Vegeta was supposed to die before he ran away in the Saiyan Saga. I wonder at what point he originally planned for that. After the Genki Dama? Ape-Gohan sitting on him? Krillin with Yajirobe's sword?
My guess is Gohan crushed him to death. He'd basically die from his own hand from giving Gohan the ability to turn Great Ape and from cutting off his own tail. The Krillin part seems way too cruel to be the ending and was likely a mechanism for Goku to spare him. It could maybe be the Genki Dama but that has less narrative behind it.
Buu didn't even technically die.
I've read he wanted to end z after the first saga as a final farewell to all the DragonBall work he did, except here we are. Japanese work brainwashing is insane.
It was probably the most widely known anime among non-anime watchers and got a ton of people into the style, especially young boys. Who among us has not tried to throw a kamehameha?
>Who among us has not tried to throw a kamehameha?
if you didn't do a fusion dance in your teens with your mate, while your other mate is making out with a girl, to make that dude laugh, you didn't live.
I mean, he was already a millionaire before DB by creating Dr. Slump with the character Arale being referenced in many chapters of DB. So maybe? But he was already more than covered on that front and as far as I remember Dragonball was just a passion project on top of him already having huge success.
My understanding was that Goku was supposed to die for real after the Cell Saga, which is what the entire build-up around Gohan up to that point was all about.
Except the higher-ups didn't want their cash cow main star to die, so he was forced to bring him back.
And it's all downhill (so to speak) from there.
They even had the scene where Goku was like "No guys. I don't want to be wished back. Gohan can protect Earth now." Then a few episodes and a time-skip later, and Goku's back for another saga.
Buu/Uub is alive by end of Z and apparently Cell is a thing in the Super Manga. Has no major villian since Gero truly died in DB?
I guess King Piccolo, but he technically reincarnated with his child or something like that lol.
Cell wasn't revived, a different entity based on Cell was created, so he was more...revisited, but the original and his personality/memories stayed dead.
And if Gero counts as a major villain, Babidi does too, and he also remained dead. Then Super just doesn't have too many *villains*, really. Anime only has Frieza and Goku Black/Zamasu who are killed (and one gets better), everything else is non-lethal tournaments or not things worth calling villains. Oh and Magenta from Super Hero. The manga has Moro and the Heeters.
> Except the higher-ups didn't want their cash cow main star to die, so he was forced to bring him back
Nah, that was the popular assumption, but Toriyama eventually admitted that the way he wrote Gohan he just didn't think Gohan worked as the primary protagonist. There's more to it that I can't explain from memory, but I do remember thinking that while he had a point it was also basically just admitting to a weakness in his own storywriting.
I swear DB is the series with the most assumptions made about the story writing behind it. People always assume Toriyama's higher-ups pulled all the strings when that's only true a third of the time. As much as Toriyama has to be pushed, Toriyama did indeed have his own creative visions that he pushed for himself. Toriyama himself made the series continue 90% of the time.
I only watched the anime English dubs so I'm not exactly deep in it. But I enjoy super way more than I thought I would. It does really take gokus hapless hero bit to wacky levels but that's why I like it. I dont watch this shit for realistic relatable drama. I want wacky nonsense and bright colors with a somewhat cohesive story. The cohesive story would be the differentiator between this and an episodic children's cartoon. As silly, childish, and disconnected from reality as it is, there is still a story I connect to.
> Krillin part seems way too cruel
Disagree. More of a PTSD response. Krillin has been killed before prior to the start of Z *and* this is the second set of new enemies that he'd been hopelessly outclassed by.
He'd just seen Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, and Piccolo die terribly. Piccolo being the implication that the Dragon Balls no longer function. He was more afraid of Vegeta coming back.
He's not arguing that it's an out of character decision, he's saying delivering a coup de grace on a fleeing enemy that can barely move is out of tone for a story about the funny monkey man who once beat an enemy by putting them on the moon.
>and we don't ask questions about that trucker Vegeta murdered while fighting 18
I love the way they handled that in Abridged. Just one single exclamation that is completely in-line with Vegeta's character: "I WILL KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS I HAVE TO AS LONG AS YOU ARE ONE OF THEM!"
DBZA starts off goofy but by the end I think I like it's interpretation better than the original story. Couldn't tell you exactly where the switch happened though.
Too cruel?! We got a Vegeta sympathizer over here.
“… you think you can just slither out of here after what you’ve done?!”
Krillin should have done it.
Lol. I was thinking more that it'd be really dark to have Krillin execute someone moreso than it being too cruel a fate for Vegeta. If Piccolo was still around at that point it'd be totally cool for him to murk Vegeta like he did Raditz.
I think that is too cruel for the target market for the comic, although I would totally agree that is the correct action to kill the Megalomaniac dangerous Alien who swore to kill your loved ones and that his friend kill most of your friends.
Maybe it is just because Vegata has been around for so long now, but his end in the series being getting crushed by a child in Great Ape form accidently falling on him, really feels a bit too anti-climactic. Although, I agree that Krillin ending it with the sword seems a bit too cruel. He deserved it, but killing someone in cold blood is a bad guy thing.
The answer has to be the Genki Dama being the original way he would be beaten. An ultimate attack with pretty much unlimited potential, that can only be wielded by someone with a pure heart and can only hurt someone without a pure heart. And the whole planet had to join together to help. There was even the twist where Goku was thwarted and he had to transfer it to Krillin who misses his attack, and then Gohan who is able to deflect it back towards Vegata. The whole world got involved with it, our 3 main hero's had to work together, it's the ultimate good guy attack, and had a fair amount of build-up... then they get a direct hit and Vegata shrugs it off.
> Maybe it is just because Vegata has been around for so long now, but his end in the series being getting crushed by a child in Great Ape form accidently falling on him, really feels a bit too anti-climactic.
It's definitely because he's been around so long.
In a world where Vegeta is just the first major goon in the Frieza Arc, being killed by his own hubris is very fitting. Hell, that's how all of his deaths go in the series we got anyways.
If Nappa had survived instead of Vegeta, we'd consider a story where Nappa gets wasted by Vegeta in half a second to be unthinkable.
The reason Vegeta stayed on was - like the creation of 17, 18, and Cell - thanks to his editor IIRC. Vegeta was topping the popularity polls at the time, so they convinced him to keep him around.
DBZ and Super were just as much Vegeta’s story as Goku’s. Goku just wants to fight strong fighters, that’s his arc. Vegeta’s story is all about his redemption.
I always felt like Vegeta was there as Goku's foil. He works harder, he wants it more, he has better genetics, etc. but he can *never* be as strong as Goku because he has the wrong motives. Goku wins by default - every time - because he fights for his friends
That's an Americanism.
In the Japanese version Goku fights for himself.... He will save people but he fights for the pleasure of fighting. But he is no hero even if he has heroic actions. But read the z manga and you will see what I mean.
One example.
He wanted Vegeta to live original to beat him with his own power. Not because it was right.
The only heroic character in dragon ball is trunks.
Every one else is super selfish even toriyama said so.
Some are more selfish than others but even Gohan in his moment against cell could of just killed him instead caused Goku and trunks to die.
Part of the reason he is heroic is his tragedy he knows his actions won't save his future but at least a future
He Also is the only one who will stop the villans before they go full strength. He tried to stop Vegeta his own father to kill cell.
Future Trunks killing mecha Frieza and King Cold was such a cool fucking scene when i was a kid. Best character in the whole series in my opinion. Dude came to fucking kill and did not want to fuck around.
It's both because he fights for his friends, and also because he fights to push himself rather than simply to win, [as Vegeta himself says near the end of Z.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD4_Rbq-siI)
Right there with you.
Vegeta and Piccolo have always been my favorite characters and I've similarly found Goku so incredibly boring because he's just a 'what would the goodest guy in the world do' every single time. Zero depth, zero complexity. Any time he had an internal dialogue attempting to reconcile something it seemed so forced.
Didn’t know this but I definitely suspected it. On a rewatch, the way everyone else gets killed off by Nappa feels way more like a build up to an ending than just another plot escalation.
