History WhatCouldHaveBeen / Anime

*** Notably, Ichigo was also shown to display feelings for Orihime (much to the rejoicing of the shippers) in the pilot.

* ''ProjectAKo'' was supposed to be a somewhat normal hentai video. Then the director started getting other ideas ...

* ''MacrossFrontier'''s uber-popular [[TheOjou Galaxy Fairy]], Sheryl Nome, was supposed to be killed early on in the series after her farewell concert on the Frontier. However, the [[EnsembleDarkhorse sudden appeal]] of both Sheryl (the character) and May'n (the RealLife IdolSinger who performs her songs) combined with the surprising ''lack'' of popularity of the intended heroine, Ranka (and, some say, of Megumi Nakajima herself) solidified Sheryl as a permanent fixture in the series' cast.
** Actually, that happened before the series premiered, and had nothing to do with the popularity of the characters. Originally, the [[LoveTriangle triangle]] in Macross Frontier was supposed to be between Alto, Ranka and ''Brera'', with Sheryl being Ranka's big sister figure (like Ozma to Alto, and which she ended up being anyway) before returning to Macross Galaxy. But during the pre-production phase, the staff both thought that that love triangle would be too weak to carry the series and that they liked Sheryl too much to waste her in just a guest role, so they changed the story to use her better. That the character and real life singer were so popular were some very fortunate coincidences, specially with Japan's moe fetish being in full swing when the series premiered.
*** Something remarkably similar happened during the production of [[SuperDimensionFortressMacross the very first Macross]]. Back when it was on pre-producition as ''Battle City Megaroad'', a certain recurrent character was a delivery girl who worked in her parents' Chinese restaurant aboard the ship and who usually delivered Chinese food to the main bridge. The staff liked her so much that while the series evolved into ''Macross'', she ended up expanded into not only a vertex in the main love triangle, but probably the most important character in the entire franchise. This troper is, of course, talking about Lynn Minmay.

** Regarding the first two entries on this article about Macross Frontier, if this material had come from a series of documnets referred to as "Shaloom's Interviews", take it with a large grain of salt. Gubaba et al. from Macrossworld forums have done an extensive background check to the so-called interviews and cannot find any solid fact that the interviews ever happened. While there is a slight chance that it may be true, there's a larger chance that it the interviews may be a hoax. Still, what could have been...

** The GS Ball was originally going to contain a Celebi that was to star in a large portion of the Johto arc. This was shelved to make was for the "[[spoiler: Let's have Celebi rip off Movie 1's death scene]]" movie.

* In AxisPowersHetalia, the character of Belarus is a scary blonde {{Yandere}}. [[http://himaruya.blog61.fc2.com/blog-entry-525.html She was actually supposed to be a brunette and quite more mellow]].

* ''Love Hina'' prototype version had Naru already engaged on a love relationship with another guy, while Keitaro was much less of a pushover: right after the first hot spring incident with Naru and the subsequent beating up from the girls, he severely considered kicking them out of the boarding house. (He is the new manager, after all.) Also, the girls's original reason to befriend him was just to get on his good side and avoid being kicked out. (Naru was supposed to take the bullet for them.)

* In {{Gundam00}}, the ''incredibly'' feminine Tieria Erde was at one point planned to be a [[{{Bifauxnen}} beautiful woman dressing like a man]]. That screaming you hear is the many straight male fans of the series that got [[DroppedABridgetOnHim trapped]] by Tieria during the series run, particularly during his single episode as an incredibly hot WholesomeCrossdresser. Interestingly, despite this plot point being dropped early, there is still arguably some foreshadowing for it in early episodes of the first season, such as the name and visual metaphors his gundam presents, Tieria's feminine appearence multiplying several thousand fold when he's upset, and the PronounTrouble he experiences after revealing his extremely masculine gundam's inner female form that dips in to the gender neutral. Sadly, fans lost a probable MsFanservice and a chance to get a female "main" pilot in the series in exchange for what's probably the closest we're going to get for a canonically gay Gundam pilot.
* Less of a straight example than the others, but {{CLAMP}} mentioned during an interview after the conclusion of CardCaptorSakura that Syaoran/Sakura being a "normal" pairing (discounting Syaoran still being a foreigner despite being a boy Sakura's age) was never really part of their considerations; if Syaoran had been a girl and/or older/younger than Sakura, they still would have ended up together. Several fans who were disappointed that Syaoran and Sakura getting together prevented any yuri in the series were rather intrigued by this information.
* {{Pandora Hearts}} was originally a short-story drawn in the author's early career, featuring an early-design of Liam as the main character; a priest named Harris Watson, Oz as a kid who had his sister killed by the {{Serial Killer}} B-Rabbit whom the main character was pursuing for no other reason but because of his [[{{Word of God}} 'God']] [[spoiler: [[{{Or Is It}} Or Was It]]]], and Old!Gilbert whose face was hidden in the shadow (only recognized by the viewer because of his {{Badass Longcoat}} and {{Nice Hat}}). And despite having B-Rabbit in the story, Alice was Oz's sister instead.

* The pilot for ''{{Dragonball}}'' was called "Dragon Boy". Its hero, Tanton, was a boy with bat wings that would evolve into the monkey-tailed Goku. The pilot interestingly featured an artifact called a Dragon Ball, but it was pretty useless. All it did was release a puny dragon. The story was also heavily based on ''{{Journey to the West}}" and had Tanton escorting a princess that strongly resembles Bulma back home to her country. When the story ends, the heroes still have nine-tenths of the way to go. Just think of all that could have been here...

