Naruto Creator Tackles Obscure Dragon Ball Character in Throwback Art

During the shuffle of energy blasts, Saiyan Gods, Tournaments of Power, and everything in between in the Dragon Ball franchise, sometimes the early beginnings of the series can be forgotten. Luckily, the creator of Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto, managed to give us a refresher by adding a sketch to the Dragon Ball 30th Anniversary History Book. The Pirate Robot, who appeared early on during Goku and Bulma’s quest to find the Dragon Balls, was a part of the General Blue saga which introduced the nefarious machinations of the Red Ribbon Army.

Twitter User GovetaXV shared the amazing sketch that takes the horrifying looking robot from the first Dragon Ball series, looking like something out of the Alien franchise versus a character that we’d normally see threatening Goku and company:

The Red Ribbon Army had somewhat humble beginnings for a psychotic organization bent on world domination, mostly creating robots and struggling with a young Saiyan whose power level had to be under 100 at the time. Though as you may know, the Army was responsible for Dr. Gero’s hatred of Son Goku, which led to him creating the terrifyingly powerful Androids 16-18, but the biological nightmare that was Cell.

What do you think of this amazing Dragon Ball sketch from the creator of Naruto? What other obscure Dragon Ball characters would you like to see brought back into the spotlight? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and weird Dragon Ball characters!

Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block on Saturday evenings, and is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese-language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. The manga has chapters that can currently be read for free thanks to Viz Media, and Dragon Ball Super’s big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Originally created by Masashi Kishimoto for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, Naruto follows a young ninja, with a sealed demon within him, that wishes to become the leader of his home village. The series ran for 700 chapters overall, and was adapted into an anime series by Studio Pierrot and Aniplex that ran from 2002 to 2017. The series was popular enough to warrant a sequel, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations which is set several years after the events of the original Naruto story and features the children of many of its key characters such as Naruto and Hinata.