Promotion for the upcoming Dragon Ball Genkidamatsuri, a special event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Dragon Ball anime, has sparked fresh optimism that news about a possible continuation of the Dragon Ball Super anime or manga could finally be on the horizon
What’s fueling this renewed hope is the sheer range of parties involved in pushing the event: Toei, Akio Iyoku (former head of Shueisha’s Dragon Ball Room and Akira Toriyama's personal spokesperson), Shueisha and Bandai Namco.
Their unified promotional effort is noteworthy, given that Iyoku and Shuiesha were previously thought to be at odds after Toriyama’s death, a conflict many fans believe contributed to the Dragon Ball Super manga’s extended hiatus and the decision to release Dragon Ball Daima instead of moving forward with more Super episodes or another theatrical movie.
Now, however, the Genkidamatsuri campaign suggests these previously divided sides are now all aligned once again, with the event now promoting not one, but TWO MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS to be unveiled at the event.
Leading Dragon Ball Youtuber Geekdom 101 breaks down the news in the video below.
As Geekdom broke down, the event is promising to reveal "two major projects" along with a "video game announcement". And again, the Genkidamatsuri event on January 26th in Japan is being HEAVILY promoted by Akio Iyoki's Capsule Corporation Tokyo, Shuiesha, Toei, Bandai, pretty much everyone that has anything to do with Dragon Ball.
In addition, legendary Goku voice actor Masako Nozawa is confirmed to attend, along with Japanese singer and composer Hironobu Kageyama, who famously wrote and provided the opening Cha-La Head-Cha-La.
The Dragon Ball Super manga has been on a prolonged break since March 2024, and the manga's editor Victory Uchida has already confirmed that the manga won’t resume in 2025, leaving the next chapter of the main story, the Black Frieza Saga, on indefinite hold.
As for the anime, the televised run wrapped up on March 25, 2018, with Episode 131. Although the series ended there, the story continued on the big screen through two canon films: Dragon Ball Super: Broly in 2018 and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero in 2022.
If the anime ever comes back to adapt the material created after the Tournament of Power, there’s plenty waiting to be animated.
Three full arcs and one shorter prologue remain untouched in anime form including the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Arc (the Moro Arc), the Granolah the Survivor Arc, and the Super Hero Arc, which would largely re-tell the 2022 film.
That's about 62 chapters of the manga that could be animated, which could theoretically account for about 70-80 new episodes as the Dragon Ball Super anime previously adapted about 0.5 to 1.0 chapters of the manga per episode.