'Dragon Ball Super' anime to air final episode in March

A promotional poster for the Japanese anime, "Dragon Ball Super." Facebook/DragonBallZ

News that the animated TV series "Dragon Ball Super" is ending in March leads to mixed reactions and speculations from the anime community and fans of the franchise.

According to a recent article published by Kotaku, a website that translates the latest anime, manga, and video game news from Japanese to English, Japanese website Sanspo announced the news with statements from Fuji TV. The series will reportedly be ending this March 25 at Episode 131. Its time slot on Japanese local TV will be replaced by another animated series "GeGeGe no Kitaro" starting April 1.

Fuji TV stated that a new TV production for "Dragon Ball" has yet to be announced and "it's not like the series is over." The word "series" may pertain to "Dragon Ball Super" or the entire storyline of the "Dragon Ball" animation world spanning all four seasons of the TV series. There has been no further update from Kotaku or any statement by "Dragon Ball" animation studio, Toei Animation.

This is nothing new for the "Dragon Ball" franchise as viewers have seen throughout the decades. New titles of the iconic anime series have come out every few years or once a decade, but they are all connected. Such is the case with the past entries of the franchise,"Dragon Ball," "Dragon Ball Z," and "Dragon Ball GT" up to the current series. They may have different titles set in different timelines, but the base plot is one and the same.

It remains to be seen whether fans will see a second season for "Dragon Ball Super" or a new title that picks up a new arc. Toei Animation has announced a "Dragon Ball" movie in the works, which is to be the 20<sup>th film of the franchise. It is set for release in Japan this December 2018. Toei Animation has stated that they are hard at work on making this film the best one of the franchise yet.

This leads some fans to speculate that "Dragon Ball Super" was put on hold to concentrate all efforts on the production of the movie.

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