Starting with the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai through the battle on Namek, Goku's dogi featured the Kame and/or Kaio kanji and eventually his own kanji, and a loosely tied obi. Goku would wear some variation of this as his primary outfit for the remainder of the manga until End of Z.
Then, starting with the battle against the artificial humans through the battle with Majin Boo, Goku began wearing a dogi with a wider obi with no loose ends, and dropped any kanji at all. The colors on Goku's boots (at least in the anime) and the cut of the outer shirt also changed.
Starting after the conclusion of the serialization of the manga, Toriyama (and Toei) seems to have (mostly) settled on a blend of the two, with the wider obi and the inclusion of Goku's 悟 "Go" kanji.
We all know this, so why am I posting about it? Ultimately, I posted this thread because I have a strong preference for Goku's dogi design and as a big consumer of fanart and merchandise, it always made me wonder why the dogi design changed more than halfway through the series and why it changed back (sort of)?
My Theory: It is well documented that drawing a weekly manga is exhausting. Starting with the artificial humans, specifically Cell, Toriyama gave himself an especially time consuming design to draw page after page. Toriyama has stated in interviews that he gave himself too much work with Cell's spots. But I believe that even characters like Trunks, #17 and #18 have more design elements than previous main character designs. More buckles, more lines on their clothes and shoes and hair, etc. etc.
With Goku being the main character, he would be on the page more than anyone else, so a very easy way to save a ton of time would be to drop the kanji and loose belt. Each page with Goku on it would previously require to make sure he was drawing the kanji from the correct angle, and keep consistency with it. With the belt, he'd have to remember to include it during battle scenes and account for the angle and so on. Essentially, these two elements are fairly minor to the overall design of Goku and aren't even part of his overall silhouette, so I believe Toriyama dropped them to save time. I feel like a similar thing happened with Saiyan tails, and Vegeta's more elaborate Saiyan armor being slimmed down and simplified. He may have also just preferred the look, but I doubt it. Why?
With the end of the serialization, Toriyama was no longer under the same time constraints as before, and I believe he felt that Goku's design without the kanji lacked something. So he brought it back. It's just that simple.
I wonder if any of you very informed people have found any interviews with Toriyama that either back up or contradict my theory. I just like reading about his design process and feel like compared to the writing/story and even his panel layout skills, Toriyama's designs themselves go a little underappreciated and discussed.
My personal preference is either the Namek look, or the modern post-serialization design. I feel like the lack of kanji is often cited by fans as symbolizing Goku growing beyond the need of needing a martial arts master. But that was already symbolized when Kaio-sama gave Goku the dogi featuring Goku's personal kanji. To me, not having a kanji is almost like Superman without the S shield or Batman without the bat on their chests. I'm glad Toriyama reintegrated it into his designs and I always appreciate when I see fan artists include it in their drawings because I realize the kanji may be somewhat tricky to nail.
I'm not sure exactly how much discussion this will generate, so I would also be happy if this could become a sort of "Dragon Ball design/fashion appreciation" thread. Because, as we all know, this is REALLY Goku's best design:
Credit: Knew_Sky on Twitter
