Goku focusing with his eyes closed in the trailer for Dragon Ball Super: Beerus. Image via Toei Animation By Michael Hein Published Oct 6, 2026, 11:54 PM EDT Michael Hein has been covering entertainment, fandom news, and trending topics since 2016 on outlets including Rogues Portal , PopCulture.com, and ComicBook.com. He has provided live coverage of red carpet premieres, conventions, and up-fronts, and has interviewed major stars including Charles Dance, Patrick Stewart, and Chloe Sevigny. An avid fiction reader and writer, Michael has been diving deep into all the biggest book-to-screen adaptations of the last decade, from Game of Thrones to Foundation. Sign in to your Collider account Add Us Summary Generate a summary of this story Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Listen Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap On Sunday, October 11, the Dragon Ball franchise finally returns with its first new anime installment in over four years. However, we won't be visiting other universes, new planets, or even new parts of earth. The new series Dragon Ball Super: Beerus will take fans back to a very familiar part of the timeline — the first meeting of Goku ( Masako Nozawa ) and the God of Destruction, Beerus ( Kōichi Yamadera ). This story was first told in the 2013 movie Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods , then re-worked into the first arc of both the Dragon Ball Super anime and manga. At first glance, it's not the most exciting thing to be revisiting this story yet again. However, after the death of franchise creator Akira Toriyama and a long hiatus for the Z Fighters, this might be the best way to get the story going again.
Dragon Ball Super: Beerus aims to be the definitive version of this all-important arc in Goku's story. Battle of Gods could have been a one-off back in 2013, but it grew into a series with 131 episodes, and even more material in the manga that hasn't been adapted yet. From here on out, the franchise will be moving forward without the oversight of Toriyama, so it's the perfect time to look back on the foundation he has laid before moving forward. Considering all the controversy and baggage attached to the Dragon Ball Super anime, this re-animated version may be just the thing to reset fans' expectations and set a new course for this iconic franchise .
Beerus and Goku facing off in the Apple TV promo image for Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods Image via Toei Animation While this will be the fourth time that Goku and Beerus' first meeting is re-told in the Dragon Ball franchise, it may also be the first time the story's full potential is realized. Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods was created as a one-off movie, and it doesn't quite have the gravitas to kick off a whole new generation of Dragon Ball stories. It also lacks the Dragon Ball Super branding, so it's no surprise that the studios and advertisers wanted a more definitive version when Dragon Ball Super premiered in 2015.
That said, the Dragon Ball Super version of this arc was infamous for its low animation quality at the time of its premiere. Some aspects of the art have been touched up in subsequent releases on streaming and Blu-ray, but it's still not quite up to the standard of the Dragon Ball franchise . As for the manga, it was created after the anime, with a few slight differences here and there. It was overseen by Toriyama, but ultimately,…