A lot of Dragon Ball fans have been upset regarding how the events of Dragon Ball Super unfolded, as they believe the series doesn’t deserve to be the continuation of Dragon Ball Z. And perhaps they’re right. Who are we to judge? But what’s for sure is that Dragon Ball Super, despite its flaws, has also introduced some important elements for the Dragon Ball franchise, making it more captivating overall.
For instance, a lot of Dragon Ball fans claim that the animation of Dragon Ball Super lacks quality. We can’t neglect this fact, as the animation of the show indeed falls behind the one of Dragon Ball Z for most of the time. However, the animators did a much better job in the Tournament of Power arc, but it wasn’t enough.
Let’s see what are the major strongholds of Dragon Ball Super:
Establishing a divine hierarchy
Even though we’ve seen gods already in Dragon Ball, the Dragon Ball Super show that ended back in 2018 has added a much stronger focus on this concept of deities. Super has even established a true hierarchy of deities by introducing Gods of Destruction, angels such as Whis, the Grand Priest, and the All-powerful Zeno. All these characters played important roles in Dragon Ball Super, even though some would argue that the show might have been better off without them.
Deities don’t represent anything new in Dragon Ball, however, as let’s not forget that we’ve seen Kami introduced as the Guardian of the Earth back in the original Dragon Ball series. Another great example is the introduction of King Kai back in the Saiyan Saga of early Dragon Ball Z, as he is a god who trained Goku in the afterlife in order to prepare him for much tougher fights than he ever had until that point. Without King Kai’s guidance, Goku couldn’t have been able to defeat Frieza, for instance. And of course, let’s also not forget about the Supreme Kai and Dabura, the king of the demon realm, as both of them were introduced during the Majin Buu saga of Dragon Ball Z.
The Multiverse concept
While deities and demons don’t represent something completely new in Dragon Ball, we can safely say that Dragon Ball Super has introduced the concept of the Multiverse, meaning more than one single universe exists at the same time in the physical reality. Sure, some would argue here that Dragon Ball Z’s time travel theme that had Future Trunks and Cell as the main protagonists also somehow embraces a Multiverse concept by emphasizing the existence of parallel timelines. However, Multiverse represents something different, and we’re so glad that Dragon Ball Super has embraced it as well!
Due to Dragon Ball Super’s Multiverse concept, more races of fighters and warriors were introduced in the Dragon Ball franchise. For instance, the show gave us a complete copy of Frieza from another universe and the first female Super Saiyans, Kale, and Caulifa.
Battle Royale
The concept of battle royale, which is heavily popularized in video games such as Fortnite and PUBG, has been used in Dragon Ball for the first time in the Dragon Ball Super anime. It was the latest arc of the series, and it consisted of a battle royale between all 11 universes from existence. The stake was huge: each and every team had to fight for the survival of their own universe. Goku represented Universe 7, alongside the most powerful fighters in that universe: Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, Android 18, Android 17, and more. Perhaps also introducing Krillin and Master Roshi, there was a pretty farfetched decision from the writers, but who are we to judge?
The events of the Dragon Ball Super manga have continued even long before those from the anime version, and we can realistically hope to see the Moro and Granolah arcs on the big screens soon enough!
