Dragon Ball Super Manga Chapter 93 Finally Gives Broly's Movie the Recap Treatment

Dragon Ball Super manga chapter 93 delivered some things I had been waiting for and a couple of surprises I did not see coming. The chapter is still working through the retelling of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, but what caught me off guard is that it looks like Toyotaro is retelling more than just Super Hero this time around.

Chapter 93 picks up the Goku versus Broly fight from last month

The previous chapter had already shown a lot of Goku and Broly fighting, and chapter 93 picks that fight back up. I have actually shifted how I cover these chapters lately, moving from a separate review and stream to just doing a stream, since Dragon Ball fans have already seen the movie this content is drawn from.

One thing that let me down is that I was expecting more scenes that Toyotaro was adding to the story Akira Toriyama scripted for Super Hero. Toriyama wrote the script for the film itself, not the manga, so I was hoping for a scene showing Goku and Vegeta actually going to retrieve Broly and bring him to Beerus's planet, something fans have only heard about rather than seen play out. It is not a huge deal, but it is worth discussing, and it looks like we may still get something like that.

There is also a callback worth noting. Going back to the first actual trailer for Dragon Ball Super: Broly in 2018, there was a glimpse of Goku fighting Broly that never made it into the finished film. What is showing up in the manga now looks like it could be that cut material, whether it was meant for the movie and removed, or was always intended for later use. I do not know which, but it is more Goku versus Broly footage either way.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly finally gets a recap after the manga skipped it entirely

The bigger surprise is that chapter 93 includes scenes of Broly and Paragus, effectively summarizing the events of the Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie, which came out in Japan in 2018 and the rest of the world in 2019. When that film originally released, the Tournament of Power arc in the manga was wrapping up, and instead of adapting Broly, the manga gave readers a single page of Goku and Vegeta fighting Broly, said that this story takes place around here, and jumped straight into the Moro arc. The Broly movie was never adapted into the manga at all, likely because Toyotaro wanted readers to go see it in theaters.

Now Toyotaro is not adapting the film so much as giving manga readers a highlight recap of it. The chapter shows baby Broly meeting Paragus, then Broly meeting Cheelai and Lemo, the two who found him, followed by the ship. A lot of movie content is skipped, including Broly attacking a monster to protect Cheelai and the material involving King Vegeta. This is a summary, not a full retelling.

From there the recap covers the ship's arrival, Frieza, Broly, and Paragus showing up on Earth, and Goku and Vegeta in their classic jackets from the Broly film squaring off. The chapter also shows Frieza killing Paragus, something Broly himself never actually witnessed in the movie, since Frieza blamed Broly for accidentally killing his own father. That lie is what pushed Broly into rage and into his first transformation into the traditional Super Saiyan form, the same form that let him tank Goku in Super Saiyan Blue.

Broly's transformation and the return of Vegeta's meditation scene

The recap shows Broly becoming Super Saiyan, reacting to his father's apparent death, and stomping Goku and Vegeta into the ground, all pulled straight from the movie. Then the chapter shifts to an image lifted directly from Super Hero itself. It plays almost like a flashback, though it is not Broly recalling his own past so much as a quick flashback to the events of the film in general.

From there we get Broly powering up against Goku, mirroring what Super Hero showed originally: Broly powering up, calming down, and Goku reacting while Vegeta sits off meditating. That meditation scene is one I genuinely disliked in the film, especially the line where Goku tells Vegeta "that's not training." I know I am not alone in that reaction, since plenty of Dragon Ball fans have told me they felt the same, even though some viewers did not mind it. Chapter 93 does not add more Goku versus Broly fighting beyond that, since the bulk of that fight belonged to the previous chapter.

My guess for what comes next and when this arc might wrap up

With the chapter shifting into Vegeta's meditation, it looks like this month's installment covers roughly the second third of the movie's story, since Piccolo has already snuck into the Red Ribbon base. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the next chapter will get to Gohan heading to the Red Ribbon base alongside Piccolo and Pan in handcuffs.

Based on the pace so far, I would guess this manga arc wraps up around July or August, though I could be wrong since I do not know Toyotaro's plans and the story could run longer or shorter than expected. What did genuinely surprise me is that the manga went back and retold pieces of the Broly movie at all, since a lot of fans had wondered whether that story would ever get adapted after being skipped.

Herms's translation confirms Broly's backstory recap and its role in future story threads

I checked Herms's translations after going through the raw pages, and the wording lined up with what I suspected. According to Herms, as Goku and Broly spar, the narration is not shown as a flashback from Broly's own perspective, since Broly never actually saw Paragus get killed by Frieza and still has not seen it. That detail could matter later if Broly ever confronts Frieza directly.

Herms's translation also explains that the narration introduces Broly as one of the few Saiyan survivors with astonishing potential and gives a recap of his backstory from Dragon Ball Super: Broly, including his banishment to Vampa, his recruitment by Frieza's group, his fight with Goku and Vegeta on Earth, his defeat by Gogeta, and his return to Vampa. As Herms put it, "as if recapping DBS Super Hero weren't enough they're also recapping Broly."

The chapter also shows Broly powering up again, with Goku questioning how he was able to go berserk once more and how many times he needs to be told to rein it in. That connects to the training goal for Broly in Super Hero, which was never about stopping his berserk power boost outright, since that mutation makes him a monster in raw strength, but about getting him to control that energy, likely through learning to use Ki properly as a way to stabilize himself instead of losing control.

Why I think three pages of Broly recap was unnecessary

It looks like Toyotaro is assuming manga readers have not seen the movie, which I think is not accurate. I would guess that nearly everyone reading this manga, whether in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, or Japan, has seen Dragon Ball Super: Broly at this point, especially since the film has been out for years and was even available for free for a stretch.

Because of that, I think spending about three pages recapping a movie most readers have already seen is a bit of a waste of time. What do you think about Toyotaro folding the Broly recap into this arc instead of leaving it out entirely?