How Dragon Ball Super Saved The Franchise
After the conclusion of Dragon Ball GT, the Dragon Ball franchise went into a long period of dormancy, relying mostly on video games to fuel its continued popularity. It seemed for a long time as if true canon Dragon Ball material was a thing of the past. Aside from a single short film called Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!!! released 2008 only in Japan, Japan saw now new media from GT's 1997 conclusion to 2013's release of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods. America waited only a bit shorter. The English dub of GT concluded in 2005, with Battle of Gods premiering stateside in 2014.
Battle of Gods promised to bring new excitement to the Dragon Ball fanbase, and that excitement increased with Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F''s release in 2015. Then, a new, Dragon Ball anime premiered: Dragon Ball Super. On top replaying the events of these two movies with added content, it added several entirely new arcs to its lineup, concluding at a total of 131 episodes. The manga, which has a slightly different story, is still ongoing, with new chapters released monthly. This massive outpouring of new Dragon Ball content had major implications for the franchise's future as a whole.
The Age of Reboots — Anime in the Era of Return
It isn't hyperbole to say that Dragon Ball Super saved the franchise. Dragon Ball GT, and to a lesser extent Z, haven't aged gracefully, and the continued rehashing of their respective stories through video games and Dragon Ball Z Kai likely wasn't going to be enough to keep the franchise relevant in the long run. Dragon Ball Super isn't perfect, but it is objectively the best entry in the franchise so far, taking what worked about each previous series and (for the most part) discarding what didn't.
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