Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

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Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:32 pm

Dragon Ball Z chronicled the adult life of Goku but it was also a coming-of-age story for Gohan which is especially evident through the anime. Gohan is a mild-mannered and polite (in contrast to Goku's laidback and straightforward nature) boy who had the potential to exceed any fighter but lacked his father's fighting spirit. He initially wanted nothing to do with all the fighting business but grew a sense of obligation after fighting alongside the Z-Warriors and seeing their sacrifices.

Despite his age, he was able to hang with the veteran Z-Warriors.

Then come the Cell arc and Gohan finally lives up to his potential. Goku dies passing the torch to Gohan.

Gohan from this point onward is the new protagonist and the anime was rebranded even ditching the iconic "Cha-La-Head-Cha-La" for "WE GOTTA POWER".

Some may call this cliché but it seemed like natural progression to me. Goku's character arc was done by the Cell arc. He had already became the world's greatest fighter and his origins were explored so from a narrative perspective, focusing on his son who's ripe for character development is the best move. Toriyama certainly saw this as Goku didn't do much throughout the Artificial Human / Cell arc.

Instead, Toriyama went against it at the last second as he felt Gohan wasn't a good fit compared to Goku.

Initially it was believed to be because of backlash from Japanese fans which we now know isn't true as Gohan was leading popularity polls during the Cell Games and Great Saiyaman arc (the ratings in the anime are also at its highest). Toriyama went against it on his own accord.

I understand Goku was the main character for almost 10 years prior so it's a sense of familiarity with him but Gohan could've worked in his own way.

The Boo arc could've focused on Gohan's struggles to live up to his father's legacy and future content can focus on Gohan's daily life as a family man, scholar, and playing hero while being Earth's greatest savior. As Gohan actually has interests outside fighting, a lot more stories can be told with him.

Needless to say, this isn't going into how shitty Goku's character is in modern Dragon Ball but that's for another time.
fadeddreams5 wrote:
DBZGTKOSDH wrote:... Haven't we already gotten these in GT? Goku dies, the DBs go away, and the Namekian DBs most likely won't be used again because of the Evil Dragons.
Goku didn't die in GT. The show sucked him off so much, it was impossible to keep him in the world of the living, so he ascended beyond mortality.
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:31 am I'm just about done with the concept of reboots and making shows that were products of their time and impactful "new and sexy" and in line with modern tastes and sensibilities. Let stuff stay in their era and give today's kids their own shit to watch.

I always side eye the people who say "Now my kids/today's kids can experience what I did as a child!" Nigga, who gives a fuck about your childhood? You're an adult now and it was at least 15 years ago. Let the kids have their own experience instead of picking at a corpse.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:56 am

DBZAOTA482 wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:32 pm Dragon Ball Z chronicled the adult life of Goku but it was also a coming-of-age story for Gohan which is especially evident through the anime..
And this is the flaw with the argument right there. There is no Dragon Ball Z manga. Toriyama wasn't writing a sequel series, he was writing the next arc in the same manga that he'd been writing for about 4 years at that point. Gohan was just another newly introduced character not the brand new protagonist. Toei wanting to push Gohan to lead character status before Toriyama even flirted with the idea in his manga is pretty irrelevant.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by Zephyr » Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:28 am

I can somewhat understand the appeal of "passing the torch to the next generation" as a story development. That's what the Muten Roshi does in the 4th story arc, after all. And in the 5th story arc we learn about the person who had long ago passed the torch to him. Time being what it is, and teacher-student lineages being what they are, it makes all the sense in the world that Goku's generation would likewise eventually pass the torch to a next one.

One key difference, however, is that Dragon Ball didn't begin as Mutaito's story, see Kame-chan introduced part way through, see the torch passed to him, and have him become the new main protagonist. Likewise, Dragon Ball didn't begin as the Kame Sennin's story, see Son Goku introduced part way through, see the torch passed to him, and have him become the new main protagonist. This isn't Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, where the main protagonist is changes as the story goes on.

