Deciphering Toriyama's DBS

[Almighty Majin]

As we know, Toriyama was not fully directly involved in most of the arcs in DBS. He mainly wrote rough draft outlines that were then adapted by Toei and Toyotaro. Due to this, there are details that are different in both versions which includes a lot of concepts and ideas that likely were not implemented by Toriyama to begin with.

Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Broly, and Super Hero have their movie versions which are the main Toriyama version of those events.

Now for the rest of the arcs...

Spoiler:

U6 Tournament:
The anime and the manga are mostly the same with the most significant difference being the Hit fight. My assumption for what happened in Toriyama's continuity is that Vegeta lost against Hit due to being slowly worn down after 3 matches prior to fighting him and that Goku used neither Kaioken nor God and just went straight to Blue and forfeited because Hit was just that good of a fighter despite them being evenly matched.

Goku Black:
I do think that Zamasu being inspired to take Goku's body due to seeing him in the tournament makes more sense and I think that Goku fighting Zamasu is what occurred as well. SSJ Goku Black is definitely part of Toriyama's continuity. I do think that Toei and Toyotaro may have bloated Goku Black's actual power though. Vegetto was not part of Toriyama's vision as he thought that Merged Zamasu was only strong enough to required Goku and Vegeta working together as SSJBs to beat him similarly to RoF Golden Freeza except stronger. That should mean that Goku Black was likely only slightly stronger than Goku and Vegeta and Zamasu was more useful as a partner than expected due to his immortality. Also SSJ Rage is not a thing.

ToP:
All we know from this is that the Gods of Destruction fight each other to demonstrate their power. Android 17 and Gohan are stronger than ever. Kale is a Toei creation, but was incorporated into the arc by Toriyama especially when he made Caulifla to complement her as a character. Toppo can use God Ki in some capacity. Goku unlocks Ultra Instinct to fight Jiren. SSJB Evolved does not exist. Otherwise, everything else is just up to interpretation. I do think that Toei and Toyotaro underplayed how powerful Ribrianne was supposed to be since Goku references her alongside Jiren, Toppo, and Dyspo as being one of the many great opponents in the ToP during the Broly movie. Perhaps Ribrianne was intended as a god level fighter and Toei and Toyotaro just did not get the memo from the outlines? I think there is a reason why it is difficult to figure out exactly how strong most of the ToP fighters were supposed to be, I do think that there are some characters that are supposed to be stronger or weaker than they were portrayed. I might try to do a breakdown on that some other time based on my own speculation.

Moro:
This arc was Toyotaro's idea mostly. I think everything that goes on in this arc is probably the same in Toriyama's continuity with the exception of Vegeta using SSJB Evolved. I think it is important to note that the power gaps are not as large in this continuity like the anime and manga seem to imply. SSJB is plenty strong as is.

Granolah:
I don't think Toriyama's version of events would be too different here.

That is my speculation, what are your thoughts? How do you think these events may have transpired in Toriyama's outlines? Obviously we don't have access to them and probably never will, but it is fun to speculate.

[ZombieVito]

What I think happened in the U6 arc with Hit is that Toriyama scripted that Goku for some reason displayed power 10 times greater than Vegeta in his fight with him. Toei went with the Kaioken and Toyotaro went with SSB having terrible stamina and that really doesn't gel well with RoF since he supposedly endured Golden Freeza's transformation which already has that same problem.

Super Saiyan Goku Black simply doesn't work if his base is already SS3 tier and above. Turning Rose would make him hundreds of times stronger than SSB Goku and that's just not what happens. Toei did the right thing by eliminating it.

I never gave more thought about Ribrianne being in the Broly movie, it is odd since she's SS tier at best. It's even more odd in the manga continuity since Goku never even fights her there.

[Grimlock]

I don't remember if it was said, but I think Dai Kaioshin and Uub appearances in Moro saga are Toyotaro's ideas. I do recall Yadorats being his idea.

In the Granolah saga, we can kiss Bardock and Ultra Ego goodbye, both from Toyotaro as well.

Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan with Kaio-Ken, Toppo "transformed into God of Destruction" (dear lord) and other transformations too are all most likely Toei's and/or Toyotaro's ideas.

