"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[The Dark Knight]

Sure, you could argue that this would lead to another post-GT-pre-Super era in the franchise, but would it really be bad?

I personally think Dragon Ball as an on-going franchise, at least when it came to the anime and manga, should have ended after Z, or even GT if I'm being generous. We had 520 manga chapters, 508 television episodes, 17 theatrical movies, 3 TV specials, and 1 OVA; did we really need more ? I would have rather seen Toyotaro write and draw his own original manga from the ground up instead of wasting away his talents on lifeless Dragon Ball content, and I definitely would have rather seen Toei adapt an up-and-coming manga into the next big anime instead of the soulless corpses that were Kai and Super 1.0. I miss the days when manga and anime had definitive endings, where the story was truly completed and the people who worked on them moved on to different projects. I'm not just singling out Dragon Ball, as Naruto and other popular series just keep getting endless content without an end in sight. I feel like the quality of all these once great series have diluted as a result of this endless franchise milking that we've been seeing over the past decade.

[PhantomSaiyan]

I don't know if I'd describe it like that but I hold a similar view to yours: Dragon Ball to me is the original run of the manga and anime from the 80s and 90s, and I'll even throw in the games we got during the PS2 era, as well as the Kanzenban edition of the manga and the Dragon Boxes. 1984-2007 really was the golden era of the franchise, an era that's magic will (as we've seen since 2008) never be recaptured again, be it in the anime, manga, games, home releases, etc.

I think the same.
Sure the revival era is fun and there's good things about it, but it will always feel like "extra", like a DLC or something lol

[SupremeKai25]

This thread is more active than usual. Is there any actual news about the manga?

Next month (August 2026) it will be 4 years since the end of the Granolah saga. Chapter 87, "The Universe's Strongest Appears", came out on August 20, 2022. 4 years since the Super Hero movie, and the end of the Granolah saga (and Black Freeza). Funny how time flies.

[PhantomSaiyan]

This thread is more active than usual. Is there any actual news about the manga?

Next month (August 2026) it will be 4 years since the end of the Granolah saga. Chapter 87, "The Universe's Strongest Appears", came out on August 20, 2022. 4 years since the Super Hero movie, and the end of the Granolah saga (and Black Freeza). Funny how time flies.

Unfortunately no, still nothing It's really annoying how they're keeping us in the dark like this

[Koitsukai]

I wonder what it looks like on Toyo's end. He has been unemployed for 4 years now? is he getting this job back? should he find something else to do by now?

[SupremeKai25]

This thread is more active than usual. Is there any actual news about the manga?

Next month (August 2026) it will be 4 years since the end of the Granolah saga. Chapter 87, "The Universe's Strongest Appears", came out on August 20, 2022. 4 years since the Super Hero movie, and the end of the Granolah saga (and Black Freeza). Funny how time flies.

Unfortunately no, still nothing It's really annoying how they're keeping us in the dark like this

Well, at least we know they are going to adapt the Galactic Prisoner saga in the anime.

Between the adaptation and the remaster of the old Dragon Ball Super, this January was huge for Dragon Ball news, and we know that there's a lot of Super content planned. Unfortunately they didn't really talk about the manga.

[The Dark Knight]

I wonder what it looks like on Toyo's end. He has been unemployed for 4 years now? is he getting this job back? should he find something else to do by now?

He should've moved on years ago; expecting someone to hold out for a job for that long is insane, unless they were paying him something in the meantime.

Unfortunately they didn't really talk about the manga.

Jump tends to save all their manga announcements for December's Jump Festa, so if it's returning, it'll be announced there.

[VegettoEX]

Toyotaro almost assuredly has either an ongoing contract or full-time position within Shueisha (one that allows for or has been appended to accommodate for the lack of an ongoing series), and/or also has a non-compete agreement that he cannot simply leave and produce his own, non-Shueisha-affiliated works for some set amount of time (perhaps even indefinite).

That all said, it's not like he's been doing "nothing" this entire time:

• In between Super 103 and 104, he did the Super Divers one-shot manga in V-Jump
• We got a send-off chapter for Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission in the game's final guidebook
• He has the S.H.Figuarts manga chapter coming later this year with the Journey to the West-style Goku
• He does occasional in-person events at conventions
• His "Toyotaro Drew It!" column on the Dragon Ball Official Site has gone on uninterrupted
• He somewhat regularly participates in other video features on the Dragon Ball Official Site
• He does the occasional cover artwork for V-Jump, even with none of his manga running in it at the time
• He does the occasional extra promotional artwork beyond even Dragon Ball, with one Gundam card game piece done last year, and another one now this year

Sure, it's not the same as having a monthly serialized manga series like he's effectively had since late 2012, but he's certainly not sitting around doing "nothing" at/for Shueisha with regard to the Dragon Ball franchise (and beyond).

There really seems to be a lack of comprehensive understanding about what all goes on with this franchise -- I would encourage you to keep up with the news posts we do on the actual main Kanzenshuu website, in addition to the Dragon Ball Official Site's own ongoing content, too!

[angeldreamZ004]

It's really annoying how they're keeping us in the dark like this

But they aren't. Every new issue of V-Jump they warn us that the manga will remain on hiatus in the next issue(s), unless you mean that they aren't telling us what is going on behind the scenes, which I doubt, because we all know they don't want these things to be public.

