Created by Akira Toriyama, The Dragon Ball manga and anime series has overarched in its popularity, thanks to its well-written characters, gripping storylines, and a long list of antagonists that keeps the series interesting. The saga is now in its Superhero Arc, which focuses on Piccolo and our beloved Gohan-san, as Kakarot and Vegeta are off-planet focusing on getting stronger.
Toriyama-Sensei focused on presenting a more intrinsic, closed-loop story than the usual dynamic, and typical storyline that the franchise is usually known for. However, it looks like the mangaka artist’s vision had failed as larger-than-life visuals and a longer screen time of their favorite characters, that is Son-Goku and Vegeta were something they needed. To make things worse for Akira Toriyama, he noticed a grave slip-up in the title of the film which went unnoticed by everyone on the team.
Akira Toriyama and Team Made a Major Blunder While Working on Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero
Akira Toriyama made an exemplary attempt to make Gohan-san and Piccolo the heroes, instead of Son-Goku, even adding some astonishing visuals from the 3D animation. However, there was a stiffness that made the characters less expressive and the action featured in the unconventional DB film seemed to be less impactful, leaving fans disappointed.
To deteriorate the film’s rating even more, the story did not feature high stakes and relied heavily on the filler scenes for comic humor that is featured in the film painfully, the film does not bring anything new to the table, as most of the scenes are based on the previous DB sagas.
During an interview via Reddit (r/dragonball), Akira Toriyama was asked about his opinion of the film after it was completed. The mangaka artist answered, how there was a private screening of the film, which featured “partially incomplete visuals” and had only the voice actors’ voices but no sound effects, so he was quite excited to see the final version of the film. He said,
“I’m writing this after a private test screening, featuring still partially incomplete visuals and only the voice actors’ voices, but no sound effects, music, etc. Even so, it was plenty impressive, and I got excited thinking of what it would be like once complete.”
Toriyama-Sensei also stated how he “totally forgot” about the “Super” in the main title, therefore, the film ended up with two “Supers” making it sound so repetitive.
“By the way, the subtitle is “Super Hero”. I totally forgot that the film’s main title is “Dragon Ball Super”, so there ended up being two “supers”. I guess everyone thought I had done this on purpose, because nobody pointed it out to me (laughs). So it’s my fault that the “Super” is so repetitive.”
Even though the film was disappointing to watch in the theatres, it was great to see Gohan-san in his Saiyan Warrior instincts. Fans can not deny the fact that the Beast transformation was thrilling to watch, making them reminisce about the Cell vs Gohan in the Cell Games saga.
Dragon Ball Super: Broly Helped Akira Toriyama With a Follow-up Film
In the same interview, the interviewer asked Toriyama how DBS: Broly helped the mangaka artist with another film. The creator was excited to answer, as the 2018 film focused majorly on “battles of next-level strength.” As a result, Toriyama-Sensei feared that the franchise would lose its “cheerful spirit,” making him go back to the drawing board and come up with ideas that would bring back the story to a lighter route.
He said,
“The previous film, “Broly”, focused on battles of next-level strength. If we had just kept going on like that and made the next movie another battle film, it seemed like we would lose Dragon Ball’s cheerful spirit. So this time around, I figured I should return things to a somewhat lighter route, with character-based daily life, which is then threatened by a crisis which results in a big battle.”
“Those battle scenes are wonderful, as is traditional in this series, and I’m always very moved by them. Thanks to that, I can just write “and now these two characters have a big battle” in the original script, and rest easy knowing that this will get turned into an incredible battle. Naturally, this time around the battles are more amazing than ever. You won’t be able to take your eyes off them!”
Well, the battle featured in the film was phenomenal, and fans did enjoy watching Gohan-san enjoying the limelight after ages. Hopefully, fans get to see more of Gohan-san in season 2 of Dragon Ball Super.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
