Would DB still be popular if it came today?

[dbs fanboy]

Let's Say, an alien messes with reality and everyone collectively forgets DB was serialized in the 80s and it starts releasing weekly in the modern day.

Do you think it could still compete in the modern industry?

For the sake of the argument, this is the same DB that we had in the 80s-90s warts and all.

Let me clarify as well that I'm mainly comparing the manga, and starting from the first chapter, when Goku was a kid, no anime, nor filler nor Toei specials, just what Toriyama wrote and illustrated.

Me, personally I think there are aspects of DB besides the tropes it introduced that are still unique enough that even in the modern day it would still do well.

What are your thoughts?

[JulieYBM]

Dragon Ball wasn't even popular when it first came out. It took a few good years for the original comic to really catch on. That being said, if the series was allowed to continue without being canned, it would probably be pretty popular. If it had to compete with other modern titles, as-is, I don't think it would be a mega hit like it eventually became in the 1990s, but it would still be pretty popular for its fights alone.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I'd say it would. The anime and manga industry is still growing to this day and the stigma is going away. There's also a not insignificant number of Dragon Ball fans who either got into the series through the manga or prefer it.

Other shonen series like Dr Stone, Chainsaw Man and Spy X Family have also done well in recent years, and Dragon Ball has wider appeal than they do.

[Yellow Flower King]

I think Dragon Ball is an ever green franchise, people will always flock to it. Even when Nicktoons aired it, people flocked to it.

However if you mean if it came out FROM SCRATCH, as in the manga, it would have probably been cancelled.

[funrush]

One thing to keep in mind is a big part of Dragon Ball's success is it was kind of an innovator in its genre at the time. Oda credits Dragon Ball with making it socially acceptable to like manga/anime into adulthood. It was that fresh and captivating. Either way it was still a beautifully drawn manga and still holds up today. Toriyama really was a master of his craft. But the landscape of the magazine was different then.

During the pandemic I got the Shonen Jump app on my phone and as a fun little hobby tried to keep up with as many current weekly titles as possible because when I was a kid I always wanted to read WSJ week to week. So I did this and I wanna say I was reading like 12 of 18 titles or something like that, there were a handful of series at 100+ chapters I didn't feel like catching up on like Black Clover or Haikyu or Act-Age but anything reasonably short I was reading every week and anytime there was a new one I'd add it into my reading list. And one thing that kept happening was a series would really hook me, and then it would get cancelled after like 12 chapters! Some of them made it through the fire like Sakamoto Days, but a lot of them got canned very early on. It's a very cutthroat magazine.

All this to say, in 2025 Dragon Ball the gag comic where a lot of the bits are about Goku groping underage girls or about Roshi/others sexualizing underage Bulma in my opinion would have a very good chance of getting axed before Krillin is even introduced. Before Toriyama's masterful paneling of action scenes really gets a chance to shine. Even if the content especially from Piccolo Jr. onward would be blowing people's minds still if it came out today, I am not sure it makes it past the first arc with how cutthroat the magazine is and how a lot of the gags are sexual in nature and involving minors. I don't know exactly how the current social climate of Japan is but I think it would get a mixed reaction among older American readers, with Master Roshi specifically attracting a lot of hate comments. But I imagine overseas internet reaction has very little impact on if a series survives that initial kill window. I remember Bakuman saying they mainly go off a survey in the back of the magazine.

[MasenkoHA]

As far as the “inappropriate” humor it just straight up wouldn’t exist if Dragon Ball came out today. There would have been no “getting cancelled” Toriyama would have been creating the manga with the understanding he’s not allowed to do that in a manga aimed at young boys.

Anyways it’s really hard to imagine Dragon Ball coming out today. Not just because of it’s influence on later Shonen Jump title’s shamelessly ripping Goku off or the outdated humor but so much of Dragon Ball is baked into the decade it came out in. I just can’t see Toriyama looking to 70s Jackie Chan flicks as inspiration if he wrote the story in 2025 instead of starting in 1984.

[Kefla]

In this day and age. No. It wouldn't be possible for this to come out today.

[JulieYBM]

In this day and age. No. It wouldn't be possible for this to come out today.

Why not?

[BernardoCairo]

I think it would. It actually took me a long time to start liking Dragon Ball and anime in general. But even without any nostalgic connection to the series, both me and my friends eventually got into it. Just this year, a friend of mine who usually only reads manga decided to give Dragon Ball a try. He loved it so much that he kept sending me photos of his favorite panels and talking about them for hours. Even my younger brother’s friends at school are really into Dragon Ball. I guess it’s universal in a way.

