Dragon Ball is one of the most popular franchises to ever come out of Japan. However, there were points in the production of the story that the characters, designs and story were almost radically different. We've compiled a list of fifteen deleted things from Dragon Ball that changed everything, with one particular alteration taking the top spot because of just how wildly different the franchise would have been had it not been made.
We're starting with Akira Toriyama's initial one-shot manga Dragon Boy, which served as something of a pilot for the comic, differentiating the manga creator's work from his immensely popular Dr. Slump. Dragon Boy differed greatly from Dragon Ball, but a number of ideas carried over from it. However, a lot of concepts were also cut. For example, in Dragon Boy, the hero has dragon wings, but in Dragon Ball he has a tail, which might have changed a lot about the series.
There's also the "Z" in the title of Dragon Ball Z. The reason this was added to the title was because Toriyama thought the Frieza Saga would be the final installment in the franchise. However, ending it there would have made the series much different, as we would have never gotten such villains as Cell and Majin Buu, or even the entirety of Dragon Ball Super.
Check out the video below for more deleted things that changed everything, including a number of issues of censorship or translation errors.
Although Dragon Ball: Super has already finished its run in Japan, dub-watching fans are still in the process of seeing what the popular franchise still holds. Super Dragon Ball Heroes is helping tide fans over in the short-term, but it's unknown at this time just when the series will return with new episodes.
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Newly translated episodes of Dragon Ball Super air on Saturdays at 11 p.m. ET/PT on Adult Swim.