'Dragon Ball' Animator Gets Universe 11 Festive In New Holiday Sketch

With the Winter holidays currently underway, many anime industry veterans in Japan are celebrating [...]

By Nick Valdez

With the Winter holidays currently underway, many anime industry veterans in Japan are celebrating with specialty Christmas sketches features characters in a way you wouldn't expect to see otherwise.

This includes staff from Dragon Ball Super, where one animator uploaded a strange sketch of Universe 11.

Yuya Takahashi uploaded the following sketch to Twitter which features a sleigh. But not just any sleigh, a sleigh that's actually Jiren in disguise with Toppo acting as Santa Claus while Dyspo speedily pulls it along like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Dragon Ball fans would most likely recognize Takahashi, as he is the animation supervisor that drew out Goku's first fight with Jiren. During Dragon Ball Super's hour long special for episodes 109 and 110, in his battle with Jiren, Goku's new transformation to Ultra Instinct impressed fans with the sharp contrast to how he looked in the series to date.

The hour long special even included the now infamous rotating shot where Goku enters a stare down with Jiren and sparks a pretty great first impression. What's even more impressive was when Yuya Takahashi came back to supervise the animation of episode 114, Goku's battle with Kale and Caulifla that led to the debut of their fusion, Kefla.

Takahashi is soon coming back to the series for Episode 122, which is going to feature Vegeta's big fight with Jiren. With Takahashi coming back to the series for the occasion, perhaps this episode will not only feature an incredible looking fight, but maybe even Vegeta triggering his own version of Ultra Instinct?

Takahashi impressed fans of the series because he only had three weeks - as most animators have much longer - to work on the Episode 114 and it ended up featuring some of the most detailed character art of the characters yet. But the difference for 122 is the fact that Takahashi has had the full range of time this go around. While it has not been confirmed what exactly Takahashi's contributions will be, or whether or not he will supervise the new episode as well, it does confirm 122 will be a strong one.

There is also currently a new Dragon Ball film in the works for 2018. Not only does it aim to be the best film in the series, original creator Akira Toriyama will be contributing to the film's script and new character designs. There have also been details shared over its possible story. The film will focus on the Saiyans, the "origins of Goku's power," and potentially the story of the very first Super Saiyan God.

Dragon Ball Super's "Universal Survival" arc is part of the recent simulcast agreement that sites like Crunchyroll and Funimation have scored. 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.

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