Biggest retcon in DragonBall?

[90sDBZ]

Freeza's just the immediate goal. Taking him down is a means to an end, and after Freeza is taken down, going Super Saiyan and taking down Goku becomes the next goal. It's not a retcon because Toriyama didn't say or imply that Vegeta's greatest goal in life is to kill Freeza. Vegeta's ultimate goal is to be stronger than everyone else.

Still Vegeta did claim to be the strongest in the universe, which turned out to not be true. And Vegeta and Nappa not mentioning taking down Frieza as a major priority but instead talking about fighting forever seems to suggest that Frieza wasn't a concept at the time.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Vegeta and Nappa's motive for wanting immortality comes to mind. At first it's implied that they're their own bosses, and Vegeta claims he's the strongest in the universe, but we later find out that's not the case after all.

Their motives don't change. Vegeta wanting to be immortal so as to be the best forever is the ultimate goal. It was never to kill Freeza. That's a ancillary goal.

They say they want to be immortal so they can "Fight for an eternity". Once Frieza gets revealed it's made clear that nothing would be more pleasurable to Vegeta than taking him down. As further evidence, Vegeta completely loses interest in immortality once Frieza gets beaten.

That is a good point actually, pretty strange after dying and all too you'd think he would crave immortality more.

[ABED]

Freeza's just the immediate goal. Taking him down is a means to an end, and after Freeza is taken down, going Super Saiyan and taking down Goku becomes the next goal. It's not a retcon because Toriyama didn't say or imply that Vegeta's greatest goal in life is to kill Freeza. Vegeta's ultimate goal is to be stronger than everyone else.

Still Vegeta did claim to be the strongest in the universe, which turned out to not be true. And Vegeta and Nappa not mentioning taking down Frieza as a major priority but instead talking about fighting forever seems to suggest that Frieza wasn't a concept at the time.

Vegeta makes those sort of boasts all the time. He's arrogant. I know Freeza wasn't a concept at the time, that doesn't make it a retcon when there's no reason to mention him then. His goal is to be better than everyone else. Defeating Freeza or immortality or defeating Goku are means to that end. Even when he set his eyes on Freeza, that wasn't a change in his fundamental goal. You make it sound like he couldn't want to be immortal AND defeat Freeza.

[emperior]

Goku being 14 and later revealed as 12 was a retcon, not a big one though.
Toriyama also retconned his age with DB Minus, because Grandpa Gohan would have no way of knowing Goku's true age unless Goku told him when he still hadn't bumped his head.

[90sDBZ]

Vegeta makes those sort of boasts all the time. He's arrogant. I know Freeza wasn't a concept at the time, that doesn't make it a retcon when there's no reason to mention him then. His goal is to be better than everyone else. Defeating Freeza or immortality or defeating Goku are means to that end. Even when he set his eyes on Freeza, that wasn't a change in his fundamental goal. You make it sound like he couldn't want to be immortal AND defeat Freeza.

Yes one of his goals is to be better than anyone else. But you'd think he or Nappa would at least have made an offhand comment like "Yeah we can fight forever, and also put Frieza in his place". There was obviously a lot of bad blood between the 2 saiyans and Frieza that had been building up for decades. You'd think it would sort of be an elephant in the room, but they don't even mention it. They make it seem like they'd put having fun over their more immediate impulse for revenge. And trying to explain it as "Vegeta just wanted to be the best" still doesn't explain why he loses interest in immortality later. Hypothetically speaking he could have continued pursuing it to be able to take down Super Saiyan Goku.

[ABED]

Yes, in real life, they probably would make that comment, but it's beyond the point of those scenes. Being the strongest isn't about having fun. Vegeta values strength above all else. Revenge against Freeza is a secondary goal.

still doesn't explain why he loses interest in immortality later.

He's changing. Notice he doesn't start shit in the entire time Goku is gone from Earth after Freeza's defeat.

[RedRibbonSoldier#42]

Universe 7 having only 28 habitable planets. All hail the mighty Freeza, who captures, like, two worlds and sells them to the (only other) two guys. Or his divinity the Kaiou, the Lord of (a handful) of Worlds. This is the new dumbest thing Dragonball has ever done, forget the Gokuu not kissing scene. I mean, don't we see more than 28 species among Freeza's troops alone? My headcanon is that everyone was suddenly drunk and misspoke.

