What was the purpose of turning Goku back into a child in DBGT?

[Tai Lung]

The first time I saw goku becoming a child again I liked it a lot, I suppose it gave a nostalgic touch to the old "DB" and thought that it could address interesting topics in relation to that however it quickly passed into the background and only served to "gag comic" and to remove some ability to goku for the convenience of the plot and when the GT series was finish but goku could never return to his age leaving the subplot forgotten.
Well, afterwards I realized that by making a character that many of us saw growing up child to adult, to become a child is rather a kind of regression in the development of a character and certainly a negative aspect, after seeing BofG with this in mind I thought it was a bad idea to make the band of pilaf become a child and although I was partly right because in general they are "gags comic" served to rescue the character of mai that had been forgotten especially in the timeline of trunks where she has the opportunity to rebuild his life with trunks and she has a change in his personality for good helping the resistance so I can say that reality ended up being a good idea.
watching some episodes of super and GT Iremember this and I started to think that maybe he could have taken advantage of this better since in gt that never came to anything.
good you who believe? Would you like to take that idea with Goku or another character?

[ABED]

http://www.oocities.org/televisioncity/ ... htm#t1_tag

Q: Why was Gokuu turned into a child?
A: The scriptwriters felt that it would be too hard to do anything with the adult Gokuu after he defeated Majin Buu. Further, the show has always revolved around Gokuu's growing stronger. So, the writers decided to make him a child again, and take away his teleport ability. Even so, Gokuu is still Gokuu, and as the fight with Baby shows, he is still very strong.

[ruler9871]

GT Goku was made a kid again because:

1. To nerf Goku (though, its shown that he's still extremely overpowered at the start of it compared to the Buu arc, so that was kinda pointless).
2. To pander to Early DB fans.

[MasenkoHA]

.
2. To pander to Early DB fans.

With the 10 year gap between the start of DB and GT I doubt Toei was trying to pander to them as the average pre-Z viewer would have outgrown the series by GT.

[KBABZ]

GT Goku was made a kid again because:

2. To pander to Early DB fans.

As a fan of Kid Goku, IT WORKED! : D

[TheRed259]

They also had the chance to sell figures with kid Goku as a Super Saiyan 1, 2 and 3.

[Xeogran]

I enjoy discussing GT, so might give my two cents on this matter.

In universe:
I feel like it was to make Pan feel more "comfy" around Goku. If the plot were to stay the same, but Goku was an adult, it would be weird for her to be the only child amongst 2 adults on the spaceship.
This way, she had someone to relate with on a more personal level because of their similar ages and all. And she also got to experience her grandpa's childhood personally.

Out of universe:
The writers had to take away Goku's Instant Transmission for a while, so he doesn't just teleport to Kaio's Planet, and then just get the Dragon Balls the easy way by using him as a middleman.

Humoristic reason:
Goku (adult) -> Enjoys being a child again
Pan (kid) -> Didn't like being treated like a child.

Spending time with Goku helped her realize there's no need to rush until adulthood (and maybe was a message for it's audience?)

They also had the chance to sell figures with kid Goku as a Super Saiyan 1, 2 and 3.

Nowadays sure, but I don't think that DB was as merchandise driven back then as it is now. Well, at least the figure quality was nowhere as high

[ZodaEX]

I enjoy discussing GT, so might give my two cents on this matter.

In universe:
I feel like it was to make Pan feel more "comfy" around Goku. If the plot were to stay the same, but Goku was an adult, it would be weird for her to be the only child amongst 2 adults on the spaceship.
This way, she had someone to relate with on a more personal level because of their similar ages and all. And she also got to experience her grandpa's childhood personally.

Out of universe:
The writers had to take away Goku's Instant Transmission for a while, so he doesn't just teleport to Kaio's Planet, and then just get the Dragon Balls the easy way by using him as a middleman.

Humoristic reason:
Goku (adult) -> Enjoys being a child again
Pan (kid) -> Didn't like being treated like a child.

Spending time with Goku helped her realize there's no need to rush until adulthood (and maybe was a message for it's audience?)

They also had the chance to sell figures with kid Goku as a Super Saiyan 1, 2 and 3.

Nowadays sure, but I don't think that DB was as merchandise driven back then as it is now. Well, at least the figure quality was nowhere as high

The writers didn't have to take away Goku's instant transmissions. That could have easily been one of GT's numerous other various plotholes.

[Xeogran]

The writers didn't have to take away Goku's instant transmissions. That could have easily been one of GT's numerous other various plotholes.

I don't think it's plot hole is the right term, more like a character's stupidity.
Nonetheless I think it's good they at least addressed it?

[TheRed259]

They also had the chance to sell figures with kid Goku as a Super Saiyan 1, 2 and 3.

