The Hot New Dragon Ball Trend: Make Everything Canon

There’s a good chance Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama still has original ideas left, but if that’s true, he’s put them aside for now. It’s tough not to conclude that given the recent story developments for Dragon Ball Super, following the end of the TV series in Japan last year.

The top itinerary now appears to be making previously noncanonical stories canonical, retelling them with notable — presumably better — changes. It’s the whole idea behind Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which takes fan favorite characters introduced in noncanonical films and specials to retrofit them into Dragon Ball canon. The biggest here is title character Broly, officially known as “Broly: BR” to differentiate him from the original. He was previously introduced as the legendary Super Saiyan who seemingly had a grudge against Goku because he cried too damn much as a child. I’m sure that won’t be the case here, though he’s keeping the iconic berserker form canonically first seen through Kale in the Super series.

It also appears that Bardock will be a significant part of the movie. He doesn’t appear too heavily in trailers thus far, but there could be a good reason why he has his own bus as part of the advertisement campaign in Japan.

Now, the newest character confirmed for the movie is Gogeta, who originally debuted in the 12th Dragon Ball Z film, and appeared in Dragon Ball GT, both of which are noncanonical works. He appears in an outfit nearly identical to the now-noncanonical one, though his shoulder pads are colored yellow instead of orange. He’s also capable of reaching the Super Saiyan Blue level — or Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, a name no one uses anymore for reasons I think are clear. This version of Gogeta was previously leaked through data left in an update for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 in August, so it’s not entirely surprising. Super Saiyan Blue Gogeta has since been confirmed for Xenoverse 2, following Broly: BR.

It’s funny how this was considered a spoiler when the teaser first dropped on Thursday, only for Toei Animation and FUNimation’s Twitter accounts to say it outright. Now, even your neighbors and random people on the street know it.

Honestly, none of these developments are surprising. Toei and FUNimation provided clear hints as to which characters would receive focus here by the movies and specials temporarily rereleased in theaters throughout this fall. This started with Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan, continued with Bardock: The Father of Goku, and concluded with Fusion Reborn, which introduced Broly, Bardock, and Gogeta in their noncanonical forms. I mentioned back in July that these could be hints, though they weren’t quite as overt as I expected. If they do something like this with movies again, you know what to expect.

Most fans seem to be fine with the Dragon Ball team reusing ideas, and I’d be a liar if I said I had a problem with it. Part of me believes that creators should almost always strive for more originality, but the other part of me is hoping characters like Cooler are next — the “almost” isn’t there for show. I’ll probably get that pseudo-wish, perhaps either after — or during — the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Arc that will begin in the Dragon Ball Super manga in December. Don’t be surprised if the series returns to TV with that arc, or an adaptation of the Broly movie, sometime in 2019.

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