Who are your least favorite characters of the entire franchise?

[DestructoDisc]

Kale is just a big Broly reference. She lacks a unique personality and her arc, both in the anime and the manga, is just a poorly done version of Gohan's arc in the Cell Games, but with some extra melodrama thrown in.

Out of the main cast, probably Gohan or Tenshinhan, though I've come to appreciate both more as time goes by.

Why Tien and Gohan? I understand Kale since you gave out a reason as to why you don't like her but i'm interested to know why you aren't very fond of Gohan and Tien.

[Lord Frieza]

Is and forever will be Super 17. In fact he's the only character I don't like.

[Doctor.]

Kale is just a big Broly reference. She lacks a unique personality and her arc, both in the anime and the manga, is just a poorly done version of Gohan's arc in the Cell Games, but with some extra melodrama thrown in.

Out of the main cast, probably Gohan or Tenshinhan, though I've come to appreciate both more as time goes by.

Why Tien and Gohan? I understand Kale since you gave out a reason as to why you don't like her but i'm interested to know why you aren't very fond of Gohan and Tien.

Tenshinhan doesn't have much of a personality. His arc isn't very interesting, either. He's just a boring character.

Gohan is a mess. Toriyama didn't know what to do with him so he keeps flip-flopping between goals, constantly making the same mistakes and repeating the same arc over and over again.

[Lord Beerus]

Dragon Ball:
- Ranfan
- Chiaotzu
- Hasky
- General Blue

Dragon Ball Z:
- Garlic Jr.
- The Fake Namekians
- Bulma (Namek/Freeza arc)
- Vegeta (Android/Cell arc)
- Gohan (Android/Cell arc)
- Gotenks

Dragon Ball/Z movies:
- Lord Slug
- Metal Cooler
- Broly (In Movie 10 & 11)

Dragon Ball GT
- Dolltaki
- Para Para Brothers
- Super 17
- All of the Evil Dragons excluding Si Xing Long

Dragon Ball Super:
- Botamo
- Copy Vegeta
- Goku Black/Zamasu (Manga)

[ABED]

I get that some of the characters don't add much to the story, but why are Tenshinhan and Chaozu on anyone's list?

[Yuli Ban]

It's usually the comic relief characters that add nothing to the story. It's one reason why I actually like Mark Satan— he's completely comic relief, but darn me to HFIL if he doesn't actually contribute to the plot and have more of a character!
And "adding to the story" doesn't necessarily mean "they help save the universe". My universal go-to standard for what comic relief should be at a bare minimum? C3PO and R2D2. They served multiple roles to the story, including being audience surrogates and giving us a new, somewhat pessimistic perspective on the events going on without blatantly stating the obvious. It also helped that there were two characters with different foiling personalities who bounced off each other, a bit like Laurel and Hardy, rather than just one bumbling oaf.
Most comic relief tends to just be there for cheap gags to make kids laugh, try their hardest to get promoted from Captain Obvious to General Redundant, and otherwise break up the tension when things get serious. And breaking the tension when things get serious isn't a bad idea, but the problem with most media (and ESPECIALLY shonen anime) is that it doesn't know how to time this and thus plugs in said comic relief at entirely unnecessary and inappropriate moments. In most cases, their design is deliberately made goofy and they are given childish or annoying personalities.
And the chief problem above all is that many comic relief characters just aren't funny, so they fail their one role. When they aren't their own characters as the Funny Comic Relief Sidekick, they're usually fused with the Smart Guy of a five-man band to give us a wisecracking lame-joke spouting whiz kid. And it still doesn't work because a lot of the time, the comedy is supposed to come from how they aren't funny, which is one of the laziest forms of comedy next to breaking the fourth wall and toilet humor.
Now don't misunderstand me: all comedy can be done well. The problem with "lazy comedy" is that you don't need anything more than a surface joke that's basically "this thing, now laugh."
DIRTY ROTTEN PENIS.
Wasn't that funny? It's still lazy because it's relying solely on the fact I wrote "penis" to be funny, so there's not really a punchline. The joke is its own punchline.

In Dragon Ball, it's really characters like Monaka and Giru that I don't care for. Monaka's never even been good meme material. The nonsense about him actually being the strongest in the universe, mostly because Beerus tried getting Goku to believe that, wasn't that funny either. And Giru? You know, Giru could have been decent, but then again so could almost all Comic Relief Sidekicks.


Edit: Despite all my rage, I am still just Nicholas Cage. ←A bit longer rundown of various lazy types of comedy.

[BrolyKale]

Least favorite I'd say Vegeta (I don't like his behavior), Gohan, Goten, kid Trunks in DBS (I have no interests in them since DBZ), Bio Broly (worst version of Broly) and Merged ugly Zamasu (worst version of Zamasu).

