Opinion: There’s Enough Manga Material for a Season

[JulieYBM]

My assumption is that they're waiting until DQ Dai ends sometime next October to debut 2uper while riding the hype of the new movie. At that point they'll have around 47 chapters they'll be able to adapt.

Oof, I hope they don't do one chapter an episode pacing...

Yeah, that would be rough.

This is all working under the assumption that things won't play out like in 2019 where "THE STARS ARE ALIGNED!!1" and then nothing actually comes out.

Nozawa ain't getting any younger, Toei.

Well, we'll see. Who knows what other commitments they have on the books.

[jamiljamtheman]

47 chapters may not sound like a lot to adapt, but monthly chapters are more packed than weekly ones are, right?

The original example that inspired this thread was because I had finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist 2003. The beginning of that show was very smart about how it adapted what manga chapters existed at the time, in the beginning, with expansion and added content. Fullmetal Alchemist was a monthly manga, as well.

So I would *hope* that Toei could take 47 chapters, add additional content where needed, and make a decent season of dragon ball super out of it. Keyword, season, not an ongoing weekly thing like dragon ball typically is.

[JulieYBM]

47 chapters may not sound like a lot to adapt, but monthly chapters are more packed than weekly ones are, right?

The original example that inspired this thread was because I had finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist 2003. The beginning of that show was very smart about how it adapted what manga chapters existed at the time, in the beginning, with expansion and added content. Fullmetal Alchemist was a monthly manga, as well.

So I would *hope* that Toei could take 47 chapters, add additional content where needed, and make a decent season of dragon ball super out of it. Keyword, season, not an ongoing weekly thing like dragon ball typically is.

The plot moves at a snail's pace, so they would have to adapt quite a bit per episode to properly move the plot along in each episode. I would suggest covering 90 pages per episode if not more depending upon the plot content of each episode.

[HeroR]

47 chapters may not sound like a lot to adapt, but monthly chapters are more packed than weekly ones are, right?

The original example that inspired this thread was because I had finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist 2003. The beginning of that show was very smart about how it adapted what manga chapters existed at the time, in the beginning, with expansion and added content. Fullmetal Alchemist was a monthly manga, as well.

So I would *hope* that Toei could take 47 chapters, add additional content where needed, and make a decent season of dragon ball super out of it. Keyword, season, not an ongoing weekly thing like dragon ball typically is.

The plot moves at a snail's pace, so they would have to adapt quite a bit per episode to properly move the plot along in each episode. I would suggest covering 90 pages per episode if not more depending upon the plot content of each episode.

This pretty much. FMA and even something like AOT were paced much better than the Dragon Ball Super manga, which honestly feels like a weekly manga that is forced to pad for time because there’s a lot of fluff. Like five chapters were just a battle that could easily be adapted into two or three chapters or two episodes since the anime of Dragon Ball Super have faster fights. In comparison, a lot of stuff happened in FMA along with the plot and characters being more complex.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Oof, I hope they don't do one chapter an episode pacing...

Yeah, that would be rough.

This is all working under the assumption that things won't play out like in 2019 where "THE STARS ARE ALIGNED!!1" and then nothing actually comes out.

Nozawa ain't getting any younger, Toei.

Well, we'll see. Who knows what other commitments they have on the books.

Honestly, it's a bit of a waste at this point that TOEI still hasn't brought Super back after all this time. There was so much money to be made riding off all the hype in 2019 when Broly was still fresh in people's minds, and most international dubs had caught up. Dragon Ball's profits have also started to decline and will continue to do so if nothing follows Super Hero. I really hope TOEI don't mess things up next year because there are only so many chances they can get to strike while the iron's still hot.

[JulieYBM]

Yeah, that would be rough.

This is all working under the assumption that things won't play out like in 2019 where "THE STARS ARE ALIGNED!!1" and then nothing actually comes out.

Nozawa ain't getting any younger, Toei.

Well, we'll see. Who knows what other commitments they have on the books.