** The Green Databook reveals more information about the parts of the series that did not make it into the manga - among other things, Dadan was going to be a man, Usopp (though with an older design) was going to be the first mate, the shipwright was a short Fishman with a mallet (Franky was there, but he looked completely different and was considered the weaponsmith), and Sanji was originally called {{Naruto ''Naruto''}}. Well, that explains his eyebrows...

** The Green Databook reveals more information about the parts of the series that did not make it into the manga - among other things, Dadan was going to be a man, Usopp (though with an older design) was going to be the first mate, the shipwright was a short Fishman with a mallet (Franky was there, but he looked completely different and was considered the weaponsmith), and Sanji was originally called [[Naruto ''Naruto'']]. Well, that explains his eyebrows...

**** Media Blaster wanted to release uncut DVDs in America at one point, but of course Viz got the rights and they were unable to do this.

* The [[ActionPrologue opening scene]] of ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' originally was an accurate display of what they planned the final storyline to be like, but it went through some massive re-writes. Additionally, Yoko's identity as the [[HotForTeacher schoolteacher Yomako]] was originally supposed to have a plot about there being a teacher there that looked a lot like Kamina.

** The cover for Issue 596 shows Luffy, Ace, and Sado all grown up and running from a gorilla. Imagine what could had been had [[spoiler: two out of]] the three lived and left their town as pirates...

* Tetsuo Hara's two-part pitch for ''[[FistOfTheNorthStar Hokuto no Ken]]'' that he wrote and illustrated by himself bears little resemblance to the later serialized version he co-wrote with Buronson. In the pilot, Kenshiro (who originally bore the surname "Kasumi") is a teenager living who leads a seemingly peaceful life in present-day Japan (before the apocalypse) with his sweetheart Yuki (not Yuria) while learning the ways of Hokuto Shinken from his father. That is until [[StuffedInTheFridge his girlfriend is murdered]] by a rival martial arts clan (the Taizanji Kenpo school) for witnessing a crime and Ken himself is framed for her death. The pilot deals with Kenshiro hiding from authorities (who are secretly under the control of the Taizanji) while seeking to avenge his girlfriend's death. The major fights from both pilots ended up being used as template for filler fights in the anime and Hara would later revisit the concept of a Hokuto Shinken successor living in a civilized age with ''[[FistOfTheBlueSky Souten no Ken]]'' (even reusing the "Kasumi" surname for Kenshiro's predecessor).

* The two-part pilot version of ''{{Fist of the North Star}}'', which Tetsuo Hara drew and wrote before Buronson's involvement, was set in present-day Japan and had Kenshiro as a teenager (without his trademarked seven scars) who is framed for [[StuffedInTheFridge the death of his girlfriend]] by [[NebulousEvilOrganization a rival martial art clan that secretly controlled the Japanese police]]. The story changed completely for the serialized manga, but the premise of a Hokuto Shinken master who lives during a civilized era was revisited with ''Fist of the Blue Sky'' (even Kenshiro's rejected surname, "Kasumi", was used again for his namesake in ''Blue Sky'').

* Before the ExecutiveMeddling that turned the second season of ''CodeGeass'' into [[BrokenBase what it is today]] kicked in, the writing staff had originally planned for Lelouch to win the duel at the end of the first season. After that, there were several possible routes the story could have taken. One of the proposed scenarios involved Lelouch being imprisoned after being defeated by the Emperor himself, only to later break himself out of prison and run in a political election against Schneizel. The other scenario involved Jeremiah's sister Lilicia, [[DistaffCounterpart who would look like a female Lelouch]], becoming Zero and taking control of the Black Knights, [[DroppedABridgetOnHim confusing them greatly when they find out their leader's gender]]. Because of this, Lelouch is forced to join the Black Knights as himself, and gets picked on by [[TheFool Tamaki]], who has a crush on Girl!Zero.

** In Oda's initial draft for the tenth movie "Strong World", the BigBad Gold Lion Shiki was building a WeatherControlMachine on a sky island which needed four GreenRocks to power it (said GreenRocks were actually referenced in the very first teaser), and this was presumably the genesis for the kidnapping plot. It was also writen to be an intense and tearjerking piece, but Oda threw the whole thing out because he felt that it was too forced.
*** Other suplementary materials for the movie reveal that the giant snake from the Skypiea arc was originally intended to be an octopus, and Shiki's distinct injury of getting a steering wheel lodged in his head was originally going to be [[EverythingsWorseWithBears Kuma's]] distinguishing feature.

* On a related note to the above, the success of ''{{Voltron}}'' in the United States was nearly a ''total accident''. World Events Productions previewed a show called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daltanius Future Robo Daltanius]], somewhat liked what they saw, and told Toei that they wanted "to go with the [[DairuggerXV vehicle one]], and the one with the lion". This communication goof confused the Toei execs, and instead of Daltanius (which they were shopping around due to it having been a decent success at home), they sent over a far-less-successful-in-Japan show called ''Beast King [=GoLion=]'' with a shrug of "whatever, silly foreigners"... and the crew at World Events fell in love with ''[= GoLion=]'' '''immediately''' and proceeded to make it the headliner of the ''Voltron'' run, scrapping all ''Daltanius''-related plans on the spot. [[CashCowFranchise The rest, of course, is history.]] Had the world not gotten "Lion Voltron" as we know it, who knows what would have been different, or if the frankly very different Daltanius would have appealed to Americans at all.