During the 40th anniversary of Dragon Ballfans were happy to hear that new animated projects are in the worksalong with a brand new game for longtime fans to enjoy. While there is much to celebrate knowing that the series will continue, witnessing it will do so after the death of Akira Toriyamawhich practically turns Goku and friends into the Mickey Mouse of the post-Walt Disney era, an amazing phenomenon to watch happen in real time. All that raises the question: what to do Dragon Ball can there be no Toriyama?

The anime industry after Toriyama’s death did not disappear Dragon Ball projects by a long shot. In the time since his death in 2024, fans have enjoyed Toei Animation series after series, Dragon Ball Diama; its kick-ass fighting game Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero; a lot of updates on ongoing video games; and new chapters of Dragon Ball Super ignorantwritten by his successor and longtime fan, Toyotarou.

In fact, fans also received a anime adaptation and video game for his slept-on series Sandy Soil. I mean, we’ve been saying goodbye to the famous creator for a while as fans sit back and wonder what the future holds for Dragon Ball it doesn’t seem like its father is at the helm or at least involved in a big way.

This phenomenon is not new in the industry, with the like confused continues under the helm of creator Kentaro Miura’s close friend, Kouji Mori, after Miura’s death. However, as fans of confused can be confirmed, the series has not felt the same since the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers in Miura’s final chapters. Between on-again and off-again hiatuses, which have become too frequent to track over the years, confusedwhile drawn with a near-strange likeness of Miura’s artistry, seeing his story’s pacing moves at a pretty uncharacteristically fast pace, turning the series almost into conceptual art where the story is the formation rather than full, meaningful chapters.

To Mori’s credit, it was a daunting task to manage to end what is widely regarded as one of the best dark fantasy series of all time. That won’t do confused anything less than a great recommendation to watch, and the same can be said for Dragon Ball SuperThe manga post the Tournament of Power arc.

For the foreseeable future, the answer to the above question is clear: Toei Animation is adapting to Great mangas Galactic Patrol arc—an arc directed by Toriyama, and hailed by fans as one of the best in the series. From what those in the know say, this news is heartwarming Dragon Ball fans once it was released. It has new forms for Goku, Vegeta, and Frieza that are sure to be rich Dragon BallThe ongoing video game titles, as well as a cool new Moro villain, the “Planet-Eater,” who has already sparked fan-casting dreams with Keith David in mind.

Listen to me pic.twitter.com/1l25VyJTgz

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

And as far as successors go, Toyotarou has proven that he is a good man at the helm Dragon Ball in any direction it goes. The real concern here, however, is how Toei Animation seems to be in a dead end, spinning its collective wheels on where to take the franchise next without, so to speak, re-heating the series’ nachos or leaning on posthumous releases the way a music studio releases the works of a rapper who has not yet been released. Those are the original characters for Bandai Namco’s latest game, codenamed “Age 1000.”

While there is more to be gained from the character whose design feels like a combination of Gohan, Cheelai, and a basic Saiyan template that is being sought, the bad design presented by the prefix “Akira Toriyama Presents” gives the presence of the character as one of, if not the last, original character designs created by Toriyama.

Mercifully, that’s always a cool thing to see, but it also has a bit of a “the horse is in the glue factory” feel to how disarming it feels to deploy it to a fanbase that still hurts when they see Toriyama’s name on their timeline. In terms of wrestling, this is a cheap pop and one that feels like the first of many to come, which is not a good direction for a series that feels like it ended on a good note that is not allowed to lie.

Consider the Dragon Ball Super: BeerusToei Animation’s “enhanced remake” of War of the Gods. While, on the surface, the remake film has some merits because the original film had some terrible cuts in the animation of its release, Toei Animation advertises it as a film that is more faithful to Toriyama’s original ideas in the rhetoric of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut that still makes DC movies an annoying thing to deal with.

It’s also the kind of restraint that Toei can lean on for anything Dragon Ball‑ near the future, riding on the lingering goodwill of Toriyama’s legacy. It’s a move that works in the world of comics, and Dragon Ball Fans are nothing if not fiercely loyal to shonen’s father, but this sets a worrying precedent. You can already feel the tectonic shift towards the post-Toriyama era where the franchise, and Goku by proxy, risks becoming brand mascot first and story second.

And while Toei and company are getting closer to pushing the narrative forward without Toriyama’s guidance, the series feels like it’s standing at night, focusing on the coming battle of what Dragon Ball against what it was. With any luck, Toyotarou’s stewardship might act as a Zenkai boost if the series continues, but right now, the horizon seems bleak enough that fans are right to sweat a little.

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