The Longest Days

[Herms]

----Notice:This old thread is part of my series of guides. To avoid necro-posting, please post any comments you have in the sticky thread for my guides, rather than here. Thanks!----

This exercise in trivia is in belated celebration of Kamehameha Day (June 11th). OK, so there's no logical connection between that holiday and this thread other than the word "day", but just humor me here.

One of the things about DB is that it'll spend a zillion chapters on a single day (or even 5 minutes), then skip years ahead in the blink of an eye. So what actually is the longest day in DB history, in terms of manga chapters? It turns out to be December 24th, Age 762 (date taken from Daizenshuu 7), the date of the battles with the Ginyu Special-Squad and Freeza. This day spans from chapters 270 to 329 (Z 76 to 135 in Viz terms). That's 60 chapters out of DB's 519, meaning it takes up 11.6% of the entire series!

I was going to have a top 10 list of long DB days, but due to a few two-way ties I settled on a top 11 list. Exact dates are the official ones from Daizenshuu 7's timeline.

The 11 Longest Days in DB
1. 60 chapters (270-329): December 24th, Age 762—battles with Ginyu and Freeza
2. 49 chapters (430-478): May 7th, Age 774—25th Tenkaichi Budoukai, Boo’s revival
3. 35 chapters (482?-517): May 9th, Age 774—everyone ever vs. Boo
4. 32 chapters (212-243): November 3rd, Age 762—battle with Vegeta and Nappa
5. 30 chapters (336-365): May 12th, Age 767—battle with androids, Cell appears
6. 29 chapters (166-194): May 7th, Age 756—23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai
7. 25 chapters (112-136): May 7th, Age 753—22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai, Daimao appears
7. 25 chapters (394-418): May 26th, Age 767—Cell Games
9. 24 chapters (89-112): May 12th, Age 750—Tao Pai Pai and RR defeated, Uranai Baba
10. 23 chapters (32-54): May 7th, Age 750—21st Tenkaichi Budoukai
10. 23 chapters (366-388): May 16th, Age 762—Cell reaches perfect form

And here's the full record, more or less, of all the days which the main story of DB takes place over. Not counting Trunks' side-story chapter (partially because it's a side-story, and partially because I didn't want to bother with it), DB's 519 chapters occur over 57 separate days, spread over 35 years (Age 749-784). This list here was originally made for Kanzentai's upcoming Timeline Guide, so some of the dates are different from those in Daizenshuu 7. If you're curious about exactly how Daizenshuu 7's exact dates were determined in the first place, or why I would change some of the Daizenshuu 7 dates, check out my timeline evaluation thread.

Age 749
September 1st: 2 chapters (1-2)—Goku and Bulma meet
September 2nd: 3 chapters (2-4)—Goku and Bulma meet Kame-sennin
September 5th: 3 chapters (4-6)—Goku meets Oolong
September 6th: 3 chapters (7-9)—Goku meets Yamcha
September 7th: 1 chapter (10)—Goku fights Yamcha again
September 9th: 12 chapters (11-22)—Mt. Frypan, the Rabbit Gang, and Pilaf
September 10th: 7 chapters (23-29)—Goku meets Kuririn, Lunch
September 14th: 2 chapters (30-31)—Kame-sennin’s training begins

Age 750
April 6th: 1 chapter (32)—Goku and Kuririn get heavier weights
May 6th: 1 chapter (32)—Goku and co. set off for TB
May 7th: 23 chapters (32-54)—21st TB
May 8th: 13 chapters (55-67)—Goku beats Colonel Silver, goes to Muscle Tower
May 9th: 20 chapters (67-87)—Goku battles General Blue, Tao Pai Pai
May 10th: 3 chapters (87-89)—Goku meets Karin
May 12th: 24 chapters (89-112)—Tao Pai Pai and RR defeated, meets Uranai Baba

Age 753
May 7th: 25 chapters (112-136)—22nd TB, Daimao appears
May 8th: 16 chapters (136-151)—Goku meets Yajirobe, drinks Super God Water
May 9th: 15 chapters (151-165)—Daimao defeated

Age 756
May 7th: 29 chapters (166-194)—23rd TB

Age 761
November 28th: 14 chapters (195-208)—Raditz attacks, Gohan goes Oozaru
November 29th: 1 chapter (209)—Chi Chi and Yajirobe visit Kame House

Age 762
May 29th: 3 chapters (209-211)—Goku meets Kaio
July 8th: 1 chapter (211)—Goku catches Bubbles
November 2nd: 1 chapter (212)—Goku returns to life
November 3rd: 32 chapters (212-243)—battle with Vegeta and Nappa
November 4th: 3 chapters (243-245)—Kami’s spaceship found
November 14th: 1 chapter (245)—Bulma and co. depart for Namek
September 21st: 1 chapter (246)—Vegeta revived
December 18th: 16 chapters (246-261?)—Bulma and co. reach Namek
December 19th: 4 chapters (261?-264)—Zarbon beats Vegeta
December 20th: 7 chapters (264-270)—Kuririn meets Great Elder, Vegeta kills Zarbon
December 22nd: 1 chapter (270)—Goku trains in 100 Gs
December 23rd: 1 chapter (270)—Goku finishes his training
December 24th: 60 chapters (270-329)—battles with Ginyu and Freeza

