Character Development

[ABED]

Here's an all purpose thread to discuss anything and everything regarding character development in Dragon Ball. What did you like? Dislike?

Here's my first observation: while I'm not overly fond of Chichi overall, I do like where she ended up character wise by the end. She went from an odd girl to a young woman whose entire idea of marriage is what she probably read in magazines or watched on TV, to a tiger mom, and after the second death of her husband and the birth of her son who took after Goku, she lightened up quite a bit.

[Doctor.]

I don't get the complaint that Majin Vegeta's development came out of nowhere. A mid-life crisis like his seems perfectly reasonable taking into account Vegeta's personality.

[ABED]

I don't get the complaint that Majin Vegeta's development came out of nowhere. A mid-life crisis like his seems perfectly reasonable taking into account Vegeta's personality.

And change is difficult. Most will backslide on occassion. I like him becoming Majin Vegeta. It feels right that Vegeta would take one last stab at being who he used to be before realizing he's not the same guy he once was.

[fadeddreams5]

I don't get the complaint that Majin Vegeta's development came out of nowhere. A mid-life crisis like his seems perfectly reasonable taking into account Vegeta's personality.

Can it really count as a mid-life crisis when saiyans keep their youth decades more than humans?

[ekrolo2]

I don't care for how multiple arcs, majoritively speaking, don't exist. As ABED stated in an earlier thread, almost everyone has one moment of change that sticks around and then nothing happens for them afterward. Piccolo doesn't get anything after his sacrifice with Gohan, his fusion with Kami is little more than a power boost and only GT (barely) capitalized on it for character stuff at the end of the Baby Arc. Even that was just him dying again.

Goku only has his acceptance of being a Saiyan, which isn't even treated as that big of a deal since he's already getting fairly selfish well before that. Gohan seems to have two by accepting he's a fighter but later material backtracks on this.

[dbs fanboy]

Goku only has his acceptance of being a Saiyan.

Well, to be fair, Goku changed from a kid who pretty much didn't care about killing to an adult who's able to even spare someone's life.

Now towards this topic, Beerus is the most developed character in super/modern dragon ball.He was pretty much neutral but portrayed in a more villanous way in the BoG arc, from here, he changed and started respecting Goku and sparing Earth. In the tournament he was pretty selfless with his wish (when he could have wished for the best kind of food that had ever existed), in the current arc he's like more chilled in comparison to other arcs (in one moment Goku starts eating from his plate and he didn't even threatened him with destroying the Earth if he doesn't apologize), and in ep 62, he shows that he cares and feels somehow responsible for what was happening, and at the same time, it was pretty funny how he didn't want to show his feelings to Bulma or anyone else on Earth.

[Cipher]

Goku's development is undersold by saying it consists solely of accepting his Saiyan heritage, an arc limited to the Saiyan and Freeza storylines. He matures constantly up through his training with God and the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, and when his acceptance of his background wraps up in the fight against Freeza, it's replaced with the whole new wrinkle of Super Saiyan and his otherworldly realm of power. Deciding to train Oob completes his final arc, which runs through the Cell and Boo storylines, and sees his boredom increasingly get the best of safer decisions, an issue that's been building steadily since the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. Battle of Gods compliments it nicely by bringing him back down to Earth, forcing him to admit defeat in more ways than one (in terms of his individual pride, needing others' power to achieve strength he'd rather have obtained on his own, and in terms of literally losing to Beerus, who then reveals how much larger the world is than he expected).

[ekrolo2]

Well, to be fair, Goku changed from a kid who pretty much didn't care about killing to an adult who's able to even spare someone's life.

Not much of a real changing moment and it's served more as an excuse for him to let potentially strong enemies leave and come back for rematches. It's not that he hasn't outright shown mercy to opponents whom he has no interest in, the Ginyu Force are a good example but guys like Piccolo, Vegeta, Boo, Freeza, are hardly examples of him sparring someone for altruistic reasons.

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

My personal opinion on character development:

While character development is a plus in story-driven series, I think there´s no obligaton to have (or force) character development in every arc and/or every bunch of chapters/episodes possible and I don´t like the fanbase entitlement of characters needing to have development in every possible story they´re present on.
Some people change slightly/significantly at point int their life and then barely change from there and that´s ok, having constant changes and development would reach a point that it becomes unbelievable.