Honestly, it's a bit of a waste at this point that TOEI still hasn't brought Super back after all this time. There was so much money to be made riding off all the hype in 2019 when Broly was still fresh in people's minds, and most international dubs had caught up. Dragon Ball's profits have also started to decline and will continue to do so if nothing follows Super Hero. I really hope TOEI don't mess things up next year because there are only so many chances they can get to strike while the iron's still hot.

They can't just poop out a new series just because. Plenty of factors have to be considered, including rights and available staff.

[PurestEvil]

Yeah, that would be rough.

This is all working under the assumption that things won't play out like in 2019 where "THE STARS ARE ALIGNED!!1" and then nothing actually comes out.

Nozawa ain't getting any younger, Toei.

Well, we'll see. Who knows what other commitments they have on the books.

Honestly, it's a bit of a waste at this point that TOEI still hasn't brought Super back after all this time. There was so much money to be made riding off all the hype in 2019 when Broly was still fresh in people's minds, and most international dubs had caught up. Dragon Ball's profits have also started to decline and will continue to do so if nothing follows Super Hero. I really hope TOEI don't mess things up next year because there are only so many chances they can get to strike while the iron's still hot.

To be fair, TOEI makes a large profit from Dragon Ball even without producing an anime. With the circumstances, I am pretty certain they were waiting for the right period of time until they could invest some of their staff to produce DB content and get the ball rolling again.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It's possible TOEI may have been trying to give their all to Kitaro, Dragon Quest Dai, World Trigger and Digimon so that if in the unlikely event Dragon Ball failed they could fall back on and continue any of those series if they had a run of being well animated and critically regarded.

Thing is, as much as people say Dragon Ball makes a lot of money even without a weekly anime, it would make even more money with a series on Fuji TV.

At this point the only explanation is Toriyama doesn't want a continuation of Super on the air just yet.

[capsulecorp]

One argument that I'd like to see put to rest is the idea that "There's so much money to be made from a new DBS anime, that...". This pencil-pushing, calculator-pocket accountant type phrase pops up in this forum a lot and, in most cases, could be completely removed from a post without affecting the content in any way.

It's true that DBS can make money, however that does not ENSURE anything about Toei's actions. Like all corporations, Toei is motivated by profit but, like most corporations, that is never their ONLY consideration. Let's take it as a given that DBS can make money. Let's not pretend that we have some special insight about Toei's finances.

[SupremeKai25]

It's possible TOEI may have been trying to give their all to Kitaro, Dragon Quest Dai, World Trigger and Digimon so that if in the unlikely event Dragon Ball failed they could fall back on and continue any of those series if they had a run of being well animated and critically regarded.

Thing is, as much as people say Dragon Ball makes a lot of money even without a weekly anime, it would make even more money with a series on Fuji TV.

At this point the only explanation is Toriyama doesn't want a continuation of Super on the air just yet.

At the same time Super 1.0 had very messy schedule and was incredibly rushed each week, so Toei might simply have concluded that giving a more humane schedule to their employees (so that they don't have to literally churn out episodes every week regardless of the art) might be more beneficial, they still make tons of money anyway as you said.

Super Anime was so overwhelmingly popular that they can milk Xenoverse 2 and Fighterz until the end of time with Super DLCs characters.

In Xenoverse 2 they just released a new DLC which includes several Super characters, so clearly the Super brand is still very popular to them thanks to the anime and even without it.

[HeroR]

It's possible TOEI may have been trying to give their all to Kitaro, Dragon Quest Dai, World Trigger and Digimon so that if in the unlikely event Dragon Ball failed they could fall back on and continue any of those series if they had a run of being well animated and critically regarded.

Thing is, as much as people say Dragon Ball makes a lot of money even without a weekly anime, it would make even more money with a series on Fuji TV.

At this point the only explanation is Toriyama doesn't want a continuation of Super on the air just yet.

At the same time Super 1.0 had very messy schedule and was incredibly rushed each week, so Toei might simply have concluded that giving a more humane schedule to their employees (so that they don't have to literally churn out episodes every week regardless of the art) might be more beneficial, they still make tons of money anyway as you said.

Super Anime was so overwhelmingly popular that they can milk Xenoverse 2 and Fighterz until the end of time with Super DLCs characters.

In Xenoverse 2 they just released a new DLC which includes several Super characters, so clearly the Super brand is still very popular to them thanks to the anime and even without it.

