Do colors matter?

[EXBadguy]

I know a similar topic was made before, but that was only about Trunks' hair in Super. In this one, we can talk about the colors in all of the media that were changed overtime. So after years of having consistent colors of specific outfits, beams, hair, and etc., do you feel bothered that they have been changed for no reason?

Myself, I am most of the time. I am a firm believer of keeping things consistent when it comes to everything, especially for things that were set in stone for many years, only to be changed and/or retconned for no reason. Aside from Trunks hair in Super, I was also bothered about the beam colors changing like the Galick Gun in GT changed from purple to blue(way to change the difference between a Kamehameha and a Galick Gun, Toei!), or in some of the games, the beams colors don't follow with the show and/or manga such as Tien's Tri Beam in Xenoverse or Frieza's Death Beam in the Budokai Tenkaichi series. Now there are a few times where I let it slide, only because it looked better and fitted into it's power like SSJ4 Goku's 10x Kamehamhea.

Now what really will be the last straw is if they changed the Kamehameha beam color from blue to green or another.

[rereboy]

Colors matter when the series itself gives importance to them. And the series has given incredible importance to hair color, especially now that there is more than one transformation that changes hair color.

So, the Trunks situation, especially since it was so easy to avoid, is just... stupid.

[SSJ Human]

The only reason people are even acting that way is due to us being familiar with Future Trunks' old hair color. They're surprised by change.

[DragonBallFoodie]

I think in Japanese culture color matters, as it represents rankings as follows:

red - first place and best.
blue - second place and best.
green - third place and best

In this order, Goku, Vegeta and Gohan wear these colors prominently. Goku started out wearing a blue suit, but he eventually upgraded to a red-orange dogi.


Beyond that, as long as characters/attacks stay fairly the same and color is a part of that, then it matters. It's all opinion here.

[Metalwario64]

The only reason people are even acting that way is due to us being familiar with Future Trunks' old hair color. They're surprised by change.

It's a pointless change that contradicts the character's appearance throughout the entirety of Z.

[SSJ Human]

The only reason people are even acting that way is due to us being familiar with Future Trunks' old hair color. They're surprised by change.

It's a pointless change that contradicts the character's appearance throughout the entirety of Z.

Yeah I don't get it either but it doesn't take away from the story.

[EXBadguy]

The only reason people are even acting that way is due to us being familiar with Future Trunks' old hair color. They're surprised by change.

It's a pointless change that contradicts the character's appearance throughout the entirety of Z.

Yeah I don't get it either but it doesn't take away from the story.

Some color changes in some way do take away some stuff from the story. Trunks' hair color in Super takes away his iconic unique-ness into the family. Would you like it if Goten's Kamehameha is a different color from the rest for no reason? Maybe it'd make sense if Gohan's Kamehameha color was different, 'cause he's the first half-Saiyan, but if it's only Goten, that'd be a problem.

[Bansho64]

It really does matter for me. Trunks' hair color has been a bit of a staple for the character. He was the mysterious purple-haired from the future when we saw him and and I don't see a reason why they would change it in the first place. It just feels so redundant to me. But it's not THAT big of a deal to me. Besides, that's not even the biggest problem I have with his appearance. It's his freaking muscle mass that set me off. Or to be specific, that lack of muscle mass. What the heck happened to that!?

[Snow_Lilies]

To an extent, sure. Abilities should keep the same color for the most part unless there's some different attribute about them that changes their nature in some way. In terms of recognition, hand positions are the wind up and colors are the follow-through. If it were to suddenly be different, I'd probably wonder for a bit whether or not that color change was a significant detail I was supposed to note for story purposes. By keeping things mostly consistent, contrast can be used to great effect to signal a change to the viewer that "this is important". That technique loses its effectiveness if the viewer finds the visual information to be unreliable.

I don't think Dragon Ball has jumped the shark in this regard despite finding Trunks's hair color change to be somewhat bizarre, especially after we just got introduced to a blue-haired transformation. I mean, it is what it is. It's not going to keep me from watching the show. I do miss the subtle violet though.

(Also funnily enough, in my Digest Editions, I've noticed that in the 21st TB, Nam's sash is purple on one page and blue on the next. Part of me wonders if the staff/Toriyama have reduced blue sensitivity, but it made me laugh after the whole Trunks thing.)

[Soppa Saia People]

Tbh, if they changed Trunk's hair to blue, they should have changed Bulma's hair to purple. But I do agree that it was a dumb, pointless change.

Now what really will be the last straw is if they changed the Kamehameha beam color from blue to green or another.

Funnily enough, it's mostly yellow in the manga.

[EXBadguy]

Tbh, if they changed Trunk's hair to blue, they should have changed Bulma's hair to purple. But I do agree that it was a dumb, pointless change.

Now what really will be the last straw is if they changed the Kamehameha beam color from blue to green or another.

Funnily enough, it's mostly yellow in the manga.

That one, I somewhat don't mind it being gold or yellow, due to it making sense because of difference of power(Ultimate Gohan's Kamehameha for example). And even if it was only a careless coloring mistake, it least it wasn't constant.

[Soppa Saia People]

Tbh, if they changed Trunk's hair to blue, they should have changed Bulma's hair to purple. But I do agree that it was a dumb, pointless change.

Now what really will be the last straw is if they changed the Kamehameha beam color from blue to green or another.

Funnily enough, it's mostly yellow in the manga.

That one, I somewhat don't mind it being gold or yellow, due to it making sense because of difference of power(Ultimate Gohan's Kamehameha for example). And even if it was only a careless coloring mistake, it least it wasn't constant.

