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FighterZ's Director On Dragon Ball Z's Most Underrated Saga
Junya Motomura is directing Dragon Ball FighterZ and, unsurprisingly, he is a fan of the franchise. While visiting Arc System Works to play the game for our cover story, we talked to him about his fandom and found out what he considers to be the most underrated saga.
Game Informer: Where did your appreciation for Dragon Ball begin?
Junya Motomura: Obviously, I was in love with Dragon Ball when I was young. I didn’t have the privilege of owning the manga. I had to go to my friend’s place to read them because my parents didn’t allow me to buy them myself until later. After awhile they kind of gave up [laughs].
Many of my friends scribbled in Dragon Ball style at school in art classes. They made drawings and I was like, “Oh these are so good and I am so dumb at it!” but it always stuck with me and was a big influence, obviously. I think it lead me to this company, actually, because it started off my interest in martial arts and fighting in an anime style, so it definitely had a huge influence on my career.
What is it that you find attractive about the world of Dragon Ball?
The sense of adventure, from the original Dragon Ball, going into different environments and looking for treasure or the Dragon Balls and fighting new enemies. It just was a continuation of new experiences to get through in the manga and the anime. And further on, it kind of developed into this big scale fighting that nothing else had ever portrayed in any media, so it was a huge shock and a huge satisfaction to feel that.
What have you come to appreciate about Dragon Ball as an adult that you didn't recognize as a young fan?
When I was younger I didn’t really appreciate the Buu saga much. I think it was okay, but it wasn’t like the best thing. At the time I think I liked the Cell saga and the Frieza saga, more. Recently, I discovered that Toriyama was trying to make a point at how to finish this huge universe and story – how to make a grand finale when where everything kind of sets into place. I think that was what Buu saga was all about. Toriyama was trying to to kind of figure out a way to get everyone to this last goal. And using the old characters at the last moment was a great thing that he could do at the time. I think that was a great way to make the grand finale to this huge long story that he made.
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