What If Eiichiro Oda wrote Dragon Ball?

[goku the krump dancer]

Anyway, I definitely don't want to see a sob story with the DB characters we know constantly crying ridiculously loud over something about friends.

Pretty much my problem with a lot of today's popular Shonen material. Waaay too many crybabies.

Gohan was less of cry baby at ten, then Naruto and Luffy are at 15-16 or how ever old they are.

[JulieYBM]

Naruto's not a crybaby, though. One Piece can't seem to go five chapters without someone crying or being overly sentimental. What makes Dragon Ball so great is in part Toriyama's lack of emotional attachment to the story.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Gohan was less of cry baby at ten, then Naruto and Luffy are at 15-16 or how ever old they are.

I dunno...say what you will about the 'FRIENDSHIP' spiels (and good lord do I tire of them in Naruto especially), but at least the sobbing there doesn't make me want to punt them off of a high cliff. Am I honestly the only one that cheered when Piccolo threw Gohan through mountains cuz it shut him up for a while?

[rereboy]

I only have problems with emotional moments when its not well done. Such is not the case in One Piece.

[EXBadguy]

Naruto's not a crybaby, though.

I think he kinda is in Part II a bit cuz of Sasuke (his "lover"). In part 1 though, he was on FIYAH! Sure he may be an annoying brat but at least he had sense and he represented everybody who had the same impossible dreams to do this and that.

One Piece can't seem to go five chapters without someone crying or being overly sentimental. What makes Dragon Ball so great is in part Toriyama's lack of emotional attachment to the story.

Exactly! And what also makes it so good is that it gets emotional at the right damn time. In One Piece(sometimes) and Naruto(mostly Shippuden), they just can't take a break from the overly sensitive crybaby stuff.

[Saago]

It's funny. For years I was as big a fan of One Piece as you could possibly be. Even if I've always liked Dragon Ball, if you had asked me, say, five years ago, I would have said that One Piece was a better series. Nowadays, though? I'm not so sure. Although I still like it, I think One Piece is becoming way too long for its own good. It's reaching the "impossible to collect or re-watch" status, and the newest arcs are simply not bringing much to the table anymore.

More importantly: I've always liked how One Piece pulled no punches when it came to emotional scenes, but as of late they seem to have become a parody of themselves. As others have already mentioned, I'm tired of everybody crying about everything. Every single, remotely sad scene is played up as if it were this major emotional turning point where every single character is crying simultaneously. This kind of scene used to have a purpose and a point, but now it's as if Oda feels obliged to include as much of them as possible. It's ridiculous. And the problem is they have been so overused that, by the time an actual, important emotional scene takes place it's just lost in the deck. Sometimes less is indeed more, and by overusing and overplaying them so much they have become meaningless.

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.

[JulieYBM]

Another element that Toriyama has over Oda is comedy. Everything in One Piece is designed to look funny or generate a laugh. Humor stops being funny when everything in every chapter is designed to make you laugh. It's immature storytelling.

Naruto's not a crybaby, though.

I think he kinda is in Part II a bit cuz of Sasuke (his "lover"). In part 1 though, he was on FIYAH! Sure he may be an annoying brat but at least he had sense and he represented everybody who had the same impossible dreams to do this and that.

That's two chapters out of four hundred, sandwiched in-between him kicking-ass and taking names everything arc. Not exactly comparable to the constant blubbering you see from One Piece characters.

[TheAldella]

Another element that Toriyama has over Oda is comedy. Everything in One Piece is designed to look funny or generate a laugh. Humor stops being funny when everything in every chapter is designed to make you laugh. It's immature storytelling.

Naruto's not a crybaby, though.

I think he kinda is in Part II a bit cuz of Sasuke (his "lover"). In part 1 though, he was on FIYAH! Sure he may be an annoying brat but at least he had sense and he represented everybody who had the same impossible dreams to do this and that.

That's two chapters out of four hundred, sandwiched in-between him kicking-ass and taking names everything arc. Not exactly comparable to the constant blubbering you see from One Piece characters.

Weird, I can only think of three or four examples of over the top crying and "blubbering" in One Piece.

[sintzu]

It would have no end and people would stop reading it like what's going on with one piece

[Blade]

It would have no end and people would stop reading it like what's going on with one piece

You do realise that One Piece is the biggest manga currently in serialisation in Japan?

And just because it hasn't ended yet doesn't mean it wont. It will, but unlike Toriyama, Oda knows where he's going with the story and actually enjoys inking.

[sintzu]

It would have no end and people would stop reading it like what's going on with one piece

You do realise that One Piece is the biggest manga currently in serialisation in Japan?

And just because it hasn't ended yet doesn't mean it wont. It will, but unlike Toriyama, Oda knows where he's going with the story and actually enjoys inking.

