I have been watching Dragon Ball long enough to remember when officially licensed stuff was genuinely difficult to find in the U.S. The games were hit or miss, figures were not sitting in every store, and a lot of us watched the same stretch of Dragon Ball Z repeatedly because that was what happened to be on television.
So when Burger King announced a Dragon Ball Super promotion for September, the food was not the first thing I looked at. I wanted to see the figures.
Burger King went with Goku, Super Saiyan Blue Goku, Vegeta, Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta, Piccolo and Beerus. Each Dragon Ball Super Power Up Pack includes one random figure, 10 chicken nuggets, medium fries, Super Saiyan Sauce and a Dragon Ball Burst Lemonade. The promotion also has themed boxes, cups and paper crowns.
Burger King confirmed the lineup in its official announcement. The promotion started September 1 at participating U.S. restaurants and is available while supplies last.
The Figures Are the Real Reason Fans Will Buy It
Goku and Vegeta were inevitable. Putting both of their Super Saiyan Blue versions in the set is harder to defend. Dragon Ball Super has enough recognizable characters that using four of six slots on two characters feels wasteful.
Golden Frieza would have been an easy choice. Future Trunks would have worked. Android 17 became one of the best surprises of the Tournament of Power and would have given the set another character that longtime fans actually care about.
Piccolo and Beerus are better picks.
Piccolo has always been one of Dragon Ball’s most popular characters, even during periods when the main story had very little for him to do. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero finally put him back near the center of the action and gave fans Orange Piccolo in the process. Seeing him included here instead of a third Goku variation is welcome.
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Beerus is even easier to justify. Food has been part of his character from the beginning. He can threaten to destroy a planet and five minutes later become completely distracted by something he wants to eat. A Beerus figure inside a Burger King meal almost writes its own joke.
The catch is that each meal comes with one random figure. Anyone who collected fast-food toys as a kid knows exactly how that goes. You want Beerus, get Goku, try again two days later and somehow get another Goku.
For me, Beerus would be the first choice, followed by Piccolo. I already have more Goku figures than any reasonable person needs.
The Dragon Ball Burst Lemonade Is the Best
The regular food is straightforward. Burger King uses its chicken nuggets and adds Super Saiyan Sauce, which the company describes as sweet, savory and tangy with a teriyaki-style flavor.
The name makes it sound much more aggressive than that. I expected something hot enough to justify putting Super Saiyan on the label. Teriyaki is less dramatic, but it also sounds better with chicken nuggets than a painfully spicy sauce created just to fit the branding.
The Dragon Ball Burst Lemonade is more interesting. It combines mango-peach lemonade with mango-flavored popping boba.
The orange boba is the detail that makes the drink work. Floating inside the cup, the little orange spheres immediately resemble Dragon Balls. Burger King could have poured ordinary lemonade into a cup with Goku printed on the side. Someone instead found a simple way to carry the theme into the drink itself.
It is also practical. A promotion running across restaurants around the country cannot depend on an elaborate menu that takes extra equipment or complicated preparation. Flavored lemonade and popping boba are easy enough to execute without making the Dragon Ball connection feel completely superficial.
If I buy the Power Up Pack, the lemonade is the menu item I am actually curious to try. Burger King fries are not exactly an unsolved mystery.
Burger King Could Have Done More With the Food
The promotion gets the collectibles right, but Dragon Ball gives Burger King an absurd amount of material for themed food.
Vegeta practically demands a spicy burger. Frieza’s name is sitting there waiting for a frozen dessert. Majin Buu could have been tied to something sweet without requiring much explanation at all.
Dragon Ball has always had a strange relationship with food anyway. Goku treats every meal like he has been fasting for a month. Beerus can be bribed with something delicious. Whis travels across universes and remains fascinated by whatever Earth is serving next.
A restaurant collaboration had room to play with that.
Burger King clearly chose the version that was easier to launch nationally. Nuggets, fries, a dipping sauce and lemonade can be added without redesigning half the kitchen. From an operational point of view, the choice is obvious. As a Dragon Ball fan, I still think they left a Vegeta burger on the table.
A Lot of the People Chasing These Figures Will Be Adults
The same six figures are also available through the Dragon Ball Super King Jr. Meal, which makes the promotion feel like the fast-food toy campaigns many Dragon Ball fans remember from childhood.
Dragon Ball has now been around in the U.S. long enough for that nostalgia to overlap with a younger audience. Someone who rushed home to watch Gohan fight Cell can now have a child who discovered the franchise through Dragon Ball Super, Broly, Super Hero, video games or clips online.
Dragon Ball Super itself is no longer particularly new. The series premiered in 2015. Beerus, Whis, Super Saiyan Blue and Ultra Instinct have been part of Dragon Ball for years, and younger fans have grown up with them rather than treating them as additions to the older series.
That gives Burger King two audiences at once. Kids get a toy with their meal. Adults get an excuse to collect something inexpensive from a franchise they have followed for twenty or thirty years.
The random figure makes that even more effective. A $200 Dragon Ball statue is a deliberate purchase. Finding Piccolo or Beerus inside a Burger King box is closer to the kind of collecting people remember from being kids.
Even the paper crown works better in that context. It is cheap, unnecessary and exactly the sort of promotional extra that will end up in plenty of photos posted by adults who are theoretically too old to care about Burger King crowns.
Is the Dragon Ball Burger King Meal Worth Getting?
As food, the Power Up Pack is not doing anything revolutionary. It is still chicken nuggets and fries with a promotional sauce and a flavored drink.
As a Dragon Ball promotion, Burger King did enough to make it work. The six figures give fans something to collect, the lemonade has an actual visual connection to the series, the sauce is exclusive to the promotion, and the packaging makes the meal feel different from an ordinary Burger King order.
I would have preferred a wider character selection. One of the Super Saiyan Blue figures could easily have made room for Frieza, Future Trunks or Android 17. A couple of more ambitious food ideas would also have made the collaboration more memorable.
Still, I know exactly what would happen if I opened the box and found Beerus inside.
I would be happy with my completely unnecessary little plastic cat god, eat the nuggets and call the promotion a success.
The Dragon Ball Super menu is available at participating Burger King restaurants in the U.S. while supplies last.
