Taking into consideration that Toriyama purposely forgets old information to make room in his mind for new information, I thought to myself, what are the the other parts of Toriyama's story that he legitimately forgot about? I did a little digging, and I've found the some other stuff from Dragon Ball's story, or other elements of Dragon Ball that he significantly contributed to, that slipped his mind over the years when it came to discussing Dragon Ball's story or making new Dragon Ball stories:
Taopaipai:
Goten:Oda: It feels kind of weird to ask if you remember, but it seems as though you have forgotten a good amount of characters... (laugh) Anyway, you know how Ranfan took her clothes off, right? Her armpits during that scene were really drawn well. I thought that you were the first person to accurately draw someone's armpit that well. Back then, I always drew people's armpits. Those, and Taopaipai's hands.
Toriyama: Taopaipai...? You're getting to some of the less important characters.
Oda: What!? Taopaipai is a HUGE major character!
Toriyama: The guy with the braid?
Oda: Yeah yeah. The assassin. The guy that throws a pillar into the sky and rides it himself.
Toriyama: Oh yeah, I did draw that didn't I
Super Saiyan 3:Toriyama: "Who was Goten again...?"
Miki: "His face looks like Goku's, and..."
Toriyama: "Well, then I can just draw child Goku?"
Bulma's hair colour:Interviewer: Do you write down notes anywhere for that sort of background information?
Toriyama: No, I don’t do that. That’s why I keep on forgetting things. If I don’t forget stuff, new ideas won’t come to mind. For example, you know how there’s “Super Saiyan 3”?
Interviewer: Yes. Where the hair gets long.
Toriyama: I didn’t know that. (laughs) The whole time, I thought that was “Super Saiyan 2”. (laughs)
Interviewer: Whaaa?!
Toriyama: And I drew that myself. (laughs) Anyhow, I thought “2” was the one with long hair. It was like, “Man, I’ve really forgotten stuff…”.
Android 18's hair color:Interviewer: I understand, and I agree with you, because the character status changed after the Majin Buu arc, and I was really surprised at Kuririn and Videl’s hair style.
Akira Toriyama: Usually women change their hair color and hair style dramatically. Actually I didn’t know what Bulma’s real hair color was (laughs).
Lunch:Per the last thing Kei posted (this is roughly in order of things I found interesting):
They displayed the character images Toriyama drew for the movie. He forgot No.18's hair color, and drew her with purple hair. He had to have this mistake pointed out to him.
That tree in the poster is Bilus' temple. Apparently, it's stocked with fish and whatnot (other food perhaps, in keeping with the "gourmet" idea?).
Bilus' voice actor Koichi Yamadera says Bilus is super strong, but also has a playful side too. And then there's that thing about him being a "gourmet".
Toriyama and the scriptwriters (plural?! says "tachi") reworked the story a bunch of times.
Another reference to Toriyama saying this is his revenge for "a certain film".
Broly's design:Interviewer: I noticed that Lunch disappeared after Raditz came, what was she doing?
Toriyama: To tell you the truth, I totally forgot about her at one point. And then I remembered her after a while and I had to think of a reason why she disappeared. So I made it seem as if she was running after Tenshinhan.
This isn't to criticize Toriyama at all. I just find his characteristic of intentionally forgetting some aspects of his story and his other contribution to the franchise fascinating.Akira Toriyama: Hi, everyone. Are you familiar with the character Broly?
He’s a super-powerful Saiyan who appeared only in the anime films way back, and I apparently did the character design for him, but as I was mostly uninvolved with the anime side of Dragon Ball, I’d completely forgotten about the story surrounding him.
But this Broly is apparently still very popular both in Japan and overseas, and it so happened that my editor suggested, “Why not make this next movie about Broly?”
I then watched the movies from back then, and I felt that the idea (of a movie with Broly) could be quite interesting if we could present it in the right way, so I went ahead and created a story that would allow us to do that with the Dragon Ball Super series.
I didn’t want to disappoint Broly fans, so I tried to keep the old Broly in mind while adding a new side to him and “revamping” him, and I think I’ve been able to make Broly even more attractive than before.
Of course, there will be some fiercely awesome fighting, but you’ll also see what turns of fate bring Goku, Vegeta and Broly together, as well as the history of Frieza’s army and the Saiyans, which plays an important part in the story. It’s quite dramatic on a grand scale, really.
So you’ll get to see Broly, the most powerful Saiyan, again. And we’re filling the movie with other twists and fun bits that fans should love as well, so please wait a little while longer until we finish making the film.
