'Dragon Ball Heroes' Reveals Its New Villain

The Dragon Ball franchise is launching a new anime series based on the popular Japanese video/card game Dragon Ball Heroes - an announcement that caught many fans off guard, to put it lightly. Since that time, fans have wondered just what the Dragon Ball Heroes anime will be all about - and the answer is a that the series will be based on two of the game's storylines - including the highly-anticipated upcoming "Prison Planet" arc!

Thanks to that reveal, we now know who the Dragon Ball Heroes anime villain will be: read below to learn more about Fu!

Having first appeared in the Dragon Ball Online guidebook, and fully debuted in the Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 game. Fu is a considered to be a rightful successor to the throne of the Demon Realm, as the son of artificial being Mira, and evil scientist Towa. He has Mira's power and Towa's scientific intellect - not to mention being pretty handy with a sword. Fu was nurtured by both his father, and his uncle, Dabura, to grow into the power that could revive the demon realm. At the end of Xenoverse 2, Fu comes into his own, choosing to betray his uncle Dabura and turning him to stone, so that Fu can walk his own path. When he pops up in Dragon Ball Heroes "Prison Planet" arc, he's imprisoned Future Trunks on a prison planet, and is gathering the Dragon Balls for some unknown purpose - one that brings a mysterious new evil Saiyan with unique powers into the mix (via Ken Xyro):

Even though Fu has been in the Dragon Ball universe for a few years now, this arc in Dragon Ball Heroes' game and anime will be his biggest moment in the spotlight, thus far. It's going to be especially interesting to see how the fandom reacts to seeing the character onscreen in animated form - and how they respond to his characterization. As we've already explained, one of the biggest points of intrigue in this experiment is whether a Dragon Ball Heroes anime can become a breakthrough hit with the fandom. If it does, then all of these non-canon events and characters could be imported into the main Dragon Ball mythos in some future series, if Dragon Ball Heroes doesn't just become its own non-canon wing of the franchise. In a another few years, Fu could arguably stand alongside some of the franchise's other great villains - especially if we get an awesome sword fight sequence between him and Future Trunks!

Dragon Ball Super is currently airing its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m. It is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on Funimation, VRV, and Crunchyroll.