What If Eiichiro Oda wrote Dragon Ball?

[UpFromTheSkies]

It would be interesting to see him do at least a one shot. Something I'd like to see happen is a new Dragon Ball series where other artists and writers, such as Oda, would come in and write stories that could take place at any point during the Dragon Ball timeline, about any character they want, with Toriyama supervising.

[JulieYBM]

It's interesting how Toriyama has always said that he actually goes out of his way to avoid scenes becoming too emotional in Dragon Ball, yet, precisely because he doesn't overplay them and doesn't fill the series with them, they are much more believable and meaningful. I'm not even talking about major scenes: the simple, brief, no-bullshit farewell between Goku and Gohan in the Kaioshin world (a hug, Goku's thumbs up), before Gohan goes back to Earth to fight Buu and they both think they will never see each other again, is much more meaningul and authentic than anything that One Piece has done in recent years. And, I dare say, much more mature. A more mature children show, yes.

It's depressing to think that if Oda had created this scene Gohan would be blubbering with a ridiculous face as he said goodbye to Gokuu. That's too loud for a quieter series like Dragon Ball.

[Kid Buu]

I really dislike Oda's artstyle; especially his female designs.

[rereboy]

It's interesting how Toriyama has always said that he actually goes out of his way to avoid scenes becoming too emotional in Dragon Ball, yet, precisely because he doesn't overplay them and doesn't fill the series with them, they are much more believable and meaningful. I'm not even talking about major scenes: the simple, brief, no-bullshit farewell between Goku and Gohan in the Kaioshin world (a hug, Goku's thumbs up), before Gohan goes back to Earth to fight Buu and they both think they will never see each other again, is much more meaningul and authentic than anything that One Piece has done in recent years. And, I dare say, much more mature. A more mature children show, yes.

It's depressing to think that if Oda had created this scene Gohan would be blubbering with a ridiculous face as he said goodbye to Gokuu. That's too loud for a quieter series like Dragon Ball.

One is maybe too load, the other maybe too quiet.

[B]

He actually sticks to his set style more than many other artists with their works, so I don't really get what you are saying about it catering to people.

Well, that is just it. Obviously based on sales, there are plenty of people who like that style and there's no reason for him to deviate from it to any strong degree.

This is all subjective, of course, but I don't feel he's strong in any one specific area. For example, there have been debates here on Kanzenshuu about Dragon Ball's story, and the merits of it as it went along. Some people took note of the art, to the point that it was possible for Toriyama's skills at drawing to do whatever heavy-lifting his writing couldn't; at least it's pretty to look at! Or the toilet humor scattered throughout the series; there are fans of that. Toriyama has strengths and weaknesses. Oda and One Piece will rise to the level of acceptable and never really top that. The various stories in One Piece are all very easy to digest, while the Dragon Ball fandom has been yelling at each about which "saga" is the best or who is stronger than who since forever.

I've personally never finished an arc of OP and thought anything besides "that was good; let's continue." It really spells everything out for you. Nothing jumps out at you because everything is jumping out at you. What's that saying? Nothing is special if everything is special?

[DragonBoxZTheMovies]

I'm not sure if it's just because I've seen the Anime beforehand and I can use that as a guideline, but I find Toriyama's fight scenes a lot easier to follow than Oda's. I finally jumped on the One Piece bandwagon recently, and from what I've read, I'm having a bit of difficulty in following some of the action scenes. His panels are just so crowded sometimes; I'm remembering this one panel from the Arlong fight, and you can't even tell that he's getting kicked in the face at first glance. Toriyama's, on the other hand, are big and bold, and there's a simplicity to them that's easy to follow and breeze through. At the same, there's a lot of detail, particularly in the backgrounds.

So, if Oda wrote Dragon Ball, I imagine that the story would be a lot more structured, but I think the action scenes wouldn't have been as good.

For the record, I think I enjoy Oda's humour a bit more than Toriyama's. Either way, I feel that both works have a lot of charm and soul- even if Toriyama didn't necessarily enjoy writing it at times.

[rereboy]

Well, that is just it. Obviously based on sales, there are plenty of people who like that style and there's no reason for him to deviate from it to any strong degree.

