Would you still like Dragon Ball if it hadn’t been retooled into a martial arts story?

[FoolsGil]

If I could be so bold, One Piece is probably the best scenario Dragonball could have become if it hadn't been retooled into a martial arts story. One Piece is definitely about the journey like Dragonball tried to be. In this best case scenario, yes I'd like it.

Agreed. This hypothetical version of Dragon Ball would probably look something like One Piece.

That being said, Toriyama isn't as ambitious a storyteller as Oda, so he probably couldn't pull off something like One Piece without scaling back on the numerous plot threads that make One Piece engaging; because Toriyama tends to falter when the story details start getting complex.

I don't think it would resemble One Piece at all. The early structure of DB showed that Toriyama-san preferred more "episodic" scenarios. Which makes sense as that was the trend at the time. From its very inception OP was focused on longform storytelling.

You can look at Toriyama-san's overall series track record to see that there's very little interest in telling a consistent longform story or exploring the world and characters in a way OP does it.

Plus OP has a lot of combat and a detailed multi-layered combat system.

Well I said best case scenario. Toriyama would have to be willing to grow, see what didn't work with the first arc and do better while sticking with the adventure model.

And yes OP has a lot of combat. But it's not a fighting series. At the end of the day its all shonen, Toriyama would still have to make villains for Goku to fight, but there is a way to do it as an adventure series, like One Piece.

[MasenkoHA]

. At the end of the day its all shonen, Toriyama would still have to make villains for Goku to fight, but there is a way to do it as an adventure series, like One Piece.

Having villains to fight isn’t required for shonen. See like any sports anime that falls under shonen.

[FoolsGil]

. At the end of the day its all shonen, Toriyama would still have to make villains for Goku to fight, but there is a way to do it as an adventure series, like One Piece.

Having villains to fight isn’t required for shonen. See like any sports anime that falls under shonen.

Sports anime follows the same flow as any other shonen where people fight and kill, even to the big bad antagonists who don't want anyone to die but sure as hell will use all their tricks to win that championship. It's formula. Name a non sports shonen that doesn't have fighting and maybe you got a point.

[MasenkoHA]

. At the end of the day its all shonen, Toriyama would still have to make villains for Goku to fight, but there is a way to do it as an adventure series, like One Piece.

Having villains to fight isn’t required for shonen. See like any sports anime that falls under shonen.

Sports anime follows the same flow as any other shonen where people fight and kill, even to the big bad antagonists who don't want anyone to die but sure as hell will use all their tricks to win that championship. It's formula. Name a non sports shonen that doesn't have fighting and maybe you got a point.

Hikaru No Go
The Promised Neverland
Detective Conan/Case Closed
Death Note
Food Wars

[FoolsGil]

Having villains to fight isn’t required for shonen. See like any sports anime that falls under shonen.

Sports anime follows the same flow as any other shonen where people fight and kill, even to the big bad antagonists who don't want anyone to die but sure as hell will use all their tricks to win that championship. It's formula. Name a non sports shonen that doesn't have fighting and maybe you got a point.

Hikaru No Go
The Promised Neverland
Detective Conan/Case Closed
Death Note
Food Wars

- Hikaru No Go and Food Wars is competition shonen, practically sports, and follows the formula still.
- Never seen the Promised Neverland
- Case Closed is "shonen" because of the age demographic. It's a complete different genre outside of everything else brought up.
- I'll give you Death Note, though in a slow build kind of way it follows the shonen formula. Light went through a lot of people in his way, beat the final boss, but couldn't beat the final boss' successors.

[PurestEvil]

I suppose I would, but I definitely would not have found out about it unless I was attracted to gag manga specifically.
Dragon Ball is more attractive as a martial arts story, though.

[MasenkoHA]

- Case Closed is "shonen" because of the age demographic. It's a complete different genre outside of everything else brought up.

It’s almost as if *gasp* shonen is a demographic and not a genre!

https://youtu.be/kdhhQhqi_AE

[FoolsGil]

- Case Closed is "shonen" because of the age demographic. It's a complete different genre outside of everything else brought up.

It’s almost as if *gasp* shonen is a demographic and not a genre!

https://youtu.be/kdhhQhqi_AE

Well it was clear you were wasting my time, but I thought "maybe he actually got something for me"

Guess not.

[BWri]

Eh, I think early DB's more episodic nature was just Toriyama ironing out the kinks and easing into more serialized storytelling. Toriyama said that he specifically wanted his next long term manga to be serialized because having to come up with a new scenario every week for Dr. Slump was absolutely brutal. An overarching storyline enabled him to coast a little bit. So even if it stuck to adventure as its tone, DB would've moved past its episodic style into more longform storytelling sooner rather than later.

