Toriyama's 1986 Goku Draft Shows Him Firing A Beam That Isn't A Kamehameha

Akira Toriyama drew this Goku and published it on the cover of Weekly Shonen Jump issue 12, dated 18 February 1986, according to CBR. The cover shows Goku hunched over an arcade cabinet playing as a pixel-art version of himself.

The draft is an uncoloured version of that same illustration, and it landed more than half a year before the first Dragon Ball console game, Dragon Ball: Dragon Daihikyou, was released. The pixel Goku on screen was drawn as part of the game itself.

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In the draft Goku is firing what looks like an energy blast. On the finished cover that blast is coloured as a yellow beam with a red hue, which suggests it was never meant to be a Kamehameha.