This is all subjective, of course, but I don't feel he's strong in any one specific area. For example, there have been debates here on Kanzenshuu about Dragon Ball's story, and the merits of it as it went along. Some people took note of the art, to the point that it was possible for Toriyama's skills at drawing to do whatever heavy-lifting his writing couldn't; at least it's pretty to look at! Or the toilet humor scattered throughout the series; there are fans of that. Toriyama has strengths and weaknesses. Oda and One Piece will rise to the level of acceptable and never really top that. The various stories in One Piece are all very easy to digest, while the Dragon Ball fandom has been yelling at each about which "saga" is the best or who is stronger than who since forever.

I've personally never finished an arc of OP and thought anything besides "that was good; let's continue." It really spells everything out for you. Nothing jumps out at you because everything is jumping out at you. What's that saying? Nothing is special if everything is special?

Well, if you look into the One Piece fandom you will find that discussions about which sagas are the best and which sagas are the worst, which villains, etc, etc, are also pretty prevalent. And the versus discussions also exist. Many fans argue that they hate this, while others say that they love it, and so on and so forth. So, I don't see how One Piece is easier to digest in that regard... Everyone has their own opinions about One Piece, take different things from it and frequently discuss it, just like with Dragon Ball. So, I don't understand your point.

Also, I don't agree with your everything is special argument at all. There are many things in One Piece that I think are much better than others, like certain villains, like certain sagas, certain plot twists... Despite its formula, One Piece has moments clearly much superior to others... So no, everything might be not bad in general, but, to me at least, there are things in there much superior to others. And from what I've seen from the fandom, there seems to be clear preferences that change according to opinion.

And personally I have to tell you that I'm slightly baffled by your opinion... Pretty much everyone I've talked to either doesn't really like One Piece or they love it. I've never seen anyone say that its acceptable and good, but never special or remarkable, or even saying that One Piece is not strong in any particular area.

(Also, One Piece has strengths and weaknesses like everything else. Some weaknesses have already been mentioned, like taking too long sometimes, being harder to follow the fight scenes, not having more deaths which kills some of the tension when things get serious, characters relying sometimes too much on their strange quirks, etc.)

[The Monkey King]

I must say I am rather dissapointed at the amount of One Piece bashing I'm seeing here.
I love One Piece, I think it's one of the greatest mangas ever written (rivaled by FMA and Hunter X Hunter)
The Fishman Island arc wasn't that great but other than that One Piece has been consistently great.

Anyway I f Oda had written Dragon Balls the Z-senshi would interact a lot more, there would be more world building (perhaps they'd visit multiple planets) and there would be a goal like I dunno Goku's trying to become the strongest warrior in the universe (the rest of the Z senshi have their own ambitions) so they go from planet to planet having adventures.
One of the best things is that there would be waaaaaaaaaaaay more variation in the way characters fight. For example Trunks would actually keep his sword and have ki based attacks stem from his sword. Perhaps Freeza would rely more on his telekenetic abilities along with his ki, perhaps Piccolo would use his matter creating abilities and stretchiness in battle for a unique fighting style.

[Fennekin]

We would see too much of what I like to call Oda's "Piranha Face":

[Super Sonic]

What it would've been like, who knows. But I will admit that One Piece did something that DB didn't. It made me tear up. Yes I admit I'm a grown man and I teared up at the Merry's funeral. Knew it was coming but it was a great scene. Would link, but can't find any clips with the song playing.

[Ninja Murasaki]

Eiichiro Oda's certainly better at things then Akira Toriyama like keeping track of characters and having female fighters, though he's not perfect on the last thing.

Overall DragonBall and DragonBall Z would probably be better if Eiichiro Oda wrote it, however we wouldn't have One Piece at all if Toriyama hadn't wrote Dragon Ball.

EDIT:

We would see too much of what I like to call Oda's "Piranha Face":

That actually exists in Dragon Ball too, particularly in the early storylines.

I kinda feel there's less rivalry and unrest in the One Piece fandom.

[thatdbzguy]

Am I honestly the only one that cheered when Piccolo threw Gohan through mountains cuz it shut him up for a while?

Aw, cut the kid some slack. He was only 4.

