MistareFusion's Dragon Ball Dissection! (Updated 4/1/24!)

[Lord Beerus]

The martial artists argument was beautifully shot down too: if everyone apparently thinks like Vegeta, why then do they try to do the pragmatic thing at literally every other point after this initial discussion and call Vegeta nuts for not doing so too.

That is such a damn good point, that I don't know how to respond it other than saying... well... they're the main characters, and I guess we're supposed to always side with them, even when they huge hypocrites.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just to jump off your old point, isn't Krillin the one who almost cries when he realizes he's likely gonna die helping Goku fight Raditz and that he'll never get a girlfriend? Where's that particular mindset now? If the cast knew Goku could teleport to King Kai and then skip over to New Namek to revive everyone, the cast not worrying too much would make a CRAP load more sense.

Ugh. Krillin in the Cell arc is goddamn intolerable. He begs the Androids not to go after Goku, and then make a decision that not only puts Goku's life in danger, but billions of others as well.

[matt0044]

Ugh. Krillin in the Cell arc is goddamn intolerable. He begs the Androids not to go after Goku, and then make a decision that not only puts Goku's life in danger, but billions of others as well.

Makes you wonder why this is such a fan-favorite arc even among those who admit its plotholes.

[Gaffer Tape]

Funny how I posted a thread regarding Goku’s character in the dub that ruffled feathers big time days before you put this out. Dang...

I saw that thread, and it was all I could do to hold my tongue... my, um, keyboard tongue. But I didn't want to pre-empt myself. If anything, your thread gave me more motivation to get this video finished by Monday.

[DiegoBrando]

I discovered your channel about a month ago and already watched all of your dissections. Beautiful work! I also really enjoyed your latest video. I think you articulated everything you wanted to say perfectly and choose good examples to support your claims. Keep up the good work.

Altough I disagree with one thing. I don't think the set up for this arc was all that great. Bringing Freeza back immediately after he was just defeated always felt wrong to me. Getting defeated easily together with his dad just cheapened the whole character and made him less intimidating to me. Introducing time travel is also another thing I heavily dislike.

[ekrolo2]

Ugh. Krillin in the Cell arc is goddamn intolerable. He begs the Androids not to go after Goku, and then make a decision that not only puts Goku's life in danger, but billions of others as well.

Makes you wonder why this is such a fan-favorite arc even among those who admit its plotholes.

It's got a lot of really cool shit in it that's enjoyable and exciting on a surface level. That counts for a lot of things and even I as a devout hater of the arc can admit I tend to lose myself in the "cool factor" of it whenever I re-watch or re-read it again.

[Zephyr]

A few things:

1. Goku's prior penchant for selflessness and his Saiyan heritage:
The whole "pendulum effect" was an interesting observation. I hadn't thought much about that, and how it could simultaneously influence both developments in the series proper from behind the scenes, and fandom discourse well after the fact.

You're spot on that Goku had been a very selfless person in the series' first half, and as his Saiyan heritage has become a thing, his recklessness has come to envelope it. I don't think that's out of place, forced, or inconsistent, though. The reveal of Goku's Saiyan heritage does largely coincide with this increase in recklessness, but so does his becoming the planet's definitive top dog. The higher he gets on that ladder, the more of a challenge he's going to need in order to grow as a fighter. I don't see any issue, in and of itself, for his recklessness to magnify along with his power. His Saiyan heritage may serve as an additional explanation for it, but I don't think it's necessary to make sense of it.

I think the point about Goku in the Red Ribbon Army arc, who saved Bora, and Goku in the Cell arc, who is shuffling his feet, not being the same person is well made, but perhaps not entirely with the intended take home point. Goku has indeed changed. A lot of people insist that Goku never goes through character development, but I think he certainly does. As my previous paragraph argues: Goku gets more reckless the stronger he gets. I think from Ma Junior, to Vegeta, to Freeza, to the Artificial Humans (and later to fighting Majin Vegeta) we see a fairly natural progression. Not progression into being a better person, mind you. As posted in the recent thread where a lot of this discussion happened, I'm really sympathetic to Cipher's overall take:

I want to clarify that I have no expectation Goku develop morally. I've written before that he's possibly the one character to become a progressively worse person as the manga goes on, and that's one of my favorite things about him. Toiryama's modus operandi is actually not to have main characters develop morally, but to basically present selfish weirdos who slowly gain allies and do some kind of accidental good through their drive alone, usually with some other shifting character element to track.

