What's Canon ? We Finally Have an Answer

[Basaku]

There's a word that I feel captures the essence of what fans mean when they say the word canon: authentic. A Dragon Ball continuation is more authentic when it feels like it establishes a proper foundation for the series to continue forward by revisiting its past developments and putting them on a new light in a style that you can tell is the author's and continuous with his past work. Toriyama did this directly or indirectly when most arcs felt like they had the same build up and diverged into other territories through the use of new story telling mechanics. Kinda like a tool box of things that work until you run out of them and need to create all new ones. He managed to keep his work afloat for a lot of years by repeating more plot points than you realize. He couldn't possibly animate a movie by himself like he drew a manga, but Dragon Ball Super Hero felt like it was his more than past Z movies, despite the fact that the latter were more in line with the series' prime production values.

It's pretty much the reason why the original 42 volumes of DB worked so well. It WAS a continuous story that kept its events sequence logic in check. Doesn't matter how many times people will say "Toriyama never cared about canon", it is simply not the case with the OG manga. He did and that's why we got stuff like Androids emerging as a consequence of RR arc. Now the fact that he didn't care for the movies/GT and stuff is a different thing. But when it came to his own work he had full control over and where he himself wrote the sequence of events, he absolutely did think about continuity whether he knew it or not (or wanted to admit it).

What you're describing is an almost inherent desire of storytellers to create a work that flows naturally, and in turn an inherent desire of a large section of the audience to experience a story/universe that feels alive, truthful and thus continuous.

Unless someone got a trully amazing new idea for a fresh take on a known story that would require breaking continuity, there isn't any inherent artistic value IMO in disregarding the canon/continuity in itself. So yeah, canon>>>non-canon pretty much always for me unless we get the next Citizen Kane level of writing, then I'm fine accepting a reboot/different continuity. But that is simply not the case most of the time. Certinately nothing in Daima, Super or GT was so narratively worthy of breaking the continuity

[Metalwario64]

There's a word that I feel captures the essence of what fans mean when they say the word canon: authentic. A Dragon Ball continuation is more authentic when it feels like it establishes a proper foundation for the series to continue forward by revisiting its past developments and putting them on a new light in a style that you can tell is the author's and continuous with his past work. Toriyama did this directly or indirectly when most arcs felt like they had the same build up and diverged into other territories through the use of new story telling mechanics. Kinda like a tool box of things that work until you run out of them and need to create all new ones. He managed to keep his work afloat for a lot of years by repeating more plot points than you realize. He couldn't possibly animate a movie by himself like he drew a manga, but Dragon Ball Super Hero felt like it was his more than past Z movies, despite the fact that the latter were more in line with the series' prime production values.

It's pretty much the reason why the original 42 volumes of DB worked so well. It WAS a continuous story that kept its events sequence logic in check. Doesn't matter how many times people will say "Toriyama never cared about canon", it is simply not the case with the OG manga. He did and that's why we got stuff like Androids emerging as a consequence of RR arc. Now the fact that he didn't care for the movies/GT and stuff is a different thing. But when it came to his own work he had full control over and where he himself wrote the sequence of events, he absolutely did think about continuity whether he knew it or not (or wanted to admit it).

What you're describing is an almost inherent desire of storytellers to create a work that flows naturally, and in turn an inherent desire of a large section of the audience to experience a story/universe that feels alive, truthful and thus continuous.

Unless someone got a trully amazing new idea for a fresh take on a known story that would require breaking continuity, there isn't any inherent artistic value IMO in disregarding the canon/continuity in itself. So yeah, canon>>>non-canon pretty much always for me unless we get the next Citizen Kane level of writing, then I'm fine accepting a reboot/different continuity. But that is simply not the case most of the time. Certinately nothing in Daima, Super or GT was so narratively worthy of breaking the continuity

EXACTLY! Minus a few stretches of credulity here and there, the original manga run is one, continuous work and the extent it did that was so impressive in its day, and was what drew me to it as a kid. If.. say.... it was like the old Saban era broadcasts where Tree of Might was split into three episodes and tossed in mid Namek... and THAT was what the series was... well... it would lose a ton of impact in my eyes. Going from Z, to Super, and back to Daima and seeing them contradict each other in major ways.... that just wasn't an issue with the original manga run.