[Scarz]

As much as I enjoy One Piece, I would prefer to see Oda write a DB special or movie. I would love to see his take on a series that inspired him so much on his own manga. But there are some Oda'ism that I particularly wouldn't want to see in DB series, like many have mentioned, the overly cartoonish drama and some of the humor may not work as well with certain characters. Fanservice will be abound though, I (probably) wouldn't have too much of a problem with that. Even if it has become quite outlandish.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Thinking on it that way, yeah, I wouldn't mind him doing a one-off thing of some sort, be it in manga form or coming up with something animated or whatever. Then we could see what he could really do with it and judge from there, cuz to be entirely fair, who knows - maybe if Oda did something Dragon Ball - as in not being the original creator like the thread kinda surmised, and instead just does something as an artist who is also a fan - he'd be more...restrained, in some regards, maybe? In a good way though.

Am I honestly the only one that cheered when Piccolo threw Gohan through mountains cuz it shut him up for a while?

Aw, cut the kid some slack. He was only 4.

I understand that, but he's still annoying at that point in the story.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Just started reading Volume 1. Don't like the art style one bit and the humour whilst not forced doesn't feel all that natural either, for example the bit where Luffy cuts himself. Can't make much of a conclusion up on Oda yet, but I'm not exactly in a rush to finish Volume 1 either.

[rereboy]

Just started reading Volume 1. Don't like the art style one bit and the humour whilst not forced doesn't feel all that natural either, for example the bit where Luffy cuts himself. Can't make much of a conclusion up on Oda yet, but I'm not exactly in a rush to finish Volume 1 either.

Him cutting himself isn't supposed to be funny. And I only really got into One Piece after reading the first 10 volumes, that's more or less where everything started to click for me.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Just started reading Volume 1. Don't like the art style one bit and the humour whilst not forced doesn't feel all that natural either, for example the bit where Luffy cuts himself. Can't make much of a conclusion up on Oda yet, but I'm not exactly in a rush to finish Volume 1 either.

Him cutting himself isn't supposed to be funny. And I only really got into One Piece after reading the first 10 volumes, that's more or less where everything started to click for me.

I'm pretty sure it was intended to be funny, I mean all the other pirates even said that Luffy was going to do something funny, yesh 10 volumes feels like a mission at this point, does the art at least improve?

[rereboy]

I'm pretty sure it was intended to be funny, I mean all the other pirates even said that Luffy was going to do something funny, yesh 10 volumes feels like a mission at this point, does the art at least improve?

They thought he wasn't serious, that's why they were laughing at first. But Luffy seriously wanted to prove that he was tough, so he did cut himself and they were shocked by it.

That scene is just to show us a glimpse of Luffy's determination even as a child, even though, as we learn in the very first chapter, his determination was completely misguided since being tough is not about that at all.

[Blade]

Just started reading Volume 1. Don't like the art style one bit and the humour whilst not forced doesn't feel all that natural either, for example the bit where Luffy cuts himself. Can't make much of a conclusion up on Oda yet, but I'm not exactly in a rush to finish Volume 1 either.

It takes a while for it to find its feet, and it's all a little bit dumbed down and basic to begin with, but once Oda begins to get into his stride and becomes more confident as an author and storyteller it quickly picks up the pace. His early art style is also very different to how it is now, interestingly enough, as with Toriyama, his earlier drawings all seemed a lot more rounder, but as time progressed things started to become more angular.

I mean, it's hard to compare early One Piece with early Dragonball, in that Toriyama was already an experienced author by the time he started inking the first chapter. He already had experience of serialisation with Dr Slump. Apart from a couple of one-shots, Oda was a real novice at the time of writing One Piece's early chapters.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

That scene is just to show us a glimpse of Luffy's determination even as a child, even though, as we learn in the very first chapter, his determination was completely misguided since being tough is not about that at all.

Ahh. Fair Enough.

It takes a while for it to find its feet, and it's all a little bit dumbed down and basic to begin with, but once Oda begins to get into his stride and becomes more confident as an author and storyteller it quickly picks up the pace. His early art style is also very different to how it is now, interestingly enough, as with Toriyama, his earlier drawings all seemed a lot more rounder, but as time progressed things started to become more angular.

I mean, it's hard to compare early One Piece with early Dragonball, in that Toriyama was already an experienced author by the time he started inking the first chapter. He already had experience of serialisation with Dr Slump. Apart from a couple of one-shots, Oda was a real novice at the time of writing One Piece's early chapters.

Sounds promising, art is probably the main reason why I'm still skeptical on this whole thing, they story telling from what I read is pretty decent but the art is just ruing it for me. I guess I'd feel more conformable with reading the manga rather than watching 300+ episodes(and the fact there is no way to escape that art style).