According to Tokyo-based Weekly Toyo Keizai, a Japanese finance and business magazine, the rights to who owns Dragon Ball are somewhat murky at the moment, following the untimely demise of franchise creator Akira Toriyama.
The conflict is centered around Akio Iyoki, the former head of Shuiesha (Dragon Ball's publisher) Dragon Ball Room- which was a group Shuiesha formed in 2016 to make decisions regarding all-things Dragon Ball.
However, Iyoki recently decided to go independent and established a new company, called Capsule Corporation, obviously taking inspiration from the company owned by Bulma and Dr. Brief in the Dragon Ball franchise.
According to the report, Shuiesha was unhappy with some of the actions that Iyoki made during his tenure as head of the Dragon Ball Room- specifically, that Iyoki frequently made decisions based on Toriyama's wishes, not necessarily what the top executives at Shuiesha wanted.
This ultimately led to Iyoki being reassigned to another department, which prompted him to go independent.
Iyoki and Toriyama's relationship goes back many decades, back to when Toriyama designed characters for Dragon Quest in the late '80s.
Their close relationship reportedly led to Toriyama being unhappy with Shuiesha's treatment of Iyoki. The notoriously recluse Toriyama (who seldom left his house) decided to make Iyoki his spokesperson for all business matters related to Dragon Ball.
This resulted in tense meetings with video game publisher Bandai Namco, according to an insider. Meetings related to upcoming Dragon Ball games would involve both Iyoki and representatives from Shuiesha, with Namco unsure of who was actually the deciding voice.
With Toriyama's passing the dispute over whether Shuiesha or the Capsule Corporation has final say over business matters related to the Dragon Ball franchise remains unresolved.
Geekdom101, the biggest Dragon Ball YouTuber breaks the situation down further in the video below.
According to Weekly Toyo Keiza, Toriyama's family will have to get involved to decide which company has final say when it comes to negotiating buisness deals for things such as video games, films, anime and other spin-offs of the manga.
Per Kanzenshuu, they're reporting that Shuiesha owns the rights to the manga, while Capsule Corporation holds the IP's video game and anime license.
While this conflict will likely play out behind-the-scenes, it's thought that this might be the reason why there's a new Dragon Ball Daima anime set to air in October, instead of a continuation of the adaptation of the Dragon Ball Super manga.
The manga, which is drawn and written by Toriyama's handpicked successor Toyotarou, is currently on hiatus following Toriyama's death. Still, there's plenty of material with Moro, Granola, Gas, Black Frieza and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero story arcs waiting to be adapted.
In the Daima anime, it seems there's a new Demon King, following the Z-Fighters' defeat of Dabura during the Maijin Buu arc.
And it seems the rise of the new Demon King has inexplicably resulted in several of the Z-Fighters being reduced to children by the Dragon Balls (a story beat the should remind fans of Dragon Ball GT).