I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Discussion specifically regarding the "Dragon Ball Super" TV series premiering July 2015 in Japan, including individual threads for each episode.

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precita
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I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by precita » Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:04 am

People have forgotten this, but back in March 2018 when the last ep of Super aired, they said there would only be a "brief intermission" before it came back again with new episodes. Well we're now 3 years later in March 2021, and it's safe to say that never happened. With Toei also booked with animating new anime for the rest of the year and seemingly into next, as well as the lack of timeslots, it's safe to say Super won't be returning anytime soon.

I think Toei realizes over these last 3 years they can make just as much money on the Dragon Ball license even without a series airing regularly. While of course we'll get new movies at some point (although I'm surprised the next movie still has no plot details revealed given how long its been since Broly), I feel like the Super anime isn't coming back at this point. I don't know whether this means the Moro arc and the current manga arc will ever receive anime adaptions, but who knows.

I honestly feel like it's not coming back.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Matches Malone » Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:20 am

I think it will eventually, but just not now, maybe in 2-4 years. There's too much material to adapt and turn into merchandise not to bring it back, as they'll just be leaving $$$ on the table. I do agree with the idea of there being no reason to bring it back now though.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by FortuneSSJ » Tue Mar 09, 2021 12:26 pm

With the franchise still making a lot of money and a Digimon Adventure reboot coming from nowhere, it's obvious at this point that DBS 2 is not a priority for them. Doesn't mean it may not happen though. It would be less likely if the manga had ended too, but it didn't...

Even if for some stupid reason they decide to ignore Toyotaro's Moro arc, they won't ignore Toriyama's Granolah arc. One way or another that story will be adapted.
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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Matches Malone » Tue Mar 09, 2021 12:29 pm

FortuneSSJ wrote: Tue Mar 09, 2021 12:26 pm With a franchise still making a lot of money and a Digimon Adventure reboot coming from nowhere, it's obvious at this point that DBS 2 is not a priority for them. Doesn't mean it may not happen though. It would be less likely if the manga had ended too, but it didn't...

Even if for some stupid reason they decided to ignore Toyotaro's Moro arc, they won't ignore Toriyama's Granolah arc. One way or another that story will be adapted.
Toriyama did work on the Moro arc as well, and it leads directly into the current arc so ignoring it isn't likely at all. Plus, why would they, it's extra money to gain out of the franchise by milking Moro and his gang in games and merchandise.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by precita » Tue Mar 09, 2021 12:41 pm

It's obviously not happening due to the lack of animators/writers and timeslot. They would need at least 50+ episodes (and let's be honest knowing Dragon Ball it'd be 100+ episodes) to cover two more arcs and that comes out to over 2 years in real life with one episode airing a week. Honestly it's a miracle Super even has 130+ episodes as it is especially with how rushed the beginning of it was.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Alruneia » Tue Mar 09, 2021 5:00 pm

precita wrote: Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:04 am People have forgotten this, but back in March 2018 when the last ep of Super aired, they said there would only be a "brief intermission" before it came back again with new episodes. Well we're now 3 years later in March 2021, and it's safe to say that never happened. With Toei also booked with animating new anime for the rest of the year and seemingly into next, as well as the lack of timeslots, it's safe to say Super won't be returning anytime soon.
People have excused the "brief intermission" line with the Broly movie, interpreting DBS: Broly as the "promised return". Personally I don't really see it that way, I also think they were initially planning to make more episodes. I won't go as far as to say that the anime has been completely cancelled, but I agree with the idea that the plans Toei had at the time almost certainly have been.
precita wrote: Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:04 am I think Toei realized over these last 3 years they can make just as much money on the Dragon Ball license even without a series airing regularly.
I'd make a slight revision to this: I think Toei realised that their low-effort Super Dragon Ball Heroes promotional anime is all they need. By making roughly 7 minutes of content a month (not counting recycled intros and such), they seemingly generate enough traffic to the Dragon Ball Heroes subfranchise that profits are acceptable.
precita wrote: Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:04 am While of course we'll get new movies at some point (although I'm surprised the next movie still has no plot details revealed given how long its been since Broly)
At this point, DB Movie #21 is probably just as shelved/cancelled as the DBS anime is. It's been too quiet for too long, we should've heard something new about it by now. We were told that it was in the early planning stages shortly after DBS: Broly, which was 2 years ago, and that's still all we have. I don't buy it.
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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Tue Mar 09, 2021 7:29 pm

I reckon the movies may be the way forward in animation. All the recent movies were hugely successful, with Super: Broly being one of the highest grossing anime films of all time. Another sequel is an absolute inevitability and unlike the glibness regarding the anime's bleak future, we have had confirmation from Toei that another movie has been in development. It's been quiet for a while now, but COVID-19 is a thing that still exists.

