Where Screen Rant's Dragon Ball Z Manga and Anime Differences List Misses

I read a Screen Rant article listing 15 differences between the Dragon Ball Z manga and anime. Most of it is accurate, but I think its number 15 and number one entries are weak, and the whole list reads like a cash grab written by someone who doesn't know the series' details. Some of the entries hold up well, so I want to go through it entry by entry.

Clickbait Dragon Ball articles bother me because the writers don't seem to know the series

I started doing this years ago. One of the pieces that defined my work, for better or worse, was called The Plan to Eradicate the Clickbait. It was a bit mean-spirited, even though I had good intentions, and I regret making it. Since then I've taken articles from sites like ComicBook.com, CBR and Screen Rant and debunked them, because I think these sites are in it for the wrong reasons.

When you read the majority of these articles, it's clear the people writing them are either not real fans or they're casuals. "There's nothing wrong with being a casual fan." If you don't know something, that's fine. That's why people like me, Derek Padula with his books, and others try to help fans understand the series better. What irritates me is that these articles are so obviously a cash grab.

I've never hidden that covering Dragon Ball is what I do for a living. But I loved Dragon Ball before that. I have every edition of the manga available to me, American and Japanese, plus figures, and I've loved this franchise for years, good or bad. I love the old material more. Super had its moments, but "nothing will ever compare to Z and Dragon Ball." I'm very blessed and humbled to get paid to talk about it.

When Super arrived in 2015, I had already started covering Resurrection F with no idea a new series was coming, and I was able to ride that momentum. Then these articles started popping up. I understand chasing popularity when new fans arrive. But these websites make a ton of money, more than people like me make, and I think the writers go to the Dragon Ball Wiki, compile an article and use blogging techniques for layout and pictures. Some have accused me of exploiting Dragon Ball too. At least I'm an actual fan. If covering what you love is exploitation, then everyone who covers video games is exploiting video games. We just like covering what we like.

The Screen Rant list opens by noting that the manga is black and white

The article is about Dragon Ball Z. Its intro says the anime might be the most popular medium in the West but that it was based on the manga. I'm pretty sure even the most casual fan knows that, including people who only saw the show on Toonami and never read a chapter. It's an intro, though, so that's fine.

The first entry is where it goes wrong. With these top 15 or top 10 lists, writers have to find a way to reach the number, so they squeeze things in. The first entry says the manga is black and white, and the writer adds that this will seem obvious to manga fans but can confuse people who have never picked up a Japanese comic. That's like saying the difference between the Harry Potter books and movies is that the books are words and the movies are pictures. They're two different mediums. I'm surprised the list didn't also say the manga is a book and the anime is a TV show.

The filler entries are accurate but easy to find

Gohan returning to fight Frieza is correct. That's the Dragon Ball Z episode 100 moment after Goku gets knocked into the lava on Namek, and it's anime only. The Cell entry is also right. In the manga only Vegeta helped Gohan against Cell, blasting him, while in the anime Piccolo, Yamcha, Krillin and others all help. Gregory isn't in the manga either. Apart from number 15, the entries so far are accurate, but they're easy to figure out. Most of this is researched, so I'll give the writer credit. There are more than 15 differences, and many of them are interesting. Maybe I'll do my own list.

The Other World Tournament is a filler arc, which anyone who has read the manga knows. The Snake Way entry says the trip was shorter in the manga, which is true. The whole Saiyan saga is shorter in the manga, and much of the middle is filler: Gohan in the jungle, Gohan training, Gohan in the orphanage, Goku meeting Princess Snake, my favorite filler episode of all time, and Goku with the ogres. I assume the writer means that material, not all of Snake Way.

Garlic Jr. is a movie and anime only character, correct. The entry on Buu's world tour covers how, in the anime, Majin Buu showed up in the afterlife, harassed everyone and teased a Buu versus Pikkon fight we never saw. Buu probably would have stomped him, but it would have been interesting.