[jjgp1112]

There's a word that I feel captures the essence of what fans mean when they say the word canon: authentic. A Dragon Ball continuation is more authentic when it feels like it establishes a proper foundation for the series to continue forward by revisiting its past developments and putting them on a new light in a style that you can tell is the author's and continuous with his past work. Toriyama did this directly or indirectly when most arcs felt like they had the same build up and diverged into other territories through the use of new story telling mechanics. Kinda like a tool box of things that work until you run out of them and need to create all new ones. He managed to keep his work afloat for a lot of years by repeating more plot points than you realize. He couldn't possibly animate a movie by himself like he drew a manga, but Dragon Ball Super Hero felt like it was his more than past Z movies, despite the fact that the latter were more in line with the series' prime production values.

It's pretty much the reason why the original 42 volumes of DB worked so well. It WAS a continuous story that kept its events sequence logic in check. Doesn't matter how many times people will say "Toriyama never cared about canon", it is simply not the case with the OG manga. He did and that's why we got stuff like Androids emerging as a consequence of RR arc. Now the fact that he didn't care for the movies/GT and stuff is a different thing. But when it came to his own work he had full control over and where he himself wrote the sequence of events, he absolutely did think about continuity whether he knew it or not (or wanted to admit it).

What you're describing is an almost inherent desire of storytellers to create a work that flows naturally, and in turn an inherent desire of a large section of the audience to experience a story/universe that feels alive, truthful and thus continuous.

Unless someone got a trully amazing new idea for a fresh take on a known story that would require breaking continuity, there isn't any inherent artistic value IMO in disregarding the canon/continuity in itself. So yeah, canon>>>non-canon pretty much always for me unless we get the next Citizen Kane level of writing, then I'm fine accepting a reboot/different continuity. But that is simply not the case most of the time. Certinately nothing in Daima, Super or GT was so narratively worthy of breaking the continuity

That's what's so funny about people nowadays puilling the "Toriyama forgot" card - that had really only been in the case in the decades following the end of the story. During its run, Toriyama was actually pretty good about keeping consistent continuity and filling in logic/plot gaps...even if those explanations were sometimes flimsy. The fucker made up a new rule for the Dragon Balls just so he could find a loopohole for it

[MasenkoHA]

There's a word that I feel captures the essence of what fans mean when they say the word canon: authentic. A Dragon Ball continuation is more authentic when it feels like it establishes a proper foundation for the series to continue forward by revisiting its past developments and putting them on a new light in a style that you can tell is the author's and continuous with his past work. Toriyama did this directly or indirectly when most arcs felt like they had the same build up and diverged into other territories through the use of new story telling mechanics. Kinda like a tool box of things that work until you run out of them and need to create all new ones. He managed to keep his work afloat for a lot of years by repeating more plot points than you realize. He couldn't possibly animate a movie by himself like he drew a manga, but Dragon Ball Super Hero felt like it was his more than past Z movies, despite the fact that the latter were more in line with the series' prime production values.

It's pretty much the reason why the original 42 volumes of DB worked so well. It WAS a continuous story that kept its events sequence logic in check. Doesn't matter how many times people will say "Toriyama never cared about canon", it is simply not the case with the OG manga. He did and that's why we got stuff like Androids emerging as a consequence of RR arc. Now the fact that he didn't care for the movies/GT and stuff is a different thing. But when it came to his own work he had full control over and where he himself wrote the sequence of events, he absolutely did think about continuity whether he knew it or not (or wanted to admit it).

What you're describing is an almost inherent desire of storytellers to create a work that flows naturally, and in turn an inherent desire of a large section of the audience to experience a story/universe that feels alive, truthful and thus continuous.

