Dragon Ball Super: manga and anime differences

The Dragon Ball series is a martial arts filled series written by Akira Toriyama, a manga artist who wrote the gag manga Dr. Slump and made character designs for multiple games like Dragon Quest. The series stars Son Goku one of the last remaining of the Saiyan race as he trains to become stronger to fight stronger people, gaining rivals and friends along the way. This story has been told through Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and is currently on Dragon Ball Super. The one who has the most rocky start of these is Dragon Ball super which wasn’t well received when the show was revealed due to the animation. Currently the anime has finished its story with the universe survival arc, while the manga is still ongoing. However the manga and the anime have many differences in the way they handle events and fights. 

An example many bring up is in the Universe 6 Saga arc when Goku fights Hit, an assassin from universe 6 whose ability is to skip time. In the manga Goku was able to overcome his ability by transforming into Super Saiyan God (SSJ God) but ends up forfeiting due to Hit being unable to use his strongest attacks. In the anime however the fight was in Hit’s favor for the most part until Goku uses Kaioken times 20 on top of Super Saiyan Blue which is stronger than SSJ God. However, it still ends with Goku forfeiting for the same reason as in the manga. Both of these examples show that there was a clear outcome for each scene planned, but not a clear plan on how to get there.

Another example many bring up is in the Universe survival arc and the amount of things Master Roshi did. In the anime he had a great performance even at his age, eliminating five people using his techniques and sheer amount of experience. Only being eliminated due to Goku telling him to jump off the arena after almost dying fighting to Frost, earning the Gods of Destruction’s respect. In the manga however he had even larger feats than in the anime. One of his best feats was being able to keep up with Jiren’s attack for a bit which Goku was only able to do when using ultra instinct. However in both he is eliminated before Goku awakened Ultra instinct for the first time in the Tournament of Power.

The reason behind the difference is due to the people who write the manga and how they interpret the work of Toriyama. Toriyama’s role with Dragon Ball Super is different from his role in Dragon Ball and DBZ, before he had almost done all the writing, story boarding, and imagery of the manga. However after DBZ ended, he found someone named Toyotaro who had created a continuation of his series named Dragon Ball AF.

In a translated interview by Kanzenshuu Toriyama tells Toyotaro, “You might actually be the closest to my style. There aren’t many people who can manage that!” So when a new series called Dragon Ball Super was announced Toriyama knew who could help him draw the new manga series. However in the same translated interview Toyotaro says, “I’ve used Toriyama-sensei‘s plot as a basis, but have been allowed to expand on it.” This interview shows that we currently don’t know the amount that Toyotaro had to do or the amount Anime had to do to follow Toriyama’s original plot.