What if the anime didn't follow the manga

Anonymous Friend · Post by **Anonymous Friend** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:59 am

If the anime didn't follow the manga exactly as it did (like with Full Metal Alchemist), would it still have been popular or good?

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:04 am

I'm pretty sure it would still be popular. MOST people saw the anime before getting to the manga, so I wouldn't doubt that it would still be popular. See, what happened with most fans in the US is they saw the dub first, then moved onto the Japanese version (online more than likely), then moved onto the manga, and in their quest for wanting to be the "smart fan", wanting to go by the original. That's why most people started watching the Japanese version, and that's why most people moved onto the manga. If the anime didn't follow the manga, I doubt people would be so terribly pissed. It's because the anime does follow it, that people pick out all the "filler" and curse it.

The movie isn't following the manga or the anime at all, and yet we still got lots of people who are looking forward to it.

Artificial Human #887 · Post by **Artificial Human #887** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:26 am

It probably could have been awesome. If they handled DBZ the way they handled Fullmetal Alchemist, I still would have watched it. FMA was pretty concise and the point where it broke off from the manga was flawless. It was handled just right and retained the characters integrity, despite the changes. Of course, I will always be a little disgruntled by the ending... but none of this is relevant to DBZ.

I think that DBZ may have actually been better had they picked a point to break off and just finish it. It could have eliminated a whole lot of bad filler, and bypassed questionable moments of the show completely. They could have taken a point and ran with, much like other anime shows do.

However, I look at it on the other side and I cringe. Leaving Toei to their own devices kind of frightens me, given what we got with GT. There's a chance Toei would have left us with more plotholes and really tampered with the character's integrity. And that thought makes me remember why I'm glad that I sat through tons of filler and got the DBZ ending from the manga. Square and Bones may have left FMA in good shape, but I don't know if Toei was capable of the same.

After thinking about that for a while, I realized that I probably would have hated a Toei created ending for DBZ. But I'm sure it still could have massively popular.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:49 am

In regards to endings, we should recall - Toei created the GT ending, while Mr. Toriyama created the "Fuck y'all, I'm gonna go move in with some Indian kid!" ending.

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:01 pm

Oh how true is that. The ending in Z left you scratching your head asking when Goku's going to come back with Uub. It's not an ending, it looks more like a bridge to another Saga...which Toei happily supplied. GT's ending was great. But of course, SOME specific company had to ruin it by putting the worst most intolerable music in the end. I mean it was bad enough that the music was complete garbage throughout the series, but the end of GT, which is like an homage to the entire series, could have been handled nicely. But no. We need boring and stale music, and dialog that never existed. For example, in Dragon Ball, I never heard Popo introducing Goku as such:
Goku: "I'm Goku"
Popo: "He's Goku"

Ah FUNimation. If only they got other shows before DB/Z/GT. Like why couldn't they mess up one of the other hundreds of Animes that they deal with, why did they have to get DBZ first and kill it? I mean I like the dubbed version, but so much stuff irritates me, including the music to that GT homage scene.

Artificial Human #887 · Post by **Artificial Human #887** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:06 pm

Rocketman wrote:In regards to endings, we should recall - Toei created the GT ending, while Mr. Toriyama created the "Fuck y'all, I'm gonna go move in with some Indian kid!" ending.

Shrug. As open ended and as "wtf" as it was, I liked it. It gave you the feeling there could be more one day, and left the option open to wonder what would happen with Goku gone.

I like using my imagination about such things, though.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:22 pm

Artificial Human #887 wrote:As open ended and as "wtf" as it was, I liked it. It gave you the feeling there could be more one day, and left the option open to wonder what would happen with Goku gone.

I like using my imagination about such things, though.

Meh, I say. I can make up stories on my own for free. When I pay for someone to tell me a story, I expect an ending, not a "Ok, I'm done! Yeah, there's more, but I'm not gonna tell you. Neener neener neener".

Especially not when one great (Freeza) and one "meh, it's ok" (Cell) ending had already been passed up in DBZ.

Fuck, even the filler party episode was a better ending, since it doesn't introduce several new plots just to leave them hanging.

