Was Gohan's absence a big miss in the current arc?

[Noah]

Today episode made me think about that, the bound between Future Trunks and Vegeta was something satisfying to see though this arc and I thought would be nice to see something with Goku and Gohan again. They really should made this go into somewhere, Gohan was determined to get all his strenght back to protect his loved ones when is needed, it was a perfect reason for his return on fighting! He didn't go to the U6 vs U7 tournament, but he could still be on training.

His relationship with Future Trunks could have been better built too in this arc, why not have both to train in the new RoSaT? Would we have such a better and legit excuse for rage boosts and weird transformations for them after having trained in there? I don't think so.

Also seeing Goku, Gohan, Vegeta and Trunks against Merged Zamasu in this arc climax would be priceless.

We all know that Gohan has a big fanbase that is claming for his return, this arc would be the perfect opportunity for him IMO

[Lunatic Fringe]

We'd be back at square one with the rabid Gohan fanbase if they went this route. He'd ultimately get tossed aside for Vegeta and Goku to handle everything, thus rendering all of his involvement into once again being a side character that doesn't deliver the final blow.

For everyone else that appreciates character relationships and dynamics at play, I think some would appreciate that sort of interaction between Trunks and Gohan but the thing is, others wouldn't really care because of them being content with Gohan's fighting days being behind him.

Count me in with the latter group TBH. No, it wasn't a missed opportunity. Gohan's done as a fighter and I can accept that.

[precita]

Gohan will probably get an arc in the future sometime. This was Trunks arc with Goku/Vegeta, next time the focus will likely shift to someone else especially since he'll stay in his time.

[sintzu]

His absence throughout all of Super has been a big miss.

They changed a lot with RF so they could've had him fight Freeza in his 1st form and force him to go into his final one before Goku and Vegeta arrived.

He could've went to the tournament instead of Monaka and maybe beat Frost instead of Vegeta.

[DBZ Macky]

I'd honestly appreciate if he got even a slice of life episode dedicated to him.
I fail to understand how he's been shoved so much into the sidelines, even more so than Piccolo when he has such an obviously huge fanbase.
I think that Goku and Vegeta have powered up so much that Gohan, Piccolo and Gotenks have been reduced to what Kuririn, Tenshinhan and Yamcha were in Dragon Ball Z.
Piccolo replaced Tenshinhan. It's only fair if he gets replaced by the likes of Hit.
There's nothing new about what Super's doing, Toriyama has done this before.

[precita]

After the current arc ends I'm sure Gohan will get some time to shine. Trunks will be gone, and all that's left to focus on is either Gohan and Goten/Trunks, and Gohan is probably going to get the brunt of it.

We can see with stuff like Trunks transformation, Vegito Super Saiyan Blue, etc....that Toei loves bringing out new transformations for characters but as far as we know Goku/Vegeta are done in that regard so they have to power up other characters to maintain interest. Gohan will join them eventually.

[MozillaVulpix]

The Gohan/Future Trunks relationship was something that had been underutilised in the original series itself. Seeing your deceased mentor as a younger, initially weaker version of himself is such an interesting idea to linger on. And then seeing that mentor as a child actually do something his future self never managed to accomplish is even more interesting. Future Trunks is almost as much Gohan as he is Vegeta. I mean, he inherits his style of speech.

That being said, this is the 'Future Trunks Arc'. Not 'The Gohan Returns Arc'. Maybe this is just from my bias, but Gohan returning is something that is so ingrained into the fandom, I feel like it should honestly be a big deal when it happens. If you put it with Future Trunks returning, you make both of the ideas seem a little less important, considering they're sharing the screentime.

[RandomGuy96]

Yeah. I mean, we could have had him die pointlessly while accomplishing nothing but wasting time again. This arc is really lacking without that vital role.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I've accepted Gohan not being much of a fighter because it gives the characters more diversity rather than have all Saiyans be like Goku and Vegeta.

In this arc I thought he served a purpose with Trunks seeing Gohan's life with his family and wishing he could have the same, especially coming from his time.

I definitely think a few slice-of-life episodes will do Gohan justice, although if the writers to bring him back and have any relevance to the fighting I'd be interested in seeing him use his academic skills to work out a strategy, something different, an alternate approach to solving a problem other than him having direct combat with the villain would be nice.

