Early Dragon Ball Z Script Teases Original Episode Title, Piccolo's Nickname

Dragon Ball remains one of the biggest anime franchises to ever exist, and it has gathered more than enough content to make a museum and then some. Over the last 20 years, the shonen has put out hundreds of episodes as well as merchandise and other artifacts. And thanks to a resurfaced script, fans are learning more about an important part of Dragon Ball's history.

Recently, Yahoo Japan hosted an auction to sell a working script for one of the original Dragon Ball Z episodes. The page, which can be found here, shows off photos of the anime's episode two script. However, fans noticed something rather interesting about the relic.

Of course, there is a big name change to note. The series was not referred to as Dragon Ball Z at this time, and the first title put more emphasis on Gohan. However, the episode's title is very different from what the final episode two script went with (via Todd Blankenship).

According to translators, the second episode was originally titled "Father Son Goku's Past" which teases a flashback look at Goku. However, the actual title of episode two became way more complex. In fact, the final title was chosen to be "The Mightiest Warrior in All of History is Goku's Older Brother" which was shortened to "The Arrival of Raditz" and "Reunions" later down the road.

Clearly, the original plan for Dragon Ball Z was very different from how it actually turned out, and that is not all. According to reports, the script still lists Piccolo in the cast list as Ma Junior which has raised questions about how the fighter was meant to be named at first. While the Namekian did whip out the name during a martial arts tournament, it seems the anime might have intended to refer to Piccolo as Ma Junior more frequently, but it seems the idea was scrapped before the anime finally went live.

So, what do you make of these newly resurfaced Dragon Ball history? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block on Saturday evenings. 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, and Dragon Ball Super: Broly is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.