Was DB Super a flop in the grand scheme of things?

[Jord]

Dragon Ball GT lasted 64 episodes (+ a tv special) and due to it's short length is often considered a flop. That being said GT came right after the original DB and Z and after Dragon Ball fatigue had already set in in Japan during the Majin Buu era.

Looking back, Dragon Ball Super the show only lasted for 131 episodes, which is "only" twice as long as the "flopped" GT. However Super came after a "drought" of animated Dragon Ball content since the late 90's, with of course the two new movies being both an exception and the catalyst for the new show. They had a ton of momentum going in.
Then the show started and it didn't last long. Super just....ended to never come back on tv again. Being a midquel, it's hard to think of the "perfect" ending, since the actual ending has already happened at the end of Z (or GT if you prefer) but Super's ending gave a vague promise that we wouldn't have to miss the franchise for long. You can interpret that ending however you want.
A short while after, a new DB anime started to air in Japan. Super Dragon Ball Heroes, while having shorter and less episodes, surpassed Super in staying power by quite a while now .

Toei meanwhile, was reluctant to use the Super brand to market the franchise with major releases at the height of it's popularity. Products such as video games were using the Z brand, with Super characters being treated much like GT characters or not even being featured in it all. Broly and the experimental Super Hero movie did get the Super branding, but strangely only after the anime ended.
Looking forward, the next big DB project, Budokai Tenkaichi 4 goes back to the Z moniker.

It made money and created awareness for the brand but it seemed to fizzle out real fast after the anime ended after such a short run.
Super, the manga is still going, but the percentage of people who read the manga compared to watching the anime is quite small. (Same could be said for the SDBH manga of course) If Super was the big money maker then surely we'd have seen the return of the anime by now. Characters that originated in Super's post-anime manga haven't gotten any merchandise or animation, seemingly giving the impression there's no money to be made in creating figurines or even a short OVA starring those new characters.

Every time another anime seems to end it's scheduled airing in Japan "leakers" predict the return of the show, only for nothing to really happen.

[MasenkoHA]

131 episodes isn't a short run at all though. Especially accounting for it being the fourth tv series in a franchise. It's like people think GT must have bombed for only running for 64 episodes but that ignores that 444 episodes preceded it.

In what world do we consider something a flop when it was followed by two films under its brand that did pretty darn well financially?

Seems more like the IP holders restratergized and decided a second season wasn't necessary and time could be spent on other anime projects while the manga and video games and occasional movie keeps the Dragon Ball franchise afloat

[SupremeKai25]

After looking at any video of people reacting to the final Goku vs. Jiren fight, No, I cannot call it a "flop".

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

After looking at any video of people reacting to the final Goku vs. Jiren fight, No, I cannot call it a "flop".

Yeah, no matter how anyone slices it there's no way you can call a series that drew large crowds to a bar like its a major sporting event a flop.

Then there's also the fact the two highest grossing movies in this franchise carry the Super branding, both of which became the top movie in the US opening weekend, and one not only broke Pokemon : The First Movie's (a movie that was pretty damn mainstream at the time) 23 year run of having the biggest opening for an anime movie, but beat a movie featuring Idris Elba.

Super's ratings were clearly strong enough to keep it going for 131 episodes, making it the third longest Dragon Ball series (unless you count Kai and The Final Chapters as one show, although if it continued it very likely could have surpassed its 167 episodes to become the second longest series).

The Blu-Rays have also sold respectably. Manga UK went ahead and did a deluxe collector's edition (which was unlike anything they'd done for any series before), Funimation felt confident enough the Parts would keep selling they didn't release Seasons, and put out steelbooks later, which showed confidence in the show's potential on home video.

Super is anything but a flop.

[Hellspawn28]

I can't see how it was a flop given how popular it was. The bigger fans may have issues with Super, but the casual auddience still enjoys Super. That's why so many people are still asking for Super to return. Toei and Bandai Namco are still using the Dragon Ball Super name for branding. Meanwhile, they still keep on using DBZ for things before Super came out.

[Jord]

I can't see how it was a flop given how popular it was. The bigger fans may have issues with Super, but the casual auddience still enjoys Super. That's why so many people are still asking for Super to return. Toei and Bandai Namco are still using the Dragon Ball Super name for branding. Meanwhile, they still keep on using DBZ for things before Super came out.

Actually they're using the Super branding less and less.
Yes, it was popular for a short while but then it just fizzled out. That's the part that's puzzling.

[ABED]

I can't see how it was a flop given how popular it was. The bigger fans may have issues with Super, but the casual auddience still enjoys Super. That's why so many people are still asking for Super to return. Toei and Bandai Namco are still using the Dragon Ball Super name for branding. Meanwhile, they still keep on using DBZ for things before Super came out.

Actually they're using the Super branding less and less.
Yes, it was popular for a short while but then it just fizzled out. That's the part that's puzzling.

I don't think it is. DBZ for better or worse is the name that people recognize the most. Super was successful for a time and now it feels the brand is going back to what most people are used to.

[Desassina]

I can only talk from my experience without information here: I returned to Dragon Ball with Super because I had witnessed Dragon Ball Z in my childhood. I don't think that Super would have grabbed my attention in case I was a newcomer and that may be a reason for the title to not have the same staying power. Having witnessed the latter half of the series and its movies made me realize how I cannot sit through all of Z though. Super's content came quickly and you could fill the story in with the details from the manga, although I think that the latter does not contribute to its popularity as much as it is there for those who have been exposed to the series, and want to continue with something different at their own pace.

[Hellspawn28]

I can't see how it was a flop given how popular it was. The bigger fans may have issues with Super, but the casual auddience still enjoys Super. That's why so many people are still asking for Super to return. Toei and Bandai Namco are still using the Dragon Ball Super name for branding. Meanwhile, they still keep on using DBZ for things before Super came out.