Dragon Ball was Son Goku's story from the beginning. By the 2nd story arc, that story became clearly about his growth and development as a martial artist. It begins with him as a student, and it will end when he finally becomes a master, and helps to pass the torch to the next generation. However, since this is his story, that story ends once the torch is passed. The story could have ended well enough with the torch being passed to Son Gohan. The Cell arc indeed has Goku training Gohan, like he's some sort of martial arts master, in order to participate in a tournament. Vegeta and Trunks even act somewhat like a rival martial arts school, as both Goku and Vegeta are attempting to improve the Super Saiyan state in their own respective ways, which their sons adopt and take even farther. Some echoes of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai and Piccolo Daimao arcs, here.

But the story didn't end with the Cell arc. The Boo arc opens with Gohan having slacked off for seven years, after his battle with Cell that he needed his hand held through. Goku didn't need his hand held in the fight against Piccolo Daimao. This shows two things: Gohan isn't as nuts about fighting as Goku was, and it shows that, as a result of this, Gohan isn't as skilled in the ring.

Gohan not being as good at fighting is not to say you couldn't use this to write a compelling story about Gohan's improvement as a martial artist. Quite the contrary, it gives a lot of room for Gohan to grow as a martial artist. However, the fact that he's not as nuts about fighting does prove to be something of a problem. What is his motivation for growing as a martial artist? To protect his loved ones, sure. That's fine. How does an irreverent guy like Toriyama write that in a compelling way? I don't know. I get the sense that Toriyama didn't know, either. Granted, everything surrounding the Elder Kaioshin's power up ritual is pretty funny: the cost is petty, the method is silly, Gohan's impatience is funny, etc.

But that's not really growth for Gohan as a character. It does nothing to address his weaknesses as a fighter to follow in Goku's footsteps. Him getting a free and ostensibly permanent power up solves the issues of him not caring to stay in shape, but it doesn't solve his lack of talent in the ring, relative to his predecessor. He's not as squirrely as Goku is, and there's no underlying "poison" to his relationship with martial arts, which makes him more boring in comparison. Goku's "poison" even comes into play in this arc, with him helping to release Boo, well before Gohan is pushed to the side. For that reason, divorced from Gohan being a weaker protagonist in a story about growth as a martial artist, Goku narratively has more cause to be one of the ones to put Boo away: he's one of the ones who let him out.

In addition to this, Boo himself has a thirst for fighting, as well. Fat Boo is convinced to slow down on killing people, in the hopes that he'll get a good fight later. His Evil self later avoids absorbing Gohan because he wants someone to fight after absorbing Gotenks. And his Pure self is just a fighting machine. After he's killed, he gets reincarnated as a good person, who Goku then takes on as a pupil. While, obviously, Oob isn't exactly going to have the personality of Boo, the notion of taking the final antagonist, who is, at least fairly often, depicted as a fighting junkie similar to Goku, and making him the person Goku passes the torch to, works so much better for me than having it be Gohan, who just isn't as into it.

So, I think it was definitely a good move that Gohan was dropped as the main protagonist. You gotta know when to hold em and when to fold em. The way in which he was dropped wasn't perfect, but the drop itself was the right call, I think. You could abandon the notion of Dragon Ball being a story about the main character's growth as a martial artist, I guess. But at that point, you're expressing interest in a different story. Just end the story about martial artists doing martial arts, and make a new one at that point. Don't try to continue the story about martial arts growth and change what it is. Sure, Dragon Ball changed from a road trip story to that, but it did so extremely early on. Changing it again at the 11th hour would be strange and feel pointless in comparison, as the road trip angle was abandoned because it wasn't popular.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by Majin Buu » Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:59 am

Shouldn't this be in the "What's the problem with post-Cell arc Gohan?" thread (which isn't even 2 weeks old)?

This is practically the same topic.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by dva_raza » Wed Jun 29, 2022 2:04 pm

DBZAOTA482 wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:32 pm Some may call this cliché but it seemed like natural progression to me. Goku's character arc was done by the Cell arc.

I don’t see how it’s “natural” to completely eliminate the protagonist and the face of the whole series nor do I see a reason to “pass the torch” to someone who isn’t passionate about fighting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I never felt anything forced about him going back to his secondary role, actually think it's one of the most organic things in the whole story.
He has other interests, that’s his character. (Seems like Gohan’s fans should be the first ones to know that?)