The Dragon Ball Z manga is less censored than the anime

The nudity entry is right that the manga has nudity. The article mentions the nosebleed gags and says the anime showed Bulma's nipples. On the manga side, that's in the Japanese edition, not the Viz one. If you have the Japanese version, you can see Toriyama drew it. The anime also shows young Goku's nudity, which is also in the manga. In Japan back then you could show a child's nudity but not an adult's, which is weird to me. Japan doesn't follow the same rules we do.

The writer is right about gore at number six. The manga is much gorier. The article uses the example of Dr. Gero choking a man with blood coming out. When Gohan kicks and stomps the Cell Juniors in the manga, there's blood, guts, spines and bones, and none of that is in the anime. People say Z was uncensored. It wasn't. Z was censored compared to the manga, because Japanese TV has limitations. Those were looser back then, and it's even more censored now.

The Goku and Frieza fight was padded because the anime caught up to the manga

The pacing entry seems dumb because it's obvious. One is a TV show with 22-minute episodes, not counting commercial breaks. The manga is much faster. Back in the day, I believe two or three chapters equaled one episode, depending on filler and whether fights were stretched. You can read the entire Dragon Ball manga in a couple of days at a few hours a day, though it is long. The anime takes much longer to get through at regular speed.

The next entry is weird. It says Goku seemed more dominant against Frieza in the manga. That's only because the anime is longer. When the Frieza saga was being adapted, the anime was catching up to the manga, so the fight had to be padded with filler. Bulma and Captain Ginyu switching bodies is filler. Gohan returning to battle is filler. The fight itself is dragged out. The scenes with Master Roshi and Chi-Chi on Earth are filler, and so is the Ginyu Force fight on King Kai's planet. They added tons of padding.

Even so, the anime still focused on Goku's strategy for beating Frieza, which was attacking Frieza's midsection. I covered that in Dragon Ball In Depth number one in 2015, on how Goku defeated Frieza on Namek.

The list doesn't know why Piccolo has extra fingers, or how Trunks first transformed

For extra fingers, the article puts the difference down to it being easier to draw human hands. I don't think the writer knows what he's talking about. I've covered this before in a piece called Piccolo's Fingers Explained. The reason Piccolo has five fingers in the anime and four in the manga is that the yakuza cut off one of your fingers if you disobey them. There's a fear of the yakuza in Japan, which is why characters with four digits in the manga have five in the anime. He doesn't even know why.

On Trunks going Super Saiyan, the article uses a picture from Super. The anime showed Trunks when he first transformed. In the manga's version of Trunks' story, he's already a Super Saiyan. Most people who have both read and seen the series already know that.

The "over 8,000" entry is a dub change, not a manga difference

Number one annoys me because it shows the writer doesn't know the series. It says the manga had the line "over 8,000" and the anime had "over 9,000." But "over 9,000" comes from the original Ocean dub and appears in no other dub, though Funimation brought it over. If you watch Kai, play the games, or watch it in Japanese, which is the right way to watch it, you'd know it was over 8,000 even in the anime.

The writers of these articles often don't know that you have to watch a series in Japanese because there are dub changes. They bring up the Planet Trade Organization, which isn't even in the dub. I think it's something the Dragon Ball Wiki invented. The writer even notes that the original Japanese anime kept the 8,000 line. So why is it on the list? It's a difference between the manga and the dub, and there are hundreds of dub changes. Why is that number one?

The list format is built for ad revenue, and the writer needed more research

The writer had been writing for Screen Rant since 2016. They make these articles because they have to, and they're all structured the same way: bullet point, picture, paragraph. I think that's done on purpose to increase engagement and ad revenue.

I don't hate these writers. The guy might be a fan, and I'm not saying he isn't. Some of the entries are accurate, no question, and I don't think he's an idiot. But number 15 and number one are pretty dumb. He could have come up with two more differences, because there are many, including filler he didn't cover. He scraped the surface because he doesn't know the intricacies of Dragon Ball. That's fine, but my advice is simple: "do a bit more research just a little bit more."