A new Dragon Ball Super movie is coming in 2022

Dragon Ball Super is getting its second ever movie sometime next year, Toei Animation announced on Saturday. The announcement of the new movie came on Goku Day — May 9 because the Japanese character for five and nine can be read similarly to the character’s name — which serves as a celebration day for the entire Dragon Ball universe.

According to Toei Animation’s announcement, the new movie will take place in the Dragon Ball Super part of the timeline, making it part of the Dragon Ball Z sequel-series which debuted in 2015. The movie will not be a direct sequel to 2018’s Dragon Ball Super: Broly, the series’ last theatrical release, which was met with record-breaking box office returns.

Toei also announced that Dragon Ball series creator and long-time author Akira Toriyama is working closely with the production team on the new movie. Toriyama has worked on everything, “from the magnificent story composition, to the character design, to the lines of the script,” Toei said in a news release. All of this collaboration has resulted in what Toei calls a “Dragon Ball movie unlike any other in its history.”

Unfortunately, none of that gives us much detail on what the movie’s actually going to be about. And it seems the team wants to remain mysterious. The best hints we got came from Toriyama himself, who released a letter to fans to discuss the movie.

I shouldn’t talk too much about the plot yet, but be prepared for some extreme and entertaining bouts, which may feature an unexpected character.
We’ll be charting through some unexplored territory in terms of the visual aesthetics to give the audience an amazing ride, so I hope everybody will look forward to the new movie.

While all of this is still pretty cryptic, the idea of a new style and a surprise character is certainly an enticing proposition for the Dragon Ball series’ first movie in three years. But it seems we’ll have to wait until a little closer to the movie’s 2022 release date. Of course, another outstanding question about the movie is whether or not it will hit American theaters in 2022, or if that release date only applies to the the Japanese market.