Dragon Ball (All Series)

[Daikun]

Fox only rushed this out into production thanks to that idiotic WGA Strike.

That's interesting. I never heard anything about the strike affecting the movie. I thought they rushed it out because they were sitting on the license and it was going to expire soon.

Although a quick search states that the timeline of filming matches up with the strike, so I guess it's both.

[Peanutbutter]

Fox only rushed this out into production thanks to that idiotic WGA Strike.

That's interesting. I never heard anything about the strike affecting the movie. I thought they rushed it out because they were sitting on the license and it was going to expire soon.

Although a quick search states that the timeline of filming matches up with the strike, so I guess it's both.

Yeah, I think that's why they rushed it through. But if not for the strike, I don't think they'd given a crap. They were beyond desperate at the time to make something that would keep them afloat.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Dragon Ball Super's next arc is called the Future Trunks arc and will begin in June.

Now there's playing with fire.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

As one of my top five favorite DB characters, I hope that they do him justice in this series. As much as I was pretty "meh" on the Cell arc, I genuinely loved almost every moment that Future Trunks was on screen. He's arguably one of the more nuanced and well-developed characters in the franchise.

It'll be interesting to see Jaco's reaction to him since he's against time travel.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I loved this episode. I don't care if it's basically filler, it had more genuine humor and heart to it than even most story-related episodes in this show so far, IMO.

I am slightly disappointed, though, that Arale's cameo was so brief, but at least it was a funny gag. I have a feeling that it would've worked better if it had come as a complete surprise, though, rather than having her VA announce it ahead of time.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Here's the visual:



Toriyama comments:

Next up in Dragon Ball Super, adult Trunks will be putting in his first appearance in a long time! I put together this story based on a suggestion from the editorial office. Like last time, I write an outline of the entire plot, then the script writers break it up into episodes, expanding on things, changing things around, or adding in new bits as need be.

Despite being so strong, Trunks barely escapes from the future with his life.

The future was supposed to be at peace, so what in the world could have happened!?

And what about this foe too strong even for Trunks to handle, Black Goku!? (Well, you can probably imagine what he's like just based off the name)

It's the start of a battle that surpasses time and space, and drags in the God of Destruction, Kaioshin, even the Omni-King! Many mysteries will be revealed!

There's some confusing bits with time changing here and there, but just bear with me. It should definitely turn out to be a fun story!

Even I haven't checked the final script yet.

Let's enjoy this together (laughs)!!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

And here I was thinking that Black Goku would be an African spin on the character (though I guess we have Uub for that).

Is that Future Mai with Trunks? Interesting, seeing as how the events of Battle of Gods couldn't have happened in Future Trunks's timeline, unless this is somehow a different Future Trunks (I really hope not, though). For some reason, Toriyama really seems to like that pairing.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Apparently it's the same Future Trunks. This just takes places after the androids and Cell were destroyed. I always wondered what he would face after they were gone, so I'm glad to see Toriyama decided to tell us.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I wonder if they are going to address which Universe Future Trunks comes from. Seeing as how his timeline was unaffected by Gohan defeating Cell, he obviously can't be from the same Universe.

I also hope that we get to see plenty of interactions between Future Trunks and his child version.

[LumRanmaYasha]

My question is: why is Trunks' hair blue? 

Weird that Future Mai looks so young, since unless Future Pilaf used the Dragon Balls to make themselves younger like they did in the main timeline, she should look much older than that. Unless that's not her but just someone who's related/looks like her.

Apparently it's the same Future Trunks. This just takes places after the androids and Cell were destroyed. I always wondered what he would face after they were gone, so I'm glad to see Toriyama decided to tell us.

I always wondered how Future Trunks would have dealt with Buu if he was awakened in his timeline. I know that Shin Budokai: Another Road explored that idea, but it also included Cooler and Broly in it, so it's most likely non-canon.

[Spark Of Spirit]

My question is: why is Trunks' hair blue? 

I'm pretty sure you know why. 

Apparently it's the same Future Trunks. This just takes places after the androids and Cell were destroyed. I always wondered what he would face after they were gone, so I'm glad to see Toriyama decided to tell us.

I always wondered how Future Trunks would have dealt with Buu if he was awakened in his timeline. I know that Shin Budokai: Another Road explored that idea, but it also included Cooler and Broly in it, so it's most likely non-canon.

Future Trunks was my favorite character from the Z half of Dragon Ball, mostly because of how great his character and development was. He was also the best fighter, since he always went 100% and for the kill right off the bat. But there were so many ways they could have gone with this.

Couldn't Goku have gone back to his timeline with him, found the Namekians, and used the Dragon Balls to restore everything after Cell was gone? Now that he is basically the strongest person in the universe, does he train a new force to protect the world from future attacks? How will his future look when he passes on? What about Buu?

One of the biggest misses with GT was that we never saw any of that. I still haven't had the chance to see Super yet, but this would certainly get me eager to see it. Especially if it involves the main cast traveling to HIS future this time. That would be a great twist on how it worked in the Cell saga.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Well, I don't think his blue hair necessarily means he can turn Super Saiyan God, since if it he was in that state his hair should be Super-Saiyan styled. Maybe Toriyama or the show's character designers just wanted to change it, for some reason.

