This has been a fascinating year: we began with a lengthy (still on-going!) tournament arc in the television series, and we conclude with the announcement of a new theatrical movie! Along the way we have seen continued support for existing video games alongside the reveal of exciting new ones, brand new manga releases from both prominent and up-and-coming artists, a wealth of new music, and all sorts of merchandise coming out the wazoo (yes, that is where it comes out). These were the top five stories of the year according to total website traffic, rate of traffic growth, social media conversations, etc…!

#5: June 5th – Ninth “Dragon Ball Super” Ending Theme Song Announced

Music has always been a huge part of Kanzenshuu‘s DNA, going back to the original “Music Database” on Daizenshuu EX (inspired by the work of folks that came before even us). With that in mind, it is no huge surprise that music-related news actually hits in two top spots for the year. Dragon Ball Super continued the trend from Dragon Ball Kai before it — and, to a degree, a little bit of Dragon Ball GT long before even that — of cycling out new ending theme songs at regular intervals. Lacco Tower making a return within the same series seemed to raise a few eyebrows.

#4: October 12th – “Dragon Ball Super” Episode 110 Debuts New Insert Song: “Ultimate Battle” by Akira Kushida

Music’s second appearance on the list is a bigger one, wrapped up in the hype surrounding “Ultra Instinct” and Dragon Ball Super‘s quasi-one-hour-special (really just two episodes aired back-to-back with extra advertising). While Dragon Ball Kai had a slew of insert songs, Dragon Ball Super up to this point had only used the series’ first opening theme as an insert song during Goku’s tournament battle against Hit. Episode 110’s brand-new insert song — “Ultimate Battle” by shōnen and mecha stalwart Akira Kushida — was a welcome and surprising addition to the show. The song has since been used several more times, both in vocal and instrumental capacities. Will we get any more songs in the future…?

#3: February 17th – “Dragon Ball Super” God of Destruction Names Revealed in April 2017 V-Jump Issue

Spoilers: the rest of the top news stories all center around the Universe Survival arc of Dragon Ball Super…! The first appearance comes from the April 2017 issue of V-Jump, which revealed the names of all twelve Gods of Destruction. Not only did we get names, but character designs! Furthermore, the splash outlined which designs came from Akira Toriyama, which came from Toyotarō, and which came from a combination of the two! It was a surprisingly-comprehensive overview of information, something fans were chomping at the bit for.

#2: March 10th – “Dragon Ball Super: Universe Survival Arc” Character Bio + Voice Actor Updates: Vermoud, Anato, Ea, Mosco, Kuru, Oguma, Iru, & Agu

Universe 11’s Vermoud in particular seemed to be a fan-favorite the instant he was revealed, so it was no surprise to see this batch of character designs receive massive traffic. This was also a period of time when the official website would leave certain material either unlinked, half-written, or otherwise only revealed through source code. For this batch, Vermoud’s angel Macarita was uncovered, building up the hype (and somewhat logical Batman character design allusion discussions) to universe-busting levels of excitement.

#1: February 10th – Official “Dragon Ball Super” Website Unveils Universe 9 & 11 Characters and Voice Actors

That our top two news posts of the entire year were simply character design and biography additions to the franchise’s official website certainly speaks volumes about the insatiable appetite of today’s general fan. February’s early addition of the Trio the Dangers Trio de Dangers and new gods was one of the first close looks at new characters coming our way, and as such received an incredible amount of traffic.

For the first time, we actually had a few technicalities in our list this year!

• Our #2 news post of the year would have been one of our many April Fool’s posts: the “reveal” of Goku’s “new form” as seen in “the show’s opening theme”. This was one of the early posts that day that seemed to universally go over well, and the numbers appear to back that up.
• Our #5 news post of the year was one originally posted in December 2016: the key visual and initial synopsis for the Universe Survival arc. No surprise to see this very-late-2016 news posts bring in the large numbers in early 2017.

In terms of popular website content this year, the Dragon Ball Super episode guide main page won handily, with the episode guide pages for every other series also (perhaps surprisingly) bringing in substantial numbers. As much as the top news stories reflect today’s “spoiler culture” among fans, we are encouraged by the deep-dive guide material’s traffic, which tells us that people equally appreciate the long-form, detailed, encyclopedic side of the website.

The evergreen “Animation Styles Guide” continued to bring in the readers, no doubt courtesy of friends of the site focusing more and more on the franchise’s animators. Lots of visits to the “Battle Power” and “Databook” guides also show the aforementioned-appreciation for slogging through dusty old books, and in particular importance on numbers that we ourselves actually place very little importance on. We suppose it’s all in the interest of being comprehensive!

This last year was certainly a challenging one on every level imaginable — underscored by the tragic loss of Hiromi Tsuru in November — and it looks like 2018 will prove to be an equally-challenging one in all the same respects. That being said, we intend to double-down on everything that we do and do well, and we are excited to have you along for — when you trace it all back — this website’s 20th year! Very few people have an opportunity to say that, and we do not take that for granted one bit.

Stay tuned for our annual podcast where we discuss these top stories, our own picks for the most significant stories of the year, and our prediction check-ins! Here’s to a great 2018 ahead of us!