A recent post on the Lost Media Wiki mentions a supposed pilot or test animation of Dragon Ball that they found on a random VHS tape. Apparently the tape in question only contained a few seconds of footage, which was of a simple title card and an early version of Goku talking to his grandpa's spirit in his Dragon Ball.
Link: https://forums.lostmediawiki.com/thread ... -animation
Supposed pilot film/pitch reel/test animation
Re: Supposed pilot film/pitch reel/test animation
I do recall kei17 mentioning something about a "pilot", or at least some Dragon Ball test footage which I think was used for the Japanese voice cast auditions (and after doing some searching, I found where he mentioned it: viewtopic.php?p=894247&hilit=pilot#p894247). There's also this short trailer from before Dragon Ball aired which contains some unseen animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P8bjRTeC3E -- though, personally, I would just assume this animation was done specifically for trailer purposes, but if there really is a lost pilot, then some of the footage might have made its way into the trailer.
Now, on the forum post you linked, I'm inherently skeptical of any such claims (especially when the story is simply "I found some old VHS tapes," even more so considering the likelihood of finding a VHS tape of a 1986 anime's test footage in, presumably, a Western country), but the Goku image does seem a bit different from the one in the actual first episode of Dragon Ball, though it is from the same sort of angle, so if this really is some test pilot then Toei probably reused the storyboard from it for the actual first episode.
Off of only two images, it's hard to ascertain whether or not this is real or fake: Photoshop and AI generated images are always possibilities, and I wouldn't buy into this solely off of the presented information, but if the original poster actually has some early, lost footage and releases it, then that would be great -- though, for the time being, I remain doubtful of the claim's authenticity, but it would be nice if this was true.
Now, on the forum post you linked, I'm inherently skeptical of any such claims (especially when the story is simply "I found some old VHS tapes," even more so considering the likelihood of finding a VHS tape of a 1986 anime's test footage in, presumably, a Western country), but the Goku image does seem a bit different from the one in the actual first episode of Dragon Ball, though it is from the same sort of angle, so if this really is some test pilot then Toei probably reused the storyboard from it for the actual first episode.
Off of only two images, it's hard to ascertain whether or not this is real or fake: Photoshop and AI generated images are always possibilities, and I wouldn't buy into this solely off of the presented information, but if the original poster actually has some early, lost footage and releases it, then that would be great -- though, for the time being, I remain doubtful of the claim's authenticity, but it would be nice if this was true.