Dragon Ball Super Manga Chapter 92: Piccolo Takes On Gamma 2 in a Scene We Already Know By Heart

Dragon Ball Super Manga Chapter 91 ended with Gamma confronting Piccolo, mirroring what happened in the Super Hero movie, and that set up the first big fight of the movie's story now that it is being retold in manga form. The draft pages for Chapter 92 are now out, and they pick up exactly where that confrontation left off.

Chapter 92 Is Actually the Fifth Chapter of the Super Hero Arc, Not Its Own Mini Story

The official Dragon Ball website lists this new chapter as the fifth chapter of the Super Hero arc, even though it is Chapter 92 of the overall Super manga. That detail cleared up something I had gotten wrong. I had thought the Goten and Trunks prelude chapters that kicked off the Super Hero storyline were their own separate three chapter mini arc. They are not. Those three chapters are actually part of the Super Hero arc itself, and now we are moving into the material that was already in the film.

I did a stream a couple of weeks before this where I talked about not being especially thrilled for this retelling. The movie only came out a few months earlier, plenty of us have seen it multiple times already, and what is being added in the manga so far is not that interesting to me. I said I wanted to see what Toyotaro had in store, because the Piccolo versus Gamma fight in the movie was a fun little short fight, even if there was not too much to it. It introduced the new Gamma, showed they were competent fighters, confirmed they were part of Red Ribbon, which we already sort of knew, and played a lot of it for comedy, ending with Gamma thinking he beat Piccolo when he actually did not.

Piccolo vs Gamma 2 Recreates the Movie's Opening Fight Almost Exactly

The chapter title translates to something like Piccolo's training is interrupted when an uninvited guest attacks, asking just who this pose striking cape clad menace could be. My honest reaction to that framing is that everybody already knows who this is. Every Dragon Ball fan, including fans in Japan, has already seen this reveal. The movie has been out on Blu-ray and 4K in Japan for months, since around December. Any fan still invested in this property has already seen this moment, and that familiarity is exactly why it does not feel that interesting to me right now.

In the pages themselves, Gamma 2 and Piccolo have their exchange about who Gamma is, and of course Gamma cannot say, because it is a secret. There is a panel with a finger held to the mouth, a shush gesture, telling Piccolo he cannot reveal who it is. Then the fight begins. I do trust Toyotaro in the sense that I think the fight will play out a little differently on the page than it did on screen, but I do not expect it to be dramatically different. I said, "I don't expect to see something that's terribly new, breathtaking stuff." My expectation is that the chapter follows the movie closely while adding a couple of extra scenes here and there, possibly including more of the Krillin subplot continuing.

Looking at the art itself, Piccolo lands a body shot and Gamma retaliates with one of his own, and I like how it is drawn, even in draft form. It reminded me a little, though not a lot, of the earlier fight between Piccolo and Android 17, where both were throwing rapid punches into each other's guts hard enough that you could see their backs get blown out. The kick to the head that follows is drawn just like it was in the movie, and overall there is nothing here I would call new or especially interesting, since if I want to watch this fight I already have the movie to go back to.

Why This Feels Different From the Manga's Past Catch Up Arcs

When the Battle of Gods material came into the manga back in 2015, it worked because so much time had passed since the movie that revisiting it still felt intriguing, even though it was more of the same story. The manga then skipped Resurrection F entirely, since that had its own promo manga, and moved into the Universe 6 arc, at which point the anime actually passed the manga and the manga had to play catch up. This current situation is different from both of those. We are not in truly new territory, but we are not in old territory either. This is material we only saw play out in theaters last year, which is why it lands in a strange middle ground for me.

What I Actually Want From Toyotaro Instead of More Red Ribbon Names

My hope is that Toyotaro uses the extra scenes to add real lore rather than just filling in minor background details. I said plainly that I do not care about things like Commander Red and Magenta's last name being Ribbon, because nobody is invested in that kind of trivia. What I actually want to know more about is the creation of Cell Max, the creation of the Gammas, and what else Dr. Hedo was working on. So far I do not think this manga chapter or arc is heading in that more creative direction, which feels like a missed opportunity given how much room there is to expand this story.

Herms posted about this chapter and reached the same conclusion, writing what he called non spoilers because the first seven pages of Chapter 92 are a blow by blow recreation of the start of the Piccolo and Gamma 2 fight from the Super Hero movie, right down to Piccolo recognizing Gamma 2's RR mark. That lines up with everything I noticed in the draft pages myself.

How Future Chapters and Spoilers Will Be Covered

I even said I might not make a video on these early draft pages going forward, since I have plenty of other videos planned that I think will be more worthwhile.

Do you think Toyotaro should be using these Super Hero chapters to add real new lore about Cell Max and the Gammas, or are you fine with a close retelling of the movie?