I don't hate anyone, its just that I don't find them interesting or fun to watch.

[Cipher]

Can't say
Any Dragon
Ball characters
Bother me that much.
After all, most highlighted ones are amusing in at least some way.

The worst thing they could do is be boring.

[CJStriker_CBR]

It is more of Disappointing writing of characters during certain Times in a story that bothers me more then anything to do with a character themselves either in Dragon Ball or any other Field of media like other Animes, Movies, TV Shows, Comics, etc.

The only example that bothered me really was how Goku was Written in the ToP arc. He was Too Fighter Obssessed and seemed Vapid to the stacks in both his team Losing and how he reacted to the erasing of other universes in the ToP arc. He did not seem to really care enough at key moments and treat to much of it like a Fun Game. The writing was just not to specs with what I expect from how Goku should be written. But I try not to let that hold the character down for me or beat on Goku's character for it and try to understand why that happen for Fans of Goku's sake, I mostly just hope for better writing in my view for Goku in the future.

With that said, I really don't try to think about Least favorites, I like to keep my mind open to allow any character to have a chance to development freely in my view and this keeps the story Wide Open for me to enjoy on many levels.

I can have my problems yea but it is mostly with writers general vision of a story arc. General example is how New characters got overall treated in the ToP arc compared to the Established U7 Characters I was greatly disappointing in Toei's vision of the arc.

But each characters success is joy to different parts of the fanbase, so their is another edge of good when things aren't always written the best in my view, so that makes me happy for those fanbases.

[Lord Beerus]

Can't say
Any Dragon
Ball characters
Bother me that much.
After all, most highlighted ones are amusing in at least some way.

The worst thing they could do is be boring.

I see what you did there.

[DestructoDisc]

Dragon Ball Z:
- Gohan (Android/Cell arc)

Why did you hate Gohan in the Android /Cell arc?

[Lord Beerus]

Dragon Ball Z:
- Gohan (Android/Cell arc)

Why did you hate Gohan in the Android /Cell arc?

He's terribly managed in that arc. His character gets written especially bad when it comes to the Cell Games.

[Michsi]

Dragon Ball Z:
- Gohan (Android/Cell arc)

Why did you hate Gohan in the Android /Cell arc?

He's terribly managed in that arc. His character gets written especially bad when it comes to the Cell Games.

He is kinda different from the moment he steps out of the RoSaT. Really solemn and serious.


I used to have a real problem with Mr. Satan simply because I found the cringe humor associated with him unfunny, but he really grew on me.

[Lord Beerus]

Why did you hate Gohan in the Android /Cell arc?

He's terribly managed in that arc. His character gets written especially bad when it comes to the Cell Games.

He is kinda different from the moment he steps out of the RoSaT. Really solemn and serious.

I never really got that impression.

[Michsi]

He's terribly managed in that arc. His character gets written especially bad when it comes to the Cell Games.

He is kinda different from the moment he steps out of the RoSaT. Really solemn and serious.

I never really got that impression.

In didn't either in the anime, but I did during a reread of the manga. You are so used to seeing him be wide-eyed and in awe of everything Goku and the others do that seeing him suddenly be so collected and calm is a little jarring. It's hinted at that he is stronger than Goku pretty much from the beginning and that adds to his new seriousness.

[A21Fan]

Chiaotzu
Puar / Oolong
Pilaf
Monaka
Jaco
Zeno
Ribrianne transformed

[Monna]

Android 21
GT Pan
Dolltaki

I think that's about the only characters I dislike.

[Yuli Ban]

Ah yes, almost forgot about Zeno and Pilaf. Same problem as I mentioned above. Zeno started out as a fun character, but now he's basically just a kid. And that would make sense if he is actually that powerful and infinite, in a manner at least. The problem is that this isn't how it's really portrayed; he's just an easily amused kid. In fact, doubly so because there are two Zenos and their only contribution to the plot now is to point out the obvious, react a bit, and obliterate entire universes. Didn't think I'd ever seriously write such a sentence in my life.
And Pilaf? Good god, I swear Toei kept showing off the gags of the Pilag gang for the sole purpose of annoying me. Mai's fine because she sort of factored into the plot, but the only reason the Pilaf gang were ever on screen was to waste our time. When a character only exists to waste time, you're in trouble.

And on that note...

I should hate Ribrianne more, but what keeps her from really sending her to the Scrappy pile for me is that she at least has an interesting concept and always worked within that concept. The constant repeating of the Power of Love™ is what was really jarring and half of her screentime was filler to pad the runtime, but altogether I think she gets a bad rep mostly because she's such an over-the-top girly character who stole so much screentime in a series known for being hypermasculine. Being annoying was more or less the bow on top.

