"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[angeldreamZ004]

No one knew that a rights dispute was happening as well, the behind the scenes with Iyoku, Shueisha, Toei and Toriyama I think started to be a discussion in 2023 only. Only reason that there wasn't 0 content I believe was because of Toriyama, who kept delivering new basis for new content, he already started working on Super Hero in 2018 prior to the release of Broly, then helped Toyotaro with the Granola arc in the manga and got involved in Daima in 2022 after a few years that Toei started working on the project, 2019 I believe (I wonder if he never got involved, the project would've been released)

I also believe that maybe Toei needs to keep delivering new Dragon Ball animated content, maybe part of a deal with Shueisha, and we can still see with the new administration, since Daima a seasonal anime starting at Year X and ending at Year Y, will repeat with Super Beerus, prior to that they started making the Super Dragon ball Heroes promotional anime after the Super anime ended. Got new episodes every year starting from 2018 and the final episode was released on 2024, a few months prior to Daima's premiere (also I believe the sudden change to full CGI animation was because of Toei relocating their animation staff to Daima)
Just a hypothesis though as SDBH doesn't even have a television status nor went through distribution, still I don't think it's a coincidence that it started after a mainline anime ended and ended before the next mainline anime started. Also still airing while they released a CGI Movie lost in the middle.
All while the manga continued.

I'm honestly surprised that Toriyama's death didn't make things messier, seems that the foundation of CCT made them decide how the new releases should work starting from Daima. Could be the reason we got this remake and the announcement of the Moro arc so early, also no sign of a new movie.

And the manga is in the limbo.

[funrush]

Feels like they had a unique opportunity to get significantly ahead of the anime before it came back and now that opportunity is all but gone. I am beginning to wonder if by the time it does inevitably come back, it'll be after the anime has caught up and it'll go back to its pre-Moro status quo of being a promotional comic that tells an abridged version of the anime.

Either way I'm looking forward to reading more whenever more happens.

[angeldreamZ004]

Spoiler:

Feels like they had a unique opportunity to get significantly ahead of the anime before it came back and now that opportunity is all but gone. I am beginning to wonder if by the time it does inevitably come back, it'll be after the anime has caught up and it'll go back to its pre-Moro status quo of being a promotional comic that tells an abridged version of the anime.

Either way I'm looking forward to reading more whenever more happens.

I seriously hope not, aside from it not returning that would be the worst scenario in my view, because for Beerus-ToP, despite being rushed (even though I feel Zamasu was more complete in comparison), we at least got some major differences that were only possible because Toyotaro didn't adapt the anime to manga format, but used Toriyama's outlines and expanded on them with his own ideas like Toei did.

If it returned only to tell new arcs that we will see in the anime first, I believe it wouldn't even be shortened, but told in their entirety, it would be pretty much just like the Super Hero arc, removing the Prologue and Epilogue chapters, and removing Goten and Trunks bits, it was 97% 1:1 adaptation of the movie. That means Toyotaro would have to follow what the anime did and not allowed to show any creativity, because there will be probably no longer any new Toriyama outlines for him and Toei to use as basis.

The only hope I have that we won't be living that timeline is that CCT is very likely not interested in having any creative control over the manga, they decided to adapt the manga exclusive arc that is already over, which indicates that we can return to seeing more new manga arcs and then the anime adapting them later. They could've very well simply followed up with a Daima sequel series or entirely new series if they wanted the animation part to walk in its own way for example.

But I recognize there's a big possibility that Shueisha maybe doesn't want Toyotaro to create any new stories and just waiting for the anime to enter in new stories territory so they can call him again to adapt those new anime arcs into manga format.
If they do that I think they will be shooting themselves in the foot, as they can monetize on the manga having new stories first since it's their property that Iyoku decided to not take for his company.

But maybe the two companies decided that it would be more profitable to have new stories being told in anime format first. In that case I already said I think it's better to simply cancel the manga already, not accurate information but based on my researches seems that the volumes had their worst sales period during the Super Hero retelling. So I see no point.

[Zinnia]

So, Goku isn't even featured on this year's Jump Festa main visual despite DBS Beerus airing.
That's very disheartening to see and only brings more questions than answers.

[IntangibleFancy]

So, Goku isn't even featured on this year's Jump Festa main visual despite DBS Beerus airing.
That's very disheartening to see and only brings more questions than answers.

Yeah. I can't tell if that means anything or if it's just Shueisha being petty because of the whole CCT thing, if that's even likely for them to do.

[The Dark Knight]

Being present or not has no impact on how much representation the franchise will get at the event, as Dragon Ball has been featured in plenty of Jump Festa art pieces in the past, yet nothing major was announced for it.

[angeldreamZ004]

Maybe wasn't in this thread but I'll repeat, I think there's no point for them to have new Dragon Ball announcement at Jump Festa during the release of the new anime.
Iyoku, CCT, Toei, Bandai pretty much dominated this year when it comes to announcements, having Super Beerus, Super TGP, Xenoverse 3 etc in different events such as Comic-con, Genkidamatsuri, Games Battle Hour.

Yeah. I can't tell if that means anything or if it's just Shueisha being petty because of the whole CCT thing, if that's even likely for them to do.