There’s no way he would’ve fitted in the themes that Super took over from the Buu arc, with the Gods and all, considering he’s not interested in fighting 100% whereas Goku and Vegeta, are. The story would've needed to be a completely different one and personally, no, the first part of the Buu arc was fun and fresh, but I wouldnt've wanted that to be DB lol.

I prefer the Goku/Vegeta focus. And I actually enjoy Gohan in the exact role he has. His contribution as a secondary character (in Namek and in the 2nd part of Buu) feels richer to me than his brief period as a lead.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by Anonymous Friend » Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:01 pm

dva_raza wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 2:04 pm
DBZAOTA482 wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:32 pm Some may call this cliché but it seemed like natural progression to me. Goku's character arc was done by the Cell arc.

I don’t see how it’s “natural” to completely eliminate the protagonist and the face of the whole series nor do I see a reason to “pass the torch” to someone who isn’t passionate about fighting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As natural as real life for thousands of years.
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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by dva_raza » Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:09 pm

Anonymous Friend wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:01 pm As natural as real life for thousands of years.
Thought it should be obvious I'm talking about what would be a natural progression of a battle focused story of an entertainment material following a character named Goku. Not about how natural is the act of passing torches to people who aren’t passionate about fighting in real life.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by Cursed Lemon » Wed Jun 29, 2022 6:19 pm

Too many people erroneously look at a "passing the torch moment" as "Goku is no longer a primary character". Gohan could've easily taken over as protector of the Earth while Goku and Vegeta went on to solve issues in either the afterlife or other universes, it's perfectly feasible to have the former be Plot A and the latter be Plot B, with the two woven into each other. Gohan would now be the vanguard of the world and characters that we care about, and Goku/Vegeta would ascend to greater and broader things.
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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by dva_raza » Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:08 pm

It wouldn't have been feasible since "The Plot B" particularly in Dragon Ball is used as complementary to the Plot A. (Comedic relief, minor characters).
Having a big secondary character having his own story in parallel requires his own context, and that would steal time and focus from the plot A and break the pacing.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by Saiya6Cit » Thu Jun 30, 2022 4:25 pm

The Boo arc could've focused on Gohan's struggles to live up to his father's legacy and future content can focus on Gohan's daily life as a family man, scholar, and playing hero while being Earth's greatest savior. As Gohan actually has interests outside fighting, a lot more stories can be told with him.
Well in retrospect the Buu Saga starts one way (focusing on Gohan) and then it sort of abruptly changed because it was the time for the Goku and Vegeta show and perhaps it could have been handeled differently, but the truth is, it did not. I suppose ratings changed....

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by MasenkoHA » Thu Jun 30, 2022 4:59 pm

Saiya6Cit wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 4:25 pm I suppose ratings changed....
Not really. The Great Saiyaman arc had the overall highest ratings average of any arc in DBZ with episode 218 being the single highest rated episode. Ratings didn't start falling until just before Boo showed up.


We know what the change was. It wasn't manga sales or viewership. Toriyama just said "oh yeah Gohan doesn't work as a lead in a martial arts comic"

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by Cursed Lemon » Thu Jun 30, 2022 5:59 pm

dva_raza wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:08 pm It wouldn't have been feasible since "The Plot B" particularly in Dragon Ball is used as complementary to the Plot A. (Comedic relief, minor characters).

Having a big secondary character having his own story in parallel requires his own context, and that would steal time and focus from the plot A and break the pacing.
Uh I mean you have to have good writers first lol Otherwise it doesn't matter what format the story is in.
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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by Godo » Sat Jul 02, 2022 4:37 am

Cursed Lemon wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 5:59 pm
dva_raza wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:08 pm It wouldn't have been feasible since "The Plot B" particularly in Dragon Ball is used as complementary to the Plot A. (Comedic relief, minor characters).

