WI: Dragon Ball more similar to Akira Toriyama's early draft(s) for the series than what we got IRL?

Neoteros

Neoteros

From TV Tropes:

The original pilot for the manga, and for the series as a whole, was called "Dragon Boy". Its hero, Tanton, was a boy with bat wings that would evolve into the monkey-tailed Goku. The pilot interestingly featured an artifact called a Dragon Ball, but it was pretty useless (all it did was release a puny dragon). The story was also much more heavily based on Journey to the West than the actual printed Dragon Ball was/is, and had Tanton escorting a princess that strongly resembles Bulma back home to her country. When the story ends, the heroes still had nine-tenths of the way to go. Just think of all that could have been here...
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What if the late Akira Toriyama had fleshed out this early draft, rather than changing it into what would've become Dragon Ball? While it's very likely it would've become a hit in East Asia anyway - it'd be Dr. Slump crossed with Journey to the West, after all - would it have become a hit elsewhere, as Dragon Ball did? While those countries that got the early, kid Goku-focused episodes before Dragon Ball Z in OTL might still end up liking it, since Dragon Boy wouldn't be that different from early Dragon Ball, the series exploded in overseas popularity after its genre shift.

What do you think?
 

Sonny912

Neoteros said:
From TV Tropes:



What if the late Akira Toriyama had fleshed out this early draft, rather than changing it into what would've become Dragon Ball? While it's very likely it would've become a hit in East Asia anyway - it'd be Dr. Slump crossed with Journey to the West, after all - would it have become a hit elsewhere, as Dragon Ball did? While those countries that got the early, kid Goku-focused episodes before Dragon Ball Z in OTL might still end up liking it, since Dragon Boy wouldn't be that different from early Dragon Ball, the series exploded in overseas popularity after its genre shift.

What do you think?
Click to expand...
That's the late GREAT Akira Toriyama.
 
Neoteros

Neoteros

Sonny912 said:
That's the late GREAT Akira Toriyama.
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For sure - as much as the series kind of lost the plot later on (due to Toriyama's publishing house for the most part, the man himself had other ideas), he made the childhood and adolescence of a whole generation, over here.
 

Nivek

Neoteros said:
From TV Tropes:



What if the late Akira Toriyama had fleshed out this early draft, rather than changing it into what would've become Dragon Ball? While it's very likely it would've become a hit in East Asia anyway - it'd be Dr. Slump crossed with Journey to the West, after all - would it have become a hit elsewhere, as Dragon Ball did? While those countries that got the early, kid Goku-focused episodes before Dragon Ball Z in OTL might still end up liking it, since Dragon Boy wouldn't be that different from early Dragon Ball, the series exploded in overseas popularity after its genre shift.

What do you think?
Click to expand...
Dragon Ball as we got OTL was the evolution of fist of the North Star (gritty battle series) and Karate King(tournament arcs), if Toriyama won the pulse over their editor and Dragon ball is a more goofball action adventures series(for example, DB become hella serious after Tao Pai Pai killed Bora, upa father, and them even more when Tamborine killed krilin) them become full FOTNS with the adult arc(Z anime), if not, if will be popular, BUT NOT THE MOLD SJ PUSHED, yuyu hakushu might be more mystery, if anything Jojo is now the successor of FOTNS and JOJO was very comical too
 
Neoteros

Neoteros

Nivek said:
Dragon Ball as we got OTL was the evolution of fist of the North Star (gritty battle series) and Karate King(tournament arcs), if Toriyama won the pulse over their editor and Dragon ball is a more goofball action adventures series(for example, DB become hella serious after Tao Pai Pai killed Bora, upa father, and them even more when Tamborine killed krilin) them become full FOTNS with the adult arc(Z anime), if not, if will be popular, BUT NOT THE MOLD SJ PUSHED, yuyu hakushu might be more mystery, if anything Jojo is now the successor of FOTNS and JOJO was very comical too
Click to expand...

It'd be possible for it to become more serious even while avoiding a complete genre shift - maybe, after the Journey to the West arc is wrapped up (something that almost happened IRL, with Toriyama wanting to end the series shortly after the completion of the search of the titular dragon balls, so here it'd be alt-Bulma reaching her destination), rather than make stuff up completely, Toriyama decides to riff on yet another Chinese classic for the second arc - maybe, when they reach that foreign country, the protagonists find out that it's fallen to a civil war, with three separate wannabe emperors claiming the throne... :p
 

Nivek

Neoteros said:
It'd be possible for it to become more serious even while avoiding a complete genre shift - maybe, after the Journey to the West arc is wrapped up (something that almost happened IRL, with Toriyama wanting to end the series shortly after the completion of the search of the titular dragon balls, so here it'd be alt-Bulma reaching her destination), rather than make stuff up completely, Toriyama decides to riff on yet another Chinese classic for the second arc - maybe, when they reach that foreign country, the protagonists find out that it's fallen to a civil war, with three separate wannabe emperors claiming the throne... :p
Click to expand...

And later on they have to stop some 'gods' meddling with the new emperor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investiture_of_the_Gods that might butterfly away https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoshin_Engi

BUT That's a brilliant idea, using Dragon Boy/Ball to parodied/play the Chinese classics...that would be fun
 
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