Monday, February 10, 2025 saw the first look at the upcoming Dragon Ball Super manga one-shot officially shared in a video from the franchise’s official YouTube channel. While the one-shot itself and its release date of Thursday, February 20, 2025 were previously announced at Jump Festa 2025, this latest sneak peek is the first offered.
While the Dragon Ball Super manga is returning with a one-shot, it’s unclear as of this article’s writing whether or not the one-shot will mark the manga’s return to regular serialization. However, the latest “Weekly Dragon Ball News” video which shares the sketch of one of the chapter’s pages teases more information coming this Thursday, February 13.
Dragon Ball Super manga returns with one-shot, but has yet to announce a return to regular serialization
Presumably, the coming information on Thursday, February 13 will reveal additional draft sketches of pages for the upcoming Dragon Ball Super manga one-shot. This is something the series did regularly prior to taking its ongoing hiatus after Akira Toriyama’s death, hence why it seems likely to be the main focus. However, if the manga is set to soon return to regular serialization, this could be announced on Thursday as well.
It would also make sense, as the series has been on hiatus for nearly a year, first announced in April 2024 following Toriyama’s aforementioned passing. Just before Toriyama’s passing, the manga did seem to be laying the groundwork for a new arc, suggesting there is at least a direction for the story’s near-future as it stands. Illustrator and presumably now author Toyotaro has likely spent a majority of the hiatus trying to plan a long-term vision for the series’ future.
This lends further credence to the idea that the Dragon Ball Super manga’s return to regular serialization is near. Likewise, even if this return isn’t announced just before or alongside the one-shot’s release, fans can take the one-shot as a sign that the highly anticipated return is coming soon. However, this is still purely speculative as of this article’s writing, with no rumors or official news indicating a return soon.
The manga series originally began in June 2015, and was written by Toriyama prior to his death in March 2024. The manga was adapted into a television anime which ran from July 2015 to March 2018. Both the anime and manga are considered to be unified canonically despite featuring some discrepancies and different events. The story is set several years after Majin Buu’s defeat, but prior to the final episodes of the Dragon Ball Z anime.
Toriyama passed on March 1, 2024 at 68 years old from an acute subdural hematoma. Toriyama was best known as the creator of the Dragon Ball franchise, as well as the Dr. Slump mangaka and the character designer of both the Chrono Trigger video game and Dragon Quest video game franchise.
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Edited by Joseph Brogan