Having a big secondary character having his own story in parallel requires his own context, and that would steal time and focus from the plot A and break the pacing.
Uh I mean you have to have good writers first lol Otherwise it doesn't matter what format the story is in.
Exactly this.
Even though it wasn't the norm to write stories like that at the time, it has been shown again and again to work splendidly in modern mangas, if the writer(s) are good, since this adds some further complexity to the plot.
I could see this working with Dragon Ball, but since the format was so much different from the beginning it would be tough to change it by the Buu Arc.
They had the possibility to change this when it came to Super, but they kept it pretty light and in my opinion they settled too much with the original formula (which I don't blame as more fans will watch it).
The one thing that I love with Dragon Ball are the tournament arcs through and trough. They are simple and you get to see a wide array of secondary characters and it shows the mostly invisible world around the main characters. One Piece, as an example, got it to work with only Luffy as a main character, so there's that.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Wed Jul 06, 2022 2:07 pm

Cursed Lemon wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 6:19 pm Too many people erroneously look at a "passing the torch moment" as "Goku is no longer a primary character". Gohan could've easily taken over as protector of the Earth while Goku and Vegeta went on to solve issues in either the afterlife or other universes, it's perfectly feasible to have the former be Plot A and the latter be Plot B, with the two woven into each other. Gohan would now be the vanguard of the world and characters that we care about, and Goku/Vegeta would ascend to greater and broader things.
Unfortunately, we might have to say goodbye to Vegeta if Toriyama followed through.
fadeddreams5 wrote:
DBZGTKOSDH wrote:... Haven't we already gotten these in GT? Goku dies, the DBs go away, and the Namekian DBs most likely won't be used again because of the Evil Dragons.
Goku didn't die in GT. The show sucked him off so much, it was impossible to keep him in the world of the living, so he ascended beyond mortality.
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:31 am I'm just about done with the concept of reboots and making shows that were products of their time and impactful "new and sexy" and in line with modern tastes and sensibilities. Let stuff stay in their era and give today's kids their own shit to watch.

I always side eye the people who say "Now my kids/today's kids can experience what I did as a child!" Nigga, who gives a fuck about your childhood? You're an adult now and it was at least 15 years ago. Let the kids have their own experience instead of picking at a corpse.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by capsulecorp » Wed Jul 06, 2022 2:25 pm

I think the idea that Gohan was "supposed to" have taken the reigns of the story is just wishful thinking from some fans.

His failure to do so IS the point. As the OP says, one of the defining aspects of his character is that he's not (and never HAD to be) passionate about fighting. Goku's lack of understanding about this was established in the Cell arc, and the conflicts between Gohan's nature and the role of "protector" are highlighted during his stint as Great Saiyaman, and again throughout the Buu arc.

Gohan is Goku's biological son, but Uub is his student.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by dva_raza » Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:15 pm

Godo wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 4:37 am
Exactly this.
Not really, no.
The writers being ‘better’ (as arbitrary as it is), doesn’t mean the structure you want should have worked better.
For what this show is, the writing was pretty great in Namek, Cell and Buu arc, and it’s still good in Super. The show is not perfect but the overall structure does work perfectly. The pacing is fast and that’s precisely because it maintains a single plot focus kind of narrative.

(If I imagine for a moment that Namek had been split between what we know...and Yamcha, Tenshinhan and Co. fighting some earth challenge in the meanwhile that would’ve been lame as fuck, regardless of the quality of the writer.)
it has been shown again and again to work splendidly in modern mangas
A divided narrative being a thing that exists, implies that it works, yes. Nobody said it didn’t.

I said Dragon Ball doesn’t want to do it. And that it's most likely due to the obvious break in rhythm that would happen if you follow a big secondary character who needs a completely different tone to the main one. Which he would. There’s no way to insert Gohan into the themes Goku and Vegeta are living unless you disregard his actual character and lifestyle.
They had the possibility to change this when it came to Super, but they kept it pretty light and in my opinion they settled too much with the original formula
Yeah. So?
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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by dva_raza » Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:17 pm

Saiya6Cit wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 4:25 pm the Buu Saga starts one way (focusing on Gohan) and then it sort of abruptly changed because it was the time for the Goku and Vegeta show
Which debuted here in the Buu arc by the way.

