'Dragon Ball': Early sketches of adult Gohan show a very different version by Toriyama

As with any creative work, manga has discarded material, ideas that do not make it into the commercial versions of the most famous mangakas. And Akira Toriyama’s ‘Dragon Ball’ is no exception, with a multitude of earlier designs by its creator that never saw the light of day. This is the case with the first sketches of the adult Gohan, a version of Goku’s son that could have looked very different from the one we all know. This is demonstrated by these sketches by Toriyama, which show a Gohan that ultimately did not make it into the final version.

This is what the adult Gohan looked like in his first sketches

Some time ago, we found the first sketches of characters like Majin Buu or even the first ideas for the logo of ‘Dragon Ball Z’ that Akira Toriyama himself drew. Now we want to look back and discover the first sketches of the first adult version of Gohan, Goku’s son, who debuted in the Majin Buu arc after demonstrating his enormous potential against Cell a few years earlier.

And far from the image we all have of Gohan from the final arc of ‘Dragon Ball Z’, the first designs of this version of the character were quite different from those that were finally seen both in the manga and in the anime. The first ideas that Toriyama had for a more adult Gohan left us with a teenager with more childish features, keeping the hairstyle of the previous arc.

We can even observe certain similarities with Future Trunks, especially because of a very short-waisted jacket that powerfully reminds us of the look of the adult version of Vegeta’s son who visited the time of Goku and company in the Android arc. However, Toriyama finally settled on a Gohan with a more rugged and imposing look.