Following up on previous chapters, Shueisha and Viz have added the official English translation of the Dragon Ball Super manga’s 103rd chapter to their respective Manga Plus and Shonen Jump services, continuing onward into the brand-new “Super Hero arc”. After three chapters worth of original prologue material, the manga version of the arc covered the full events of the respective film, and has now transitioned into even more original story content.
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 May 2024 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’ one-hundred-third chapter hitting today in the magazine’s May 2024 issue.
UPDATE: Though Shueisha’s official Manga Plus website originally noted upon this chapter’s release that the Dragon Ball Super manga will be off next month in the magazine’s June 2024 issue and would return in the magazine’s July 2024 issue (set for release 21 May 2024), the site has been updated since this article’s original posting with the removal of this statement. Within the actual pages of V-Jump, splash text on the final page of the chapter notes “We will take a break starting next issue” (次号より休載いたします。), while promotional splashes for the next issue (June 2024, releasing in April) in the back of the magazine have tiny text that notes “Dragon Ball Super will be on break next issue” (次号の「ドラゴンボール超」は休載です。).
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 last 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 in 2022.
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Was there any mention of a hiatus at the end of this chapter in the original Japanese version? The scanlation I saw online had a small blurb about a hiatus, but the official English version has no such mention.
Ah, nevermind, missed that bit in the middle about returning in May. Apologies.
Manga Plus has removed the May date and the hiatus is now indefinite.