Goku looks a little different in the teaser trailer for Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero
Toei Animation
Earlier this year, when Toei Animation announced it was working on a new Dragon Ball movie, it kept things vague. We knew the film was slated for a 2022 release, that it would feature an “unexpected character,” and that it would chart “unexplored territory in terms of the visual aesthetics.” Now we know more: At the San Diego Comic-Con@Home Dragon Ball Special Panel, Toei animation announced the film’s full title: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.
Yes, that’s “super” twice in a row. It’s on purpose. “We really wanted to emphasize that this move is all about the superhero vibes,” Shueshia’s executive producer of Dragonball, Akio Iyoku, explained during the panel. The film’s producers also shared images of a new character created for the movie wearing an iconic helmet and a heroic uniform.
The panel’s most exciting reveal wasn’t the new character, however, but a brief teaser video that offered a preview of the film’s new visual aesthetics.
The previous two Dragon Ball Super films used a mix of 2D and 3D animation during key fight scenes, and the short trailer shows the new film’s evolution of that hybrid aesthetic — circling the camera around what appears to be a highly stylized 3D model of Goku warming up for battle. Iyoku didn’t offer any details on specific style changes but told fans that the “visual expression of Goku’s moves and such incorporate quite a lot of ingenuity using different technologies.”
Could this be Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero’s eponymous superhero?
Toei Animation
The movie’s producer also chimed in to encourage fans to study the teaser trailer for more clues. “We’re trying new things,” Toei Animation’s Norihiro Hayashida explained. “So we’d like you to watch many times to see what sort of ingenuity we’re making it with.”
The teaser clip features only a single, 3D animated shot, but a representative for Toei animation tells CNET that the clip is just a teaser, and that the final film should have the same kind of hybrid animation style as seen in Dragon Ball Super: Broly.
Either way, we’ll find out for sure when Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero debuts in 2022.