When someone thinks of anime, there’s a good chance that a black-haired man in an orange gi comes to mind. Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball is one of anime’s oldest series, and a cultural juggernaut all around the world.
In literal terms, the series will have to end someday, as all things do. However, Dragon Ball’s story has consistently shrugged off opportunities for a final conclusion, and in many fan’s minds, it has become a series synonymous with longevity and a seeming inability to ever stop. So what kind of ending might the series one day reach?
The Series Long History
Dragon Ball has been running since 1984, and till this day is still releasing new chapters. Originally, it wasn’t a story about aliens and world-ending threats, but instead a young boy with mysterious origins learning martial arts with his best friend, while fighting off much smaller threats than what most fans are used to. Before saiyans and gods of destruction, Goku was facing military forces and rival martial artists.
The series saw its massive status quo shift with the arrival of Dragon Ball Z, which changed its trajectory forever. Now, Goku wasn’t just a strangely powerful boy; he was a saiyan, and the remaining saiyans were coming for him. Following this, iconic villains like Vegeta, Frieza, Cell and Buu would follow, testing Goku and his allies’ strength over and over again.
Now, Dragon Ball is in its 3rd big phase; Dragon Ball Super. While Z was a big departure from the original series, Super largely follows the trends that Z established, and runs with some of the concepts experimented with in the anime-only series, Dragon Ball GT.
Never-Ending Growth
One of the things Dragon Ball has become famous for since Z is the seeming unending growth of the series’ power levels. Many anime feature ever-increasing power and stakes, but DB is infamous for it. Even thousands of chapters in, One Piece hasn’t toyed with cosmic feats of strength, yet as far back as the original fight between Vegeta and Goku, DB has featured planet destruction as a feasible, common threat.
When Frieza destroyed the saoiyan’s home planet when Goku was only a baby, he did so in his weakest form, as a spoilt prince who had never trained a day in his life. Now in Super, Frieza is 5 forms stronger, and has the added benefits of serious training. At a certain point, all the new forms and threats start to feel less impactful than they used to.
It doesn’t help that DB doesn’t have a flexible power system like Jujutsu Kaisen’s cursed energy or Jojo’s stands to keep things interesting. For many, DB fights have long since blended into a blur of lasers and punching, with no apparent end in sight to how strong these characters can supposedly get. At one point the super saiyan transformation was the peak of a saiyan’s strength, but now it pales in comparison to the god-level powers Goku and Vegeta are fighting with. Once you’re threatening the destruction of several universes, how much can you still escalate things in the next arc?
Economic Incentive
As such a popular series, Dragon Ball has certainly also been a massive financial success. The latest theatrical release for the franchise, Dragon Ball Super Hero earned millions of dollars, and other adaptations of the series into video games and other media rarely fail to bring in the bucks as well.
When there’s such consistent money to be made, there’s ample motivation to keep the series going as long as possible. Big series that have reached their anime and manga conclusions like Soul Eater and Fullmetal Alchemist still bring in a lot of revenue, but can’t be monetised in the same way as something ongoing.
Series creator Akira Toriyama has already passed drawing responsibilities unto Toyotarou, so similar to Berserk, Dragon Ball could well continue even after its creator’s death, even if it was in the form of a sequel series like Boruto.
What Would an Ending Look Like?
If an ending did come, after all this time, it’s hard to imagine what it would even look like. DB lacks any obvious goal for the series to end on. In Attack on Titan for instance, the end was always obvious. The story would end once the titans had been defeated, and that’s exactly what happened. As the one who destroyed the Saiyans, Freiza would be the most narratively satisfying final fight, but he’s already been defeated several times.
Even death has long since been stripped of its finality in the series, so a dead Goku and Vegeta would hardly carry the same weight it could’ve otherwise. Unfortunately, it seems like however the series ends will have to be a circumstance of production ending, rather than the thematic and narratively natural resolution most series strive for.