We attended the Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle – Dokkan Ultimate Speed Battle event at the Belasco during Anime Expo. During the event, we got to sit down before the event with the producer of Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle, Toshitaka Tachibana, and ask him about the game.

Tono: Could you please introduce yourself for the readers?

Toshi: I’m Toshi from Bandai Namco Entertainment Japan, and I am the producer of Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle.

Tono: For those that don’t know of the game how would you describe it to them?

Toshi: It’s a free to play smartphone app available on iOS and Google Play. It covers a plethora of characters from all the sagas in the Dragon Ball universe, where you can create your own favorite party and battle against other characters from different universes.

Tono: From what we know of the game’s timeline, it begins right when future Trunks appears before the Cell saga. For those readers that might not be aware of story or gameplay, how would you describe the genre?

Toshi: The genre we actually came up with; a word to describe it “Dokkan” which means breaking battle genre. You start by making a party of six members with favorite characters with different abilities, powers, HP, and stats. You fight other characters by collecting keys of different colors, sort of a puzzle way, where certain colors will grant more powers to certain characters and certain characters with a certain amount of keys will allow them to use signature moves such as Kamehame-ha.

Tono: So from we hear and seen, we noticed such aspects of rhythm, puzzle, and a certain twist. Would you agree?

Toshi: Yes, it was really difficult to just stick to one genre.

Tono: Well I like how Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle combines all these different genres to make a completely new game. I think fans appreciate that the game is not just another re-skinned mobile game.

Toshi: That is good to hear. We wanted to bring something new to the fans as well.

Tono: If you could describe the game using seven signature moves what would they be?

Toshi: You know what we like; we also like the number seven as well.

Tono: Ok, just to keep it short, let’s make it just one signature moves.

Toshi: I want to say Kamehame-ha ‘cause everyone knows the move and wants to be able to do it, but I will have to say spirit bomb ‘cause, just like the move, we also depend on our fans.

Tono: That is a great answer and analogy of how the fans are an important element to the Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle game.

Toshi: Yes, without the support of our fans, we would have never gotten to this point; just like how the spirit bomb grows with the number of life energy so does the Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle community.

Tono: Any message to the current players and possible new players, such as incentives?

Toshi: We released the game in 2015, and it’s coming close to the two year anniversary. For the currently active players, I just want to tell them it’s only been two years. There is more content to come. As for those that haven’t played yet, we want them to know we made sure that you can catch up, so come and try out the game on iOS or Google play.

We then went into the event where fans were playing the game and just hanging out. There were charging station, so you can keep charging your phone as you kept playing the game. The event had around 50 players competing on the fastest time for Dokkan Ultimate Speed Battle just like a normal tournament it would eventually come down to a few finalist. This was the first live event from this game that Bandai has held. The registration was free for viewers as well as competitors. This event came right before the two year anniversary of the game and was a nice way of celebrating it by including the fans. The battles were narrated by the special guest Kyle Hebert and Dameon Clarke; yes, it was narrated by Gohan, the DBZ narrator and Cell. The event also showcased the Dragon Ball Super trading card games that were going to be released later in July. The finalist got prizes for their accomplishments, but everyone had lots of fun even if they were not competing. We just hope this is the first of many events being held by Bandai Namco.

We also got to talk with Kyle Hebert, the voice of older Gohan and the narrator, and Dameon Clarke, the voice of Cell, at the event. We took the time to talk about the game and their careers in the franchise.   We asked Kyle if he misses not being the voice of the narrator in DBZ Super; he said he does, but he also thinks that Doc Morgan is doing a great job. He also added that he grew up listening to Doc Morgan when he was a Dallas DJ. We then talked about Dragon Ball Fighter Z and if they knew anything about who was voicing the characters. They said that they were not aware of any news since the project was still being worked on, but that once fans would find out, they would also find out. However, they did say that it would be great if they re-cast the original voice talent. Dameon joked around by saying it depends on the fans that want it to happen where we couldn’t resist saying “over 9000!” which Kyle jumped on it on cue. We then asked their thoughts of what they had seen of the game so far but as their characters. Kyle, in the voice of Gohan, “Well, I hope they include me [version of Gohan] in the game and other people from the previous games. I am looking forward to button mashing like how I get through every other fighting game.”

Which then Dameon as Cell join in by saying, “If they know what’s good for them, they will have us back of they will be heck to pay”.

Then Kyle join in as the narrator, “Will there be heck to pay? Find out next time on….”

Then, we asked how fans could reach them, and Dameon just went off on how he can’t deal with Facebook because it is too invasive, too FBI/CIA. Kyle added that you just Google something and boom, it appears on your feed; to which Dameon said that was what made him quit Facebook. This exchange had us laughing so hard. By then we were just having so much fun but had to say goodbye.

Kyle Hebert

Twitter @kylehebert

Website www.kylehebert.com

Pronouncing Hebert is like a Louisiana French thing the H is silent and the ‘e’ is like an ‘a’, Like Steven Colbert.

Dameon

Twitter @dameonclarke

IG @dameonclarke