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Hello, this CRT will aim to combine the cosmologies of the multiple Dragon Ball continuities into one; a shared worldview if you will. Just to be clear, this is NOT making all the events from each continuity canon, nor the characters.
For starters, this scan goes over Akira Toriyama's involvment with Daima; how he set up the world and lore for this story to take place in. In this case, characters like Rymus and the Supreme Demon king we've seen in flashbacks will be canon, and already are, but this won't always apply and will be case-by-case as will be demonstrated with further examples. The key point to take away here is the mention of the worldview. The mention of worldview creating a link to the setting and story of Dragon Ball is essential to note. Also, we actually already use this same logic with the current standards for the Demon Realm. Of how the events may not be canon to the main continuity of Super (at least for right now), the overall world structure is. One of the major goals for this project was discovering and exploring the mysteries and secrets of the world of Dragon Ball, a sort of overarching story/narrative that applies even if the actual events aren't canon. In a way, it can be thought of as events that could have happened in other storylines but they didn't. There is also another scan that describes the World of Dragon Ball as "continuing to expand". Also, the scans talk about the concept of the “World of Dragon Ball,” and how it encompasses the manga, the anime, and the other forms of media. They all become one within Chozenshuu 4. The reason this is important is because in the next scan, it talks about the different films and how they, "share the same worldview yet never intersect". Just to reiterate, this is important because of the Daima scan by Toriyama. It also talks about how Daima is revealing more of the World of Dragon Ball, despite not following the same events from Super. This means that the movies, Toei, Dragon Ball Super Manga and Anime all have the same cosmological elements yet are separated by the different stories that contain them. This is very blatant and is clearly Toriyama's vision on what the Dragon Ball world should be and currently is. The cosmological elements we see in every continuity are basically part of the same overarching Dragon Ball world; an "umbrella" of Dragon Ball if you will. There are also scans of Toriyama taking the theatrical films to be, "in a different dimension from the main story of the comic", which means they exist as part of the world but are separated by different events, and in this case, characters almost like branched timelines in a way. More scans of being called "events of a parallel world" as well. Even the movies use Toriyama's original work and world to create different stories, but in the same world.
Now, we said that we'll demonstrate case-by-case when characters are canon from alternate media are canon and so this is another example. In the latest chapter of Dragon Ball Super Manga, Olibu from the Otherworld tournament in the Dragon Ball Z anime was shown as a statue. Not just Olibu, but if you read that chapter as whole several "nobodies" from that same Anime-only arc actually appear to be canonized. This makes these character officially part of the main continuity. Olibu was a character that was only introduced in the Otherworld tournament saga; this adds precedence that this is an arc that could have happened in the main world, even if we don't consider it part of the "main continuity". Even if you think it's not the "same Olibu", that's fine. That is still consistent with our idea above, that these events could have happened in the main story and our argument that nevertheless they still do share the same Worldview. Additionally, this aligns with Toyotaro's thoughts on the matter of "canon" in Dragon Ball (Question 14). Through a recent interview involving Torishima and Toyotaro, Toyotaro stated that he believes, "Everything is canon" in Dragon Ball simply because it's Dragon Ball. Now this doesn't mean that literally everything must be canon no matter what, that evidently doesn't work. However, this does add consistency to the idea that Toyotaro And Toriyama both have this similar view of the work. It was said they both worked on the Dragon Ball Super manga (Question 6); they would consider all the continuities to share the same world based on Toyotaro's words. For more info on Torishima's words, it's said by him that continuity really does not matter. He even laughed at the idea of "canon" and was at first confused of what it even meant until it was clarified further that it was just, "chronological events". Torishima goes on to tell us how Toriyama forgot about character continuity at times and decided to not stress over it while making stories the fans would enjoy. This is Torishima telling us "canon" is just sort of irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. This is very consistent with the statements thus far. The point is, as far as the overall World of Dragon Ball goes, continuity is sort of irrelevant. They're the same worlds, with some differences that have been shown. Each new story is just a different way of viewing the same world as the Daima statement implies.