Actually they're using the Super branding less and less.
Yes, it was popular for a short while but then it just fizzled out. That's the part that's puzzling.

They used Dragon Ball Super for the new film, and the Super name for Heroes. The manga is still being called Dragon Ball Super.

[super michael]

Dragon Ball Super anime might be inferior compared to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z by a lot. Dragon Ball Super anime might suffer from bad writing, bad animation, terrible power scaling, pathetic training method, characters getting worse, etc.
However even with all those things Dragon Ball Super anime didn't flop at all. It was successful the anime.

Now is it the number 1 anime? That I don't know. I am guessing no, but I could be wrong.

Dragon Ball Super movies they are a huge success.

[capsulecorp]

Dragon Ball Super anime might be inferior compared to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z by a lot. Dragon Ball Super anime might suffer from bad writing, bad animation, terrible power scaling, pathetic training method, characters getting worse, etc.
However even with all those things Dragon Ball Super anime didn't flop at all. It was successful the anime.

Now is it the number 1 anime? That I don't know. I am guessing no, but I could be wrong.

Dragon Ball Super movies they are a huge success.

I think a lot of people who enjoyed Super as it aired have had time to revisit and re-evaluate it. This re-evaluation - which is probably almost always more negative than their original experience - might be part of why the OP is asking this question, as well as why Toei hasn't brought the anime back.

In other words, Super was probably not a "flop", but it also wasn't very good either. This is a new experience for DB fans.

[ABED]

Has that been your experience? That people who rewatch it don't like it as much the second time?

[MasenkoHA]

Dragon Ball Super anime might be inferior compared to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z by a lot. Dragon Ball Super anime might suffer from bad writing, bad animation, terrible power scaling, pathetic training method, characters getting worse, etc.
However even with all those things Dragon Ball Super anime didn't flop at all. It was successful the anime.

Now is it the number 1 anime? That I don't know. I am guessing no, but I could be wrong.

Dragon Ball Super movies they are a huge success.

I think a lot of people who enjoyed Super as it aired have had time to revisit and re-evaluate it. This re-evaluation - which is probably almost always more negative than their original experience - might be part of why the OP is asking this question, as well as why Toei hasn't brought the anime back.

In other words, Super was probably not a "flop", but it also wasn't very good either. This is a new experience for DB fans.

Somehow, doubt Toei is looking that deeply into "Oh fans on message boards are saying they don't like it a second time" when considering Super a success or not.

[capsulecorp]

Somehow, doubt Toei is looking that deeply into "Oh fans on message boards are saying they don't like it a second time" when considering Super a success or not.

I didn't mean to imply that Toei was studying message boards, just that people there are as aware as we are about the troubles with the DBS anime.

[Dr. Casey]

131 episodes is an incredibly long runtime for the present day. That would have been a fairly unremarkable number for the 70s and 80s, but it would have been well above average for the 90s (where 26-52 episodes was the norm), and outright gargantuan by the standards of the 21st century (in the early to mid 2000s shows typically came in two varieties, either around 13 episodes or around 26, though four-cour series that lasted a full year weren't at all unheard of. One-cour became the standard around the late 2000s, with 95 percent of series made during the 2010s and 2020s being 12-13 episode shows; shows that run a year or more are very close to being completely extinct, you can probably count the number of series that run that long per year on one hand). It's also close to the original Dragon Ball's 153.

[Raki]

I doubt it can be considered a flop. Super has reignited my interest in the franchise. I bought all the Blurays in a heartbeat and can't wait to watch the newest film.

[GokuHater]

131 episodes are not short by any means but taking into consideration all the variables (the fact this is the first original DB anime in years, the fact that the fans thrived for this, the fact some even "forgot" about DB and were sure it will never come back, the fact a few years prior we had Evolution) than... Yeah, it's a bit few.
Non canonical GT which a lot of people hated, full of franchise fatigue, did half of the runtime of Super. That isn't good for Super.

Super with all it's premise, expectations, hype could easily last twice the length of Z, maybe even more.
It should be an epic like no other, and having a legendary ending.
To a point it had those things but only on a "proper shone anime" scale, not DB continuation scale.

All in all it didn't flop. For fans it didn't flop as it was more DB and there always was more content to enjoy (and overwrite " the bad, ugly GT" :p ), for Toei it didn't flop as they have made money from it.

I don't see Super coming back anytime soon. The ending was a bit of "oh shit, we're out" and the fact it didn't come back so far is very telling. And it's not as though they can't use any ideas. They can adapt the manga, they can adapt the movies again. They could even use existing ideas, a lot of fan mangas have a better strony than Super ever did).

Super is a good enough anime. But it isn't a good enough DB anime

[JulieYBM]

It's hardly a flop considering it helped influence the current spread of media mix products. You upen up a Dragon Ball comic or advertisement and you're going to see Dragon Ball Super characters and transformations.

Goodness, even if Dragon Ball Super had been a 'flop'...who cares? Shueisha, Bandai and Toei Animation aren't giving me money, they aren't treating the poor souls who make the projects well, either. The executives at these companies have stolen more from the hundreds of people who worked on the series than they have ever given back to them.

(Despite the Dragon Ball Super animated series existing as proof of poor treatment of creators and staff I do enjoy it as a flawed work of art).

[Koitsukai]

Financially, to know if it flopped, you'd need to know how much it was invested on it, and then see the returns. Those numbers I don't have, but seeing that the movie that followed the anime did much better than the movie that started the revival after 20 years of nothing, I'm saying no, DBS helped provide even greater returns.

[8000 Saiyan]

Hardly. The show went on for 131 episodes.