I see. Fair enough. I still don't see it due to basically every other project Toriyama-san has touched. The stories he made when he was left to his own devices seem to be one-shots, episodic, or some other short-form type of story.

Outside of his most heavily supervised and long-running series DB and Slump we have Sandland and Jaco, but even those didn't last long. I see that trend with his other adventure series as well. The longest runs about 14 chapters. I don't exactly know if this is because he wanted these stories to be that long or if there was limited reader interest. But that's the trend outside of DB.

A good question is, what could his editor have recommended (outside of the focus on martial arts) to both hook readers and keep Toriyama-san's interest in Dragon Ball high? What could we have feasibly gotten instead?

Well I said best case scenario. Toriyama would have to be willing to grow, see what didn't work with the first arc and do better while sticking with the adventure model.

And yes OP has a lot of combat. But it's not a fighting series. At the end of the day its all shonen, Toriyama would still have to make villains for Goku to fight, but there is a way to do it as an adventure series, like One Piece.

Gotcha. I can see that happening. Specifically, to answer the question I posed above: I don't see DB doing anything remotely similar to One Piece, but I can see something like Inuyasha (without the romance), something with a bit more emphasis on drama and action than the Pilaf arc had with more dangerous villains. Not the full blown focus on martial arts we got but something still more action heavy than season 1.

Conversely, they could go all in on the comedy or just keep the tone it already set. The Jaco manga kind of reminded me of an extension of the 1st arc of Dragon Ball. I'm just curious if something with that tone would have held the creators interest. There's plenty of shonen comedy and adventure series with little to no action.

[Kunzait_83]

Name a non sports shonen that doesn't have fighting and maybe you got a point.

Oh let's see...

Barefoot Gen
Drifting Classroom
Death Note
Dr. Slump
Cat's Eye
KochiKame
Doraemon
Black Jack
Kimagure Orange Road
Urusei Yatsura
The Kindaichi Case Files
Boys Be...
Stop!! Hibari-kun!
Video Girl Ai
Level E
Mermaid Saga
Tokachi Hitoribocchi Nōen
Obake no Q-Tarō
Tensai Bakabon
Kiteretsu


And these are 20 just off the cuff, notable examples that immediately jump to mind. There's a bazillion more, both famous and obscure.

- Hikaru No Go and Food Wars is competition shonen, practically sports, and follows the formula still.

What "formula" are we even talking about here exactly? Good guy fights and beats a slew of bad guys in some sort of vague ascending order of difficulty?

I'm sorry to tell you this, but this made up, non-existent "shonen genre" that only exists inside fanboys' collective heads didn't "invent" any of this, nor did it "popularize" it. We're talking about INCREDIBLY basic action storytelling beats that have existed (in INCREDIBLY visibly popular and noteworthy mainstream works no less, both in the East AND West) since eons and eons and eons before Dragon Ball ever came into existence and across NUMEROUS different genres (sports, martial arts, adventure, etc) all throughout. What you're describing isn't "Shonen", its "Basic Action Storytelling 101".

Luke Skywalker first has to deal with Sandpeople, then Storm Troopers, then Tarkin, then Vader, then eventually Palpatine, wherein he trains throughout (through various teachers, including Obi-Wan and Yoda) and becomes a better and more powerful Jedi.

OMG!!! STAR WARS WAS SHONEN ALL ALONG GUYS!!

The Fellowship set out to destroy the One Ring, and have to deal with Orcs, then goblins, then Ring Wraiths, then the Balrog, then Saruman, the Witch King, etc. Gandalf the Gray gets a "power up" into Gandalf the White along the way.

Hmmm... COULD LOTR HAVE BEEN SHONEN ALL THIS TIME TOO?!!?!

- Case Closed is "shonen" because of the age demographic. It's a complete different genre outside of everything else brought up.

Bro... Shonen is and has always been nothing but an age demographic. That's all its ever been from 60+ years ago through to today. Shonen is a demographic that contains a MULTITUDE of different genres, some with fighting and some without.

Go look up some of the titles I mentioned: hell, go look up practically ANY other examples of Shonen manga and anime that are outside of "The Big Three" or whatever other similar type of stuff. You'll find that in terms of genres, they're made up of everything from romance, to mystery, horror, comedy, etc. all without ANYTHING to do whatsoever with "fighting" of any sort. Shonen *has always* contained countless examples of such titles and STILL does today.

There isn't and never has been a "shonen genre". All you're seeing are basic, age-old action storytelling beats coupled with a not too small helping of "me too" derivative copycats of Dragon Ball that came out of the woodwork in its wake because... well, because Dragon Ball made boatloads of money and inspired adoring fans across the manga industry. It really isn't anything more to it than that.

