Dragon Ball Super is returning for a new anime taking on the next major arc from the manga, but that’s only delaying the fact that the manga is still left off on a massive cliffhanger with fans eagerly waiting to see what’s next. Dragon Ball Super is in the midst of a massive comeback for the anime franchise as it first will be coming back later this Fall with an official remake series, Dragon Ball Super: Beerus, offering yet another take on the Battle of Gods arc. But that’s far from the only continuation we’ll see.

Dragon Ball Super: The Galactic Patrol has also been announced as a brand new anime adapting the Galactic Patrol Prisoner arc of the Dragon Ball Super manga release. This is the first of two brand new arcs taking place after the Tournament of Power, and continued the story of the TV anime series in manga form. But this new anime is returning while the manga is still on hiatus, and that means it’s only going to be around for a short while before hitting that wall once more.

Dragon Ball Super’s New Anime Only Has Two Arcs to Adapt

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Dragon Ball Super: The Galactic Patrol has yet to announce a concrete release date or window as of the time of this writing, but it’s likely to launch around 2027 or 2028 given that the remake anime will be airing later this Fall and taking that time slot already. If we’re lucky, the new anime will be launching right after the remake ends and begin its new adaptation of the manga’s story. But that’s only going to give the series another year to develop more of its story. And that’s going to be very necessary now.

Dragon Ball Super: The Galactic Patrol only has one arc to adapt, and then it will likely follow with an adaptation of the Granolah the Survivor arc to come after. Let’s say that there’s about four to five years maximum to fully adapt both arcs, and hopefully the manga has continued before that point or fans will have to wait some more. This is especially true for when the anime gets to the Granolah the Survivor arc and leaves fans on a massive cliffhanger that still needs to get resolved before the anime reaches that point in its adaptation.

The problem then lies with the Dragon Ball Super manga. If the anime is indeed using that as a base for its own adaptation rather than developing its own stories instead, then it’s going to hit that cliffhanger soon enough. Dragon Ball Super’s manga has been on hiatus since Akira Toriyama’s passing in 2024, and is showing no signs of returning. Even with the massive event this past weekend revealing these new anime and video game projects, Dragon Ball Super did not offer an update for its future.

Dragon Ball Super’s Manga Still Has a Huge Cliffhanger

Shueisha

Dragon Ball Super’s manga might have ended with its adaptation of the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, but that’s far from the end of the story. It’s currently the final release on Dragon Ball’s timeline heading into the End of Z, but there are some important details that led into the arc. The reason Goku and Vegeta are seen training together with Broly on Beerus’ planet was because the end of the Granolah the Survivor arc had revealed that Frieza had been secretly training himself to be the strongest warrior in the Seventh Universe overall.

Black Frieza was a brand new godlike form for the villain that he was able to unlock after ten years’ worth of time within a Hyperbolic Time Chamber that his forces had found out in space. He defeated Goku and Vegeta with a single blow, and proved to them that they still had quite a lot more training they needed to do. Which means as of the end of the Dragon Ball Super manga, there now exists a godlike villain out there who has yet to be dealt with. It would actually serve as a great final arc to cap off this era of the franchise too.

But this is an issue that the anime is going to face when it gets to the Granolah the Survivor arc. If Dragon Ball Super‘s manga doesn’t return from hiatus soon, anime fans will also be left on this massive cliffhanger too. Given that it’s also a series that only drops one chapter a month, it’s also not going to have enough time to properly lay out this arc before the anime reaches it. The anime could take this head on too, but it’s still something that fans of the anime will be confronting later down the line.

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