Those sagas would have been way different without those elements.

[Vegard Aune]

What I think happened in the U6 arc with Hit is that Toriyama scripted that Goku for some reason displayed power 10 times greater than Vegeta in his fight with him. Toei went with the Kaioken and Toyotaro went with SSB having terrible stamina and that really doesn't gel well with RoF since he supposedly endured Golden Freeza's transformation which already has that same problem.

The "Super Saiyan Blue drains stamina like crazy" line is in both the anime and the manga. That entire conversation is worded identically across both from what I recall. Therefore I reckon that was indeed part of Toriyama's outline, and the fact that this flies right in the face of Resurrection F... might just be another case of the man not thinking things through as we all know he was prone to. He wrote Res F as its own stand-alone thing, where he decided the twist would be that Freeza's form is powerful but too exhausting which is why he loses... and then a few months later when penning the outline for Universe 6 he'd already forgotten that he implied in Res F that Super Saiyan Blue doesn't have this weakness and claimed it did anyway. Honestly, dude could barely keep anything straight when he was neck-deep in writing the story every week. Do you think he would have a better recollection of the fine details when he was only showing up to deliver basic outlines every few months and proofreading Toyotaro's material (which, notably, did not even include Resurrection F's climax, and I'm unsure if Toriyama even had any hand at all in the incomplete Res F manga Toyotaro wrote before Super started)?

Really, I imagine Toriyama's outline for the Hit fight included no real specifics other than "Goku comes up with some clever tactic that allows him to catch up to Hit, pushing him to the point where it seems like he has the battle in the bag but then he throws the match since he wants a more serious all-out fight with Hit, and he also wants to see what Monaka can do." The anime then chose to make this "clever tactic" him combining Kaioken with Super Saiyan Blue, whereas Toyotaro chose to build on that "Super Saiyan Blue drains stamina like crazy" thing and make him therefore make tactical use of Super Saiyan God. Which... honestly? Despite it clashing with Resurrection F, I like Toyotaro's approach better. It makes it so God and Blue both have strategic advantages over one another, and makes it a lot more understandable why they would switch back and forth between both. Meanwhile, though the anime does show Goku and Vegeta still use God sometimes, it doesn't really do anywhere near as good a job at demonstrating why.

[Luso Saiyan]

The "Super Saiyan Blue drains stamina like crazy" line is in both the anime and the manga. That entire conversation is worded identically across both from what I recall. Therefore I reckon that was indeed part of Toriyama's outline, and the fact that this flies right in the face of Resurrection F... might just be another case of the man not thinking things through as we all know he was prone to. He wrote Res F as its own stand-alone thing, where he decided the twist would be that Freeza's form is powerful but too exhausting which is why he loses... and then a few months later when penning the outline for Universe 6 he'd already forgotten that he implied in Res F that Super Saiyan Blue doesn't have this weakness and claimed it did anyway. Honestly, dude could barely keep anything straight when he was neck-deep in writing the story every week. Do you think he would have a better recollection of the fine details when he was only showing up to deliver basic outlines every few months and proofreading Toyotaro's material (which, notably, did not even include Resurrection F's climax, and I'm unsure if Toriyama even had any hand at all in the incomplete Res F manga Toyotaro wrote before Super started)?

From where does all of that even come from? Where did Toriyama ever claim in Resurrection 'F' that Super Saiyan (Blue) doesn't drain stamina? The problem Freeza had in RoF was that he got the new form and didn't take the time (and training) to get used to it, so it drained him much faster.

Some fans like to keep blaming Toriyama for not keeping up with details but by doing so often end up displaying their own ignorance and lack of attention by immediately making baseless accusations and assumptions about him and his works. The irony is almost amusing.

[ZombieVito]

What I think happened in the U6 arc with Hit is that Toriyama scripted that Goku for some reason displayed power 10 times greater than Vegeta in his fight with him. Toei went with the Kaioken and Toyotaro went with SSB having terrible stamina and that really doesn't gel well with RoF since he supposedly endured Golden Freeza's transformation which already has that same problem.

