What if Dragon Ball started with Goku as adult?

[PowerPhantom245]

Goku was 12 years old when he first met Bulma.
I'm curious how series would have been different had it started as adult Goku (18 years old; 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai/Piccolo Jr. Saga)?
For this scenario, only Goku would be OLDER and everyone else would be same age.
Even despite Goku would be 6 years older, Raditz would still be Goku's older brother, though it really wouldn't matter that much if he's older or even younger, since event would probably turn out the same (if not, no change at all).
Goku would probably be same age, if not older than Vegeta, but that also hardly matter at all IMO.

Imagine instead of Bulma meeting Goku as child, she would have met him as adult, who is older (Bulma was 16 when series started).
Would she fell in love with Goku, instead of Yamcha (which would be bizarre.)?
If that's the case, she wouldn't need to look for Dragon Ball for handsome guy and series would end there... but that's a bit of stretch. lol

I also wonder if 12 years-old Chi-Chi would have fell in love with older Goku; though, she did have interest with Yamcha, so it's still possible.

I'm curious if Krillin would have developed same level of friendship, had he met Goku as an adult.
It would still be interesting to see small Krillin training alongside big Goku. lol

Regardless of how character interaction would turn out, would the franchise still have been popular if it started as adult Goku instead of child?
Would it even matter that much?

In my opinion, part of the magic and uniqueness of the franchise is that Goku's development as fighter and character, as time progressed from childhood to adulthood, so it wouldn't have a same charm if the series started as an adult.
I would still think franchise would be popular regardless, given how the series turns out to be, but it would be losing some... magic (I think).

What do you guys think?

[Rory]

For most English speaking fans, it did!

[TechExpert2021]

For most English speaking fans, it did!

And that is because FUNimation skipped the rest of OG DB (after episode 14) to DBZ after their 1995 dub of Dragon Ball failed to get good syndication viewership ratings thanks to Seagull Entertainment (the company that syndicated FUNimation's 1995 DB dub) giving the series a 6:30 AM time slot on Saturday mornings.

[JulieYBM]

Would anything change unless you made Gokuu more like a real life adult person?

[Rory]

And that is because FUNimation skipped the rest of OG DB (after episode 14) to DBZ after their 1995 dub of Dragon Ball failed to get good syndication viewership ratings thanks to Seagull Entertainment (the company that syndicated FUNimation's 1995 DB dub) giving the series a 6:30 AM time slot on Saturday mornings.

That they did TechExpert2021, that they did.

[Chuquita]

I think it changes the dynamic more for the people around him (Bulma, Krillin, Chi-Chi, and eventually Vegeta) if among his friends Goku is now the adult in the room even if he's not very mature. It also slows down his social development if he's fresh to the concept of society at 18 vs 12 so maybe some things are a little harder, but he'll still get there.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

And that is because FUNimation skipped the rest of OG DB (after episode 14) to DBZ after their 1995 dub of Dragon Ball failed to get good syndication viewership ratings thanks to Seagull Entertainment (the company that syndicated FUNimation's 1995 DB dub) giving the series a 6:30 AM time slot on Saturday mornings.

People always say the 1995 dub got poor ratings, but never really substantiate that claim. As you say though it didn't help SeaGull didn't get Funimation ideal timeslots, so it's all relative.

It's known that Gen Fukunaga begged TOEI to let Funimation skip ahead to Z, but the BLT dub's ratings, from what I heard were on par with Saban Z episodes 1-13, which were promising enough to get the show a double timeslot during the pre-Pokémon era. Not what I would think of as a death knell, more like a calculated means of leveraging Fukanaga's apathy for original Dragon Ball.

But yes, as Rory said for a lot of English-speaking fans they have more or less consumed Dragon Ball as if the story started with Raditz and everything before was an afterthought prequel (which we know of course was not TOEI, Shueshia or Toriyama's intention ever).