This week, I have a drawing of Echo in a fighting stance. I did a few different takes on the pose for this one, because it was important to me that there was tension and energy. It’s hard to draw that when someone isn’t moving, you know? In the end, after making some adjustments, I think I got what I wanted. They’re like a coiled snake. I’ve also changed up their design since the last picture I posted, and I got a little in my head about it. Echo is definitely bald/shaved, and so I kept falling back to, “they should have a scar or glasses,” so they’d look distinct. Hair is so important to character design, you know? And as I circled around that, I kept feeling like it was obvious or stereotypical. But as I looked at their face without anything, it wasn’t enough. Cliches exist for a reason, right?
I have been working on story planning for my graphic novel, I promise. I have a rough outline for how it would look in seven issues, as well as more detailed breakdowns of the first three. I’m at that point in a creative project where I look at my Duolingo tab and wonder if I should start learning Spanish, too. Because nothing says “focused and productive” like learning two languages at once, right? So instead, I did the responsible thing and started thinking about a Dragon Ball fanfiction. A different one than the one I have posted in part on this site.
There’s this fan made short animation called Legend: A Dragon Ball Tale that’s pretty cool. I happened to see part of it pop across my Facebook feed. Besides the quality of the animation and fights, which are pretty great, I really liked the flattened history aesthetic of it. Kami and Mr. Popo were presiding over the World Tournament, where Vegeta appears. Seeing it again reminded me of how excited I was when I first saw it to do an “Ultimate Dragon Ball,” in the vein of the original Ultimate Marvel comics. Ultimate Marvel started in 2000 with Ultimate Spider-Man, and had the basic premise of, “What if Marvel comics started today, instead of in the sixties?” And while there are a lot of ups and downs and questionable choices along the way in Ultimate comics, it was overall an exciting, fan favorite line. Characters, story arcs, settings, everything was reimagined based on hindsight, updated tastes, and current events, and it didn’t have the same loosey-goosey continuity mandates of the mainline comics.
That’s what I want to do with Dragon Ball, but clearly Ultimate means something different for that series. Dragon Ball isn’t based on the real world, after all. So, as I got back into it recently, looked at my old notes and realized that they weren’t ambitious enough, I widened my view to the big picture. In short, rather than being updated to modern times, it would be updated to modern aesthetics and conventions; Ultimate Dragon Ball has to look like a shonen action manga made in the 20’s, not the 80’s (ignoring how much influence Dragon Ball has on everything made today). So, what would make this story Ultimate?
First, the lore would be a lot more streamlined. Obviously, this is just an advantage I have in planning this story and having an encyclopedic understanding of the series. More than that, though, I think one of the ways the times have changed is that the most popular and successful books in this genre have a lot more of their ducks in a row at the beginning. Though parts of the lore and story change over time, it seems like most mangaka know what they’re doing and what the big picture is from the start. Dragon Ball began as a parody of Journey to the West and continued one story at a time, without much forward planning; most famously, there were several changes to the planned story in the Android Saga that led to the introduction of 17, 18, and Cell, whose stated timeline maybe can’t technically exist. I get the feeling that, if Dragon Ball were started today, then fans and maybe editors would expect a more cohesive lore built up at the beginning, or at least once the decision was made to continue it past the parody.
Second, I think there would be a lot more emphasis on being a martial artist, as a profession or calling. Most books in this genre today have some core profession, like assassins in Sakamoto Days, that’s central to the plot and themes. People define themselves by it, talk about the aesthetic and rules of the life, and make a big deal about dealing with others in their profession or those from other, antagonistic professions. So while everything in Dragon Ball is premised on Goku being a martial artist and wanting to be better, I think in today’s market, there would be a lot more pomp and circumstance about being in the Turtle School and its rivalry with the Crane School, for instance. Even after their first battle, as they’re preparing for the Cell Games, Tien would say this is his chance to prove to Goku that the Crane School has the techniques needed to win, and Goku would defend the Turtle School as superior. There would probably be more scorn shown for Taopaipai because he sells his skills for money. Instead of just quitting, Krillin would struggle with his broken martial artist pride. That sort of thing. It would be more than them all being martial artists; they’d care and talk about it in a more significant way.
Third, I think there would be a more balanced cast. While it’s not fully out of the ordinary for a book to come down to one or two strong guys these days, it’s far more common than in the past for the wider cast to be significant and do important and cool things in every story. Like, sure, Usopp isn’t the most powerful person in the world, but he’s got a ton of character work, practical development, and does amazing things every single story arc. Everyone in One Piece gets that treatment, as do the other Black Bulls in Black Clover or the other Defense Force members in Kaiju No. 8. Black Clover is actually a point of inspiration for me in terms of Yamcha, who I talked about a couple weeks ago; Magna’s comeback during the Spade Kingdom invasion was so satisfying and impressive and cool, despite him “hitting his limit” and “being low-level,” and I don’t see a reason why Yamcha can’t also have that moment. It’s the sort of thing that modern books do a lot better than Dragon Ball has done, because Dragon Ball began in a time when a very long story about a single really great guy was more the norm.
