How would you definitively end Dragon Ball?

[Xeztin]

How would you end the main casts journey? I mean for good, meaning they are no coming back and adding on to the story. Ending it at a point to where there are no plausible or foreseeable way that one could ever return to the story and extend it. Would you permanently kill off Goku? How about the entire cast? I think I'd have Goku meet Tori-Bot or some in-universe version of Toriyama himself at the end of his adventures. I think I'd have Tori-Bot explain to Goku that it is because of him that he has had the life he's lived, and that now his adventures are over. I think i'd have Goku beg him for more ( A in-universe nod to all the fan's always wanting more material) only to be told by Tori-Bot that he has ran out of ideas, and that his adventures should have ended long ago. That all good things must come to an end. Goku would probably say something like we could use the Super Dragon Balls to wish for more only to be told that even they aren't strong enough to do that. If at the end, Toriyama decided he wanted to continue DB with another main cast, or a different series entirely, I think Tori-Bot would invite him to stay with him and watch a new generation. That's how I think I'd end it.

[Kamiccolo9]

GT's ending was pretty good. I think I'd stick with that.

[dbgtFO]

Beerus gathers all the Super Dragon Balls and wishes for the end of the universe.
This has already been blatantly stated to be Beerus' end goal, so obviously that's how Toriyama wants to end it

[Iberian_Saiyan]

GT's ending or wrapping things up by the Freeza arc.

[B]

I guess you would have to kill Goku. The very nature of the series is that there are stronger opponents and greater heights and larger adventures, so in that sense, the manga ending the way it did was more or less perfect. "Definitive" is actually completely counter-Dragon Ball. The battle powers represented through the Scouters were supposed to be "definitive."

Not an original opinion, but I like Online's "ending"(it's the end of Goku, anyway). You wrap up his story with the added benefit of losing the anchor of the plot; I couldn't imagine following through on more content without that character. Putting his iconic status aside, his light-heartedness is key to DB's tone; another lead would mean a completely different type of story(The TV specials and the Great Saiyaman portion of the Buu arc being the clearest examples). Those are fine in their self-contained doses, but as some sort of re-direction for the series? I'd rather not.

[FortuneSSJ]

Like GT did. That's how you end a series.

[Marco Polo]

Krillin accidentally hurts himself while doing something, someone makes a joke, camera pans up to the sky as everyone laughs. The end.

[DBZAOTA482]

Gohan is the one to defeat Majin Boo. He finally overcomes his mental handicap and shows himself as an incredible fighter worthy of his father's legacy unlike the disgrace he is nowadays.

[Draconic]

The gang defeats a cool villain. Time skip. Old Goku and Vegeta are lamenting about them no longer being in their prime. Goku laughs and says: "Oh, well... Wanna give it a go?" Vegeta nods. ChiChi goes crazy: "Not again Goku!". Old Krillin then goes: "Hey! I want to fight too!". Piccolo accepts the challenge. Old Tien and Yamcha go at it too. Goten and Trunks too. Gohan is challenged by Pan: "No no, I don't like fighting". Videl then convinces him to make his daughter happy. He gives up and takes the challenge. Zoom out, everybody is fighting, while the rest of the non-fighting cast laughs it off.

[Soppa Saia People]

GT ending at the Boo arc, though I'm not sure how you make that work.

[Zephyr]

GT and DBO both had pretty good endings. One ends with the Dragon Balls turning bad and Goku going away. The other ends with Goku and Vegeta going away, Krillin and Tenshinhan making new schools, and the remaining figters having a final battle against the remnants of Freeza's army.

[Nejishiki]

I'm sure I'd be in the minority here, but I believe concluding the story after Goku makes peace with Gohan is an appropriate book end to the series. We start with him being a lonely boy in the wilderness who accidentally kills him to the simple boy growing up, exploring the world, gaining companions, and mastering the craft his grandfather taught him the basics to, and finally dropping the weight of losing him unexpectedly with promise of meeting him after his own adventures conclude in his lifetime. It also makes the wish of reviving a person all the more poignant since it would be the sole instance this happens in the series and he skips on deciding to revive Gohan in favor of letting him rest. I know this should be definite, but I'm a sucker for open endings left to the imagination, sorry!

Of course, I love all of Dragon Ball regardless.

[Lord Beerus]

The GT ending was really good, so I'd go with that. Or I'd do what Dragon Ball Online did and end the story with Goku and Vegeta at the very end of their prime fighting age battling to the death.

[Gorou]

A battle between Goku and Vegeta, where there was not revealed the ending. As the third match between Rocky and Apollo Creed.

