In retrospect, is kid 4-6 year old Gohan being beaten up so badly kinda cruel?

[precita]

Despite Goku being a kid in Dragonball, he's still 12 years old when we first meet him and a teen shortly after, so even though he and Krillin were drawn "pint-sized" you knew they were older.

Kid Gohan is 4-6 at the beginning of the series. He's brutally beaten up by Vegeta in the Saiyan arc, brutally beaten up with his neck snapped by Recoome, and brutally beaten by Freeza. I think most people generally forget how young Gohan actually is in these arcs...he's literally a toddler! A kindergarten student! I know it's fantasy and not real life (plus he has Saiyan genes making him stronger than humans), but still it's weird. He has his face pummeled with blood splattering everywhere and it's basically child abuse. Especially when characters like Vegeta, Nappa, Piccolo, Recoome or Freeza don't treat Gohan like a little kid but beat him up as if he's the same age as them.

Even later on when we have Trunks/Goten they're never beaten up as badly as Gohan is, and all their fights as Gotenks are comical rather than serious. I honestly wonder if showing a small child like Gohan beaten up would fly these days as opposed to Dragon Ball being written in the 80's and early 90's.

[jjgp1112]

Um...yeah? I'm pretty sure that's half the point, to illustrate the brutality of the Frieza Force thugs. The fact that he has super powers and doesn't appear to have any lasting trauma from it (I mean actual trauma, not headcanon projections from fans) mitigates a lot of it.

It's yet another element of Dragon Ball that's not really meant to have any real life lens applied to it.

[theherodjl]

Well of course it's cruel. Children being subjected to serious things such being kidnapped, physical and mental abuse, enduring grueling physical training & forced labor, total neglect of physiological needs & injuries, extreme violence, and death is nothing short of horrendous. How exactly Gohan doesn't suffer from PTSD and a whole lot of other psychological complications from what he's been through is utterly beyond me. I can only guess that his Saiyan genes must grant him +1000 defense to his psyche or such and such weak explanation.

Given that Shonen anime still doesn't shy away from depicting younger characters having to undergo daunting trials that test the very limits of their minds and bodies, I wouldn't say that Gohan would be out of the woods if DB was depicted today. However, Toriyama's style has been tweaked over the years to not put the entire world on a single child's shoulders in such a bleak manner. It's a little more positive in nature nowadays.

[JulieYBM]

Julie (Adult): "Yeah, I don't think it's appropriate for a kids series."
Julie (Writer): "More Broken Necks "

[Polyphase Avatron]

Well of course it's cruel. Children being subjected to serious things such being kidnapped, physical and mental abuse, enduring grueling physical training & forced labor, total neglect of physiological needs & injuries, extreme violence, and death is nothing short of horrendous. How exactly Gohan doesn't suffer from PTSD and a whole lot of other psychological complications from what he's been through is utterly beyond me. I can only guess that his Saiyan genes must grant him +1000 defense to his psyche or such and such weak explanation.

Well it could explain why, as an adult, he's not that interested in fighting and just wants to live peacefully and raise a family.

[theherodjl]

Well it could explain why, as an adult, he's not that interested in fighting and just wants to live peacefully and raise a family.

He needed to go through sheer agony as a child to learn how to be a chummy family man later in life?

[PurestEvil]

I dunno, precita, is the sky blue?

[Kunzait_83]

Well it could explain why, as an adult, he's not that interested in fighting and just wants to live peacefully and raise a family.

He needed to go through sheer agony as a child to learn how to be a chummy family man later in life?

No, I think Polyphase's point was that partly because of all the horrific trauma that Gohan was subjected to as a kid via martial arts, that that might well have played a role in his not being so keen on sticking with martial arts training consistently later on in life as an adult.

Which honestly, has always been something that I thought was generally simple enough to infer from his overall trajectory across the series.

I think most people generally forget how young Gohan actually is in these arcs...he's literally a toddler! A kindergarten student!

I don't know who "most people" is in this case, but the series (especially in the anime) goes WELL out of its way more than enough times to reiterate exactly how young Gohan is in the Saiya-jin and Freeza arcs. If someone watching it somehow "forgets" that Gohan is basically a kindergartener - what with him stating his age directly on the outset, and not to mention all the constant crying, sobbing for his mom, and the generally heavily little kid tone that's constantly surrounding him in most of his early Z scenes - then I have to question how much they're actually paying attention to much of anything about the character in the first place.

Its NOT in any which way remotely hidden or obscured from the audience that Gohan is basically just barely out of his toddler years (if not still at the tail-most end of them) at the start of Z, so if you're only just NOW all of a sudden putting it together that "Hey, wait a sec... this series puts a kid THIS young through ALL of that horror?", then I don't know what else to say other than that's totally on you. Most of the rest of us were fully aware of this from the jump.

[Koitsukai]

Let's not forget Cell bearhugging Gohan and Goku smiling like that R U WINNING SON? meme.

[MasenkoHA]

. Especially when characters like Vegeta, Nappa, Piccolo, Recoome or Freeza don't treat Gohan like a little kid but beat him up as if he's the same age as them.

Almost like they’re bad guys or something.

