Dragon Ball Fandom Is Split Over Debate About the Anime’s Censored Gore

Dragon Ball has become one of the most iconic anime in the world thanks to its unique forms of combat and transformation. However, is iconic as Dragon Balls‘s fights and superpowers have become, there’s still a very intense debate within the fandom about how those fights are being showcased. Dragon Ball Super has sparked a continuing debate about the style and quality of animation, and along with that comes a secondary debate: how much violence and/or gore the anime does (or rather, does not) depict. Well, one fan went back to scenes of Dragon Ball Super: Broly to add more damage and blood to the mix, and it has sparked a whole new debate about the series.

See for yourself what Dragon Ball would look like as a much more violent and bloody anime:

“Dragon Ball

Is

Better

With

Blood” —@DragonBallBLK

The reaction to these bloodied images form Dragon Ball Super: Broly seems to be pretty split. Most fans seem to love seeing Goku and/or Vegeta looking at least a little bruised, bloodied, and battle damaged, and the shot of Bardock seems to be the biggest hit with fans, in terms of giving modern Dragon Ball a little bit more of an edge. However, the graphic artist seems to have gone too far with the depiction of Broly. The amount of blood spewing from Broly’s mouth is cartoonishly excessive, which has led to some great snarky jabs from fans, stating everything from how these pics could be promoting a new Dragon Ball: Blood Fetish series, to jokes about how Broly clearly got the ketchup and/or Kool-Aid kicked out of his mouth.

So, if there is anything to be learned from this gallery of images, it is this: Dragon Ball could stand to dirty itself up with some more blood and battle damage – but it doesn’t need to go overboard in that regard. Dragon Ball Z took the time to let us know just how costly Goku and Co.’s battles were (mentally and physically), so hopefully the next Dragon Ball Super anime will resume that practice.

The Japanese-language and English dub releases of Dragon Ball Super are now complete and available to stream with FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. Viz Media is releasing new chapters of the manga at a monthly rate that can be read entirely for free through the Shonen Jump digital library, and Dragon Ball Super‘s big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. Fans in Japan are also able to enjoy fresh non-canon adventures from the franchises with new episodes of Super Dragon Ball Heroes‘ promotional anime series.