After 131 episodes, Dragon Ball Super came to an end in March 2018. On December 2018, Dragon Ball Super: Broly hit theaters, becoming a box office hit for the shonen action franchise. But since, there has been no word on a continuation of the hit anime series, even though the manga has continued well past where the last anime left off.

As of this writing, there is no official word on when Dragon Ball Super will return, or even if it will return. Now, we're going to take a look into why Dragon Ball Super hasn't returned yet, along with when it might hit the airwaves again.

The Dragon Ball Super Manga

One widespread theory is that Dragon Ball Super will return once the manga has advanced some more, but that's likely not the case. Dragon Ball Super is not based on any manga; the manga is based on Super's anime. While the manga has diverged from the show's plot since the anime's conclusion and the anime may very well draw on the manga for inspiration, it's unlikely Toei Animation is waiting for the manga before continuing.

Dragon Ball Super's manga is a spin-off of the Super project. It started weeks before the anime started, but Dragon Ball Super had been in production for some time by that point. The manga skips over the Golden Frieza and Broly arcs from the Super anime. In the arcs that are the same, the manga still has some meaningful differences from the anime. While the anime will probably adapt the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Arc once it returns, there's always a possibility that, when Dragon Ball Super the anime returns, it could start off with an anime-only arc.

Dragon Ball Super Movie II

There are plans to release a follow-up to Dragon Ball Super: Broly, with a great deal of resources supposedly being put into the film. Coinciding with the release of Dragon Ball Super: Broly on home media, Akio Iyoku. the director of the Dragon Ball Unit atShonen Jump publisher Shueisha, announced it was working with Toei for a new film.

Iyoku said, "Broly was so strong that I think the next one will probably be totally different. I've overcome various hurdles with parts of Broly, so I won't get burned out. I think that Dragon Ball will continue on, so I want fans to look forward to it."

Beyond that, no other information about the film has been released. It's highly possible that, rather than produce another hundred episodes of Dragon Ball Super, Toei will prioritize its resources on a more profitable feature film. This will also give the anime division of Toei more time to plan another hundred episodes of Dragon Ball Super.

Dragon Ball Super Season 2's Production Start

Dragon Ball Super Episode 106

In 2018, Toei Animation opened up a new division devoted exclusively to producing Dragon Ball content. This came in part when Toei restructured its company into various sub-divisions for projects going ahead in the future, which seems to indicate that it will be prioritizing Dragon Ball content going forward.

Anime, however, takes a long time to produce, especially when a single team's attention is divided.Dragon Ball Super is not the only Dragon Ball project Toei is involved with. On top of plans for a second Dragon Ball Super film, Toei is working on Super Dragon Ball Heroes and just completed its involvement with Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. This means that there's a lot of content that might take immediate priority over a potential Dragon Ball Super sequel season.

However, even if this entire division were singularly focused on producingDragon Ball Super, it would still take a long time to produce anything. Animation, writing, and acting take years to complete. On top of that, Japanese anime productions are rarely public affairs with leaks or news during production or pre-production. This is compounded, especially when the series releases episodes on a continuous basis, as most anime productions and seasons last only thirteen to twenty-six episodes at a time.

Many anime have long periods between seasons. Re:Zero and Yuri on Ice both came out in 2016. Re:Zero's second season will air in April 2020, while Yuri on Ice's long-in-development movie still is without a release date, though it is expected to air in 2020. That's four years between seasons with minimal announcements made in the interim. By comparison, Dragon Ball Super's final episode aired on March 2018 withBroly released later that year.

A recent tweet from ‎Ryō Horikawa, the voice actor for Vegeta, indicates that Toei is early in development for Super season two. He recently tweeted "I just came out of a meeting at TOEI Animation!! But I won't tell you what it is!" followed by #dragonball. This seems to indicate that Toei is only now in the early planning stages of Dragon Ball Super season 2.

While the wait between seasons might be agonizingly long for fans who are used to new Dragon Ball Super content every week, this relative quiet might seem like something to be afraid of, but the simple truth is that this quiet period is a normal part of the process.

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