But where’s the Dragon Bat for these Dragon Balls?
Not one to shy away from popular culture collaborations, Bandai have done it again, this time licensing out one of the most impactful cultural phenomenons of our generation with Dragon Ball Z themed baseball gear.
The line features protagonist Goku, antagonist-turned-fan-favorite Piccolo, villainous Frieza, and the eponymous dragon Shenron all receiving their own baseball gloves. Also included are seven baseballs, marked for each of the seven Dragon Balls, and a full Vegeta-themed catching set.
The baseball-themed collaboration follows a few years after a Taiwanese baseball team, the Chinatrust Brothers, donned Akira Toriyama’s genre-defining series’ iconic colors for a match versus a rival squad. The game did offer merchandise at the time, but this is the first “wide” release, per se. However, if you are looking to acquire these goods outside of Japan, you will have to use a proxy or forwarding service.
The creative baseball equipment will mostly launch in early 2020 (everything in March besides the gloves, which will release in August), and if previous Bandai apparel ventures are anything to go by, pre-orders will begin many months in advance. Mizuno, a famous sporting goods company within Japan, is the not-quite-fashion brand partnering with Bandai this time around.
The release follows a trend of Bandai releasing some, uh, let’s say strange licenses of their published anime and video game materials. A personal favorite of ours is the Mobile Suit Gundam themed chopsticks, though this may seem rather tame compared to some of the other offerings on the market.