[NitroEX]

It amazes me how many people still don't seem to grasp the fact that Gohan is a slave to the whims of whoever writes the show. If they want him to be a constant failure at everything he does (which clearly seems to be their agenda) then that's precisely what we're going to see from him in Super. Whether he's made a mockery of for not being Future Gohan, or failing to protect anyone against Freeza, or being the only fighter to consistently get one shotted after a long pointless buildup, this is all their doing, and it's serving a purpose. Even the loss of Mystic and SS2 (which fans laughably tried to justify) was a clear conscious decision intended to make him appear lesser than Goku and Vegeta, which was in and of itself a redundant and boneheaded move considering the God transformations they gave them. It just goes to show you the level of incompetence of those in charge and it's in no way the fault of a fictional character or a "natural progression" of said character in any way.

Getting back on point though. Yes, I think it absolutely was a wasted opportunity to not utilize Gohan in this arc. They pointlessly wasted time showing Future Trunks dwelling on his mentor's death all for the purpose of leading into the hilarious punchline of Gohan being a nerdy family man. Comedic genius amirite?

In the hands of competent writers this could have been the perfect opening to further explore their relationship and perhaps, in a bizarre twist of fate, have Future Trunks become a mentor to Gohan in some way. Maybe passing along important wisdom or perhaps even just a profoundly inspirational quote that Future Gohan told him. Maybe this could have been the key to inspiring Gohan to do something with his power or rethinking his priorities and trying harder to protect his loved ones. If Gohan travelled to the Future with him and saw the post apocalyptic version of his world (and maybe even met a Future version of Videl...) that could've also had a profound impact on him which could've helped him grow as a character, the show practically writes itself! They could have taken it in a number of different directions and done it respectfully but no, instead we have to spend important screentime disrespecting Gohan and writing him off TV for no good reason.

Based on the previous arcs and the trend we've been seeing in DB Super I don't believe they'll properly utilize him ever again and to be honest, at this point it's too late even if they did. They've thoroughly killed all of Gohan's credibility and regressed him backwards from what he was in the Buu arc. It's really quite tragic to see a great character wasted like this.

[Doctor.]

No, Gohan is a useless, waste of a character at this point and Toei and Toriyama have made the right decision in retiring him. Too late to fix his flaws.

[VegettoEX]

They pointlessly wasted time showing Future Trunks dwelling on his mentor's death all for the purpose of leading into the hilarious punchline of Gohan being a nerdy family man. Comedic genius amirite?

Different people experience and appreciate art in different ways, and everyone's entitled to their own opinion:

But holy crap did you miss the entire point of that scene/episode.

The point wasn't to mock Gohan, to ding him, to knock him down a few pegs, or get a laugh at his expense. The point was to show, "Hey, he's happy, Trunks is happy for him, and everything's totally cool here. It's OK. Really, it's fine. Everything is fine."

It seems like you took personal offense to this. That's your deal to work on, not Gohan's.

[TheBritWriter]

His absence throughout all of Super has been a big miss.

They changed a lot with RF so they could've had him fight Freeza in his 1st form and force him to go into his final one before Goku and Vegeta arrived.

He could've went to the tournament instead of Monaka and maybe beat Frost instead of Vegeta.

I agree with the first part, looking back with the RF arc they did miss a chance to give Gohan one last shout, before being retiring. I don't think they went as far as they could have.

I wouldn't say him going to the tournament, for one it would had limited vegeta's exposure, one thing Super has balanced better is that other characters are getting as much as a fight and win ratio as Goku, vegeta is now the case, Trunks has kept up and there's even more powerful characters that keep things in check and interesting. The other problem is Gohan no longer has the motivation to push himself or experience to deal with someone like frost (whose greatest strength was his deception)

As for the question of the topic, no Gohan isn't a big miss in the arc, yes it is weird they have a scene where Gohan wants to train again but some episodes later he's pretty much had the episode that implied he has retired from fighting or from being the Gohan we wanted him to be. We may get a Gohan comeback but I'd say the sun had set on his role a long time ago, if anything their consistent on Gohan, we all know at end of Z he is a full fledged scholar and with Super set before the last episode of Z then it was inevitable we see Gohan's transistion from fighter to scholar coming into effect.

It's not like Gohan was a hardcore fighter to begin with, there were only two main moments of that, him becoming ssj2 or becoming mystic and as awesome that form was he ultimately bundled his chances in dealing with buu. Goku's death in Z came about because Gohan was being too cocky against Cell.

In comparison Future Trunks never faulted, never cocky or hesitant. So if we had a 'training' bout between Gohan and Trunks what point would there be? This wasn't the same Gohan that trained him, the idea of the two training wasn't brought up in Z because Trunks was more interested in meeting the father he never met.

