In Dragon Ball, when members of the Saiyan race transform into their Super Saiyan form, their hair goes from black to blond. Recently on Japanese TV (via Topic News), Weekly Jump editor in chief Hiroyuki Nakano explained why.
Screenshot: 東映アニメーション公式YouTubeチャンネル, Bird Studio
The original manga is black and white, and according to Nakano, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama said he “wanted to eliminate the time spent colouring in black [hair]”. Nakano added that colouring in the Saiyan hair is “tough work”. So Toriyama could lessen his workload by leaving the hair uncoloured in the original black and white manga, which translates as blond in the colour renditions (see above).
“For a serialisation that’s published weekly, each minute and every second is precious,” Nakano said. “Even trimming only a little bit of time means more time can be spent on the story and drawing cool art.”
Comments
7 responses to “The Reason Why Super Saiyan Hair Is Blond ”
Oh thank buggery, I thought there was an overblown explanation on the way like energised saiyan cells emit light or something.
nah, just something everyone I’ve ever met with a passing interest in dragonball has known for a decade.
I watch Dragon ball and have been known to watch Dragon Ball Z on occasion as well… Not once have i sought out the reason for why their hair went blonde. i just thought it looked cool. so maybe you and your high horse should trot along?
high horse? damn you people are sensitive. I was pointing out it was something relatively well known a for an extremely long time by people with a passing interest. I apologise if you find that offensive.
‘Recently’ like this was answered 20 years ago.
It’s also the same reason he removed the kanji and simplified the belt on his gi.
It reminds me of typical superheroes like Batman, Superman etc. Those characters were drawn in tights, because it was essentially easier to draw a near naked person, then draw/colour tights on their body, rather than drawing an actual outfit with clothing folds etc.
This is also the reason Goku and pretty much every subsequent Saiyan lost their tails. Toriyama just got tired of having to scan through every panel before finishing to make sure he didn’t forget to put in a tail.