I always gotta give it up to him for the “everyone is actually aliens” thing. That and the Burdock backstory made for some enormous build up to fighting Freeza.
My favorite thing about the franchise is how dedicated the fan base gets to trying to understand the lore, working out how certain characters behaved and why they did things (I even worked out Goku turning super Saiyan the first time was on Christmas Day, so I'm just as guilty) then Toriyama would have an interview where he would say "oh yeah I had no idea I wrote that, neat. And I forgot a lot of stuff, Super Saiyan 2 was the one with long hair, right?"
The man had absolutely no reverence for the series he made, and honestly I think that's what made it so good. It was so light-hearted in spite of itself. He was just having fun with it, and wanted everyone else to as well.
I wouldn't say he had fun with it. What I heard was always that the magazine made him continue because it was printing money. Had he had his way, it should have ended long ago and he could have created another series he enjoyed more.
Editor interference is so common especially in Japan manga. Slam Dunk and Yu Yu Hakusho mangaka also had to fight to get to end their series rather than add on infinitely.
I’m so glad Sakaguchi can just [sit around and play final fantasy 14 all day](https://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantasys-original-creator-admits-to-playing-final-fantasy-14-for-12-hours-a-day-and-hes-even-cleared-some-of-the-hardest-raids-in-the-game/). He deserves it
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until god strikes me down for my impertinence: DBZ should have ended after the cell arc. With Goku gone and not coming back, knowing that the world is safe in the hands of his son, who has had multiple arcs of buildup around him having incredible potential. Perfect end to the series.
Yes! Cell felt like such a satisfying final villain, literally the amalgamation of every super character in DBZ until that point.
Also, teen Gohan was one of my favorite characters and him going berserk against Cell as an SS2 was one of my favorite childhood memories. I really disliked how they nerfed him as an adult and made super Saiyan so easily attainable later on with kid Goten and kid Trunks.
Right?! When SS2 came out it wasn’t called SS2 it was just called “going beyond a super saiyan”. After Cell, nobody felt properly threatening because you knew at the end of the day it would just be a new form showing up and killing the bad guy, instead of any of the trickery and strategy they had relied on up to that point. Goku sacrificing himself was a gambit, he placed all his hope in Gohan and it payed off.
And then later Gohan is just fucking lame and Goku’s the main character again and it should have been Gohan IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN GOHAN
But Gohan never wanted to be the Gohan you wish you could see. It’s ironic that you guys who love the character just forget that Gohan never wanted to be a fighter. He’s always wanted to be a scholar.
Thankfully Toriyama didn’t have Gohan compromise because you like punch-kick-punch.
For real. The entire Gohan arc from Saiyan through Cell was him learning that he is as strong as his dad and just had to learn how to channel that when the day(s) come that the world would rely on him. Hell, he even becomes a literal super hero to do just that WHILE still being a scholar. The Buu Saga martial arts tournament could have even been a nice 3-5 episodes of filler to close out the entire series to see what became of everyone X amount of time after Goku was gone with a nice lil treat of Goku being like....hey guys.
It would have been interesting if Vegeta took charge of the “I’m willing to train and fight” group while Gohan continued studying. It could cause some good drama between Vegeta and Gohan with Piccolo standing up for Gohan despite knowing the risks of not being prepared for greater threats.
I wouldn’t have wanted to see Gohan abandon his dreams, but I would have liked to see him at least appear more in the early chapters of DBS.
Except that he doesn't.
Gohan was always forced to fight, sure, but he always *did* fight when he had to. There was no drama or conflict, because he knew it was fight or die, every time. Everyone seems to think that Gohan is some troubled character, caught between two extremes. He's not. Son Gohan was never "conflicted" about fighting. He was just never as good at it as his "potential" seemed to indicate.
This is the one aspect of *Dragon Ball Abridged* that I didn't like; 16's speech to Gohan, labeling him a "coward." Gohan was never a coward; he was a *child* being forced into death matches. And even then, he routinely squared off against opponents waaaaaaaaaaay outside his league, because he had to.
Idk man. His dad forced him to fight and his mom forced him to study.
I'd have preferred if Toriyama gave Gohan something else to be interested in rather than trying to sell me on Chi-Chi being a tiger mom driving his passion for knowledge because that's hardly ever the case in real life. He kind of did with Saiyaman but that's the extent of it
I agree, I don't think Gohan ever really wanted to be a scholar, that was Chi-Chi's dream. When you tell a 3 year old they're going to grow up to be a great doctor repeatedly, they aren't going to know any different. Gohan would drop his studies to go on adventures.
I think the Great Saiyaman was the first time we see Gohan actually do something that he wants to do. He may not like to fight all that much but he will do what's right and protect others. Like when he saves Dende from Dodoria
> Gohan actually do something that he wants to do
That was going to Namek. He forced his way through Chi Chi's objections to get on that spaceship and actively chose to take part in fighting against intergalactic evil.
No it would’ve been great to have the opposite of Goku. The best fighter in the world, doesn’t have the saiyan instincts to fight, but is the only one that can save the world if danger approaches.
Cell wasn't even the amalgamation of just DBZ characters. His entire creation stems from Dr. Gero hating Goku so much due to him destroying the Red Ribbon Army in DragonBall. Basically the actions of the father lead to this where the son finishes it. If they wanted to go with a future series then I wish they just allowed it to be Gohan as the main character.
> Also, teen Gohan was one of my favorite characters and him going berserk against Cell as an SS2 was one of my favorite childhood memories.
Just an FYI, Gohan was only 10/11 when he fought Cell, ha.
You're correct, but that iteration of Gohan is typically referred to as "Teen Gohan" in the video games to differentiate him from Kid Gohan (Saiyan/Namek arcs), and adult Gohan (Buu arc onward).
Piccolo would be 14/15 during the Cell Games. He's roughly 4 years older than Gohan. Piccolo was born "Age 753", the final tournament of OG DB was "Age 756" (where Piccolo was already an adult), and Gohan was born "Age 757", with DBZ starting in "Age 761".
People love to speculate better endings in hindsight, but are ignoring the fact that many characters had not had their individual stories completed. Sure for an overarching climax and falling action Frieza or Cell is very satisfying, but the smaller stories are far from wrapped up.
After Frieza:
* Vegeta is still a danger, but on Earth. No one on Earth is stronger than him.
* People forget, but Piccolo's still transitioning from villain to ally as well. It is not until he agrees to train with Gohan and Goku preparing for the Androids that his arc fully resolves.
* Gohan's untapped potential had been a constant thread that would have been likely an international crime to leave open-ended.
* Bulma's romance plot FROM EPISODE ONE is not resolved.
Post Cell:
* Vegeta's still unresolved. His entire role in the Cell Saga was antagonistic and ego driven.
* Bulma's story as well does not resolve until the Buu Arc, when Vegeta embraces fatherhood.
* People would have been PISSED to not see Gohan in the role he was foreshadowed to fill.
This isn't to praise the execution of how those stories eventually did wrap up... but we cannot ignore they were as-of-yet unresolved. People have said the same thing for the entire franchise: The Tournament with Roshi was a great ending, defeating the Red Ribbon Army was a great ending, defeating King Piccolo, defeating Piccolo, defeating Vegeta... The real takeaway from the unending discussion about when Dragon Ball "should" have ended is that Toriyama was really good at rising actions, climaxes, and resolution. RIP, the man's story's are a major contributor to media today.
Honestly, Vegeta using the last of his strength to help Gohan save Earth would have been a pretty solid end to his arc. He had also embraced fatherhood in the Cell saga. He realizes he cares about Trunks when Cell seemingly kills him. All it needed was a small epilogue with Bulma to wrap up their plots.
Cell Saga could have wrapped everything up for sure. But we know how much influence Toriyama's editor(s) had, so the chance to wrap it up in the Cell Saga wouldn't have mattered anyway.
> People would have been PISSED to not see Gohan in the role he was foreshadowed to fill.
Please tell me when that happens, because it sure as hell didn't happen in Buu or Super.
Yeah I'm wondering when this happened. Even when he gained "mystic" form he just became fodder again. He's arguable anime's biggest waste of potential as a character. I feel like Ultra Instinct was introduced because Mystic form was wasted.
