Volume 22 of the Dragon Ball Super manga, The Ultimate Teacher and Pupil, collects Chapters 93 to 96 and brings the Super Hero arc to the edge of all-out war. Piccolo, deep inside the Red Ribbon base, learns the army is building something far worse than the Gammas — and engineers the one provocation guaranteed to bring Gohan back to the battlefield: a staged kidnapping of Pan. What follows is a reunion of teacher and pupil in the middle of a fight neither of them fully understands.
What this volume collects
Four chapters move from infiltration to open battle. Each chapter has its own guide in the complete chapter index:
- Chapter 93: Operation: Kidnap Pan
- Chapter 94: Get Your Head in the Game, Son Gohan!
- Chapter 95: The Ultimate Teacher and Pupil
- Chapter 96: Saiyamen, on the Scene!
The story inside
Piccolo’s undercover work pays off in the worst way: the army’s real project is Cell Max, a new Cell still growing in the depths of the base. With no time to gather help, Piccolo arranges for Pan to be “kidnapped” — the little girl, thrilled, plays the damsel — knowing Gohan will come. Before the operation, Piccolo also makes a private trip to the Dragon Balls and asks Shenron to unlock his own potential, with what the dragon calls a little extra thrown in. When Gohan storms the base and throws himself at Gamma 1, the rust of years of study shows; it takes his daughter in danger and his old teacher beside him to shake the warrior back awake.
The volume’s second half is the teacher-and-pupil fight its title promises. Piccolo takes Gamma 2, and as the battle turns against him, Shenron’s gift surfaces — a new form, massive and orange, that puts him on the androids’ level for the first time in the arc. Goten and Trunks arrive as the Saiyamen to even the odds, and in the middle of the brawl the truth starts leaking out: the Gammas begin to realise their creator was lied to about who the villains here are. The volume ends with the misunderstanding collapsing and Magenta, watching his army turn, deciding to wake the monster in the basement early. It is the first time in the manga’s run that Piccolo and Gohan fight a major battle side by side as true equals — a debt the series has owed its readers since the Cell Games.
Where it sits in the series
Volume 22 is the middle volume of the Super Hero arc. It follows Volume 21, where Hedo built the Gammas and Piccolo infiltrated the base, and leads into Volume 23, where Cell Max is unleashed and Gohan’s own new form answers it. The complete collected run is listed in the volume index.
Editions and reading options
The Japanese edition was released on 4 December 2023, the English edition on 3 December 2024, and Japan’s full-colour digital edition on 4 March 2024; both ISBNs and the other bibliographic details are in this page’s info panel. See our coloured edition guide for the colour format. These chapters are available officially in English on MANGA Plus, Shueisha’s official platform.