What if Dragon Ball franchise didn't exist? How would it affect the pop culture and your life?

[PowerPhantom245]

What if Dragon Ball franchise (manga and anime) didn't exist?
How would our pop culture and your life would be different?

I'm aware there is a thread for this topic, but I want to put more details since it's 40th anniversary of anime.

If Toriyama didn't come up with franchise, I still think he would be popular manga artist, but he would be no where near popular worldwide, like he did with Dragon Ball success. I can see him being more famous for character designs for video game like Dragon Quest/Warrior.

As for pop culture, I think there would be big difference.
A franchise like Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, etc. would not exist or would be completely different, since most popular manga has major inspiration from Dragon Ball. The fighting genre franchise would still exist, since Fist of the North Star and Saint Seiya were popular, and I can see more continuing story/spin-off would be made from those. I just don't think it would reach same popularity and longevity as Dragon Ball.

I personally think robot genre like Gundam, Robotech, and Voltron, would be more popular in place of Dragon Ball.
Robot genre was already popular before Dragon Ball, so it would be more popular for this case.

For the Western/American audience, Dragon Ball was gateway/entry for anime thanks to Toonami on Cartoon Network, which was highest rated and most popular show at the time. I personally think robot shows like Voltron and Gundam would be the most popular shows.

As for myself, I don't think my life would change that much.
I was raised in special circumstances, where I've seen several anime before Dragon Ball, thanks to Japanese neighbor, who had quite amount of VHS of anime recorded from TV. Even though I love Dragon Ball, I don't think it impacted my life that much; without it, I probably would have been fan of other anime.

Any thoughts?

[MasenkoHA]

The landscape of Shonen Jump properties post-1996 would be different that’s about it.

I think One Piece would still exist but Oda wouldn’t have Goku to rip off

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Action has always been a popular and accessible genre, so I don't think Dragon Ball not existing would have changed that, because, as you say Fist of the North Star and Saint Seiya existed.

There probably would have been another fighting manga/anime following in their footsteps. Would it have been as successful or influential as Dragon Ball? Maybe, maybe not. Naruto, Bleach and One Piece probably would have still been made but the art style would have been different. I'm not sure if their respective mangakas were a fan of Toriyama in general or just Dragon Ball, but if the former applies maybe they would have taken more inspiration from Dr Slump and things like that.

I doubt mecha series would have been more popular, possibly as popular and just there to add more variety to Toonami's lineup as Gundam Wing did, but I don't think Dragon Ball took away any potential they had.

Its easy for me to say my life would have been different as I think about Dragon Ball and the way its inspired me every day, but who am I to say another series couldn't have had that magic? Yu-Gi-Oh (which I was really big into from 2001-2007) nearly did, and maybe that would have been my gateway to other manga and anime.

[JulieYBM]

I'm an optimist, so I like to think the world and I would be better off in this hypothetical.

[The Dark Knight]

On a personal level, I got into anime thanks to Dragon Ball, so that's an entire section of entertainment I may not be a fan of today if Dragon Ball didn't exist. For pop-culture in Japan, the landscape would be radically different from what it is today, as the majority of the biggest series there (Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach, to name a few) were directly inspired by Dragon Ball. There's also the fact that those three series inspired other series, so if you take DB out of the equation, everything as we know it falls apart. Would there even be a Weekly Shonen Jump today if it wasn't for the massive success of DB and the series that followed inspired by it ?

[Chuquita]

I probably would've gotten into some other franchise. What? I dunno.

I'm here because a long time ago, it was summer, I was bored, and didn't feel like watching reruns of shows I'd seen before on Nick. I found Dragon Ball though channel surfing.

For as large of an impact DB's had on my life, my fandom origin story is not exciting.

It's too far back to even quantify because of Dragon Ball's influence on other franchises I was into years before I even knew what Dragon Ball was. Too many variables.

I know I'd still make fanworks, but for what franchise and how is my artstyle different? I'm a little curious, but it's impossible to know.

Edit: Thinking about it, this username is a holdover from when I was into Pokémon. It's possible that would've still been my handle.

[Hellspawn28]

The Dragon Ball franchise let me made meet a lot of new friends who have been wonderful, and I would probably never meet them if the franchise didn't exist. It also introduced me to other stuff as a kid like Japanese mythology and other anime & manga. I would have most likely lost interest in anime and manga as I got older if it wasn't for DB.

[Kenji]

I'm going to be a bit blunt here:
I would feel a bit saddened by the loss of some furry bait, and the GT love songs, but I don't think my life would be impacted all that much. Because Dragon Ball overall is a very, very intellectually empty product.

And most of the people I have met in real life who turn out to be huge fans of it are toxic, homophobic, "alpha male" assholes... Like Trump's administration, for example. So... Yeah, maybe the world would be better off without it.

[BernardoCairo]

It's easy to imagine how the overall landscape of manga and anime would be different, since Dragon Ball has been so influential for so many people and still is to this day.