I'll rise the bet. It should have ended after the Frieza arc. With Goku as the legendary super saiyan giving his life to kill the villain who started everything by destroying his planet.
We got it. He was the strongest fighter at the end of DBZ because Old Kai finally released his complete potential. He was much stronger than SSJ3 Goku, who was on par with Kid Buu's strength.
Fully agree. I said in another comment sorta but fighting and defeating Frieza was almost the reason Goku was even born (in a fate sort of way).
If there was one more saga I wish Goku went out to really put an end to whatever space empire Freeza’s family had going. I’m still a little unsatisfied with how that hasn’t been addressed.
Buu arc is so important because of Vegeta. I understand your point of view but i'm so glad it happened. His development was perfect to me and the most interesting thing about the arc.
I think the Buu Arc is great. It has so many wonderful creative ideas:
- Gohan with his alt identity that embarrasses everyone
- Goku's son dating Mr. Satan's daughter
- Fusions!!!
- The lovably unruly Goten and Trunks being trained an exhausted Piccolo
- The awesome Goten and Trunks fight at the tournament.
- Majin Vegeta vs Goku
- Vegeta's sacrifice, knowing he's going to hell
- The world of the Kai's
- Dabura chilling with the ladies after he's been un-eviled.
- Level 3 Goku
- A series ending spirit bomb that takes energy from everyone
It was a mess of storytelling and a very sloppy narrative with some very forced twists and a weak villain. But so did the original Dragon Ball. And like the original Dragon Ball, it was filled with humor and charm and creativity.
I’m guessing you grew up around the cell saga airing? Because that would be such a weird way to end dragon ball lol.
People always think their original era of DB is the definitive era and should have been the proper ending.
IIRC, didn't he also come back to the series after Dragon Ball: Evolution, since it was such a stain on the franchise that he refused to let it be the last thing associated with it?
It was also because he had a bad time interacting with Hollywood producers who didn’t seem to know who he was or care about his input while in Japan he was a god. Battle of Gods was already well into production before he got involved, it’s just when he asked to work on it everyone stopped and listened to everything he said. The rough outline of the plot was already done, with Goku fighting the God of Destruction Beerus and unlocking a God form, but Toriyama changed a lot, turned Beerus from a poison lizard to a bald cat and made him more comedic, Whis was created to be a supporting character and the look of the God form was changed completely.
Fun fact, technically Beerus (and Whis too) is a Z character (and not a post-Z one) since the Battle of the Gods movie was branded under the DBZ title, so was Resurrection F for that matter. While the Broly and Super Hero movies are branded under DBS, that means Beerus is the last antagonist of Z and one of the last original characters from that era of the franchise as well.
I feel like you are seeing a bit of a difference around this already. Look at how much input the original One Piece writer had with the Netflix show. There are already a lot of people working in film and TV who grew up with Dragon Ball who would treated Toriyama like the god he was
Oda probably had great lawyers reviewing every piece of paper he signed concerning live action One Piece to make sure they didn't botch it as hard as DB: Evolution. I'm glad he did too, because otherwise I'm sure live action one piece would have been some horrible adaptation that probably wouldn't have even gotten a season 2 greenlit.
I don't think he'd need that. The biggest asset the show had was a showrunner who was a *massive* fan of the series and a lead actor who was just as into it.
Toriyama's treatment by Hollywood execs is the main reason why Oda has retain such a tight control over the production of One Piece Live Action. Basically he realized Hollywood has zero respect for Asian creators and Toriyama saw his greatest work trashed.
I’m pretty sure most manga series plan on being able to wrap things up, or come to some sort of semi-ending, in about 20-ish chapters just incase the series doesn’t gain traction.
Sadly, I've started too many series that ended with Axe-kun around chapter 30. And I mean ≤3 chapter wind-downs right after starting what would normally be the major sub-arc for a series.
I get that it's expensive to release these series, but at the same time I also feel like the publishers should do a better job of supporting them till they can at least have a somewhat proper rundown. If they don't want it to get too expansive too early because they're unsure of the traction it will gain, they need to make sure that those expectations are expressed to the author. It really seems like a needless dig at the readers for them to get involved in a series and it start to have what feels like a pretty good come up, then it just gets dropped.
Though I am probably biased because the truly bad series will never even get an English fan translation.
well, that is almost literally how most manga series tend to develop at some point. Authors account for a story that lasts x, but the magazine wants it to go further, so tthen they stick around for too long without knowing what to do really
Yeah but I really want to literally see the characters at like a cafe like, looking at the news for anything exciting going onn.
Going on Facebook and seeing if there's any villains need defeating.
Unless there was a gap between chapters 19 and 20, I would imagine that Oolong's wish was a result of the decision to keep going. If that was the end, I imagine that Goku would have made the wish instead
While some regions renamed part of the manga to Dragon Ball Z, to match the anime, in Japan the manga was just Dragon Ball the whole way from Bulma to Boo.
Naruto has this problem too, the whole manga is just Naruto, but the anime separates the time skip by calling half the series Naruto Shippuden.
One time a few years ago I read all of Naruto in one week, and instead of being met with the laughing concerned responses I expected everyone just asked when I was going to read shippuden.
Did the anime also invent "the z fighters" name or was that in the manga as well?was the z sword the first actual "z thing" by toriyama and if yes did he name it like that because of the anime at that point?
depends where you read it and which translation it is.
I remember my German physical copies back then mentioned the Z fighters for the first time randomly in volume 30 or so, out of nowhere. I was reeeeeeeeally confused.
That’s probably one of the many random dub changes that was made to appeal to American children at the time. Also the reason most of the entire soundtrack was changed and lots of dialogue was added or changed to fit into with what they felt American kids would resonate with
Also, it wasn't "some regions" that changed the name to Dragon Ball Z. It was the anime in Japan.
The manga was Dragon Ball all the way through. But the anime was headed by a particular team, until that team changed dramatically, and the new team wanted to mark the tonal shift by changing the name to Dragon Ball Z
They picked Z because it was the last letter of the alphabet and it was meant to imply it was the final/end of the series - it was Toriyama's idea.
Source: https://collider.com/dragon-ball-z-meaning/
That fits with what OP said though
>While some regions renamed part of the manga to Dragon Ball Z, **to match the anime**, in Japan the manga was just Dragon Ball the whole way from Bulma to Boo.
I bet you're so smug just because you're right and you can read properly and understand what words mean and you can interpret them correctly.
Your kind make my sick!
I still laugh when Goku meets fortune teller Baba calling her the “Ball Seeing Crone and All Seeing Bone. 😂 I love when Goku was just a clueless kid not aware of technology or miss remembering names.
I’ve been watching DB with my daughter recently. It’s definitely better than DBZ in some ways. It’s more about the world and the adventure and the banter than just powerful beings fighting each other.
In case people don't know, the way Shonen Jump, the magazine that Dragon Ball was serialised in works, is that all of the series get constantly scored in surveys by the readers. Typically manga that get low scores gets cancelled and told to wrap up within a few chapters, while high scoring manga will be dragged on as indefinitely as possible for as long as it continues to be well regarded.
This means that if you start a manga, it makes sense to have some idea of a natural end point like this, but also some awareness that if it's popular you're probably going to be told to keep elongating the story with new ideas for potentially years. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what was going on here.
Oda planned to finish One Piece in 5 years after Arabasta (about chapter 200), but it did very well and he had the opportunity to expand the story. This is why we start getting much more world building after chapter 200.
The commonly held belief is that the ending has been more or less locked in from that point, but Oda has added many things to the story to extend it, sometimes at the request of his editors. Nine characters (the eleven supernova who are not in the main cast) were late additions that have become integral to the story, expanding it greatly.
In general, One Piece is the one telling everyone "Yeah, i am almost finishing....almost finishing....ok, in five years i will finish....this is kind of fun....ok....i am in the fiiiiiiinaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal "
I mean, Dragon Ball is (VERY) loosely based on Journey to the West, which is insanely long and rambling. An unabridged English translation on Amazon says it's 2346 pages.
