Super Dragon Ball Heroes Just Made Hearts Into One of the Franchise's Most Interesting Villains

The Super Dragon Ball Heroes promo anime managed to carve out a nice little non-canon niche for itself with the launch of the "Universal Conflict" arc. That arc has introduced an interesting new villain team into the Dragon Ball mythos: The Core Area Warriors, who are a collection of fighters that were imprisoned in the deepest depths of the Prison Planet. Their ranks included an Ancient "Evil" Saiyan (Cumber); a new set of evil twin androids; and of course their leader, the powerful pyschic known as Hearts. Well, as Dragon Ball Heroes now ends its "Universal Conflict" arc, fans are ready to anoint Hearts as one of the most interesting Dragon Ball characters they've seen in a while!

Check out just some of the reactions to Hearts' arc in Super Dragon Ball Heroes:

Hearts probably had the most wasted potential out of any vallain in Dragon Ball, he had an amazing design(not his final form), Dio's voice, and an interesting motivation that could be great if played out correctly. Sad to see him be completely wasted on such a horrible series. pic.twitter.com/ML2O5ojEs6

— Phoebe (@vVenturex) January 9, 2020

A cursory search of social media turns up the general consensus that Hearts was a villain who ultimately turned out to be too good for something like this Dragon Ball Heroes promo anime. His design was truly unique, and the way his psychic powers were applied made him a very formidable match for Goku and Vegeta - even in their most powerful forms.

However, what really set Hearts apart was the backstory for his evil actions. Unlike so many other Dragon Ball villains (who tend to be unquestionable arch in their motivations), Hearts was trying to destroy the divine order under Grand Zeno - an act he saw as liberating an entire multiverse of beings from the constant threat of extermination by Zeno and his minions. The funny thing is: a lot of fans seem to think that Hearts (if not noble in intention) was quite the definition of "evil," given how we've seen Zeno erase people or entire timelines from existence, on a whim. In fact, it's important to remember that Dragon Ball Super's now-famous "Universal Survival" arc and its Tournament of Power event, were all instigated by Zeno's threat to wipe out Goku's universe - and over half a dozen other realities in the multiverse. The Omni-King may look all cute and childlike, but...

If anything, Dragon Ball Heroes has now inspired a movement within the fandom for Hearts and the Core Area Warriors to get an official debut in canon. And, if the promo anime has truly been a concept testing ground (as some fans speculate), then hopefully that's exactly what will happen, soon. In the meantime, the Dragon Ball Heroes anime already has its next arc ready...

The Japanese-language and English dub releases of Dragon Ball Super are now complete and available to stream with FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. Viz Media is releasing new chapters of the manga at a monthly rate that can be read entirely for free through the Shonen Jump digital library, and Dragon Ball Super's big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. Fans in Japan are also able to enjoy fresh non-canon adventures from the franchise with new episodes of Super Dragon Ball Heroes' promotional anime series.