The exclusive characters Akira Toriyama designed for the first ‘Dragon Ball’ game
Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo, released in 1986 for the Famicom, featured three original characters never seen before in the franchise.
Just two years after ’Dragon Ball’ debuted as a manga, the series received its first serious video game adaptation with Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo for the Famicom (known as the NES in the West).
While earlier electronic titles based on ’Dragon Ball' were minor and largely forgotten, Shenron no Nazo was a major step forward, with Akira Toriyama himself designing three exclusive characters:
- The MB Army leader – A powerful military figure leading a new faction.
- Asura, the MB Army’s robot – A flying mech with a built-in arm cannon, resembling an insect-like version of Pilaf’s machines.
- Kurilien, an alien fighter – A four-armed warrior working for the Rabbit Gang, visually similar to Krillin, with pointed ears, sharp teeth, and a large head.
Toriyama personally created concept art for these characters, allowing TOSE, the game’s developer, to translate them into pixelated sprites.
From ‘Dragon Ball’ to Dragon Power
Despite Toriyama’s involvement, the U.S. release in 1988 completely removed the Dragon Ball branding, renaming the game Dragon Power.
To appeal to Western audiences unfamiliar with Dragon Ball, the game underwent major changes:
- Goku was redesigned as a generic kung fu fighter.
- Bulma’s underwear scene was replaced with a sandwich.
When the game launched in Europe in 1991, the ’Dragon Ball’ branding was restored, but the sandwich replacement remained, and the game was distributed only in French.
This localization trend continued in future ‘Dragon Ball’ games for NES, Super Nintendo, and other platforms throughout the early and mid-1990s.
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