How Saudi Arabia Is Building Its Anime Empire Near Paris

The Dragon Ball Z Diplomacy Deal

Saudi Arabia is building a $7 billion theme park near Paris, and at its center is Dragon Ball Z. The announcement, made during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Elysee Palace, sits alongside traditional deals in energy, defense, and infrastructure — but it is the anime park that exposes the real strategy.

This is not a quirky side project. It is a calculated move by the Public Investment Fund to rewrite how the world sees Saudi Arabia, one manga panel at a time.

The deal, first reported by French media and confirmed by the Élysée, outlines three separate parks spread across the Cergy-Pontoise metropolitan area, roughly 30 kilometers northwest of central Paris. The first phase alone — a Dragon Ball Z immersive experience — carries an estimated price tag of $2.8 billion. The remaining two parks, still in conceptual stages, are expected to draw on other major manga franchises, though details remain tight-lipped. Industry sources suggest negotiations are underway for properties including One Piece and Attack on Titan, though no contracts have been signed.

What makes this particularly striking is the venue. Riyadh has already committed billions to entertainment projects — Qiddiya, a sprawling megacity of amusement parks, rides, and cultural venues under construction outside the capital, represents a $64 billion bet on leisure as economic diversification. But those projects serve a domestic audience. Paris, by contrast, places Saudi cultural ambition squarely in the heart of the Western entertainment ecosystem. It is a statement that Riyadh intends to compete not just regionally, but globally.

From Oil to Manga

For decades, the global image of Saudi Arabia has been locked in a narrow frame: oil, deserts, and royalty. MBS has spent the last half-decade trying to shatter that image through Vision 2030 — giga-projects like NEOM, Red Sea tourism, and a football club bought by his fund. But those efforts still read as luxury real estate dressed up as utopia.

The Dragon Ball Z park is different. It signals that Riyadh understands something Western capitals often miss: culture travels further than contracts. Anime is not just entertainment in much of the world. It is a language. A generation of young people in Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia grew up watching Goku transform. That shared cultural vocabulary is worth more than any press release.

The park is being led by Qiddiya, the PIF’s entertainment investment arm, which already operates a motorsports complex near Riyadh. Three parks are planned, with the manga-themed one anchored near Cergy-Pontoise, roughly 30 kilometers northwest of central Paris. The French presidency says the project will create approximately 22,000 jobs — both direct employment in park operations and indirect work in hospitality, construction, and supply chains.

Macron called it “extraordinary” and framed it as proof that the Choose France initiative can attract job-creating capital. The comparison to Disneyland Paris was intentional — and telling. Disney built its empire on storytelling. Saudi Arabia is now buying into that same logic.

But there are important differences. Disneyland was built by an American company on American values, exporting a distinctly U.S. vision of family entertainment. The Saudi park would be financed by a Gulf monarchy, rooted in Japanese pop culture, and situated in France — a country with its own complex relationship to both American cultural dominance and Middle Eastern investment. The result is something entirely new: a cultural product that is simultaneously global, hyper-local, and geopolitically charged.

The Manga Connection

The idea did not emerge from a boardroom. According to an adviser to Macron, the concept originated during a meeting between the French president and MBS in Riyadh in December 2024. They discovered a shared passion for manga, specifically Dragon Ball Z. What followed was a negotiation that turned a personal interest into a multi-billion-dollar commitment.

This is the new face of diplomatic relationship-building. Leaders no longer just discuss trade balances and security arrangements. They bond over fictional battles and super Saiyan transformations, then translate that rapport into infrastructure deals.

The cultural specificity matters. Dragon Ball Z is one of the most globally recognized anime franchises, with deep roots in France — a country where manga sales rank among the highest in Europe. France imported its first Dragon Ball volumes in the early 1990s, and the series helped establish manga as a legitimate literary form in a nation that took centuries to take Japanese comics seriously. Today, France is the second-largest manga market in the Western world after Japan, with annual sales exceeding €500 million. There is an audience already there waiting for this.

The timing is equally strategic. Japan itself has been struggling to monetize its anime industry despite its cultural dominance. Studios like Toei Animation, which produces Dragon Ball, operate on thin margins while rights holders see enormous value captured abroad by streaming platforms and merchandisers. Saudi Arabia’s offer represents an unusual alignment: a source of capital willing to invest heavily in properties that Japanese rights holders have long wished were better exploited. The deal could establish a new model for IP monetization — one where Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fills gaps left by undercapitalized creators.

