The first few episodes of the anime that depicted Vegeta were animated prior to his first colored appearance within the manga, and Toriyama had yet to give Toei Animation the color schemes for either him or Nappa. 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. 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.
A total paint fail-or a creative twist? Watch what happened when I accidentally used the wrong colors on my rare Vegeta and Nappa figures. DBZ fans, don't come for me! #vegeta #nappa #. Come up with an in-universe explanation for wrongly colored Vegeta's appearence in his anime introduction.
Here's mine: Freeza wouldn't let him leave his domain and go on unauthorized trips so he dyed his hair and changed armor to sneak by surveillance and henchmen who were too dumb to recognize him. I think nobody can imagine Vegeta's armor design looking any different than it does now, but actually, in the first anime appearance of Vegeta, he had this khaki green color scheme going on. I mean, just look at him; this is like a shiny Pokemon variation, essentially.
It was a production mistake. They didn't have anything to go off of for coloring. It's also why Trunks has purple hair in Z instead of blue.
Similarly is Goku's Super Saiyan appearance in Lord Slug, there was nothing to go off of but notes, so the coloring had to figured out by them. But I'd note that the wiki answer about the first appearance of Nappa and Vegeta is wrong, they appear briefly. Heres Vegeta's first appearance in Z note the color Here is a shot of him in his pod still with the wrong coloration Heres him and Nappa on Arlia and don't blame the color on the "atmosphere" because Nappa's eyebrows are black as they were meant to be while Vegeta's are still discolored Next heres Vegeta with the corrected color.
This Nappa figure had a BAD paint job so why not paint him & Vegeta in the WRONG colors from their first appearance?!👉NEXT, check out adding LEDs to Broly's. Yes, if you watched the original Z (and not Kai), Vegeta always had this color scheme. 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.