Dragon Ball Super time skip: is merchandise why it never left?

Dragon Ball Super is an interquel. It's not a sequel and it's not a prequel. It takes place in the middle of the original manga, inside the 10 year time skip after the death of Kid Buu but before the arrival of Uub at the 28th World Martial Arts Tournament. My theory for why the series still hadn't left that window after several arcs and a movie is a corporate one, and I'll be clear about how far that theory goes.

At first, the time skip was a comfortable home for Dragon Ball Super, which began in 2015, since Battle of Gods also took place during it. But staying there this long has created some slight contradictions and a few curiosities. So why was Dragon Ball Super still in the 10 year time skip after all these years? The answer may be more corporate than you'd imagine.

What the 10 year time skip in Dragon Ball actually is

The time skip goes all the way back to the original Dragon Ball manga by Akira Toriyama. It's the gap between chapter 517 and chapter 518 of that manga, which corresponds to the space between Dragon Ball Z episodes 288 and 289.

Nearly every major project since the Dragon Ball renaissance began has taken place in that gap, going back as far as 2008. Battle of Gods, everything in Dragon Ball Super and even Dragon Ball Super: Broly all happened between those two episodes. Even with the manga in the middle of the Moro arc, the story was still inside the skip.

Within the story, that's the decade between the universe being saved from Majin Buu and the appearance of Uub, the reincarnation of Kid Buu, at the 28th tournament. Everything we got during the renaissance sits between those two events.

Akira Toriyama is no longer the sole force behind Dragon Ball

If I'm being brutally honest, I don't feel like a big portion of the fandom understands how much things have changed since the days of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. The original manga was written by Toriyama himself, with some editorial contributions, and was later adapted into anime, movies, video games and a huge amount of merchandise. Through all of that, Toriyama kept control. They were his characters and his story.

Dragon Ball Super and the rest of the renaissance are not that whatsoever. Modern Dragon Ball has become very corporate. Toriyama was involved, loosely or a bit more depending on what you're talking about and who you ask, but he was not the primary source or inspiration for the story. When he wrote the original manga from 1984 to 1996, he was the sole creative force behind where it went, even with editors helping him.

Toriyama absolutely was involved in coming up with plot lines, characters and the direction of the series, submitting loose manuscripts to Toei Animation and Shueisha, with Toyotaro also involved. But he's no longer the sole author or writer. Many of his decisions in this era were inspired by Shueisha and the corporation rather than coming from him alone. That's why discussing what counts as canon in Super is so challenging.

Future Trunks, Broly and Kale as corporate choices

Dragon Ball Super relies heavily on nostalgia to hook the audience, because a huge part of the fandom grew up on the old material. That's why characters like Trunks, Frieza and Broly keep coming back. Based on interviews with Toriyama and others, Frieza's return in Resurrection F is probably the closest we have to an idea that came from Toriyama's own mind.

Several other concepts in Super were, let's say, inspired by the corporations that promote Dragon Ball, including Shueisha, Toei, Fuji TV and Bandai Namco, based on their analytics of what the fandom finds popular. More often than not, the decision to bring a popular character back comes from the corporation, which sends a suggestion to Toriyama, who then writes the story because they want the original creator involved.

This isn't even a secret. When the Future Trunks arc was announced with Goku Black as the antagonist, Toriyama himself said in an interview that it was an idea he got from the office. That arc arrived the same year Xenoverse 2 was coming out and while Dokkan Battle, which also features Future Trunks, was surging in popularity. Do you really think Bandai Namco didn't suggest this? "Don't be a fool."

We know for a fact that Kale was not created by Toriyama and was not in his drafts for the Tournament of Power. She was a corporate creation from Toei and others, made to capitalize on Broly's popularity. It's the same reason they asked Toriyama to reboot Broly in Dragon Ball Super. Broly also appears in the Dragon Ball 4D ride in Japan and keeps returning in Dragon Ball Heroes. They know Broly sells tickets. Even an evil Goku like Goku Black is something fans wanted for years. A huge chunk of Super, if not all of it, is shaped more by the corporation than by the original creator. For better or for worse, "dragon ball has become corporate point blank."

My theory: Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Heroes merchandise

What follows is not definitive. It hasn't come up in any interview from Toriyama, Toyotaro, or anyone at Toei, Shueisha, Fuji TV or among the producers. It's based on discussions I've had with various people and my own conclusions about the corporate mentality. Please don't spread it as fact, and "please don't think it's a scoop or inside information."

It does seem inevitable that the series will at some point pass the time skip. I agree with most fans that it needs to, for more drama and room for the stories to expand. But it could be that Toyotaro was told not to go past the end of Z, and we don't know whether by Toriyama or Shueisha. There's a possibility they're purposely keeping the story in the skip for a number of reasons.

The first is merchandise, and Dragon Ball Heroes in particular. Heroes was a big part of the renaissance and makes a lot of money in Japan, even if it's not as big in the US and elsewhere. That ties back to Dragon Ball GT. Toriyama's involvement in GT was minimal but real, and interviews with Kozo Morishita discuss it. Toriyama's name sells tickets, so any involvement adds credibility to whatever is being sold.

Even though many people hate GT, it still sells a ton of merchandise. Super Saiyan 4 Goku, Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta, Gogeta and the Shadow Dragons sell figures, DLC packs and video game characters, and many GT characters and transformations are in Heroes. GT and Super are separate continuities, but GT is still the post Z story. There's a possibility they don't want to write over it out of thin air, even if they eventually have to. I don't work there, but that's the corporate mentality: keep selling you everything they can until they can't.

Toriyama's old interview about characters growing too old

Another possibility is that Toriyama himself told everyone not to go past the end of Z. Many years ago, he said in an interview that he never wanted to write a story too deep into the series timeline because he felt the characters would be too old and unrealistic as fighters.

That's an old interview, and Toriyama is known to change his mind quite a bit, so it may not apply anymore. It's still worth considering as a reason the series wouldn't leave this period.

Why Dragon Ball Super needs to move past the end of Z

I personally feel they need to eventually do it, because it will add drama, tension and a sense of mystery we can't experience to the same degree anymore. Reading or watching the original story for the first time, you don't know who will come back to life, who will die or who will get stronger.

With Dragon Ball Super, we know that everyone ends up fine, and that at the 28th tournament Goku meets Uub and flies off to train him. What we don't know is what happens after, and where Toriyama himself would take that story. We may never know, but I hope one day we do, because for the sake of the future of Dragon Ball, I think it's very important that we eventually get there.