Dragon Ball Super's Champa Arc Enhanced Edition Is Getting Cut Down to Just Seven Episodes

Big update in the world of the Dragon Ball Super anime, and it is a bit unexpected. This is about the enhanced edition of the God of Destruction Champa arc, otherwise known as the Universe 6 versus Universe 7 tournament, and I have new information to share on just how aggressively it is being cut down.

Back in January it was officially announced that before the Moro arc finally gets its anime adaptation, Toei Animation is doing a recut or reimagining of the earlier Dragon Ball Super arcs, similar to what was done with Dragon Ball Kai. They are taking the Battle of Gods arc, the Resurrection F arc, and the God of Destruction Champa arc, cutting them down, removing a lot of the fluff from the 2015 Dragon Ball Super anime, and enhancing the visuals to try to get closer to Akira Toriyama's vision. Originally it seemed the whole of Dragon Ball Super was getting this treatment through the Tournament of Power, but it turns out the Tournament of Power and the Goku Black arc are not part of this initial release, even though they may come later.

Why the Champa arc is the one that actually needed this treatment

I already have the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F movies as my preferred way of consuming that content, and I don't think those arcs needed to be recut or redone since we already had Toriyama's vision there. The Universe 6 arc is different. It does not have a version that Toriyama scripted from start to finish. The Champa Tournament was a manuscript Toriyama turned in to the editorial offices at Shueisha and to Toyotaro and Toei Animation, and that manuscript was expanded into TV episodes of the Dragon Ball Super anime about ten years ago. The episodes themselves were not written by Toriyama, just expounded from what he wrote.

Of everything being remade, the Universe 6 material is to me the most important because it is the one thing without a full length movie carrying Toriyama's pen, and it is the one thing that probably needs the most cutting down among these first three arcs. This recut is going to work like an appetizer before the Moro arc arrives. If I'm being honest, I'm anticipating the Moro arc a lot more than this, but I do have curiosity about how the finished product will look.

The episode count has dropped from 10 to 12 down to seven

Earlier this year I reported that the Battle of Gods portion would run six episodes, followed immediately by the Resurrection F arc at around six to seven episodes, and that Frieza arc information was made public in April. When it comes to the Champa arc, it was reported by me and by some other reporters around the fandom that it would run 10 to 12 episodes. Apparently it is even less than that, which is very surprising.

In the original Dragon Ball Super, the Champa arc ran from episode 28 to episode 41, which comes out to 13 episodes once you account for padding like episode 30, a clip show episode that I consider my most hated episode of Super. Cutting that down to 10 would have made sense to me, but the number I am being told now is seven. I want to be upfront that this is not double sourced, but it comes from somebody I trust and consider credible, so I think it is going to be accurate. If it turns out not to be, just know going in that it wasn't double sourced.

What content is likely getting trimmed to hit seven episodes

Episode 28, the introduction of Champa, is one of my favorites of the original Super, but I can see them summarizing Goku and Vegeta's training and their beef, and combining episodes 28 and 29. The subplot introducing Bulma's sister Tights, her first anime appearance after debuting in Toriyama's 2013 Jaco manga, might get cut too, which would be unfortunate since I want future generations to know about Tights and I don't know how many of them will read the manga.

The fights themselves are probably getting trimmed quite a bit, along with the sideline bickering between Beerus and Champa. I do not currently know whether they will change the Kaio-Ken blue scene to bring it closer to the manga version, and I don't have that information right now, but I will cover it if I learn more. I also think some of the Vegeta and Cabba conversation may get cut down, along with parts of the fight against Botamo and Magetta, and the extended, cosmic scale introduction to the dragon being summoned in episode 41 could be chopped down to get straight to the wish.

What seven episodes means for pacing, and why the switch to Moro makes sense

To realistically hit seven episodes, we are probably not going to get more than about five and a half episodes of actual combat. I want to be clear for anyone assuming this means hour long episodes, that is not true. As far as I know this will be the regular episode length of any anime including Super, they are just making aggressive cuts, and the pacing is probably going to be bonkers, maybe even faster than some of the edits made going from Dragon Ball Z to Kai.

The fact that it is only seven episodes actually makes more sense given something reported here earlier this year, that staff is moving from this enhanced edition project to starting work on the Moro arc. That tells me they did not just abruptly leave, and that this project involved more cutting than adding material, which explains the timing of the switch. It seems like the bulk of the difficult work is finished, though I don't know that for certain, it just seems that way. The story keeps evolving, but that is actually a good sign, because unlike the original 2015 Super anime, this new Moro Galactic Patrol arc will have plenty of pre-production time to get things right.