The "Super Saiyan Blue drains stamina like crazy" line is in both the anime and the manga. That entire conversation is worded identically across both from what I recall. Therefore I reckon that was indeed part of Toriyama's outline, and the fact that this flies right in the face of Resurrection F... might just be another case of the man not thinking things through as we all know he was prone to. He wrote Res F as its own stand-alone thing, where he decided the twist would be that Freeza's form is powerful but too exhausting which is why he loses... and then a few months later when penning the outline for Universe 6 he'd already forgotten that he implied in Res F that Super Saiyan Blue doesn't have this weakness and claimed it did anyway. Honestly, dude could barely keep anything straight when he was neck-deep in writing the story every week. Do you think he would have a better recollection of the fine details when he was only showing up to deliver basic outlines every few months and proofreading Toyotaro's material (which, notably, did not even include Resurrection F's climax, and I'm unsure if Toriyama even had any hand at all in the incomplete Res F manga Toyotaro wrote before Super started)?

Really, I imagine Toriyama's outline for the Hit fight included no real specifics other than "Goku comes up with some clever tactic that allows him to catch up to Hit, pushing him to the point where it seems like he has the battle in the bag but then he throws the match since he wants a more serious all-out fight with Hit, and he also wants to see what Monaka can do." The anime then chose to make this "clever tactic" him combining Kaioken with Super Saiyan Blue, whereas Toyotaro chose to build on that "Super Saiyan Blue drains stamina like crazy" thing and make him therefore make tactical use of Super Saiyan God. Which... honestly? Despite it clashing with Resurrection F, I like Toyotaro's approach better. It makes it so God and Blue both have strategic advantages over one another, and makes it a lot more understandable why they would switch back and forth between both. Meanwhile, though the anime does show Goku and Vegeta still use God sometimes, it doesn't really do anywhere near as good a job at demonstrating why.

Not really no.

In the anime they just say it drains more stamina than God which is fine. Any higher transformation should take more stamina than the previous one.

In the manga they can't even transform twice without losing 90% of their power and they can't even use their full power for more than a moment. It definitely makes RoF and the whole Golden Freeza thing very silly.

[Yuji]

Universe 6:
- The rosters, the decision to exclude Majin Boo after failing the test, Monaka has the fifth member meant to motivate Goku;
- Botamo is immune to physical attacks, Goku wins without going Super Saiyan by ring-out;
- Frost has three forms, puts on a charade of being polite, then reveals his true personality. Goku goes Super Saiyan but then loses via ring-out after Frost cheats with his poison needle;
- Piccolo faces Frost and loses with the same method but Jaco notices and Frost is disqualified, until Vegeta intervenes and demands a match, to which Piccolo agrees and withdraws;
- Vegeta turns Super Saiyan and one shots Frost. He then faces Magetta and struggles with his lava attacks and weight, but ultimately wins because Metalmen are vulnerable to insults;
- Vegeta faces Cabba and helps him turn Super Saiyan by pretending to revert to his evil ways. Vegeta shows him SS Blue in order to motivate him;
- Hit easily defeats SSB Vegeta with a technique nobody can figure out at first;
- Goku slowly figures out Hit's time skip technique and displays a power 10x greater than Vegeta. He eventually gives up because Hit is not able to use his full power, and Hit repays the favour by giving up against Monaka;
- Zeno appears and becomes friends with Goku;
- Beerus grants his brother's wish to restore his Earth.

U6 is the easiest one to figure out due to how similar both versions are. It's likely Toriyama provided a step-by-step summary like this and then each writer filled in the details, which is why major plot beats are the same but only superfluous details such as backstories and how abilities work are different.

It's the next two arcs that are harder to figure out.