One piece sales from 2011 to 2013 :

2011 : 37,996,373

2012 : 23,464,866

2013 : 18,151,599

But unlike Oda Toriyama knew the right time to end his story and not let it go down hill

Attack on titan 2013 : 15,933,801

One piece's days of biggest manga could end next year if attack on titan can keep up the numbers

[BlackCatScott]

As others have said, it wouldn't make sense seeing as Oda got a lot of inspiration from Dragonball. The chapter title page when Oda surpassed the tally of the Dragonball manga chapters was even greyed out as a little nod to Dragonball. However, One Piece really is top notch & certainly my favourite ongoing series at the moment. I will always pick Dragonball Z as my favourite manga/anime of all time because it's what I've grown up watching - it got me into manga and anime and it gave me such a buzz as a child coming home from school & watching the new episode. I can't deny, however that the One Piece story is better. It's extremely well thought out - as are the characters and their back stories - and the world building never ceases to amaze me.

If Oda had of done Dragonball it would be pretty similar to One Piece I think. It would probably be a longer series, obviously with a very different drawing style - we'd get a lot more on the characters past, and I think some characters who faded into less significant characters as time went on - such as Piccolo, Yamcha, Krillin, Tien etc... would all get better conclusions to their particular stories. We'd get a lot more emotional scenes... and I don't think the fights would be as good as they are in Dragonball! It would be interesting. Sure it would be great! I know Oda has drawn some Dragonball in the past.

Also, I disagree with what some have said on this thread, that the series has gone down hill since the time skip. At the beginning of One Piece, there were quite a few smaller Arcs which were hardly spectacular, but still fun to experience. I've been enjoying it as much as ever in the New World - but I've no doubt it will get better & better. The current Arc is shaping up to be one of the best yet too.

[dbboxkaifan]

It would delay it forever and take more than a 1000 episodes to actually finish it, this is why I stopped watching One Piece I just can't keep up with it.

The animation on One Piece is god awful at times and looks as though they put little to no effort, this is not say that DBZ has flawless animation no it ain't but it's still far better than what's on OP.

[rereboy]

One piece sales from 2011 to 2013 :

2011 : 37,996,373

2012 : 23,464,866

2013 : 18,151,599

But unlike Oda Toriyama knew the right time to end his story and not let it go down hill

Attack on titan 2013 : 15,933,801

One piece's days of biggest manga could end next year if attack on titan can keep up the numbers

You do realize that pretty much everyone who is relatively young in Japan has some One Piece volumes right? It has already sold so much that its impossible to keep up at the same pace unless fans start to buy multiple copies of the volumes. It has broken every record so far because its popularity has been constantly on the rise and so, there have always been new fans coming in to the series and buying the backlog volumes, as well as the new volumes. But now it has reached a point that pretty much everyone has the backlog volumes they wanted and the pace naturally slows down.

In fact, just recently I've read that are studies saying that 25% of the japanese in their 20s have read EVERY One Piece Volume. Source: http://www.apforums.net/showthread.php? ... t=japanese

Imagine Dragon Ball being so popular that 25% of the americans in their 20s had read EVERY Dragon Ball volume. Crazy.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

In One Piece, the beginning of each arc felt boring to me, but when the main plot starts, it gets really awesome. However, there are some arcs in it that I don't like that much, while there are others that I really love.

But with Dragon Ball, even after I've read/watch it before and I know what's going to happen, the only boring parts that I remember are the Search for the Dragon Balls arc, most of the fillers, and a big part of GT. So, I prefer Toriyama rather than Oda.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

I'm pretty sure most of us can agree here that One Piece is a better, more tightly written series than Dragon Ball.

Why are you sure?

Anyway, I definitely don't want to see a sob story with the DB characters we know constantly crying ridiculously loud over something about friends.

A better thread: What if DBZ was Clannad?

[DBZAOTA482]

It would treat it's characters with more respect than Akira Toriyama did. That's for certain.

[JulieYBM]

It would treat it's characters with more respect than Akira Toriyama did. That's for certain.

There is no reason for every single character to be treated equally. If Toriyama had an idea he would have used it. Forcing fifty-plus characters to be recurring is silly.

[B]

It would be soullessly competent. One Piece is the mainstream hit that it is because it's a jack-of-all-trades. It hits all the appropriate beats and story notes to illicit a reaction out of you, and then repeats. It excels at nothing and manages to be just good enough at everything. It's made up of enough moving parts for widespread mass appeal. There's something for everybody, and when you stretch that out for as long as OP has, things get tiring.

One Piece is eternally average.

[rereboy]

It would be soullessly competent. One Piece is the mainstream hit that it is because it's a jack-of-all-trades. It hits all the appropriate beats and story notes to illicit a reaction out of you, and then repeats. It excels at nothing and manages to be just good enough at everything. It's made up of enough moving parts for widespread mass appeal. There's something for everybody, and when you stretch that out for as long as OP has, things get tiring.

One Piece is eternally average.

I completely disagree... Even in this topic there are complains of it being too emotional and long, and I've constantly heard complains of it being too cartoony and goofy overall and too childishly with its humor, unrealistic, complains about almost no character ever dying, and so on, so it obviously doesn't cater to many people.

One piece just has a particular formula, a way to do things, and the author hasn't deviate from it significantly, he just spices it up differently every time. Its a pretty set balance between humor, tragedy/drama and action, usually in this particular order. 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. He doesn't really try to break his own style, the style that has been there since the start, so you saying that he tries to do everything seems like the opposite.