2. Keeping Ma Junior alive/around to keep Kami alive:
You brought up that Goku kept Piccolo around to keep Kami alive. Rather than an excuse for his reckless behavior, this is defended as something pragmatic. Now, naturally, I think it's a combination of both, they're not mutually exclusive. But if he was being purely selfless, I don't see any reason they couldn't have used the Mafuba on him. Tenshinhan and Kami have both shown the ability to use it without dying (although you could argue that the lack of death was due to not completing it; but in that case, selfless Tenshinhan could always sacrifice himself and then come back with the Dragon Balls).

3. Inconsistent proactivity:
I don't think their hesitance to do anything at the start, and their eagerness to do things later on is as inconsistent as is being argued. They still have three whole years to train and prepare for this threat. They know when and where the initial attack is supposed to take place. Goku isn't going to die from a crazy virus. They're not entirely unjustified in thinking that they'll be able to stop things this time, now that they know and will be stronger and will have their ace in the hole this time around.

Later on, they're already in the thick of it. They don't have more time to train and prepare after shit starts getting dicey. Trunks shows up and says that the two Androids they'd been fighting aren't the ones he warned them about, so their stellar performance there isn't yet indicative of anything. And now Goku's out of commission. I think it's a bit more reasonable for them to err on the side of caution now that their get out of jail free card is gone, and now that the guy who went through the trouble to warn them is there staring them in the face.

In the Tenshinhan example, I think you actually painted his action in both arcs rather consistently: He's not keen on preemptively using the Dragon Balls to defeat Piccolo, but after his plan falls through, he's more than fine with it. He's not keen on preemptively taking the easy way out with Gero, but when shit hits the fan with Goku, Cell, and the like, all gloves are off.

4. Have their attempts to fix it fail and screw things up more:
Now, this I agree with wholeheartedly. I don't have an issue with the way things played out, but I think it would certainly have been dramatically improved if we saw some failed attempts to stop Gero. At the very least, it would have been a nice thing for Bulma to do while everyone else was training, given that she was the one person who wanted the most clean solution to the problem.

[ekrolo2]

4. Have their attempts to fix it fail and screw things up more:
Now, this I agree with wholeheartedly. I don't have an issue with the way things played out, but I think it would certainly have been dramatically improved if we saw some failed attempts to stop Gero. At the very least, it would have been a nice thing for Bulma to do while everyone else was training, given that she was the one person who wanted the most clean solution to the problem.

Bulma and Future Trunks working together to do it and possibly screwing up seems like a good sub plot. To this day I have no idea why Future Trunks didn't just stay behind to kill Gero in the past and/or train with the others.

[jcogginsa]

While I think you're point about how Goku is neither the selfless hero nor the uncaring villain is great, I do think there are some mitigating factors here.

Goku isn't choosing to let the androids happen, he still intends to stop them. He's just doing so in a manner that is more amenable to him. Training himself up, and then beating them in a fight is more his style. Remember that in the future, Goku died before ever fighting the androids. I think it'd be in character for him to believe that he, with an additional three years of training to prepare, could defeat these Androids, and do so before they kill anyone. He doesn't know he can't sense them yet, after all.

Meanwhile, After Goku has encountered the androids and gotten humbled, he's more willing to act pragmatically

[matt0044]

Funny how I posted a thread regarding Goku’s character in the dub that ruffled feathers big time days before you put this out. Dang...

I saw that thread, and it was all I could do to hold my tongue... my, um, keyboard tongue. But I didn't want to pre-empt myself. If anything, your thread gave me more motivation to get this video finished by Monday.