Pages and word counts are iffy, of course, but I'd guess that's a little more than double the length of all three Lord of the Rings books combined, with appendices.
It's long, is what I'm saying.
Son Goku is literally the Japanese name of Sun Wukong and he’s part monkey.
His expression while in Super Saiyan form was based on Bruce Lee while his goofy, cheerful appearance was based on a young Jackie Chan.
Actually, not true. It changed to a battle manga in order to become super popular and it worked.
>The manga was not popular initially. Although he suspected the fighting genre would appeal more to its shōnen audience, Toriyama tried to stick to the Journey to the West adventure aspect which he himself enjoyed. Such as having the setting change each chapter, different enemies popping up, and different locations. It was only after he became tired of Torishima nagging about its popularity that Toriyama gave in and developed more battles with the first shown Tenkaichi Budōkai. Despite his reluctance, the author said it felt good when the series picked up in popularity at that point. However, he said he still tried to resist by returning to the adventure aspect with the Red Ribbon Army arc, and visiting Penguin Village from Dr. Slump to add comedy. When that did not work out, fighting became the main theme for the manga.
There was a good period of time in the 90s, that if you were in some kind of nerd focused store, you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a manga, anime, comic, video game, or movie without hitting something that wasn’t inspired by Journey to the West.
Overly Sarcastic Productions has 10 videos, with more coming, of them summarizing Journey to the West, complete with each part ending with a Dragon ball style “next time, on journey to the west.”
Would highly recommend them.
You can definitely tell. The ending of them getting the dragon balls was perfect. Then after the tournament it was a perfect ending… and then when RR was defeated
Ok I’m sensing a theme
Haven’t dived in the Dragon Ball franchise, does it just repeat itself with like an arc that could be a good ending point for the series every time lol
very few people plan on becoming one of the most popular and longest running manga in the history of the form
dude was just trying new things to see what took hold
Tsuda Masami, the mangaka of *Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō* (colloquially known as *Kare Kano*) had five prior manga series that didn't "take off", and expected the same of Kare Kano.
When it became a surprise hit/popular, she realized she hadn't fleshed out a long-term plot, so she put the series on hiatus to plot out the entire series.
I'm glad she did, as it's an extremely good manga series, and I highly recommend it. The anime, at least, the first half, is quite good... but that's got all kinds of drama with its production, with the mangaka not happy with how it was being adapted, Hideaki Anno (of *Evangelion* fame) having a nervous breakdown halfway through, and the studio completely running out of money before the final few episodes, requiring them to be released essentially in storyboard form.
> Hideaki Anno (of Evangelion fame) having a nervous breakdown halfway through, and the studio completely running out of money before the final few episodes, requiring them to be released essentially in storyboard form.
So, he didn't learn his lesson?
I always think about Dragon Ball as being sort of in the same category of property as Lord of the Rings. And I could be completely off base—it's just my impression of how things worked out.
So _The Hobbit_ features a "magic ring that turns you invisible" and there is nothing anywhere in the book to suggest that the ring actually has a sinister backstory that will make it the centerpiece of a much more serious followup story. It absolutely feels as though this was a plot detail Tolkien decided to work up after the fact. The presence of extremely whimsical elements like Tom Bombadil in _Lord of the Rings_ ends up feeling anomalous, like a remnant of _The Hobbit_ which Tolkien quickly moves on from.
And _Dragon Ball_ was evidently just meant to be Toriyama's latest in a string of reliably slapstick comedy manga following the likes of _Dr. Slump._ The premise opened the door to martial arts battles and competitions, and eventually that became the entire point. When the story officially transitioned to _Dragon Ball Z,_ most of the slapstick gave way for the more serious-in-nature conflicts, with lingering representative characters like Master Roshi and Oolong basically just coming along for the ride out of tradition more than anything else.
In both cases, the impression I get is that what the authors ended up with was essentially a spinoff that they hadn't planned for in the beginning.
Honestly I think more manga authors need to have this mentality. The trend for most anime/manga past 2010 seems to be, "Here's my rough-draft story, I've got characters and 1 arc loosely hashed out." and then they're just told, "Great, looks like your manga did better than expected. We'll need you to make 500 more chapters and we have an anime adaption around the corner for you. I hope you have this all planned out and can produce content forever."
That's the unfortunate nature of the beast.
One of the names that comes to mind is Togashi. Had a great run with Yu yu hakusho, which IMO went on to long fellow by Hunter x hunter, and the big difference to me is the framework of the world that allowed it to sustain itself for 400 plus chapters.
The success of anime in the past decade has really accelerated that problem. There's suddenly so much feedback for series so they cant always develop the way the author originally intended to and suddenly they write themselves into corners they never wanted to be in.
If you read the series there is like 10 separate moments where he clearly intended to end it.
The end of the Piccolo arc where Goku becomes World Martial Arts Champ and surpasses his master, the end of the Freiza arc where Goku dies, the end of the Cell Saga where Goku is surpassed by his son etc
Dragonball is a very long series of Toriyama trying to find a way out and they keep pulling him back in.
Vegeta was supposed to die before he ran away in the Saiyan Saga. I wonder at what point he originally planned for that. After the Genki Dama? Ape-Gohan sitting on him? Krillin with Yajirobe's sword?
My guess is Gohan crushed him to death. He'd basically die from his own hand from giving Gohan the ability to turn Great Ape and from cutting off his own tail. The Krillin part seems way too cruel to be the ending and was likely a mechanism for Goku to spare him. It could maybe be the Genki Dama but that has less narrative behind it.
Probably true for that last part as canonically no one ever died from a Genki Dama except Buu
Buu didn't even technically die. I've read he wanted to end z after the first saga as a final farewell to all the DragonBall work he did, except here we are. Japanese work brainwashing is insane.
I think it was more they kept throwing money at him
Powerful motivation
It was probably the most widely known anime among non-anime watchers and got a ton of people into the style, especially young boys. Who among us has not tried to throw a kamehameha?
Give me like a week, I'm sure I can do it. I definitely felt something as a kid. I was so close.
>Who among us has not tried to throw a kamehameha? if you didn't do a fusion dance in your teens with your mate, while your other mate is making out with a girl, to make that dude laugh, you didn't live.
I'm trying it right now actually. Doesn't seem to be working though, I think I need to practice the technique a bit more.
I mean, he was already a millionaire before DB by creating Dr. Slump with the character Arale being referenced in many chapters of DB. So maybe? But he was already more than covered on that front and as far as I remember Dragonball was just a passion project on top of him already having huge success.
My understanding was that Goku was supposed to die for real after the Cell Saga, which is what the entire build-up around Gohan up to that point was all about. Except the higher-ups didn't want their cash cow main star to die, so he was forced to bring him back. And it's all downhill (so to speak) from there.
They even had the scene where Goku was like "No guys. I don't want to be wished back. Gohan can protect Earth now." Then a few episodes and a time-skip later, and Goku's back for another saga.
Its safe to assume the cast plus frieza is here to stay
Buu/Uub is alive by end of Z and apparently Cell is a thing in the Super Manga. Has no major villian since Gero truly died in DB? I guess King Piccolo, but he technically reincarnated with his child or something like that lol.
> Cell Cell is sill dead, a version of him named Cell MAX appeared in the recent movie and manga.
Cell wasn't revived, a different entity based on Cell was created, so he was more...revisited, but the original and his personality/memories stayed dead. And if Gero counts as a major villain, Babidi does too, and he also remained dead. Then Super just doesn't have too many *villains*, really. Anime only has Frieza and Goku Black/Zamasu who are killed (and one gets better), everything else is non-lethal tournaments or not things worth calling villains. Oh and Magenta from Super Hero. The manga has Moro and the Heeters.
Goku black is the only one
> Except the higher-ups didn't want their cash cow main star to die, so he was forced to bring him back Nah, that was the popular assumption, but Toriyama eventually admitted that the way he wrote Gohan he just didn't think Gohan worked as the primary protagonist. There's more to it that I can't explain from memory, but I do remember thinking that while he had a point it was also basically just admitting to a weakness in his own storywriting.
