Gohan's sudden outfit change?

[dragondyle]

In Dragon Ball Z episode 21, Gohan is in the final stages of Piccolo's training for the Saiyans arrival. Gohan is shown with the orange gi with the sword that Piccolo gave him at first. But in the very SAME episode, Gohan is now shown with the purple gi resembling Piccolo's without any transition or explaination to it. What's the deal here?

It goes from this: ________________________________________________________ To being this:


Sorry, I don't have any actual screen caps to cite this. I just recently caught this upon watching the episodes and wanted to see what was up with this. Is it like that in the manga? Is it an anime or Toriyama goof where he just didn't feel like explaining it, or what?

[Eddie]

My best guess is that Piccolo used his Clothes Beam to give Gohan new clothes for battle.

[Velasa]

I believe I caught this on my first watch of the Dragonbox.... I think I remember the specifics of this right as it confused the hell out of me.

The two shots I remember being close together in bizarre order are these. Scene A, sky goes dark and it clicks that the sayiajin are finally arriving. Gohan is in his Piccolo outfit here. Scene B, an overhead of Pic and Gohan training where Gohan is firing off rapid-fire punches,with Pic guarding with his arms and shouting at him. Gohan is in his orange gi with the Ma symbol here.

In the old Saban edit, scene B comes before (possibly way before) scene A, which is consistent with the outfits. But on the Dragonbox, the order is actually the other way around and Gohan just magically changes back while they're waiting o_o

Did I remember this wrong somehow? I don't think so, as it stood out specifically in my mind.

[Bussani]

In the manga, the last time we see Gohan in his orange gi is training with Piccolo at the end of the chapter where Goku catches Bubbles and starts his real training with Kaio. It's a shot of all the characters doing their own training in the time they have left before Vegeta and Nappa arrive.

The next time we see Gohan is when the sky goes dark as Shenlong is summoned. Here he's wearing the Piccolo style outfit, and continues to be wearing that from that point. I guess it's just a Toei goof, if I'm understanding everyone right?

[Gaffer Tape]

It's not really a goof per se, it's just a bit hard to swallow as it is in the anime. Like bussani said, in the manga, his two appearances were spaced out enough that it was conceivable that this occurred. In the anime, Gohan and Piccolo are training in one scene, Kamesennin summons Shen Long in the next scene, and then Gohan (in new gi) and Piccolo are standing around, and there is literally only that one scene in between them, so it is very awkward.

However, it's not the clothing change I find awkward. We've all accepted the fact that Piccolo can make clothes whenever the hell he feels like it. But what's really jarring is that when we see Gohan training he's all scratched up and otherwise damaged from six months of constant sparring. But then, a minute later, not only is he in new clothes, his body is entirely intact too. Oh, and it also looks like he's aged at least a few months since the last scene.

What's weird about that scene in both versions is why Gohan is standing around in new clothes just staring into the sky. Piccolo admits when he sees the sky darken that the Saiya-jin are arriving much earlier than expected. Therefore, I would have expected their training to have been interrupted, not to find them standing around waiting for the appointed moment.

[Adamant]

There's another similiar inconsistency at the end of the arc, where Bulma suddenly switches from the skirt she was wearing when Shen Long was summoned to the shirt and shorts she's wearing when the group goes to pick up the survivors from the battle. In the manga, we never see her between these two scenes, but in the anime, she appears in a bunch of filler scenes all the way up to this very episode, always in the skirt outfit.

Pretty sure there are others, too.

[Gaffer Tape]

Well, since we're on that, there's also the only slightly less jarring example of Bulma's hair growing out in, like, two episodes. Up through episode 18, she still has the short 'do she had at the beginning of the Saiya-jin arc. Then, two episodes later, her hair is suddenly long! Again, there's no problem with the manga since we don't see her after Chichi and Gyumao find out that Goku is dead until the scene with Uranai Baba. Granted, it's not nearly as bad since nearly six months have gone by between those two scenes in the anime, but since no hair growth occurred in those first six months, it does seem a bit odd that it could have grown out that much in just six months.

As for Bulma's outfits changing, that's not too bad. We're told that the Saiya-jin land the next day, so why shouldn't she be in different clothes? Kame-sennin has changed from yellow to black as well... granted, he changes back to yellow upon picking them up, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch. In fact, I think it's weird only because of how rarely DB characters change clothes in general!

[Adamant]

As for Bulma's outfits changing, that's not too bad. We're told that the Saiya-jin land the next day, so why shouldn't she be in different clothes?

In the anime, we see her in the skirt outfit through the entire Saiyan battle, up to the point where the group decides to get their plane and fly over to where everyone were fighting Vegeta. Then. shortly after, we see an interior shot of the plane, and she's in her new outfit.

Speaking of the Saiyan arc, in the anime it apparently took Kuririn 6 months to find Yamucha and Tenshinhan, despite having Radits' scouter telling him their exact locations.

[Gaffer Tape]

Again, it doesn't seem too far-fetched to me that she should change into a more practical outfit for battle observing and assistance, so it's never bothered me that she changed from a dress to shorts. And it's the same way in the manga since she was shown in her dress while trying to use the scouter.

As for locating Yamucha and Tenshinhan, the theory I came up with recently is that that's the reason why the scene in the manga of calling out their battle powers at Kame House was dropped from the anime. In the original scene, after using the scouter on Kamesennin and Kuririn, Bulma also tracks down a 177 (Yamucha), a 250 (Tenshinhan), and a (322?) Piccolo before Yajirobe comes a-knocking. The anime replaced that with reading Umigame's battle power instead, which makes sense because if they had been able to locate them immediately in the anime, their inability to find Tenshinhan in episode 12 wouldn't make any sense. They wanted to add in some filler of actually finding them, so I guess we have to assume that Bulma wasn't quite as adept with the scouter in the anime as she was in the manga.