Dragon Ball Super: Beerus - Episode 1 - Official Discussion Thread

[IntangibleFancy]

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a tad bit letdown. It's hard for me to explain what I exactly I was expecting, but I feel like my expectations were slightly too high. Like I knew to expect "DBS but it looks better and there were some new scenes" but I expected those new scenes to look more like that one shot of Super Saiyan Goku in the opening. I'm going to wait for the Beerus arc to fully end before I go into detail. I hope the fight next week is good.

[SupremeKai25]

As someone who's been following updates on this project since January, and based on the first episode... if this project is simply adding a Broly filter on everything and removing filler scenes... then I am satisfied.

What I've said since the start is: This is a remaster. It's not meant to alter the story. It's meant to improve the original product visually and improve the pacing. Remasters generally don't change the story. That is remake territory.

I've also been surprised by the new framing for Beerus and Whis. They look ominous and scary. I wonder what they'll do with Frost, Cabba, and Hit.

[Noah]

There's no reason to have high expectations for a remaster when it's the same story being told for the fourth time.

I thought most people here were just expecting a more polished version of the 2015 anime, with maybe an extra scene here and there, nothing more.

Maybe it'll get more interesting once we get to the key fights in the upcoming arcs. We're only stalling for Moro and maybe, Granolah.

[Extreme_kai]

Am I the only one who thought this change was dumb and made no sense? Why give some random nobody the aura of a super villain? I know a big part of the reason is probably to cover up the shitty animation from the original, but this was way over the top.



Like someone else said in this thread, the whole scene with Whis going after dinosaur meat is pointless. There's no need to hype up Beerus yet again when we've already seen him destroy half a planet with a single touch. They could've had him remember his dream about the SSG in some other way.

Not only that, but what was the point of removing his other set of eyes and arms for? It only made the design look worse. Such a baffling and unnecessary change, imo.

[Mister_Popo]

After watching the first episode of Dragon Ball Super: Beerus, I wanted to share my initial thoughts on this remake:
(Although this project lands somewhere between a remaster and a remake, I would still classify it as a remake due to the addition of brand-new scenes and the sheer volume of redrawn animation work.)

Animation, Art, and Color Palette
Broadly speaking, I find myself agreeing with the general consensus: the visuals are a noticeable step up. This improvement is especially evident in the first half of the episode, with the Image Training sequence standing out as an absolute highlight. The color palette is less overly vibrant than the original Super anime, which successfully gives the series the texture and weight of a proper Dragon Ball Z sequel—or more accurately, a "midquel".

However, the animation during the fight against the alien creature felt somewhat subpar. While I understand the creative choice to alter the creature’s design and aura to make it look more menacing, the intense red aura ultimately obscured the action. It made it difficult to clearly track the creature's movements and punches in its futile attempts to hit the God of Destruction. Another minor grievance is the ending animation; while less critical than the opening, the blend of a CGI Shenron with traditional 2D animation felt a bit messy. Fortunately, this was entirely redeemed by the stunning visuals of the opening song. The sequence utilizes a fantastic variety of compositions, perspectives, and colors that flow into each other seamlessly.

Opening and Ending Themes
The new opening track is excellent—strong, energetic, and far from the generic fare described in some early comments in my opinion. While "Genkai Toppa × Survivor" remains my absolute favorite, this new track easily outperforms "Chōzetsu☆Dynamic!", which I always found a bit flat and soulless. The ending theme, much like its accompanying visuals, didn't particularly stand out.

Characters and Pacing
By trimming away some of the original filler scenes, Goku's characterization feels much more aligned with the Goku we know from previous legacy series. While his signature goofy side is present, it is not exaggerated here. His core motivation—even in times of peace after the events of DBZ—remains purely about pushing his limits and becoming stronger.
Even though Goku is the central focus, "Vegeta-time" (which originally comprised the bulk of episode 2) felt rather scarce. Hopefully, this will be balanced out in the upcoming episodes, particularly during Bulma's birthday party. Meanwhile, Beerus feels significantly less comical and far more like a badass God of Destruction. The decision to leave the opening scene without background music heavily contributes to this tense atmosphere, as does the streamlined dialogue and the heavier shading in his character design. Keeping his design strictly feline—rather than giving him dog-like expressions—enhances his menacing credibility. I believe it is a smart choice to delay his more "comic relief" moments until the Resurrection 'F' arc, when he gradually becomes part of the main cast.

Seiyū (Voice Acting)
The series reuses the voice tracks from the original anime run. Since the original voice acting was already stellar, I have no complaints here. Furthermore, given the passing of several iconic voice actors in recent years (including the original voices of Bulma, Mr. Satan, and King Kai), I highly appreciate the decision not to overwrite their final performances. It serves as a beautiful sign of respect—a gesture that holds immense cultural value, particularly within Japan.
That said, there is one reason I slightly regret the lack of new audio recordings. With the announcement of a narrative reconstruction, I had hoped that this "3-arcs-in-1" format would introduce a few minor, newly recorded scenes to make those first three separate arcs feel like a more cohesive, singular story. Hopefully, the production team can still bridge these gaps through clever visual storytelling moving forward.