Toriyama also checked on the plot and scripts for the Toei DBZ anime at times. Even going as far to make locations for fillers to take place, such as the otherworld tournament. Just proving that even these elements for filler, are just extra elements to the entire overarching world of Dragon Ball. They have no reason to be separate. Here is a guide that goes over Toriyama's involvement with fillers, how many sections were, "filled with Toriyama's ideas". With Daima, Toriyama is doing what he's done in the past, just with more involvement. The new lore and cosmology we got does indeed apply to all continuities. For the proposal, unless contradicted, all continuities of Dragon Ball, except for games (besides Kakarot) like Heroes, would share the same world and cosmology elements. Some of those contradictions we have would be the exception. For example, infinite universe is currently accepted for the Toei verse, but not for the Dragon Ball Super continuity. This means that we would simply keep the size of the universe separate for that aspect, unless it's accepted later of course. This CRT does inspire a decent amount of change for the DBS manga and anime. Such as Heaven having a definitive size, additional proof of space-time separation for the dimensions of the Macrocosm. Not to mention the Dimension of Swirling Lights being something that applies across all continuities, though that should of already been obvious. In theory, this should be a relatively easy thread. Toriyama has made it clear, through recent statements of what the Dragon Ball world is. Even though the aspect of "canon" may not exist to people like Toriyama and Toyotaro, (since its all "Dragon Ball" to them), continuities are still treated as separate. Despite this, as the evidence and statements provided above, they all are still under the umbrella of the Dragon Ball world.
If this idea for some reason seems absurd to you, it definitely should be acknowledged that this used to be an accepted thing for the Dragon Ball cosmology here a while back. However, back then this idea was backed up by less than ideal evidence requiring the canonization of every continuity including GT, this however is not that. Instead, now we have superior evidence that is based on the word and views of Toriyama and his successor who worked alongside him (Toyotaro). The entire work is really just view as "Dragon Ball". Continuities do exist like we've said here, but "Canon" does not. At least not in the conventional sense. This is especially true of the world; Daima is all the proof you'd ever need to get behind this idea. And instead of forcing an evidently flawed conclusion of canonizing entire continuities that may not work well, we're only "equalizing" or canonizing the idea of a Worldview for Dragon Ball.
Emphasizing my earlier point more, I want to reiterate that the cosmology will be the same across continuities UNLESS CONTRADICTED. I already used infinite universe as an example. That will be an aspect that will be kept separate unless it is also accepted in the future for both DBS continuities. Another example is the portrayal of hell in GT. It looks quite different from even Toei DBZ and obviously DBS. This will just be something that only applies to GT in terms of aesthetic only. Naturally, they are still conceptually the same cosmology, at least in terms of the Hell portion I mentioned. This is because GT follows Toei events. It would need to be proven that Hell is different enough that it warrants a legitimate contradiction beyond art style, since the Toriyama memo directly shows that he specifically designed these elements of the Afterlife himself. Every contradiction that is found would follow this same logic, even though there aren't many, if any that can inherently be proven to contradict sharing the same world. So arguments among the lines of, "but we didn't see this particular location, so it doesn't exist" wouldn't work here since it's still a shared cosmology and world, especially with author intent.
To make it easier to understand. Currently our approach with the cosmology is this; we inherently assume they're all separate and ONLY things that are very explicitly and clearly stated by multiple sources including the authors themselves are assumed to apply to every continuity particularly the current canon. This approach however, while sufficient in the past, leaves a lot to be desired today with all the recent evidence and interviews we've had and it's clear that this is no longer a suitable approach with Dragon Ball.
Instead, we now propose the alternative approach. Given the evidence we have, we shall assume that all of these cosmologies are more or less inherently the same, and every contradiction can just be dealt with case-by-case and that will only apply to said contradiction only, not the entire cosmology. This is a lot easier than it may sound at first, provided the evidence we've shared, we mustn't deny ourselves the ability to be nuanced and look at every element on its own. Not unlike what we used to do in the past, but now with a different goal altogether. It should be clear that this does not make the other continuities tangible timelines inside of the multiverse, so please refrain from bringing that up.
Finally; in order to address some potential counterarguments pre-emptively and in order to prevent the thread from being too cluttered. Any and all arguments of the nature "but this isn't canon you can't say that!!!" or anything resembling "but why didn't we see this location/event/character(s) if they exist???" shall not be entertained nor arguments along the lines of "but movies/Toei/GT are non-canon!!!". This is very clearly not the goal of this thread, we aren't canonizing everything and we have gone out of our way to establish this clearly and argue in great detail what we are proposing, so please respect that effort and do not present these pointless red-herrings, they serve nothing but to stonewall a thread. Instead, only arguments with genuine criticism of evidence or arguments criticizing our logic shall be entertained.