I don't think you understand what I said. In the manga the Kamehameha is almost always yellow in the manga, even regularly ones, it's only draw blue a couple of times (the fight with Gohan Sr for example). Now that I think about, most of the Ki attacks in the manga are yellow.

[EXBadguy]

Tbh, if they changed Trunk's hair to blue, they should have changed Bulma's hair to purple. But I do agree that it was a dumb, pointless change.

Funnily enough, it's mostly yellow in the manga.

That one, I somewhat don't mind it being gold or yellow, due to it making sense because of difference of power(Ultimate Gohan's Kamehameha for example). And even if it was only a careless coloring mistake, it least it wasn't constant.

I don't think you understand what I said. In the manga the Kamehameha is almost always yellow in the manga, even regularly ones, it's only draw blue a couple of times (the fight with Gohan Sr for example). Now that I think about, most of the Ki attacks in the manga are yellow.

Well fuck it, I'll excuse that one too, cuz let's face it, outside this forum, 90% of the people who heard of the series watched the anime first, so I say the blue color for the Kamehameha is the more iconic and common one. Other than that, the rest of the colors that were based in the original anime, it should always stay consistents. No excuses, no exceptions!

[Soppa Saia People]

Well fuck it, I'll excuse that one too, cuz let's face it, outside this forum, 90% of the people who heard of the series watched the anime first, so I say the blue color for the Kamehameha is the more iconic and common one. Other than that, the rest of the colors that were based in the original anime, it should always stay consistents. No excuses, no exceptions!

Except, for, you know, Japan.

[Metalwario64]

Instead of changing Trunks' hair in a retcony way, why didn't they literally dye Bulma's hair to purple? She already goes through so many hair designs, so that would have been in character, and would have brought her back to the original manga color, and have manga consistency of her and Trunks sharing hair color, instead of this way having present Trunks with purple hair, being the odd one out.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I mean, it's far from being the worst crime that was ever committed to the series. I won't lose sleep over it, I will accept it with new material moving forward but when it comes to Trunks' hair colour it is kinda ridiculous, when, as said previously it's easy to avoid, especially when they show flashbacks that deny the fact he ever had purple hair. I will give Super the benefit of the doubt because this current arc has been good story-wise, but TOEI aren't going to gain anything from unexplained colour changes, and the fans aren't stupid, we can tell the two Trunks' apart.

[SSJ Human]

I didn't understand the reason for it either and like the idea of Bulma having purple hair, as she did in the manga, but I'm not going to let it lower my opinion of the series.

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

Some color changes in some way do take away some stuff from the story. Trunks' hair color in Super takes away his iconic unique-ness into the family. Would you like it if Goten's Kamehameha is a different color from the rest for no reason? Maybe it'd make sense if Gohan's Kamehameha color was different, 'cause he's the first half-Saiyan, but if it's only Goten, that'd be a problem.

Both Bulma & Trunks have purple/violet (whatever you want to call it) hair in the manga.

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

Honestly, I think Trunks having blue hair is just a case of Toriyama changing his mind on the issue. Why doesn't present Trunks have it? Who knows?

[TheGreatness25]

It kind of matters to be honest. I know it seems like a really nitpicky thing, but when the argument is "Well that's nitpicking, and that's nitpicking, and that is also nitpicking," it gets to the point where things all add up. The thing is that it's not so much that it matters, but is like "Well, why? Why the hell all of a sudden after years and years and years did you have to do this?" I mean, is it solely for attention-seeking purposes, knowing that many fans hold these characters so close to the heart? Is it to get people angry and bring about controversy? Did they think that nobody would notice? It is just another one of those things that makes you go "huh..."

Let's take a trip down memory lane to another great show that shared Toonami with our good friend (DBZ), a little show called "Reboot." See, Bob -- the main protagonist -- was swallowed up by a game and the next time we saw him, he had new hair, new hair color, new gear, and even a new voice. While these could all be attributed to many things, we are eventually shown another Bob who is just like the one from before and it's revealed that the changed Bob is a clone. See, when a character is changed up, it's nice to know that it's for a reason and not "just because."

I would say that it matters. Maybe to a lot of people, it's no big deal, but then it kind of opens the door to many different interpretations. The concept of the right way to draw a character, for example, is flying out the window. If I want to draw Vegeta with brown hair and a green armor, nobody can say that it's not really correct. If I want to draw Trunks with more spiky blue hair, sure. If I want to draw Piccolo as blue -- well hey, nobody can prove that it won't happen. And it's this straying from a "correct" character model that I think makes people feel weird. People -- especially Dragon Ball fans -- love structure and continuity and things to make sense.

For me personally, as a kid I felt like Dragon Ball/Z was this fantastic, epic story. As I'd get older, I feel a bit disappointed in knowing the truth -- that a lot of it is kind of half-assed with careless writing behind it. If the fans who are bothered by things like color changes are anything like me, it's a yearning for structure (and canon) to show that it's not just a bunch of random things that kind of fell together the right way. I want to feel like there's love, time, and passion that goes into the series and when there's a change (like hair color) that there's a reason behind it. But alas, a lot of times, it feels like there isn't.

I used to have issues with things like that, but to tell you the truth, at this point I really don't care anymore. If the writer(s) themselves don't care, why should I drive myself nuts worrying about that stuff? To me, I will never feel about the series the same as I did back when I would run home from school to watch it. So I can watch and I can nod and I might even say "That's cool" from time to time, but in the end, I've become totally apathetic and numb to the series. It's like watching a legend that you respect more than anything come out past his prime to embarrass himself. It's just become too painful for me to give a crap.

With that said, I will always support the series, even through gritting teeth. At this point, Kuririn could show up with green hair, freckles, and a monocle and it wouldn't phase me.