There wasn’t actually a ‘Goku and Vegeta show’ before this, and ... yeah, they actually proved to be more interesting than Gohan lol. That's probably why Super went all in on the Goku/Vegeta show.

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by Ashur » Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:49 am

Zephyr wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:28 am In addition to this, Boo himself has a thirst for fighting, as well. Fat Boo is convinced to slow down on killing people, in the hopes that he'll get a good fight later. His Evil self later avoids absorbing Gohan because he wants someone to fight after absorbing Gotenks. And his Pure self is just a fighting machine. After he's killed, he gets reincarnated as a good person, who Goku then takes on as a pupil. While, obviously, Oob isn't exactly going to have the personality of Boo, the notion of taking the final antagonist, who is, at least fairly often, depicted as a fighting junkie similar to Goku, and making him the person Goku passes the torch to, works so much better for me than having it be Gohan, who just isn't as into it.

So, I think it was definitely a good move that Gohan was dropped as the main protagonist. You gotta know when to hold em and when to fold em. The way in which he was dropped wasn't perfect, but the drop itself was the right call, I think. You could abandon the notion of Dragon Ball being a story about the main character's growth as a martial artist, I guess. But at that point, you're expressing interest in a different story. Just end the story about martial artists doing martial arts, and make a new one at that point. Don't try to continue the story about martial arts growth and change what it is. Sure, Dragon Ball changed from a road trip story to that, but it did so extremely early on. Changing it again at the 11th hour would be strange and feel pointless in comparison, as the road trip angle was abandoned because it wasn't popular.
I second this, i feel that Goku passing the torch to Buu's reincarnation is far more fitting than Gohan getting it at the end of the Cell Arc, especially because Uub is not blood related to Goku, with this you avoid having the Son family be the de-facto protectors of the Earth and strongest martial artists forever, and follow it with a real teacher/student lineage, rather than a dynasty, Roshi wasn't Goku's dad, so the conclusion of Goku's development, ending as a Master, is better if it ended on a similar set-up.

My main problem is that GT really blew it by undermining Uub's importance as Goku's successor, and sort of making it all about Goku's blood relatives after the 100 year time skip, i think that gives people the idea that it should be Gohan.

Imo the way Gohan's main character set-up was dropped was bad, and a sign of the Buu arc's lack of direction, but it wasn't a bad move in itself, for the purpose of keeping Dragon Ball's original focus, if Gohan was to be the main character, then the setting and focus would have drastically changed, which we were shown in the Great Saiyaman (which, for me, it's probably the best Gohan characterization we got, but you see my point: it is far too different from what people want out of a main character Gohan in spite of making total sense for the character).

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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by Majin Buu » Thu Jul 21, 2022 8:24 am

Despite my previous post, there's stuff I want to respond to.
Zephyr wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:28 am I can somewhat understand the appeal of "passing the torch to the next generation" as a story development.

One key difference, however, is that Dragon Ball didn't begin as Mutaito's story, see Kame-chan introduced part way through, see the torch passed to him, and have him become the new main protagonist. Likewise, Dragon Ball didn't begin as the Kame Sennin's story, see Son Goku introduced part way through, see the torch passed to him, and have him become the new main protagonist. This isn't Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, where the main protagonist is changes as the story goes on.
Agreed. "Passing the torch" is a theme that pops up from time to time, but that was never what Dragon Ball was about. That so many fans insist that it was is a fundamental misreading of the story that feels like it's coming from a desire to see Gohan become the main character and an ultimate badass fighter.
Gohan not being as good at fighting is not to say you couldn't use this to write a compelling story about Gohan's improvement as a martial artist. Quite the contrary, it gives a lot of room for Gohan to grow as a martial artist. However, the fact that he's not as nuts about fighting does prove to be something of a problem. What is his motivation for growing as a martial artist? To protect his loved ones, sure. That's fine. How does an irreverent guy like Toriyama write that in a compelling way? I don't know. I get the sense that Toriyama didn't know, either. Granted, everything surrounding the Elder Kaioshin's power up ritual is pretty funny: the cost is petty, the method is silly, Gohan's impatience is funny, etc.

