Many will debate whether Jiren is really a villain of Dragon Ball Super, or simply a warrior who fought for the good of his universe. We know that the strongest opponent to defeat during the Tournament of Strength is not exactly the friendliest, but can we really consider him a villain, or better yet, a hero? Akira Toriyama also struggled a lot with these questions when creating the character, and the original idea was very different from what we saw in the anime.
Revealed during a 2018 interview, shortly after the conclusion of the anime, Toei Animation revealed a concept that the production company thought of for Jiren, because despite the fact that Akira Toriyama sent the original idea of ​​the character to the studio, there was very little information about him. compared to the rest of the fighters in the Torneo de la Fuerza, so Toei had to imagine Jiren’s personality basically from scratch..
“In sensei’s first draft, there was no information about Jiren’s personality. Since we thought that Dragon Ball Super’s powerful fighters until then were nihilistic and cool like Hit and Zamasu, we thought it would be best to make Jiren very talkative, So we created an idea of ​​Jiren as a hero of justice as the leader of the Pride Troops.”
“Jiren doesn’t speak”
The study sought consent from Akira Toriyama, to which he responded “Jiren is a character who does not speak”something that did not help much when shaping the character within the anime, so to resolve the doubts, Toriyama sent Toei the story about Jiren’s teacher and how these events forever marked the character, leaving him not as a villain, but as an antihero who does not seek the consent of others and simply fights for it.
The idea of ​​Toei Animation was not ruled out entirely, as this personality was recycled into Toppobeing then this character a reflection of what Jiren could have been if Toriyama had not intervened in the anime.
the sleeve of Dragon Ball Super has yet to show us Jiren and the Pride Troops again since the epic battle against Goku in the Tournament of Force, but If the end of the anime made something very clear to us, it is that we will see more of him, Toppo and company in the future.We can only wait!