Warning: Contains spoilers for Dragon Ball Super chapter #100On paper, the latest chapter of the Dragon Ball Super manga should have been a big event. Not only was it the 100th chapter of the manga, but it finally concluded the adaptation of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, meaning that the manga is once again completely free to do an original story and further expand on the franchise.
There were plenty of reasons for Dragon Ball Super chapter #100 to be a big event, but unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened. Once it became clear that Dragon Ball Super would finish adapting Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero in chapter #100, many Dragon Ball fans started to assume that something big would happen to commemorate the event, and the chapter even opened with color pages to support that idea.
Unfortunately, this was all there was to it. Chapter #100 simply brought the Super Hero story to its end, and did not introduce a new saga. The end result thus ended up being more than a little disappointing.
“Not The Senzu Bean The Film Was” – Dragon Ball Super’s Super Hero Manga Review
The Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero manga’s adaptation fails to hit the dynamic and emotional beats of the film or flesh out the story meaningfully.
Dragon Ball Super’s Milestone Chapter Doesn’t Set Up The Next Story Arc
The main reason why Dragon Ball Super chapter #100 is so disappointing is that it does nothing to set up the next story arc. While previous story arcs ended with a tease of what was coming next, Dragon Ball Super chapter #100 focused solely on finishing its adaptation of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, meaning that it’s still unknown what the next major story will be or when it will start. The fact that the manga spent so much time adapting Super Hero was already contentious, but the lack of new content in what should have been a major milestone just adds a great deal of pointlessness to it all.
The only thing close to a setup for a future story arc is an original scene involving Carmine and the Red Ribbon Army. Unlike in the film, Carmine and the Red Ribbon Army are shown fleeing the scene after Cell Max’s defeat, implying that the Red Ribbon Army will appear again at some point in the future to try and take over the world once more. If that’s immediately followed up, however, it’s likely to just be an epilogue to put Goten and Trunks in the spotlight one more time, so overall, Dragon Ball Super still made very poor use of its big milestone chapter.
Dragon Ball Super Has Already Teased The Manga’s Next Big Story
Dragon Ball Super chapter #100 not doing anything to set up the next story arc is even more frustrating considering the hype and expectations surrounding it. One of the biggest reveals in the previous saga, the Granolah the Survivor arc, was Frieza obtaining a new form called Black Frieza, which made him stronger than Goku and Vegeta, despite the two of them using Ultra Instinct and Ultra Ego. Black Frieza has allowed Frieza to become a serious issue once more, so dealing with him will undoubtedly be the focus of an upcoming story in the manga.
Some of the most recent news further supports a hypothetical “Black Frieza” saga. In the latest issue of V Jump, the magazine that publishes Dragon Ball Super in Japan, it was stated that Black Frieza’s power is close to that of a God of Destruction, implying that Frieza is almost as strong as Beerus, and if Frieza is receiving that level of hype, he’ll likely return in the manga fairly soon. However, that doesn’t change anything about how lackluster Dragon Ball Super chapter #100 was, but at the very least, there’s still something to look forward to in the manga’s future.
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