Following up on previous chapters, Shueisha and Viz have added the official English translation of the Dragon Ball Super manga’s ninety-seventh chapter to their respective Manga Plus and Shonen Jump services, continuing onward into the brand-new “Super Hero arc”, now adapting the contents of the recent theatrical film following three chapters worth of original prologue material. Alongside other initiatives including free chapters and a larger archive for paid subscribers, this release continues the companies’ schedule of not simply simultaneously publishing the series’ chapter alongside its Japanese debut to the release date, but to its local time in Japan alongside its serialization in today’s November 2023 issue of Shueisha’s V-Jump magazine.
The Dragon Ball Super “comicalization” began in June 2015, initially just ahead of the television series, and running both ahead and behind the series at various points. The manga runs in Shueisha’s V-Jump magazine, with the series’ ninety-seventh chapter hitting today in the magazine’s November 2023 issue.
Illustrated by “Toyotarō” (in all likelihood, a second pen-name used by Dragon Ball AF fan manga author and illustrator “Toyble”), the Dragon Ball Super manga covered the Battle of Gods re-telling, skipped the Resurrection ‘F’ re-telling, and “charged ahead” to the Champa arc, “speeding up the excitement of the TV anime even more”. Though the television series has completed its run, the manga continues onward, moving into its own original “Galactic Patrol Prisoner”, “Granolla the Survivor”, and now “Super Hero” arcs.
Viz is currently releasing free digital chapters of the series, and began their own collected print edition back in 2017. The company’s twentieth collected volume was released this month.
The Dragon Ball Super television series concluded in March 2018 with 131 total episodes. Crunchyroll (by way of the merger with FUNimation) owns the American distribution license for the series, with the English dub having wrapped its broadcast on Cartoon Network, and the home video release reaching its tenth and final box set in 2020. A complete steelbook “Limited Edition” was released by Crunchyroll last year.