Dragon Ball Superrecently finished its adaptation of theSuper Heromovie at long last, bringing not just the entire content of the movie, but additional prequel content to the manga. However, it turns out that, like many fans believed, this additional prequel content focusing on Goten and Trunks was meant to be in the movie all along.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Herowas a successful film, and was highly focused on two characters in particular: Piccolo and Gohan. Piccolo essentially acts as the viewpoint character for the movie, while encouraging Gohan to return to his roots and take back up his martial arts practice. The movie works well concentrating its narrative on these two, as they have a strong relationship and are among the most powerful characters besides Goku and Vegeta. Goten and Trunks hardly feature in the film at all, yet when the manga adaptation began, they featured heavily in the prequel chaptersas Saiyaman X-1 and X-2.
Goten and Trunks' Plot Was Too Detached from the Main Story
Toriyama Couldn’t Figure Out How to Work The Saiyaman X Plot In
In new information fromDragon Ball Supervolume 24,as translated by @JordanLDurham on X (Formerly Twitter),Dragon Ball Super’s artist Toyotaro revealed that the prequel seen in the manga was originally created by Akira Toriyama himself, and that Toriyama had provided him with the extra material to do with as he pleased, since it wasn’t able to fit into the movie. It was already decided that the prequel would only be 3 chapters, so Toyotaro had to really cut down on what Toriyama had created to make it fit, ultimately deciding to do away with Goten and Trunks' superhero origin.
Of course, fans finally did get to see Goten and Trunks' origin in the recently released one-shot (which counts as chapter 104), and it added a lot to the characters. While it was easy to see how Goten might get wrapped up in a superhero identity like his brother did, it was a little harder to see why Trunks would. The one-shot finally explained why, and it allowed Toyotaro to make full use of the story that Akira Toriyama had left him after his death.
The Movie’s Title Makes More Sense Knowing The Prequel Material
Super Hero Was Meant to Have Multiple Superhero-themed Plotlines
Knowing that this material was intended to be in the movie to begin with, it makes so much more sense why the movie is titled the way that it is. The adaptation of the movie seen in the manga foldsGoten and Trunks' superhero identities in, allowing them to battle Cell Max in their superhero forms and bringing the hero-themed throughline of the story all the way to the end. In the original movie, Goten and Trunks were simply in their usual forms, with no mention of the Saiyaman identities, since their origin had been cut from the film. But with that origin restored, it made sense to bring back the identities for the final battle.
One can’t help but wonder, though: what other unused material might Akira Toriyama have left behind for Toyotaro to use, and could we see any more of it in the future? Only the return ofDragon Ball Superwill let fans know for sure.