Annoying characters are almost universally hated but they keep appearing because they're the easiest comic relief characters to write. You just need one joke, that's it, and then you just have to repeat it over and over again. And with this simple formula, you will almost always get a laugh out of at least some people (usually the younger crowd).

[majinwarman]

Dragon Ball:
- Ranfan
- Chiaotzu
- Hasky
- General Blue

Dragon Ball Z:
- Garlic Jr.
- The Fake Namekians
- Bulma (Namek/Freeza arc)
- Vegeta (Android/Cell arc)
- Gohan (Android/Cell arc)
- Gotenks

Dragon Ball/Z movies:
- Lord Slug
- Metal Cooler
- Broly (In Movie 10 & 11)

Dragon Ball GT
- Dolltaki
- Para Para Brothers
- Super 17
- All of the Evil Dragons excluding Si Xing Long

Dragon Ball Super:
- Botamo
- Copy Vegeta
- Goku Black/Zamasu (Manga)

I can agree with that list.

[CJStriker_CBR]

Ah yes, almost forgot about Zeno and Pilaf. Same problem as I mentioned above. Zeno started out as a fun character, but now he's basically just a kid. And that would make sense if he is actually that powerful and infinite, in a manner at least. The problem is that this isn't how it's really portrayed; he's just an easily amused kid. In fact, doubly so because there are two Zenos and their only contribution to the plot now is to point out the obvious, react a bit, and obliterate entire universes. Didn't think I'd ever seriously write such a sentence in my life.
And Pilaf? Good god, I swear Toei kept showing off the gags of the Pilag gang for the sole purpose of annoying me. Mai's fine because she sort of factored into the plot, but the only reason the Pilaf gang were ever on screen was to waste our time. When a character only exists to waste time, you're in trouble.

And on that note...

I should hate Ribrianne more, but what keeps her from really sending her to the Scrappy pile for me is that she at least has an interesting concept and always worked within that concept. The constant repeating of the Power of Love™ is what was really jarring and half of her screentime was filler to pad the runtime, but altogether I think she gets a bad rep mostly because she's such an over-the-top girly character who stole so much screentime in a series known for being hypermasculine. Being annoying was more or less the bow on top.

Annoying characters are almost universally hated but they keep appearing because they're the easiest comic relief characters to write. You just need one joke, that's it, and then you just have to repeat it over and over again. And with this simple formula, you will almost always get a laugh out of at least some people (usually the younger crowd).

This is well said and gets to some good points on these matters.

While I would not be able to zone it off to just 1 overall reasoning of the Dislike Campaign that some fans waged against Ribrianne, these reasons are the ones I felt in fans reactions that I came across the most from Negative Fans reacting to her on You Tube and other places.

We forget that many DB to is both escapism and empowerment media for many fans. Even me as a Dude knows the overall powerful feeling of this empowerment allot of these characters can give to us and how we internalize ourselves to them, happens in all forms of media and idol worships. So when a character comes along that seems to not jive themselves as the norm in that medium and seems to express the 180 degree different ideals that many of the show have gotten from it, it is not to be unexpected some will have a simple yet over the top negative reaction to them feeling the characters are taking away from what they want out of the show they adore, 100% hypermasculine and super showings of new levels and styles of power.

Now some Longtime Dragon Ball fans can go into length that the original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball overall is more not along just these lines of Hyper-powerful showings, but more of grand adventures and over the top Characters that Akira Toriyama created to break norms and subvert conventional thinking of what made characters powerful, unique and strong. But for many fans they have their idealisms of what a show is and they are not wrong to mostly like it those ways.

That is one reason, not all, but one major reasons why Ribrianne sadly by some, but only IMO still a nitch side of the fandom, had such a negative reaction to her even thought she really did nothing character wise that was truly negative or terrible to warrant such a reaction. But for some their personal preference in characters means all in characters they want to see.

In the end neither side is right or wrong in who they like, a Fan as the right and freedom to like anyone they choose and vice-versa. The only really bad thing is when fans go over that top in Reactions, mainly negative, towards a character just cause they don't fit their models and what they seek in characters. Fans just have to get use to the fact that they can't get 100% everything they want in every character, otherwise the show becomes boring and predictable. Flavor is the spice of life and we have to learn that each of use likes different flavors of characters and that is how fandom will always be.

Overall, what made these reactions to Ribrianne made those fans get turned off by her, they had the opposite 180 on others fans like me and others that enjoy allot of what she was about. It is what makes fans both unique and fun, it is not a one way road on how to like a show and the characters in it.