That’s because the Super label replaced the ‘Z’ label in Japan. Super is Dragon Ball over there. And Super without an anime is going to increase with a movie they can milk for two years.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It's possible TOEI may have been trying to give their all to Kitaro, Dragon Quest Dai, World Trigger and Digimon so that if in the unlikely event Dragon Ball failed they could fall back on and continue any of those series if they had a run of being well animated and critically regarded.

Thing is, as much as people say Dragon Ball makes a lot of money even without a weekly anime, it would make even more money with a series on Fuji TV.

At this point the only explanation is Toriyama doesn't want a continuation of Super on the air just yet.

At the same time Super 1.0 had very messy schedule and was incredibly rushed each week, so Toei might simply have concluded that giving a more humane schedule to their employees (so that they don't have to literally churn out episodes every week regardless of the art) might be more beneficial, they still make tons of money anyway as you said.

Super Anime was so overwhelmingly popular that they can milk Xenoverse 2 and Fighterz until the end of time with Super DLCs characters.

In Xenoverse 2 they just released a new DLC which includes several Super characters, so clearly the Super brand is still very popular to them thanks to the anime and even without it.

I really hope that TOEI has taken the compassionate initiative to treat their animators better. Even if they didn't start to pay them better (which they would deserve given the nature of their craft and what they were paid was downright criminal) they should at least give the animators more break times and more lenient deadlines. Dragon Ball may still make a lot of money from Super-related merch and DLCs but if Super has shown anything it's that for profits to continue to grow the franchise needs an ongoing series. Considering Super was still TOEI's #1 property but declined slightly within the fiscal year of DBS Broly's international release I think that while Super Hero will help sales it won't help as much as an anime continuation.

Interestingly, it was seemingly revealed at the NATPE conference in Miami that 67 new episodes of Super were in the works. Considering this was around the time Geekdom and Ajay were told new episodes had wrapped up pre-production I hope that the time that has passed since then has been used to ensure we get the best possible quality out of all those episodes that were planned.

[Skar]

Interestingly, it was seemingly revealed at the NATPE conference in Miami that 67 new episodes of Super were in the works. Considering this was around the time Geekdom and Ajay were told new episodes had wrapped up pre-production I hope that the time that has passed since then has been used to ensure we get the best possible quality out of all those episodes that were planned.

That's interesting! What would these episodes have been about back then though? The only Toriyama story available at the time was Broly. In 67 episodes, DBS covered two movie retellings and the two arc outlines.

[Koitsukai]

Interestingly, it was seemingly revealed at the NATPE conference in Miami that 67 new episodes of Super were in the works. Considering this was around the time Geekdom and Ajay were told new episodes had wrapped up pre-production I hope that the time that has passed since then has been used to ensure we get the best possible quality out of all those episodes that were planned.

That's interesting! What would these episodes have been about back then though? The only Toriyama story available at the time was Broly. In 67 episodes, DBS covered two movie retellings and the two arc outlines.

The Moro arc started on december 2018, so if this revelation is from 2019, then maybe the Moro arc was in the works. That year went from chapter 44 to chapter 55. Maybe more, if they had access to the unpublished, yet finished, chapters.
Plus, some brief retelling of the Broly movie and a bridge between both stories.

[HeroR]

Interestingly, it was seemingly revealed at the NATPE conference in Miami that 67 new episodes of Super were in the works. Considering this was around the time Geekdom and Ajay were told new episodes had wrapped up pre-production I hope that the time that has passed since then has been used to ensure we get the best possible quality out of all those episodes that were planned.

That's interesting! What would these episodes have been about back then though? The only Toriyama story available at the time was Broly. In 67 episodes, DBS covered two movie retellings and the two arc outlines.

The Moro arc started on december 2018, so if this revelation is from 2019, then maybe the Moro arc was in the works. That year went from chapter 44 to chapter 55. Maybe more, if they had access to the unpublished, yet finished, chapters.
Plus, some brief retelling of the Broly movie and a bridge between both stories.

I have doubts since Moro isn’t that long of an arc to require 40 or 50 episodes if the Broly retelling was 10-20 episodes. Even the padding before USS was only seven episodes.

