From the article:
Akira Toriyama originally intended to conclude Dragon Ball with the Cell saga, but strong editorial pressure forced him to extend the series, according to a recent interview with three former Dragon Ball editors: Kazuhiko Torishima, Yu Kondo, and Fuyuto Takeda.
This was revealed during a recent episode of KosoKoso podcast on Feb 22, 2025.
This makes perfect sense.
My favourite ending is when Goku originally “dies” on Namek. It felt like he was meant to die there, and it was a bitter-sweet ending to the series.
Still, I’m glad the franchise kept going.
Mangas are never set up to last forever you can always tell when something got extended again, a lot of season finales feel like series finales
“Supposed to” is a little misleading. It would be just as true to say that Dragon Ball was “supposed to” end after the first 3 chapters.
Toriyama never expected nor intended the series to run as long as it did. The only time the series was definitively “supposed to” end was after the Boo arc, as it did.
Toriyama definitely wanted to be done, especially during the Cell arc, but it was decided (in his discussions with his editors) that the Boo arc would be the last one.
This is a lot to say that “wanted to” would be much more appropriate than “supposed to,” which is what the original Tweet says, but clickbait news site has to make it sound more interesting (not op’s fault).
Source:
https://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/
Update regarding this interview specifically:
Yeah that makes sense. At least with the anime, that’s usually the point where I stop watching. Not because it’s bad but because I get exhausted with the formula and wanna watch something else.
I’m actually rewatching Dragonball Z right now but it’s basically just background noise. The rewatchability has never been great in my opinion. And since the show drags on so much, you don’t really miss much when not paying attention.
Dragonball Z Abridged Highly, highly recommend this to give you both a comedic take and also carry you through the story in an abridged fashion.
I’ve never been able to look at Nappa the same again… Or Mr Popo
+1 it’s so funny, be aware it’s definitely 2000s humor so it can be real edgy :P but I like edgy humor
I say this as a massive Dragon Ball nerd, I don’t think I could bare rewatching the entire anime again. Maybe DB+DB Kai, but even then it’s still so long. And in Kai’s case, the musical score is worse than the original and the Japanese voice cast (especially Vegeta’s VA*) sound noticeably older.
The manga on the other hand, absolutely. Inject that shit straight into my veins.
*I apologize for the YouTube short link, but it’s unfortunately the best example I could find on YouTube on short notice.
Fyi, you can just take the ID of the shorts video and replace the ID part of any normal YouTube Video and it works. A short is just a normal video with a special player, you can still watch it as a normal Video.
