Would Dragonball/Z Have Been Better, Or Worse, If Energy Wasn't Ever Introduced?

[Sovran Nila]

If Ki was never introduced in the franchise, would the series have been better off, or worse?

 

[Papasmurf]

It would've found a way to be even more unrealistic and crazy like the Baki series if that were the case. Probably Goku lifting as a child until his biceps became as thicc as his head, and other characters needing to juice themselves up with steroids to keep up.

 

[Hector]

People in DB lifted without developing their muscles long before ki was introduced. I don't think calling their blasts something other than ki would have made any difference.

 

[Dagon]

Ki/Qi is nearly a ubiquitous concept in east asia. They just take the basic premise of energy being drawn from the breath and exaggerate it to the point of gaining superpowers from it. Without ki as an explicit explanation for superpowers, it wouldn't be much different.

 

[Jerk Store]

Early DB didn't use ki as much as Z and on. The larger their ki got the more blasts were used.

So just think of OGDB fights but without the ki blasts or concept of ki. Just the hand to hand stuff.

One of the reasons the tournaments in DB were so cool was because they were mostly hand to hand combat.

 

[Papasmurf]

Early DB didn't use ki as much as Z and on. The larger their ki got the more blasts were used.

So just think of OGDB fights but without the ki blasts or concept of ki. Just the hand to hand stuff.

One of the reasons the tournaments in DB were so cool was because they were mostly hand to hand combat.

They still got more and motr Ki blast heavy as time went on. Compare the Piccolo Jr. tournament to the 21st.

 

[Yoshi]

Toriyama planned to make the Kamehameha invisible, so it's possible he might not have even wanted Ki to be introduced.

 

[Jerk Store]

Where did he say that?

 

[Yoshi]

Where did he say that?

"What did you fret over when thinking up techniques like the Kamehameha and their poses?"

"Techniques that are plain but effective aren’t suited for manga. Stuff like strangleholds and locking techniques are troublesome to draw and hard to make very flashy. Even the Kamehameha is a technique that expels “ki”, which by nature is invisible, but I was able to make it flashy by hitting upon the idea of portraying it as something that could be seen with the naked eye. With that pose too, I tried out a lot of different ones. What’s more, I had to think up special characteristics for each character’s techniques, but I ran out of patterns really fast, so it was tough (laughs)."

 

[Jerk Store]

I remember that quote now.

He didn't say he planned to make it invisible though, just that ki is invisible in reality in ki based martial arts and so he made it flashy so we could see it visually.

 

[Yoshi]

I remember that quote now.

He didn't say he planned to make it invisible though, just that ki is invisible in reality in ki based martial arts and so he made it flashy so we could see it visually.

You're right. I just misremembered.