As for character development in particular: I would have liked the manga had developed Android 16 a bit more so that his dead was more impactful torwards the end of the Android & Cell Arc.

[Cipher]

Not much of a real changing moment and it's served more as an excuse for him to let potentially strong enemies leave and come back for rematches. It's not that he hasn't outright shown mercy to opponents whom he has no interest in, the Ginyu Force are a good example but guys like Piccolo, Vegeta, Boo, Freeza, are hardly examples of him sparring someone for altruistic reasons.

Which ... is also character-development.

Early Goku, when he isn't concerned about being the most powerful person around, or doesn't realize that he is, doesn't spare enemies or think twice about taking lives in combat, because it's what needs to be done. After his training with God, there's a stark difference in his approach to weaker enemies, encouraging them not to attack and letting them go even if it's unlikely they'll change. At the same time, you have instance of his sparing dangerous enemies to keep rivals around, but that's also new and tends to be pretty clearly highlighted when it happens. (Piccolo, Vegeta, Freeza, Boo, even his saying he wants to fight the androids rather than pre-empt them, are all very clearly presented as problematic choices in or just after the moment.)

So, yeah. He does change. In some ways for the better; in others, for the worse.

While character development is a plus in story-driven series, I think there´s no obligaton to have (or force) character development in every arc and/or every bunch of chapters/episodes possible and I don´t like the fanbase entitlement of characters needing to have development in every possible story they´re present on.

What's the point of telling a story in which focal characters don't change or no new ideas are presented? I mean, at least if it's a long-running serial.

Dragon Ball's definitely light genre, but it generally meets the minimum requirements for keeping its characters dynamic and engaging throughout its original run.

[ekrolo2]

Not much of a real changing moment and it's served more as an excuse for him to let potentially strong enemies leave and come back for rematches. It's not that he hasn't outright shown mercy to opponents whom he has no interest in, the Ginyu Force are a good example but guys like Piccolo, Vegeta, Boo, Freeza, are hardly examples of him sparring someone for altruistic reasons.

Which ... is also character-development.

Early Goku, when he isn't concerned about being the most powerful person around, or doesn't realize that he is, doesn't spare enemies or think twice about taking lives in combat, because it's what needs to be done. After his training with God, there's a stark difference in his approach to weaker enemies, encouraging them not to attack and letting them go even if it's unlikely they'll change. At the same time, you have instance of his sparing dangerous enemies to keep rivals around, but that's also new and tends to be pretty clearly highlighted when it happens. (Piccolo, Vegeta, Freeza, Boo, even his saying he wants to fight the androids rather than pre-empt them, are all very clearly presented as problematic choices in or just after the moment.)

I find it hard to take anything after Freeza as character development when it comes to him selfishly choosing to let disasters happen or escalating them. If Goku actually stopped for a second, admitted his faults and didn't repeat them, that would be him developing or becoming more mature, but he doesn't, the Goku who stays dead because of his hand in escalating the Cell fiasco does the same thing with Boo.

The same Goku who learns to knock his arrogance down a peg in BOG lets fucking Freeza go and screws around with Goku Black purely for his own entertainment. That little development Goku's sparing policy has is fffaaarrrr outweighed by how its used to keep him stagnant and wholly selfish.

[Cipher]

I find it hard to take anything after Freeza as character development when it comes to him selfishly choosing to let disasters happen or escalating them. If Goku actually stopped for a second, admitted his faults and didn't repeat them, that would be him developing or becoming more mature, but he doesn't, the Goku who stays dead because of his hand in escalating the Cell fiasco does the same thing with Boo.

Yeah; he gets worse and worse. That's very much his direction after becoming a Super Saiyan, building on what was an emerging problem before.

Character development doesn't mean maturing; it just means change.

The ending of the manga (and BoG, twenty years after the fact) address that issue.

You won't see me defending Super's handling of character development in this thread. Inserting so many more stories into what was originally a static timeskip was a poor choice on that front, rendered worse by its episode-by-episode writing. It's extremely disappointing.