Preliminary Conclusion
Barring a few minor complaints, this remake is off to a promising start. We must, of course, keep in mind that we are watching a third animated adaptation of the exact same storyline, so we shouldn't expect an unprecedented creative revolution. Nonetheless, what I saw in this premiere makes me highly optimistic for the remainder of Dragon Ball Super: Beerus.

[dbs fanboy]

Am i the only one who finds the lack of a narrator off putting?

I don't mind a bit of a tone change and i enjoyed the episode, but you don't need to make the show completely emotionless, come on!

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but it was a bit of a letdown for me. Technically speaking it was a massive improvement over the original version of Super (although there were some awkwardly placed cuts like there were in the first episode of Kai). I like how effort was clearly given to make Beerus feel threatening (I imagine that'll be a plus to new audiences who're just meeting this character), but I got really bored while watching because no matter what's changed we're going to circle back to Super's original issue: "why is any of this necessary when the movie holds up just fine?" Battle of Gods as a story was written as a screenplay and it managed to fit everything into the confines of a movie runtime excellently. All of the additions and changes that Super originally made to the BoG story felt arbitrary back in 2015, and so far it feels like the same is true in 2026. I can respect the care that was put into this project, but it's not enough to fix the fundamental issue that Battle of Gods never needed to be remade in the first place because it felt like a complete story. Say what you want about Resurrection F, but that's a story that could've benefited from some additional content to flesh it out.
As it stands I'm on the fence about watching anymore of Super: Beerus. Maybe I'll pick it back up when it gets to Super's original content. I could see the Tournament of Destroyers benefiting from some recuts to better the pacing.

[JulieYBM]

Am i the only one who finds the lack of a narrator off putting?

I don't mind a bit of a tone change and i enjoyed the episode, but you don't need to make the show completely emotionless, come on!

I like the lack of a narrator. It's just the viewer and their observations with no narrator to make you feel like everything is going to be okay.

[Yuji]

What a Frankenstein monster this is, even more-so than Kai was. I'm sure this will become the definitive version of Super once all is said and done, but it’s really hard to stop myself from comparing it to the original.

The tone is especially jarring. It looks as if it's trying to appeal to the Western audeince even though Battle of Gods was fundamentally a light hearted story. Beerus' ambiguous nature in the movies allowed some suspension of disbelief regarding why the gang hung out with him. One could wonder if he was just lazy, or easy to persuade, or actually a good guy. Seeing him be so cruel and callous I think works against him as a character. Too much showing.

Some scenes would benefit from new voice lines, even just yells. I appreciated Super's original voice work and I doubt the actors would be able to replicate their performances 10 years later for a remediated product, but some of the new scenes look off without voices.

I hate the OP. It probably isn't but it sounds AI generated. On that topic, I would not be surprised if it's revealed this show used AI in some fashion.

I don't understand why they couldn't just use the movies and add the new scenes they felt necessary to include, but alas.

[Luso Saiyan]

This was about as underwhelming as it can possibly get. I know people don't really like Super's "filler" content, but a lot of them were either funny or added to the characters. It is fun to see them just hanging out and enjoying life together instead of always being super serious. In this episode, we sacrificed Goten trying to give his sister in law a beautiful present with his best friend, and Vegeta having a trip with Bulma and Trunks for.. a minute or so of Goku image training. The only relevant thing about it was that it woke Beerus up, so I get it, it had its importance, and Cell looks as handsome as ever, but idk about you, I think what we saw in the old version was so much better.

For the most part, I agree with you. Very underwhelming.

I was never a fan of the muted color filter from the TOP, but that's a minor issue. However, the things they chose to waste time and money revisiting (and they way they did it) is baffling, starting with the Moginaians. The editing is also a bit choppy (and sloppy?) and there's no excuse for that. Goku arriving at Kaio's planet is also comparatively worse.

I don't know why they didn't focus with the continuity stuff, specially when they now have an overview of the whole 'Super' series. Why don't they have Kibito Kai defused from the start? This was also a good opportunity to adopt the manga colors across the board for the series, unfortunately they didn't do that either.

I did like to see Beerus waking up and the little changes where they fix the angles in some shots like when Goku is eating in the field or when he delivers the money to Chi-Chi, but that's the type of fixes you find in home video releases.

Before this aired, I was excited to see what they would do with the Universe 6 arc, but now I'm concerned.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

Something interesting to me that I haven't seen anyone mention is how fascinating it is to see Dragon Ball transition from a never ending anime production to a seasonal anime. We saw this with Daima (and arguably Kai 1.0), but I think this will allow for some more quality control going forward with the Galactic Patrol arc and beyond.

[nato25]

Am i the only one who finds the lack of a narrator off putting?

I don't mind a bit of a tone change and i enjoyed the episode, but you don't need to make the show completely emotionless, come on!

