Dragon Ball Super Remake Project Reportedly Scaled Back as Toei Staff Shifts to the Moro Arc

The rumored recuts and enhanced versions of Dragon Ball Super, starting with Dragon Ball Super Beerus, reportedly will only cover the Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, and Universe 6 tournament portions of the story, with the Goku Black and Tournament of Power arcs not being remade at this time. That is a follow up to a story broken earlier in the week, and I now have more information after digging further into it.

Sometime last year, myself and several other people in the Dragon Ball community were alerted that Toei's next big Dragon Ball project would be a recut of Dragon Ball Super. When I first heard this, I thought it was fake news. It did not make sense to me why they would do that instead of going right into the Moro arc. As time passed, more sources claimed it was true, and eventually a leaked internal document confirmed it for pretty much everybody, making it what I'd call the worst kept secret in the entire fandom. Even after seeing the evidence, it still struck me as a strange decision, and I was not sure why it was made.

Why Toei Reportedly Decided to Recut Dragon Ball Super in the First Place

When the Genki Dama Tsuri event happened, it became public that Dragon Ball Super Beerus would begin a series of remade enhancements to the Dragon Ball Super versions of Battle of Gods, with the remaining Super arcs to follow. Akio Iyoku reportedly said the goal was to retouch the series and focus it more on Akira Toriyama's original vision, which is a strange justification given that Battle of Gods and Resurrection F already have scripts written or co-written by Toriyama. In my view, those movies already represent his original vision.

It seems more likely the point was to take the anime version and enhance scenes while fixing animation problems from the original 2015 run of Dragon Ball Super, and to give newer fans a way to watch Super start to finish without wading through the original 2015 series, cutting filler along the way. Personally, I do not think any of this was necessary, since Battle of Gods and Resurrection F already exist as what I consider a pretty definitive way of watching those stories. It is much easier to watch two movies than 27 episodes of a re-adaptation that does not add all that much besides a few cool moments here and there.

The Original Plan Covered Every Arc Before Moro, Including an Unclear Question About Broly

The project was announced alongside Dragon Ball Super Galactic Patrol, the upcoming Moro arc. The concept was for every Dragon Ball Super arc, Battle of Gods through Resurrection F, the Universe 6 and 7 tournament (the Champa arc), the Goku Black and Future Trunks arc, and the Tournament of Power, to be recut, fixed up, and enhanced with fewer episodes and a better visual presentation, all building directly into the Moro arc as a kind of re-versioning of Super.

One question I get asked frequently is whether Dragon Ball Super Broly would get the same treatment as Battle of Gods and Resurrection F. I could not find an answer to that when the plan was first revealed, and I still cannot, though as I'll get into, plans have clearly changed based on what I've since been told.

Sources Say Staff Have Now Been Moved Off the Remake to Speed Up the Moro Arc

Plans change during production, and I've covered plenty of examples of that before, including Dragon Ball Super's 2019 shelving and Dragon Ball Super Superhero's delay from its intended 2021 release due to the COVID situation. So it fits that plans around this remake project would shift too.

The story reported earlier in the week, that a majority of the staff being moved away from the remake project and onto the Moro arc, is a correct story based on sources I've spoken to. A number of key individuals involved in production have been moved to step up work on the Moro arc anime. As things stand right now, the idea is to only release the remakes of the Beerus arc, the Golden Frieza arc, and the Champa Universe 6 arc, without enhancing or remaking the Goku Black or Tournament of Power arcs.

Why Skipping the Black and Tournament of Power Recuts Is a Strange Call, But Also Makes Sense

I have to say this is a very weird decision, one that could confuse casual audience members who do not follow these stories closely. I've even seen people comment that they do not know what Dragon Ball Super Beerus is even about. Some have argued that Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, and the Champa arc needed the fix up the most in terms of animation and pacing, and while I see where that argument comes from, I'd push back given that Battle of Gods and Resurrection F were movies first, and those movie versions have always been the preferred way to watch them and the ones Toriyama was most involved with. It would arguably make more sense to start the recuts at Universe 6 and work forward into Trunks, Tournament of Power, and then Moro or Broly, rather than only redoing the first three arcs.

There is another angle I have not seen discussed much, which I think matters more. If you watched the original Dragon Ball Super from 2015 to 2018, the Goku Black and Tournament of Power arcs were already the strongest in terms of visual presentation. The music and animation improved during Future Trunks, and it was not perfect, but the series had clearly gotten better by then. By the Tournament of Power, numerous changes in production and directors had made it the best produced arc in Dragon Ball Super's original run. Given that, it makes sense that Toei would not need its heavy hitters, animators like Takahashi and Onishi, to go back and redo the Tournament of Power when most of them already worked on that arc and those cuts hold up.

The Remake Project Is Not Necessarily Dead, Just Deprioritized for Now

Production having moved over to the Moro arc is good news in my view, because it likely means we get that arc sooner and with better visuals than anything that came before it. Shintani is known to be involved, and a lot of the heavy hitters are reportedly attached. But that does not mean the Dragon Ball Super remake project is over. Toei could resume it later with a smaller crew and eventually release Goku Black, the Tournament of Power, or anything else they might want to revisit, whether afterward or in a simultaneous production. The future here is not entirely written yet.

If the heavy hitters really are focused on Moro, that suggests the Moro arc could turn out to be, in my words, "peak Dragon Ball," and I'm here for it. Being honest, while I was fine with Toei going back to fix up Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, and Universe 6, I never felt Dragon Ball Super really needed a full remake in the first place. There were problems with it, sure, but it is an older project that could always get fixed up down the road. As I put it, "Just give us the Moro arc. Just let's see what they can cook up by taking the Moro and Granolah arcs and eventually animating them so we can see them in their full glory."

This is still a developing story, and that is everything I know right now. Do you think Toei will eventually go back and finish the Goku Black and Tournament of Power recuts, or is Moro all that matters now?