Unless someone got a trully amazing new idea for a fresh take on a known story that would require breaking continuity, there isn't any inherent artistic value IMO in disregarding the canon/continuity in itself. So yeah, canon>>>non-canon pretty much always for me unless we get the next Citizen Kane level of writing, then I'm fine accepting a reboot/different continuity. But that is simply not the case most of the time. Certinately nothing in Daima, Super or GT was so narratively worthy of breaking the continuity

That's what's so funny about people nowadays puilling the "Toriyama forgot" card - that had really only been in the case in the decades following the end of the story. During its run, Toriyama was actually pretty good about keeping consistent continuity and filling in logic/plot gaps...even if those explanations were sometimes flimsy. The fucker made up a new rule for the Dragon Balls just so he could find a loopohole for it

Take a shot every time a fan talks about Toriyama forgetting about Lunch when the explanation for her in-story absence was in the manga two chapters after we last saw her

[Scsigs]

That's what's so funny about people nowadays pulling the "Toriyama forgot" card - that had really only been in the case in the decades following the end of the story. During its run, Toriyama was actually pretty good about keeping consistent continuity and filling in logic/plot gaps...even if those explanations were sometimes flimsy. The fucker made up a new rule for the Dragon Balls just so he could find a loopohole for it

People also pull a card of "Toriyama procrastinated writing the manga chapters, so he didn't plan anything in advance," which is genuinely really degrading to how people who write on the fly actually think about their storytelling. Unless you're in a stream of consciousness writing style & don't go back to tidy up your drafts, that's not how that works. Speaking as someone who's written stories on the fly, you'll generally have ideas of things you wanna include in your stories, even if you don't have a direct outline of the storyline written down. It's very easy to see that Toriyama has some main plot points in the manga arcs that he wanted to hit. How he GOT there was a different matter. And then he in the last 2 arcs was hit by notes from his editor to redo the main antagonist of the second to last arc & he had way too many ideas he didn't not wanna do in the last arc, which made it drag out too long. But, it's amazing he was able to go as long as he did with it all & have a lot of it be extremely coherent & fit together even with the various retcons.

Also, I hate people saying that DB doesn't have a canon. It clearly does if you're even remotely paying attention. The manga is what the canon is & everything else springs forth from it in alternate continuities. Now, at times the continuity is a bit fluid, even if it gets really messy with Toriyama's later needless retcons. That's basically the stance that Toei & Shueisha have defaulted to when it comes to the main stuff at this point, at least. This is like people saying Doctor Who doesn't have a canon. Yes it does. The TV series sets it forth & everything around it in terms of EU stuff is secondary & rarely affects the show unless the showrunners want it to (outside of most of the 8th Doctor's Big Finish stuff, which Steven Moffat canonized because that's basically the only stuff you're getting for that Doctor ever outside of when Paul McGann's brought back for anniversary stuff). Like, outside of the last 4 films, none of the others are actually canon. Hell, most of the rest of them have too many timeline discrepancies to be because the writers basically plucked the characters out of whatever arc they were in at the time they began writing them & went from there. And no one really counts the fillers from the earlier animes either. I just don't understand this mentality at all.

[MasenkoHA]

Also, I hate people saying that DB doesn't have a canon. It clearly does if you're even remotely paying attention. The manga is what the canon is & everything else springs forth from it in alternate continuities.

Yeah, it’s weird for fans to act like there is no canon when the anime has always gone out of it’s way to line up with what the manga does, regardless if it out right contradicts earlier information from the anime. This isn’t like Sailor Moon where the 90s anime mostly does its own thing. The anime treats the manga and Toriyama’s notes as the Holy Bible.

[Scsigs]

Also, I hate people saying that DB doesn't have a canon. It clearly does if you're even remotely paying attention. The manga is what the canon is & everything else springs forth from it in alternate continuities.

Yeah, it’s weird for fans to act like there is no canon when the anime has always gone out of it’s way to line up with what the manga does, regardless if it out right contradicts earlier information from the anime. This isn’t like Sailor Moon where the 90s anime mostly does its own thing. The anime treats the manga and Toriyama’s notes as the Holy Bible.

Exactly. Like, pretty much every bit of filler in the first 2 animes is based on SOME kind of little thing from the manga or Toriyama's interviews. The Sufurians? I assume based on some external information Toriyama said in an interview because I don't remember any kind of dialogue mentioning them in Kai, which is closer tot he manga. Planet Vegeta's destruction as depicted in the Bardock special? Based on Raditz saying it was blown up & Dodoria saying Freeza blew it up that Toriyama later referenced in the manga with a brief flash of him during 1 of Freeza's monologues. Even Super overcorrected the "Goku's a superhero" thing even the original Japanese version of the Z anime did that Toriyama publicly criticized to try to adhere more to Toriyama's intent with Goku, even if they went too far & didn't know how to properly write his character, mainly because Super's a sequel to the manga but yeah. Also, GT makes way more sense to exist in a weird mixed continuity of the first 2 animes & some of the movies considering how many pulls it takes from the filler of the animes & the movies, imo.