Zamasu:

- in the future, after almost all of humanity has been wiped, Trunks is being hunted by a lookalike version of Goku;
- Manages to go back to the past to request Goku's help. He doesn't recognize Goku and attacks him. The two later spar and Goku easily defeats him after Trunks shows off how much stronger he's become;
- Trunks reveals he's taken care of Dabra and Babidi before Black arrived but Kaioshin died in the process, thereby killing Beerus;
- we're introduced to Zamasu and follow his descent into further hating mortals. A mystery is born about his relationship to Black.
- Goku, Vegeta and Trunks travel to the future and discover Goku Black is working alongside Zamasu. They are defeated by Black's new SSR form and travel back to the past, leaving Trunks behind.
- In the meantime, Beerus kills Zamasu in the present but this changes nothing in the future;
- Goku is called up by Zeno, who asks him to find a friend for him;
- Goku and Vegeta travel back to the future after training and learning the Mafuba, but Black and Zamasu fuse once backed into a corner. Goku and Vegeta can't defeat him even by working together.
- We know Vegetto was not in Toriyama's original script but he is in both versions; Potara is revealed to only work 1h for mortals.
- Zamasu's fusion begins to fail and Trunks ultimately defeats him by splitting in half;
- Zamasu becomes fully immortal and omnipresent, so Goku resorts to the Zeno button. Zeno destroys the timeline;
- Goku recovers future Zeno and introduces him to the present one, Trunks returns to his timeline before Black shows up and lives alongside another Trunks.

Tournament of Power:

- Goku, bored and getting rusty, reminds Zeno of his idea to uphold another tournament
- Zeno holds an exhibition match where Goku faces off against Toppo
- The teams are recruited and the tournament is very chaotic
- Kuririn and Tenshinhan are defeated early on
- Muten Roshi imparts some wisdom into his students
- Goku and Hit team up
- Hit faces Jiren and is defeated
- Piccolo is defeated by U4's bug fighter
- Kale rampages and is stopped by Jiren, she later fuses with Caulifla
- Goku achieves UI Sign but this isn't enough to defeat Jiren
- Vegeta faces Toppo and finds his own way to progress besides UI, but it's not enough to defeat Jiren
- Goku masters UI and almost defeats Jiren but his body can't handle the burden
- 17 self destructs to defeat Jiren but it fails
- Goku and Vegeta team up to defeat Jiren but fail to do so, Vegeta is eliminated
- Goku and Freeza team up to defeat Jiren, 17 is the last survivor and wishes back all the Universes.

[GreatSaiyaman123]

I think the 10x line was just a coincidence. That's too specific for Toriyama to bother, but also too vague. I imagine if he just wrote "Goku is 10x stronger than Vegeta" without specifying anything then they'd just make Goku stronger.

Ribrianne was in the movie because she was one of the more prominent characters in the anime. I doubt her appearing was even Toriyama's idea since he doesn't deal with the visuals in the movies.

Universe 6:
- The rosters, the decision to exclude Majin Boo after failing the test, Monaka has the fifth member meant to motivate Goku;
- Botamo is immune to physical attacks, Goku wins without going Super Saiyan by ring-out;
- Frost has three forms, puts on a charade of being polite, then reveals his true personality. Goku goes Super Saiyan but then loses via ring-out after Frost cheats with his poison needle;
- Piccolo faces Frost and loses with the same method but Jaco notices and Frost is disqualified, until Vegeta intervenes and demands a match, to which Piccolo agrees and withdraws;
- Vegeta turns Super Saiyan and one shots Frost. He then faces Magetta and struggles with his lava attacks and weight, but ultimately wins because Metalmen are vulnerable to insults;
- Vegeta faces Cabba and helps him turn Super Saiyan by pretending to revert to his evil ways. Vegeta shows him SS Blue in order to motivate him;
- Hit easily defeats SSB Vegeta with a technique nobody can figure out at first;
- Goku slowly figures out Hit's time skip technique and displays a power 10x greater than Vegeta. He eventually gives up because Hit is not able to use his full power, and Hit repays the favour by giving up against Monaka;
- Zeno appears and becomes friends with Goku;
- Beerus grants his brother's wish to restore his Earth.

U6 is the easiest one to figure out due to how similar both versions are. It's likely Toriyama provided a step-by-step summary like this and then each writer filled in the details, which is why major plot beats are the same but only superfluous details such as backstories and how abilities work are different.

It's the next two arcs that are harder to figure out.