Really, I felt the scene was over complicated and could've left it at Vegeta screwing everyone over, Goku not wanting to butt heads and risk anything even as a Super Saiyan. "Vegeta, NO! Vegeta, YES!" is practically a theme of the Cell Saga so why not have it at just that.

[matt0044]

4. Have their attempts to fix it fail and screw things up more:
Now, this I agree with wholeheartedly. I don't have an issue with the way things played out, but I think it would certainly have been dramatically improved if we saw some failed attempts to stop Gero. At the very least, it would have been a nice thing for Bulma to do while everyone else was training, given that she was the one person who wanted the most clean solution to the problem.

Bulma and Future Trunks working together to do it and possibly screwing up seems like a good sub plot. To this day I have no idea why Future Trunks didn't just stay behind to kill Gero in the past and/or train with the others.

Well, I recall him claiming the Time Machine's fuel was limited and he likely wanted to see his mother, the Bulma of the future, as soon as possible. Granted, he could've checked in earlier to make sure he was born...

[DanielSSJ]

I've been waiting for this for a long time. The worst part about this setup is that there is at least one group of innocent people who never get revived. The wish at the end of the arc was to revive everyone who was killed by Cell. Remember the island that they all meet up at? The one that Gero wipes out with his eye beams? Yeah, I don't think they ever got revived either. All because Goku, Vegeta, and Tenshinhan wanted to test their strength, and the others didn't/couldn't overrule them. Oh, and I don't think anyone really gave a rat's ass about that poor schmuck Vegeta vaporized while fighting #18, but that's a separate issue.

Makes you wonder why this is such a fan-favorite arc even among those who admit its plotholes.

It's probably because the Cell arc is filled to the brim with hype moments. Super Saiyan Vegeta's overwhelming victory over #19. Piccolo vs #17. The Shin Kikoho. The Final Flash. Trunks hulking out. Goku vs Cell, particularly the teleporting Kamehameha. Gohan going Super Saiyan 2 and the resulting curbstomp. Goku's sacrifice. The Father-Son Kamehameha. The Cell arc has incredible highs, but people tend to forget that for every awesome moment, there's at least two moments of somebody being completely pants-on-head stupid. Easily the worst example is Goku giving Cell a senzu, but the decision to to use the Dragon Balls to preempt the threat entirely is a close second in my book.

[matt0044]

If they did go after Gero right away, he could have sensors to detect any threats approaching and send out the Androids he has. So instead of just two, they all have to contend with about three or maybe more (one for each fighter of various strength).

That'd be a smart way for them to make things worse and would save Toriyama on an arc bound to be big, considering he likes to cut to the case. Trunks wouldn't have known about Gero's lab layout or features and the Z-fighters could take a year if only to train for any possibilities.

Really, it'd get us to the part where #17 and #18 are revealed faster. I mean, who even cared about that fat clown anyways?

I feel that the solution was to have the heroes make the wish to locate him (maybe have Vegeta concede to a fake promise of fighting one android) BUT also show Dr. Gero two steps ahead of the enemies he was targeting since, well, he's mad but not without some foresight.

[GamerSkull]

Another fantastic dissection video.

I get the feeling Cell Saga is gonna get the 1 spot with the sheer amount of plot-induced stupidity the characters exhibit.

[matt0044]

Another fantastic dissection video.

I get the feeling Cell Saga is gonna get the 1 spot with the sheer amount of plot-induced stupidity the characters exhibit.

Somebody's forgotten the Buu Saga. Like forget OOC moments, the way the story bounces from Gohan's school life to a tourney to a battle against a manbaby to Cell 2.0 to... well, you get the picture. To say it's all over the place is an understatement.

The Cell Saga could keep its story mostly consistent with the changes despite the flimsy foundation.

[The Patrolman]

That was your best video yet. I always had this issue with the notion "All Goku cares about is fighting". I recently reread the series and counted selfless moments he had

[Cipher]

Glad this finally came out. Lots to dive into here.

