Toei Animation, the studio that produces the Dragon Ball anime, has said that neither it nor the other Japanese rights holders have licensed a Dragon Ball Z theme park in France and that they were not even aware of such a plan.
The statement undercuts the August 24 Élysée announcement that France and Saudi Arabia would build a manga park inspired by the franchise near Paris, which drew worldwide headlines.
On August 24, during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit, the Élysée said France and Saudi Arabia had agreed a €6 billion package of three theme parks at Cergy-Pontoise, northwest of Paris, on the old Mirapolis site. What was signed that day was a memorandum of understanding, not a building permit.
Advisers told Reuters one park would be inspired by Dragon Ball Z. The Élysée’s own written statement went no further than the “world of manga”, and AFP reported only that the first park would probably be manga-themed.
They said the idea came from a shared enthusiasm French President Emmanuel Macron and bin Salman discovered in Riyadh in December 2024.
Saudi group Qiddiya Investment Company, a subsidiary of the sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF), would finance the scheme; about 22,000 jobs were cited. Macron called it France’s biggest park project since Disneyland Paris.
He never explicitly said Dragon Ball Z, referring instead to his “interest in manga”, and he never publicly contradicted it.
Île-de-France president Valérie Pécresse posted on TikTok on August 25: “No, you are not dreaming, Dragon Ball is coming to Île-de-France!” She had told TF1 the morning before that the region had been working on the file for 18 months and that it was on the scale of Disney.
Briefings and later regional material filled in Dragon Ball. A regional press release on August 31 described three new theme parks, one of them a Dragon Ball park, at Courdimanche in Val-d’Oise, and cited about 20,000 direct jobs and up to seven million visitors a year.
Macron owns an original Akira Toriyama drawing made for him in 2021 and, on April 1, traded a Kamehameha pose with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the end of a press conference in Tokyo.
Le Monde reported on August 25 that Qiddiya had not secured the licence.
Rights are split among Toei (anime), Shueisha (manga), Bird Studio and Capsule Corporation Tokyo, both set up by Toriyama, Bandai Namco (merchandise) and others.
After Toriyama’s death on March 1, 2024, any new use needs all of them. Licences are granted territory by territory, so an agreement covering Saudi Arabia does not extend to France.
Toei already works with Qiddiya on a licensed park in Qiddiya City, Saudi Arabia, announced on March 22, 2024. That is not the French site.
Toei’s statement, issued on August 31 and widely reported in Japan on September 3, said it and the other rights holders had granted no licence for the project and were “not aware of any such plans”.
Concept images circulating with the Paris story were from the Saudi park, not France, Famitsu and Automaton noted. Toei said the same, tracing the images and video to its joint announcement with Qiddiya in March 2024.
Julien Bouvard, a manga specialist and senior lecturer in Japanese studies at Lyon-III, told France 24 that Toei’s silence after the Paris announcement, compared with its public backing of the Saudi park, showed Paris was still only a proposal. He said Japanese copyright law was strongly protective and that rights holders could impose exacting conditions on the use of a character.
Former Weekly Shōnen Jump editor Kazuhiko Torishima has separately warned against stretching the licence “just for the goal of making money”. He made the remark about the Saudi park at Japan Expo in Paris in 2025 and later said he would never have approved that project had he still been at Shueisha.
No opening date was ever set. The Mirapolis site has lain derelict since the park closed in 1991, four years after opening as the first large French theme park.
Despite the lack of Japanese permission, the plans to build the parks still stand, though it is unclear what the exact theme will be if not Dragon Ball Z.
France and Saudi Arabia have signed a memorandum of understanding on a €6 billion project to build three theme parks near Cergy-Pontoise, northwest of Paris, including one widely reported to be inspired by the Japanese manga and anime franchise Dragon Ball Z.…
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 25, 2026