Zamasu:

- in the future, after almost all of humanity has been wiped, Trunks is being hunted by a lookalike version of Goku;
- Manages to go back to the past to request Goku's help. He doesn't recognize Goku and attacks him. The two later spar and Goku easily defeats him after Trunks shows off how much stronger he's become;
- Trunks reveals he's taken care of Dabra and Babidi before Black arrived but Kaioshin died in the process, thereby killing Beerus;
- we're introduced to Zamasu and follow his descent into further hating mortals. A mystery is born about his relationship to Black.
- Goku, Vegeta and Trunks travel to the future and discover Goku Black is working alongside Zamasu. They are defeated by Black's new SSR form and travel back to the past, leaving Trunks behind.
- In the meantime, Beerus kills Zamasu in the present but this changes nothing in the future;
- Goku is called up by Zeno, who asks him to find a friend for him;
- Goku and Vegeta travel back to the future after training and learning the Mafuba, but Black and Zamasu fuse once backed into a corner. Goku and Vegeta can't defeat him even by working together.
- We know Vegetto was not in Toriyama's original script but he is in both versions; Potara is revealed to only work 1h for mortals.
- Zamasu's fusion begins to fail and Trunks ultimately defeats him by splitting in half;
- Zamasu becomes fully immortal and omnipresent, so Goku resorts to the Zeno button. Zeno destroys the timeline;
- Goku recovers future Zeno and introduces him to the present one, Trunks returns to his timeline before Black shows up and lives alongside another Trunks.

Tournament of Power:

- Goku, bored and getting rusty, reminds Zeno of his idea to uphold another tournament
- Zeno holds an exhibition match where Goku faces off against Toppo
- The teams are recruited and the tournament is very chaotic
- Kuririn and Tenshinhan are defeated early on
- Muten Roshi imparts some wisdom into his students
- Goku and Hit team up
- Hit faces Jiren and is defeated
- Piccolo is defeated by U4's bug fighter
- Kale rampages and is stopped by Jiren, she later fuses with Caulifla
- Goku achieves UI Sign but this isn't enough to defeat Jiren
- Vegeta faces Toppo and finds his own way to progress besides UI, but it's not enough to defeat Jiren
- Goku masters UI and almost defeats Jiren but his body can't handle the burden
- 17 self destructs to defeat Jiren but it fails
- Goku and Vegeta team up to defeat Jiren but fail to do so, Vegeta is eliminated
- Goku and Freeza team up to defeat Jiren, 17 is the last survivor and wishes back all the Universes.

Also:
- Kuririn is the first of the team to lose (To Frost?)
- Universe 9 is the first universe to lose
- Freeza makes a deal with Frost and betrays him
- 18 fights Ribrianne and Kuririn helps her from the stands
- 17 is the MVP throughout, is somehow super strong and defeats Damon (U4 bug who beat Piccolo)
- Gohan loses via double KO

Kale doesn't fight Jiren in the manga, and I'm not sure if Toriyama came up with the girls fusing. Kale was Toei's idea and then Toriyama made Caulifla as her pair. Toyotaro and Toei take ideas from each other (Vegetto), so being in both versions doesn't mean it was Toriyama's idea.

All character designs were a group effort between Toriyama, Toyotaro and Toei. Curiously, Toei asked for Toriyama to make a new form and Toriyama made UI, then Toei made UI Sign. Some people think UI isn't canon because AT was asked to do it, btw. Just wanted to share this stupid take .

[LoganForkHands73]

The whole concept of a "pure Toriyama Super continuity" stands up well enough until we get to the Tournament of Power, which by all indication was a much more carte blanche exercise where Toriyama gave his sparsest collection of notes and designs yet and expected his anime/manga collaborators to fill in the blanks. Without that collaboration, I don't think there wouldn't have been much of a story at all, but the lose premise of a massive 80-man multiversal tournament seemed purpose built to allow creative freedom. Android #17 and Freeza seem to be the only protagonists with semi-fleshed-out arcs consistently told in both mediums. Perhaps in Toriyama's mind, these two carried even more of the arc? Who can say.