Age 763
May 3rd: 1 chapter (329)—Kuririn and Yamcha revived
September 10th: 1 chapter (329)—Tenshinhan and Chaozu revived

Age 764
August ?th: 8 chapters (329-336)—Trunks kills Mecha Freeza

Age 767
May 12th: 30 chapters (336-365)—battle with androids, Cell appears
May 15th: 2 chapters (365-366)—Goku revives, Vegeta and Trunks enter ROSAT
May 16th: 23 chapters (366-388)—Cell reaches perfect form
May 17th: 3 chapters (389-391)—Cell Games announced
May 19th: 3 chapters (392-394)—Dende becomes new God of Earth
May 26th: 25 chapters (394-418)—Cell Games
May 27th: 1 chapter (418)—Trunks returns to future

Age 774
April 7th: 3 chapters (421-423)—Gohan enters high school, Great Saiyaman is born
April 8th: 3 chapters (424-426)—Videl unmasks Great Saiyaman
April 9th: 3 chapters (426-428)—Gohan starts teaching Videl to fly
April 10th: 2 chapters (428-429)—Trunks goes SSJ, flying training continues
April 20th: 1 chapter (429)—Videl masters flying
May 7th: 49 chapters (430-478)—25th TB, Boo’s revival
May 8th: 5 chapters (478-482?)—Elder Kaioshin is freed, Gotenks is born
May 9th: 35 chapters (482?-517)—everyone ever vs. Boo
September 7th: 1 chapter (517)—Earthling’s memories of Boo erased

Age 784
May 6th: 2 chapters (517-518)—Trunks visits Gohan
May 7th: 2 chapters (518-519)—28th TB

Age 785 (Trunks’ timeline)
Unknown month and day: 1 chapter (419)—Trunks destroys 17 and 18

Age 788 (Trunks’ timeline)
Unknown month and day: 1 chapter (420)—Trunks destroys Cell

[B]

Great stuff as usual, Herms. It's so surreal the Red Ribbon Amry is taken down in less than a week, considering how fragging long it is.

[SilverPlaqueVII]

Nice! The Z Senshi vs. Freeza/Ginyu Tokusentai battle lasted Xmas Eve, 762 in 60 chapters and 57 episodes. How cool is it.

[caejones]

I suppose it's a bit off topic, but considering that Goku effectively liberates most of the universe on Christmas Eve, does that make him Santaclause?
(Ignoring Freeza surviving, how empires actually work, how big the empire was, what any of this has to do with Christmas other than the date, and all those fun things that screw up my post. )

I couldn't help but notice that all but three of the days in that list of top ten are in reverse chronological order. Why, one might think that the days get longer as the series progresses...!
Yet somehow the days in the cell arc wind up being those that are out of sync. I guess because there's so much long-distance traveling going on and such... though that doesn't explain the Cell games. . (That the Cell Games consists of two, much-shorter-than-Freeza fights does, however.)

[Cipher]

You should do a list of the longest five-minute periods in the series as well.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

You should do a list of the longest five-minute periods in the series as well.

We already know #1.



Anyways, great work Herms.

[ZeroMoon]

Aren't the Budokais more than a day in the anime?

[Herms]

Aren't the Budokais more than a day in the anime?

Yeah, but I'm going only by the manga. I'd be interesting to see how these results are different for the anime...but I kinda don't really want to bother working that out now.

Something I do feel like bothering with though is determining how much of the series takes place in May. May really is the month of DB. First off, it's when the Tenkaichi Budoukai takes place each year, so there's a big chunk of the series right then. Second, much of the series takes place right after or before the TB, like the RR or Boo arcs. Finally May is the month all the android/cell stuff takes place in (the original tankoubon had the Cell Games taking place in "M", which was changed to May for the Kanzenban).

Anyway, adding it up, it seems that 339 of DB's 519 chapters take place in May. That's 65% of the series, so practically 2/3rds of it all.

[Dr. Casey]

Great stuff as usual, Herms. It's so surreal the Red Ribbon Amry is taken down in less than a week, considering how fragging long it is.

Yeah, and I always presumed the Pilaf arc was about three or four weeks. For some reason it kind of pet peeves me just how condensed everything is. The pacing's good up through Oolong, then gets screwed up afterwards. It just feels kind of rushed and ridiculous to me. I think there should be more downtime in between each episode. To me it feels like something that lasted longer than a week, like it was long enough to get settled down and get used to the search as part of day-to-day life. I never really got the impression that their Dragon Ball hunt was some fleeting thing that ended as quickly as it started; the feeling I got whenever Bulma and everyone split up from Goku was "Welp, back to normal life, haven't had that in a while," not "Dude, it's over already?". I think Toriyama got better in this sense as the series went on; everything past Red Ribbon feels about as long as it actually was.