But I think it's even more interesting to consider how things would have been different in my own life. Honestly, it makes me a little sad to think about it. I love the original manga, and I have so many great memories of reading it.
Beyond that, Dragon Ball helped me connect with a lot of people over the years. I've started countless conversations simply because someone else was a fan. Through games, discussions, going to theaters together and creating “what if” scenarios, I ended up meeting people who are genuinely great friends. In many ways, that's why I keep coming back here, even if it sometimes means reading posts like the one above.
On a more personal level, I also learned a lot from Dragon Ball. Perseverance, the idea that there is always someone better than you, and that you can keep improving yourself every day if you choose to. It is entertainment, of course, but it also helped me get through some difficult moments in my life.
For that, I have nothing but gratitude.

[ma0u]

If Dragon Ball didn't exist, I feel that western fans would appreciate other 80s and 90s anime a lot more, and we wouldn't have any Dragon Ball call backs in western and Japanese animated series (which is pretty much anything that involves super human characters who move at light speed and/or carry the ability to fly and/or shoot some form of energy blasts).

Even video games like Street Fighter would likely not have been inspired to add fireball attacks like the Hadouken, and of course other instances like Sonic the Hedgehog's Super Sonic form not existing. Still, trying to map out how much of a butterfly effect Dragon Ball is responsible for is nearly impossible, considering how many influences the series has made in the last 40 years.

[Zebra]

While anime/manga was popular in Japan long before Dragon Ball came into the picture, its impact on the industry is undeniable. Toriyama innovated a lot of well-known tropes to be more mainstream; Dragon Ball is one of the best selling manga of all time for a reason, and DB and DBZ had remarkably good ratings on Japanese TV, too.

If you remove Dragon Ball from history, then anime/manga would be significantly less popular in general. Series like Yuu-Yuu-Hakusho, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, etc wouldn't exist or would be significantly different. And Dragon Ball Z played a significant role in anime becoming popular in America during the 1990s; remove DBZ, and the medium wouldn't take off as much in America. Sure, you'd probably still have stuff like Sailor Moon, Pokémon, and Yuu-Gi-Oh!, but there wouldn't be that many popular battle Shounen in the West.

Part of the reason Funimation licensed Dragon Ball in 1994 was because the series was still ongoing at that time; the anime and manga were still popular in Japan. If there's no Dragon Ball, then what other anime would Funimation have brought over? Saint Seiya and Hokuto no Ken were long over in Japan by 1994, and even if Funimation dubbed them back then, they probably wouldn't have been majorly successful in America.

Samurai Troopers is heavily influenced by Saint Seiya, but its localization as "Ronin Warriors" wasn't very popular in syndication or on Toonami in the 90s. Hokuto no Ken isn't even that marketable to kids. So, that leaves, what, Kin'nikuman? I guess the 2000s anime was somewhat popular on FoxBox/4Kids TV, but I highly doubt the 80s anime would've ever succeeded in America.

I guess Jojo would still exist, but that series was never that popular even in Japan before its 2012 anime came out. The 90s OVAs might still exist and be dubbed, but those only ever had a cult following in the West; forget about them helping to popularize anime here.

For the record, I say all this as someone who's highly critical of Dragon Ball. Toriyama was no pioneer of anything, but he was undeniably an innovator who arguably revolutionized the anime/manga industry to have more mainstream appeal. Even Dr. Slump's anime had incredible ratings in Japan, even better than Dragon Ball. Very few anime have better viewership scores than Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump in Japan.

[MCDaveG]

I dunno, I did like Dragon Ball mostly because I did like wuxia movies and hong kong action movies with Jet Li and Jackie Chan, while watching the 80s Chinese Monkey King show as a kid. Together with Karate Kid movies, Power Rangers and such.
I would not be a fan, if I wasn't fan of martial arts first

Hence the reason you will see me here criticizing the modern trend in Dragon Ball a lot, recoloring hair and maxing the sizes and colors of kamehamehas instead of more martial and mind training and new techniques.

Early Dragon Ball and Z was heavily reflecting east asian martial art adventures before leaning more into the sci-fi and modernising the whole "dragon world". I do like the fundamentals behind things like Ultra Instinct, or Ultra Ego Vegeta, I even enjoyed Vegeta's training in the Super manga, but why the outcome is always "Moar Ki, physical transformation and recolored hair" is beyond me (yeah, of course, new toys ). Everytime I read through the original manga, I am surprised how fresh it feels still with the ideas and designs, until it reaches Boo arc that I liked a lot as a kid on TV, but feel fatigued after it became the inevitable staple of the whole series, that doesn't really move forward.

That's me, hating on SSJ Blue since Ressurection F
Because of the biggest marketing lie, that Goku and Vegeta were training beyond, hence they don't need SSJ anymore...

[Bogard]

for pop culture, probably we wouldn't have naruto, one piece and hunter x hunter. their authors would have done something completely different.

for me, my life would be so much less fun.
i can't reckon how many times i've read and still read the classic dragon ball run.