Dragon Ball's Future After Daima's End Is Uncertain, But I Still Think It Will Be Bright

Dragon Ball has entered a dark period following the conclusion of Dragon Ball Daima. With rights disputes and a manga hiatus still looming over the franchise, things may not look great at the moment, but there will be more Dragon Ball one day, without a doubt.

Dragon Ball remains one of the most popular anime franchises of all time, and Daima‘s quality animation has only reinforced that. Its last movie, Super Hero, was a success, and the game Sparking Zero has been very positively received by the fanbase. By all appearances, things are pretty good for fans, even in spite of Akira Toriyama’s tragic passing last year. However, there’s a dark cloud hanging over the franchise right now, as no one really knows what comes next. This uncertainty has some fans worried, and while they might be right about the short term, it won’t be that way forever.

The Problems Facing Dragon Ball’s Future Are Real

Fans Have Good Reason to Be Concerned

Akira Toriyama’s former editor, Akiyo Iyoku, left Shueisha not long ago, and formed a new company called Capsule Corp Tokyo, named after Bulma’s fictional company in the series. This occurred after he was shuffled to a new position at Shueisha, which he was unhappy with, causing him to go independent. Toriyama trusted Iyoku greatly, and was displeased with Shueisha’s treatment of him, and as a result continued dealing with Capsule Corp Tokyo until his death. Iyoku acted as something of a spokesman for Toriyama, but now, with Toriyama’s death, there has been confusion.

The publishing rights for the Dragon Ball manga belong to Shueisha, and always have. However, it’s not clear now who has the right to represent Dragon Ball‘s intellectual property in legal matters. This has been a major headache for other parties licensing Dragon Ball, such as Bandai Namco, who are now forced to deal with both parties, who firmly disagree with one another. Ultimately, the only ones who can clear this up are the executors of Akira Toriyama’s estate, but the grieving family are hardly in a position to decide such a matter. The situation seems likely to end up decided in court, though when is anyone’s guess.

As a result of this complicated legal situation surrounding the rights, it’s unlikely that any new Dragon Ball content will be made while things remain unclear. The last thing either company wants is to start working on a project, only to unexpectedly have the rights ripped away midway through production. While this doesn’t seem to preclude the Dragon Ball Super manga from continuing, since those rights are firmly Shueisha’s, the manga’s hiatus is occurring independently of these proceedings.

Dragon Ball Has Been Through Dark Times Before

Dragon Ball Fans Have Had It Good for Years Now, But They Can’t Last Forever

It’s easy to forget now, what with the abundance of Dragon Ball content released in the last 10 to 15 years, but there was quite a long period where no new Dragon Ball content was made during the early 2000s and the tail end of the 1990s. Dragon Ball GT actually ended in 1997, despite not airing in the US until the early 2000s, and there were no new manga or anime until Battle of Gods in 2013. Despite this, Dragon Ball maintained its popularity throughout this period, and many games and other related projects were released within this window.

Dragon Ball‘s revival didn’t start until the 2010s, when a one-shot manga about Goku’s father Bardock was created, and soon Toriyama was back involved with the franchise with Battle of Gods, which eventually morphed into what we know as the Dragon Ball Super era of the series. Since then, there’s consistently been a Dragon Ball manga or anime series running, but with Daima‘s conclusion, that streak has finally come to an end. So, what do fans do now?

Dragon Ball Will Emerge From This as Strong as Ever

The Franchise is Simply Too Profitable to Remain Idle for Long

Super Saiyan Goku during the fight with Gomah in Dragon Ball Daima.

While there are rumblings that another movie may be on the way, fans should prepare themselves for an indefinite period of time without new Dragon Ball content. It’s impossible to say when the Dragon Ball Super manga will resume regular serialization, although it does seem like it will continue at some point. Hopefully, it will pick up again some time this year, but without any official word, any guesses are just that. New anime series take a long time to produce, so even if Daima is given a second season, fans shouldn’t expect to see more episodes any time soon, either.

During these droughts of content, it’s important to remember that Dragon Ball has been here before and will recover from this eventually. The series is still wildly popular all around the globe, as well as in its home nation of Japan, and what that means is that there’s still a lot of money to be made off of Dragon Ball. The real question being argued over now is who gets that money, Capsule Corp Tokyo or Shueisha. As soon as there’s a clear answer to that, whoever wins will no doubt go back into producing new content as soon as possible. But these kinds of legal matters can take a long time to be decided.

There’s still plenty to speculate on, about how Daima can connect up with Super, or how Super will continue whenever the manga ends its hiatus and returns with Toyotaro at the helm. Fans have material to discuss and tide them over as they wait out this situation. And there will be other great anime series to enjoy in this time period as well. Dragon Ball may not have much going on in the short term, but a bright future awaits once the dust is settled. It may well mark a new era of the franchise, the first post-Toriyama era of Dragon Ball, charting a course into unknown waters.

Dragon Ball may be on the back burner for now, but the series will return sooner or later, and hopefully, it’ll be worth the wait.