'Dragon Ball' Artist Responds to Anime's Censorship Debate With Perfect Sketch

By Nick Valdez

The recent Blu-ray of the Dragon Ball Z film, Bio-Broly, in Japan was the center of attention due to a strange change in which it censored one of Trunks' rude gestures for the re-release without any real explanation as to why.

One popular Dragon Ball illustrator responded to the debate with a pretty perfect sketch highlighting just how Bulma's been known to do the same in the past. You can check it out below.

dragongarowLEE, who's now officially part of the Dragon Ball franchise with the release of Dragon Ball: That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha, shared a sketch depicting Bulma chastising Trunks for sticking his middle finger up, which is a reference to the gesture that got edited in Bio-Broly's re-release.

The sketch depicts Bulma saying, "Trunks, you can't go giving people the middle finger" and while Trunks is at a loss for words, Emperor Pilaf is off to side and remembering a time he saw Bulma doing the same. All he has to say is "I'm pretty sure he learned that from his parents..."

During Dragon Ball Z: Bio-Broly, Trunks and Goten fight off against Bio-Broly and in this particular scene Trunks taunts him. In the original, he does so by sticking his middle finger up (which is a notably rude gesture), but it's been edited in the re-release. Instead, the middle finger has been erased and Trunks simply raises his fist toward Broly.

You can see the differences in the following Tweet from user @nappasan:

Viz Media has officially licensed dragongarowLEE's Dragon Ball: That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha for a release in the United States and describes the release as such, "A DRAGON BALL fan dies and is reincarnated as Yamcha—DRAGON BALL'S biggest punching bag and total internet meme. Knowing this character's bleak future, he strives to make Yamcha the strongest DRAGON BALL character ever!"

Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block Saturday evenings at 11:00 p.m. It 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. Tickets are currently on sale for Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which opened in theaters in the United States on January 16.

If you wanted to catch up with the English dub of the series, there's actually a pretty nifty way to do so. You can currently stream the first 78 episodes of the series on FunimationNOW, which brings the series from the beginning all the way to when the Tournament of Power was initially announced.

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