The Next 'Dragon Ball Super' Episode Airs On A Hilarious Saiyan Holiday
Dragon Ball Super is heading towards its finale, and fans are coming to terms with its goodbye. [...]
Dragon Ball Super is heading towards its finale, and fans are coming to terms with its goodbye. Last weekend, the show returned with a slick episode highlighting Goku's final fight with Jiren, but there are a couple episodes left to go. So, it is fitting that the anime's next episode goes live on a legit Saiyan holiday.
Despite fans' best wishes, Dragon Ball Super will not air a new episode this week. The show will take a short hiatus, but it will return on March 18. The wait has got the fandom a bit tense, but Japanese fans think the wait is kind of brilliant when you consider the return date.
After all, March 18 in Japan is known as Saiyan Day. Toei Animation couldn't have planned this better.
The holiday may not be an official one in Japan, but the country's government doesn't have to recognize to make it real. Dragon Ball's massive fanbase has touted the holiday for years now, leaving March 18 as the day to celebrate all things Saiyan.
The next DBS episode airs on March 18th, which by sheer coincidence is unofficially known as "Saiyan Day" among Japanese fans due to Japanese number punning (March 18th=3 18=Sa i Ya).
— Todd Blankenship (@Herms98) March 4, 2018
The holiday's origins are a bit complicated to breakdown and require a bit of Japanese knowledge. Fans dubbed March 18 as Saiyan Day because of how the date sounds in Japanese. In Japan, there is more than one way to pronounce numbers as there are Native Japenese and Chinese-derived versions. You can intermix the phonetic readings however you like, and Japanese speakers often use the mixed pronunciations to make up words. The wordplay can turn Japanese numbers into codes, and March 18 just so happens to sound similar to 'Saiyan' when spoken aloud.
This is not the only holiday which Dragon Ball fans have come to celebrate. Japanese wordplay has given characters like Hit, Bardock, Gohan, and more their own days. Saiyan Day is the next one the fandom plans to celebrate with Bardock Day will following on May 1 and Goku & Chi Chi Day coming up on May 7.
Will you be tuning in for Dragon Ball Super's second-to-last episode? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!