[ShadowBardock89]

Universe 7 having only 28 habitable planets. All hail the mighty Freeza, who captures, like, two worlds and sells them to the (only other) two guys. Or his divinity the Kaiou, the Lord of (a handful) of Worlds. This is the new dumbest thing Dragonball has ever done, forget the Gokuu not kissing scene. I mean, don't we see more than 28 species among Freeza's troops alone? My headcanon is that everyone was suddenly drunk and misspoke.

Doesn't Freeza control like 400 planets? If so, WHO is he selling those planets to if there are only 28 habitable planets?
I wonder who screwed the pooch here: Toei, Toriyama, or Toyotaro?

[90sDBZ]

Another one I thought of are Zenkai power ups. They get introduced, altered, and then abandoned completely all for plot convenience. In DB Goku gets put into a near death state by Old King Piccolo, but there's no indication whatsoever that he gets any stronger before drinking the Ultra Divine Water.

Zenkai's are first mentioned when Vegeta recovers from the battle on earth. His powerlevel goes from 18,000 to around 24,000. Okay fair enough. Then he loses to Zarbon and ends up being over 30,000. Still pretty reasonable. Then he takes a huge beating from Recoome but is still able to stand, and suddenly he's on par with 1st Form Frieza who is at 530,000 if I remember right. What the hell happened there?

Then he gets yet another powerup from Krillin's attack which takes him from around half the strength of Frieza's 2nd Form to stronger than his 3rd Form. It seems like the power increases just keep getting more and more out of hand with Goku also making a huge jump to the point were he can match suppressed Final Form Frieza.

And then the Android saga happens and Vegeta puts up a decent fight against 18 before nearly getting beaten to death, and yet doesn't even consider fighting her again without training to ascend. This basically implies that he doesn't get any stronger despite being in a near death state. Same with Trunks. And Vegeta loses to Cell too but the situation remains the same.

And then suddenly Cell selfdestructs and is able to go from getting curbstomped by Gohan to posing a serious threat to him. More plot convenient BS basically. And in the Buu saga it's pretty much never mentioned again.

[Asura]

I don't think a lot of you understand what "retcon" means when you say that Goku being an alien is a retcon.

The definition of retcon is:

ret·con
noun (can also be used as a verb)
(in a film, television series, or other fictional work) a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency.

The reveal that Goku is an alien is indeed a piece of new information, but it does not impose a different interpretation on previously described events, nor does it really account for an inconsistency. We obviously knew Goku was not just a normal boy, what with the tail and turning into a giant ape and all. Stating that Goku is an alien does not contradict anything we already knew, nor does it provide any kind of different interpretation on previously described events. All of the events of Dragonball are unchanged by this reveal, as labelling Goku in Dragonball as "Saiyan" or "Earthling" does absolutely nothing to change the narrative of the story, or provide any kind of context we otherwise wouldn't have known/thought about.

The TV Tropes page actually lists the "Goku being an alien" thing under reveal, and not retcon. Not that that really means much, since those pages are all user-edited I believe, but they're still right.

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In terms of the biggest retcon, in my opinion hands down it has to go to the Vegito retcon. Changing the status of a character from permanent to temporary is a gigantic change, and really takes away from the uniqueness of the character, which felt like its own permanent presence. To me, it is by far the worst thing Dragonball Super has ever done and I simply refuse to believe it as fact. There wasn't even a point to this change. Originally it was speculated that they made it temporary so that he'd show up as fan service, but allow Trunks to get the finishing blow. This didn't happen either, so the retcon was literally for no reason. Again, there was absolutely zero reason for this retcon. If they wanted things to still play out the same, Vegito could have remained a permanent fusion, and simply have allowed Trunks to "get the finishing blow". Of course, Trunks wouldn't be able to do it just like in the anime, and not even Vegito would have had the power to destroy Zamasu after he entered his "universe" form or whatever, resulting in them still having to call Zeno. Again, such a dumb retcon that was not thought through at all, and all it accomplished was completely destroying the uniqueness of a character, and furthermore the usability. Why would they ever want to use Vegito again knowing he now has a 5 minute timer while in SSB? The character is now pointless, not unique, and useless beyond all imagination. Great job TOEI. Really hope that wasn't a Toriyama plot point, but we'll see in the manga what happens.

[ABED]

ret·con
noun (can also be used as a verb)
(in a film, television series, or other fictional work) a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency.

I still don't like that definition because a reveal that's planned out can also impose a different interpretation on previously described events.

That said, I do agree that Goku being an alien was a reveal and not a retcon.