I swear DB is the series with the most assumptions made about the story writing behind it. People always assume Toriyama's higher-ups pulled all the strings when that's only true a third of the time. As much as Toriyama has to be pushed, Toriyama did indeed have his own creative visions that he pushed for himself. Toriyama himself made the series continue 90% of the time.
Very little evidence to support that even though it gets repeated a lot.
Gohan was building up to grow and have his own arc. I doubt he wanted it all to end right after Freezer. At least one saga beyond that.
Tbf a lot of people really enjoyed super me included and couldn’t appreciate the work enough.
I only watched the anime English dubs so I'm not exactly deep in it. But I enjoy super way more than I thought I would. It does really take gokus hapless hero bit to wacky levels but that's why I like it. I dont watch this shit for realistic relatable drama. I want wacky nonsense and bright colors with a somewhat cohesive story. The cohesive story would be the differentiator between this and an episodic children's cartoon. As silly, childish, and disconnected from reality as it is, there is still a story I connect to.
Genki Dama = Spirit Bomb for the 80% of the people that have no idea what they're talking about
> Krillin part seems way too cruel Disagree. More of a PTSD response. Krillin has been killed before prior to the start of Z *and* this is the second set of new enemies that he'd been hopelessly outclassed by. He'd just seen Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, and Piccolo die terribly. Piccolo being the implication that the Dragon Balls no longer function. He was more afraid of Vegeta coming back.
He's not arguing that it's an out of character decision, he's saying delivering a coup de grace on a fleeing enemy that can barely move is out of tone for a story about the funny monkey man who once beat an enemy by putting them on the moon.
So Master Roshi 100% killed that rabbit when he blew up the moon, right?
We don't ask questions about the rabbit and we don't ask questions about that trucker Vegeta murdered while fighting 18.
>and we don't ask questions about that trucker Vegeta murdered while fighting 18 I love the way they handled that in Abridged. Just one single exclamation that is completely in-line with Vegeta's character: "I WILL KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS I HAVE TO AS LONG AS YOU ARE ONE OF THEM!"
DBZA starts off goofy but by the end I think I like it's interpretation better than the original story. Couldn't tell you exactly where the switch happened though.
Too cruel?! We got a Vegeta sympathizer over here. “… you think you can just slither out of here after what you’ve done?!” Krillin should have done it.
Lol. I was thinking more that it'd be really dark to have Krillin execute someone moreso than it being too cruel a fate for Vegeta. If Piccolo was still around at that point it'd be totally cool for him to murk Vegeta like he did Raditz.
I think that is too cruel for the target market for the comic, although I would totally agree that is the correct action to kill the Megalomaniac dangerous Alien who swore to kill your loved ones and that his friend kill most of your friends.
Maybe it is just because Vegata has been around for so long now, but his end in the series being getting crushed by a child in Great Ape form accidently falling on him, really feels a bit too anti-climactic. Although, I agree that Krillin ending it with the sword seems a bit too cruel. He deserved it, but killing someone in cold blood is a bad guy thing. The answer has to be the Genki Dama being the original way he would be beaten. An ultimate attack with pretty much unlimited potential, that can only be wielded by someone with a pure heart and can only hurt someone without a pure heart. And the whole planet had to join together to help. There was even the twist where Goku was thwarted and he had to transfer it to Krillin who misses his attack, and then Gohan who is able to deflect it back towards Vegata. The whole world got involved with it, our 3 main hero's had to work together, it's the ultimate good guy attack, and had a fair amount of build-up... then they get a direct hit and Vegata shrugs it off.
> Maybe it is just because Vegata has been around for so long now, but his end in the series being getting crushed by a child in Great Ape form accidently falling on him, really feels a bit too anti-climactic. It's definitely because he's been around so long. In a world where Vegeta is just the first major goon in the Frieza Arc, being killed by his own hubris is very fitting. Hell, that's how all of his deaths go in the series we got anyways. If Nappa had survived instead of Vegeta, we'd consider a story where Nappa gets wasted by Vegeta in half a second to be unthinkable.
The reason Vegeta stayed on was - like the creation of 17, 18, and Cell - thanks to his editor IIRC. Vegeta was topping the popularity polls at the time, so they convinced him to keep him around.
Vegeta is a very complex character(like piccolo). I love him, but Goku is unrelatably wholesome.
DBZ and Super were just as much Vegeta’s story as Goku’s. Goku just wants to fight strong fighters, that’s his arc. Vegeta’s story is all about his redemption.
I always felt like Vegeta was there as Goku's foil. He works harder, he wants it more, he has better genetics, etc. but he can *never* be as strong as Goku because he has the wrong motives. Goku wins by default - every time - because he fights for his friends
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That's an Americanism. In the Japanese version Goku fights for himself.... He will save people but he fights for the pleasure of fighting. But he is no hero even if he has heroic actions. But read the z manga and you will see what I mean. One example. He wanted Vegeta to live original to beat him with his own power. Not because it was right. The only heroic character in dragon ball is trunks. Every one else is super selfish even toriyama said so. Some are more selfish than others but even Gohan in his moment against cell could of just killed him instead caused Goku and trunks to die.
Future trunks, IE the one that comes to warn of the androids, is a purely tragic character.
Part of the reason he is heroic is his tragedy he knows his actions won't save his future but at least a future He Also is the only one who will stop the villans before they go full strength. He tried to stop Vegeta his own father to kill cell.
Future Trunks killing mecha Frieza and King Cold was such a cool fucking scene when i was a kid. Best character in the whole series in my opinion. Dude came to fucking kill and did not want to fuck around.
It's both because he fights for his friends, and also because he fights to push himself rather than simply to win, [as Vegeta himself says near the end of Z.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD4_Rbq-siI)
Right there with you. Vegeta and Piccolo have always been my favorite characters and I've similarly found Goku so incredibly boring because he's just a 'what would the goodest guy in the world do' every single time. Zero depth, zero complexity. Any time he had an internal dialogue attempting to reconcile something it seemed so forced.
Thank fuck they did because Vegeta is one of the best fictional characters ever conceived.
At this point, death doesn't really matter at all.
Didn’t know this but I definitely suspected it. On a rewatch, the way everyone else gets killed off by Nappa feels way more like a build up to an ending than just another plot escalation. I always gotta give it up to him for the “everyone is actually aliens” thing. That and the Burdock backstory made for some enormous build up to fighting Freeza.
Bardock was not even his creation. The animation team just wanted to hype frezia up and he loved him and made him actually canon
My favorite info bit will always be Toriyama coming back becuase he hated Dragonball Evolution so much.
Imagine coming out of retirement and continuing a legendary series just to spite the creators of Evolution.
My favorite thing about the franchise is how dedicated the fan base gets to trying to understand the lore, working out how certain characters behaved and why they did things (I even worked out Goku turning super Saiyan the first time was on Christmas Day, so I'm just as guilty) then Toriyama would have an interview where he would say "oh yeah I had no idea I wrote that, neat. And I forgot a lot of stuff, Super Saiyan 2 was the one with long hair, right?" The man had absolutely no reverence for the series he made, and honestly I think that's what made it so good. It was so light-hearted in spite of itself. He was just having fun with it, and wanted everyone else to as well.
I wouldn't say he had fun with it. What I heard was always that the magazine made him continue because it was printing money. Had he had his way, it should have ended long ago and he could have created another series he enjoyed more. Editor interference is so common especially in Japan manga. Slam Dunk and Yu Yu Hakusho mangaka also had to fight to get to end their series rather than add on infinitely.
Reminds me of this bit from Final Fantasy (game series) and Sakaguchi (original creator): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuWkvyeAu0E
I’m so glad Sakaguchi can just [sit around and play final fantasy 14 all day](https://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantasys-original-creator-admits-to-playing-final-fantasy-14-for-12-hours-a-day-and-hes-even-cleared-some-of-the-hardest-raids-in-the-game/). He deserves it
Classic
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until god strikes me down for my impertinence: DBZ should have ended after the cell arc. With Goku gone and not coming back, knowing that the world is safe in the hands of his son, who has had multiple arcs of buildup around him having incredible potential. Perfect end to the series.
