What Dragon Ball Z is officially # 1 Canon?

[SegaSaturnGamer]

When a franchise enters other mediums, they often change major elements of the original story in the original medium. For example in the Sakura Wars franchise, when Sakura Wars was adapted into a manga and anime, these other medium adaptions significantly changes major story elements such as changing the protagonist from being Ohgami Ichiro to being Sakura Shinguji. Fans of the first medium of the Sakura Wars Franchise, the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast games, do not consider these other adaptions of the franchise to be canon and in fact the creators and developers of the Sakura Wars games, Red Entertainment, have officially stated that the games are the official canon storyline and any manga or anime of the Sakura Wars franchise are not canon at all. In other words the official plot of the Sakura Wars franchise are those in the games not the alternate storylines seen in the manga and anime.

Another example I could think of is the Warcraft franchise. As many novels and comics of Warcraft have been released, for a certain period of time there was huge argument on what is the officially canon plot. Blizzard finally solved this by publishing a website specifically for Warcraft and in the site they have written down what's canon in the story of the franchise. Anything else created by other people such as novels and comics are not canon at all unless specifically stated by the Warcraft website.

For a non game franchise I could think of, the Lord of the Rings is one where this arguments in canonicity were quite huge. Ever since the movies were released much of the people who were only introduced to LOTR thought the movie as the main storyline. THis resulted in a backlash from longtime fans of the books and heated debates occurred in LOTR forums over what is canon and what is not. Finally the Tolkien Society stated that only the books are canon-anything occuring in the movies that were changed or added and not found in the books are not canon. In other words Tolkien's books are the canon of the franchise period.

Sherlock Holmes was infamous for having big arguments in the canon story. After Doyle,the writer of Sherlock Holmes, stopped writing any new works for Sherlock Holmes, so many shortstories and novel written by people other than Doyle began being released. This caused big uproar among the Sherlocks Holmes community and nasty arguments and debates over whether these sequel works were canon or not. So many noncanon sequel stories or sidestories were writtent that they were all compiled into 3 different major books!However Sherlock Holmes fans and organizations finally agreed on one thing:Anything written by Doyle is officially canon to the Sherlock Holmes mythology while anything written by anybody is not canon at all.


So Iam curious, which medium of DBZ is the primary official canon?

[penguintruth]

The manga is the only 100% canon.

[VegettoEX]

The manga is the only 100% canon.

Except that no-one from the creative camp behind the franchise has ever come out and said anything like that. At all. Right? I mean, there are statements that such-and-such movies fit in with anime continuity, but it's not like anyone has flat-out said, "HERE BE YE GOLDEN MANGA, OF WHICH CANONICITY IS EXCLUSIVE!"

So... it's up to the individual fan to decide what they personally want to accept as truly canonical, and then get into arguments with other fans who don't see things the same way as them. Welcome To Internet.

[Kendamu]

I'm gonna go with, "The manga is canon because it's the source material. Everything else came as a result of the manga be it directly or indirectly."

However, I can certainly get behind the idea that everything is canon but not all of it is in the same continuity/universe/whatever.'

I guess that's just a roundabout way of saying, "I'm a manga fanboy but Mike is right."

[Hellspawn28]

Just like other popular manga like Nartuo, and Bleach for example, the manga is canon because it's the source material and AT had no invoment with the story in GT or the movies.

[VegettoEX]

Just like other popular manga like Nartuo, and Bleach for example, the manga is canon because it's the source material and AT had no invoment with the story in GT or the movies.

But that's still your own personal interpretation of what the canon should be. No-one behind the franchise has come out and officially stated that the manga itself, and itself exclusively, is and should be the canonical basis for all considerations for all time so be it the end seriously.

I'm not even disagreeing with your interpretation, but you can't state it as fact when that fact doesn't exist.

[JulieYBM]

Just like other popular manga like Nartuo, and Bleach for example, the manga is canon because it's the source material and AT had no invoment with the story in GT or the movies.

Eh? Kishimoto and Kubo (and Oda for One Piece) quite often contribute to the anime. That doesn't necessarily make these things canon, but they are involved with the animated materials (most specifically with the movies, but occasionally the television series').

