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FRANCOIS EPIN ART & DESIGN CONSULTING

153 - Dragon Ball (ドラゴンボール) Chi-Chi in her wedding dress Hand-pain…
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Estimate €200 - €400
Sale commission
Description
Dragon Ball (ドラゴンボール) Chi-Chi in her wedding dress Hand-painted celluloid sheet used in the production of the Dragon Ball anime, based on the work of Akira Toriyama (鳥山 明). Executed in ink and gouache. Produced by Toei Animation 1986–1989, Japan H23 L26.9 cm This cell is the most emotionally charged of the entire Dragon Ball series in the Selection. In it, Chi-Chi is wearing two dresses layered one on top of the other: her classic blue and red everyday outfit, and over that, the white wedding dress she inherited from her mother — her gaze fixed nostalgically off-screen. The wedding dress is not merely a ceremonial garment. It is the only physical memento of Chi-Chi’s mother — who died of illness the very year her daughter was born, and whose face Chi-Chi knows only from a partially obscured family portrait. Her father, Gyumao, risked his life in the castle’s flames to save her, so that Chi-Chi could wear it on her wedding day. This dress therefore carries three layers of meaning simultaneously: her marriage to Goku, the mourning of an unknown mother, and the connection between three women — the late mother, Chi-Chi, and the dress as the sole link between them. The superimposition of the two outfits in this cell shot precisely conveys this complexity: Chi-Chi in the everyday clothes of a wife and mother, covered by the dress of the woman she never knew. Her nostalgic gaze is not directed solely at the absent Goku — it is directed at an older and deeper absence. The exact episode remains to be confirmed by examining the cell itself — a sequence number or production note might enable identification. The scene likely corresponds to an internal monologue or flashback from the Buu arc, a period during which Goku was dead and Chi-Chi was raising Goten on her own. Whatever its precise attribution, this piece is the only one in the collection to depict a character embodying two identities simultaneously — who he is in the present and what he carries from the past.
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About the sale Knights, Armour and Samurai + Animation Art Selection
Auction location
Auction time 06/28/2026 at 3:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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