Is the 'Dragon Ball Heroes' Anime Good for the Franchise?

What Is It?

If you never heard of Dragon Ball Heroes, here's the quick rundown (or the longer version, HERE): Dragon Ball Heroes and its update, Super Dragon Ball Heroes is a popular Japanese trading card / arcade game. Players collect cards to form teams, which they then use to battle other players' teams, in RPG-style turn-based battles. The main source of allure are the varied versions of characters that players can obtain in card form - without canon hampering it, Dragon Ball Heroes can pretty much offer players any version of Goku, Vegeta, or other characters that have appeared in the anime, manga, or games. Which leads to the first big concern over the anime adaptation...

No Holds Barred Fandom

The main thing that fans either love or hate about Dragon Ball Heroes is that it's basically Dragon Ball fan-fiction. That has always been the appeal of the card game portion of the series, but also why so many fans are also careful to consider the game an example of non-canon shenanigans. With the launch of the Dragon Ball Heroes anime, this debate has started to rage hard in fan circles again, as a game is one thing, but an entire anime series based on indulging fan wishes is entirely another. For the cynics, Dragon Ball Heroes is not fan-service, but rather a Trojan Horse just painted to look that way...

Promotional Concerns

The Dragon Ball Heroes anime is concerned a "Promotional Anime," and for many fans, that label leaves a bad taste in their mouth. As some have pointed out, this series isn't being launched purely to please fans with "What If?" indulgences; as it clearly states, the series is a promotional tool, designed to increase awareness and participation in the arcade game, and possibly find ways to fill gaps in the anime series with a shorter form of content. Because Bandai is actually using the series to push and promote a product, there are fans who are understandably worried that the promo anime could start cutting some big corners when it comes to the standards...

Quality Control

As you can see below, some fans are already up in arms with how Dragon Ball Heroes is presenting themselves. To some, the series being a "Promo Anime" seems to (fairly or not) carry the connotation of not being properly up to par, when it comes to matters like the animation style. It's a a legitimate question: if promoting a product is the anime's main concern, then is visual design and aesthetic presentation as important? So much of manga and anime hangs on Japan's long history of slavish artistic technique; Dragon Ball Heroes ignoring that obligation could make it hard to justify the series as being something equal to the main canon anime series. If fans were hard on Dragon Ball Super for its bad animation...

Freedom of Expression

On the other side of that same coin, Dragon Ball Heroes is also trying to carve out a case for there being much more freedom of expression within the franchise, and loosening the rigid lanes of canon, characterization, and even animation style may (fairly) come with that. Right now, the entire Dragon Ball franchises is growing and expanding: the console/mobile video games (Xenoverse, FighterZ) are more popular than ever with their non-canon lore; the upcoming Dragon Ball movie is bringing big stylistic changes to the franchises; and DBS literally blew open the universe in ways that fans want to see further explored for years to come.

A Dragon Ball for Everyone

...Which is precisely why Dragon Ball Heroes may be launching its great experiment at exactly the right time. Dragon Ball is currently finding its way becoming a massive franchise universe a la Marvel, and part of that seems to be fostering the notion that there's a version of the franchise that any and everyone can enjoy, depending on their level of fandom. If the canonized series are too convoluted and confusing, there will be fun and irreverent projects like Heroes to watch for the streamlined action bits (i.e., the crazy crossover fights). The games can serve as their own self-contained universes, while the movies will continue where anime series leave off, while also bringing in new fans. The Dragon Ball Heroes anime will be the first big experiment in that campaign - and it's already showing results:

Early Results

So far, we've seen a big reaction from fans about the first episode of Dragon Ball Heroes, as well as the fan-service aspect of seeing things like Dragon Ball Super's Goku SSB, battling SSJ4 Goku Xeno from the Xenoverse games. Check out what the Internet is saying by clicking the links below:

• Fans React to Dragon Ball Heroes Episode 1
• Fans React to Goku Xeno's Debut in Dragon Ball Heroes

The long-short of it is that right now, it's a mixed bag of opinion (shocker!). It seems the more causal fan is enjoying the freedom of being able to get big crossover fan-service moments like SSB vs. SSJ4, in anime form. Meanwhile the more hardcore fans generally seem to disapprove of the short length, promotional concerns driving the series, and the story/animation quality (or lack thereof). Of course this is all still in the early stages, as there has only been one episode of Dragon Ball Heroes so far, with exciting events like the debut of the new evil Saiyan character still on the way.

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Are you digging the Dragon Ball Heroes anime? Or are you waiting for that Dragon Ball Super movie and sequel series? Let us know in the comments!

Dragon Ball Super currently airs 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 FunimationNOW and Amazon Video. The Japanese language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on FunimationNOW, VRV, and Crunchyroll.