Toriyama is terrible at writing intelligent characters.

[Lord Exor]

Even the characters ostensibly touted as perspicacious or as possessing genius-level intellect. Let's take Dr. Gero for instance:

-Inexplicably places himself into an android body inferior to that of his other creations. If I'm not mistaken, he is a megalomaniac, correct? His ultimate aim is to establish dominion over Earth, with the assassination of Goku being an ancillary objective. Why would he risk being felled by his own unstable and mightier creations in pursuit of that dream? And yes, I'm aware that Toriyama's plans for the character were shifted, and that Gero's power level diminished to service the plot Toriyama developed in reaction to some hack former editor.

-Let's say that it wasn't scientifically feasible--within the logic of the fictional realm--to adapt his brain to the cybernetic physiology that makes infinite energy models possible; why then did he not install failsafes into each of his creations in order to mitigate the possibility of recalcitrance? He's supposed to be brilliant, and couldn't think of a simple remote-activated pain inducer to keep 17 and 18 in line? One located within his own android body, and not in an external control box? Or better yet, why didn't he hardwire their bodies to be incapable of harming him? Much like this actually.

-Why did Dr. Gero publish the location of a supposedly secret laboratory? Grr, just thinking about that absurd plot point is enough to arouse my ire.

And that's just him, there are plenty of instances where other allegedly clever characters make mind-boggling decisions that erode their credibility.

[dbgtFO]

He's supposed to be brilliant, and couldn't think of a simple remote-activated pain inducer to keep 17 and 18 in line? One located within his own android body, and not in an external control box? Or better yet, why didn't he hardwire their bodies to be incapable of harming him? Much like this actually.

I was thinking RoboCop 2014, when I read this, but yeah, that would have been far smarter of course.

-Why did Dr. Gero publish the location of a supposedly secret laboratory? Grr, just thinking about that absurd plot point is enough to arouse my ire.

I don't think that was stated anywhere, Bulma knew his face from some old photographs and had apparently caught wind of the general location of his lab. How she did so is not elaborated upon.
I personally believe, that Bulma spent the 3 years leading up the Android Arc, looking up information on Dr. Gero, now that she knew who they were going to be dealing with just in case things went bad. I could imagine she got hold of a former associate of Dr. Gero, who might have divulged that information for a price or something.

[theherodjl]

Even the characters ostensibly touted as perspicacious or as possessing genius-level intellect. Let's take Dr. Gero for instance:

-Inexplicably places himself into an android body inferior to that of his other creations. If I'm not mistaken, he is a megalomaniac, correct? His ultimate aim is to establish dominion over Earth, with the assassination of Goku being an ancillary objective. Why would he risk being felled by his own unstable and mightier creations in pursuit of that dream? And yes, I'm aware that Toriyama's plans for the character were shifted, and that Gero's power level diminished to service the plot Toriyama developed in reaction to some hack former editor.

-Let's say that it wasn't scientifically feasible--within the logic of the fictional realm--to adapt his brain to the cybernetic physiology that makes infinite energy models possible; why then did he not install failsafes into each of his creations in order to mitigate the possibility of recalcitrance? He's supposed to be brilliant, and couldn't think of a simple remote-activated pain inducer to keep 17 and 18 in line? One located within his own android body, and not in an external control box? Or better yet, why didn't he hardwire their bodies to be incapable of harming him? Much like this actually.

-Why did Dr. Gero publish the location of a supposedly secret laboratory? Grr, just thinking about that absurd plot point is enough to arouse my ire.

And that's just him, there are plenty of instances where other allegedly clever characters make mind-boggling decisions that erode their credibility.

Gero was kinda in a rush I suppose when he released 17 & 18 and it likely didn't occur to them that he would need to with him being so arrogant of reaching a battle power somewhere around Freeza's final form, in his new cyborg body. Plus #19 to help him out too.
His real mistake was not investigating the level of power that Goku and Co had reached in more recent years, with how they became unexpectedly stronger a hundred fold from like a 5-6 week journey to Namek and back it probably didn't cross Gero's mind however.
So he really was intelligent I guess it's just that he had to resort to drastic measures when he was caught off guard with how much stronger the Z-Senshi were.

[Lord Beerus]

What about Bulma? I honestly think she is one of the best written female shonen characters ever.

[caejones]

While I agree with most of this (Why even have a remote? He could just build it into his cybernetics! Have it automatically trigger if #17 or #18 is in proximity when his chassy is broken!), I'm going to speculate that Gero was probably not willing regarding the publication of the rough location of his lab.

Assuming that Bulma did learn the approximate location from a magazine, that doesn't mean that Gero even consented to be interviewed, or anything. Even mad scientists need to eat, and he needed parts for his projects, etc. At the very least, he probably had to go to Home Depot or Lows' or something, or maybe Space Radio Shack. He might be a very reclusive individual, as most mad scientists tend to be, but he did work with the Red Ribbon army, so maybe his name got around locally, someone saw him in North City every now and then, realized his lab must be nearby, and wrote an article about him.

I don't like responding to criticism with "maybe", "perhaps", and "possibly", though. ... Well, not this season. I'm sure I've done that a lot in the past. It's more that, in this case, there is a huge plausible out, there.