[jjgp1112]

Dragon Ball wasn't even popular when it first came out. It took a few good years for the original comic to really catch on. That being said, if the series was allowed to continue without being canned, it would probably be pretty popular. If it had to compete with other modern titles, as-is, I don't think it would be a mega hit like it eventually became in the 1990s, but it would still be pretty popular for its fights alone.

Eh, less than a year - from everything I've read, the 21st Tournament was an instant hit made up for all of the first arc's struggles

[jjgp1112]

As far as the “inappropriate” humor it just straight up wouldn’t exist if Dragon Ball came out today. There would have been no “getting cancelled” Toriyama would have been creating the manga with the understanding he’s not allowed to do that in a manga aimed at young boys.

Anyways it’s really hard to imagine Dragon Ball coming out today. Not just because of it’s influence on later Shonen Jump title’s shamelessly ripping Goku off or the outdated humor but so much of Dragon Ball is baked into the decade it came out in. I just can’t see Toriyama looking to 70s Jackie Chan flicks as inspiration if he wrote the story in 2025 instead of starting in 1984.

A Dragon Ball that's more inspired by movies like The Raid, Crouching Tiger, John Wick...or even Rush Hour with a few nods to MCU movies is very interesting to think about.

[ABED]

It's always an odd question given its influence. How different would pop culture be without it? I do think it would find an audience. It would be different though.

Questions like these where something popular from the past would be popular today if it came into being now. It's like asking if The Beatles would be popular today. A world without the Beatles from a pop culture stand point would look RADICALLY different without them.

[tonysoprano300]

Popular? Yes. As popular? I personally don't think so. I think kids today don't really watch TV at anywhere near the same rate as they used to, the world has really become a lot more technologically diverse, and lots of kids have access to smartphones, tablets etc. that they can use to consume anything they want at any time they want, really. When DB was big in the west, a large part of that was because kids would spend all day in front of the TV. Either watching cable or playing video games. So I think folks were tapped into TV programs in a way that just isnt case today because there was a relative lack of alternatives. I think thats why when people say "XYZ was my childhood" it really reflects how much the content they consumed on TV occupied their world. With DB specifically, watching the show every week was one level but kids would also spend a ton of time debating the show, speculating on whats gonna happen next week, arguing about who's the strongest, gushing over the newest transformation etc. A lot of that was really huge for DBs popularity, not even just in a raw viewership sense but also in its staying power and influence. Like for example, when I was a kid, Goku was practically my hero. I really used to believe that if you screamed loud and got angry enough, you could become a Super Saiyan. I would actually practice in my room sometimes . If I were born in the year 2012, I would have so many other things to distract myself with that I just can't imagine being as attached to the show as I was back then.

I actually saw some polling data not too long ago that was analyzing why folks don't go to movie theaters as often as before, and apparently there is a growing trend amongst the younger generation who feel that they have a stronger connection with social media influencers than with TV personalities, which is pretty interesting...that said, I could be wrong. Its just the feeling I get with TV and film as a whole these days. Imo, a lot of stuff we consumed in our childhood just wouldnt be as popular if they came out in 2025.

... Just noticed you said Manga only lol, whoops. I guess I feel similarly even in that category. I think it would be accessible to more people, and thus we might see higher consumption or viewership counts, but I think when we talk about popularity, we're often talking about staying power and pop culture integration. That's what would take a hit, imo. A good analogy would be how The Dark Knight was less profitable than Ironman 3, Jurassic World, Star Wars TFA, Furious 7, Aquaman etc. but I highly doubt most people would agree that any of those movies are more popular than TDK, in that sense I think we're often talking about a different sort of thing when we talk about popularity in this context.

[SupremeKai25]

Without the added benefit of childhood nostalgia, the Freeza, Cell, and Buu sagas would be hated so much online.

Some people online still clutch their pearls 10 years later because Goku forgot the Mafuba seal that one time (it wasn't even his job to get it, why tf didn't Roshi bring it to him right away?), so... how exactly do you think these people will react to wonderful gems like

- Goku letting Freeza go 100% because he wants to prove he's the strongest in the universe (proving he's a battle-obsessed maniac)

- Krillin destroying the remote control because 18 kissed him that one time

- Goku wasting time with Vegeta's temper tantrum instead of aborting Majin Buu because... uhm, for literally no reason, lol.

