Dragon Ball Beerus anime announcement raises a big question

Is Beerus's umpteenth 'debut' a necessary revival or diminishing returns?

Who is ready to be introduced to Beerus, God of Destruction, for a fourth time? Well, whether you’re ready or not, as announced during the Dragon Ball Genkidamatsuri event, a remaster of the Battle of Gods arc is coming in the form of a six-episode series called Dragon Ball Super: Beerus. Before we get any fresh content from the newly announced Dragon Ball Super: The Galactic Patrol, we’ll relive the introduction of Beerus and Whis. And although it’s the story that sparked Dragon Ball’s resurgence in the 2010s, do we really need to watch it unfold again?

Beerus was first introduced onscreen two months before the movie Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods in the game Dragon Ball Heroes Galaxy mission 6, where the Saiyans faced Frieza’s army. If players didn’t defeat Frieza within a few turns, Beerus would appear to destroy Planet Vegeta. The character was completely unknown at that time, despite some promotional art and info shared ahead of the film’s debut. He was terrifying, an unknown, someone that even Frieza himself feared. He then debuted in Battle of Gods, introducing a new fold to the Dragon Ball mythos, and shattering the ceiling of Goku and Vegeta’s journey of becoming the strongest, revealing a whole new tier of power.

The events of the movie were then adapted into the Dragon Ball Super anime that started airing in 2015, with infamously bad animation to boot. Still, it made sense perhaps to have a coherent narrative for this new page of the franchise. Then, the Dragon Ball Super manga also adapted the same story, and now we’re being introduced to the God of Destruction once again. But it feels like every time Beerus appears, the returns diminish. His mystery is gone, and we know just about everything we need to know about the character.

It’s starting to feel like watching Martha Wayne’s pearls scatter on the ground in Crime Alley or seeing Uncle Ben dying in adaptations of Batman's and Spider-Man's origin stories. We've been there, we've seen that, so what new ground is being broken here? For one, a lot of the Battle of Gods anime adaptation in Super is notoriously bad, so getting “newly added and redrawn cuts,” as mentioned during the Dragon Ball Genkidamatsuri livestream presentation, would benefit both returning watchers and new fans. The Battle of Gods film is great, to be sure, but a lot of the story meanders, especially when you remember the Emperor Pilaf side plot.

A reconstituted narrative with "extensive new cuts, revisions to existing scenes, a complete re-rendering of all footage, newly recorded dubbing with added score and sound effects, and a full reconstruction of the story," according to the trailer's description on Toei's channel, could benefit the upcoming adaptation of the Galactic Patrol arc from the manga with greater cohesion.

For those who will be meeting Beerus for the first time later this fall in Dragon Ball Super: Beerus, let’s set the stage. Several years after the defeat of Majin Buu, Earth enjoys a well-earned peace. That is until Beerus, the God of Destruction, awakens from a long slumber. Feared even by the Kai and Supreme Kai for his power to erase entire planets, Beerus sets his sights on a Saiyan said to have defeated Frieza, who could be the Super Saiyan God of legend, and appears before Goku, placing Earth in immediate peril. What follows is a universe-shaking confrontation between Goku and his allies and the strongest being in existence, igniting a cosmic battle that threatens everything.

Revival 'F' is slated to receive the same treatment as Battle of Gods, with another six-episode anime remaster. It’s a shame that the two films' original anime adaptations were so poorly handled. It's true that a remaster using modern technologies could be a treat for the eyes, as One Piece's Fish-Man Island remake proved. However, this means that fans will have to wait another year before getting entirely new Dragon Ball Super content. Better late than never.