Did Super use concepts from fan works?

[mecha3000]

For example, the idea of an evil Supreme Kai originally came from Dragon Ball AF before becoming official with Zamasu. The whole Evil Goku thing had been a trope from the fans for a while before Goku Black. And even Gohan Blanco apparently inspired Gohan Beast, possibly? Then, there's the Tournament of Power between different universes possibly coming from Dragon Ball Multiverse.

So yeah, did Toriyama take these concepts from fan works or are they so vague that he came up with them by himself? I also know Toyotaro used to be Toyble and maybe gave his input (from his own AF series and maybe Multiverse too) to incorporate fan concepts into official Dragon Ball. And in my opinion, I think it's the highest honor to have the official creator use concepts made by fans. But it can also be seen as lazy too, which I can't argue (on top of bringing back villains like Freeza, Cell through Cell Max, and Broly). Thoughts?

[JulieYBM]

There is no confirmation that Toriyama took ideas from fan works when creating designs and storylines for Dragon Ball Super. Does it really matter if he did or didn't? Ideas are neat and all, but the real secret to the sauce is the manner in which they are executed. We know that he would take ideas from Iyoku or the anime staff for what they wanted to try to sell to the audience, but that's pretty normal commercial art business.

[MasenkoHA]

om Dragon Ball AF before becoming official with Zamasu. The whole Evil Goku thing had been a trope from the fans for a while before Goku Black.

[Kenji]

^ Don't forget Classic Bardock!
On Zamasu's defense, what makes him interesting is the mystery behind what led "Goku" to become like that.

[PhantomSaiyan]

So yeah, did Toriyama take these concepts from fan works or are they so vague that he came up with them by himself?

How it most likely went

Iyoku and the Dragon Ball Room: "Toriyama sensei, research has showed that x y and z are popular in the fandom, how about using them for a story in Super? You agree right?"

Toriyama: "ok"

*grabs paper and draws them in his style with a few design changes

Iyoku and the Dragon Ball Room: "Awesome, now how does the story unfold?"

Toriyama: "Give me a second" (God do I have to do everything around here)

*writes 3 bare bones bullet points

Toriyama: good luck, now figure out the rest yourselves, see you in the next meeting

[JulieYBM]

God, I forget how sexy Tullece looked in the sixth movie. That is a hell of a jaw, I wish Tullece had shown up more outside of that nothing appearance in Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans and Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans.

[BernardoCairo]

In addition to Iyoku bringing up the fans' wishes to Toriyama, as PhantomSaiyan already mentioned, Toyotaro was also a fan, just like us. And, as such, he probably contributed some of those ideas as well.

[The Dark Knight]

The vast majority of concepts in Super were suggested to Toriyama by the production team, so it would be that staff who were influenced by these fan concepts, not Toriyama. His role for the majority of Super's run was to guide the production team, rather than be the captain himself, so he would write a story around whatever concept that was presented to him. The exception to this rule was Daima, as that was intended to be set in an entire different place before he came along and changed it to the demon realm. I assume Ssj4 was the token suggestion he incorporated into that story, as I doubt he would've included it otherwise.

[SupremeKai25]

People should remember that Goku Black in those old fanfictions was... well...

Goku.

Like, he was literally just an evil Goku who hit his head as a baby, or switched places with Vegeta and was raised by Freeza, or whatever.

As for Turles, he was not Goku, but he was still Saiyan.

What makes our Canon Goku Black subversive and unique is that he's neither Goku nor a Saiyan at all. He's a body-stealing Kaioshin, who slowly gets influenced by the cells of his new body. That's original and I don't recall that every being done in fanfictions.

I know people also compare Black and Zamasu to Xicor and his mother... but they aren't really similar at all. Black and Zamasu don't have a parent-offspring dynamic. Xicor's mother and Zamasu are both Kaioshin, but I don't know if this Xicor's mother has that whole backstory and motivation about hating mortals and wanting to create a "golden utopia". Black and Zamasu are the same person, completely different concept from Xicor and his mother. Xicor is a half-breed "demigod", Black is a Kaioshin and an actual god. That's different. SO MANY DIFFERENCES and yet I'm supposed to believe there was an inspiration? I don't think so.

Comparing Goku Black to Xicor or Turles, comparing Zamasu to Xicor's mother, it's just reaching.

You might as well say Buu was a rehash of Cell because they both absorb people and regenerate.

[The Dark Knight]

What makes our Canon Goku Black subversive and unique is that he's neither Goku nor a Saiyan at all. He's a body-stealing...

Somewhere in the multiverse, a version of Captain Ginyu in Goku's body is wondering why you think this is unique.

[SupremeKai25]

What makes our Canon Goku Black subversive and unique is that he's neither Goku nor a Saiyan at all. He's a body-stealing...

Somewhere in the multiverse, a version of Captain Ginyu in Goku's body is wondering why you think this is unique.

Do you think Majin Buu is a unique villain?

Also, is Captain Ginyu a Kaioshin who wants to eradicate all mortals as some form of twisted justice, and stole Goku's body because he feels personally scorned and humiliated after being beaten by Goku in battle?

Two simple questions for you.

