What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

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What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by dbgtFO » Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:42 am

So during the original run of the series, specifically in the Z portion of the series, on a few occasions the movies would debut a concept, before Toriyama had the chance to properly do so.

This isn't just like Toei creating Dr. Frappe to give Android #8 some backstory in a story that was over and done with only to be later contradicted by the existence of Dr. Gero.

This is Toei actually taking a concept such as "The Legendary Super Saiyan" and putting it Z movie 4, before Toriyama would properly introduce it himself in the manga and then with a different design.

It happens on two more occasions with Dende bizzarely being Earth's God in Z movie 6 and Goku and Vegeta fusing in Z movie 12.

At the time of writing we unfortunately only have Toriyama commenting on Gogeta's appearance in #12, explaing that he wanted to use him, but since Toei was also making a movie with that Fusion in the climax, he decided otherwise and came up with Potara merging.

This meant a decision in a movie(that came out way after Vegetto debuted in the manga mind you) actually had such an influence on what the author felt he should put on the page.

The Dende thing unfortunately doesn't have an official explanation, so we can only speculate that Toei staff knew from Toriyama in advance, that Dende would take over the mantle as Earth's God and thus put him in movie 6 for whatever reason(a hint of the future?).

But it is just weird, that it was even a thing to have these concepts and ideas introduced in the movies first, before they were properly debuted in the original material, especially with Super Saiyan, because the manga was always going to introduce that, as soon as the characters started blabbing about "Legendary Super Saiyan!"

It just doesn't seem as well coordinated, as I would expect, when it comes to these multimedia franchises, so are there similar examples in other anime, movies etc.
Anyone with some insight into how common this is in the industry?
Discuss.

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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by Luso Saiyan » Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:46 am

There's also the Bardock TV Special, which inspired Toriyama to visually reference Bardock's last stand in the manga (although the character itself had already been established to look like Goku).

How common is it? It's not uncommon for artists to avoid doing what's been done by someone else, even though I'd prefer if they stick to their original intentions. And it's an inherent risk of franchised material, specially when the source is not finished and is still on-going.

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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by Koitsukai » Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:35 am

I gotta say, using that fake SS, be it a mistake or not, worked. It didn't spoil us the actual SS transformation.

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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by Lord Beerus » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:13 am

It's all a marketing technique. Toei have to come up with a way to sell the movie and the most convenient and practical way of doing so was to piggyback off the most successful concepts that came from the manga at the time (e.g. legendary Super Saiyan, Freeza's family, the Red Ribbon Army androids, Fusion etc.).

And it worked. The Broly movies, Cooler movies, Android 13, 14 & 15 movie and the Gogeta movie were all the highest-grossing Dragon Ball movies before Battle Of Gods.

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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:18 am

The Gogeta thing just seems like Toei and Toriyama independently coming up with the same conclusion; If Trunks and Goten could fuse why not have their dads fuse? And Gogeta is like the super obvious name to go with. Like if Goku and Vegeta never fused in any version of the story or games I'm sure that would be the name most fans would have picked for their fanart. Not surprising the ptb at Toei came up with the same name Toriyama was planning on using without knowing he was planning on using that name.

The Dende thing probably was Toriyama telling Toei in advance what he had planned. In the manga Piccolo and Kami had assimilated with each other again like two months before movie 6 came out Toei was probably trying to set the movie after the Artifical Human arc but lacked the foreknowledge that it would end with Goku dead and Gohan reaching Super Saiyan 1 and 2.


And the Super Saiyan thing in Z movie 4 seemed like a marketing ploy to get butts in seat while also being careful to not step on Toriyama's toes once he properly introduces Super Saiyan. The movie does make sure to have Kaio note he wasn't sure if it was Super Saiyan or not and Goku only does it briefly.
Last edited by MasenkoHA on Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by theherodjl » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:19 am

Toriyama & Toei have always had a bit of a different take on DB. Toei certainly depicted longer and flashier scenarios as well as shown off various characters more often while Toriyama on the other hand, kept things a little more tight knit and wrapped up stories a lot faster by comparison. I wouldn't say that Toei necessarily 'stole' the manga's thunder but offered a variant of DB that could be viewed as satisfying the desires of fans that wanted to see a wider exploration of the series. The manga still had plenty of room to go in it's own direction at whatever pace it wanted to which, the anime could later build off from and expand in it's own right.
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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by Jord » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:32 am

Koitsukai wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:35 am I gotta say, using that fake SS, be it a mistake or not, worked. It didn't spoil us the actual SS transformation.
"Fake SS" even looked a whole lot better than "real SS" imo.