Even later on when we have Trunks/Goten they're never beaten up as badly as Gohan is, and all their fights as Gotenks are comical rather than serious. I honestly wonder if showing a small child like Gohan beaten up would fly these days as opposed to Dragon Ball being written in the 80's and early 90's.

Gohan came in during the more serious era of the show.
Goten and Little Trunks came in when Toriyama went full on back to the manga’s gag roots.

[DragonBallFoodie]

To answer the main question, it is.

It's not just one factor at play, as far as I can see. We have:
- Gohan being a parallel to Goku in handling things
- Goku screwing up and letting his son nearly get killed, which as many have pointed out is something he'd do
- A merciless deconstruction/parody of normal shonen, where a young boy protagonist can accomplish great feats
- A realistic outcome of what happens when a science experiment meant to surpass Saiyans gets loose.

[FoolsGil]

Yes. He's basically turned into a child soldier/secret weapon and thrown at his opponents. At least in the Namek and Android arcs, it was his choice to keep fighting when he could have walked away.

[MyVisionity]

Cruel yes, but still fun as hell. One of the appeals of DB is seeing children beat the hell out of adults and adults beat the hell out of children. It's entertaining.

Gohan keeps that aspect in play after Goku and the gang grow up. Not only that, but you get the added drama and development because Gohan is so much younger and innocent than the others had been. We get to see how his character develops as a sheltered four year old tossed into the wild to fend for himself, and then as a warrior facing down bloodthirsty space pirates. Then you get the added tension of him just being a little kid but brutalized by grown ass men. All of those big dramatic moments like with Recoome and Freeza are uncomfortable and impactful because Gohan is basically a Kindergartener.

[DBZAOTA482]

Yes it is, but that's part of what makes Dragon Ball so interesting as a story. Women and children are not safe from getting their shit pushed back.

Equality at its finest.

[Hulk10]

Yes it is, but that's part of what makes Dragon Ball so interesting as a story. Women and children are not safe from getting their shit pushed back.

Equality at its finest.

Hmmm yeah good point.

[JulieYBM]

Yes it is, but that's part of what makes Dragon Ball so interesting as a story. Women and children are not safe from getting their shit pushed back.

Equality at its finest.

How is fictional women (who aren't the subject of the topic) and children (who exactly is campaigning for 'equality' for children in the context of being tortured?) being tortured for non-sexual relief in a mainstream series aimed at children 'equality'?

'Getting their shit pushed back'? What shit? Self-defense against a bunch of genocidal maniacs?

Is this a parody of some sort of weird character that is flying over my head?

[jjgp1112]

Yes it is, but that's part of what makes Dragon Ball so interesting as a story. Women and children are not safe from getting their shit pushed back.

Equality at its finest.

How is fictional women (who aren't the subject of the topic) and children (who exactly is campaigning for 'equality' for children in the context of being tortured?) being tortured for non-sexual relief in a mainstream series aimed at children 'equality'?

'Getting their shit pushed back'? What shit? Self-defense against a bunch of genocidal maniacs?

Is this a parody of some sort of weird character that is flying over my head?

It's a flippant joke about how the brutality of Dragon Ball is rated E for everyone and nobody's safe

Getting their shit pushed back = getting one's wig split, or head busted - or dare I even say, cap peeled.

[Polyphase Avatron]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HPA86wpn88k

[GatoF]

They would never do to Goten and Trunks the same they did to Gohan nowadays

[Kunzait_83]

It's a flippant joke about how the brutality of Dragon Ball is rated E for everyone and nobody's safe

Which I would say was very much to DB's benefit rather than detriment.

You want your violence to actually have any kind of impact on the audience? Don't weasel out of making sure it can happen to literally anyone at any time, and that NO ONE gets a free pass from it for ANY reason.

We talk a lot about things that make something feel more "true to life" in fiction (which is different from "realism": a piece of obvious absurd fantasy like DB is in no way "realistic" by its very nature, but it CAN have elements that make it feel more honest/true to life, like how the characters behave and interact with one another, etc): this is UNQUESTIONABLY one of those things. Violence can and does affect everyone at any point in time, and doesn't care how young or old you are, or what gender you are, etc. So don't chicken out of that, no matter who your audience is. Don't be afraid to make the audience uncomfortable and squirm.

As far as Gohan goes, him being both A) a main, principal character, and B) a small little child ensured that him taking the most severe, bloody, and brutal of thrashings cemented that 1) absolutely NO ONE is safe or off limits in this story and 2) that the villains of that arc (Freeza's army) were very much legit monsters and psychos who earn every bit of the dread they inspire. And all via action, without having to awkwardly explain or infodump it to the audience way. Show rather than tell in other words.

And it also makes DB's world, despite being such a wacky, fantastical place, that much more relatable and connected to what we can see and feel in our own world. Just like our world, violence impacts EVERYONE at any and all times, and you don't automatically get off Scott free from it just because you're a super young child or whatever. Just because your setting is a silly fantasy world doesn't mean it can't have relatable consequences or overlap with reality in certain areas.

The more skillfully you blur those lines, the more effective and memorable your story can potentially be.