But that's not really growth for Gohan as a character. It does nothing to address his weaknesses as a fighter to follow in Goku's footsteps. Him getting a free and ostensibly permanent power up solves the issues of him not caring to stay in shape, but it doesn't solve his lack of talent in the ring, relative to his predecessor. He's not as squirrely as Goku is, and there's no underlying "poison" to his relationship with martial arts, which makes him more boring in comparison.
This. It's almost like "Ultimate Gohan" didn't amount to anything because it was ultimately (heh) Toriyama putting a band-aid on the core problem.

Also, fans often complain about the Elder Kaioshin power up being unearned, yet in the same breath complain that Gohan wasn't the one to kill Buu. If the power up being unearned is a bad thing, then shouldn't Gohan not be rewarded for it with success against Buu?
Goku's "poison" even comes into play in this arc, with him helping to release Boo, well before Gohan is pushed to the side. For that reason, divorced from Gohan being a weaker protagonist in a story about growth as a martial artist, Goku narratively has more cause to be one of the ones to put Boo away: he's one of the ones who let him out.
This. Both Goku and Vegeta bare some responsibility for releasing Buu, so they should be the ones to clean up the mess they contributed to. While some see Gohan, Goten, and Trunks failing here as a huge let down, I don't think the next generation having to clean up the mess the previous generation left behind would be any better of a message; plus that would rob Goku and Vegeta of the chance to make up for that.
In addition to this, Boo himself has a thirst for fighting, as well. Fat Boo is convinced to slow down on killing people, in the hopes that he'll get a good fight later. His Evil self later avoids absorbing Gohan because he wants someone to fight after absorbing Gotenks. And his Pure self is just a fighting machine. After he's killed, he gets reincarnated as a good person, who Goku then takes on as a pupil. While, obviously, Oob isn't exactly going to have the personality of Boo, the notion of taking the final antagonist, who is, at least fairly often, depicted as a fighting junkie similar to Goku, and making him the person Goku passes the torch to, works so much better for me than having it be Gohan, who just isn't as into it.
This again. Out of Dragon Ball's major villains, Buu was the one that was most like Goku in personality (not just in being a fighting junkie but also being a goofy manchild big eater like Goku) so it makes sense that his reincarnation would be the one Goku designates as his successor- even if he's ultimately just looking to get a good fight out of him. And that's another thing: For all the importance fans place on the theme of "passing the torch"- In the end Goku himself only brings it up as a excuse to train this kid he wants to fight.
Ashur wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:49 am i feel that Goku passing the torch to Buu's reincarnation is far more fitting than Gohan getting it at the end of the Cell Arc, especially because Uub is not blood related to Goku, with this you avoid having the Son family be the de-facto protectors of the Earth and strongest martial artists forever, and follow it with a real teacher/student lineage, rather than a dynasty, Roshi wasn't Goku's dad, so the conclusion of Goku's development, ending as a Master, is better if it ended on a similar set-up.
Agreed. The way the torch is passed here is more in line with how it happened with previous generations and feels more fitting than containing it to the Son family.
My main problem is that GT really blew it by undermining Uub's importance as Goku's successor, and sort of making it all about Goku's blood relatives after the 100 year time skip, i think that gives people the idea that it should be Gohan.
Agreed. Uub didn't need to be the hero or main character, but he should have been more relevant than he was.

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capsulecorp
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Re: Why dropping Gohan as the main protagonist was a bad move

Post by capsulecorp » Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:26 am

Majin Buu wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 8:24 am Also, fans often complain about the Elder Kaioshin power up being unearned, yet in the same breath complain that Gohan wasn't the one to kill Buu. If the power up being unearned is a bad thing, then shouldn't Gohan not be rewarded for it with success against Buu?
Good point. Again, I think a lot of people, Gohan fans in particular, just massively misread his role in the Buu arc.

The power-up being unearned is entirely the point! To understand Goku and Vegeta's children and grandchildren you need to consider the relative safety and privilege they grow up in. Gohan is practically defined by "unearned power", with his tantrum-power-ups.

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