What I know about Dragon Ball you could write on the back of a 50p coin, but I understand and respect that it’s an absolutely massive franchise with millions of devoted fans around the world.
Growing up, I used to know a kid who devoured the original manga series, made me watch the anime whenever I was over, and genuinely had enough Dragon Ball shirts so that he could wear a different one every day for a month – which he often did.
Anyway, I thought that guy loved Dragon Ball, but he’s just been put to shame by superfan Hitoshi Uchida, whose huge collection of memorabilia from the manga, shows and movies is literally record breaking. Uchida is so dedicated to the cause, that he actually quit his job in service of a life spent hunting down Dragon Ball merch.
Kotaku reports that Uchida’s formidable horde of Dragon Ball loot has now officially broken the Guinness World Records collection record title for the biggest DB collection in the entire world, which isn’t hard to accept when you take a look at the sheer amount of stuff he’s managed to assemble over the years.
Uchida has been, you won’t be shocked to discover, a fan of Dragon Ball since he was a kid. In the official Guinness World Records clip marking his achievement, he said that a big part of quitting his job to attempt the record was to fulfill his lifelong dream of meeting Goku voice actor Masako Nozawa.
“By attempting that record, even if I throw my life away, my wish to meet Masako Nozawa is really strong right now,” he said. Unfortunately Uchida has yet to meet Nozawa, but here’s hoping his record-breaking exploits help bring him one step closer.
Check out the official celebratory vid below to get a better idea of the scale of Uchida’s stash. He has 10,098 different Dragon Ball items, including over 4,000 Goku figurines, which is surely 3,999 more Goku figurines than anyone needs. Whatever helps him get closer to Nozawa, I guess.
Based on the five-minute video above, it’s clear that Uchida is truly passionate about Dragon Ball and its wide cast of characters (especially Goku). It’s rare that someone gets to do exactly what they want to do in life, so congratulations to him.
Fingers crossed he gets that meeting with Nozawa that he’s been dreaming about sooner rather than later.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via story@unilad.com
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.