I've always found the narration pretty pointless. "Will Goku survive this troublesome encounter!? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Super". That's about what half of the narration comes down to. I didn't miss it.

[The Dark Knight]

Something interesting to me that I haven't seen anyone mention is how fascinating it is to see Dragon Ball transition from a never ending anime production to a seasonal anime. We saw this with Daima (and arguably Kai 1.0), but I think this will allow for some more quality control going forward with the Galactic Patrol arc and beyond.

This remake/remaster being only 19 episodes long is exactly why they were able to make all the changes they have made, as it very likely would have just been a shorter version of Super 1.0 if Dragon Ball was still a never ending anime. 20-25 episodes every year or every other year is clearly the way to go, as Daima and Beerus would not be possible in their current form if the staff wasn't allowed the time they needed to get things just right.

[Kenji]

20 episodes? So I'm assuming we won't get Goku Black or the ToP? (Again, I'm locked out of the loop)

That's a real shame, I wanted to see my good boy husbando Bergamo with good animation, it was the one thing I was looking forward to. Not to mention, Goku Black despite its problems I feel is the strongest arc Super had produced and the one in dire need of a revision, so to see it cut... They really picked the weakest story from Super to make this, this is baffling.

This entire project now disinterests me completely. We already have Battle of Gods and Resurrection F, two good-paced movies with competent animation and storytelling, we didn't need a whole new series just for Champa's boring-ass tournament. My expectations for this were already on the floor, but damn, talk about a letdown.

[JulieYBM]

20 episodes? So I'm assuming we won't get Goku Black or the ToP? (Again, I'm locked out of the loop)

That's a real shame, I wanted to see my good boy husbando Bergamo with good animation, it was the one thing I was looking forward to. Not to mention, Goku Black despite its problems I feel is the strongest arc Super had produced and the one in dire need of a revision, so to see it cut... They really picked the weakest story from Super to make this, this is baffling.

This entire project now disinterests me completely. We already have Battle of Gods and Resurrection F, two good-paced movies with competent animation and storytelling, we didn't need a whole new series just for Champa's boring-ass tournament. My expectations for this were already on the floor, but damn, talk about a letdown.

They'll probably do more episodes down the line. The timeslot this is airing in switches back and forth with ONE PIECE (1990) now.

[The Dark Knight]

20 episodes? So I'm assuming we won't get Goku Black or the ToP? (Again, I'm locked out of the loop)

I think they are going to rotate between remasters and new content to give everyone time to catch their breath, so we're starting with a remaster, then Moro, then likely another remaster covering Zamasu and Jiren, followed by Granola and hopefully Superhero.

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

Great example of subtlety in expression and character acting. Originally it looks like all Goku cares about is being able to leave and go train, while now it appears that goku is concerned about upsetting Chi Chi which is a nice change.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeXuBtmItvj

Pics comparison.

Spoiler:

[eledoremassis02]

What a Frankenstein monster this is, even more-so than Kai was. I'm sure this will become the definitive version of Super once all is said and done, but it’s really hard to stop myself from comparing it to the original.

The tone is especially jarring. It looks as if it's trying to appeal to the Western audeince even though Battle of Gods was fundamentally a light hearted story. Beerus' ambiguous nature in the movies allowed some suspension of disbelief regarding why the gang hung out with him. One could wonder if he was just lazy, or easy to persuade, or actually a good guy. Seeing him be so cruel and callous I think works against him as a character. Too much showing.

Some scenes would benefit from new voice lines, even just yells. I appreciated Super's original voice work and I doubt the actors would be able to replicate their performances 10 years later for a remediated product, but some of the new scenes look off without voices.

I hate the OP. It probably isn't but it sounds AI generated. On that topic, I would not be surprised if it's revealed this show used AI in some fashion.

I don't understand why they couldn't just use the movies and add the new scenes they felt necessary to include, but alas.

Can't remember where I read this but (and it makes sense) BOG and ROF are also mixed in with FOX and the super versions elevate any deals TOEI had with fox (which makes sense why they haven't been re-released). However, I don't see why they couldnt use the movies as guide to edit this newer version. Shame about the tonal change as I recall a lot of online backlash to the goofy tone of BOG (atleast in the U.S)

[Koitsukai]

The main takeaway from the debut is that Goku seems to have had the crayon removed from his brain.

[kemuri07]

My main takeaway from Battle of the Gods all those years ago was that it was a very funny movie, and the movie length story made it a perfect fit for Toriyama's trademark humor along with some decent action to make the fans happy. But as Yuji already said, Beerus is fundamentally a light-hearted story, so it is a bit weird to see how this version goes all in on trying to present Beerus and Whis as this impending force of nature. I don't dislike it or anything, but I do find it a bit odd since I don't think it really adds anything to either the story or the characters to take it in this direction. I am curious to see how they manage this tone throughout the rest of the arc.

But nothing they can do can really fix the fact that this is the "third version of this fucking story," and the best version is the movie that came out over a decade ago.