People who grew up loving Dragon Ball are currently able to enjoy the weekly releases of the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Super: Beerus series, but the hype for the improved anime could be higher. Revised animations, pacing, and entirely new sequences have made the newest release more than a standard remaster. But that hasn’t stopped Toei, the anime’s producers, from making the same mistakes it’s been repeating for more than 13 years.
The Battle of Gods movie and Dragon Ball Super anime series helped make Akira Toriyama’s franchise more popular than ever. Their dramatic success proved the world still had a big appetite for more adventures with Goku and his friends. And while the Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Super Hero movies delivered in many ways, those who control the rights and production schedules of the beloved franchise have failed to capitalize on that success, holding the franchise back from reaching its full potential.
During the premiere of Dragon Ball Super‘s final episodes, which featured the incredibly epic conclusion of the universal Tournament of Power, fans flooded the streets of major cities around the world to cheer and enjoy the series together. The anime garnered that sort of reception with the release of the Japanese version of the series, but one can’t help but wonder if the hype would have been even greater if the series’ largest markets released their dubs at the same time in movie theaters.
Dragon Ball’s Lack Of Simultaneous Dub Releases Hurt Its Hype
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Judging by how the world’s most popular anime streaming platform, Crunchyroll, has experienced crashes during several anticipated Dragon Ball Super moments, it’s clear that a lot of fans around the world are more than willing to watch the series with subtitles. However, there is still a large percentage of hardcore Dragon Ball fans who prefer to wait and watch the franchise’s newest releases with the iconic voice actors they grew up with. Unfortunately for them, some of the wait times for those dubs have been much longer than others.
The Japanese language version of the Dragon Ball Super anime premiered in July 2015, with the English version not releasing until January 2017. That was a considerable amount of time for arguably the world’s most popular anime series to release its English dub, one of the franchise’s largest markets/demographics. Because of the separate release schedules, hype for new releases can be hindered, compared to if Toei made sure the largest markets around the world had their dubs ready so that new Dragon Ball content could be released at the same time in multiple languages.
Since the Dragon Ball Super anime ended, there have been two movies and one completely separate anime series, Dragon Ball: Daima, released. While the movies made hundreds of millions of dollars at the worldwide box office, Daima received a much more lukewarm reception. Unsurprisingly, all of those releases saw the Japanese version released first, with the English versions of the movies releasing only around a month later. And while English fans did not need to wait as long as they did for the Dragon Ball Super dub, Daima‘s dub took an extra three months to begin streaming.
Dragon Ball‘s current fragmented release model holds it back from even greater heights. Toei is repeating that mistake with Dragon Ball Super: Beerus, which began releasing on Crunchyroll on October 11, 2026. The English dub is likely being worked on as I type this article, but its release date has yet to be announced. And unless Toei changes its current production processes, the highly anticipated Dragon Ball Super: Galactic Patrol arc will also suffer from an uncoordinated launch. And that isn’t the only way that Toei is hurting the franchise’s potential.
Theatrical Anime Releases Have Changed The Game
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Newer anime series like Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer have dramatically altered the increasingly popular anime medium in several beneficial and lucrative ways. While their incredible quality and pacing have helped them stand out from many other anime productions, their theatrical releases have both earned their distributors millions of dollars in profit and been used to greatly increase the world’s excitement for their anime series’ returns. Both qualities that Toei is not currently utilizing with Dragon Ball.
The producers of Demon Slayer‘s anime have created the perfect format for milking a franchise for all it’s worth. Before the decision to make the series’ final arc into three separate movies, they helped open Pandora’s box with the release of the 2020 film Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train. After the first season’s huge success, millions of fans worldwide hotly anticipated its continuation. When the next section of the story was released as a two-hour movie, that large fanbase was more than anxious to pay for a movie ticket to see the next part on the big screen.
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