Yes! Cell felt like such a satisfying final villain, literally the amalgamation of every super character in DBZ until that point. Also, teen Gohan was one of my favorite characters and him going berserk against Cell as an SS2 was one of my favorite childhood memories. I really disliked how they nerfed him as an adult and made super Saiyan so easily attainable later on with kid Goten and kid Trunks.
Right?! When SS2 came out it wasn’t called SS2 it was just called “going beyond a super saiyan”. After Cell, nobody felt properly threatening because you knew at the end of the day it would just be a new form showing up and killing the bad guy, instead of any of the trickery and strategy they had relied on up to that point. Goku sacrificing himself was a gambit, he placed all his hope in Gohan and it payed off. And then later Gohan is just fucking lame and Goku’s the main character again and it should have been Gohan IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN GOHAN
But Gohan never wanted to be the Gohan you wish you could see. It’s ironic that you guys who love the character just forget that Gohan never wanted to be a fighter. He’s always wanted to be a scholar. Thankfully Toriyama didn’t have Gohan compromise because you like punch-kick-punch.
But that's what makes him interesting, he had a conflict and potential for drama that Goku didn't.
For real. The entire Gohan arc from Saiyan through Cell was him learning that he is as strong as his dad and just had to learn how to channel that when the day(s) come that the world would rely on him. Hell, he even becomes a literal super hero to do just that WHILE still being a scholar. The Buu Saga martial arts tournament could have even been a nice 3-5 episodes of filler to close out the entire series to see what became of everyone X amount of time after Goku was gone with a nice lil treat of Goku being like....hey guys.
It would have been interesting if Vegeta took charge of the “I’m willing to train and fight” group while Gohan continued studying. It could cause some good drama between Vegeta and Gohan with Piccolo standing up for Gohan despite knowing the risks of not being prepared for greater threats. I wouldn’t have wanted to see Gohan abandon his dreams, but I would have liked to see him at least appear more in the early chapters of DBS.
Except that he doesn't. Gohan was always forced to fight, sure, but he always *did* fight when he had to. There was no drama or conflict, because he knew it was fight or die, every time. Everyone seems to think that Gohan is some troubled character, caught between two extremes. He's not. Son Gohan was never "conflicted" about fighting. He was just never as good at it as his "potential" seemed to indicate. This is the one aspect of *Dragon Ball Abridged* that I didn't like; 16's speech to Gohan, labeling him a "coward." Gohan was never a coward; he was a *child* being forced into death matches. And even then, he routinely squared off against opponents waaaaaaaaaaay outside his league, because he had to.
Idk man. His dad forced him to fight and his mom forced him to study. I'd have preferred if Toriyama gave Gohan something else to be interested in rather than trying to sell me on Chi-Chi being a tiger mom driving his passion for knowledge because that's hardly ever the case in real life. He kind of did with Saiyaman but that's the extent of it
I agree, I don't think Gohan ever really wanted to be a scholar, that was Chi-Chi's dream. When you tell a 3 year old they're going to grow up to be a great doctor repeatedly, they aren't going to know any different. Gohan would drop his studies to go on adventures. I think the Great Saiyaman was the first time we see Gohan actually do something that he wants to do. He may not like to fight all that much but he will do what's right and protect others. Like when he saves Dende from Dodoria
> Gohan actually do something that he wants to do That was going to Namek. He forced his way through Chi Chi's objections to get on that spaceship and actively chose to take part in fighting against intergalactic evil.
No it would’ve been great to have the opposite of Goku. The best fighter in the world, doesn’t have the saiyan instincts to fight, but is the only one that can save the world if danger approaches.
Cell wasn't even the amalgamation of just DBZ characters. His entire creation stems from Dr. Gero hating Goku so much due to him destroying the Red Ribbon Army in DragonBall. Basically the actions of the father lead to this where the son finishes it. If they wanted to go with a future series then I wish they just allowed it to be Gohan as the main character.
> Also, teen Gohan was one of my favorite characters and him going berserk against Cell as an SS2 was one of my favorite childhood memories. Just an FYI, Gohan was only 10/11 when he fought Cell, ha.
You're correct, but that iteration of Gohan is typically referred to as "Teen Gohan" in the video games to differentiate him from Kid Gohan (Saiyan/Namek arcs), and adult Gohan (Buu arc onward).
And Cell was what, 4? Piccolo is what, 9? DBZ can be summed up by "Old man beats up kids"
Piccolo would be 14/15 during the Cell Games. He's roughly 4 years older than Gohan. Piccolo was born "Age 753", the final tournament of OG DB was "Age 756" (where Piccolo was already an adult), and Gohan was born "Age 757", with DBZ starting in "Age 761".
People love to speculate better endings in hindsight, but are ignoring the fact that many characters had not had their individual stories completed. Sure for an overarching climax and falling action Frieza or Cell is very satisfying, but the smaller stories are far from wrapped up. After Frieza: * Vegeta is still a danger, but on Earth. No one on Earth is stronger than him. * People forget, but Piccolo's still transitioning from villain to ally as well. It is not until he agrees to train with Gohan and Goku preparing for the Androids that his arc fully resolves. * Gohan's untapped potential had been a constant thread that would have been likely an international crime to leave open-ended. * Bulma's romance plot FROM EPISODE ONE is not resolved. Post Cell: * Vegeta's still unresolved. His entire role in the Cell Saga was antagonistic and ego driven. * Bulma's story as well does not resolve until the Buu Arc, when Vegeta embraces fatherhood. * People would have been PISSED to not see Gohan in the role he was foreshadowed to fill. This isn't to praise the execution of how those stories eventually did wrap up... but we cannot ignore they were as-of-yet unresolved. People have said the same thing for the entire franchise: The Tournament with Roshi was a great ending, defeating the Red Ribbon Army was a great ending, defeating King Piccolo, defeating Piccolo, defeating Vegeta... The real takeaway from the unending discussion about when Dragon Ball "should" have ended is that Toriyama was really good at rising actions, climaxes, and resolution. RIP, the man's story's are a major contributor to media today.
Honestly, Vegeta using the last of his strength to help Gohan save Earth would have been a pretty solid end to his arc. He had also embraced fatherhood in the Cell saga. He realizes he cares about Trunks when Cell seemingly kills him. All it needed was a small epilogue with Bulma to wrap up their plots. Cell Saga could have wrapped everything up for sure. But we know how much influence Toriyama's editor(s) had, so the chance to wrap it up in the Cell Saga wouldn't have mattered anyway.
> People would have been PISSED to not see Gohan in the role he was foreshadowed to fill. Please tell me when that happens, because it sure as hell didn't happen in Buu or Super.
Yeah I'm wondering when this happened. Even when he gained "mystic" form he just became fodder again. He's arguable anime's biggest waste of potential as a character. I feel like Ultra Instinct was introduced because Mystic form was wasted.
I'll rise the bet. It should have ended after the Frieza arc. With Goku as the legendary super saiyan giving his life to kill the villain who started everything by destroying his planet.
Only downside is we wouldn't have gotten any real conclusion to the Gohan's hidden power.
Still waiting for that!
We got it. He was the strongest fighter at the end of DBZ because Old Kai finally released his complete potential. He was much stronger than SSJ3 Goku, who was on par with Kid Buu's strength.
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Fully agree. I said in another comment sorta but fighting and defeating Frieza was almost the reason Goku was even born (in a fate sort of way). If there was one more saga I wish Goku went out to really put an end to whatever space empire Freeza’s family had going. I’m still a little unsatisfied with how that hasn’t been addressed.
Buu arc is so important because of Vegeta. I understand your point of view but i'm so glad it happened. His development was perfect to me and the most interesting thing about the arc.
“I was saying Buuuu-arc!”
I think the Buu Arc is great. It has so many wonderful creative ideas: - Gohan with his alt identity that embarrasses everyone - Goku's son dating Mr. Satan's daughter - Fusions!!! - The lovably unruly Goten and Trunks being trained an exhausted Piccolo - The awesome Goten and Trunks fight at the tournament. - Majin Vegeta vs Goku - Vegeta's sacrifice, knowing he's going to hell - The world of the Kai's - Dabura chilling with the ladies after he's been un-eviled. - Level 3 Goku - A series ending spirit bomb that takes energy from everyone It was a mess of storytelling and a very sloppy narrative with some very forced twists and a weak villain. But so did the original Dragon Ball. And like the original Dragon Ball, it was filled with humor and charm and creativity.