Agree: DarkDragonMedeus
Neutral: Damage3245, Nierre (Leaning towards agreeing)
Disagree:
For starters, this scan goes over Akira Toriyama's involvment with Daima; how he set up the world and lore for this story to take place in. In this case, characters like Rymus and the Supreme Demon king we've seen in flashbacks will be canon, and already are, but this won't always apply and will be case-by-case as will be demonstrated with further examples. The key point to take away here is the mention of the worldview. The mention of worldview creating a link to the setting and story of Dragon Ball is essential to note. Also, we actually already use this same logic with the current standards for the Demon Realm. Of how the events may not be canon to the main continuity of Super (at least for right now), the overall world structure is. One of the major goals for this project was discovering and exploring the mysteries and secrets of the world of Dragon Ball, a sort of overarching story/narrative that applies even if the actual events aren't canon. In a way, it can be thought of as events that could have happened in other storylines but they didn't. There is also another scan that describes the World of Dragon Ball as "continuing to expand". Also, the scans talk about the concept of the “World of Dragon Ball,” and how it encompasses the manga, the anime, and the other forms of media. They all become one within Chozenshuu 4. The reason this is important is because in the next scan, it talks about the different films and how they, "share the same worldview yet never intersect". Just to reiterate, this is important because of the Daima scan by Toriyama. It also talks about how Daima is revealing more of the World of Dragon Ball, despite not following the same events from Super. This means that the movies, Toei, Dragon Ball Super Manga and Anime all have the same cosmological elements yet are separated by the different stories that contain them. This is very blatant and is clearly Toriyama's vision on what the Dragon Ball world should be and currently is. The cosmological elements we see in every continuity are basically part of the same overarching Dragon Ball world; an "umbrella" of Dragon Ball if you will. There are also scans of Toriyama taking the theatrical films to be, "in a different dimension from the main story of the comic", which means they exist as part of the world but are separated by different events, and in this case, characters almost like branched timelines in a way. More scans of being called "events of a parallel world" as well. Even the movies use Toriyama's original work and world to create different stories, but in the same world.
Now, we said that we'll demonstrate case-by-case when characters are canon from alternate media are canon and so this is another example. In the latest chapter of Dragon Ball Super Manga, Olibu from the Otherworld tournament in the Dragon Ball Z anime was shown as a statue. Not just Olibu, but if you read that chapter as whole several "nobodies" from that same Anime-only arc actually appear to be canonized. This makes these character officially part of the main continuity. Olibu was a character that was only introduced in the Otherworld tournament saga; this adds precedence that this is an arc that could have happened in the main world, even if we don't consider it part of the "main continuity". Even if you think it's not the "same Olibu", that's fine. That is still consistent with our idea above, that these events could have happened in the main story and our argument that nevertheless they still do share the same Worldview. Additionally, this aligns with Toyotaro's thoughts on the matter of "canon" in Dragon Ball (Question 14). Through a recent interview involving Torishima and Toyotaro, Toyotaro stated that he believes, "Everything is canon" in Dragon Ball simply because it's Dragon Ball. Now this doesn't mean that literally everything must be canon no matter what, that evidently doesn't work. However, this does add consistency to the idea that Toyotaro And Toriyama both have this similar view of the work. It was said they both worked on the Dragon Ball Super manga (Question 6); they would consider all the continuities to share the same world based on Toyotaro's words. For more info on Torishima's words, it's said by him that continuity really does not matter. He even laughed at the idea of "canon" and was at first confused of what it even meant until it was clarified further that it was just, "chronological events". Torishima goes on to tell us how Toriyama forgot about character continuity at times and decided to not stress over it while making stories the fans would enjoy. This is Torishima telling us "canon" is just sort of irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. This is very consistent with the statements thus far. The point is, as far as the overall World of Dragon Ball goes, continuity is sort of irrelevant. They're the same worlds, with some differences that have been shown. Each new story is just a different way of viewing the same world as the Daima statement implies.