You know what would be a super cool thread idea? A reverse of this.

"Would Dragon Ball Super be more beloved if it came out exactly as it is in 1996?"

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

There's plenty of Dragon Ball fans that say the series went downhill after the Piccolo arc.

Even without nostalgia the Freeza, Cell and Boo arcs are enjoyable stories warts and all. Toriyama's greatest strength as an artist other than his distinctive style was knowing how to write well while flying by the seat of his pants.

"Would Dragon Ball Super be more beloved if it came out exactly as it is in 1996?"

I think Super would probably still get the same hate if that was the case as a lot of Japanese fans had tuned out of Dragon Ball by the mid-Boo arc. GT didn't bring ratings back to their former glory, but Super likely wouldn't have either.

The web was around at that time, but we likely wouldn't have seen any equivalent of the "breaking the internet" phenomenon that went down when the Goku vs Jiren fight first aired, and I couldn't see there being as much hype for it, even if the more traditional broadcast and print news outlets covered fans doing what they can to watch as they would have had to tape trade and see the episodes after they first aired on Fuji TV. What made that moment memorable was the ability for fans globally to see and discuss new Dragon Ball at the same time.

[SupremeKai25]

There's plenty of Dragon Ball fans that say the series went downhill after the Piccolo arc.

There's also plenty of fans in general who jump to conclusions because they log on Reddit/X/Youtube/Tiktok/You name it and see a leak of Goku giving Moro a senzu bean and automatically screech about "bad writing" and "dumb Goku", even though the complete story made perfect sense but they didn't know about it because they couldn't wait one week for the official release. Leak culture/ragebait culture is all over social media.

Even on this very forum, the moderators had to periodically lock the manga megathread because people just jumped to conclusions based on a few leaks and automatically checked out of a story that, as it turned out, was perfectly fine, but the leaks, providing only a snippet of the complete story, ruined the perception.

Let's not even open the can of worms of mistranslations. How many times have we seen flame at a new Super chapter because of a mistranslation of the leaker which warped and twisted the original meaning of the story? As another example, the entire ending of My Hero Academia was ruined by mistranslations from the leakers which resulted in people just making countless crap memes about the protagonist Midoriya that were disproven by the official release.

Ultimately, Super is still a popular series. So the original series would also become popular. But all those controversial moments from the original series would get so much more hate between people jumping to conclusions because of leaks and mistranslations warping the meaning of the original story, in an age were people are perpetually connected to the internet and constantly checking news on their favorite anime series.

[PhantomSaiyan]

- Goku letting Freeza go 100% because he wants to prove he's the strongest in the universe (proving he's a battle-obsessed maniac)

What kind of critique is this, that's just Goku being Goku, anyone who'd get mad at that probably isn't even aware of what manga they're reading

[jjgp1112]

- Goku letting Freeza go 100% because he wants to prove he's the strongest in the universe (proving he's a battle-obsessed maniac)

What kind of critique is this, that's just Goku being Goku, anyone who'd get mad at that probably isn't even aware of what manga they're reading

He's just trying to derail this into a Dragon Ball Super defense thread; expect a few harassing PMs in your future.

[SupremeKai25]

- Goku letting Freeza go 100% because he wants to prove he's the strongest in the universe (proving he's a battle-obsessed maniac)

What kind of critique is this, that's just Goku being Goku, anyone who'd get mad at that probably isn't even aware of what manga they're reading

"What kind of critique is this?" The kind of critique Super gets on a regular basis.

Or are we going to pretend like people online aren't constantly complaining about Super Goku being "dumbed down" and "only caring about fighting"?

[Jord]

I think it depends on whether it's the exact original or a version tailored to current needs.

I think the exact original would still be successful, even though it suffers from pacing issues when looking at it from a modern lens. It would be less popular but still a fair hit. Of course, if all the other shows would have have come out, DB would be criticized for relying on tropes (which it originated).

Looking at modern Dragon ball, trying to use the DB(Z) formula the result had less positive results. DB Super got cancelled after having only 131 episodes, which is roughly 2 times the amount of GT. GT however, came after at the tail and of around 9 years of DB, with fatigue already setting in at the end of Z.
Super getting cancelled after a 20 year drought of DB episodes at just 131 episodes...not that good.

Daima got mixed reaction and I am not sure how big of little it's success is. We get the obligated game DLC that goes with it, but for the rest I don't feel it had that much of an impact, despite the animation and being Toriyama's last DB work.