Time has moved on, Gohan at this stage is rooted in raising a family, Trunks has been rebuilding his own world before black came, he avenged Gohan's death and got rid of the Androids so he too has moved on, he even has a love interest of course everything turns on it's head once his mother is killed, so the arc has become a bit of 'the briefs arc' Given Bulma, Vegeta and Trunks are directly involved in it. Even Mai is tagged into this, then you have zamasu's vendetta against Goku so there isn't anywhere for Gohan to fit in or connect. The slice of life episode between Trunks and Goahn was enough screentime

Gohan's main story arc was done, from being an extension to Goku's inner circle of family to being raised as a brief prospect of protecting the earth with Z focusing the rest of his character arc fulfilling his studying, he's pretty much done, even in the Buu saga, it was that blip of mystic Gohan that fuelled ideas that never came to be.

[namekiansaiyan]

No, Gohan is a useless, waste of a character at this point and Toei and Toriyama have made the right decision in retiring him. Too late to fix his flaws.

Definitely correct in retiring him. At this point it is hard to think of a logical way to get him involved.

Gohan will probably get an arc in the future sometime. This was Trunks arc with Goku/Vegeta, next time the focus will likely shift to someone else especially since he'll stay in his time.

An arc focused on Gohan, are you being serious?



I think Toriyama right now has it fixed in his head that Gohan does not fight and will not change his mind.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Not really. Trunks has basically filled the void of a Gohan in this arc getting BS powerups and keep on surviving we don't need two of them. Plus not to mention Gohan is a pretty boring character so he really wouldn't bring anything new to the table.

[TheGreatness25]

That's sad since Gohan used to be one of the best characters, if not the best. I never really liked him when I was younger, but as an adult, I understand his character a lot more and he's much more fascinating than someone simple like Goku and Vegeta.

[precita]

Gohan is not going to sit out for the entire 100+ span or whatever Super goes on for. He's definitely going to get an arc eventually. I have no idea why people think otherwise.

[fadeddreams5]

I have no idea why people think otherwise.

Because he's been absent in the two most important arcs of the show, one of which was a tournament.

Also, they've retconned his hidden powers and stripped him of anything that made him unique, instead giving it to other characters.

[Cipher]

Nah. Not every character needs to remain in the spotlight every arc.

I don't think Gohan has gotten the most graceful transition out of a fighting life in Super (it really was better left to a timeskip if it was just going to suddenly happen, and with waffling, no less), but I don't really agree with the arguments that a story line is less interesting or effective just because it doesn't make heavy use of Gohan, Kuririn, Piccolo, or whatever other previous focal character. Gohan isn't particularly needed in this story line, so it isn't a distraction that he sits it out.

Where the fuck is Boo though.

[NitroEX]

The point wasn't to mock Gohan, to ding him, to knock him down a few pegs, or get a laugh at his expense. The point was to show, "Hey, he's happy, Trunks is happy for him, and everything's totally cool here. It's OK. Really, it's fine. Everything is fine."

I'd say you're only half right there. Yes, the ending of the episode is to show that Gohan is happy (and that Trunks yearns for the same peaceful life) but the execution and tone of that episode was undeniably played for comedy with Gohan's portrayal being that of a silly/nerdy guy to juxtapose his future counterpart (and a lesser extent his Cell games self). Now that isn't a bad thing in and of itself but the problem is that none of this leads anywhere for Gohan's character to develop, he's basically written off to do his own thing after this so the lasting impression we're left with is just that, an irredeemable nerdy guy who we can no longer depend on. The show is basically reinforcing this idea that he's useless to the story when in the past he's always been shown to be a capable fighter with endless potential. We all know that in a series such as this one, which revolves around fighting, a character who doesn't is mostly perceived by fans to be unimportant to the story. You even have Piccolo driving this point home in dialogue to Trunks along with Goku's line about Gohan in the prior arc. All of this is calculated and deliberately done to diminish his presence in the story and it's totally unnecessary.

All I'm saying is that the story choice they made here was clearly not the only option they could've gone in. And before you say it. Yes, I know the Black arc is largely built around Trunks, I get it. I'm not saying Gohan should've hijacked the story and made it about him. There is such a thing as a subplot however which Gohan could, in theory, have fit into.

It seems like you took personal offense to this. That's your deal to work on, not Gohan's.

Because I'm criticising the writing? By that logic I could just as easily declare that anyone who swoops in to defend Super from criticism is also personally offended. This just seems to be an attempt at shutting down dissenting opinion.