Feature: adidas Originals x Dragon Ball Z

adidas didn't put this out as a collection. They put it out as a series of fights: two shoes at a time, one character against another, released a month apart through autumn 2018. Whether that's clever or ridiculous depends on how you feel about Dragon Ball Z, and we were firmly on the clever side.

Goku against Frieza

The first pair landed at the end of September 2018.

Goku went on the ZX 500 RM: orange suede upper, yellow nylon across the toe, a kanji character on the heel tab, and a nimbus cloud embroidered in yellow thread on the inner side. If you know the show you'll know why the cloud is there, and if you don't it just reads as a nice bit of stitching.

Frieza got the Yung-1, in dark purple with bright pink on the outsole and a corduroy panel on the inner side. Two raised components sit on the heel, echoing the domed shapes on the character.

Son Gohan against Cell

A month later, end of October.

Son Gohan on the Deerupt, an eighties-runner shape built almost entirely from mesh, in the purple of his robes. Light, and softer on the foot than most of the collaboration.

Cell on the Prophere, with a Primeknit upper carrying a purple and green digital print that reads as his skin texture. The most literal translation in the whole run, and the better for it.

Vegeta against Majin Buu

Vegeta on the Ultra Tech, with gold embroidery across the toe standing in for his armour and black netting over the midsole for his hair — a trick borrowed from the Deerupt.

Majin Buu on the Kamanda, matte black on the brand's gum sole, with a yellow-green heel tab lifted from his belt buckle and a Dragon Ball hidden on the inside of the tongue where nobody but the wearer would find it.

The boxes

The detail that got people was the packaging. Each pair came in a box printed inside and out, and if you collected them and lined them up, the spines formed a single picture of the characters. It's the sort of thing that only works if you buy the lot, which was obviously the point, and it worked.

Where the show came from

Dragon Ball Z ran in Japan from 1989, and reached most British and American viewers later through Cartoon Network. That gap matters for who bought these — the people queueing in 2018 had mostly watched it after school in the late nineties rather than on first broadcast.

One honest note

These sold out at the time and we haven't had them since. If you've come here hunting a pair, resale is the only route now.

What we currently stock is in our adidas collection.