I can appreciate a long, ongoing series, but boy does the creation of Dragon Ball Super make Dragon Ball difficult to keep canon straight if you are an anime fan first and not so much a manga fan. Especially when they start referencing anime things as canon, but not actually adapting them in the manga.
Where To Start The Dragon Ball Super Manga After The Anime?
The short answer as to where to pick up the Dragon Ball Super manga after finishing the anime is Chapter 42.
The anime adapts two of four total chapters in Volume 9.
What to Expect From The Dragon Ball Super Manga?
As has always been the case with Dragon Ball anime/manga, the anime adapts the core events, but it does so occasionally out of order and really abridges them to keep things compact. Keeping even closer with tradition, Dragon Ball Super also has a lot of non-canon episodes which range from silly side story filler to events that only happen in the anime.
Because the Dragon Ball Super anime does add in so much extra in between actual canon events, I recommend reading it from the beginning just so the story is more linear, but if you just want so see what happens next, the DBS anime does still cover the core story so you won’t be lost is you do start at Chapter 42.
The movies for Dragon Ball Super – Resurrection F, Battle of the Gods, Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Super Hero – are all canon as well, but not all are in the manga.
Resurrection of F is an adaptation of a three-chapter side-story manga called Rebirth of F, Battle of the Gods is the first four chapters of the Dragon Ball Super manga, Dragon Ball Super: Broly is referenced in the manga as canon in Chapter 42 but never adapted (they just went to the next arc), and Super Hero takes place around Chapter 90 of the manga.
Is The Dragon Ball Super Manga Over?
The Dragon Ball Super manga is still ongoing. Since launching in 2016, the manga has released at a three-volume per year pace. The Super Hero Arc (the arc that the Super Hero movie starts) is the current ongoing arc.
After the abrupt death of Akira Toriyama, the Dragon Ball Super manga went on indefinite hiatus in April 2024.
Will There Be A Dragon Ball Super Season 2?
There has been no official news of a Dragon Ball Super Season 2 anime.
As Dragon Ball Super has already established releasing movies and still adapting that same canon story into the anime, the release of the Super Hero movie, a movie so far into the later manga chapters, isn’t problematic. The problematic part is that they are working on Dragon Ball Daima, a series that is a Post-DBZ Buu arc, Pre-Super set arc, instead of making more Super. Daima is set to start airing in October 2024.
This is, however, likely a way to buy more time for the manga story to continue in order to produce a Season 2 as lengthy as the first season was.
Battle of the Gods is abridged in Vol 1 and Super Hero is adapted shot for shot with extra bits and a 3 chapter prequel. The anime and manga adapt from a broad outline by Toriyama and are VERY different so neither adapts the other.