Universe 7 having only 28 habitable planets. All hail the mighty Freeza, who captures, like, two worlds and sells them to the (only other) two guys. Or his divinity the Kaiou, the Lord of (a handful) of Worlds. This is the new dumbest thing Dragonball has ever done, forget the Gokuu not kissing scene. I mean, don't we see more than 28 species among Freeza's troops alone?

Inhabited or habitable?

[LuckyCat]

Universe 7 having only 28 habitable planets. All hail the mighty Freeza, who captures, like, two worlds and sells them to the (only other) two guys. Or his divinity the Kaiou, the Lord of (a handful) of Worlds. This is the new dumbest thing Dragonball has ever done, forget the Gokuu not kissing scene. I mean, don't we see more than 28 species among Freeza's troops alone? My headcanon is that everyone was suddenly drunk and misspoke.

Doesn't Freeza control like 400 planets? If so, WHO is he selling those planets to if there are only 28 habitable planets?
I wonder who screwed the pooch here: Toei, Toriyama, or Toyotaro?

Honestly, in real life terms, the chances of humanoids developing and existing on other planets like they do on Earth is so slim that if we found out there were 28 worlds like us it would be incredibly shocking. Also, Earth in Dragon Ball has a variety of species like animal-people, demons, and whatever pilaf is (monster from Dragon Quest?). What if alien planets aren't Planets of Hats like the Saiyans and Nameks? If the 28 planets were similarly diverse like Earth, there could be hundreds of species existing in the DB universe 7 alone.

That said, it would be great to hear an interview from a writer like Toriyama which covered why he chose that number. Writers don't do these things on accident, and he surely could've added or subtracted dozens of planets without changing the story much.

[ABED]

in real life terms, the chances of humanoids developing and existing on other planets like they do on Earth is so slim that if we found out there were 28 worlds like us it would be incredibly shocking.

True, but as I'm sure you know, fiction has its own logic.

If the 28 planets were similarly diverse like Earth, there could be hundreds of species existing in the DB universe 7 alone.

That's a cool idea. You could also imagine that like numerous sci-fi movies and TV shows, those species could travel to other planets and terraform them.

[Krillin1994]

Cell's Zenkai.

I believe in the Namek arc Vegeta stated that he couldn't damage himself to get the zenkai, hence Krillin doing it.

So how come cell's own self destruct attack causes him to get the power up. Though I suppose it's more of a plot hole than retcon.

[lancerman]

I consider Goku being an alien to be a retcon. In story it's always irked me that Roshi just kinda goes with everything Raditz says and fills in the blanks enough to alleviate any doubt. At the very least it means Roshi never disclosed pertinent information in regards to Goku origin. That already muddles it even if it doesn't directly contradict anything. It becomes a bit of contrivance. Before that you get the sense that Roshi only kind heard about Gohan having a child in passing, but not knowing many details. Now all of a sudden he knows about Goku's origins and that he had a massive injury as a child. Seems like something you'd mention.Then you have beings like Kami who should know that an alien landed on the planet and that Goku isn't human. I mean this is a guy who could sense Cell for years. He couldn't tell a space ship crashed with a violent super child who posed a massive threat to the Earth? Then he didn't keep any kind of tabs on this kid? Then again we have scenes with Grandpa Gohan where we don't get anything like Goku being an alien.

I mean before the revelation you had guys like Tenshinhan walking around who had similar strength and skill to Goku and had his own abnormalities (third eye) who are blatantly human. Then you had whatever Chaozu is and all the weird fighters Baba had. So in this world there was really no reason to believe that Goku wasn't a human.

Like I said, it's not a direct contradiction, but it just doesn't gel with everything else we were lead to believe up to that point. I

[ABED]

I don't think Kami could sense Cell. He likely had an ominous foreboding.

[Captain Strawberry]

Potara lasting an hour. Anything else I think are simple inconsistencies.

I don't know. It would explain why they defused inside of Buu

[Gog]

Super Saiyan 3 is probably the biggest retcon.

[Lord Beerus]

Super Saiyan 3 is probably the biggest retcon.

I wouldn't say Super Saiyan 3 is a retcon, per se. Just a major asspull. It isn't Genki-Dama-sword-level of asspull, but it's up there. But what is retconned in regards to SSJ3 specifically is how powerful it is.

[Asura]

Super Saiyan 3 is probably the biggest retcon.

I wouldn't say Super Saiyan 3 is a retcon, per se. Just a major asspull. It isn't Genki-Dama-sword-level of asspull, but it's up there. But what is retconned in regards to SSJ3 specifically is how powerful it is.

How is SSJ3 a retcon or an asspull? I haven't heard this one before.