Even in the more stripped-back manga, Caulifla and Kale still arguably play some of the biggest roles in the entire tournament and its preamble -- none of which would exist without Toei's input. I believe Ultra Instinct was mostly Toriyama's idea and it clearly extrapolates from the Whis training scene in RoF, but the prompt for another new transformation was once again an executive suggestion to drive viewing figures.

[Mr Baggins]

How do you think these events may have transpired in Toriyama's outlines?

They wouldn't have transpired at all. Toriyama never had any intention of writing those arcs entirely by himself.

With that said, given his closer collaboration and scrutiny within Toyotaro's take, it's absolutely fair to say that the manga was much closer in general to what would have been his version of the anime-concurrent stories. Even then, Toei and Toyotaro still had some degree of influence over what went down in the comic, so all these arcs were meant to be deeply collaborative from the start.

A purely Toriyama-written Super is more or less just the modern movies with a bunch of "oh yeah this vaguely happened" backstories between them.

[The Monkey King]

I think it's worth noting that Toriyama never outright acknowledged Ultra Instinct

It's the only transformation of Goku's that Toriyama never spoke about in any interview, it wasn't in his original draft for the ToP and was never referred to in Broly or Super Hero.

It's especially noticeable in Super Hero, as Toriyama wrote Goku as a complete martial arts muscle head idiot who was nowhere near being on the right track to attaining anything like UI. Even Vegeta had a better insight on Jiren's fighting style than Goku.

Also, the Jiren Vegeta described in Super Hero is nothing like the Jiren of the anime or manga. Vegeta described him as a warrior of absolute calm, relaxation and efficiency who strength wise was around Blue Tier.

I genuinely don't believe UI exists in Toriyama's DBS. If it does the closest person to attaining it was Jiren and not Goku funnily enough.

[VegettoEX]

I think it's worth noting that Toriyama never outright acknowledged Ultra Instinct

It's the only transformation of Goku's that Toriyama never spoke about in any interview, it wasn't in his original draft for the ToP and was never referred to in Broly or Super Hero.

It's especially noticeable in Super Hero, as Toriyama wrote Goku as a complete martial arts muscle head idiot who was nowhere near being on the right track to attaining anything like UI. Even Vegeta had a better insight on Jiren's fighting style than Goku.

Also, the Jiren Vegeta described in Super Hero is nothing like the Jiren of the anime or manga. Vegeta described him as a warrior of absolute calm, relaxation and efficiency who strength wise was around Blue Tier.

I genuinely don't believe UI exists in Toriyama's DBS. If it does the closest person to attaining it was Jiren and not Goku funnily enough.

I'd caution against saying or going with all this info in a bubble, especially the "interview" part, because:

Well, Toriyama didn't do much of interviews AT ALL for ANYTHING starting around this time, so of course he can't address something in a thing that he's not even a part of in the first place.

The last "major" interview Toriyama was a part of during Super's run was the Volume 4 Toyo-Tori talk, and that's with regard to the Goku Black story arc.

After that there's the "S-Cells" interview (obviously there's more in there than just that! ) in Saikyo Jump... and otherwise radio silence beyond the Sand Land stuff we also later got. That's it.

It's also worth considering when stuff was being written. Just like we know Super Hero was written before Moro and Granolla stuff was developed (and therefore one reason why it couldn't/wouldn't address it), we also know that Broly was being prepared well before the TV series was coming to an end -- for example, we know Nagamine left the rest of the series direction (for the Tournament of Power) to Nakamura because he was shifting to the film.

This stuff was all being worked out a crazy amount of "out of order" with each other, so I really caution against placing undue importance on what does or does not get brought up somewhere "later" in the continuity... which itself is already broken across what's effectively three different mediums (TV vs. movie vs. manga).

[ankokudaishogun]

if anything, it's likely Toriyama's Ultra Instinct was just Goku with clear eyes, fitting the minimalistic approach of SSGod and the original idea of Goku gaining the power of God in Base.

[Cipher]

I think it's kind of difficult, and maybe slightly pointless, to get down to the level of "what would this story or element have been if Toriyama had no outside input?", because said story/input wouldn't have existed at all.

