BarcelonaMore than 30 years after its original premiere, Son Goku and the cloud Kinton will once again fly across Catalan screens. Starting this Tuesday, Drac’s Ballone of the most loved animated series by Catalan viewers, can be seen again through the 3Cat platform and SX3.
Created by Akira Toriyama, Drac’s Ball arrived in Catalonia on February 15, 1990 and became an iconic series, which marked the childhood of many Catalan children. Initially, only 26 episodes had been bought, but the success of the audience forced the management of TV3 to move heaven and earth to get more. At that time, there was not much direct work with Japanese distributors and, finally, TV3 found a distributor of Lebanese origin in France who managed to bring the first complete series to Catalonia. Drac’s Ball it became a social cohesive element: its popularity led to the attachment of Spanish-speaking viewers who now cannot conceive of the series in a language other than Catalan, as the Estopas explained in an interview in the car “I can’t watch Goku in Spanish. I don’t like it,” said David Muñoz.
575 chapters dubbed into Catalan
The return of Drac’s Ball in Catalonia it is due to the agreement of the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation with Toei Animation, owner of the series, by which SX3 and 3Cat will be able to broadcast Drac’s Ball, Drac Z Ball i Super Dragon Ballwhich are equivalent to a total of 575 chapters. In addition, it also includes the free transfer of the Catalan dubbing to be able to distribute it to other platforms internationally. The deployment starts with Drac’s Ball i Drac Z Ballwhile Super Dragon Ballwhich until now had never been seen in Catalan, will be added to the catalog at a later date. Super Dragon Ball it consists of two seasons and premiered in Japan in 2015. However, until now it was unpublished in Catalonia.
Coinciding with the re-release of the series, tomorrow the Teatre Victòria in Barcelona will host the gala Dragon Ball is coming homewhich will bring together fans of the series. There will be performances, costumes of the characters of the series and a first taste of the documentary Light, fire, destruction!which analyzes the cultural phenomenon and its contribution to the spread and use of Catalan among young people. To see the full first episode of the docuseries, produced by Abacus, you will have to wait at the Saló del Manga in Barcelona, where the preview will take place on December 8 with special guests.
The universe created by Akira Toriyama disappeared from Catalan public television in September 2001, but a decade later it returned, on the now-defunct channel 3XL, with a rebroadcast of the three old series and the premiere of the most recent , Bola de Drac Z Kai. In this return, the pressure of the fans of the series was key, who for years asked TV3, by all possible means, to program the series again.
After this reappearance, the universe of Drac’s Ball it was present on the grid of the Super3 channel until August 5, 2019. Since then, TV3 no longer had the rights to it and stopped broadcasting it. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the premiere, the website Boladedrac.cat launched a campaign to demand that public television bring back the series, and many fans joined in by submitting their requests in video form. This September, when the comeback was made official, the website officials celebrated the news: “After 4 years of struggle, our dream has come true.”
New episodes of ‘Detective Conan’
Drac’s Ball is one of the animation benchmarks on Catalan television, but it is not the only series ofanime who has made a fortune among the Catalans. One of the most popular is Detective Conanabout a boyish detective. This Wednesday SX3 will premiere new episodes of the series in Catalan, after it aired the last one more than a year ago (in July 2023). The new round of episodes will begin with the ninth of the 27th season, The witness who doesn’t want to talkcentered on the case of an elderly woman who says she was knocked down the stairs. The only person who seems to have seen what happened doesn’t want to talk. It is then issued The case of the Police Academy. Kenji Hagiwarawhich is part of the narrative arc that begins seven years beforeDetective Conan and focuses on five police academy students. In Wednesday’s episode of SX3, the five friends will have to find a way to stop an out-of-control truck dragging a car in which an elderly couple is traveling.
