Zephyr wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2024 10:10 am
MasenkoHA wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 3:33 pmI'm surprised he knew going into the Boo arc he was going to end it and still tried to make Gohan the lead character. I just assumed the attempt to make Gohan the main character was to try to make the manga run a bit longer, while acknowledging Goku had been exhausted as a character.
I think the decision to make Gohan the lead came before the decision to have Boo be the final story arc, since Goku tagged Gohan in during the Cell arc's climax. On re-reads, that tagging in feels very clearly setup with Cell becoming Perfect and Gohan becoming a Super Saiyan in the same chapter literally a page apart from one another, like their showdown is being foreshadowed.
We know that it was around this time that Takeda took over for Kondo as Toriyama's editor, and we know that it was Kondo who insisted that Cell reach his Perfect form sooner than Toriyama otherwise would have had it. So I wonder if the pivot to Gohan was also something Kondo insisted on?
The quote says that "before the Boo story arc began" he decided Boo would be the end. July 14th 1992 is when Gohan becomes a Super Saiyan, and April 27th 1993 is when the Cell arc's final chapter released (the last chapter "before the Boo story arc began"). So there's about a 9 month gap there between the beginning of Gohan's pivot to the main character and the latest Toriyama could have decided Boo would be the last arc. By June 15th 1993 we get Goku calling from the afterlife to say he's coming back for a day.
This inclines me to believe that knowing he was going to end it was why he brought Goku back at all.
tonysoprano300 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 8:31 pmTrue, although Goku went back to earth using the 1 day granted to him by Baba which i feel is still inline with his end of cell arc characterization. He also chooses to remain dead even after fighting Fat Buu and only really comes back when things get so bad that it necessitated his involvement. There was none of the “Wee! I get to fight a strong guy!” Stuff until maybe the fight with Kidd Buu arguably?
It gets harder and harder for me to read the Super Saiyan 3 reveal and fight with fat Boo as anything but Goku trying to sneak in a quick bout before he has to leave. Why stall so Trunks can fly to Capsule Corp. when you can
teleport? I've seen the reasoning that he couldn't sense Bulma's parents' ki, but I don't really buy that.
tonysoprano300 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 8:31 pmGoku did seem to value his pride as a martial artist quite highly in that fight, it was also in part due to him wanting to keep inline with the rules of the tournament. As crazy as it was, I could imagine a lot of the cast behaving similarly in Gokus position. Tien certainly would at least.
I dislike the unwillingness to pursue Gero a lot more because it required the entirety of the cast to behave like battle crazed lunatics, like why would Tien, Krillin, Yamcha, Gohan and even Piccolo be ok with that? Why is Vegeta allowed to make the calls? Whats funny is that the story tries to get you so invested in the stakes of everything after that point but its hard to take these characters acting so proactive very seriously when the situation was only happened because they refused to be proactive in the beginning. I'm not sure why they would even try to prevent Gero from getting back to his lab at all given how they refused to do anything years before.
I mean, like you say, both Goku and Tenshinhan have pride as martial artists. That's one of the key things to always keep in mind with this story. I feel like describing them as "battle crazed lunatics" is not keeping that in mind. Future boy shows up and says they're all gonna get washed. For people with pride as martial artists, how could that not sound like a challenge? And now that they know in advance, they can prepare and train harder than they would have in peace time, so their treating it like a challenge also isn't dooming history to repeat itself. But they're also not "crazed" because they
will (and do) go the pragmatic route when the 'game' is no longer viable. That this give and take is not made explicit text at some point by Toriyama I think is another instance of sloppiness on his part, but I do think the behavior ultimately gels together by virtue of reconciling three things: martial artist pride, ever-increasing strength being cultivated, and the fact that they* are not
evil people (their opponents are).
Personally, I think that this is most emphasized in Goku makes him a really fun character as an adult (and I don't think the "Saiyan heritage" retcon was necessary in order to have it). I'm not sure if Goku belongs to some "TVTropes-able" archtype or anything, but his willingness to (at least temporarily) eschew more pragmatic goals for the sake of his martial artist's pride puts him in the same "archetype" as characters like Younger Toguro, Raoh, Thorkell, Nosferatu Zodd, Master Asia, and Akuma. I love these kinds of characters, and Goku, unlike these others, is the
protagonist; that's awesome to me.
Back when I was still watching this on Toonami and took the story as seriously as it sometimes pretends to take itself, I might have found Goku's recklessness questionable and frustrating. But back then I hadn't really consumed much media about characters with a warrior code, honor, etc. I also hadn't realized that DB is ultimately rooted in gag sensibilities. In the present, knowing what I do about Dragon Ball's spiritual predecessors (namely Dr. Slump and Fist of the North Star), a comically and cosmically reckless martial artist who is also just a good dude makes all the sense in the world to me. I wouldn't expect Kenshirale to behave any other way, and over time I increasingly wonder why anyone else would.
*: Vegeta aside lol