Inside the Production Flowchart for the Dragon Ball Super Galactic Patrol Anime

The Galactic Patrol arc adaptation of Dragon Ball Super is coming, and I wanted to lay out the creative process behind how it will actually get made. I put together a flowchart to walk through it, and by working through each step I think it becomes clear how different this production is going to be compared to when Dragon Ball Super first aired.

When Dragon Ball Super was airing from 2015 to 2018, there was no original manga adaptation to lean on. Toyotaro was drawing the Dragon Ball Super manga at the time, but after the Universe 6 arc he started falling behind, and the anime ended up ahead of him. Because of that, the anime relied directly on Akira Toriyama's manuscripts rather than an existing manga. This time is different, because the manga story of the Moro arc has already been told in full, and we now know Toriyama was involved with notes, characters, and new material that fed into what is becoming Dragon Ball Super Galactic Patrol.

The Original Moro Arc Manga Now Works as Script and Storyboard

Everything begins with Toyotaro's original Moro arc manga, which I have covered before. Unlike the old model where Toriyama submitted a manuscript for the anime team to build from scratch, here the manga itself acts as the manuscript and the storyboards at the same time. The Toei staff are essentially taking that finished manga and adding the extra information Toriyama gave them, along with new elements, to build the anime version.

Scenario and Showrunners Have Not Been Announced Yet

The next step down the chart is the scenario and showrunners, meaning whoever ends up in charge of the show. As of recording, nobody has been announced for the Galactic Patrol side of things. Right now the stated focus is on finishing the Dragon Ball Super remake, the Kai version of Super, with the Beerus saga coming later this year followed by Resurrection F. I mentioned I may have more information on that coming in the next few days.

To explain what a scenario and showrunner actually do, I looked back at Dragon Ball Z. That show's scenario and showrunner was Takao Koyama, working alongside Kozo Morishita on direction. The original manga was Toriyama's, but Koyama and Morishita took that material and turned it into the anime. The word scenario, in Japanese production whether for anime, games, or movies, is basically a synonym for story, not a script broken into episodes yet.

Turning the Story Into 22 Minute Episodes

Below the scenario and showrunner step comes the series director. For Dragon Ball Z, that was Daisuke Nishio, who also directed many individual episodes. His job, alongside the planners, is to take the overarching story handed down from the showrunner and scenario writer and start chopping it into 22 minute episodes. It is not done panel for panel from the manga, because very few anime work that way. Some lines and organizing always have to be written fresh, and each episode ends up with its own assigned writer.

Character Design and Animation Supervision Duties

Running alongside the writing side is the lead character designer. For Dragon Ball Super that was Tadayoshi Yamamuro, who is still working on the Super remake. Yamamuro also served as the Dragon Ball Z lead designer for the second half of the Cell Saga and for the Buu saga, following Minoru Maeda before him.

That designer role feeds into the lead animation supervisor, which was Maeda on the original Dragon Ball and parts of Z, and later Yamamuro. I compared this to how Nakatsuru worked on Daima, since this is the person who reviews every episode to make sure it is ready to be animated. That lead animation supervisor then delegates to episode supervisors, and every episode of the Galactic Patrol arc, like every Dragon Ball show, has its own supervisor assigned. Sometimes the lead supervisor doubles as the episode supervisor on especially important episodes.

Key Animators, In Between Animators, and Corrections Going Back Up the Chain

From the supervisors, the work goes to key animators, who handle that side of the process. Key animators handle the main frames, the important images that need to look their best. Below them are in-between animators, with Toei Animation Philippines as one example of a studio doing that work, filling in the animation that supports the key frames so the key animators are not overwhelmed.

I drew an arrow going back up to the lead animation supervisor at this stage, because supervisors have to check every episode and the work of the animators, sometimes issuing corrections. Part of the fandom has talked about Yamamuro possibly overcorrecting some staff during the Dragon Ball Super era, and I noted this has just been how the process works for decades.

Backgrounds, the Teleplay, and Dub Order

While the animation checks are happening, a separate team handles backgrounds and finishing touches, modeling everything after the manga and making sure the animation sits cleanly on the background without colors bleeding together. Alongside that is the teleplay, an older term for the actual script used by the dub actors to record the show. The Japanese dub always comes first, followed by the Spanish dub, then the English dub, then the French dub.

Music and Voice Casting Are Still Unconfirmed

The audio department, covering music and voice acting, is usually locked in before most of the other teams are even assembled. As of recording, it is not known whether Norihito Sumitomo is returning to score this arc or whether someone else will take over. Naoki Sato worked on the Super Hero movie, and Daima had a different composer as well, so that piece of the puzzle remains unresolved. Once the audio side is finished, the completed product is delivered to Fuji TV as Dragon Ball Super Galactic Patrol.