Future Trunks was my favorite character from the Z half of Dragon Ball, mostly because of how great his character and development was. He was also the best fighter, since he always went 100% and for the kill right off the bat. But there were so many ways they could have gone with this.

Couldn't Goku have gone back to his timeline with him, found the Namekians, and used the Dragon Balls to restore everything after Cell was gone? Now that he is basically the strongest person in the universe, does he train a new force to protect the world from future attacks? How will his future look when he passes on? What about Buu?

One of the biggest misses with GT was that we never saw any of that. I still haven't had the chance to see Super yet, but this would certainly get me eager to see it. Especially if it involves the main cast traveling to HIS future this time. That would be a great twist on how it worked in the Cell saga.

There's definitely a lot of untapped potential stories to tell with Future Trunks and his timeline. It did always strike me as odd that they never tried to arrange to visit Namek in Future Trunks' timeline to resurrect Shenron to revive everyone the Androids killed. How he would deal with Buu without anyone else's help is a whole other can of worms too. It's made for interesting "what-if" scenarios in games and stuff, but it's nice we're finally getting a canon follow-up on his story after all this time. I also hope everyone visits his future this time, since that would be a nice change of setting and an appropriate contrast to the Cell arc.

One interesting think to note about "Black Goku" is that his earrings are totally the Potara earrings that the Supreme Kais wear. The synopsis for the arc mentioned the Supreme Kais would be important to the story in this arc, so I'm curious to see how they tie in and are related to this "bizarro" Goku. I heavily expect the arc will tie into Xenoverse in some form as well, especially with the sequel coming out soon, and possibly involving the Supreme Kai of Time in the story and showing Future Trunks as a member of the Time Patrol/joining the Time Patrol. I could definitely see "Black Goku" being somehow created by Towa to mess with him for interfering with her schemes. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

My question is: why is Trunks' hair blue? 

I thought about that too, but it also reminded me that I never used to understand why Trunks had purple hair when neither of his parents nor any of his known ancestors did. Of course, later I discovered that Toriyama colored Bulma's hair purple in the manga except for in the first chapter in which she had blue hair, which explains why the anime featured her hair in that color but then gave Trunks the correct color in correspondence with the manga. As for the promotional art, it's anyone's guess as to why they decided to change Trunks's hair color. Maybe it changed naturally as he got older, or he decided to dye it for whatever reason.

Anyways, both the announcement of this Future Trunks arc as well as the recent DBZA episode got me thinking about a major plot-hole in the Cell arc that has always bugged me to an extent and which I have never seen anyone else address.

So, as we know, Future Trunks traveled both through time and multiverse to Universe 7 in order to warn Goku and the others about the androids and hopefully use them to find a way to defeat them. While it was never explicitly stated that way in the story or by Toriyama himself, most fans accept that explanation as the only one that makes sense as to how Trunks could influence the events of the past without it having any effect on his own timeline. And to its credit, it's actually an ingenious way for Toriyama to avoid the time-paradox problem that plagues a ton of time-travel stories (I'm looking at you, LOT), whether he intended for it to be that way or not.

All of that stuff is fine and good. But then he complicates things later on in the story when he introduces Cell, who himself came from another alternate universe in which Trunks had defeated the androids and was going back to tell Goku and the others about it, indicating that he had already visited them before....except only one Future Trunks ever showed up in Universe 7 at all. That other version of Trunks never met with the DB cast that we as readers/viewers knew at that point. Now, you could try and explain this away by proposing that the Trunks of that universe time-traveled to another universe similar to that of Universe 7's cast and history. However, that explanation falls apart when Cell uses the time machine after killing Trunks and takes it to Universe 7, the same one in which the version of Future Trunks that we know showed up. If that time machine was programmed to set its destination for a different universe, then it should've gone there instead. So, how exactly did it end up appearing in the DB universe that we know, then?

And yes, this is me both being a huge DB fan/nerd while simultaneously just having too much time on my hands to nitpick meaningless BS.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I dunno. Maybe that Cell was from another universe.

It's time travel. It never makes 100% sense.

I always assumed Bibidi and his minions were killed by the androids in Future Trunks' timeline since by the time Future Trunks travels to the past they would have already come and gone. So Buu is still sleeping somewhere in that world.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I wonder about that. As strong as the androids from Future Trunks' timeline were, I doubt they would've been able to take on Dabura, who's supposed to be about as strong as Perfect Cell was. And Babidi's magic would have likely been strong enough to manipulate them into being his minions if he wanted, since again Dabura is much stronger and he was able to control him. Though, perhaps Babidi didn't manage to manipulate Dabura in that timeline, never crossed paths with the Androids, and the Supreme Kai of Trunks' timeline succeeded in killing him and stopping Buu's resurrection since there wasn't enough power to revive him before they destroyed his cocoon. There's a lot of ways that could've gone down. In fact, I wonder if the circumstances involving stopping Buu's resurrection in Trunks' timeline play into "Black Goku's" origin...

I hope they clarify whether Future Trunks' timeline is indeed one of the 12 universes, or just a parallel version of universe 7. Wouldn't make how the timelines work any easier to understand, but it could at least shed some light on that "how did Cell travel to a universe his Trunks shouldn't have been to" plot hole.