The question is, how will it follow on if there's no anime? Will it follow the manga's current plot threads, will it ignore them entirely, will it follow directly on from Broly? Although it was a long time ago, Akio Iyoku has claimed that the sequel will probably be "totally different". That's not a lot to go on, but I get the feeling that the movies may start to veer in a totally different direction from both the anime and manga. Broly already felt like a gaiden story as it has little to no connective tissue with the rest of Super's direction. It felt more like a sequel to the previous Z movies and glossed over the anime and manga's events for the most part. Perhaps the best workaround would be to have the sequel focus on another, separate part of the Dragon Ball universe.

I say this as someone who has many fond memories of the Super anime and has often defended it, but looking at it with the benefit of hindsight... it was often really fucking bad and probably doesn't deserve to return unless Toei really sort their shit out. The three major new arcs of the Super anime have many great things going for them but Toei blundered so ridiculously hard on the first two movie-adapted arcs and the continued attempts to pad out every story arc were always unnecessary. The movies and manga keep up a reasonable tonal consistency and standard of visual quality whereas the anime feels like a totally different beast. It's got an egregiously blocky, poppy art style courtesy of Yamamuro, it inherits Z-era fillerisms like Gregory and sexual predator Roshi, a bunch of new filler BS like Hakaishin Toppo and Copy-Vegeta that will never be referenced again. It's ironic that many websites still prop up the Super anime as if it's "the most canon" sequel, yet it will likely end up being a defunct continuity.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Cipher » Tue Mar 09, 2021 10:34 pm

We're reaching the point where it'd be increasingly difficult to simply restart Super from where it left off, especially remembering that, while older fans like us appreciate it, the primary audience for its content is kids. Three years is a huge stretch of time for grade-schoolers. You'd need a really big push for it.

If it doesn't come back within the year, I almost think it's just as likely it'd be held off on until an entire Super redux (manga adaptation?) made sense, if it ever even does, over something like an original-DB re-adaptation. The day will probably come that Super's later content gets animated just because DB is such an evergreen part of pop-culture in Japan, and it would be a stone unturned for future animated projects to boast, but if it isn't in this "generation" of DB projects, DBS wouldn't be the first big shonen comic with an anime that wasn't a faithful or complete match for its manga. Especially among sequel works.

Even if it never got adapted, it wouldn't be the only one.

Just kind of an exercise in, "Welcome to series that aren't DB," for fans. The Super TV series had long-enough run and did its job of selling DB and related products to a new generation. It's entirely likely that was as much as it needed to do, as is often the case for sequel series and remakes, and the rest can be left to continuing a manga, occasional films, and of course a regular stream of merchandise and games for the kids who discovered the series through DBS on TV.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Matches Malone » Wed Mar 10, 2021 12:58 am

Cipher wrote: Tue Mar 09, 2021 10:34 pmIf it doesn't come back within the year, I almost think it's just as likely it'd be held off on until an entire Super redux (manga adaptation?)
I think this is actually likely to happen, as the longer time goes on, the less sense it makes to just directly pick up where things left off, especially with how different it will be from Super 1.0.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by precita » Wed Mar 10, 2021 10:17 am

Isn't Dragonball constantly rerun in Japan for new kids? I know we had Kai directly before Super so it brought new kids up to speed if they were watching Kai right before Super began in 2015. I don't think kids not knowing the story is much a problem if the episodes are available either on TV or streamed online.

I don't think Super would ever be "re-done" because nobody is going to want to see the U6 tournament, Zamasu and the TOP all re-animated again. People could barely stand watching the movie adaptions for 20 episodes, I can't imagine spending 50-60+ episodes reanimating more old content we've seen before even if the animation is "really good" or much better years from now.

