In addition to the first trailer, the producers of the upcoming Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero movie have revealed new redesigns for several of the series' main characters, including Bulma, Pan, and the surprise return of the Namekian youth, Dende.
At the panel for the movie held at this year's New York Comic Con, the producers of the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero confirmed that the new movie is set several years after the events of Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Several of the characters have been given new redesigns to reflect the change in time; Bulma was shown with a new haircut and jumpsuit, while Pan, Goku's quarter-saiyan granddaughter, was shown with a new outfit in the movie's new trailer. This new, slightly older version of Pan was shown in her school outfit previously, but here it appears she's wearing something more casual as she fights. The panel revealed that Pan has been trained in the martial arts by Piccolo, similar to how her father Gohan received harsh training from the Namekian warrior following Goku's death in his battle with Raditz.
The Namekian youth Dende, who assisted Gohan and Krillin when they travelled to the planet to find the Dragon Balls, was also shown. Since Dragon Ball Super takes place several years after the Majin Buu fight seen in Dragon Ball Z, Dende is now grown up and looks much older. The martial arts master Korin was also shown, and as expected, he is still a cat. Seeing as he was already 800 years old at the start of the series, the cat hermit doesn't appear to have noticeably aged since his previous appearance.
A final release date for the movie was not revealed, but the producers did state that the film is still on track for a 2022 release in Japan. They also said that they are working to ensure that the gap between the movie's Japanese premiere and its international release is as quick as possible.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero will the 21st animated movie in the Dragon Ball franchise, which began in 1984 when the first chapter of Akira Toriyama's manga was published in Weekly Shonen Jump. Toriyama's manga ran until 1995, and was adapted into two anime series; Dragon Ball, which adapted the first half of Goku's story as he rose from a child raised in the wilderness by his grandfather to one of the world's premier martial artists, and Dragon Ball Z, which adapted Toriyama's later stories that explored Goku's cosmic origins and placed an even heavier emphasis on the series' fights. Dragon Ball Z was featured as part of Cartoon Network's Toonami block in the late '90s and early '00s and is frequently cited as one of the key titles that helped anime's popularity expand outside of Japan and become the global, multi-billion dollar industry it is today.
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Source: New York Comic-Con
