The Dragon Ball Super manga's newest arc is underway, and fan reception is mixed. The arc thus far is an extremely faithful adaptation of the movie Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, leaving many readers to feel as if they're being made to wait months at a time to re-experience a story they already watched last year.

Not all fans are opposed to the adaptation, with some grateful that the Super manga won't skip essential story beats and character introductions like it did when adapting Resurrection F and Broly. However, whether one enjoys seeing the arc unfold month-to-month or wishes it would end as soon as possible, the question remains: how much is left to go?

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How Much Longer Will Dragon Ball's "Super Hero" Arc Run For?

The Gammas and Cell Max in the Dragon Ball Super Super Hero Arc

There's no exact way of determining the length of the arc, but looking at how much manga author Toyotaro adapts per chapter gives a rough estimate. The arc's first chapter, Chapter 91, adapts the material spanning from the scene where Magenta and Carmine discuss recruiting Hedo up until the scene where Piccolo meets Gamma #2 -- roughly 17 minutes worth of material. Meanwhile, Chapter 92 adapts everything from Piccolo and Gamma #2's battle up to Goku and Broly's sparring match on Beerus's planet -- roughly 10 minutes of material, as well as a later scene where Piccolo talks to Korin lasting two minutes, making for around 12 minutes covered.

So far, that's an average of 14.5 minutes per chapter. Assuming the arc continues at this rate, the rest of the story would take another six chapters, finishing in October 2023. Obviously, two chapters isn't a big enough sample size to determine exactly how much longer the arc will take, and it's worth acknowledging that there are other factors at play as well.

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Additional Material and Action Scenes Could Make the Dragon Ball Super Arc Even Longer

Gohan and Piccolo in their Ultimate forms face the Gamma Androids in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.

One point of consideration is that Toyotaro has added a few scenes to flesh out details. So far, these scenes haven't lasted too long -- one sees Piccolo picking up Pan from kindergarten before the events of the film, and another involves Krillin briefing his fellow police officers about Dr. Hedo. While these sequences don't last especially long, it's entirely possible that future chapters will include even longer manga-original scenes.

Another factor to consider is that action sequences last a lot longer in manga form -- attacks that last a fraction of a second on screen often take up entire pages in manga format. A prime example of this is the fight between Piccolo vs Gamma #2, which lasts less than a minute in the movie compared to its 14 pages in Chapter 92 -- a third of the chapter's total length. This means that the film's action-heavy second half may end up taking a lot longer than its first half in manga form. Gohan and Piccolo's battles against the Gammas and the group fight against Cell Max might very well end up lasting several chapters -- and therefore, several months of real time.

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Fans May Be Left Waiting for the Next Major Dragon Ball Super Arc

Cell Max gets knocked out by Gohan Beast in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.

For fans hungry for new material, the news may come as a disappointment. Dragon Ball Super has been away from television screens since 2018, and for four years, the manga carried the torch as the main source of new Dragon Ball content. After going on hiatus in August 2022, the manga returned in December with a mini-arc acting as a prologue to the film before dovetailing into the adaptation proper. Assuming it takes the rest of 2023 to adapt the events of the film before a new arc finally begins, it will end up having been well over a year since fans' last taste of brand-new Dragon Ball material -- the longest break since Dragon Ball Super began in 2015.

As saddening as this news may be to some, it's difficult to pin down exactly how long the "Super Hero" arc will last, and near-impossible to predict what Toyotaro will choose to expand upon or condense. However long it takes, Toyotaro will hopefully do the film's incredible climactic fights justice in manga format and make whatever arc eventually comes next well worth the wait.