The Future Trunks arc and ToP especially appear to gave been collaborative efforts, and removing outside prompts requires us to discount not only all four movies he scripted, all stemming from producer talks and prompts, but also basically all of the original manga, as he plotted with and adapted storyline suggestions from editors.

I think it's unlikely he cared much about the nitty gritty execution details of either version—and especially the anime which he appears to have been less directly involved in on a scene-by-scene/script-by-script level—but all we can really do with that is play a guessing game based on his movie scripts, which keep specifics maybe purposefully vague. And then you have, as mentioned above, the fact that movies were being worked on ahead of arcs set before them, which makes guessing games harder than just seeing what the movies reference. Otherwise all we can say is that he had a hand in both versions and oversaw manga chapters enough to correct art and dialogue.

For Moro and Granolah, it's been all but outright said that the premises came from Toyotaro, but we know of a handful of specific plot contributions from Toriyama, like Merus' identity and...seemingly basically most of the framework for Granolah, including the Heatas and new Dragon Balls. So I'm not sure how much you can uncouple that from whatever "Toriyama's Super" would be. It might be more of an advisory role, which is different from the earlier arcs and movies, but working with another contributor's story premise isn't, really.

It would be edifying to see his original plot materials for early arcs, but for stuff like the ToP and later manga arcs, that might not be so simple, if it was sort of generated between parties as it went along.

Still, I do hope we get some behind-the-scenes production stuff from both Toriyama and Toyotaro one day.

[Hugo Boss]

Dragon Ball Super is undeniably a collaborative effort, blending Toriyama’s storytelling with contributions from Toei, Toyotaro, and others. That said, I think the modern movies stand as the clearest examples of Toriyama’s direct vision, but calling everything else “vague backstories” would simplify how Super builds himself up on this foundation. Its fragmented development across TV, manga, and film reflects in my opinion a deliberate choice to present a multifaceted experience, prioritizing thematic consistency over strict narrative continuity. Ultimately, Super thrives as a product of Toriyama’s ideas guided through creative collaboration.

[Neon Z]

In the manga they can't even transform twice without losing 90% of their power and they can't even use their full power for more than a moment. It definitely makes RoF and the whole Golden Freeza thing very silly.

Even in the anime though, Goku had the line about wanting to save energy against Hit and thus fighting him in base initially, which suggests a significant energy drain, otherwise there'd be no reason to bother going in base. Toyotaro then pushed the whole "conserving energy" idea as a constant trend during the battle up to the whole "only have one shot with full power Super Saiyan Blue", while the anime basically then ignored it after the beginning with base Goku vs Hit, with Goku just staying transformed after that initial moment without issues - only having any noticeable drain afterwards when using Kaioken + Blue rather than the transformations by themselves causing it.

[dbs fanboy]

As much as I enjoy plenty of Super's cool ideas, I find it interesting how simple Toriyama's version of events would be.

I mean think about if it was up to him Goku and Vegeta would have only used Super Saiyan Blue for the whole show and that's it.

And blue isn't even a new form, it's just regular Super Saiyan using different ki.

Merged Zamasu and Jiren weren't that strong either in Toriyama's view, since Zamasu was originally going to be beaten by teamwork from Goku and Vegeta, and Jiren was supposed to be only slightly stronger , but just much better than them at utilizing his energy.


Toriyama's version of events is just a compilation of simple adventures, to make it all make sense with the whole 10 years of peace line.

[Yuji]

As much as I enjoy plenty of Super's cool ideas, I find it interesting how simple Toriyama's version of events would be.

I mean think about if it was up to him Goku and Vegeta would have only used Super Saiyan Blue for the whole show and that's it.

They effectively did. Even post UI, SSB is still used as the benchmark transformation.

Though it's likely SSB itself was mandated by Toei. We know SSG in BoG was already in the works before Toriyama got the script.

It's fun to think that it Toriyama was involved in every project from the start uninfluenced, we'd probably just get Super with SS1, 2 and 3 as their only forms.

[Luso Saiyan]

I mean think about if it was up to him Goku and Vegeta would have only used Super Saiyan Blue for the whole show and that's it.

And that wouldn't have been a bad thing at all.