[Alruneia]

I think it has probably been doing that to some extent, but a lot of it is just coincidental, too. Like with Goku Black as Super Saiyan Rosé having the same palette as that one "Evil Goku" image on DeviantArt that people like to point out, that's just because there are so many "Evil Goku" variations with all kinds of palettes out there that dodging all of them wasn't gonna happen. In general there's just so, so much fan content available that it's extremely difficult not to unintentionally do something similar to a few of them.
In the case of the Tournament of Power versus DB Multiverse, I personally think that's mainly just fans drawing parallels a bit too creatively, honestly. Beyond the basic "let's have a martial arts tournament between universes" concept, they're not really all that similar. Battle royale style versus bracket style, continuous battle versus constant secondary plots, even what constitutes a "universe" is different. Half a point for the winner getting a wish on some Dragon Balls, I guess, but that's also such a basic idea that it can easily be a coincidence. I don't know, I just don't really see it.

[Saiya6Cit]

All logic and evidence points out to the fact that yes, they did.


I was out of the DB fandom for a loooooong time, never really read any DB Fan story until I returned in 2020. I did not experience the DB Super hype as it was happening... but, once I returned due to the 2020 global pandemic lockdown, I remember I saw a fanart of Vegeta with purple hair on Deviantart. I complained about it saying that Super was being ridiculous on the hair colors and that their only objective was to sell old DBZ action figures by re-paiting the hair, putting them in a new package and selling them as something new. Got lots of hating and one dude even said "Yes, yes, give us the whole rainbow!!!". Some months later the Vegeta Ultra ego happened.

Producers, writers, directors all of those guys and their marketing research team do see fan works and people's reaction to them and yes, they take ideas.

Is that wrong?

No, I say it is not. Because a fan knows their work is not copyrighted, whilst whatever they produce is. At the end DB Characters belong to them.

[SupremeKai25]

All logic and evidence points out to the fact that yes, they did.


I was out of the DB fandom for a loooooong time, never really read any DB Fan story until I returned in 2020. I did not experience the DB Super hype as it was happening... but, once I returned due to the 2020 global pandemic lockdown, I remember I saw a fanart of Vegeta with purple hair on Deviantart. I complained about it saying that Super was being ridiculous on the hair colors and that their only objective was to sell old DBZ action figures by re-paiting the hair, putting them in a new package and selling them as something new. Got lots of hating and one dude even said "Yes, yes, give us the whole rainbow!!!". Some months later the Vegeta Ultra ego happened.

Producers, writers, directors all of those guys and their marketing research team do see fan works and people's reaction to them and yes, they take ideas.

Is that wrong?

No, I say it is not. Because a fan knows their work is not copyrighted, whilst whatever they produce is. At the end DB Characters belong to them.

Personally, I've seen so many people online - on this very forum - wish that Black was just Goku. They complain that Zamasu "ruined Black", that Black "stopped being interesting when Zamasu came into the picture", and they just wish Black was an evil Saiyan.

It's interesting how Toriyama and the authors didn't take the low-hanging bait of just making another boring evil Saiyan, even though that seems to be what a lot of people wanted online. Instead they created a unique and original backstory for this evil Goku lookalike.

[JulieYBM]

What makes our Canon Goku Black subversive and unique is that he's neither Goku nor a Saiyan at all. He's a body-stealing...

Somewhere in the multiverse, a version of Captain Ginyu in Goku's body is wondering why you think this is unique.

Zamasu is cuntier, therefore more entertaining.

[SupremeKai25]

What makes our Canon Goku Black subversive and unique is that he's neither Goku nor a Saiyan at all. He's a body-stealing...

Somewhere in the multiverse, a version of Captain Ginyu in Goku's body is wondering why you think this is unique.

Zamasu is cuntier, therefore more entertaining.

Agreed. That's why I wish some old fans looked at the new villains not through some ambiguous, arbitrary, and abstract "concepts", but through what they actually are in the story. How they talk, how they behave, what kind of relations they have.

Black and Zamasu having a cabin in the wood where they drink tea and casually talk about genocide while twirling their moustache not only makes for an intelligent contrast with their delusions as heroes of the story, but is also just fun and entertaining to watch.

[Yellow Flower King]

I know this isnt the thread for it, but FAN WIKIS forced Brenda Nava to use Ultra Instinct for the Super Dub. She's the translator for the Latin American dub. I cant believe FAN WIKIS won out in the end. That's the worst.

[super michael]

I have zero problems with Zamasu and Goku Black, I actually like those two.

I never watched DBZA, but does DBS use some ideas from DBZA? Like an example Mr Popo warning Vegeta he will ban him from using the ROSAT.

[PhantomSaiyan]

I have zero problems with Zamasu and Goku Black, I actually like those two.

I never watched DBZA, but does DBS use some ideas from DBZA? Like an example Mr Popo warning Vegeta he will ban him from using the ROSAT.

To be honest, I don't personally think they took inspuration from Abridged at all, people just looked at one Popo line, and since we had years of popo jokes, bias kicked in, and they thought Abridged made it happen.

I doubt any of the Super writers sat down to watch Abridged, especially with how rare it is in Japan to actually understand English, but I mean... who really knows at the end of the day, the possibility is definitely not 0%, just very unlikely

[Chuquita]

It feels like there's an unofficial rule where you can't have Goku himself become evil. Like, he's "poisonous" (which is arguably different than "evil") but also incorruptable?

I was initially hoping Goku Black was Goku himself either from another timeline or being mind-controlled by someone (because I wanted to see evil Goku vs dbs Vegeta), but once Zamasu started pontificating as Goku Black and really theatrically playing it up I thought the writers made the better choice.

Zamasu and Goku Black were a highlight for me in Super. The chemistry! They're like an effective and genuinely threatening version of Team Rocket.

I hope Super Kai doesn't do them dirty.