[ekrolo2]

I find it hard to take anything after Freeza as character development when it comes to him selfishly choosing to let disasters happen or escalating them. If Goku actually stopped for a second, admitted his faults and didn't repeat them, that would be him developing or becoming more mature, but he doesn't, the Goku who stays dead because of his hand in escalating the Cell fiasco does the same thing with Boo.

Yeah; he gets worse and worse. That's very much his direction after becoming a Super Saiyan, building on what was an emerging problem before.

Character development doesn't mean maturing; it just means change.

The ending of the manga (and BoG, twenty years after the fact) address that issue.

Do they? I don't feel like they do. Goku doesn't change at all as time goes on. He has a seeming moment of clarity at the end of the Cell arc that gets ignored, he gets sound advice in BoG which Resurrection F has him blatantly laugh at during its conclusion along with any points F itself brought up and EoZ has him resurrect the most dangerous being in history (minus the new material & GT) just so he can fight him.

Goku is almost exclusively in full on selfish mode from Namek onwards with no change happening there. Well, unless you count the escalation of his selfishness as change which I guess I'd have to concede as a point.

[Cipher]

Do they? I don't feel like they do. Goku doesn't change at all as time goes on. He has a seeming moment of clarity at the end of the Cell arc that gets ignored, he gets sound advice in BoG which Resurrection F has him blatantly laugh at during its conclusion along with any points F itself brought up and EoZ has him resurrect the most dangerous being in history (minus the new material & GT) just so he can fight him.

As a good person. He closes out the Boo arc with help from everyone else, and Oob is presented as a more or less healthy outlet for his more than ten years of ennui. Goku isn't going to suddenly change who he is, or drop his pursuit of challenge and adventure; it's one of the nice, minorly subversive things about the series' approach to its hero. But Oob is a good way to provide an ending for his character that responds to the problems the previous few storylines present while still holding true to the personality that's driven the series that far.

I haven't mentioned Resurrection "F" once in this thread. Everything I'm saying applies solely to the original run of the series and the way Battle of Gods operates as a stand-alone film, which is how it was conceived and written. One of the reasons the new material as an ongoing narrative is so disappointing is because it doesn't meet the standards of character-development the original series set.

[ekrolo2]

As a good person. He closes out the Boo arc with help from everyone else, and Oob is presented as a more or less healthy outlet for his more than ten years of ennui. Goku isn't going to suddenly change who he is, or drop his pursuit of challenge and adventure; it's one of the nice, minorly subversive things about the series' approach to its hero. But Oob is a good way to provide an ending for his character that responds to the problems the previous few storylines present, while still holding true to the personality that's driven the series to that point.

I haven't mentioned Resurrection "F" once in this thread.

I wouldn't consider grooming a kid as a way to vent his pent up desire for battle, which is rendered pretty moot thanks to the new material providing him with an entire multiverse of great opponents, as a healthy train of thought. Admittedly, Goku's selfish streak is one of those things about him I appreciate than in other, more noble Shonen protagonists even if it makes me dislike him.

While you didn't mention Resurrection F, it's still an important part of the puzzle. Sure, things can flow nicer if we ignore it but as much as I would like to do that, we really can't. It presents another point where Goku's selfish desire for battle causes damage and for a moment, it presents him as potentially wanting to change things but the ending does not do this. His arrogance present in the film also hurts BoG, a story which was meant to knock him down a peg after he thought he'd become the strongest in the universe.

[The Patrolman]

Vegeta character regressed from the Freeza to the Cell arc. They his took his cleverness and replaced it with him being a whiner. I hate the fact that he knew that Cell reaching his perfect form means the end of the earth but was willing to do that just for a challenge. I mean did he not learned anything on Namek

[Cipher]

While you didn't mention Resurrection F, it's still an important part of the puzzle. Sure, things can flow nicer if we ignore it but as much as I would like to do that, we really can't. It presents another point where Goku's selfish desire for battle causes damage and for a moment, it presents him as potentially wanting to change things but the ending does not do this. His arrogance present in the film also hurts BoG, a story which was meant to knock him down a peg after he thought he'd become the strongest in the universe.

