Dragon Ballhas been an anime titan for years now, and that means a lot of studios have worked onDragon Ballcontent in that timeframe. In fact, even the legendary Studio Ghibli has contributed toDragon Ball,in one of the least known movies:Dragon Ball: The Path to Power.
Dragon Ball: The Path to Powerwas an anime film that was released in 1996 to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of theDragon Ballanime. It’s essentially a reboot/retelling of the beginning ofDragon Ball, condensed down into a film. It was also the lastDragon Ballmovie to be made untilBattle of Godscame out in 2013.
Dragon Ball: The Path to Power Received Animation Support from Ghibli
WhileDragon Ball: The Path to Powerwas animated by Toei Animation, just like the rest ofDragon Ball’s franchise, they didn’t create the movie without support.It’s not uncommon for animation studios to subcontract other animation studios to help with the production of big projects like this, and in this case, one such studio was Ghibli.
Ghibli’s name can be seen in the credits of the film, and is listed in the credits onAnime News Network’s anime encyclopedia entry. Ghibli provided support for the main studio, which often means in-betweening, backgrounds, or the like, although their contribution is listed as “production support.”
Ghibli was far from the only supporting studio on this particular film, but is certainly one of the more notable. They have done support work on a wide variety of anime, including backgrounds forBleach: Hell Verse, In-between animation forFullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and even worked onEvangelionepisode #11.
Ghibli’s Assistance Made Dragon Ball: The Path to Power Possible
The Support Studios Provide Essential Assistance to Meet Deadlines
While support studios don’t often get mentioned in discussions of anime, their help is frequently essential to getting the project out on time and within budget. It’s pretty common, even for well-known studios like Ghibli, to take on support work helping to produce anime for other production studios, which helps keep employees busy.
In fact, Toei has even repaid the favor, helping to work on some Ghibli projects,such asEarwig and the Witch, where they were similarly credited with “production assistance.” It’s certainly interesting to think about what projects would’ve been going on at the same time;Princess Mononokewas likely developed alongside work onThe Path to Power.
While it’s ultimately little more than a fun bit of trivia, it’s interesting to realize that many of Japan’s greatest animation studios rely heavily upon one another. While there’s obviously still competition in the final products, animation studios can be more collaborative than competitive at times.
It’s not quite the same as aDragon Ballmovie made entirely by Ghibli, but fans can at least know that these titans of animation have actually worked together and collaborated before, and perhaps some day will work together again.
