What happened to "hard to adapt" manga jokes?

[Cold Skin]

I could never watch too much of the series before the Cell era (and then it was not re-airing since it was officially forbidden to show Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z in France afterwards - at least on regular, free channels), and even for those I've seen, it's been a REALLY long time since I've seen them.

So I was wondering how the anime producers managed to treat the manga jokes that are using features of the manga itself as a comic relief? Did they suppress them? Did they transform them so that it relates to TV features as a comic relief instead?

If you don't see what I mean, those jokes are things like:
- Goku projects Yamcha on the border of a panel, which cracks open.
- Pilaf says that since the Shonen Jump is a magazine targetting a wide audience, so it is their duty to watch their language and moves.
- After Bulma says the Dragon Balls are unusable for a while, Oolong states the title of the manga series should be changed.
- Bulma says that they're all published in a magazine which targets includes young boys.
- When Goten and Trunks try to fuse, Krilin notices that the author is not working too hard, just repeating the same drawings over and over again.

There might be more of them, but I don't remember them right now. So you guys who have seen or just own most/all of the episodes, can you tell me what happened to this kind of joke in the anime?

There are also all those little funny elements in the landscape, I don't know if they kept them in the anime (Toriyama appearing to say "You're not at Penguin Village", a fish with Ultraman's head screaming his typical "Shuwatch!", an ovni in the sky at night...).

So any info you can give me on these is welcome!

[Herms]

I don't know about the rest, but they left Kuririn's comment about Toriyama's laziness out of the anime.

[Rocketman]

I don't know about the rest, but they left Kuririn's comment about Toriyama's laziness out of the anime.

Probably because reused drawings is about 50% of the anime. :V

[B]

There's a couple of "tap the fourth wall" moments.

-Jackie Chun claims Nam/Namu is far too serious for a gag anime.
-When Bulma meets a couple of Red Ribbon grunts on that island, she asks if they're considering doing things to her that couldn't be shown in a gag anime. They nod "yes."

Can't recall if the manga did a similar thing.

[Rocketman]

There's a couple of "tap the fourth wall" moments.

-Jackie Chun claims Nam/Namu is far too serious for a gag anime.
-When Bulma meets a couple of Red Ribbon grunts on that island, she asks if they're considering doing things to her that couldn't be shown in a gag anime. They nod "yes."

Can't recall if the manga did a similar thing.

Yes, it did. Replacing 'anime' with 'manga' obviously.

[Herms]

-Jackie Chun claims Nam/Namu is far too serious for a gag anime.
-When Bulma meets a couple of Red Ribbon grunts on that island, she asks if they're considering doing things to her that couldn't be shown in a gag anime. They nod "yes."

Can't recall if the manga did a similar thing.

The manga has exactly the same lines only with "gag manga" instead of "gag anime".

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

If you don't see what I mean, those jokes are things like:
- Goku projects Yamcha on the border of a panel, which cracks open.
- Pilaf says that since the Shonen Jump is a magazine targetting a wide audience, so it is their duty to watch their language and moves.
- After Bulma says the Dragon Balls are unusable for a while, Oolong states the title of the manga series should be changed.
- Bulma says that they're all published in a magazine which targets includes young boys.
- When Goten and Trunks try to fuse, Krilin notices that the author is not working too hard, just repeating the same drawings over and over again.

I don't think any of those jokes were used in the Anime because they refer to things like Shonen Jump and the author which usually relates to Manga.

[Cold Skin]

I don't know about the rest, but they left Kuririn's comment about Toriyama's laziness out of the anime.

Probably because reused drawings is about 50% of the anime. :V

Yeah, I guess they weren't going to critisize their own job through one of the characters' reply, I can't imagine Krilin saying "The anime staff is quite lazy, they're just repeating the same drawings over and over again"...

Apparently from what you guys said, other replies like that were mostly adapted to the anime (basically replacing the manga notions by anime notions).

What about Yamcha being hit by Goku's Janken (which is not a reply but a visual joke)? In the first Dragon Ball movie, they kept the same scene, but basically removing the fourth wall break by making him hit a simple pillar on the background instead of the original manga panel (which obviously wasn't possible in the anime). I guess this was quite the same in the anime episode from the regular series, right?

[TripleRach]

If you don't see what I mean, those jokes are things like:
- Goku projects Yamcha on the border of a panel, which cracks open.
- Pilaf says that since the Shonen Jump is a magazine targetting a wide audience, so it is their duty to watch their language and moves.
- After Bulma says the Dragon Balls are unusable for a while, Oolong states the title of the manga series should be changed.
- Bulma says that they're all published in a magazine which targets includes young boys.
- When Goten and Trunks try to fuse, Krilin notices that the author is not working too hard, just repeating the same drawings over and over again.