I figure the Moro arc is too long to condense to an hour and a half movie, although I figure they probably could do it if they really wanted to. They'd probably have to leave out some stuff, but start off with the arc playing similar to the manga, have a segment in the middle for the fighters on Earth taking out the henchmen, cut back to Namek and the climax of Moro.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Koitsukai » Wed Mar 10, 2021 10:46 am

Saint Seiya got the Hades arc animated like 10 years after it's manga release. I think sooner or later it will come back, I doubt we'll have to wait a whole decade. I mean, it's business, why would they pass on a worldwide product? I understand why they won't invest on it now, the franchise is still capitalizing on many things the anime produced.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by SupremeKai25 » Wed Mar 10, 2021 11:03 am

I'm guessing it will come back at the end of the Super rerun, which should be in 2023 (???). I also think that the new Dragon Ball website might have something to do with it.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by ZodiacBeast » Wed Mar 10, 2021 9:54 pm

I feel there's a good chance that they'll announce it coming back once the Granollah arc has ended. One chapter a month means this will take a few years, so no wonder people are saying it's been totally cancelled. Some of these same people would also complain if they announced it now, saying that there's not enough to adapt.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by BootyCheeksJohnson » Thu Mar 11, 2021 5:48 am

I don't think that continuing Super is the biggest priority to Toei. And to be honest, I'm kinda glad it's not, because maybe they won't push out another rushed product again like with the first run of Super. Then again who am I kidding this Toei were talking about. Best case scenario is we get another high quality film, like with Broly.
We need a Steve Simmons retranslation of the manga.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Matches Malone » Thu Mar 11, 2021 7:43 am

BootyCheeksJohnson wrote: Thu Mar 11, 2021 5:48 am I don't think that continuing Super is the biggest priority to Toei. And to be honest, I'm kinda glad it's not, because maybe they won't push out another rushed product again like with the first run of Super. Then again who am I kidding this Toei were talking about. Best case scenario is we get another high quality film, like with Broly.
From what I've been hearing, Toei have made changes to prevent another mess as big as Super's. One Piece, DQ, and Digimon are all being well reviewed from what I can tell due to these changes they've made.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Mister_Popo » Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:48 pm

BootyCheeksJohnson wrote: Thu Mar 11, 2021 5:48 am . Best case scenario is we get another high quality film, like with Broly.



Concerning that new movie which was announced to be in pre-production with the Broly blu-ray in May 2019, i'm starting to think whether that wouldn't have been canceled or at least postponed as well. Because at Jump Festa there was no word or the slightest news about that project, which normally should be expected to be about in production-phase in 2021.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by BootyCheeksJohnson » Thu Mar 11, 2021 9:52 pm

Matches Malone wrote: Thu Mar 11, 2021 7:43 am
BootyCheeksJohnson wrote: Thu Mar 11, 2021 5:48 am I don't think that continuing Super is the biggest priority to Toei. And to be honest, I'm kinda glad it's not, because maybe they won't push out another rushed product again like with the first run of Super. Then again who am I kidding this Toei were talking about. Best case scenario is we get another high quality film, like with Broly.
From what I've been hearing, Toei have made changes to prevent another mess as big as Super's. One Piece, DQ, and Digimon are all being well reviewed from what I can tell due to these changes they've made.
That's good to hear. I have no familiarity with One Piece, but the digimon reboot looks like it's got a good production team behind it, from the clips I've watched anyway.
I still think that being a seasonal anime would be more beneficial to Super instead of being a weekly anime.
We need a Steve Simmons retranslation of the manga.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:13 am

We'll definitely get more movies, and obviously manga, but I don't think we'll see the TV series return until the manga finishes another arc or two.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Peach » Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:49 am

We're in a world wide pandemic right now. A dragon ball super continuation would take years of planning. I'm sure the state of the world has complicated a lot of things behind the scenes. When it starts to settle down, i'm sure we'll see a new movie.

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Re: I feel like the Super anime (or a continuation of it?) has been quietly canceled

Post by Kinokima » Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:33 am

Honestly I don’t what is going on but it does feel like Toei and Bandai and whoever else is in charge of the franchise complete dropped the ball here.

It’s just kind of a shame when other franchises are treated so much better.

And the fact that other series like Digimon and One Piece are being treated well so maybe the unknown Dragon Ball animated product will also be treated well in the future doesn’t make me feel better. Instead again it just feels like every other franchise is being treated better despite all the money that Dragon Ball made.

Even little things like Masako Nozawa and the rest of the cast getting older makes me feel bad because I would like to have as much Dragon Ball with as much of the original cast as possible. But instead they drag their heels.

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