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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by Koitsukai » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:52 am

Mistare Fusion has a video about Gogeta and Vegito. So, Toei stole the name from Toriyama, Tori had no choice but to name the potara fusion Vegito instead of Gogeta.

Wait, I'm not so sure now, so take it with a grain of salt.

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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by VegettoEX » Wed Aug 10, 2022 11:23 am

Koitsukai wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:52 am Mistare Fusion has a video about Gogeta and Vegito. So, Toei stole the name from Toriyama, Tori had no choice but to name the potara fusion Vegito instead of Gogeta.

Wait, I'm not so sure now, so take it with a grain of salt.
I'll just steal our (forthcoming...) wiki write-up (which is why you'll see citation notes/numbers in there):
The idea for fusion in the Dragon Ball series was suggested by Masakazu Katsura, fellow manga artist and friend to Akira Toriyama, who was struggling with a way to power-up his heroes beyond the (by then) traditional and standard Super Saiyan transformations.[9] Gotenks, a fusion of Son Goten and the present-timeline Trunks, debuts in chapter 480 of the manga, originally serialized in July 1994.

The twelfth Dragon Ball Z film — The Rebirth of Fusion!! Goku and Vegeta, written by Takao Koyama and directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi with character designs by Tadayoshi Yamamuro — debuted in March 1995 featuring Gogeta, the dance-fusion combination of Goku and Vegeta.

Due to this usage of fusion in the film, Toriyama once again struggled with what to do in the manga, ultimately using the Kaiōshin earrings — up to that point simply drawn as decoration — as another fusion method.[9] From this, Vegetto was created, debuting in chapter 503 of the manga in January 1995. Promotional splash text at the bottom of chapter 503 states that the reader would see the birth of "Gogeta" in the following chapter, though the character explicitly names himself "Vegetto" (ベジット Bejiitto) in the next chapter; it is unknown whether this was a misprint, a last-minute name change decision, etc. Said text is present in the original Weekly Shōnen Jump 1995 No. 7 issue as well as volume 18 of the Dragon Ball manga's "Digest Edition" (Sōshūhen) re-release from January 2017.[10][11]

In addition to the standard, "complete" fusion, two "failed" versions were also developed and designed: a "fat" version and a "skinny" version.[7][12] The fat version is labeled as the 失敗作(ベクウ) version — literally the "Failed Work (Veku)" version[7] — while the skinny version is also noted as a version of Veku.[12] The fat version does appear in the twelfth Dragon Ball Z film, though the skinny version does not. Both the fat and skinny versions do make appearances in the 2018 theatrical film Dragon Ball Super: Broly.
Video I made showing the "Gogeta" text reference-

https://twitter.com/kanzenshuu/status/1 ... 9939484682
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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by MCDaveG » Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:41 pm

I wouldn't say that Gogeta was concept from Toriyama done before... as it was pretty much the same fusion and almost the same look as Gotenks.

Dr. Frappe is a funny occasion, but I wonder about Dende being guardian. Do we have some hard data on that, like the manga debuting before, or Toriyama sending notes or the storyboard around that time?

Also, besides Toriyama commenting that the movies are basically the same world in different dimension from the manga (and by extension, anime), I am curious how did TOEI production team thought about the movie's settings in the timeline, if ever, or if they just basically took the ''best of elements'' of what was happening in the series at that time, without thinking at all and basically ran it as a condensed promo version of the series. Basically a What If sorts of. I guess the second approach is probably the one.
VegettoEX wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 11:23 am
Koitsukai wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:52 am Mistare Fusion has a video about Gogeta and Vegito. So, Toei stole the name from Toriyama, Tori had no choice but to name the potara fusion Vegito instead of Gogeta.