[dbgtFO]

If anything contradicts the Manga, which is the ultimate source of Dragonball, then whatever the Manga said holds more weight. That's how people usually sees it and that's how I see it as well. This is not considering potential mistakes, which gets corrected in guidebooks and later editions of the manga(namely Vegeta's 20.000/30.000 vs. Recoome).

I'd say my personal canon would probably be Manga on the top followed by manga specific guidebooks then the animated adaption, the movies & GT and then the games.

[Hellspawn28]

I don't see the anime of Dragon Ball counted as canon neither since its adaptation of the manga. You don't see people calling the movie versions of Harry Potter, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Frankenstein, and Marvel Superheros canon afterall.

[Mountain]

Personally, I consider the manga by Toriyama (which includes the history of Mirai no Trunks) as well as the Bardock TV special to be canon. Of course, as stated previously, there is no official confirmation on any of this, but the above is what I feel most comfortable with when referring to the canonical portion of the Dragon Ball franchise; they seem to work quite well on more than a few levels.

[penguintruth]

Well, people do get a little overly obsessed with canonicity (including myself at times).

[Hellspawn28]

The canon is importent since its helps to know what is official is not in the Dragon Ball universe. Also helps if you are going to powerscale the series when making power levels. Also the anime is not canon due to fillers since fillers like Vegeta blowing up a Planet before he arrive on Earth was never shown in the manga. I think it will fall into the "if it was never shown in the source material then it never happen rule" rule.

[penguintruth]

Power levels are completely irrelevant after the Freeza arc, so I don't care about those. The entire point of power levels is to show that Freeza and his gang think they can measure strength with technology, but they're wrong.

Anyone who spends time on power levels after the Freeza arc should be ignored.

In fact, power levels become irrelevant during the battle with Freeza itself.

[VegettoEX]

The canon is important since its helps to know what is official is not in the Dragon Ball universe.

There's your problem. "Canon" does not mean "official".

Bojack is "official" -- he was created by the staff legally allowed to be responsible for the franchise (and was even designed by the original author). Is he canonical? Yes, he's canonical to the movie he's in. Perhaps he's canonical to the TV adaptation. He does not appear to be canonical to the original manga.

Bardock is also "official" -- he was created by Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru and refined by Akira Toriyama. He was included in a legitimate TV special for the TV series. He's canonical to the TV adaptation. He's also canonical to the manga, since he was included after-the-fact.

But what does it matter? It only matters when you want to argue with someone else over who could beat who in the fight, for the most part. That's what discussions over "canon" boil down to the overwhelming majority of the time with this franchise. If you're going to argue with someone who has a completely different ideology about the canon of the series, then your discussion is pretty much DOA.

I'll repeat it again: no-one responsible for creating the franchise has ever stepped up and said, "Here is a detailed list of what we consider to be the pure canon for the Dragon World." They just haven't. Any definition of and restrictions on canon is up to the individual fan to decide for themselves in terms of what to accept, what not to accept, what to accept over what else, what contradictions to ignore, etc.

It's easy to dismiss the conversation and say, "Nah man, only the manga is canon!"... but not everyone feels that way, and no-one that created the series ever said that.

[Mewzard]

Be glad that canon's relatively easy to follow in Dragon Ball (if you follow the golden rule that some do). Toriyama's manga-Canon is an easy one to follow. Minus an occasional short (like SD, or a tie-in manga to a special), it's generally just Toriyama's work, and then anime (to some people).

Even in manga, it can get worse, like with Saint Seiya, where you have the original manga, original anime, OVAs finishing the manga story, a movie that's supposed to be the canon sequel, yet was screwed up by Toei so the creator doesn't count it, three sequel manga (two by different people, but chosen by the original mangaka, one by the original mangaka), an OVA for one of the sequel manga, the Hypermyth (supposed to have been written by the mangaka half way through the series, giving background, but hardly any of it us used is the last 20 or so years), and many more headaches. I save myself some pains by just counting the original manga, sequel manga by the original creator, and consider everything else fun extras (Ryo Horikawa voicing a bishonen in pink being such a fun, lol).