Fourth, there would be more prominent women characters. This obviously isn’t something that the genre is hitting home runs with, and some books are better than others, but it can generally be said that there are a lot more women in shonen action books than in the past. Women who are important supporting characters, or who get to take action in important non-combat roles, or even those who get to be strong fighters in their own right. It seems like mangaka are starting to realize that girls read these books, too, and that everyone likes strong fighter women. But that said, for the purposes of this sort of fan fiction, I’m not looking to create new characters; this is alt history. So, perhaps fittingly, we’d be left with just three women fighters in the main cast: Chi-Chi, 18, and Videl. Lunch and Marron could possibly be reimagined, though it’s not high on my list. Pan and Bra are out until we see what, if anything, happens with them after the hiatus, or unless I decide to use GT stories as reference to continue. Others may have different views on who’s on the table here, or on introducing new characters, but that’s the more strict view I plan to move forward with. There are also other women in the series who can be made more integral and important in each story outside of combat. Bulma, most notably, is a nexus for several plot points, like reforming the Pilaf Gang, Vegeta, and Android 16, so it seems like a waste not to make use of that and raise her profile.
And beyond that, there are the opportunities to keep in mind with alt history stories. For instance, I can use as many characters and stories from movies, video games, and other media as I want. Just because Cooler doesn’t seem to exist in regular Dragon Ball doesn’t mean I can’t have him in Ultimate Dragon Ball. Nothing says 17 can’t open the capsules for 13, 14, and 15, too, when he releases 16. Lord Slug can go to war with Frieza for Dragon Balls. There are also other missed opportunities you can build out from. I always thought it was weird that there were so few Saiyans left after the destruction of Planet Vegeta, since there should have been a lot of babies sent to conquer other planets at the time, right? And there probably were other adults who refused orders. Like, I get how having so few served the story, but it doesn’t get addressed. Would there be something worthwhile to them all coming together as one army, or would it be better to have a very small few, if any, survive as Frieza sends people around to kill them? And in either case, how does that affect Vegeta, who’s working for Frieza? The Saiyans also get to the fun part where you get to streamline newer bits of lore retroactively. How many Saiyans are locked up in Galaxy Prison? How many others were exiles like Broly and Paragus? Why can the Saiyans attain godly power without receiving angelic training in the first place?
This is the meat of the planning, and a source of grief for all fanfic writers. I had several versions of a Future Trunks continuation story planned, for instance, and now there’s basically no viable way to do them since Super showed what happened in his timeline. And with Daima, we have this new lore with Namekians being from the Demon Realm, which is huge. Apparently, you can go from the Demon Realm to any universe, so is it just one Demon Realm for the whole multiverse? I thought each universe had one. There’s definitely just a Demon King, so I guess there won’t be evil Kais sent down there to be mirrors of the divine hierarchy in Other World, as previous guides and sources said. That’s a big blow to my Dragon Ball ‘Redux’ series. And like…I really hope now that they explain who Zalama is, you know? I still think it’s weird, at least unnecessary, to say someone besides the Namekians made the first Dragon Balls, and this new thing with Namekians is making me really want to know, once and for all, if Zalama is a god like Shin, or like the original Namekian, or something else entirely. I have ideas on what can happen with Namekians, and I can’t use them unless I know their relationship to Zalama.
This Daima stuff also brings us to the more annoying element of how Dragon Ball’s multimedia franchise has been developed, which is judging the canonicity of different things, something a diligent fanfic creator has to do well. It would be a lot easier if it were all just stuff that originates in the manga and then stuff that’s clearly not the manga; I don’t accept that Tien is secretly a triclops alien, because that’s video game nonsense. But there’s more trouble with this franchise. The first major example is GT, the anime-only sequel series that Toriyama helped to develop and design, but, like Daima, was first proposed and developed by the studio and that clearly includes non-canon elements, like movie characters coming out of Hell. I think that debate is more settled than not at this point, since Super, which is definitely canon, contradicts it in so many ways. But which version of Super, right? I’ll always stick to the manga, but the fact that the manga and anime were produced separately and contemporaneously means their various contradictions could be argued as canon simultaneously. I’ve been assuming that Daima isn’t canon as an event in the series, though its lore might as well be taken as truth, since it’s the first time Toriyama has said anything substantial about the Demon Realm and just about guaranteed will be the basis of all canon Demon Realm stories in the future. I mean, Kibito Kai was still fused together in Super, so you the fact that he’s separated in Daima, despite happening earlier in time, is a dead giveaway, right? Toriyama worked on Daima, but he also worked on the movies and Dragon Ball Online. At the end of the day, though, it all comes down to how the series reacts. If the manga comes out of hiatus and says something to confirm that the events of Daima, or something like them, did, in fact, happen, then that’ll be that. It’s like the Schrodinger’s cat of franchise history.
Those are the kinds of things I think about, in terms of this Ultimate Dragon Ball fanfic and others. It’s really quite tedious, isn’t it? Working on fan fiction is relaxing and fun in a lot of ways, because you get to think about the thing you like and practice storytelling and planning with a bunch of ready-made material. At the same time, if you’re really strict about it like me, then you get twisted into knots over the details of everything. Canonicity debates are always a headache, because in many cases, fans will say anything they like is canon, no matter the facts. Eventually, being a nerd will get exhausting enough that I’ll want to run away to being an artist all the time, instead of half the time, again.
Weekly Art Blog 10/19-10/26/2024
Life in the Gutters 