Wait, I'm not so sure now, so take it with a grain of salt.
I'll just steal our (forthcoming...) wiki write-up (which is why you'll see citation notes/numbers in there):
The idea for fusion in the Dragon Ball series was suggested by Masakazu Katsura, fellow manga artist and friend to Akira Toriyama, who was struggling with a way to power-up his heroes beyond the (by then) traditional and standard Super Saiyan transformations.[9] Gotenks, a fusion of Son Goten and the present-timeline Trunks, debuts in chapter 480 of the manga, originally serialized in July 1994.

The twelfth Dragon Ball Z film — The Rebirth of Fusion!! Goku and Vegeta, written by Takao Koyama and directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi with character designs by Tadayoshi Yamamuro — debuted in March 1995 featuring Gogeta, the dance-fusion combination of Goku and Vegeta.

Due to this usage of fusion in the film, Toriyama once again struggled with what to do in the manga, ultimately using the Kaiōshin earrings — up to that point simply drawn as decoration — as another fusion method.[9] From this, Vegetto was created, debuting in chapter 503 of the manga in January 1995. Promotional splash text at the bottom of chapter 503 states that the reader would see the birth of "Gogeta" in the following chapter, though the character explicitly names himself "Vegetto" (ベジット Bejiitto) in the next chapter; it is unknown whether this was a misprint, a last-minute name change decision, etc. Said text is present in the original Weekly Shōnen Jump 1995 No. 7 issue as well as volume 18 of the Dragon Ball manga's "Digest Edition" (Sōshūhen) re-release from January 2017.[10][11]

In addition to the standard, "complete" fusion, two "failed" versions were also developed and designed: a "fat" version and a "skinny" version.[7][12] The fat version is labeled as the 失敗作(ベクウ) version — literally the "Failed Work (Veku)" version[7] — while the skinny version is also noted as a version of Veku.[12] The fat version does appear in the twelfth Dragon Ball Z film, though the skinny version does not. Both the fat and skinny versions do make appearances in the 2018 theatrical film Dragon Ball Super: Broly.
Video I made showing the "Gogeta" text reference-

https://twitter.com/kanzenshuu/status/1 ... 9939484682
Maybe the name change happened because of Toriyama, as stated in one interview that I read here on Kanzenshuu of course, starting to work on storyboard up to the final inking two days before each deadline :lol:
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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:19 pm

MCDaveG wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:41 pm .

Dr. Frappe is a funny occasion, but I wonder about Dende being guardian. Do we have some hard data on that, like the manga debuting before, or Toriyama sending notes or the storyboard around that time?
:
https://www.kanzenshuu.com/manga/db/cell/

The movie came out days after chapter 363 where Piccolo is still fighting Imperfect Cell. Dende became God 7 months later https://www.kanzenshuu.com/manga/chp-393/.

Either A. Toei made a lucky guess B. Toriyama gave them the heads up C. Toei just decided to make Dende God in the movie and Toriyama shrugged his shoulders and said "That's not a bad idea" and followed suit.

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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by MCDaveG » Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:23 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:19 pm
MCDaveG wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:41 pm .

Dr. Frappe is a funny occasion, but I wonder about Dende being guardian. Do we have some hard data on that, like the manga debuting before, or Toriyama sending notes or the storyboard around that time?
:
https://www.kanzenshuu.com/manga/db/cell/

The movie came out days after chapter 363 where Piccolo is still fighting Imperfect Cell. Dende became God 7 months later https://www.kanzenshuu.com/manga/chp-393/.

Either A. Toei made a lucky guess B. Toriyama gave them the heads up C. Toei just decided to make Dende God in the movie and Toriyama shrugged his shoulders and said "That's not a bad idea" and followed suit.
Cool, thanks for the info. Might be interesting to make a list of occasions in anime, both TV and movies, where TOEI jumped the gun and made some plot choices, concepts or explanations before Toriyama.
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Re: What is up with the Z movies at times stealing the manga's thunder?

Post by Saiya6Cit » Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:02 pm

Nah

I don't know if other anime does it cause I haven't watched any anime since Bleach ended the arrancar Saga...
And in regards to that topic the only thing I can really say is that I have accepted the fact that dragon ball and the anime industry the author is not the only one who has a creative decision, probably not even comics do, only books may have that and they are still subject to censorship...

All fans must accept that movies are some sort of an alternative universe.

What you mentioned as OP is correct tough

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