The great mysteries of Dragon Ball once again make fans curious, to find logic and meaning in the fictional world that Akira Toriyama created.
In this article, let's find out why the number of fingers on Piccolo and Cell's hands are different in the manga and anime versions.
The manga introduced Piccolo (Daimaku or Jr) with only four fingers on his hand. In Cell's case, in his first form, he only had three fingers on his upper limbs.
However, when watching the series produced by Toei Animation, the audience sees that these two characters both have five fingers on one hand. And one Reddit user decided to provide an explanation for this strange thing.
Piccolo and Cell's fingers in the Dragon Ball anime
Toei Animation changed Piccolo and Cell to have 5 fingers in the anime, unlike in the manga, due to censorship issues. In the late 80s and early 90s, Japanese culture tried to minimize the appearance of the Yakuza, a mafia gang in Japan.
Having four fingers on the hand, at that time it was closely associated with the mafia, as there was a practice called Yubitsume, which literally means cutting off a finger.
It is a kind of punishment or apology ritual of one of the mafia gang members to their superiors. Cutting off a finger is considered a sign of regret for making a mistake.