As the world waits for the release of the new Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods movie next March, one series of videos posted on YouTube has been helping to keep eager fans satiated.

They feature the incredible skills of a French artist going by the YouTube handle of Etoilec1, who recreated three of the franchise’s greatest matchups in flipbook animation.

Three mind-blowing videos after the jump!

Using what appears to be a small yet thick notepad, he has so far created three separate battle scenes: “Goku vs Buu”, “Broly vs Vegeta”, and “Gohan vs Janemba”.

In them the characters are animated so vividly and smoothly they’re comparable to the original. In fact you might find yourself thinking it were the real anime series if it weren’t for the guy’s thumb in the picture.

Compared to the flipbook animations by Tekken we covered before; namely The Pendulum and Yowai Mushi, it was a good decision on the artist’s part to keep his hands in the shot rather than film the pages one by one. In Tekken’s work the message was more or equally important to the art. The fight scenes in Etoilec1’s videos, however, are more like testaments to the diligence, concentration, and talent of the artist. God only knows how many individual drawings went into one of those single one to two minute videos.

There’s even a sense of lighting, color and perspective that’s pretty mind-blowing to watch. Even if you’re not really a fan of the Dragon Ball series, these videos are absolutely worth watching.

Assuming he worked on them concurrently, it seems to take Etoilec1 about a month to complete each scene. Episode 3 was posted on YouTube on 2 November which means a new video could well be coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

Meanwhile, I will soon be unveiling my two flipbook masterpieces: Stickman who Teleport-Walks and Stickman Standing and Kind of Jiggling, both approximately 1.3 seconds long. Watch this space…

Videos: etoilec1 (YouTube)

▼ Episode 1: Goku vs Buu

▼ Episode 2: Broly vs Vegeta (also Etoilec has one of those nail groove cuts on his thumb that I hate)

▼ Episode 3: Gohan vs Janemba

[ Read in Japanese ]