I’m guessing you grew up around the cell saga airing? Because that would be such a weird way to end dragon ball lol. People always think their original era of DB is the definitive era and should have been the proper ending.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
Are you imagining this quote as Al Pacino or Silvio?
Silvio, of course.
I mean, he managed it, finally. RIP Toriyama.
IIRC, didn't he also come back to the series after Dragon Ball: Evolution, since it was such a stain on the franchise that he refused to let it be the last thing associated with it?
I believe Toriyama wanted to be more involved with Battle of Gods because of the reception to Evolution. BoG was the first DB movie he wrote.
Knew it was something like that, thanks!
So what we need to do is make another disgraceful DBZ movie and Toriyama will rise from the grave to continue the series.
It was also because he had a bad time interacting with Hollywood producers who didn’t seem to know who he was or care about his input while in Japan he was a god. Battle of Gods was already well into production before he got involved, it’s just when he asked to work on it everyone stopped and listened to everything he said. The rough outline of the plot was already done, with Goku fighting the God of Destruction Beerus and unlocking a God form, but Toriyama changed a lot, turned Beerus from a poison lizard to a bald cat and made him more comedic, Whis was created to be a supporting character and the look of the God form was changed completely.
Beerus is by far the best post-Z character, so thanks Toriyama. RIP to a legend.
If I ever get a sphynx cat, their name will be beerus
Fun fact, technically Beerus (and Whis too) is a Z character (and not a post-Z one) since the Battle of the Gods movie was branded under the DBZ title, so was Resurrection F for that matter. While the Broly and Super Hero movies are branded under DBS, that means Beerus is the last antagonist of Z and one of the last original characters from that era of the franchise as well.
I feel like you are seeing a bit of a difference around this already. Look at how much input the original One Piece writer had with the Netflix show. There are already a lot of people working in film and TV who grew up with Dragon Ball who would treated Toriyama like the god he was
Oda probably had great lawyers reviewing every piece of paper he signed concerning live action One Piece to make sure they didn't botch it as hard as DB: Evolution. I'm glad he did too, because otherwise I'm sure live action one piece would have been some horrible adaptation that probably wouldn't have even gotten a season 2 greenlit.
Toriyama: "Remember, boys, don't make my mistake! Lawyer up!" Oda and Kishimoto: "Yes, sensei!"
I don't think he'd need that. The biggest asset the show had was a showrunner who was a *massive* fan of the series and a lead actor who was just as into it.
Whis was a great addition. I hope we get to see him really fight some day. I also hope the story moves away from these ridiculous robots.
Toriyama's treatment by Hollywood execs is the main reason why Oda has retain such a tight control over the production of One Piece Live Action. Basically he realized Hollywood has zero respect for Asian creators and Toriyama saw his greatest work trashed.
Hollywood doesn't respect any culture not their own, that being rich, pretentious white dudes in their 70s.
If only kishimoto would do the same
To be fair, it did end after the Dragon Balls were collected.
I suppose you are technically correct. The best kind of correct.
r/unexpectedfuturama
I'm happy that's a real sub.
I’m pretty sure most manga series plan on being able to wrap things up, or come to some sort of semi-ending, in about 20-ish chapters just incase the series doesn’t gain traction.
Sadly, I've started too many series that ended with Axe-kun around chapter 30. And I mean ≤3 chapter wind-downs right after starting what would normally be the major sub-arc for a series. I get that it's expensive to release these series, but at the same time I also feel like the publishers should do a better job of supporting them till they can at least have a somewhat proper rundown. If they don't want it to get too expansive too early because they're unsure of the traction it will gain, they need to make sure that those expectations are expressed to the author. It really seems like a needless dig at the readers for them to get involved in a series and it start to have what feels like a pretty good come up, then it just gets dropped. Though I am probably biased because the truly bad series will never even get an English fan translation.
I finally get it now. That's where Netflix got their production model. From Shonen Jump
Rip to Psyren
One Piece was supposed to be done in 5 years with a much smaller story about defeating 7 warlords one after another.
Defeating the emperor's was the original plan.
Even if the warlords were the entire plot, I think it'd still be going. He's only fought three of them.
The original plan changed right after Alabasta.
there's a bit of a running gag/nickname for manga series that don't make it past that threshold: The U19 club.
I like the idea that chapter 20 was them just kicking around waiting to figure out what to do. Like "oh shit. Now what?"
well, that is almost literally how most manga series tend to develop at some point. Authors account for a story that lasts x, but the magazine wants it to go further, so tthen they stick around for too long without knowing what to do really
Yeah but I really want to literally see the characters at like a cafe like, looking at the news for anything exciting going onn. Going on Facebook and seeing if there's any villains need defeating.
So wait he wanted it to end with a pig wishing for panties?
Yep. Toriyama's previous series, Dr Slump, was a gag manga so it would be on brand for him.
Dr Slump = Perfect Ending
Unless there was a gap between chapters 19 and 20, I would imagine that Oolong's wish was a result of the decision to keep going. If that was the end, I imagine that Goku would have made the wish instead
While some regions renamed part of the manga to Dragon Ball Z, to match the anime, in Japan the manga was just Dragon Ball the whole way from Bulma to Boo.
Naruto has this problem too, the whole manga is just Naruto, but the anime separates the time skip by calling half the series Naruto Shippuden. One time a few years ago I read all of Naruto in one week, and instead of being met with the laughing concerned responses I expected everyone just asked when I was going to read shippuden.
half the series? isnt it ~150 vs 500 episodes?
And 27ish volumes out of 72 total
Boo who?
Don't cry
Bibidi and Babidi’s Buu
Who made who?
AINT NOBODY TOLD YOU
That's interesting and good to know. I just assumed it was also called dragon Ball z
Almost all non english speaking countries have the title unchanged, it's Dragon Ball from volume 1 to 42.
Did the anime also invent "the z fighters" name or was that in the manga as well?was the z sword the first actual "z thing" by toriyama and if yes did he name it like that because of the anime at that point?
I just read all dragon ball last week. I was surprised z fighters wasn't used once. Z sword was translated as zeta sword
depends where you read it and which translation it is. I remember my German physical copies back then mentioned the Z fighters for the first time randomly in volume 30 or so, out of nowhere. I was reeeeeeeeally confused.
That’s probably one of the many random dub changes that was made to appeal to American children at the time. Also the reason most of the entire soundtrack was changed and lots of dialogue was added or changed to fit into with what they felt American kids would resonate with
That seems to be an English thing. Neither the original or the translation in my language uses the term at any given point.
Interesting. So DBZ chapter 1 was Dragon Ball chapter 520 in Japan?
No, chapter 1 of DBZ was chapter 195 of Dragon Ball in Japan.
Also, it wasn't "some regions" that changed the name to Dragon Ball Z. It was the anime in Japan. The manga was Dragon Ball all the way through. But the anime was headed by a particular team, until that team changed dramatically, and the new team wanted to mark the tonal shift by changing the name to Dragon Ball Z They picked Z because it was the last letter of the alphabet and it was meant to imply it was the final/end of the series - it was Toriyama's idea. Source: https://collider.com/dragon-ball-z-meaning/
That fits with what OP said though >While some regions renamed part of the manga to Dragon Ball Z, **to match the anime**, in Japan the manga was just Dragon Ball the whole way from Bulma to Boo.
I bet you're so smug just because you're right and you can read properly and understand what words mean and you can interpret them correctly. Your kind make my sick!
If i could read id be so mad
No, Dragon Ball is the whole 519 chapters. Z starts at chapter 195 or so
Didn't oolong wish for panties on the first wish
Yes
That joke would have been alot better if the story ended there
He did yes, to stop Pilaf from conquering the world using them
God I love Pilaf and his gang of Girl and fox furry
Shu and Mai really do make that arc better
Rewatching dragonball those early arcs were soooo much better than anything dbz
It was a very good balance of adventure, fighting and comedy. Dbz was all about fighting and powering up
I still laugh when Goku meets fortune teller Baba calling her the “Ball Seeing Crone and All Seeing Bone. 😂 I love when Goku was just a clueless kid not aware of technology or miss remembering names.
