Dragon Ball Super Future: What's Next For The Franchise?

With Dragon Ball Super seemingly done for now, where can the Dragon Ball franchise go if and when it picks back up? A number of possibilities exist both in the anime’s past, the manga’s carefully sketched out future, and the non-canonical present. The Dragon Ball franchise has been going strong in anime since 1986 when it was largely about a weird boy named Son Goku, who went on silly adventures. Then came Dragon Ball Z to catapult the franchise to astronomical new heights.

With themes focusing on surpassing your limits and doing what is right, Dragon Ball Z found huge viewership in the west. Dragon Ball Z ran from 1989-1996 and remains the longest of the various incarnations of Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball GT followed up Dragon Ball Z the same year it ended but only ran until 1997. The beginning of Dragon Ball GT wound up stripping Goku of his power, reverting him into a child - a move largely seen as a thematic betrayal of what many had come to love about Dragon Ball Z. The entire Dragon Ball GT series was eventually retconned and the Dragon Ball anime franchise went into stasis. That's when Dragon Ball Super entered the stage and began airing in 2015. Despite a bumpy start, Dragon Ball Super won fans back over with a return to the themes of Dragon Ball Z with a number of colorful storylines that pushed the stakes to unprecedented new heights. Then came the end.

Dragon Ball Super had its highs and lows, but undoubtedly the highest stakes in the in the franchise’s history came to its conclusion in the "Universe Survival Saga." Zeno and Future Zeno, the two beings who reign over everything that exists, organize a tournament consisting of the strongest fighters from across the multiverse. As each losing team had all their fighters knocked out, their universes were destroyed. It all comes to a head between Goku and Jiren, one of the strongest foes Goku has ever faced. Following that fight, Goku and friends restored the multiverse and returned to Earth. Dragon Ball Super supposedly ended there and hasn’t been renewed (yet), but the enduring legacy of the anime, the evolving story of Akira Toriyama’s manga, and the massive success of Dragon Ball Super: Broly all make a triumphant return very likely.

This Page: Possible Futures & What Dragon Ball GT Can Bring To Super
Page 2: Dragon Ball Super's Manga Future & Longshot Possibilities

The Possible Futures of Dragon Ball Super

Dragon Ball Super: Broly opened up new opportunities for the franchise. It’s the first movie to bear the Dragon Ball Super moniker and seemed to support the possibility that a continuation of the anime might dredge up some of the most interesting parts of the long abandoned Dragon Ball GT series. Most notably, Dragon Ball Super: Broly hinted at a variation on the Great Ape Super Saiyan form, commonly referred to as Super Saiyan 4. That form was only ever seen in Dragon Ball GT. That being the case, its appearance means that Akira Toriyama might be interested the possibility of other elements from Dragon Ball GT coming into the mainline Dragon Ball universe.

Looking at the manga that inspired an anime can often be the best indicator of what will happen. Dragon Ball Super the anime might be taking a break, but the manga keeps going strong. Galactic adventures, planet-eating monsters, and potentially universe-destroying magic abound in the continuing adventures of Goku and friends. The next arc in the manga, "Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga," has yet to conclude. It’s entirely possible the anime will stay on hiatus until the manga has built up enough material to adapt smoothly. Toei Animation created Dragon Ball GT without a manga to guide them or the confident hand of Toriyama to steer it and the anime ended in disaster. They likely don’t want to repeat that mistake going forward.

A third, less likely possibility exists, hinted at in the non-canonical anime advertisements for Super Dragon Ball Heroes. Super Dragon Ball Heroes is a digital trading card game that has exploded across the world. As a result, the anime ads have taken on a story of their own that seems to pick up where Dragon Ball Super ended. None of the content related to the card game is canon, so neither are the ads. However, given the history of non-canonical storylines and characters coming into mainline Dragon Ball, we could be seeing glimpses of where Goku might be going in the future.

What Dragon Ball GT Could Bring To Dragon Ball Super

The Super Saiyan 4 form was introduced in Dragon Ball GT as a way for Saiyans like Goku and Vegeta to harness the potential of their ancestry. Rooted in the potential fighting power of the Great Apes - the colossal, werewolf-like forms of the Saiyans under the light of the full moon - it requires very specific circumstances. To attain it, a Saiyan must transform into a Great Ape, go Super Saiyan, and then gain conscious control over their normally berserk form. Dragon Ball Super: Broly hinted that this might still be canon, as Broly seemed able to tap into his Great Ape power to achieve a level of combat ability far beyond even Goku’s most potent abilities - and Goku has shown himself able to fight gods of destruction.