But for all the Dragon Ball knockoffs that came in its wake, even when taken all together, they do not and never have "defined" Shonen as a broader category of manga. Given how ENOURMOUSLY broad Shonen is, was, and has always been, defining it by a spate of Dragon Ball imitators from the early 2000s to today is complete and utter nonsense and its always been complete and utter nonsense.

- I'll give you Death Note, though in a slow build kind of way it follows the shonen formula. Light went through a lot of people in his way, beat the final boss, but couldn't beat the final boss' successors.

1) If you think Death Note is in ANY way unique in terms of being a Shonen detective/mystery thriller, then wait till you hear about City Hunter, Cat's Eye, Doberman Deka, Kindaichi Case Files, and the fifteen gazillion other Shonen manga and anime that are also primarily crime thrillers about cops, private eyes, gumshoes, assorted sleazy underworld figures etc. just working and solving murder and robbery cases and the like (many of which don't even have any hint of the supernatural or fantasy angles that Death Note or Detective Conan had, and are just straight down the line grounded in the real world, relatively speaking).

2) Again: this "Shonen formula" you're describing is in NO WAY anything to do with "Shonen" but rather is just INCREDIBLY basic action storytelling (lets not even get into the whole "Wuxia/martial arts fiction" aspect of all this) that LONG predates and transcends just Shonen (which contains just as many examples of noteworthy series WITHOUT these tropes as those with: and plenty of those with predated Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, etc).

This kind of thinking - framing insanely basic and foundational action narrative tropes as endemic to "Shonen" specifically, as if it were either their originator or primary example - further gives the impression (among a MULTITUDE of other things besides) of a fanbase that doesn't really consume or think about much outside of a VERY limited and tiny/small palette of Japanese kids' action shows (particularly a specific set of them that were popular throughout the 2000s).

These tropes may have first become apparent to YOU guys ("you guys" meaning "typical Dragon Ball/Shonen fan on a place like Kanz who primarily defines all media in terms of their grade school diet of television") through shows like Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, etc. in the early 2000s or whatnot: but that isn't and never has been the case for the ENTIRE REST of the fucking planet outside of niche fanbases like this one made up of a large chunk of particularly media sheltered individuals who rarely stray far outside of their small, given wheelhouse of anime/kids' titles.

Most normal people outside of fanbases like this one don't associate "hero goes through an escalating series of badguys" as "the Shonen genre formula". They associate it with "practically any/every other action narrative known to man since probably the stone age": and they're RIGHT to.

This idea that there is, or ever was in existence any kind of a "Shonen genre" with a specific "formula" that's unique to it has ALWAYS only been a thing that's existed solely inside the heads of a specific niche of Dragon Ball and Shonen Jump fans of the past 15+ years or so, and pretty much nowhere else besides.

Its not real, it never was real, and historically speaking, it never COULD be real. All Shonen means, all its EVER meant, is "grade school boys ages 13 and under". The genre of every single given work within that broad demographic are HIGHLY diverse and have absolutely NO bearing on it otherwise.

[FoolsGil]

Name a non sports shonen that doesn't have fighting and maybe you got a point.

Oh let's see...

You know it doesn't matter what your list is, and it doesn't matter what your reply is. Because that is not what this topic discussion is about anyways. The debate for what shonen is, has nothing to do with this topic.

[JulieYBM]

Sure is surreal seeing Hibari-kun listed considering how weird a beast it is and shounen comics' historically awful treatment of trans women. I suppose I ought to finally watch and read it.

[Soppa Saia People]

. At the end of the day its all shonen, Toriyama would still have to make villains for Goku to fight, but there is a way to do it as an adventure series, like One Piece.

Having villains to fight isn’t required for shonen. See like any sports anime that falls under shonen.

Sports anime follows the same flow as any other shonen where people fight and kill, even to the big bad antagonists who don't want anyone to die but sure as hell will use all their tricks to win that championship. It's formula. Name a non sports shonen that doesn't have fighting and maybe you got a point.

azumanga daioh

[Dr. Casey]

It's entirely possible that I would have learned of Dragon Ball even in this alternate universe. I became a Dragon Quest fan years before I got into Dragon Ball, and I got a fair bit of enjoyment out of the Go Go Ackman Super Famicom trilogy that same year (1999) as well.

It would definitely pale in comparison unbelievably to the version we actually got, though. Either it would be a short and simple, cute and casual but ultimately forgettable romp, or it would be like Dr. Slump and deter me from watching it by being too long (Dr. Slump looks fine for a few episodes but I don't know if it could last me 240).

[SuperSunnyDee]

It’s hard to say. Toriyama switched gears almost immediately after the first arc. If Dragon Ball hadn’t focused on martial arts, that’s like three arcs already wiped from existence. And the first tournament arc is what hooked me.

