Since the deeply influential manga artist Akira Toriyama died in 2024, his legendary Dragon Ball manga has been on hiatus. The latest installment in the series, Dragon Ball Super, began running in Shueisha’s V Jump magazine in 2015. While the manga’s future has been up in the air for some time, an X post from the series’ illustrator, Toyotarou, has given fans hope for its return.
On Aug. 5, an X user posted an anecdote about how, after asking their 7-year-old son what he wanted to do for summer vacation, their kid said, “I want to tell Toyotarou-san from Dragon Ball Super to draw more manga!” Toyotarou responded, “Thank you. I got it.” Although the cute exchange occurred earlier this month, V Jump recently reposted it, suggesting that the manga may be close to returning to publication. Toyotarou has worked on several Dragon Ball projects over the years; he illustrated Dragon Ball Super and several manga adaptations of video games and anime, alongside Toriyama, who handled the writing and offered feedback on his storyboards.
Thus far, Toyotarou’s manga career has been entirely dedicated to Dragon Ball. In an interview with CBR, he revealed that he never envisioned himself as a manga artist, but landed the job after showing his Dragon Ball-related portfolio to Shueisha. He was hired to work on art for the Dragon Ball Heroes card game and began working closely with Toriyama from there.
Although the future of the Dragon Ball Super manga hasn’t been directly confirmed, several anime projects are in the works. Dragon Ball Super: Beerus, an updated version of this arc with new animation, is set to release this fall. After that is Dragon Ball Super: The Galactic Patrol, which will adapt the arc of the same name from the manga. There are still several manga arcs after Galactic Patrol that haven’t been adapted, such as Moro and Granolah. Beyond anime, there’s also the upcoming action RPG Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 and an apparently unauthorized $7 billion amusement park in France (because why not).
