Is The Plot of The Next DBS Arc Borrowed from Another Anime?

Last week in Japan, they celebrated Jump Festa, which is an annual expo celebrating currently running manga series under publisher Shueisha. Among those series is the Toyotaro version of Dragon Ball Super, serialized in V-Jump, Shueisha's Video Game Magazine.

One of the things Dragon Ball fans were hyped about at Jump Festa was the announcement of the next major arc in the series. And a teaser trailer of the next arc was shown, slated to take place Feb. 5th of 2017. The trailer features scenes from the manga version and is titled the "Universe Survival Arc", and it features the much anticipated multiverse tournament, with each universe represented by 10 fighters.

In Universe 7, Team Beerus consists of Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Krillin, Tenshinhan, Master Roshi, Piccolo, Majin Buu, and Androids 17 and 18.

However, what surprised many fans of Dragon Ball is the added stipulation in the tournament - the losing team has their Universe, and everyone in it, completely destroyed. What was thought as just a simple tournament to determine the best fighters in the Dragon Ball multiverse, is now a fight to be the sole surviving one. I don't know what creator Akira Toriyama was thinking when he came up with this arc, but the stipulation ruined it for me.

For one, it's pretty obvious that Universe 7 will be the eventual victor here. So there is no need to add the stipulation of the losing Universe being destroyed when we happen to know the eventual outcome. The chances of Universe 7 actually losing in this tournament is like trying to win the jackpot in the lottery. I would prefer the tournament to be a friendly one without such a stake as the one that's announced.

But what really got me disappointed in the stipulation was that the concept is nothing new and the first thing that popped on my head is that Toriyama may have borrowed it from another work with a similar concept. That work in question, is "Bokurano".

"Bokurano" or "Ours", is a manga series by Mohiro Kitoh that was later adapted into an anime series. The story is of 15 kids tasked to defend Earth from alien invaders using a giant robot. You might say "Ok, so it's just your typical mecha series. What does that have to do with Dragon Ball Super?". Well, there is a twist to this - the 'invaders' are actually kids as well from a different universe also given the same task, and the loser has his/her universe completely destroyed. Furthermore, the giant robots in these battles drain the life force of its pilots as a power source. By the end of the battle, regardless of who wins, the pilots are already dead and must be replaced with the next one.

Yes. "Bokurano" is a very depressing series. Some people even call it as the "Anti-Gurren Lagann" because of the countless universes, and its inhabitants, destroyed in this manner, and nothing can be actually done about it. Somehow I think Toriyama may have heard of Bokurano at some point and decided to use it as a basis for the upcoming arc.

Then again, it's possible this may all be just a coincidence and Toriyama just thought about it. It's not the first time we see a huge death count in Dragon Ball, but not in this massive scale. Another possiblity why this is happening is something I thought of after a brief discussion at a Facebook group about the Omni-King. I mentioned that the Omni-King, or Zen-Oh, however you want to call him, may not be as omnipotent as we thought him to be. Evidence of this is from the Future Trunks arc, where we know that the Omni-King has no dominion over alternate timelines, and thus, we now have two Omni-Kings in the Prime Timeline.

I also mentioned that, based on what we've seen so far about the Omni-King, that he is very simple minded and will just act on his feelings rather than think about what he is doing. The Future Omni-King could've just destroyed Zamasu and that would be end of it. But instead, he destroyed the entire timeline for the simple reason being he doesn't like Zamasu. So everyone else who's not involved in the conflict gets wiped out anyway out of the Future Omni-King's whim. This got me thinking if one of the Omni-Kings (I suspect the Future one) thought about adding the stipulation in the tournament for the hell of it. I would also guess that one of the Omni-Kings (again I suspect the Future version) may have some malevolent thoughts on doing this. But this is just a theory and nobody knows for sure.

What is certain is that the arc begins in February, and the current arc right now in the Dragon Ball Super anime is a lead up to that. It's worth noting by the way, that the trailer did not include any scenes from the Toei version, which I would assume Toei hasn't produced those episodes yet, and that the Toyotaro manga will skip the current arc of the Toei version and begin the Universe Survival Arc right away, in line with the intention for the Toyotaro manga to be ahead of the anime.

So again, I'm disappointed with the added stipulation, but it's less than 2 months away, so anything can still happen. I don't expect much storywise on how this turns out. This is Dragon Ball Super after all, and not Ajin or Lupin III. Nevertheless, we'll see how this goes.