(Better plot: start a cybernetic enhancements business! First, sell prosthetics. Next, sell enhancements to athletes and soldiers. Eventually, make enough money to expand to random people who are kinda OK with cybernetic enhancement. Eventually, there will be opportunities to turn people into vectors for a botnet to seriously screw with Goku. Beat Goku at his own game? Why?! Did Gero take losing his shinies to a Martial Artist as an afront to his pride as an engineer, and feel the need to prove that an Engineer could win a contest of strength? Set up your botnet of hostages / potentially cyborg slaves, and if you really need to fight Goku in hand to hand combat for some reason, then, hey, set it up so that when you inevitably lose, all those perfectly legitimate prosthetics and enhancements in those innocent athletes / nerds / soldiers / traffic accident victims shut down, or self destruct, or something. Depending on level of sadism, you can tell Goku, so as to torment him during the fight, or keep it secret, so that when you lose, you still win. That probably isn't even the best plot. That's just something I threw together just now. You could say that Gero isn't that evil, but if that's the case, why did he murder the fruit out of that island nine miles southwest of South City?)

[Doctor.]

Toriyama's terrible at writing in general. His goal wasn't to create an intelligent and deep series, even if some aspects of his series do happen to be; his goal was to create an enjoyable one.

[Kiyza]

A lot of the people in this thread seem to be conflating scientific aptitude with cleverness when they're two totally different traits. Absent-minded professors aren't that rare in scientific disciplines, and it's perfectly possible that Dr. Gero simply didn't think about the backup plans. I don't see how that keeps him from being a genius.

[dbzfan7]

Toriyama's terrible at writing in general. His goal wasn't to create an intelligent and deep series, even if some aspects of his series do happen to be; his goal was to create an enjoyable one.

I wouldn't go that far. Dragon Ball isn't what it is because the writing is so terrible it's good. It's remembered because of how simple, fun, and easy it is to get into. Of course he can't write a deep huge thought provoking magnum opus. He has though wrote a series that is simple enough for boys to get into, but not so stupid it's down right beneath it's target audience. Dragon Ball is kinda like junk food. It's not overly complex, but it's really tasty. It's a great snack but not a masterpiece entrée that has several layers to it.

[Lord Exor]

A lot of the people in this thread seem to be conflating scientific aptitude with cleverness when they're two totally different traits. Absent-minded professors aren't that rare in scientific disciplines, and it's perfectly possible that Dr. Gero simply didn't think about the backup plans. I don't see how that keeps him from being a genius.

That would be an apt explanation, save for one thing: I don't believe Toriyama intended Gero to be representative of the "absent-minded" archetype in much the same way as Dr. Brief. What happened was clearly a result of the celerity with which Toriyama shifted the details of his story. It's unlikely that he put much thought into precisely how the plot would transition from 19 and 20 to 17 and 18.

[rereboy]

A lot of the people in this thread seem to be conflating scientific aptitude with cleverness when they're two totally different traits. Absent-minded professors aren't that rare in scientific disciplines, and it's perfectly possible that Dr. Gero simply didn't think about the backup plans. I don't see how that keeps him from being a genius.

That would be an apt explanation, save for one thing: I don't believe Toriyama intended Gero to be representative of the "absent-minded" archetype in much the same way as Dr. Brief. What happened was clearly a result of the celerity with which Toriyama shifted the details of his story. It's unlikely that he put much thought into precisely how the plot would transition from 19 and 20 to 17 and 18.

Being a genius at science also doesn't make anyone a genius at strategy or immune to the effects of overconfidence and arrogance.

[irreality]

In universe explanations aside, we should remember that Toriyama didn't intend for #17 and #18 to exist at first. He had Gero and #19 being the strongest androids, so it made sense for Gero to proceed as he did: he built a strong helper android and put his brain into a new android body to replace his old aging one. Later, he had to invent a way for #18 and #17 to take over: they were stronger but less predictable, had more human parts, and they had a failsafe, but #17 destroyed the remote. Had they been envisioned as the androids from the getgo, Toriyama might have planned the story differently.

I don't think any of this means Dr. Gero isn't smart: he made some bad decisions out of fear/panic when his plan wen awry. That is understandable. But part of the problem with the nature of the serialized plot is that some later details will make earlier decisions make little sense.

[Kuririn Fan]

I was so happy when 17 destroyed Gero the way he did, he was such a boring character.
And i would say Bulma is intelligent, well-written and useful for the most of the show. And she's a FEMALE.

[Hellspawn28]

Toriyama's terrible at writing in general. His goal wasn't to create an intelligent and deep series, even if some aspects of his series do happen to be; his goal was to create an enjoyable one.

I don't think that is true. He knows how to give us characters with a lot of personality and can make them memorable. Sure the writing may be high art, but I still think DB before the Cell saga did had solid writing.

[TheUltimateVegito]

It's simply because Dr. Gero wasn't able to construct a self destruction device within his and other Android's models designs. Also, Cell was his fail safe along with his shut down device. There's a reason why he was able to succeed in his goal of killing Goku even after death. Dr. Gero was definitely a very well written intelligent character in my book.

He also revealed his location because he was very acquainted with other scientists and it would look suspicious if he kept his laboratory a complete secret. Also keep in mind that even if Briefs or other scientists entered the lab anything that would reveal he worked for the RRA was probably well hidden. Not to mention that Dr. Gero said that only a few scientists knows the location of the lab meaning he must've convinced those he told not to spread the word. Bulma also said that she wasn't sure if Dr. Gero still lived there meaning he must've also made it seem like he would move places at any time when disclosing the location of his lab.

[BrolyLSSJ]

I have to agree......the toei people made smarter characters than Toriyama.

[Lord Beerus]

I have to agree......the toei people made smarter characters than Toriyama.

All of the movie villains disagree.

[BrolyLSSJ]

I have to agree......the toei people made smarter characters than Toriyama.

All of the movie villains disagree.

GT disagrees with those movie villains......

[Dbzfan94]

I have to agree......the toei people made smarter characters than Toriyama.

All of the movie villains disagree.

GT disagrees with those movie villains......

Honestly Baby was the only main villain from GT that was intelligent