The Thing About Goku's Hair and Artstyle

[Wrigglything]

One of the first things that comes in mind for Dragon Ball is Goku's comically enormous hair. It's something that even non anime fans could recognise and correctly identify it to be from Goku. But it actually started off pretty different, somewhat, having a more simplistic shape and is generally loose in how the hair is portrayed compared to later arcs. Heck, even Goku was more rounder and chubbier, compared to later arcs being more sharp and defined.

I personally have a soft spot on the OG arc, simply because of how comfortable that era of the franchise is, but the evolved artstyle was what helped it become mainstream, although it was more so the animation and the settings doing the legwork of that.

I'm quite curious though if you guys would've liked it if Goku's Hair would remain that way. Would it have been successful in spite of its cute artstyle, but the same story as to what we got, or would it be a turn off and would have meant it would have had a short run regardless.

[mute_proxy]

Wait.. you think the series became popular because of Z's fairly different artstyle from early DB and.. Goku's hair? Huh??

[LoganForkHands73]

The art style of the series definitely plays a role in its popularity, but there isn't really a solid line between DB and DBZ. Toriyama has often said that he uses straighter lines to convey speed and to some extent this is true throughout most of the earlier arcs as well, even when everything generally looked softer and rounder. The softer look is still used for more lowkey scenes all the way up to the Saiyan arc, though you can see the art start to shift as the angular style as the Vegeta fight progresses. The Namek arc marks the point that the angular character designs stay for good.

As for Goku's hair, it's true that his hair was a bit more flexibly styled in earlier arcs, but Toriyama gradually gave it the strong silhouette it became known for. If it were styled in a different way, I'm not sure it would have a huge impact on the franchise's popularity or anything like that. Many other characters' haircuts change throughout the series and nobody much cares.

[MasenkoHA]

I think a lot of it was just Toriyama coming fresh off Dr.Slump and being told to be more like Fist of the North Star as Dragon Ball progressed.

[ABED]

Am I reading this correctly? You believe Goku's hairstyle changes? Toriyama's artwork definitely changes, Goku's hair is maybe the one constant in the entire series.

[Soppa Saia People]

Am I reading this correctly? You believe Goku's hairstyle changes? Toriyama's artwork definitely changes, Goku's hair is maybe the one constant in the entire series.

Goku's hair looks pretty different in the first arc, it's definitely a noticeable change that isn't just related to artstyle.

Spoiler:

I've always found his initial hair style really cute though honestly, definitely less "cool" then the more spiky one though.

[ABED]

I don't see it as a different hairstyle. I see it as the same as the original just drawn differently. It feels like the difference between Bart Simpson's hair in the Tracey Ullman shorts and his hair in the bulk of the series.

In any case, I don't think that original style would've caught fire like the later ones did but it's a moo point as Toriyama changed his style over the years to make it interesting for himself.

[Saiya6Cit]

It is different.

I remember being 10 yo learning to draw and trying to standarize goku's hair, it is 7 pikes as the seven dragon balls and two or three single hair lines.

By DBZ is already pretty well stablished by the time bardock special came out and the Tarles (turles) movie you can tell that TOEI animation had a very well defined style for goku's hair.

It is way easier to draw straight lines as you have pointed it out so I agree Toriyama swichted it for that reason.