What Is the Future of ‘Dragon Ball’ Without Akira Toriyama?

During the 40th anniversary of Dragon Ball, fans were delighted to hear that new animated projects were in the works, alongside a new game for longtime fans to enjoy. While there’s much to celebrate in knowing that the series will continue, witnessing it do so following the passing of Akira Toriyama, virtually turning Goku and friends into Mickey Mouse in the post-Walt Disney era, is a weird phenomenon to watch unfold in real time. All of which begs the question: what will Dragon Ball become without Toriyama?

The anime industry after the passing of Toriyama hasn’t been bereft of Dragon Ball projects by a long shot. In the time since his passing in 2024, fans have enjoyed Toei Animation’s sequel series, Dragon Ball Diama; its kick-ass fighting game Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero; a myriad of updates to ongoing video games; and new chapters of the Dragon Ball Super manga, penned by his successor and longtime fan, Toyotarou.

Tangentially, fans also received an anime adaptation and video game for his slept-on series Sand Land. All that is to say, we’ve been in the throes of a long goodbye with the famed creator for a minute now as fans sit and wonder what the future of Dragon Ball looks like without its father at the helm or at least involved in a major way.

This phenomenon isn’t new to the industry, with the likes of Berserk continuing under the helm of creator Kentaro Miura’s best friend, Kouji Mori, in the wake of Miura’s passing. Yet still, as fans of Berserk can attest, the series hasn’t felt quite the same since the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers of Miura’s final chapters. Between on-again and off-again hiatuses, which have become too frequent to keep track of over the years, Berserk, while drawn with a near-uncanny likeness of Miura’s artistry, has seen its story’s pacing move at a pretty uncharacteristically brisk pace, turning the series almost into concept art of where the story is shaping rather than full, meaningful chapters.

To Mori’s credit, it’s a pretty daunting task to handle concluding what’s widely regarded as one of the best dark fantasy series of all time. That doesn’t make Berserk any less of a big recommendation to watch, and the same can be said for Dragon Ball Super‘s manga post the Tournament of Power arc.

For the foreseeable future, the answer to the question up top is an obvious one: Toei Animation is adapting the Super manga’s Galactic Patrol arc—an arc that Toriyama supervised, and fans have lauded as one of the best in the series. From what those in the know are saying, this news will heartily feed Dragon Ball fans once it releases. It’s got cool new forms for Goku, Vegeta, and Frieza that’ll surely enrich Dragon Ball‘s ongoing video game titles, as well as a cool new villain in Moro, the “Planet-Eater,†who’s already sparked fan-casting longing with Keith David in mind.

Hear me out pic.twitter.com/1l25VyJTgz

— 🔥SektorMaid🔥 (@song0han12) January 29, 2026

And as far as successors go, Toyotarou has proven he’s a pretty good person to have helm Dragon Ball with whatever direction it’ll go. The real worry here, however, is how Toei Animation seems to be at an impasse, spinning its collective wheels over where to take the franchise next that isn’t, proverbially, reheating the series nachos or leaning on posthumous releases the way a music studio would release a rapper’s unreleased works. Those are original characters for Bandai Namco’s latest game, codenamed “Age 1000.â€

While there’s still much to be gleaned from the character whose design feels kind of like an amalgamation of Gohan, Cheelai, and a basic Saiyan template look for, the otherwise lackluster design being presented with the prefix “Akira Toriyama Presents†gives the character presence as one of, if not the last, original character designs Toriyama came up with.

Charitably, that’s always a cool thing to see, but it also smacks a bit of “the horse is in the glue factory†with how weaponized it feels in its deployment to a fanbase still aching whenever they see Toriyama’s name on their timeline. In wrestling terms, it’s a cheap pop and one that feels like the first of many to come, which sucks as a direction for a series that felt like it ended on a good enough note not to let lie. 

Consider Dragon Ball Super: Beerus, Toei Animation’s “enhanced remake†of Battle of the Gods. While, on the surface, the remake film has some merit in existing because the original film had some pretty awful cuts of animation upon its release, Toei Animation advertising it as a film that’s more faithful to Toriyama’s original ideas smacks of the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut rhetoric that still make DC movies an annoying affair to deal with.

It’s also the kind of refrain Toei can lean on for anything Dragon Ball‑adjacent in the foreseeable future, riding the lingering goodwill of Toriyama’s legacy. It’s a move that works in the comic‑book world, and Dragon Ball fans are nothing if not fiercely loyal to the father of shonen, but it sets a worrying precedent. You can already feel the tectonic shift toward a post‑Toriyama era where the franchise, and Goku by proxy, risk becoming a brand mascot first and a story second.

And as Toei and company inch closer to pushing the narrative forward without Toriyama’s guiding hand, the series feels like it’s standing at eventide, staring down a coming clash over what Dragon Ball is versus what it was. With any luck, Toyotarou’s stewardship can act as a Zenkai boost if the series continues, but right now, the horizon looks turbulent enough that fans are right to sweat a little.

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