It's just baffling to me that people can genuinely with a straight face say that there's no canon to DB when clearly there is if you're even remotely paying attention & there's nothing wrong with that.

[funrush]

I mean canon is what you want it to be, isn't it? I think that's a pretty agreeable statement.

Although I have to say based on some of the story decisions that Toriyama certainly appeared to have an idea of a canon. Not one without continuity errors, he's a forgetful old man and things slipped past him like we see in Daima with Kibitokai and the Potara mechanics being different or more minor stuff like Goku not going SS4 against Beerus or how Super's existence negates Bulma's "We haven't seen you in 5 years" comment. But it definitely looked like he viewed the DB manga, Super (especially the manga and movies BoG, RoF, Broly, Super Hero), and Daima as HIS body of work and that the Z movies and GT are elseworld type deals that he doesn't consider his.

Some of the stuff he did more recently, particularly Broly and Daima, consisted of him taking ideas from Broly, Fusion Reborn, Dragon Ball GT, and re-appropriating them into his own timeline. Daima is kind of Toriyama doing his own version of GT between the "everyone is kids again" premise and of course SS4 Goku at the end. It's not like Toriyama is JUST doing fanservice and having the Broly we know and love show up in a new movie, it's a complete re-imagining of the character, it's his own version of Broly. Dragon Ball Minus is his own version of the Bardock story.

So when I see Toyotaro saying "there is no canon it's just random stuff", that comment to me reads like an attempt at trying to come up with his own explanation after the fact. Some people were/are expecting him to tie all the loose ends together if/when the manga resumes and this is Toyble kinda signaling to us that it's up to us to make it make sense. Like if Toriyama was alive and Super kept going I think they probably would have tried to introduce Daima elements like the tertian oculus or the demon world into it at some point, but now that Toriyama is not here to be the guiding hand Toyble might possibly leave Daima alone. Of course, Toyble knew Toriyama personally, so I could just be wrong. That's just how I'm currently seeing things.

[ABED]

I mean canon is what you want it to be, isn't it? I think that's a pretty agreeable statement

No. It's the opposite, actually. Canon is what is officially decreed as being in continuity.

And for those that brought it up, what does "there is no canon" even mean?

[funrush]

If you're saying canon is what is declared to be in continuity, Toriyama's successor has declared "You pick your own canon" meaning there is no declared continuity. Meaning by your definition there is no such thing as canon for this franchise.

I'm going off of recent story decisions to come to my own conclusion that Toriyama did have a canon and that was Dragon Ball manga, Super, Daima, Jaco, and DB Minus with contradictions and warts and all. BoG and RoF taking priority over their reanimated versions since Toriyama was heavily involved in those films and wrote RoF.

And that's what I'm generally going with for mine as well, although I'd personally swap Bardock TV Special with Dragon Ball Minus. I mostly like GT, but the contradictions between it and Super/Daima are so major that I treat it as an alternate timeline.

But I also see people absolutely refusing to accept Daima as canon and instead sticking to Dragon Ball anime, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT. And that's apparently equally valid according to Toyble's comment here. Choose-your-own-canon.

Part of me thinks Toyble is just saying that because that's a crowdpleasing answer that will make all types of fans happy and not have to deal with the backlash of saying GT or the old DB & Z movies don't count. Not just backlash from fans but also backlash from his corporate bosses who have lots of Dragon Ball GT action figures to sell. But maybe he does really view everything after the Dragon Ball manga as like alternate timelines. Like the branching Zelda timeline, you could go in the Daima direction or the Super direction or the GT direction.

Curious to see what others think about your question.

[ABED]

I don't know why it's such a difficult concept for people. This is why we get ridiculous terms like "headcanon." Fans are incredibly uncomfortable with these things. It pisses them off when James Gunn reminds them that this is all made up. Canon doesn't necessarily need to be declared. It's mostly implicit. Where it really "needs" declaration are when there are reasonable confusions about what is or isn't in continuity.

