Toei Animation just killed the previous story that was ran after Emmanuel Macron’s park speech. The studio said it has not granted a license for a Dragon Ball theme park in France. Related rights holders have not granted one either. Toei said it is not aware of any such deal.
The French-Saudi project itself is not a rumor. Macron announced a 6 billion euro (about $7 billion) manga-themed park plan after talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Three parks are slated for Cergy-Pontoise, northwest of Paris. Qiddiya is in the investment mix. Macron talked "manga." He did not read out "Dragon Ball" as a signed IP. French and Japanese papers still filled that blank. BBC and The Japan Times carried the Dragon Ball park frame. Le Monde was the paper that said the golden ticket was missing. Anonymous sources told Le Monde the proposal had not, at least not yet, cleared the rights holders.
Toei’s statement put that in writing. The company also flagged the pictures. Concept art and video running next to the France stories were the March 22, 2024 package Toei and Saudi Arabia’s Qiddiya Investment used for a park in Qiddiya City. Those assets have no link to the French site. If you saw Shenron over a desert skyline in an article about Val-d’Oise, that is the Saudi reel.
Dragon Ball rights sit with more than one desk. Toei has the anime. Bird Studio, the late Akira Toriyama’s studio, and publisher Shueisha sit on the rest of the rights. As of now, Bird Studio and Shueisha had not posted matching denials. Toei spoke for itself and "related rights holders" in the license sentence. That is the official line until those two houses post their own.
The political color around the announcement made the mix-up easy. Macron and the crown prince have both played the fan. They hit a Kamehameha pose together in Tokyo in April. A December 2024 Riyadh meeting is the origin story some reports give for the park talks. Passion is not a contract. Toei’s text is the contract check: no license, no facts on file.
Qiddiya City is a separate build. Toei already tied images to that project in 2024. France is a different country, a different plot, and, right now, a different legal stack. A 6 billion euro three-park campus can still happen as a generic manga destination. It cannot legally slap Goku on the gate without Toei, Bird Studio, and Shueisha signing.
Cergy-Pontoise already had a dead mega-park in its past. Mirapolis closed in 1991. Local coverage has been split between jobs talk (Macron cited tens of thousands of roles) and people who do not want another giant box in the Val-d’Oise. None of that substitutes for an IP deal.
Toei president Katsuhiro Takagi is on the statement letterhead. Headquarters Nakano-ku, Tokyo. Date on some Japanese write-ups is August 31 for the first internal line, with wider pickup September 3–5. The French presidential office and the Saudi investor have not officially named Dragon Ball in the park list. Media did that work. Toei undid it.
Are you waiting on Shueisha and Bird Studio to say the same thing, or is Toei’s no enough to bury the Paris Super Saiyan park? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.