What are the Dragon Ball Chozenshu?

When Dragon Ball revived in 2013, its reference shelf was nearly twenty years old. The Chozenshu, Super Complete Works, answered by condensing and updating the Daizenshuu line into four volumes: the first pairs the story guide with Toriyama's illustrations, the second covers animation, the third the films and specials through the modern era, and the fourth is the character and term encyclopedia, the direct heir of Daizenshuu 7's authority.

The relationship between the sets is the collectors' question. The Chozenshu reorganize, correct, and extend, but they do not reproduce everything: some Daizenshuu material, including certain chronology tables and older interview texts, was not carried over, which is why reference collectors keep both sets and why Japanese listings for complete Daizenshuu runs did not soften when the Chozenshu appeared.

Physically the Chozenshu are modern productions, larger trim than the Daizenshuu hardcovers with clean contemporary design, sold individually rather than as a boxed set, and still the easiest of the two reference lines to buy new or near-new in Japan. Their Toriyama frontispiece art and the modern-era interviews, on Battle of Gods and the revival, are unique to this set.

For an English-language shelf neither set is translated beyond the single Daizenshuu art volume Viz issued, so the Chozenshu are a Japanese-reading or art-and-reference purchase. The Library's guidance: buy Chozenshu 4 first for the working encyclopedia, Daizenshuu 1 for the art, and complete either set only with a clear shelf plan, because together they occupy serious space.