You don't get to decide what is or isn't canon because that isn't how it works. If you want to come up in your own head what is your preferred version of imaginary events, that's your prerogative, but that's not the same as saying you decide what's canon.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Dragon Ball may have a canon, but, as I said earlier, the powers that be clearly do not care for it as much as the fans do. No doubt we'll still be seeing merchandise and DLCs for the original Super Saiyan 4, GT characters, etc. At the end of the day what matters to TOEI, Shueshia, Capsule Corp Tokyo, etc is what will make them the most money, not narrative consistency.

[Scsigs]

I mean canon is what you want it to be, isn't it? I think that's a pretty agreeable statement.

Nope, not even remotely. "Canon" is what is officially in continuity like Abed said. Toriyama only considered his manga to be what is canon when writing new shit for the franchise (even Daima, though that was more its own thing than trying to be in continuity with Super), Toei defaulted to it when they made Kai for the most part, then when Toriyama was writing new shit for them (with some references to their older filler), Toyotaro only considers the manga when writing the Super manga. The only piece of official DB material that tried to meld everything together, discontinuities & all, are the old Daizenshuus, which have such stupidities like trying to make all the Z movies fit in continuity, asking Toriyama why Krillin named his daughter the same name as his Z anime filler-only Maron when the obvious answer is that Toriyama forgot about Marron & the name Maron is French for chestnut which is what the first half of his Japanese name, Kuririn, is a pun on in Japanese, etc.
This is why I brought up Doctor Who & Big Finish. Doctor Who has a main canon with the TV show & has made references to the expanded universe media, but rarely does that media mean anything to the main show, there are a LOT of discontinuities between them (like, I'm not even sure a lot of the stories can even happen considering the timeframes of everything in the show), the show has adapted things from Big Finish, the comics, & novels, etc. And yet a LOT of Doctor Who fans like to claim the same shit that there is no "canon" in that show. Bullshit there's not. It's why I don't take a lot of Doctor Who fans seriously that say shit like that.

Dragon Ball may have a canon, but, as I said earlier, the powers that be clearly do not care for it as much as the fans do. No doubt we'll still be seeing merchandise and DLCs for the original Super Saiyan 4, GT characters, etc. At the end of the day what matters to TOEI, Shueshia, Capsule Corp Tokyo, etc is what will make them the most money, not narrative consistency.

Bruh. Merchandise for non-canon things doesn't mean shit is canon or that the powers that be don't care, the fuck are you talking about? There are fans of a LOT of that shit. Dragon Ball Heroes has made an entire AU storyline out of linking all the disparate elements of DB with its own dumb bullshit. Xenoverse does similar. Other DB games have done similar. IMO, when Toei &/or Toyotaro resume making new DB content, they'll still default to the manga as the main canon. More than likely, I think they'll continue the storylines left off in Super Hero or try to make Daima make sense to be in continuity in Super since there are WAY too many discrepancies to not address. Hell, maybe an entire reboot of the whole thing in anime form in order, maybe they'll make a new anime adaptation of just the manga, I don't know. I mean, Toei didn't wanna do another anime DB thing without Toriyama after GT crashed & burned. That's why we got Kai, as Toriyama didn't wanna do it when they asked him. Then Evolution came out, was bad, & Toriyama got inspired to do new DB stuff to show them up for it & not listening to his suggestions, which lead to the least 4 movies, Super, & Daima. To say Toei doesn't care about this shit is just simply not true & video games & merch based off the non-canon stuff doesn't suddenly make it canon, or mean the powers that be don't care. You're forgetting that Dragon Ball's over 40 years old & has many fans of a lot of the various things it's produced over the years. They're GOING to do things to appeal to them. Hell, that's why Toriyama brought Trunks back into Super, rebooted Broly into Super: Broly, & Daima rebooted several concepts & shit from GT into it. They wanted to appeal directly to the fans of those characters & previous shows & movies, only doing better on concepts that fans liked, taking out or doing other concepts better that fans didn't like or criticized, & putting a new spin on everything. They've said as much in interviews & I think they've done pretty well so far. Hell, I'm sure that Gohan & Piccolo being the main protagonists of Super Hero was to appeal to fans of those characters after too long of the franchise being primarily focused on Goku & Vegeta in Super, so it was also a nice change of pace.
There's more to these things than you're assuming there are.