I think what could be happening is that they actually team up with CCT, so they agreed that the return of the manga could steal the attention of the other company's product, something like this, and only want its return for 2027, maybe when Moro arc starts airing, so they can have both the anime and manga telling stories made by Toyotaro at the same time.
It's the only thing I can imagine outside from the possibility that they may not want the manga to return anytime soon because they're waiting for the anime to catch up to it, which would mean like 2030, 2031 to see the anime finishing the Super Hero epilogue arc.

[Chuquita]

While I miss having DB Jump Festa panels to speculate about, I don't miss the inevitable disappointment of almost always nothing notable coming from them.

I'm under the impression things are still so messy behind the scenes of this franchise (too many cooks?) it's honestly surprising to me that anything is happening at all.

[angeldreamZ004]

I think I know what might be happening, there isn't anything happening at all actually, since the rights dispute ended and Toriyama passed away, they don't know what to do.

What they're doing is simply deliver the remaining content that had Toriyama's involvement, that being Xenoverse 3, Animated adaptations of The Granolah and Super Hero main and epilogue arcs, which will demand going through the Moro and Super Hero Prologue arcs first despite them being made by Toyotaro.

This started 2 years ago with Daima, we are still going to be stuck in the Toriyama era for a while and I believe that's the reason we won't see any new content that doesn't have his involvement or any relation to what he worked on so soon, that's why the manga is not returning, that's why there are games like Sparking Zero prioritizing Raditz-Boo and Super stories, that's why the rumored next game is Super Kakarot, that's why Naho Ooishi will continue parodying the original manga.

So maybe what is happening is that they're luck for still having plenty of modern Toriyama related content to deliver until 2030 at least, and this is buying time for them as they still don't know what to do without Toriyama.

However a possible counterpoint to this is that if they really intended to deliver this content slowly, they could simply remake Super from scratch covering everything from Beerus to the ToP (or Broly) rather than just doing a partial remake that only covers the first three arcs. This might suggest they may be in a rush, why? I don't know, perhaps they want the anime to tell new stories before the manga does.

But thinking about it I believe the first hypothesis is the most likely, unfortunately we may need to wait until 2030 to see any move, and possibly enter the Non-Toriyama era definitely.
Or if we are luck, it could be in 2027 already, the manga could return either after Super Beerus ends, or after Xenoverse 3 releases, or when Super TGP starts airing.

[Chuquita]

That sounds likely. Depressing, but likely.

Either way, feels like too much time is passing. It's already been 8 years since the ToP or 4 if you're going from Super Hero. To wait another 4 years means who knows who else will retire or pass in the interm.

I'm grateful Super happened when it did. It was sloppy, but the fandom during that time was so much fun in a way that couldn't be captured now. We're all older and some of the same online spaces are ghost towns now or have vanished altogether.

I don't care about what's canon the way I used to. I'll enjoy the parts I like. And with the author dead, and with emerging tech, how will I really know what was from his pen and what isn't? What will the internet even look like in 2030?

I don't know. This isn't the worst outcome for DB in 2026, but it isn't the best either. Though it's all subjective in the end.

[angeldreamZ004]

And I said this before, Toyotaro won't get any younger, and may end up losing his patience, unless there's a contract holding him of course, but they decide to not resume it at this moment where he seems eager to continue with it.

It's interesting for you to mention the time back when the original Super anime was still airing, because at least to me, from a franchise perspective, I think we could feel secure about it, as everything was going fine, there was an anime, a manga, games from time to time, a movie, all normally.

Then the anime ended and Super Broly released and everything started to feel weird. Numerous rumours of a Super anime continuation that never happened, then a CGI movie out of nowhere after 4 years, then a web series rumour that ended up becoming Daima. The manga continued as if nothing happened but then had to take a break, then return with a prologue for a arc that ended up being 1:1 to the movie, then a break after Toriyama's passing, then a return with a one-shot after the end of a anime that had nothing to do with thebrand, then a indefinite break. And things only got weirder after Toriyama passed away.

Something interesting to note is that there are no rumours regarding new different projects, nothing about a new anime other than Super Beerus or the Galactic Patrol, nor rumours regarding a new movie, only a new movie that Iyoku supposedly was in the talks with Toriyama in 2023. If it was real, given how we never heard anything more about it, they probably never started any kind of production for it, probably because Toriyama didn't deliver enough material for it before his passing, so they had to give up on it.

They pretty much don't have anything in the works that doesn't have Toriyama's fingerprints.

Everything was supposed to be back to normal once the Moro arc anime adaptation was finally announced which is what huge part of the fandom asked for, but I can't help but still feel insecure about it just like I did with Daima as there's no manga and the two Super media are now literally changing roles, with the Anime resuming (though still having to go through a partial remake first) and the manga stopping, the inverse of that 2019 scenario.

Imagine if we'll also need to wait 8 (now 7 maybe) years to see the manga return just like we had to wait for the anime. I'll be done lol, but the most important to me is seeing the manga return with new original stories by Toyotaro, it'll be what'll make me feel safe about the franchise's future, because it being stuck to "Toriyama's view" or Toriyama-centric content is what I'm seeing so far, so I think this weird feeling of "what the hell they're doing?" continues to this day .