[MCDaveG]

I think that it is very unlikely that the manga will be adapted as it is now, but who knows, if the Super Hero movie will be succesful, it might return one day and they would probably adapt all the current manga arcs and more... Question is, how well.
The Broly movie was labeled Super to begin with and maybe it can get treated as a standalone side story as I can't imagine myself to sit through a low budget slow adaptation of gorgeous looking movie being split into like 17 episodes with some unexciting filler in same as with Battle Of Gods arc, which was unbeliavably subpar and made a plothole with Pilaf and co.

But we'll see, Bardock might be essential to the upcoming Granolah arc chapters.

I would welcome a Super continuation over the manga any day, as I would love to support the product more in manga form, but it missing the Freeza arc and Broly stuff makes it kind of a weird product to have it on the shelf next to the original manga.

This brings me into question! Are OAVs still a thing? The rest of Saint Seiya was adapted into OAVs, with spin offs like Lost Canvas, Soul Of Gold and Santia Sho. Sunrise's Gundam stories from Universal Century get either OAV treatment or series of movies...
I can see Super continue as OAV with no pressure on weekly format catching on manga nor being afraid to follow up the 20 minutes with commercials for television strictly. With Arc/Episodic release format - Dragon Ball Super: Moro, Dragon Ball Super: Granolah...

[SupremeKai25]

Yeah, I remember that there were leaks back in 2019 about Super coming back. Would this not imply that they are not following the manga in any way, but rather Toriyama's outline (like they've always done)? Since in 2019 the Moro arc was still far from finished in the manga, so that means that Toei, while working on those episodes, couldn't have used the manga as inspiration, because it was still unfinished...

[Krillin1994]

I think if they wanted to beef up the Moro arc a little bit they could do these

- Pre arc goku and vegeta sparring/ expanded arrival of galactic patrol to take Buu
- Spend some more time before Moro appears with Goku and Vegeta helping out some misc cases to have them bond with Merus a bit more
- Episode dedicated to showing the Goons escaping the prison/ showcasing some powers off a bit more.
- Goku and Vegeta training expansion
- Moro absorbing planets/henchmen targeting planets
- Expanded focus on some of the Earthling fights
- More focus on Merus' sacrifice and Goku's response.

Not saying it would be a huge amount but could add a couple of eps on - especially an ep dedicated to the jailbreak and an extra case pre Moro. Maybe have them do a case that directly confirms their suspicion of Moro being free.


But realistically it would be showing Whis and Beerus O face reactions over meals and just commenting on things.

[MCDaveG]

I think if they wanted to beef up the Moro arc a little bit they could do these

- Pre arc goku and vegeta sparring/ expanded arrival of galactic patrol to take Buu
- Spend some more time before Moro appears with Goku and Vegeta helping out some misc cases to have them bond with Merus a bit more
- Episode dedicated to showing the Goons escaping the prison/ showcasing some powers off a bit more.
- Goku and Vegeta training expansion
- Moro absorbing planets/henchmen targeting planets
- Expanded focus on some of the Earthling fights
- More focus on Merus' sacrifice and Goku's response.

Not saying it would be a huge amount but could add a couple of eps on - especially an ep dedicated to the jailbreak and an extra case pre Moro. Maybe have them do a case that directly confirms their suspicion of Moro being free.


But realistically it would be showing Whis and Beerus O face reactions over meals and just commenting on things.

Oh man, I completely forgot that DB Super became a quite of a foodie show and lot of food plots and food shots...
So much it went into Kakarot as one of the prevalent game mechanics.
It strikes you even more when you go through rewatch or re-read of the original series and manga and that is something I never much appreciated and not really looking forward.

But hey, still better to have a shot of takoyaki or any other food each episode, then bouncing boobs and screaming idols like in Gundam Seed.
I am happy that this side of otaku culture got shifted away to streaming services and into obscure series.

[SupremeKai25]

I really hope Toei fixes Moro like they fixed Black, Zamasu, Kefla...

Spice up his personality a little, extend his backstory, give him new flashy techniques, maybe a new flashy form, etc. etc. etc.