What Dragon Ball Heroes Does Wrong

Super Dragon Ball Heroes has given fans of the Akira Toriyama Shonen series some much needed adventures for Goku, Vegeta, Trunks, and the other Z Fighters while the main series’ anime franchise is on hiatus, but there are a number of things that the spin-off needs to work on if it wants to hit the same level of quality. With the current story line focusing on the demonic scientist Fuu attempting to re-make the universe, the Z Fighters are at their wits end, even with the help of the Time Patrol giving them a much needed assist.

What do you think needs to be changed about the current spin-off series of Super Dragon Ball Heroes? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of Dragon Ball!

Short Episodes

Each episode of Super Dragon Ball Heroes usually lasts for around eight to ten minutes, and while this doesn’t necessarily need to be a weakness, it most assuredly is in this spin-off’s case. Adult Swim shows for example have shown us that you can make a series that is able to excel at telling stories in a short amount of time, but Dragon Ball just doesn’t seem to have the same strength when it comes to Heroes. Perhaps the solution is to release an episode once every few months at a standard length of twenty two minutes. 

Everything Moves Too Fast

Surprisingly enough, this critique is completely separate from the overall length of episodes themselves, as episodes will sometimes end in one place, and begin with an entirely new fight without explaining how the fight started or how the characters went from point A to point B. Dragon Ball Heroes is trying to tell a lot of story in the brief amount of time that they have, but doesn’t have the ability to dissect the events necessary to audiences. Ultimately, the spin-off needs to go back to the drawing board and figure out the best way to tell its story without feeling like cliff notes. 

It Should Only Focus On The Time Patrol

With the series deciding to not only focus on the Time Patrol of the Xeno-Verse, but the main characters of the franchise’s “real” continuity, the spin-off is seeing some serious missed opportunities when it comes to the stories they can tell. If we were simply following the Super Saiyan 4 versions of Goku and Vegeta, it wouldn’t be trapped within the “safety” of not having their characters die or be changed forever. The Z Fighters simply add too many characters in this spin-off when it could just shine the spotlight on the Time Patrol and get into their characters more. 

The Villains

Hearts. Fuu. The Evil Saiyan. All these are simply put terrible villains. Now don’t get us wrong, Fuu started out interesting with being more of a “behind the scenes” threat rather than a physical threat, but that changed in the latest episodes when it was revealed that he’s exactly like Cell in that he’s a combination of the DNA of several Dragon Ball heroes and villains and that’s boring. Hearts had an interesting “modus operandi” for attempting to gain power to eliminate the god-like Zeno, but we know next to nothing about him as a character and that makes him forgettable. Don’t even get us started on the insanity of Cumber the Evil Saiyan, who hasn’t even received a character himself, let alone an origin.

The Fan Service

Now don’t get us wrong, the fan service is one of the strongest points of the series, giving us concepts such as Super Saiyan 4 returning and Trunks achieving the power of a Super Saiyan God, but it doesn’t give us enough time to revel in these events. For example, one of the biggest selling points of the spin-off series was the much hyped battle between Super Saiyan 4 Goku and his Super Saiyan Blue counterpart, and while this does happen, it happens for around sixty seconds and could have easily been the focus of an entire episode on its own. The Fan Service itself isn’t the problem, it’s how Super Dragon Ball Heroes handles it.