First and foremost, I think Gaffer Tape offers a reasonable critique of Goku's shifting character as a possible series flaw. His increasing selfishness/recklessness, with one eye toward the behind-the-scenes writing process, does dovetail too quickly, and too transparently, with his newly revealed Saiyan heritage. I think examining the fight against Raditz juxtaposed with the fight against Vegeta demonstrates that nicely.

However, like any part of the series that works—given its week-to-week writing process—I consider this to be one of its happy accidents. While Goku's character shifts, and while some of the impetus can be traced too cleanly to newly introduced plot elements, its overall trajectory is consistent.

As Zephyr points out above, as Goku becomes more powerful, he becomes more bored. As he becomes more bored, he becomes more reckless. This is—in another happy accident, or fortuitous result of Toriyama's natural aptitude as a storyteller—also seeded into the story from the start, via Kame-Sennin's worries over Goku and Kuririn's reaction to finding they'd already reached the pinnacle of martial arts. Of course his concern there is that they'll demotivate, rather than toxically motivate, but either way the stage is set for the presence of challenge or lack thereof to have profound impact on the characters.

I can also only read Goku's sparing Piccolo as being primarily motivated by his desire for a rival, so I'm guilty on that count. Perhaps it's because he specifically urges him to get stronger. At any rate, yes, it's also presented with a pragmatic caveat, but that works in terms of the overall trajectory presented above. In the earlier arc, Goku builds in a caveat, and perhaps said caveat plays a sincere role. In the case of Vegeta, he lays his motivations bare, with no other justifications to even offer himself. And the troubling decisions only multiply upon becoming a Super Saiyan—both during the fight against Freeza and after.

The upshot of all of this is that Goku, much to the series' benefit, actually has a character arc. Zephyr quoted me above what I think that arc actually is: my feeling being that Goku is possibly the sole character to become a worse person as the story goes on. So, yes, the transition from the selfless savior of Umigame and Bora is noted—but in delicious Toriyama irony his increasing selfish drive draws in and improves those around him. And that is the Toriyama MO, from his earliest shorts to Jaco: selfish weirdos failing to grow morally, but forging connections around them to the point of doing some accidental altruistic good.

But that's getting away from what this shift really offers the story of Dragon Ball in terms of overarching structure: the aforementioned arc for Goku. Specifically one of his ennui and recklessness building and building until some vaguely more positive release can be found in the ending of the story's final arc. The selfless martial artist of the earliest arcs doesn't offer room to grow: He can only be a catalyst for exploring and changing other situations and characters around him. And that's certainly a trope, especially in the genre, that can work, but it produces a very different type of series than Dragon Ball ends up being. (This ain't Hokuto no Ken.) The result of Goku's shifting character is that the final story line can actually act as a captstone to something related to its central character.

Anyway, is Goku a hero or a selfish monster at this point? The answer is neither. Goku always cares about saving those he can—about doing, when the opportunity confronts him directly, the morally upstanding thing. But, increasingly, as the series goes on, and with rather consistent trajectory, he'll fail to factor in anything but the most immediate consequences: threats to be, potential disasters, etc.: he'll court them so long as no one is immediately in harm's way. If they are, the altruism and pragmatism will kick in. (This also applies, even if by fortuitous accident, to his fear vs. excitement reactions: Raditz? Son in immediate and tangible harm. In the aftermath of fights, or prior to others? Not so much. Though when push comes to shove and it does happen, he'll act—being convinced to finally leap in against Cell, nearly fusing with his own son, Mr. Satan, or Dende in the Boo arc. It's not perfect, but there's remarkable consistency all things considered. And I know he goes back to taking risks against Boo afterward, but that's an analysis for another day.)

Oddly enough, a bit of filler in the early Z anime summarizes him rather nicely:

[spoiler] [/spoiler]

(Though much to Gaffer Tape's chagrin, I'm sure, the scene also goes out of its way to "blame it on the Saiyan.")