Toriyama also checked on the plot and scripts for the Toei DBZ anime at times. Even going as far to make locations for fillers to take place, such as the otherworld tournament. Just proving that even these elements for filler, are just extra elements to the entire overarching world of Dragon Ball. They have no reason to be separate. Here is a guide that goes over Toriyama's involvement with fillers, how many sections were, "filled with Toriyama's ideas". With Daima, Toriyama is doing what he's done in the past, just with more involvement. The new lore and cosmology we got does indeed apply to all continuities. For the proposal, unless contradicted, all continuities of Dragon Ball, except for games (besides Kakarot) like Heroes, would share the same world and cosmology elements. Some of those contradictions we have would be the exception. For example, infinite universe is currently accepted for the Toei verse, but not for the Dragon Ball Super continuity. This means that we would simply keep the size of the universe separate for that aspect, unless it's accepted later of course. This CRT does inspire a decent amount of change for the DBS manga and anime. Such as Heaven having a definitive size, additional proof of space-time separation for the dimensions of the Macrocosm. Not to mention the Dimension of Swirling Lights being something that applies across all continuities, though that should of already been obvious. In theory, this should be a relatively easy thread. Toriyama has made it clear, through recent statements of what the Dragon Ball world is. Even though the aspect of "canon" may not exist to people like Toriyama and Toyotaro, (since its all "Dragon Ball" to them), continuities are still treated as separate. Despite this, as the evidence and statements provided above, they all are still under the umbrella of the Dragon Ball world.
If this idea for some reason seems absurd to you, it definitely should be acknowledged that this used to be an accepted thing for the Dragon Ball cosmology here a while back. However, back then this idea was backed up by less than ideal evidence requiring the canonization of every continuity including GT, this however is not that. Instead, now we have superior evidence that is based on the word and views of Toriyama and his successor who worked alongside him (Toyotaro). The entire work is really just view as "Dragon Ball". Continuities do exist like we've said here, but "Canon" does not. At least not in the conventional sense. This is especially true of the world; Daima is all the proof you'd ever need to get behind this idea. And instead of forcing an evidently flawed conclusion of canonizing entire continuities that may not work well, we're only "equalizing" or canonizing the idea of a Worldview for Dragon Ball.
Emphasizing my earlier point more, I want to reiterate that the cosmology will be the same across continuities UNLESS CONTRADICTED. I already used infinite universe as an example. That will be an aspect that will be kept separate unless it is also accepted in the future for both DBS continuities. Another example is the portrayal of hell in GT. It looks quite different from even Toei DBZ and obviously DBS. This will just be something that only applies to GT in terms of aesthetic only. Naturally, they are still conceptually the same cosmology, at least in terms of the Hell portion I mentioned. This is because GT follows Toei events. It would need to be proven that Hell is different enough that it warrants a legitimate contradiction beyond art style, since the Toriyama memo directly shows that he specifically designed these elements of the Afterlife himself. Every contradiction that is found would follow this same logic, even though there aren't many, if any that can inherently be proven to contradict sharing the same world. So arguments among the lines of, "but we didn't see this particular location, so it doesn't exist" wouldn't work here since it's still a shared cosmology and world, especially with author intent.
To make it easier to understand. Currently our approach with the cosmology is this; we inherently assume they're all separate and ONLY things that are very explicitly and clearly stated by multiple sources including the authors themselves are assumed to apply to every continuity particularly the current canon. This approach however, while sufficient in the past, leaves a lot to be desired today with all the recent evidence and interviews we've had and it's clear that this is no longer a suitable approach with Dragon Ball.
Instead, we now propose the alternative approach. Given the evidence we have, we shall assume that all of these cosmologies are more or less inherently the same, and every contradiction can just be dealt with case-by-case and that will only apply to said contradiction only, not the entire cosmology. This is a lot easier than it may sound at first, provided the evidence we've shared, we mustn't deny ourselves the ability to be nuanced and look at every element on its own. Not unlike what we used to do in the past, but now with a different goal altogether. It should be clear that this does not make the other continuities tangible timelines inside of the multiverse, so please refrain from bringing that up.
Finally; in order to address some potential counterarguments pre-emptively and in order to prevent the thread from being too cluttered. Any and all arguments of the nature "but this isn't canon you can't say that!!!" or anything resembling "but why didn't we see this location/event/character(s) if they exist???" shall not be entertained nor arguments along the lines of "but movies/Toei/GT are non-canon!!!". This is very clearly not the goal of this thread, we aren't canonizing everything and we have gone out of our way to establish this clearly and argue in great detail what we are proposing, so please respect that effort and do not present these pointless red-herrings, they serve nothing but to stonewall a thread. Instead, only arguments with genuine criticism of evidence or arguments criticizing our logic shall be entertained.
Agree: DarkDragonMedeus
Neutral: Damage3245, Nierre (Leaning towards agreeing)
Disagree:
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