However, if Super Saiyan 4 comes back into the picture, even somewhat reworked, that means we could see some of the more interesting aspects of Dragon Ball GT resurrected as well. It would be amazing to see Toriyama’s version of villains like Baby. Baby might be one of the most interesting antagonists in Dragon Ball. He’s the final creation of the Tuffles, a race of aliens that lost a war against the Saiyans and were believed to be extinct. Baby possesses the ability to enter the bodies of others, implant them with a mind controlling egg, and then leave to find a more powerful host. He’s a capable fighter in his own right, but can combine his abilities with that of his host to become nearly unstoppable. It was a clever way of seeing the various characters of Dragon Ball fight one another, all presided over by a smug Baby.

The Shadow Dragons were another concept that never came together well in Dragon Ball GT, but they easily stand as the best conceptual villains Dragon Ball GT has used yet. The entire series of Dragon Ball centers on the titular balls of the title, relics that are able to grant wishes when someone gathers them all together. However, the Dragon Balls have been used by both heroes and villains over the course of the franchise. The negative energy built up by the overuse of these spectacular orbs eventually causes them to crack and summon the Shadow Dragons, draconic demons of immense power that could conceivably destroy the entire galaxy. The Shadow Dragons sound great on paper but were lacking in the anime. With some additional narrative tweaking and character design reworks, the concept would make for a great continuation of Dragon Ball Super.

Page 2 of 2: Dragon Ball Super's Manga Future & Longshot Possibilities

Planet-Eater Moro in the Dragon Ball Super Manga

What Akira Toriyama’s Continuing Dragon Ball Super Manga Offers A Future Anime

You know what’s awesome? Space. The "Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga" follows the adventures of Goku and Vegeta as they are whisked away by the Galactic Patrol along with Buu into the depths of space. Goku and Vegeta essentially become buddy cops deputized by the Galactic Patrol, an organization that keeps the worst of the worst criminals locked away from the rest of the galaxy. They help stop some petty space crime before landing on the trail of the escaped convict, Moro.

Moro stands out as the most interesting mainline Dragon Ball villain in ages. He’s essentially a strange goat-man who possesses the ability to manipulate and absorb life force from people… and planets. For that terrifying talent, he received the name Planet-Eater Moro. He can also use magic, which puts him on a different level than most of the main antagonists of Dragon Ball’s history. With his powers, he’s able to manipulate the forces of nature on whatever planets he sets foot on until it becomes a lifeless husk. He has demonstrated the ability to forcibly strip Vegeta of his ki, rendering him unable to transform into the powerful Super Saiyan Blue form. Moro can even choose to eat the energy of his stolen spirit bomb to become even stronger. His design is phenomenal, and he has powers that haven't been fully explored yet. Hopefully, when the anime starts up again, whether its called Dragon Ball Super or something else, audiences will get the chance to see him in motion, off the page.

Moro makes things a bit spicy in the "Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga," but space provides a lot of interesting opportunities for the series to get weird and silly like the original Dragon Ball. Goku and Vegeta playing space good cop and space bad cop could make for some really great episodes, even if they're one-off affairs. Dragon Ball GT did this to an extent in its first story arc, but viewers at the time were so upset at the loss of the Goku they knew from Dragon Ball Z that much of the simple fun of space exploration was lost. This could be a perfect opportunity to offer that same fun while presenting familiar characters in unfamiliar roles.

The Longshot Possibilities of Super Dragon Ball Heroes

To make a long story short, Super Dragon Ball Heroes largely deals with the organization that works to keep time free from those who would mishandle it with devices like time machines. The card game has several story arcs, but the first to be depicted in the non-canonical promotional anime for the game was the "Prison Planet Saga." The story moves along at a good clip in this series, but there are some intriguing ideas that could make for excellent additions to Dragon Ball canon.

The first arc’s titular Prison Planet itself could be a wonderful location, especially if wrapped into the "Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga." It’s essentially a mixture of planets all held together by massive chains with hard limits on how far anyone can travel away from the ground. The idea of a massive prison full of terrifying evils long sealed away and its own functioning society could be really cool. Audiences don’t see much in the Super Dragon Ball Heroes series, but what is shown is intriguing.

The current arc of Super Dragon Ball Heroes, the "Universal Conflict Saga," deals with a character named Hearts and his quest to defeat Zeno, the god that perpetuates the multiverse. That’s a pretty ambitious antagonist and it would be fitting to have someone with such multiversal ambition being the villain of a fully fleshed out part of core Dragon Ball anime. However, the most intriguing part of the arc happens to be the most recent few minutes that seems to depict Goku wearing ceremonial garb about to embark on the process of becoming… something. An angel? A god of destruction? Either of those two possibilities presents some incredible opportunities for storytelling and where Dragon Ball could go next.