” in either a Goku or Vegeta version.  The charms were designed by Toriyama himself, and the adorable miniature Goku/Vegeta comes dressed in cold weather gear. Plus, the best part is that the color of Goku’s/Vegeta’s hair changes between yellow and blue depending on the temperature!

▼ The special advance tickets with the Goku/Vegeta charms go on sale from July 20, but there will be just 50,000 of them available, so get yours before they run out.

They’re calling the advance tickets with the miniature straps the “first round of advance tickets with a bonus gift”, so we expect that there will be a few more series of tickets with special gifts, and we’ll be  looking forward to seeing what the bonus items are.

It’s still a while until the Dragon Ball super movie premieres on December 14, but with old-timer Broly making a comeback, we have to say it’s looking like the film will be worth the wait. Let’s hope Toei will be giving us more updates before too long!

Source, images: Toei news release 
Related: Dragon Ball Super the Movie official site