Is a Dragon Ball Super and One Piece Cross Over Special Coming in October?

Shuiesha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine released a spread advertising two one hour specials happening between Dragon Ball Super and One Piece. It shows on the cover of the magazine that the one hour special for One Piece will air October first and the Dragon Ball Super one hour special will air October Eighth.

Specials have happened before which brought the likes of Luffy and Goku together. In episode 590 of One Piece the cast of One Piece, Toriko and Dragon Ball came together for a World Tournament hosted my Mr. Satan. This 45 minute episode consisted of much of the cast of all three shows working together to battle a venomous monster called the Akami.

There was also another crossover manga via a collaboration between Akira Toriyama and Eiichiro Oda. It was called Cross Epoch where both Universes were blended. The story begins with Shenron having granted Mr. Satan’s Wish of becoming a king. The story that follows is mainly interactions between different one Piece and Dragon Ball characters as if their Universes were always merged.

There is a lot of good reason to have another cross over episode between Dragon Ball Super and One Piece right now. Both shows are consistently trading places at the number one spot for most watched animes in Japan every weekend. One Piece remains the most read manga, and Dragon Ball has its spot at number two. We can continue to elaborate but it really goes with out saying both of these IPs have a gigantic presence in Japan and in the global market.

This is something fans would love, but is it really possible? When the first animated cross over happened, One Piece just interrupted their programming to air their special. This of course was not a problem for Dragon Ball, since the series had been off the air for some time. Would it happen now though?

Hard to say, because both shows are going through a lot of really important things. In Dragon Ball Super, the entire Universe is at stake and our fighters are in the midst of an 80 person battle for survival. Likewise in One Piece an all out war between multiple pirate armies seems to be just around the corner. We can’t really be certain but there are certain clues we can find if we did a little digging.

To save you the effort, we did it for you. First, we checked the websites. On Toei’s website there is no mention of it. But you will find updates on both Dragon Ball and One Piece. Side note, great news for Dragon Ball fans, DBS will now be airing in Spain and Italy.

Upon visiting the Dragon Ball Super website, there is also no mention of it. However on One Piece’s website, it does not list an new episode airing October first, rather a collaboration between DBS and OP. Very odd to say the least. Why would Toei and DBS down play this, and why would One Piece list this as a collaboration instead of a cross over?

In response we broke this down and came up with a few hypothesis as to what would actually be happening.

First possibility -There Is A Cross Over:
One might ask, How? Are we just going to interrupt the Universal Survival Tournament with a cross over episode? Are we just going to set this in a different time period before the tournament? Probably not, but another possibility is Luffy and his crew could run into the likes of Goten and Trunks while they are watching Android 17’s island.

Second Possibility – DBS and OP are Swapping Time Slots:
The last time there was a cross over between Dragon Balla and One Piece there was much more publicity. The strongest case for this scenario to actually be the case is that Toei and Dragon Ball Super don’t have any posting about this on their websites yet. Also, both shows are reaching relative climaxes in their respective arcs, it is good timing for both shows to have hour long specials.

Hate to break it to fans, but it is unlikely we’ll be seeing Dragon Ball Super characters appear along side Luffy and crew this October, but that’s not to say an official crossover isn’t on the horizon.

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