Super Dragon Ball Heroes Was a Huge Missed Opportunity

[Majin Man 101]

Does anybody agree that SDBH was a huge missed opportunity for the franchise? With Super being on hiatus for years, would it really have been a stretch to put out a full length 24 Minute episode once a month and have this series have an actual story, even if the animation would be limited??

[VegettoEX]

But why though, and with what specific staff?

As we’ve seen previously with this franchise, merchandise sales are completely fine without a television series on the air. They can dump out a movie every few years and coast by on their other manga serializations across V-Jump and Saikyo Jump. The series is doing great domestically and continues to do well internationally. There’s no real incentive for them to spend the additional resources on a free internet promotional series that’s already serving its purpose as-is. I certainly wouldn’t green light an expansion on it myself were I in that position.

There’s certainly an argument for being able to just watch it on its own devoid of context, but the fact that it’s so internally relevant and consistent with and in direct alignment with an arcade game that you can only play in Japan with a bunch of new characters that you can only play with and read about in Japan… it doesn’t really lend itself to much of an international localization push either, so it’s another big ding in terms of putting additional resources into it.

It just kinda exists, that’s all it needs to do for them, and I don’t think it makes much logical sense to do more with it.

That’s, of course, completely independent from a random fan who might be super into it and wishing they could experience more with that world… in which case I guess I’d recommend the manga, which is way better from what I gather as I flip though each month!

[Majin Man 101]

But why though, and with what specific staff?

As we’ve seen previously with this franchise, merchandise sales are completely fine without a television series on the air. They can dump out a movie every few years and coast by on their other manga serializations across V-Jump and Saikyo Jump. The series is doing great domestically and continues to do well internationally. There’s no real incentive for them to spend the additional resources on a free internet promotional series that’s already serving its purpose as-is. I certainly wouldn’t green light an expansion on it myself were I in that position.

There’s certainly an argument for being able to just watch it on its own devoid of context, but the fact that it’s so internally relevant and consistent with and in direct alignment with an arcade game that you can only play in Japan with a bunch of new characters that you can only play with and read about in Japan… it doesn’t really lend itself to much of an international localization push either, so it’s another big ding in terms of putting additional resources into it.

It just kinda exists, that’s all it needs to do for them, and I don’t think it makes much logical sense to do more with it.

That’s, of course, completely independent from a random fan who might be super into it and wishing they could experience more with that world… in which case I guess I’d recommend the manga, which is way better from what I gather as I flip though each month!

Yeh I was speaking more of the context that it would be great for us fans. Dragon Ball Supers hiatus has made me realize how sad life is without new content every week to get hyped up about.

[Xeno Goku Black]

From a fan perspective then yes.

SDBH actually has some fun and interesting concepts and they've created quite a lot of characters for it now.

Shame that the anime just blitzes through things. If they were to have made a full fledged series out of it or at least one with a more meat to it then it could have been better than GT easily.

[Wrigglything]

I suppose the show's priority of our being a companion piece for an arcade game and maybe it being an online Web series translating to lower resources compared to an anime on television even does not help things. I personally have no feelings on that subsection of the franchise one way or another besides the few sakuga scenes that went viral.

[JulieYBM]

I have certainly enjoyed quite a bit of potential in what we have seen in Super Dragon Ball Heroes. I was quite taken with the Hearts character and the heightened drama at the beginning of his story arc. It was so exciting seeing danger spill over into Universe 6! We even got to see Kale and Caulifla fight again! I wish the production of the series had had more time and planning placed into it in that regard because if they had been a little more adventurous with the story and not worried about upsetting any future plans for characters I think it would have been a fun vehicle to give anime-original characters a lot of their own development. It's such a shame that despite the fun story and character possibilities presented by the format the series ultimately plays everything so safe.

Take away Yamamuro, keep Tomioka and bring in Ishitani and Shintani and let them have more freedom to create a real tribute to the 36 year history of Dragon Ball in animation and games separate from Toriyama's Super!