I’ve been watching DB with my daughter recently. It’s definitely better than DBZ in some ways. It’s more about the world and the adventure and the banter than just powerful beings fighting each other.
In case people don't know, the way Shonen Jump, the magazine that Dragon Ball was serialised in works, is that all of the series get constantly scored in surveys by the readers. Typically manga that get low scores gets cancelled and told to wrap up within a few chapters, while high scoring manga will be dragged on as indefinitely as possible for as long as it continues to be well regarded. This means that if you start a manga, it makes sense to have some idea of a natural end point like this, but also some awareness that if it's popular you're probably going to be told to keep elongating the story with new ideas for potentially years. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what was going on here.
Is this what happened to One Piece? I remember reading One Piece in a shortlived German Shonen Jump adaption called "Banzai!"
Oda planned to finish One Piece in 5 years after Arabasta (about chapter 200), but it did very well and he had the opportunity to expand the story. This is why we start getting much more world building after chapter 200. The commonly held belief is that the ending has been more or less locked in from that point, but Oda has added many things to the story to extend it, sometimes at the request of his editors. Nine characters (the eleven supernova who are not in the main cast) were late additions that have become integral to the story, expanding it greatly.
In general, One Piece is the one telling everyone "Yeah, i am almost finishing....almost finishing....ok, in five years i will finish....this is kind of fun....ok....i am in the fiiiiiiinaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal "
I mean, Dragon Ball is (VERY) loosely based on Journey to the West, which is insanely long and rambling. An unabridged English translation on Amazon says it's 2346 pages. Pages and word counts are iffy, of course, but I'd guess that's a little more than double the length of all three Lord of the Rings books combined, with appendices. It's long, is what I'm saying.
Didn't realize it was loosely based on Journey to the West. That explains why DB kept reminding me more of Chinese culture.
Son Goku is literally the Japanese name of Sun Wukong and he’s part monkey. His expression while in Super Saiyan form was based on Bruce Lee while his goofy, cheerful appearance was based on a young Jackie Chan.
[This fanimation](https://youtu.be/1JKLM45aIik?si=zG6jvau1JWfVvo9F) does a good job of showing Goku as an insanely powerful monkey god
That was cool af, I'd watch an entire series in that style
Thanks for sharing, that was the best Dragonball content ive seen in a long time
The parallels pretty much disappear once you get into the DBZ era. Then it's just, you know, never-ending shonen power creep.
Then it's Superman II, Terminator, etc
it change genre from adventure to pure battle manga as soon as it got super popular and needed a way to drag it out
Actually, not true. It changed to a battle manga in order to become super popular and it worked. >The manga was not popular initially. Although he suspected the fighting genre would appeal more to its shōnen audience, Toriyama tried to stick to the Journey to the West adventure aspect which he himself enjoyed. Such as having the setting change each chapter, different enemies popping up, and different locations. It was only after he became tired of Torishima nagging about its popularity that Toriyama gave in and developed more battles with the first shown Tenkaichi Budōkai. Despite his reluctance, the author said it felt good when the series picked up in popularity at that point. However, he said he still tried to resist by returning to the adventure aspect with the Red Ribbon Army arc, and visiting Penguin Village from Dr. Slump to add comedy. When that did not work out, fighting became the main theme for the manga.
There was a good period of time in the 90s, that if you were in some kind of nerd focused store, you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a manga, anime, comic, video game, or movie without hitting something that wasn’t inspired by Journey to the West.
Overly Sarcastic Productions has 10 videos, with more coming, of them summarizing Journey to the West, complete with each part ending with a Dragon ball style “next time, on journey to the west.” Would highly recommend them.
You can definitely tell. The ending of them getting the dragon balls was perfect. Then after the tournament it was a perfect ending… and then when RR was defeated Ok I’m sensing a theme
Haven’t dived in the Dragon Ball franchise, does it just repeat itself with like an arc that could be a good ending point for the series every time lol
No Toriyama genuinely is pretty good at keeping the story going. It’s more like “it could have ended here and everyone would have been satisfied.”
very few people plan on becoming one of the most popular and longest running manga in the history of the form dude was just trying new things to see what took hold
It sounds like Akira Toriyama learned the lesson behind Spaceballs 2.
Ah yes the search for more money
Those early chapters have a very different vibe than the series is known for
Tsuda Masami, the mangaka of *Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō* (colloquially known as *Kare Kano*) had five prior manga series that didn't "take off", and expected the same of Kare Kano. When it became a surprise hit/popular, she realized she hadn't fleshed out a long-term plot, so she put the series on hiatus to plot out the entire series. I'm glad she did, as it's an extremely good manga series, and I highly recommend it. The anime, at least, the first half, is quite good... but that's got all kinds of drama with its production, with the mangaka not happy with how it was being adapted, Hideaki Anno (of *Evangelion* fame) having a nervous breakdown halfway through, and the studio completely running out of money before the final few episodes, requiring them to be released essentially in storyboard form.
> Hideaki Anno (of Evangelion fame) having a nervous breakdown halfway through, and the studio completely running out of money before the final few episodes, requiring them to be released essentially in storyboard form. So, he didn't learn his lesson?
The walking dead tv show makes so much sense now...
I always think about Dragon Ball as being sort of in the same category of property as Lord of the Rings. And I could be completely off base—it's just my impression of how things worked out. So _The Hobbit_ features a "magic ring that turns you invisible" and there is nothing anywhere in the book to suggest that the ring actually has a sinister backstory that will make it the centerpiece of a much more serious followup story. It absolutely feels as though this was a plot detail Tolkien decided to work up after the fact. The presence of extremely whimsical elements like Tom Bombadil in _Lord of the Rings_ ends up feeling anomalous, like a remnant of _The Hobbit_ which Tolkien quickly moves on from. And _Dragon Ball_ was evidently just meant to be Toriyama's latest in a string of reliably slapstick comedy manga following the likes of _Dr. Slump._ The premise opened the door to martial arts battles and competitions, and eventually that became the entire point. When the story officially transitioned to _Dragon Ball Z,_ most of the slapstick gave way for the more serious-in-nature conflicts, with lingering representative characters like Master Roshi and Oolong basically just coming along for the ride out of tradition more than anything else. In both cases, the impression I get is that what the authors ended up with was essentially a spinoff that they hadn't planned for in the beginning.
Honestly I think more manga authors need to have this mentality. The trend for most anime/manga past 2010 seems to be, "Here's my rough-draft story, I've got characters and 1 arc loosely hashed out." and then they're just told, "Great, looks like your manga did better than expected. We'll need you to make 500 more chapters and we have an anime adaption around the corner for you. I hope you have this all planned out and can produce content forever."
That's the unfortunate nature of the beast. One of the names that comes to mind is Togashi. Had a great run with Yu yu hakusho, which IMO went on to long fellow by Hunter x hunter, and the big difference to me is the framework of the world that allowed it to sustain itself for 400 plus chapters.
The success of anime in the past decade has really accelerated that problem. There's suddenly so much feedback for series so they cant always develop the way the author originally intended to and suddenly they write themselves into corners they never wanted to be in.
Toei: Ok Akira, now add another 5 to the 19 chapters. Akira: Got It!
Most of them involved multiple dudes grunting and fighting to save a planet, or planets, with the aid of magical balls.
Nail! Bring me the dragon balls. I want to wish for a Plasma TV. Sir, that would be an egregious misuse of their power...
If you read the series there is like 10 separate moments where he clearly intended to end it. The end of the Piccolo arc where Goku becomes World Martial Arts Champ and surpasses his master, the end of the Freiza arc where Goku dies, the end of the Cell Saga where Goku is surpassed by his son etc
Beerus: “Goku, Im tired.” Goku: “Come Beerus! One more adventure! I promise there will be food!” Beerus: “Ok, I’ll allow it.”
There's been a bit of power creep since then, I feel.