Something like this

[Hellspawn28]

I would like to have Super's final episode take place in the future with them at the end of their prime age fighting each to the death similar to what happen in Dragon Ball Online.

[Darkprince410]

I would like to have Super's final episode take place in the future with them at the end of their prime age fighting each to the death similar to what happen in Dragon Ball Online.

I agree. When I first read that's how they went out, I thought to myself "That sounds just right for them".

[Gyt Kaliba]

Basically as others have said, I'm fine with both GT's ending and the one we got with DBO, though I guess if pressed to pick just one or the other, I'd opt for DBO, purely for all the individual character stuff it gave us. Sure, GT's ending is great for representation of the Dragon Balls themselves, and brings Goku's journey to a close well enough....but everyone else is just there, as usual. DBO though? We get Goku and Vegeta's unseen climactic battle seemingly to the death; we get Kuririn and Tenshinhan starting up the Turtle and Crane schools again; we get Gohan writing a book about ki control; we get Goten and Trunks starting up a ki swordsmanship school (okay, admittedly that one's a little more out of nowhere). It's great for a lot of characters and not just Goku, so it works best for me overall.

I guess in an ideal world, or if we're talking really specifically of how I personally would try to craft it's ending, some kind of combination of the two? Because I do really like the evil Dragons arc as a 'final battle' of the main conflicts as well.

[Zephyr]

we get Goten and Trunks starting up a ki swordsmanship school (okay, admittedly that one's a little more out of nowhere).

You know, I used to feel the same way about it, but I'm starting to come around.

Every so often, here and there, in scattered bits of primary and tertiary material, we keep seeing main timeline Trunks having at least a small affinity for swords and cutting things. Tapion's sword in Movie 13, GT Trunks' sword in Final Bout's opening, and kid Trunks saying he'll cut Freeza in half if he shows up again in Super. There's also Xeno Gotenks in Heroes having a sword. I'm aware that all of those are intended homages to Future Trunks (the Xeno Gotenks one literally being half Future Trunks), but I think that's sort of the point.

Even if it's not Future Trunks, Trunks can't seem to completely get away from swords. His DBO epilogue sort of makes more sense that way (though I suppose the two of them opening up a school related to Fusion would make even more sense).

I guess in an ideal world, or if we're talking really specifically of how I personally would try to craft it's ending, some kind of combination of the two? Because I do really like the evil Dragons arc as a 'final battle' of the main conflicts as well.

Given "Super" throwing a sort of wrench in both GT and DBO, I could see it eventually appropriating bits of both, and doing exactly what you just described. Arguably, Revival of F complicates the living hell out of the whole "Freeza's army thought he was killed by Mr. Satan" thing. So if we wanted "Super" to cohere with DBO, we'd have to come up with a different reason for that final battle. And I think that the Evil Dragons (appropriated from GT) could serve as a great (I'd even say better) substitute. No Goku or Vegeta around anymore to help out, either.

[TheatreStyleKai]

I'm partial to DBO's depiction of the end of Goku's era, basically for the same reasons that Kaliba mentioned. But I've always had a little fanon in the back of mind dating back to a fanfic I read a long time ago (predating DBO and the DB AF stuff) that described that Goku would be the first one to transform into SSJ5, only for it to be an uncontrollable and violent state, and to save the Earth Vegeta lured Goku off world, turned SSJ5 as well, then destroyed each other. I've always liked the idea that there might be ever higher forms of Super Saiyan, but that attaining them wouldn't necessarily be a good thing.

[Gyt Kaliba]

You know, I used to feel the same way about it, but I'm starting to come around.

Every so often, here and there, in scattered bits of primary and tertiary material, we keep seeing main timeline Trunks having at least a small affinity for swords and cutting things. Tapion's sword in Movie 13, GT Trunks' sword in Final Bout's opening, and kid Trunks saying he'll cut Freeza in half if he shows up again in Super. There's also Xeno Gotenks in Heroes having a sword. I'm aware that all of those are intended homages to Future Trunks (the Xeno Gotenks one literally being half Future Trunks), but I think that's sort of the point.

Even if it's not Future Trunks, Trunks can't seem to completely get away from swords. His DBO epilogue sort of makes more sense that way (though I suppose the two of them opening up a school related to Fusion would make even more sense).

True, there is enough supplemental stuff suggesting a continued interest in swords I suppose. And since my own headcanon does often try to make movie 13 work with the main timeline, he would still have Tapion's sword hanging around, so...

I guess it's mostly just Goten helping out on it that seems random to me. But I don't rightly know what else they could give him to do solo either, if they ever did decide to break up the duo (not that that's happening any time soon anyway).