Updated October 13, 2026: this story now matches 33 USA’s revised release on the panel’s franchise updates.
Three thousand people filled the Dragon Ball Super: Beerus Special Panel on Thursday, day one of New York Comic Con, for the world premiere of episode one. That’s three days before the show premiered in Japan. And the moment from that room people are going to keep bringing up wasn’t on the screen. Masako Nozawa, who has voiced Goku since 1986, appeared on video and led the entire hall in a Kamehameha.
What Beerus actually is
Toei is calling Dragon Ball Super: Beerus an ENHANCED edition of Dragon Ball Super. It’s the 2015 series rebuilt, with a large volume of new and redrawn cuts, a reconstructed narrative, and battle scenes reworked to sit closer to Akira Toriyama’s manga. The story is the one you know. Years after Majin Buu, the God of Destruction wakes up, hears about a Saiyan who beat Frieza, and comes looking for him.
The most interesting detail came out of the official interview Toei released Sunday. Koichi Yamadera, who has voiced Beerus since Battle of Gods, said they didn’t record any new dialogue. They’re building the new edition out of the performances the cast gave back then.
That’s an editor’s project as much as an animator’s. When you keep the original line readings and change the picture underneath them, every redrawn cut has to land on a performance that was timed to a different frame. You can’t ask the actor to give you two more beats. The voice is fixed, so the picture has to bend around it.
Super’s early run took a lot of heat for uneven animation when it first aired, and it’s hard not to read this as Toei going back to fix the thing people complained about, with the same voices that sold it the first time.
Who was on stage
Monica Rial, the English voice of Bulma, hosted, and brought out Jason Douglas, who voices Beerus in the English dub, and Ian Sinclair, the voice of Whis.
“The reason I became an actor in the first place is that I fell in love with great writing, interesting characters, and exciting action,” Douglas said. “Dragon Ball as a series has it all.”
Sinclair went further. “If you were to tell me I could only be in one show ever, and that it was Dragon Ball, I’d be more than happy.”
Then the Japanese leads came in on video. Nozawa said Toriyama’s story is truly captivating and that she’d be delighted if people all over the world enjoyed it. Yamadera kept it simple. “Beerus is right there in the title, so please be sure to watch Beerus in action: how cool he is, how frightening, how strong!” And then Nozawa came back on screen for the Kamehameha, and according to 33 USA, the applause when the episode started didn’t stop until well after it ended.
The booth, and the bus
On the show floor, the Dragon Ball booth had standing statues of Beerus and Whis next to the SUPER Launch Visual of Beerus and Goku, playable stations for the Fusion World card game and DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE 3, and a lineup of figures. On stage, Rial walked the room through updates from across the whole Dragon Ball series, which arrived as a run of announcement videos, along with the S.H.Figuarts Super Saiyan 4 Son Goku Exclusive Edition figure.
The campaign didn’t stay inside the Javits, either. A wrapped Beerus bus has been touring New York since October 5 and runs for a month, key visuals went up at subway entrances across the city, a matching bus is on the road in Los Angeles, and the Super Surge visual is up at 28 Simon malls around the country. If you’ve been waiting since Battle of Gods for Beerus to get his own name on the title card, Toei is making sure you can’t miss it.
When you can watch it
Dragon Ball Super: Beerus premiered in Japan on Sunday, October 11. North American streaming platforms and timing haven’t been announced yet. The opening theme is “ONOGAMI” by MEGATERA ZERO and the ending is “Kan Peki No Peki” by VK Blanka, and Toei put both up creditless on YouTube for the premiere: the opening and the ending.
The Super Surge trailer is at the top of this page. The SUPER Launch trailer and the SUPER GEKITOU trailer are worth your time too.
Images courtesy of 33 USA. ©BIRD STUDIO/SHUEISHA, TOEI ANIMATION.
Are you going back for the enhanced edition, or is the original Super the one for you? Tell me in the comments on the channel.
