What if Dragon Ball was made in today's society?

[dougo13]

Actually "fan service" is still going on. How many sexy shots of the girls on Yamato 2199 do you want? In pilot's uniforms, in the bath, going up and down stairs, etc. etc. and they have been translated into very successful statues and action figure lines. In the old days of the 1980s it was rare to even expose breasts. Now with satellite channels and cable only channels in Japan it seems like anything goes.

[Yournickk]

By "today's society" you mean America, right?

DB wouldn't be DB. There certainly wouldn't be any full frontal nudity or topless scenes. Master Roshi and Oolong wouldn't be perverts or it would be heavily toned down. Kid ChiChi's outfit would be a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. ChiChi would actually look Asian. General Blue wouldn't be gay. Officer Black wouldn't be black. The violence would be toned down, scenes of people being blasted through the chest, decapitated, or impaled through the torso wouldn't be allowed. Lunch wouldn't have realistic firearms. Freeza's men wouldn't be dressed like S&M models, they would all wear pants. SSJ Future Trunks would kill Cyborg Freeza with a ki blast instead of chopping him into pieces. Mr Satan wouldn't be named Mr Satan that's for sure. Uub, being the token black guy, would be introduced much earlier and would have a much more important role.

[Captain Sauza]

Goku would be a transgender feminist potato.

[Yournickk]

Goku would be a transgender feminist potato.

Goku would be a woman and Yamcha would be the father of Gohan and Goten, which would actually make a lot of sense since kid/teen/adult Gohan and teen Goten look a lot like Yamcha.

[Kamiccolo9]

By "today's society" you mean America, right?

DB wouldn't be DB. There certainly wouldn't be any full frontal nudity or topless scenes. Master Roshi and Oolong wouldn't be perverts or it would be heavily toned down. Kid ChiChi's outfit would be a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. ChiChi would actually look Asian. General Blue wouldn't be gay. Officer Black wouldn't be black. The violence would be toned down, scenes of people being blasted through the chest, decapitated, or impaled through the torso wouldn't be allowed. Lunch wouldn't have realistic firearms. Freeza's men wouldn't be dressed like S&M models, they would all wear pants. SSJ Future Trunks would kill Cyborg Freeza with a ki blast instead of chopping him into pieces. Mr Satan wouldn't be named Mr Satan that's for sure. Uub, being the token black guy, would be introduced much earlier and would have a much more important role.

What was that about the violence being toned down?

[Polyphase Avatron]

LGBT characters are becoming more popular in media nowadays with further acceptance of them in society. It's more likely that General Blue instead wouldn't be a gay stereotype, which could come off as offensive.

[Hellspawn28]

Movies and TV shows can get away with more violence today then they can in the past. Recent PG-13 movies like The Hunger Games, Beowulf (2007), The Dark Knight and Taken 1-3 would be rated R in the 90's. Regular Show would be TV-14 if it was 1995 and not 2015 since they can get away with saying words like "Piss". Violence is not really tone down as it was in the past if you ask me.

[Eire]

Master Roshi and Oolong wouldn't be perverts or it would be heavily toned down.

True. One Loki is enough. He couldn't even get married without raping his wife to be.

Kid ChiChi's outfit would be a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

General Blue wouldn't be gay.

The violence would be toned down, scenes of people being blasted through the chest,

decapitated,

or impaled through the torso wouldn't be allowed.

Mr Satan wouldn't be named Mr Satan that's for sure.

Probably because all aliases of the devil are already in use.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Decapitation of robots generally isn't considered the same in terms of violence...

[Kamiccolo9]

Decapitation of robots generally isn't considered the same in terms of violence...

Better?

[Polyphase Avatron]

In a manner of speaking...

[Eire]

Others were too gory even for this site or had Hulk in it. I couldn't decide what is worse, so let's settle down with Clark Kent.

Spoiler:

[Kamiccolo9]

So, I think the "Americans tone down all the violence" thing can be laid to rest, then?

[Eire]

Well, I think that most people here base their opinion about comics on Marvel movies and DC cartoons, never bothering about checking the actual comics. Speaking of hypocrisy in fandom...

[Lord Beerus]

There would be little to no difference if Dragon Ball was made in today's society. The violence and ecchi theme may be toned down in some areas if it's broadcast on TV but that's were the uncut home releases come in.

[Hellspawn28]

I have a feeling that someone will say that comics are more violent now then they where in the 90's. American comics where just violent in the 90's as they are now. Look back at Spawn in the early-mid 90's for example:

[StrawHatPatriot]

I think people are over-exaggerating.

The only major difference would be the toning down of Master Roshi's full-on groping of women, or at least his lust for Bulma early on in the show when she was still 16.

Other than that, I don't think much else would change.

[Kamiccolo9]

I have a feeling that someone will say that comics are more violent now then they where in the 90's. American comics where just violent in the 90's as they are now. Look back at Spawn in the early-mid 90's for example:

For the most part, they are more violent now. The Big 2 were still under the Comics Code Authority during the nineties. Aside from a few isolated cases, like Carnage, Marvel and DC were more toned down then.

[Eire]

Nope, in that time Comics Code Authority was just a sticker. 90s were called Dark/Iron Age of the Comic Books for a reason. 90s comics have a feel of the teenager who just learned how to swear and now must use cruses instead of spaces and commas. Fortunately somebody noticed that darkness can induce apathy in audience.

Why do we talk about mainstream DC and Marvel? You now, Vertigo and Image comics have more in common with manga than those- mainly because stories tend to stick with their creators, instead of being borrowed. I think that Toriyama would appreciate larger spans with longer volumes instead of weekly writing. But I wonder what would he say about focusing on the storyline and giving the drawing to someone else.

[Kamiccolo9]

Nope, in that time Comics Code Authority was just a sticker. 90s were called Dark/Iron Age of the Comic Books for a reason. 90s comics have a feel of the teenager who just learned how to swear and now must use cruses instead of spaces and commas. Fortunately somebody noticed that darkness can induce apathy in audience.

Why do we talk about mainstream DC and Marvel? You now, Vertigo and Image comics have more in common with manga than those- mainly because stories tend to stick with their creators, instead of being borrowed. I think that Toriyama would appreciate larger spans with longer volumes instead of weekly writing. But I wonder what would he say about focusing on the storyline and giving the drawing to someone else.

Yes, it was just a "sticker," but, aside from the MAX lines, for the most part, Marvel didn't start getting "excessively" (for lack of a better term) "brutal" until they dropped the CCA. I can't speak for DC, but compare Identity Crisis to the stuff just a few years before it.

The nineties get that title mainly due to, like you said, Image and Vertigo. The title I always heard was "the Age of Image." However, the reason I'm talking about mainstream Marvel and DC is because, regardless of how popular McFarlane's stuff was, they were the ones at the top of the industry.