Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Super made significant changes to the storyline and characters of the original Dragon Ball universe. One of the most significant of these changes was probably the character of Broly/Broli, who was not a part of the canon timeline in the DBZ universe. And despite him being one of the strongest Saiyans, his existence did not change the story all that much.
However, Broly became an extremely significant character in the universe of Dragon Ball Super. He became an important character in the story after he was introduced in Dragon Ball Super: Broly. However, according to the movie’s animation supervisor Naohiro Shintani, this was not the only change that Broly went through at the hands of Akira Toriyama as the mangaka also changed his appearance.
What was the one rule that Toriyama set for Broly’s character?
In an interview during the Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie’s promotional phase back in 2018, Naohiro Shintani opened up about the character design of Broly in the movie. When asked about character designs, he said that he made sure to stick to the original character designs from Toriyama’s manga as much as possible, but Broly was a different story.
According to Shintani, he had only received designs of Broly in his armor and his character gave off a very different impression from how he was in the original timeline. Based on his own idea of Broly and the new designs, he created the design of the character from scratch. Shintani said that he wanted Broly to take off his shirt and run wild in the end. But apparently. Toriyama did not want Broly to appear overly macho, and so Shintani made him as large as possible without going overboard. And as it turns out, Toriyama wanted to avoid Broly being too masculine or overtly macho in the Super universe.
What other changes did Broly go through?
His character design was not the only change that Broly went through in his journey from DBZ to Dragon Ball Super. In DBZ, Broly is ordered to be killed by King Vegeta while in the Super universe, he is exiled to a different planet. In DBZ, Broly was a super powerful Saiyan from the beginning while in the Super movie, he learns as he fights strong opponents and grows in strength with each battle.
According to Shintani, another major way that Broly’s character has changed from the original series is his humanitarian aspect. In the original DBZ universe, Broly was more of a dangerous and strong fighter. In the Super universe, the character has more empathy and there are some scenes in the movie that humanize him.
Ever since the introduction of the new Broly, fans have argued amongst themselves about which incarnation of the character is superior. A lot of people tend to think that the new Broly is better because his character has more depth. However, we cannot deny the fact that the original Broly was also iconic. But the difference between the two makes him a great character and allows the Super universe Broly to become a great character on his own.
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