A surprise announcement from Toei Animation was made today, March 18th, in relation to the newest upcoming Dragon Ball Super film. The animation company announced that Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, the second anime film to be released in the Dragon Ball Super franchise, has unfortunately been delayed due to a security attack against Toei Animation. Toei apologized to fans who were looking forward to the new film’s release.
The film’s original release date was scheduled to open in Japan on April 22nd. It is unclear right now whether the delay in Japan will affect the new film’s release schedule in other countries and regions, which may differ. The film was scheduled to open in North America this summer.
The hack is an ongoing problem. Earlier in the week, Toei Animation announced that a network breach occurred on March 6th. This gave an (as of yet) unknown third party access to the company’s network. Due to this, large parts of the company’s computer systems were shut down. Toei Animation says its investigation into the matter is still ongoing.
In their original March 11th announcement, Toei explained that the hack would affect the broadcast schedules for a number of shows, including One Piece, Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, Delicious Party Precure, and Digimon Ghost Game.
The upcoming Dragon Ball Super film will have a focus on a “superhero” aspect, as the name suggests. Original Dragon Ball creator and illustrator Akira Toriyama is in charge of the original screenplay and character design, as he has for many Dragon Ball films. However, for this latest project, he will have a more direct role in writing lines of dialogue. It was announced that pre-planning for the new film began back in 2018, just before the release of the previous film, Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Talking about the film, the staff shared that they have the goal of telling “a large-scale story” within the film.
Tetsuro Kodama is directing Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, which will be the Dragon Ball franchise’s 21st film. Naoki Satō is composing the music; Nobuhito Sue is the art director; Chikashi Kubota, who has worked on One Punch Man and Space Dandy, is the animation director; and Jae Hoon Jung is the CG director.
New guest cast members for the film include the following:
- Hiroshi Kamiya as Gamma #1
- Mamoru Miyano as Gamma #2
- Miyu Irino as Dr. Hedo
- Volcano Ōta as Magenta
- Ryota Takeuchi as Carmine
The film’s staff previously released new character designs for the film, which takes place after a time skip. The characters shown off were Dende, Korin, Bulma, and Whis.
Are you looking forward to the new Dragon Ball Super film? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter!