I don't remember the last two, but the first three are all discussed in the filler guide, in episodes 5, 11, and 12, respectively. But to summarize, the first one is, as you guessed, changed to Yamcha hitting a pillar instead, and the second and third are just omitted entirely.

There might be more of them, but I don't remember them right now. So you guys who have seen or just own most/all of the episodes, can you tell me what happened to this kind of joke in the anime?

I'm not sure it's quite the same type of joke, but I can think of another joke in the manga that's omitted from the anime because it relies on a written pun. At the 21st Budoukai, after Jackie Chun uses Suiken (Drunken Fist), Gokuu counters by using Kyouken in the manga. The Kyouken he claimed to use would mean "wild fist" (狂拳), but as Jackie points out, Gokuu spelled it wrong, and the Kyouken he actually used is "mad dog" (狂犬). Hence why the attack involves running around on all fours foaming at the mouth. They're both pronounced the same, but written with different kanji.

The anime, however, just ignored everything related to Kyouken and skipped straight to Saruken (Monkey Fist) as the counter to Suiken. Saruken being what came after Kyouken in the manga, of course.

There are also all those little funny elements in the landscape, I don't know if they kept them in the anime (Toriyama appearing to say "You're not at Penguin Village", a fish with Ultraman's head screaming his typical "Shuwatch!", an ovni in the sky at night...).

Don't know about the others, but the thing with Toriyama mentioning Penguin Village is definitely in the anime.

[Cold Skin]

I'm not sure it's quite the same type of joke, but I can think of another joke in the manga that's omitted from the anime because it relies on a written pun. At the 21st Budoukai, after Jackie Chun uses Suiken (Drunken Fist), Gokuu counters by using Kyouken in the manga. The Kyouken he claimed to use would mean "wild fist" (狂拳), but as Jackie points out, Gokuu spelled it wrong, and the Kyouken he actually used is "mad dog" (狂犬). Hence why the attack involves running around on all fours foaming at the mouth. They're both pronounced the same, but written with different kanji.

The anime, however, just ignored everything related to Kyouken and skipped straight to Saruken (Monkey Fist) as the counter to Suiken. Saruken being what came after Kyouken in the manga, of course.

Oh, interresting, I didn't think of that at all! But it's true that in the anime, Jackie Chun can't say that Goku spelled it wrong since dialogues don't appear as written language in the anime, so it's definately part of the "hard to adapt" manga jokes!!"

Another one I just remembered is when Gohan, as the Great Saiyaman, is being asked who he is, and he answers something like "you'll know in the next chapter" or "you'll know on the next page". And when you get there, the guy is like "I repeat, who the hell are you?!" and Gohan says "as promised, I'll tell you now". Guess that was just suppressed in the anime version, I don't think they made Gohan say "you'll know in the next episode" or "you'll know after the commercial break"...

[Herms]

Another one I just remembered is when Gohan, as the Great Saiyaman, is being asked who he is, and he answers something like "you'll know in the next chapter" or "you'll know on the next page". And when you get there, the guy is like "I repeat, who the hell are you?!" and Gohan says "as promised, I'll tell you now". Guess that was just suppressed in the anime version, I don't think they made Gohan say "you'll know in the next episode" or "you'll know after the commercial break"...

For the record, that was adapted a bit for the tankoubon release too. When it originally ran in Jump, Gohan promised to tell the bad guy next week (since that's when the next chapter would be), but of course that wouldn't make sense in a collected edition where the next chapter was right on the next page.

[russ869]

Hmm... that's a good point.

In Gintama all of the break-the-fourth-wall "This is a manga!" jokes are changed to "This is an anime!" jokes for the TV animated version. For example the joke in the first chapter where Shinpachi complains that Gin, who supposed was going to save the day, only protected them for one page is changed to say he couldn't even protect them for one minute.

Also, the cast of Gintama almost constantly cracks snide remarks about how the anime production staff is so lazy, and about how they're going to be canceled, and what the hell kind of anime is in 4:3 aspect ratio these days when everything else is in widescreen HD!?

Of course that kind of ludicrous humor is essential to a manga like Gintama. Maybe they didn't see it as as essential for Dragon Ball. But it does sound like most of those kind of puns are maintained.

[Super Sonic]

Well, in the Dr. Slump crossover, Senbei's popping in corners of panels and says he's doing so due to not appearing in comics for so long. Haven't seen the anime in Japanese, but remember in the dub he said something about not appearing on tv for so long.

[jjgp1112]

There was also a joke at the end of the episode where Goku first turns into an Ape where the narrator says, "Even the author is scared! He didn't even expect this!"