Nowadays sure, but I don't think that DB was as merchandise driven back then as it is now. Well, at least the figure quality was nowhere as high

I wonder if they are thinking of making Goku or Vegeta kids so that they can sell more Super Saiyan God (Red & Blue) Goku and Vegeta figures and some other ones with the most recent forms, Ultra Instict (kid Goku) and Blue Evolution (kid Vegeta).

[Tai Lung]

I enjoy discussing GT, so might give my two cents on this matter.

In universe:
I feel like it was to make Pan feel more "comfy" around Goku. If the plot were to stay the same, but Goku was an adult, it would be weird for her to be the only child amongst 2 adults on the spaceship.
This way, she had someone to relate with on a more personal level because of their similar ages and all. And she also got to experience her grandpa's childhood personally.

Out of universe:
The writers had to take away Goku's Instant Transmission for a while, so he doesn't just teleport to Kaio's Planet, and then just get the Dragon Balls the easy way by using him as a middleman.

Humoristic reason:
Goku (adult) -> Enjoys being a child again
Pan (kid) -> Didn't like being treated like a child.

Spending time with Goku helped her realize there's no need to rush until adulthood (and maybe was a message for it's audience?)

They also had the chance to sell figures with kid Goku as a Super Saiyan 1, 2 and 3.

Nowadays sure, but I don't think that DB was as merchandise driven back then as it is now. Well, at least the figure quality was nowhere as high

II do not say it is the reason, but if Toei decided to continue the series when the author did not want to continue, I doubt very much that he has changed his way of selling toys and figure before and now.

[The Tori-bot]

http://www.oocities.org/televisioncity/ ... htm#t1_tag

Q: Why was Gokuu turned into a child?
A: The scriptwriters felt that it would be too hard to do anything with the adult Gokuu after he defeated Majin Buu. Further, the show has always revolved around Gokuu's growing stronger. So, the writers decided to make him a child again, and take away his teleport ability. Even so, Gokuu is still Gokuu, and as the fight with Baby shows, he is still very strong.

I love how that last sentence might as well read "However, these rationales were discarded almost as quickly as they were introduced, rendering the entire enterprise completely pointless."

[sunsetshimmer]

I never cared because kid Goku is better than adult Goku to me. Many people say that GT would be better if Goku was adult, but i can't agree with that. Him being a child let TOEI make some more fun moments and gag villains without fans saying "omg Goku is so retarded" like they tend to say about adult Goku, especially DBS Goku. Some people enjoy that, but many do not. I mean i can't imagine Goku vs Oceanus Shenron being the same with adult Goku, it would be so dumb. Or Goku playing with Frieza and Cell in hell.

I also agree with Xeogran. Turning Goku into child worked very well with Pan being part of main cast and second-main character. While Pan wants to be an adult, Goku says he doesn't care about being a child and wouldn't care about collecting BS balls if Earth wasn't in danger. It also works really well with Trunks, as the only adult, being the most serious and intelligent one in group, also having to babysit both Goku and Pan.

[Lord Beerus]

I always thought the rationale behind Goku becoming a kid was weird. Like, Toei wanted to make the story more interesting by having Goku physically weaker but he was still head and shoulders above the cast and 99% of the antagonist despite that. GT should have never made Goku a kid because it was redundant for is character in the end.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

For the most part I've always seen it as a well intended attempt at a return to Dragon Ball's gag routes. It overstayed its welcome though as having base Goku as a kid until the very end of GT didn't serve the story in any meaningful way.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I thought it was an interesting concept at first with the tone of the Black Star Dragon Balls arc of feeling more like the original DB series, but after that point it really had no significant weight to the series and he could have just simply wished to be returned to his adult self at any time with the regular (not Black Star) Dragon Balls. Once they introduced Super Saiyan 4 about midway through the series, the novelty of the whole aspect of him being a child once again just kind of wore out on me.

[louisascommie]

Should have just made pan the new main character

[ssj5]

Most likely mostly for the nostalgia factor. I just can't believe how good the SSJ4 design is, and we didn't see anything like that on the entire DBS series.

[Xeogran]

Should have just made pan the new main character

It doesn't work like this, Goku IS the face of this franchise.
I think the only ones who realistically could "replace" him for a while are Vegeta and Trunks due to their immerse popularity, or Frieza if they wanted a bad-guy spinoff.

[louisascommie]

Should have just made pan the new main character

It doesn't work like this, Goku IS the face of this franchise.
I think the only ones who realistically could "replace" him for a while are Vegeta and Trunks due to their immerse popularity, or Frieza if they wanted a bad-guy spinoff.

She is his grand daughter and based off her only canon talking appearance she shares gokus most important trait and actually enjoys being a dedicated martial artist, unlike Gohan who likes fighting as of top but wants to focus on other things and goten who goofs off way too much conpared to kid goku whi did goof off too but to a lesser extent, and was always dedicated to training when he did that.

If gt Pan or the future canon version of Pan is just the end of z pan but scaled up to an older woman whatever age she is, that be a great fit for a dragon ball protagonist.