[JulieYBM]

I think you're kind if overreacting with your post there. All Dragon Ball Ireland said was that canon wasn't a prerequisite to other spin-offs getting new merchandise.

[Scsigs]

I think you're kind if overreacting with your post there. All Dragon Ball Ireland said was that canon wasn't a prerequisite to other spin-offs getting new merchandise.

He literally said the powers that be don't care & what matters to them is money. While I agree on the money part, to say they don't care is a BIG assumption to make. Clearly the people at Toei care to some extent, otherwise they would've just continued making Dragon Ball things without Toriyama that weren't just re-edits of the older shows. Which, granted, was what Battle of Gods was supposed to be, but they gladly let Toriyama take charge & overhaul everything, then bent over backwards to try to be more in-line with the manga (to their detriment at times).

[JulieYBM]

I think you're kind if overreacting with your post there. All Dragon Ball Ireland said was that canon wasn't a prerequisite to other spin-offs getting new merchandise.

He literally said the powers that be don't care & what matters to them is money. While I agree on the money part, to say they don't care is a BIG assumption to make. Clearly the people at Toei care to some extent, otherwise they would've just continued making Dragon Ball things without Toriyama that weren't just re-edits of the older shows. Which, granted, was what Battle of Gods was supposed to be, but they gladly let Toriyama take charge & overhaul everything, then bent over backwards to try to be more in-line with the manga (to their detriment at times).

They only care insofar as it leads to them getting more money. After One Piece Film: Strong World was marketed as having close supervision from Oda Eiichirou shounen films in general moved over to this system of bending over backwards to be as inoffensive and micromanaged by the original mangaka as possible.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Yeah, my point was not that aspects of GT, the old movies or whatever is canon. My point was anyone who is involved with creating new Dragon Ball content isn't as concerned with making things fit as the fans are. Daima ended without an explanation for how Kibito and Shin refused, Super contradicts Bulma saying she hadn't seen Goku for 5 years, I could go on, but Dragon Ball has become more corporately controlled in this revival era than it was in the original run.

[ABED]

I would also argue there are multiple canons. Like GT is canon to Dragon Ball, and Super is canon to Dragon Ball, but they aren't canon to each other. When fans talk about canon, it feels like what they think it is or want is some singular canon. I don't really care what is or isn't canon as much as understanding what is in canon/continuity to what, and not for the puzzle but more understanding what the world and the characters experiences have been to a certain point. Anything beyond that is irrelevant to me. Okay, I'll walk that back a little. I don't mean to be completely dismissive. It can be fun to think of how things fit, but when it goes beyond that and it's some weird need to make it all fit together, that's where I roll my eyes.

[JulieYBM]

I'm such a broken record on the subject, but I think canon and battle power fetishization is a huge problem in modern fandoms in general and get away from the root of good storytelling and character writing being the focus of how we approach art. I think Dragon Ball as a franchise really highlights this with how little Toriyama ever really cared about consistent details across all the projects that he had a bigger hand in.

[MasenkoHA]

I'm such a broken record on the subject, but I think canon and battle power fetishization is a huge problem in modern fandoms in general and get away from the root of good storytelling and character writing being the focus of how we approach art. I think Dragon Ball as a franchise really highlights this with how little Toriyama ever really cared about consistent details across all the projects that he had a bigger hand in.

I always said canon, at least how it pertains to Dragon Ball, is only useful when needing to explain why certain things are outright discarded or contradicted. Stuff like “If Piccolo told Vegeta he would lose his body in hell so he could be cleansed and reborn why did all the villains still have their bodies in hell in the Otherworld Tournament arc?” or “Why did the all seeing Kaio tell Goku that Planet Vegeta’s Kami-sama destroyed the planet with a meteor shower when he would know it’s Freeza?” At the end of the day it doesn’t mean anything beyond that and a lot of of fans are doing disservice by refusing to watch anything that’s “non-canon” at which point they might as well just read the manga and ignore the animation entirely.