Vegeta Weird Color
I TOTALLY had Vegeta and Nappa mention that the Arliam Planet had a weird atmosphere, and I tacked their first appearance on after that one, because I introduced them Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz through the Namek fuller flashbacks, so they appeared correct first. Re: In-universe explanation for miscolored Vegeta by Lek Thu Jan 26, 2017 9:24 am The atmoshphere and composition of the air on that planet is different, so that the light breaks in a weird way, resulting in the colors being different (for our eyes anyway). Toei Animation's recent Vegeta anniversary post reminds old school Dragon Ball Z fans that the iconic Saiyan prince once had a much different look.
Toei gave Vegeta the wrong colors in his first appearance of Dragon Ball Z! They corrected it when he got to Earth, but what if they stuck to their guns and he transformed into his Oozaru Great. These original colors for Vegeta's outfit actually always looked fairly great! 🔥🔥🔥 Now, as for the color of his hair, I actually once saw this fan headcanon that I personally believe perfectly explains why his hair looks black in certain illustrations and why it looks like a dark brown/dark reddish brown/dark red in certain others. Yes, if you watched the original Z (and not Kai), Vegeta always had this color scheme.
Scary Vegeta in color by Celista on DeviantArt
This was the color palette that Vegeta (and Nappa, as his armor isn't quite the same color as it was depicted with when they reached Earth) were originally depicted when first shown, as those first episodes were animated prior to the first full. This is corroborated by the Wikia trivia for the episode, which states: This episode marks the debut appearance of Vegeta and Nappa in the anime. They are shown in colors quite different from their later ones, especially Vegeta.
This is because Toei guessed their colors, as the corresponding Manga volume was not in color. There is a in universe explanation for the strange colors we see in the first scene with Vegeta. I kinda had to puzzle this one up and was just about to give up when I noticed that the planet had a strange color scheme (Nameksei-esque) so that got me thinking that maybe the planet's star is a different type then our sun.
I thought this frame from the Arlia episode was cool, but I thought it ...
"He keeps these colors and Bulma dumps him on the spot": Akira Toriyama's Dynamic Art Style Couldn't Save Vegeta from the Manga Industry's One Limitation No matter how great Akira Toriyama was, DBZ couldn't avoid a common adaptation problem! It's really funny to me that this is allegedly because the scene guys weren't told the palette of Vegeta which means that their creativity as animators went to this color scheme. I guess their thinking was "aliens would have weird colors!" but it's just hilariously odd. The hair was fine because anime is anime, but the armor is freaking orange and lime green on top of a royal blue.
