Dragon Ball is a franchise that started back in 1984 as a Japanese manga series. The series, written by Akira Toriyama, grew incredibly popular in Japan before becoming a worldwide phenomenon. The franchise consists of 519 chapters (think weekly comic book-esque releases), four animated television shows and 20 movies. With the most recent movie having just released on Jan. 14th 2019, the franchise is currently going strong. The movie has been receiving overall positive reviews and has been a box office success, having grossed over $100 million in the global box office.
The movie tells the story of a rogue Saiyan named Broly who with his father Paragus travels to Earth to handle some business with the main characters Goku and Vegeta. Also featured in the movie are characters Beerus, Whis, Frieza, Bulma and others.
This isn’t the first time Broly has appeared in a Dragon ball movie, in fact this is the character’s fourth appearance as a big bad for the franchise. Starting in 1993 with “Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan” the character would feature in a trilogy that would feature cult classics and launch the character into the hearts of fans. A recent poll done through Japanese manga company V-Jump showed that Broly (before the movie’s release) was the second most popular villain in the franchise. 
Eric Soll, a junior at Cabrini University and a massive Dragon Ball fan, said, “I was really pumped to see this movie because its the first one that’s in the actual canonization of the series since its written by Akira Toriyama. And it’s just really cool to have Broly in the canon because he’s been such a cool character forever.”
Broly’s canonization has been a big topic of discussion within the Dragon Ball fandom as he was considered to be a non-canon character (not apart of the actual storyline) since his inception in 1993. As the writer has stated in the past that he doesn’t consider the movies besides one or two exceptions to be apart of the canon. However prior to this movie’s release, Akira Toriyama confirmed that the movie would take place in the canon.
“The movie was really good, the visuals were really pretty and the story was pretty easy to follow,” Katherine Fiore, a Cabrini junior, said. “And it was actually pretty funny too. I wasn’t expecting the movie to be funny.”
With a fan-favorite character in the lead and a user score of 7.6 on Metacritic, “Dragon Ball Super: Broly” seems like a movie that fans of the series should definitely see.
