Dragon Ball has become iconic, cementing itself as a staple of pop culture as the series continues to reinvent and reintroduce itself to generations of anime fans. Its protagonist is as recognizable as they come, and in recent years, the most popular 'villain-turned-hero' in anime, Vegeta, has ed Goku as one of the art form's most celebrated mascots. Fans have come to know just about everything there is to know about Dragon Ball's cast of characters, but a recently surfaced interview with series' creator Akira Toriyama has revealed that one of the prince's defining traits was actually a mistake.

In the lead-up to the 1990 TV special, Dragon Ball Z: Bardock - The Father of Goku, Toriyama sat down for an interview to discuss the adaptation of his series along with his original manga, and touched on his thoughts about Vegeta as a character. Thanks to translations from X , JordanLDurham, it's been revealed that the series' legendary author always intended for the prince of Saiyans to be much younger than Goku, but forgot to tell the anime staff working on the special.

Akira Toriyama Intended for Vegeta to Be Much Younger than Goku

The Series' Creator Forgot to Inform the Anime Team that Vegeta Was Meant to Be Younger

From Vegeta's very entrance into Dragon Ball, the brutal Saiyan warrior always spoke down to Goku, ensuring that he understood he was an inferior fighter in just about every way. Without knowing the explicit details, it would make sense that the team producing the anime series would operate under the impression that he's older. However, Toriyama explained in the interview that, "In my case, I always draw Vegeta imagining him to be much younger than Goku," before adding that he felt the prince to be "about 20" during the Frieza Saga.

While the ages of characters wouldn't necessarily make that big of an impact on any given series, they do when official guidebooks for the series list the prince as nearly 30-years old during the events of that arc. Given Toriyama's strategy of writing the story as he went along, which will likely never happen again in anime, it's likely he hadn't put much thought into the subject at all. Though if he had informed the anime's writing team, there's a very good chance the Saiyans' current backstories would be entirely different today.

Goku's and Vegeta's Origins Could Have Been Much Different than They Are Today

The Destruction of the Saiyans Would No Longer Work as an Origin Story

If Vegeta had turned out to be younger than Goku, the original destruction of the Saiyans would not have worked. Both the Bardock special and Dragon Ball Super's versions of events saw Goku sent off just before Frieza arrived to turn Planet Vegeta to dust. The series' protagonist was an infant in the original sequence, meaning Vegeta could not have been born and escaped the wreckage after Goku had.

Dragon Ball Super sent an older Goku off into space before the planet was destroyed, meaning Vegeta could have been younger, but the prince would not have had a reason to avoid the fate of the other Saiyans. If Akira Toriyama informed the anime staff that Vegeta was meant to be younger than Goku, there's reason to believe that the origins of both characters would have been drastically different from what fans know them to be today.

Dragon Ball has never been a stranger to plot holes, seeing as Akira Toriyama never planned his story much in advance, and it seems that another was narrowly avoided during the destruction of Planet Vegeta. Regardless, it's difficult to imagine the Saiyan prince younger than the series' leading goofball, and in this instance, the anime team might have made the right choice in their portrayal. Vegeta just recently enjoyed a victory in battle in Dragon Ball Daima, and fans will want to tune in to catch more of the prince in action.

Source: Kamisama Explorer