What Is Dragon Ball Heroes?: 10 Things Every Fan Needs To Know

Dragon Ball is an anime that’s left a much greater legacy than anyone could have anticipated. Dragon Balls fandom has grown each decade and the series as a whole has also been able to evolve in many ways.

Related: Dragon Ball Heroes: 10 Ways The Canon Is Different From Dragon Ball Super

Dragon Ball’s anime, movies, and video games often play with their own canon, but there’s also been the addition of Dragon Ball Heroes. Dragon Ball Heroes is a recent anime that's kept fans entertained, but it’s also a whole lot more than just the next animated chapter in Dragon Ball.

10 It's A Promotional Anime Based On A Card/Video Game

Dragon Ball is popular all over the world, but its fandom is on a whole other level in Japan and there are a number of additional video games & products that capitalize on the series. Dragon Ball Heroes is a card-based video game that started off in arcades but has been able to migrate its way over to the Nintendo 3DS and the Switch. Super Dragon Ball Heroes is the promotional anime that pulls from these games for its story inspiration and the different forms of media have been able to work together to tell a much bigger story.

9 It's Not Canon With The Anime

The conclusion of Dragon Ball Super’s anime left many fans hungry for new content, so when the anime for Dragon Ball Heroes hit, a lot of people naturally assumed it was the continuation of Super’s story. Despite how Super Dragon Ball Heroes explicitly refers to events from Dragon Ball Super, it forges its own canon that’s a combination of everything. This can make the series sometimes feel like glorified fan fiction, but it’s important to distinguish that the events from this anime won’t be followed up in any future Dragon Ball Super series.

8 It Has Its Own Manga

Dragon Ball Heroes pulls from many different Dragon Ball sources for its material and even though the series started as a video game and then turned into an anime, it’s also become popular enough to warrant its own manga. The manga begins with Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission, which ran for years and evolved along with the story of the video game.

Related: Dragon Ball Heroes: 10 Concepts We Want In Canon

More recently the manga re-launched as Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Universe Mission!! The manga provides a satisfying alternative for people to experience this Dragon Ball story.

7 Episodes Release On A Sporadic Monthly Basis

Super Dragon Ball Heroes has been airing since 2018, but in the span of these two years, there have only been 27 episodes. Super Dragon Ball Heroes doesn’t operate on a regular schedule and it treats new episodes more like special events, even though it tells a serialized story that’s spanned several full arcs. Super Dragon Ball Heroes has currently aired 27 episodes and is in it “Universe Creation” arc. Episodes release sporadically, but the show has fallen into a monthly schedule for its latest episodes.

6 It Combines Dragon Ball Super With Dragon Ball GT

Dragon Ball GT still has a rather contentious reputation in the Dragon Ball community and even though Dragon Ball Super has successfully retconned most of its events, Dragon Ball GT’s characters and transformations are still very popular in video games. Super Dragon Ball Heroes bridges these canons and allows for crazy things like Super Saiyan Blue to square off against Super Saiyan 4 while allowing GT’s most interesting ideas to get explored in a new context. It helps redeem the series in some ways and it’s exciting to see how the anime gets incorporated.

5 It Brings Back Movie Villains

Another area of the Dragon Ball universe that generates a lot of debate is the many movies that fill up the series. Dragon Ball Z has 12 films as well as extra specials and material, many of which feature villains that make a big impression, but then never get to appear again.

Related: Dragon Ball: Every Filler Arc In The Anime (In Chronological Order)

Dragon Ball Heroes indulges in this area by bringing back most of the more popular villains from Dragon Ball Z movies like Bojack, Turles, and even features new ideas like Golden Cooler. It’s a treat for those that have wanted to see these foes return in some way.

4 It Explores New Transformation And Fusion Combinations

Dragon Ball is full of exceptionally strong characters, but as progressively powerful foes appear, there’s been a reliance on new transformations and even fusions where characters can combine their strength together. Considering that Dragon Ball Heroes features such a cavalcade of characters it allows for varieties of fusion that would otherwise be impossible. It allows for something like a fusion between Super Saiyan 4 and Super Saiyan Blue to be possible or for characters to attain new levels of power, like a Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta of Super Saiyan God Future Trunks.

3 Time Rifts Allow For Multiple Versions Of The Same Characters

Super Dragon Ball Heroes really doesn’t worry too hard over things like continuity and it doesn’t just mash together the storylines from several Dragon Ball series, it even allows multiple versions of the same character to appear. Time travel and multiple universes are not foreign concepts to the series, but it’s still jarring to see a GT version of Goku with his Super rendition. This doesn’t just pose some crazy ideas regarding fusion, but it also means that a combination between both Gogeta and Vegetto is technically possible.

2 The Power Scaling Is A Mess

Part of what makes Dragon Ball Heroes so entertaining is that it throws every Dragon Ball character together and delights in the chaos from the possibilities that this allows. This may be entertaining, but it also means the series has to answer questions that shouldn’t have to be considered, like how Super Saiyan God compares to a Golden Great Ape or how Golden Cooler would contend against Jiren. The power scaling is a mess and often feels completely random in terms of whatever best services the story.

1 It Features The Time Patrol And Other Video Game Story Elements

Super Dragon Ball Heroes pays service to Dragon Ball Super, Dragon Ball GT, and the series’ many movies, but it also digs into the events of the extended video game series, like Dragon Ball Xenoverse. A lot of the ideas from the Xenoverse titles, like the presence of the Time Patrol and even the use of Fu as a villain, show how important the video game canon is in reference to Dragon Ball Heroes' larger story. It’s usually the video games that pay reference to the anime, so it’s interesting to see the opposite process happen here.

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Next: 5 Ways Dragon Ball & Dragon Quest Are Alike (& 5 Ways They're Completely Different)