It gets even worse if you try to follow into Superhero comics, where the writers and artists regularly change now and again, where canon is determined by the storyteller (though, generally, editors have tried to keep some consistency between writers in recent years), characters come and go, and come again, and occasionally, universes are reset, yet some things still happened according to this writer, while other things didn't, yet they aren't always specifically said-*head explodes*

Yeah, as a fan of series with much more complicated canon issues, I do love that I can just say Dragon Ball: Toriyama's manga. Eases some burdens, lol. But yeah, generally, unless things are complicated, the golden rule I see from many fans is that the manga written by the original creator is the canon, unless otherwise stated (or, unless an anime came first, like S-Cry-Ed, who's manga started 3 months after the anime). If there are multiple series, see what series don't contradict the main plot (some things might just be alternate universe/timeline).

So, that's my little view/example on canon.

I know, Mike's right, it's up to the fans (except in the case of American Comics, where the people in charge do, on occasion, insist on what's canon and what's not, since everyone at DC is playing in one sandbox, while everyone in Marvel is playing in another, for example). It's up to you to decide: Manga only (and if so, all manga, or just the original, or just from the creator), or anime (and is there any limit as to what is allowed in your canon?).

To me, regarding Dragon Ball, Toriyama's manga is number one under the Sun.

[B]

I think a fair question to ask is "When does this matter?" Just to say such-and-such didn't happen? Whether or not Movie 9, for example, actually happens kind of seems irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, as it's self-contained and not brought up in the manga nor the anime afterwards. Perhaps the "Is GT or DBO the true continuation of Dragon Ball?" debacle may mean something if an answer is ever given. It just seems really case-by-case basis to me.

[Bussani]

It always confuses me when people talk about it like this. Something can't just be canon without context. Sometimes people shorten it to that, particularly if there's an "official canon" that's been laid out by the creators/owners, but if that's not the case you have to define what sort of canon you're talking about. For example, SegaSaturnGamer mentions that the Sakura Wars anime isn't part of the official canon--but that doesn't mean you couldn't have an OVA or movie that was part of the anime canon.

But as people have said already, Toriyama and Toei have never laid out an official canon. When people talk about canon around here, they're generally talking about "Toriyama/manga canon", which tends to include anything in the manga, anything Toriyama has said himself in interviews, and maybe the guides, but that differs from person to person. Canon's always a matter of opinion in the end, but it's the opinion of the creators/owners of a work that has control over where that work is heading, so theirs is often the only one worth thinking about.

[MetaMoss]

Most organized groups of Dragon Ball fans accept the Japanese Manga as the highest level of canonizing (even Dragon Ball Wiki, surprisingly...). But for official canon, none such exists.

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

It's easy to dismiss the conversation and say, "Nah man, only the manga is canon!"... but not everyone feels that way, and no-one that created the series ever said that.

To be fair, the one guy that has the authority to say such a thing (i.e. Toriyama) would never really come out and say that.

But yeah, generally, unless things are complicated, the golden rule I see from many fans is that the manga written by the original creator is the canon, unless otherwise stated (or, unless an anime came first, like S-Cry-Ed, who's manga started 3 months after the anime)

For an example of one of those slightly more complicated series, there's Neon Genesis Evangelion. At first glance, one might say, "The anime came first, of course it's the canonical story. Everything else is just a spin-off." But what about the Yoshiyuki Sadamoto manga? It actually started four months (I believe) before the anime began airing on TV. Sure, Eva was always planned as a TV series (since 1993 or so), but Sadamoto was a co-creator of the series. The guy designed all of the characters! He even had a hand in some important plot points. (And Shinji might've been another girl like Noriko from GunBuster, if Sadamoto hadn't suggested that Shinji be a boy.) So, while some would just write off the manga as another spin-off, I say Hideaki Anno's anime and Sadamoto's manga are two sides of the same coin. You can't lump his manga in with the silly "Shinji Ikari, Ace Detective" manga, and the like.

I'm not even gonna get into the stuff like on-air episodes vs. home video ("Director's Cut") episodes, or the TV series ending vs. the movie, or the relationship between the original series and the "Rebuild" New Movie Editions...

Speaking of director's cuts, to relate this back to Dragon Ball, what about the original Tankobon vs. the Kanzenban? It's not enough to call the manga canonical these days; you've got two slightly different versions of the manga, now!

[Hellspawn28]

I notice that people have compare DB canon to Star Wars canon, the last time I check that Star Wars canon is done with Lucas inc then one person. Same with Marvel, DC, and Image comics as well.