Jerseymilk · Post by **Jerseymilk** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:13 pm

Rocketman wrote:In regards to endings, we should recall - Toei created the GT ending, while Mr. Toriyama created the "Fuck y'all, I'm gonna go move in with some Indian kid!" ending.

And to me, that sums up so much more accurately Goku's character and the "carefree and adventurous" essence that is DB itself. Essentially what I'm saying is, I completely disagree with you and I liked the ending.

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:47 pm

Um okay, but at least there could've been a nice little ending video that summed up the series.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:00 pm

Jerseymilk wrote:And to me, that sums up so much more accurately Goku's character and the "carefree and adventurous" essence that is DB itself. Essentially what I'm saying is, I completely disagree with you and I liked the ending.

I respect your opinion, even though it's wrong.

Besides, Goku leaves at the end of GT too, so what's the difference in that regard?

Also, Goku's a dick. At least have the excuse of being dead when you abandon your family, asshole.

Anonymous Friend · Post by **Anonymous Friend** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:10 pm

This makes me wonder: Which is worse, the Dragonball Z ending or the Soprano's ending?

Someone brought up the whole "Toei controls the Dragonball anime" thing and I almost feel like retracting the topic. It's not that all of their made up stuff is so terrible but rather most of it is really below the quality of Toriyama's talent.

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:15 pm

Rocketman wrote:In regards to endings, we should recall - Toei created the GT ending, while Mr. Toriyama created the "Fuck y'all, I'm gonna go move in with some Indian kid!" ending.

Knowing what Son's done before, I can see this entirely being in character for him >_> He has quite a habit of dumping his friends and family and running off for no legitimate reason.

Thanks to some confusion with FUNi releasing Buu and GT before finishing Cell, when I was in the middle of buying Cell, I haven't seen all the way through the series yet and just have a general knowledge of Buu (I'm picking up all of Buu used, got maybe a third of it at random so far). So I don't have an opinion of the actual ending of Z yet, but damn Cell ended on such an unbelievable letdown. I mean comeon, they used their worst animators almost the whole time. There were highlights, like Gohan hitting ssj2 and when Pic and everybody kamikazes in to try to help the kid, but so much of it just dragged along with such bad art that it died a long painful death. I love a lot of little notes from Cell and the Android saga, yes. But Freezer just had such an epic ending. I miss that.

Anonymous Friend · Post by **Anonymous Friend** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:20 pm

I myself know that it was in Goku's character to do what he did. And I had to keep telling myself that's why Toriyama did what he did to keep me from getting angry and breaking something. But this was supposed to be the end of a very very long series and at this point it was about more than just Son Goku. Even if he had just written out a text epilogue explressing what happened to the other characters or something I would have been satisfied.

Jerseymilk · Post by **Jerseymilk** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:46 pm

Rocketman wrote:
Jerseymilk wrote:And to me, that sums up so much more accurately Goku's character and the "carefree and adventurous" essence that is DB itself. Essentially what I'm saying is, I completely disagree with you and I liked the ending.
I respect your opinion, even though it's wrong.

Besides, Goku leaves at the end of GT too, so what's the difference in that regard?

Also, Goku's a dick. At least have the excuse of being dead when you abandon your family, asshole.

That's cool. I respect yours too, even though it's actually the wrong one.

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:08 pm

You know, it's true. Goku is a dick. He doesn't care about leaving his friends or family for years on in. He doesn't even remember them. He just goes off to do his own thing. And him marrying ChiChi was funny. He didn't care about her, and agreed to marry her, but at the same time didn't want her hugging him or holding his arm or whatnot.

Snail · Post by **Snail** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:10 pm

First off, I never knew that FMA's anime and manga were actually two seperate storylines. That's pretty cool. If the anime's storyline deviated from the manga's, I think that it would still have been popular. It would've been interesting, but I'm totally fine with what we've gotten.

Going off-topic, I gotta agree with Rocketman; I always thought that the whole 'Goku abandoning family' thing was just horrid. It basically ruins the image of Goku for me to say the least. Also, the ending to Z could have been much..MUCH better even if it does reflect the "carefree and adventurous" essence of Dragonball as Jerseymilk stated above. It could have been handled in a much more appealing way in my opinion.

