“You know of my interest in mangas,” says French president.

It’s unusual for a single franchise to get an entire theme park of its own. Disneyland, of course, is a place for not only the Disney animated catalog, but also the various live-action properties the company now holds the rights to, such as Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Universal Studios’ attractions cover a wide variety of Hollywood movies, plus Nintendo’s Super Mario and a handful of other video game and anime IPs. Even Ghibli Park is a place for the celebration of the studio’s overall output, not one specific film.

But there’s a dedicated Dragon Ball Z theme park on the way, though it’ll be opening on the opposite side of the hemisphere from the anime/manga’s home country.

The office of French president Emmanuel Macron has announced that a Dragon Ball Z theme park will be built in the suburbs of Paris. The facility will be one of three new theme parks to be developed in Cergy-Pontoise, roughly 45 minutes northwest of downtown Paris, which will ostensibly sit on the site of the former Mirapolis, an amusement park which closed in 1991.

This news might have jogged your memory that there’s also a Dragon Ball Z theme park in development in Saudi Arabia, and the French park will also be built with Saudi money. The three-park project, with a total budget of 6 billion Euros, (roughly US$7 billion), is being spearheaded by Qiddiya Investment Company, a Saudi government fund with crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman as its chairman. Talks for the French Dragon Ball Z park began a year and a half ago, when Macron and bin Salman found out they had a shared love for Dragon Ball Z, and the announcement of the French park was timed to coincide with bin Salman’s latest visit to Paris.

Posting to his official Twitter account, Macron said “You know of my interest in mangas. You are also aware of my determination to attract investments in France that will create employment and make the most ambitious projects possible,” while claiming that the parks will create 22,000 new jobs (for comparison, Oriental Land, the company that manages Tokyo Disneyland, Disney Sea, and its associated hotels, currently employs around 27,000 people). Macron expressed his gratitude with “Thank you to Qiddiya and to Saudi Arabia for your confidence in our country, our talents, and our future.”

As for when that Dragon Ball Z-ified future is coming, there’s currently no timetable for the Franch park’s opening, but given the size of the project, it’s probably going to be at least a few years until it’s ready to start receiving guests, which should give Macron more time to practice his Kamehameha pose.

Source: Jiji, Asahi Shimbun, Reuters, Oriental Land Company, Twitter/@EmmanuelMacron
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