Sorry; I edited that post while you were probably queuing yours up. We can ignore it to talk about the way character-development works in the original run, because it's much more robust than the current material. That shouldn't be used to dismiss Dragon Ball's capacity for character-development in what is still the core of the series.

If you want to say development has petered in the new material, I wouldn't disagree for a second. It sucks, but it especially sucks in comparison to the way the original run operates. And yeah, it does hurt the story. (But also doesn't change the fact that there's a complete story that's existed for more than twenty years, and that can be discussed on its own.)

[ekrolo2]

Sorry; I edited that post while you were probably queuing yours up. We can ignore it to talk about the way character-development works in the original run, because it's much more robust than the current material. That shouldn't be used to dismiss Dragon Ball's capacity for character-development in what is still the core of the series.

If you want to say development has petered in the new material, I wouldn't disagree for a second. It sucks, but it especially sucks in comparison to the way the original run operates. And yeah, it does hurt the story. (But also doesn't change the fact that there's a complete story that's existed for more than twenty years, and that can be discussed on its own.)

I think the reason I find it hard to ignore the fumbles of the new material comes from its place in the timeline. Things such as say Episode of Bardock and GT can get ignored since they take place at the very beginning or the very end. The new material has positioned itself smack dab in the middle of the manga's territory and in many way, doesn't feel like a natural or logical extension of things the Boo arc left off with or as a bridge to what EoZ is going to do .

Maybe this is just Super's prevalence making an elephant out of nothing and in a few years, after Super is hopefully over, it'll be easier to just let it slip into the ether but as of right now, it's hard to separate it.

[Cipher]

I think the reason I find it hard to ignore the fumbles of the new material comes from its place in the timeline. Things such as say Episode of Bardock and GT can get ignored since they take place at the very beginning or the very end. The new material has positioned itself smack dab in the middle of the manga's territory and in many way, doesn't feel like a natural or logical extension of things the Boo arc left off with or as a bridge to what EoZ is going to do .

Maybe this is just Super's prevalence making an elephant out of nothing and in a few years, after Super is hopefully over, it'll be easier to just let it slip into the ether but as of right now, it's hard to separate it.

I don't see how a Toriyama-Toei production twenty years after the fact affects what Toriyama wrote in the manga (or in BoG's script when it was a stand-alone film). Especially when some of its inherent problems stem from the fact that it's inserted between two bookended moments of character development in the original run.

The manga and original anime series didn't just stop existing as complete experiences.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

I think we're allowed to live in a two-construct world of "the manga" and "the collective franchise". The "You can adapt my books into all manner of tripe, but if the books were good then they are still there waiting to be read" principle.

I am trying to piece together how Krillin's relationship with Goku forms when Goku is off by himself for years at time. They were training buddies for a year or so, attended all of the same tournaments, went Dragon Ball hunting with Bulma with General Blue in pursuit... and then exchanged few words in the Z-era. You could say the same of all of Goku's friends! I suppose Goku is such a simple and training-minded soul that you hardly need to see him on a regular basis to keep track of him... and you do not really need to explain Goku's rage and the cruel at unjust deaths of people he considers his friends in any context.

Of course, the man himself is a pleasant surprise, debuting as an opportunistic little jerk who wants Roshi to make him a big deal, only to quickly become the most honest Joe in the pack and learn to shine under pressure in a series-long string of mismatches that ultimately place him higher on Freeza's hit list than a second shot at Goku.

As for character development in particular: I would have liked the manga had developed Android 16 a bit more so that his dead was more impactful torwards the end of the Android & Cell Arc.

A little more thought would have taken the Cell arc a long way. 16 tried to touch on how morally malleable the androids may or may not be ("Gohan, do you think Cell will put down his sword because I did? Well stop. Cell's having a more fleshed out idea of himself is precisely what makes him so stubbornly cruel!"). Gohan's fear of his own potential power could have easily been grounded in the parade of Super Saiyans he had seen since his father went gold, and how angry, cocky, or foolhardy every single one of them had been- none of them examples of something you want to plug Freeza-pummeling rage into, even when you think you finally have it under wraps. Trunks and Vegeta's personal pitfalls were pretty well done, it would have been nice to see other characters have something so coherent.