Akira Toriyama changed the entire concept of Dragon Ball after facing harsh criticism.

Dragon Ball is one of the pioneers of the Shonen genre and is a household name at this point. But did you know that when it first debuted, Akira Toriyama had no intention of making it a typical action-oriented series?

In fact, the author wanted to create a comedy series where the main character would travel the world as New Journey to the West. Then Goku would fight the enemies he would encounter on his way. However, the manga never took off very well, bringing criticism to the author and thus resulting in a total overhaul.

In an interview, Akira Toriyama admitted that after his last work, he had decided to change the setting and went with a Chinese setting for his next work, Dragon Ball. He wanted to add all sorts of absurd and adventurous elements and therefore took inspiration from a classic series.