So, those are my thoughts on Goku. I think the scene tracks, and it's one I rather like as a watershed moment for his character. It's absolutely a consequence of the series' writing process, but what isn't? Like most of DB, it's remarkable that it functions at all.

Everyone else though?

Yeah, it's fucking dumb, and the arc would be immensely improved for at least having had Kuririn and Yamcha or someone try.

Somebody's forgotten the Buu Saga. Like forget OOC moments, the way the story bounces from Gohan's school life to a tourney to a battle against a manbaby to Cell 2.0 to... well, you get the picture. To say it's all over the place is an understatement.

The Cell Saga could keep its story mostly consistent with the changes despite the flimsy foundation.

Unlike Dragon Ball itself, which goes from upbeat whimsical parody to a series depicting prophesied life-or-death battles and unflinching portrayals of (albeit fictional alien) genocide? In the same arc, of course, as it introduces self-consciously silly sentai homages who nevertheless break a child's neck? Or how about Dr. Slump, which is an episodic gag series from start to finish but finds room before it finishes to introduce a story about God's plan to eradicate humans before he sees they're worthwhile, presented rather sincerely?

Flippant tonal variance in my Toriyama manga? Say it isn't so!

I unfortunately don't know who to credit for this, but the best description I've ever read of the Boo arc is this: Before the series finishes, it has one final trick: It manages to pull itself out of its own hat.

[matt0044]

Flippant tonal variance in my Toriyama manga? Say it isn't so!

It's not so much flippant so much as trying to be both things at the same time and it doesn't mix well like other series I've seen.

[Doctor.]

As Zephyr points out above, as Goku becomes more powerful, he becomes more bored. As he becomes more bored, he becomes more reckless.

That's a plausible interpretation, but the issue is that it's never dramatized. It's never a point of focus, or even implied, that Goku is bored. Throughout Part 1, he was surrounded by danger and adventure. The same in the Saiyan, Namek and Cell arcs. In the Boo arc, one of the first thing he says is that Heaven is great and there's a ton of interesting fighters. The only time you can infer that Goku is bored, in the original series, is at the start of the Saiyan arc, where 5 years have passed since his last challenge and he even says that Gohan's potential is being wasted. But even then, in his next major fight, Raditz, he says he's terrified instead of being excited (Not "both" like later in the series, in the Cell arc). So the two things don't really line up well.

The only time it was ever a point of focus, with direct consequences on the story, was in the Tournament of Power, but that's 20 years after the original story.

[OhHiRenan]

As Zephyr points out above, as Goku becomes more powerful, he becomes more bored. As he becomes more bored, he becomes more reckless.

That's a plausible interpretation, but the issue is that it's never dramatized. It's never a point of focus, or even implied, that Goku is bored. Throughout Part 1, he was surrounded by danger and adventure. The same in the Saiyan, Namek and Cell arcs. In the Boo arc, one of the first thing he says is that Heaven is great and there's a ton of interesting fighters. The only time you can infer that Goku is bored, in the original series, is at the start of the Saiyan arc, where 5 years have passed since his last challenge and he even says that Gohan's potential is being wasted. But even then, in his next major fight, Raditz, he says he's terrified instead of being excited (Not "both" like later in the series, in the Cell arc). So the two things don't really line up well.

The only time it was ever a point of focus, with direct consequences on the story, was in the Tournament of Power, but that's 20 years after the original story.

Does it explicitly need to be dramatized? It's readable within the subtext which is just as important as the main text. Goku's boredom is also mentioned at the End of Z, isn't it?

And like Cipher said, the reason Goku is terrified and not excited about fighting Raditz is because his son's life is at stake. It's not an inconsistency to react differently to different situations. That's just human nature.

[Scsigs]

Does it explicitly need to be dramatized? It's readable within the subtext which is just as important as the main text. Goku's boredom is also mentioned at the End of Z, isn't it?

And like Cipher said, the reason Goku is terrified and not excited about fighting Raditz is because his son's life is at stake. It's not an inconsistency to react differently to different situations. That's just human nature.

Well, Goku's not human, so...