Entertainment as Geopolitics

The park deal arrived alongside a cluster of more conventional agreements: a $434 million contract for CMA CGM to develop Jeddah Islamic Port, $580 million for Alstom metro carriages in Riyadh, and a letter of intent on defense cooperation covering cybersecurity, AI training, and military expertise.

But the entertainment deal deserves the most attention. France’s willingness to host a Saudi-funded manga park reveals how deeply traditional partners are already integrated into Riyadh’s cultural pivot. This is not a reluctant accommodation. The Élysée praised the project as a “new global destination.” Macron spoke proudly of surprising the world.

That enthusiasm should be examined. France has its own complicated relationship with Saudi Arabia — arms sales, political庇护 for dissidents, and the ongoing war in Yemen. The theme park deal adds another layer to a partnership that has never been straightforward. Yet the cultural dimension offers something economic deals alone cannot: emotional resonance with younger populations.

The second-order effects are worth tracking. France’s acceptance of a Saudi-funded manga park near Paris sets a precedent that other European capitals will find difficult to ignore. Germany, with its own large anime fandom and manufacturing base, may face pressure to develop competing proposals. The Netherlands, home to Animaworld and a growing convention circuit, could position itself as an alternative. What begins as a bilateral deal risks becoming a competitive bidding war across the continent — exactly the outcome Saudi planners likely intended.

For Riyadh, the calculus is clear. Cultural projects generate goodwill that defense contracts and infrastructure deals do not. A child visiting a Dragon Ball Z park remembers the experience; a government signing a metro carriage agreement does not. Soft power works through memory, not memoranda.

The Bigger Picture

Saudi Arabia’s entertainment investments are part of a broader soft-power architecture. The PIF owns Lucasfilm, Take-Two Interactive, and a stake in Netflix. It has funded film production in the UAE, launched a Saudi film festival, and negotiated with Hollywood studios for filming incentives. The Dragon Ball Z park fits neatly into this pattern — it is cultural infrastructure designed to make Saudi Arabia feel familiar, modern, and irreversibly linked to global pop culture.

What happens next depends on whether this model scales. Can a manga park in France become a template for similar projects in other markets? Will Saudi Arabia fund a One Piece park in Los Angeles, a Naruto village in Seoul, or a Demon Slayer expansion in Mumbai? The franchise landscape is vast, and the PIF has the balance sheet to explore it systematically.

For France, the calculation is different. The 22,000 jobs and the prestige of hosting a Disney-scale destination matter. But so does the message sent to other European capitals: if Saudi money comes with cultural projects that resonate locally, resistance becomes harder to justify. The park may also shift domestic politics. French progressives who have criticized engagement with Riyadh on human rights grounds could struggle to oppose a project that celebrates Japanese artistry and creates thousands of local jobs. The cultural framing provides political cover that pure economic arguments never could.

There are also questions about creative control. Who decides which characters appear, which storylines are adapted, which cultural elements are emphasized or omitted? Japanese rights holders typically maintain tight oversight — Toei Animation has notoriously rejected projects it considers damaging to its brands. Saudi Arabia’s track record of respecting creative autonomy is mixed at best. The tension between commercial ambition and artistic integrity could define the project’s trajectory.

What Comes Next

The Dragon Ball Z park is not just an amusement ride. It is a declaration that Saudi Arabia’s future identity will be written in color panels and animated fight scenes — not crude oil charts. Whether that identity sticks is another question. Construction faces challenges: French environmental regulations, local opposition to large-scale developments, and the sheer complexity of delivering a themed experience at scale.

But the strategy itself is undeniable. In a world where attention is the scarcest resource, Saudi Arabia has chosen to compete not with oil exports or military purchases, but with stories that children around the planet already love. That is either brilliant or desperate, depending on who you ask. What is clear is that it is bold — and that boldness may well change how the Middle East is perceived for generations to come.

No one who watched Goku power up as a child can deny the strategy has imagination. Whether that imagination translates into lasting influence remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: the world of entertainment diplomacy has just gotten a lot more interesting.