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:22 pm

Snail wrote:I gotta agree with Rocketman; I always thought that the whole 'Goku abandoning family' thing was just horrid. It basically ruins the image of Goku for me to say the least. Also, the ending to Z could have been much..MUCH better even if it does reflect the "carefree and adventurous" essence of Dragonball as Jerseymilk stated above. It could have been handled in a much more appealing way in my opinion.

Horrid? Yes. but thoroughly in character > <

I do like Son Goku, really. Just not when it comes to his relationship with his family.

I've gathered as a whole that I'm going to be thoroughly unhappy with the ending of Buu when I get to it. But I'll take that any day over what happens in GT. (LOL my best friend just died. I'll be sad for half a minute. Then let's go to a party!!!!)

And this kids is why we have fanfiction. Are there a lot of bad fics? Yes. There's a lot of bad everything. But there's some fantastic work out there too that does a damn better job of wrapping stuff emotionally, for all of the characters.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:36 pm

Velasa wrote:Knowing what Son's done before, I can see this entirely being in character for him >_> He has quite a habit of dumping his friends and family and running off for no legitimate reason.

Okay, I made a list (except for end-of-z) with the series' justifications. Note that I don't rank "not seeing for friends for a while" on the same level as "abandoning your family".

-Splits from the group after Pilaf to go to Roshi's.
--Reason: Roshi offered to let him live there; Goku said he would after the DBs were collected.
-Leaves after 21st Tournament
--To find his grandpa's Dragonball, and meets with everyone again over the next couple days anyway
-Leaves after Baba's tournament
--To train for the next World Tournament (Eh...maybe, but it's not like he could train effectively with Roshi anymore)
-Leaves after the 22nd Tournament
--VENGEANCE!
-Stays on the Lookout after King Piccolo
--Deal to restore the Dragonballs; everyone dies anyway if he doesn't.
-Leaves after 23rd Tournament
--Has a wife. Bow chika wow wow.

Abandonment after he gets a family:

-Leaves after Raditz.
--Dead. And everyone else is dead if he doesn't jump through some Otherworld hoops.
-Says no to coming back on Porunga's wish
--In the middle of supa-coo move training [I'll give you that one...kinda, as it's usually a bad idea to run off when your training is not complete, esp. with such a useful thing as teleportation.]
-Leaves after Cell
--Dead, can't be wished back. Note that even without his goodbye speech, Shenron had already said "Nope, can't do it" so it was a moot point. And nobody knows where New Namek is.

-Leaves at end of GT.
--

Compare to training Uub to be his successor...despite having four or five other potential successors...all of whom are stronger than the gods themselves....and they've already killed everybody who even looked at Earth funny...

Plus, that Goku seems to have given that trait up once he got married. I mean, he doesn't abandon his family during the five years prior to Raditz, or the three years prior to the Androids, or the X number of years between Buu's death and the Uub intro. And on top of that, two of the three things are Goku being dead, which gets in the way of familial bonds even in Dragonball.

But then, suddenly "ah ha, fuck y'all, I'm freeeee as a biiird naawww...and this biiird you can't chai-iay-iay-iay-iay-iaynge"

On another note:

But I'll take that any day over what happens in GT. (LOL my best friend just died. I'll be sad for half a minute. Then let's go to a party!!!!)

Which part was that?

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:38 pm

I think he was referring to Krillin's death, but truth be told, I can't see anyone taking a death seriously in the Dragon Ball world anymore. "Whoa, my entire family and all my friends are dead. Hm. Well good thing I can just wish them back."

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:47 pm

Rocketman wrote: On another note:

But I'll take that any day over what happens in GT. (LOL my best friend just died. I'll be sad for half a minute. Then let's go to a party!!!!)

Which part was that?

That's me screeching about Gohan in GT after Pic dies. He just did such a freaking 180 that I wanted to deck him. (the ep where Pic dies is the only ep of GT I've intentionally watched all the way through, so there's a vauge possibility he remembers about him later on and I just missed it. But I'm willing to bet he forgets he existed.)

I'll ramble more on the rest of what you noted later, because I gotta run off somewhere to get food.