Considering how much I like One Piece, I’d like to think I’d enjoy a more Adventure focused manga by Toriyama. But I think I wouldn’t be the dedicated fan I am now. Toriyama just excelled in that outrageous Shonen escalation and action. I don’t see fleshed out worlds or handling of characters being his strong suit. So no I don’t think I’d like it as much.

[Soppa Saia People]

It's entirely possible that I would have learned of Dragon Ball even in this alternate universe. I became a Dragon Quest fan years before I got into Dragon Ball, and I got a fair bit of enjoyment out of the Go Go Ackman Super Famicom trilogy that same year (1999) as well.

It would definitely pale in comparison unbelievably to the version we actually got, though. Either it would be a short and simple, cute and casual but ultimately forgettable romp, or it would be like Dr. Slump and deter me from watching it by being too long (Dr. Slump looks fine for a few episodes but I don't know if it could last me 240).

even the dr. slump manga kinda gets a little tiresome near the end where it isn't nearly as episodic (and i know i would be in the minority there given how popular the races and dr. mashirito chapters were), i can't really imagine watching the anime where there's like actual filler episodes and stuff lol.

anyway to respond to the topic at hand, honestly i think so ? i love love the first arc and i'm always up to read toriyama's series' because i just find his writing and art so appealing and easy to digest, and if we just got like 3 volumes of material more or less equal to the first arc with maybe a more overarching story, yeah i don't see why i wouldn't like it lol.

[Kunzait_83]

Sure is surreal seeing Hibari-kun listed considering how weird a beast it is and shounen comics' historically awful treatment of trans women. I suppose I ought to finally watch and read it.

I wasn't listing it as a comment to its quality: I was listing it simply as a notable/noteworthy example of a Shonen manga that doesn't revolve around fighting or competition of any sort. Of which there are, again, COUNTLESS other examples (I literally just pulled 20 of them from my mind off the cuff, without having to in any way delve into remotely obscure waters), which helps - among countless other factors - shoot down the whole asinine "Shonen genre" bullshit.

And Hibari-kun, regardless of what one's feelings on it are (mine are somewhat mixed, but ultimately for whatever missteps it has, I find it genuinely harmless and overall very positive and empathetic towards trans people in the grand scheme of things and in its heart of hearts: take that for whatever little its worth from a cis/hetero perspective though), it is regardless of one's personal opinions an inarguably INCREDIBLY noteworthy, culturally iconic, and straight up landmark manga that has remained a cornerstone of manga's modern history (to say nothing of Japanese pop culture, music, and fashion) across the past 35+ years or so.

A LOT of manga people still read and know today can trace a TON of blatant influence back to Hibari-kun, and its had very visible, real world impact on Japanese fashion and visual styles (and frankly, on trans/gay acceptance in Japan to an extent*) throughout the decades since its run. That's not my opinion, that's just straight up impossible to argue with basic facts and history.


(*Hence part of why I have a generally positive view of Habari-kun's treatment of its trans main character; the title character in fact. A mainstream, popular children's work - with a mainstream TV anime adaptation and everything - aimed primarily at grade school boys that generally shows trans people to be totally normal and even straight up likable, strong, attractive, and fun/fashionable people, just like anyone else via one of its two principal protagonists?

And that its totally fine and cool for young, cis/hetero boys to be romantically interested in trans girls, and doesn't reflect at all poorly in any way on their "masculinity" or heterosexuality - to the point where the trans title character is very popular and sought after/fought over by the otherwise VERY masculine/macho boys in her school, who all know exactly who/what she is and generally do not give an ounce of a fuck in the slightest because she's seen as just THAT fun, pretty, and cool? And that this was all back in the goddamned early 1980s?

Yeah, I'd call that very much a strong, strong positive for the depiction of trans people in popular media, for whatever other issues it otherwise has - and it certainly has its issues. But ultimately it says a LOT about how inclusive and ahead of the curve it was on trans people overall and at its core that the lion's share of most modern day Japanese manga readers and critics today looking at it in a more contemporary, present day lens find that its the jokes about the fucking Yakuza in it that have aged FAR more poorly than anything it has to say about transgender people.)

[Soppa Saia People]

you're kind of a psycho dude no offense.

[Kunzait_83]

you're kind of a psycho dude no offense.

Fair enough then, another time, another thread perhaps.

[Soppa Saia People]

Fair enough then, another time, another thread perhaps.

that was rude of me, because i do definitely respect the perspective and i think what you're saying is agreeable but i don't think presenting it in a fairly rude and kind of aggressive matter helps. i know i'm not the only who thinks this, because it's just kinda weird when people casually respond to a fun what if thread and then see a Drive By Essay about how wrong they were because they didn't phrase it a certain way.