It’s been a few years since the Dragon Ball Super anime series wrapped up. While the Dragon Ball Super manga has still been steadily running, the final episodes of the TV series, which closed out the ‘Universe Survival Saga’, and the Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie were both released in 2018.
Back in May, it was announced that a new Dragon Ball Super movie would be hitting screens in 2022. During a Comic-Con @ Home 2021 panel that aired over this past weekend, we finally got our first look at the new movie along with its title: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.
Opening with a performance of ‘Cha-La Head-Cha-La’ by Hironobu Kageyama, the Comic-Con panel took place on a video set designed to look like the Kame House island, and included executive series producer Akio Iyoku, producer Norihiro Hayashida and the voice of Goku, Masako Nozaw.
Starting off, Iyoku read out the original movie announcement that was made by Dragon Ball‘s creator, Akira Toriyama, reiterating that Toriyama is “heavily leading the story and dialogue production”, and we should “be prepared for some extreme and entertaining bouts, which may feature an unexpected character”.
From there, the panel went through a series of new character designs for a few familiar faces. These weren’t anything too major, and included a new police uniform design for Krillin, Pan in her kindergarten uniform, and recolour of Piccolo’s upper arm muscles from pink to yellow, which is how they appear in the original manga.
The preview also included background art showing off Piccolo’s house.
We also got our first look at two mysterious new characters. Designed by Toriyama, these two grey aliens are almost indistinguishable from one another in their brown soldier uniforms, save for the different highlight colours and head fins.
After showing off these new Toriyama designs, the title of the new movie was revealled: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. It’s a bit clunky, but Iyoku noted that the two supers are meant to emphasise that “this movie is all about the superhero vibe”.
The panel closed out with a short clip of a stylised 3D Goku striking a battle pose. While this preview didn’t give us much more information about the movie’s content, it’s interesting to see how Goku moves in this new animation style.
It’s unclear if Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero will be fully animated with this new style, or if it’ll be a mix of 2D and 3D like Dragon Ball Super: Broly was. I guess we’ll find out closer to the film’s 2022 release date.
Leave a Reply