'Dragon Ball Super' Reveals Akira Toriyama's Original Tournament of Power Plans

Recently, Dragon Ball Super series director Ryota Nakamura and producer Satoru Takami gave an interview that has fans buzzing. The interview's main topic of interest was how Super's current "Universe Survival" arc was originally conceived by series creator Akira Toriyama, and is in some ways very different from what we see in the anime. Take a look at the major bullet points, below!

The DB Official Site has an interview with DBS series director Ryota Nakamura and producer Satoru Takami on the Universal Survival arc. Here's a summary of everything said about Toriyama's original draft for the arc, plus two vague things about the end: https://t.co/BcVV5ItiEw pic.twitter.com/RLzd8BFHf3

— Todd Blankenship (@Herms98) March 9, 2018

Here are some of the interesting highlights of what we learned in the interview:

• The fact that the Tournament of Power was originally conceived as a battle royale between eighty fighters. Of course there was more order and structure given to the final draft; still, seeing the eighty-fighter cosmic melee would've been really cool.
• The Pride Troopers only consisted of Jiren, Toppo and Dyspo originally - and really, they're the only three that truly mattered to the final storyline. Toppo being a potential destroyer was always there, but Jiren and Dyspo were matters of greater debate. From the sound of it, the anime showrunners were going to turn Jiren into something far less cool than what we ultimately got. It's good they came to a compromise.
• Caulifla and Kale didn't exist in Toriyama's original version. However, the anime staff's creation of Kale inspired Toriyama to create Caulifla!
• The entire Universe 7 team arc and Tournament of Power results were planned by Toriyama from the start - reportedly with the intent of setting up the next story arc.

We now know the latter point is true, as Toei has just announced that Dragon Ball Super is continuing! It now seems that Toriyama always had a plan to use DBS as the launchpad to new story arc that will be on a bigger scale than we ever imagined - and it seems it can only play out one of two ways: Either Goku wins and the next arc opens up the Z-Fighters to a bigger cosmic threat, or Freeza emerges as the winner, and changes the universe in some game-changing way.

The other factor in this is the 2018 Dragon Ball movie, which is now confirmed to be the very first Dragon Ball Super movie! How that movie ties up the current series arc and introduces a new one is a major question - one that will soon be revealed, as DBS reaches its final two epiosdes, starting with the all-out battle between a fully-powered Jiren and Ultra Instinct Goku. Be sure to watch that preview above!

How do you feel about the anime version of the Tournament of Power, as compared to Toriyama's original plans? Let us know in the comments!

Dragon Ball Super airs on Crunchyroll Saturday evenings at 7:15 p.m. CST. Adult Swim airs the English dub during its Toonami block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m, and is now available to stream on FunimationNOW and Amazon Video.