Next month (August 2026) it will be 4 years since the end of the Granolah saga. Chapter 87, "The Universe's Strongest Appears", came out on August 20, 2022. 4 years since the Super Hero movie, and the end of the Granolah saga (and Black Freeza). Funny how time flies.

I wonder what it looks like on Toyo's end. He has been unemployed for 4 years now? is he getting this job back? should he find something else to do by now?

But the last time Toyotaro worked on the manga was just a year ago, and okay, there was a large gap between chapters 103 and 104, but ignoring it, it would actually be 2 years and 3 months without anything new from the manga.
But it's like mikex said, it's not as if he wasn't doing anything in this meantime, the latest art we've seen from him are all from B-projects, and there will be his short special comic for S.H figuarts collection in October and his special art for the cover illustration poll next month. So they still want to make him somewhat busy. He probably keeps getting profit from the volumes as well.

There was also the Dragon Ball Super Interval Special between chapters 87-88 and 103-104, which featured a new art from him on each part. I wonder if it will ever return, and, misteriously, it stopped being made after June 2024? I wonder what happened?
I don't recall them giving a reason for it

[sangofe]

In an ideal world Toyotaro would be working on the manga without it getting published so he's way ahead. I hope that is happening, too.

[The Dark Knight]

In an ideal world Toyotaro would be working on the manga without it getting published so he's way ahead. I hope that is happening, too.

He might be working on the actual writing, but I highly doubt he's drawing any chapters in the background; at most he may have some character designs ready to go.

[SupremeKai25]

But the last time Toyotaro worked on the manga was just a year ago, and okay, there was a large gap between chapters 103 and 104, but ignoring it, it would actually be 2 years and 3 months without anything new from the manga.
But it's like mikex said, it's not as if he wasn't doing anything in this meantime, the latest art we've seen from him are all from B-projects, and there will be his short special comic for S.H figuarts collection in October and his special art for the cover illustration poll next month. So they still want to make him somewhat busy. He probably keeps getting profit from the volumes as well.

I didn't dispute that. I'm well aware that Toyotaro made his version of the Super Hero movie and bonus chapters with Trunks.

I was just pointing out that the Granolah saga ended 4 years ago (soon) and the cliffhanger with Black Freeza is still open.

[PhantomSaiyan]

But they aren't. Every new issue of V-Jump they warn us that the manga will remain on hiatus in the next issue(s), unless you mean that they aren't telling us what is going on behind the scenes, which I doubt, because we all know they don't want these things to be public.

It's pretty clear what I mean, no sure what got you so confused.
We don't know when the manga will come back, and telling us "it's not coming back this month" every month is not exactly what I'd call "not keeping us in the dark"

[sangofe]

In an ideal world Toyotaro would be working on the manga without it getting published so he's way ahead. I hope that is happening, too.

He might be working on the actual writing, but I highly doubt he's drawing any chapters in the background; at most he may have some character designs ready to go.

Why not though, if it's been decided it's returning?

[The Dark Knight]

Why not though, if it's been decided it's returning?

That's the thing; it hasn't been decided, otherwise we'd be getting new chapters. He may have some plot points written down and character designs ready to go IF he's given the OK to proceed, but you can't expect him to spend hours of his time each day drawing something that may not get approved.

[Skar]

The only resolution possible is just literally just rehashing F. So it goes back to first thing I said. Think of the hype moments and aura!

I like to think there's something else being built up to besides another good guys Vs. Freeza story, but only time will tell I guess.

Like Frieza could be a red herring for a new big bad, a villain that BLACK FRIEZA can't handle

Gives us an excuse for another Goku, Vegeta and Frieza teamup.

I think that's more likely than a repeat of RoF or all the other times he came back for revenge. SH takes place 2-3 years after Black Freeza appeared. For whatever reason he kept to himself during that time after sparing them in the Granolah arc. It doesn't seem like he's interested in revenge or killing them anymore and just sees them as rivals for the title of strongest mortal in the universe.

[sangofe]

Why not though, if it's been decided it's returning?

That's the thing; it hasn't been decided, otherwise we'd be getting new chapters. He may have some plot points written down and character designs ready to go IF he's given the OK to proceed, but you can't expect him to spend hours of his time each day drawing something that may not get approved.

How do you, or I know anything? The only publically known fact is that the publication is on hiatus.

[The Dark Knight]

How do you, or I know anything?

Because that's not how things in the industry work; if something is on hiatus, then it's on hiatus. The concept of an an artist having years worth of chapters drawn in the background in secret is just not a thing that happens.

[sangofe]

How do you, or I know anything?

Because that's not how things in the industry work; if something is on hiatus, then it's on hiatus. The concept of an an artist having years worth of chapters drawn in the background in secret is just not a thing that happens.

I'm not saying there are unreleased chapters. I'm saying it's possible. I also never said there were years of unreleased chapters—that was your example, not mine. None of us know what material Toriyama or Toyotarou may have had completed or partly completed before the hiatus, and there's no public evidence proving either way. I also don't know how you can say with certainty that "that's just not how the industry works." Unless you have a source or insider knowledge, that's speculation too.

[The Dark Knight]

I also don't know how you can say with certainty that "that's just not how the industry works." Unless you have a source or insider knowledge, that's speculation too.

That's not how any industry works; if a project is paused, then no one is doing any major work on it. Maybe some employees will work on their own time to have some ideas ready to go when or if it gets approved to move forward again, but that's about it. The only way Toyotaro would have completed chapters ready to go would be if he was already working on them BEFORE Toriyama passes and the manga was paused, but not after.