kinisking wrote:
The other thing is that Gohan was never stated to be a bad fighter like some people say. The story itself, had nothing but positive things to say about him. People think he is because he never got the chance to use strategy in Z but he was always completely out classed or out clashing his opponents. According to that logic, Tien is a bad fighter. He has interesting techniques, sure, but Goku showed why they were useless. He's never used strategy either. Gohan might not be the smartest fighter in the series but to act like he's a bad fighter is ridiculous. Especially when most of his fights are when he was younger than 11.
The story doesn't need to hold my hand and tell me that Gohan is a mediocre fighter. He has never shown the amount of skill or techniques compared to the entire human cast, Goku, Vegeta, and Piccolo. He either dominates his enemies or he goes down quickly. There is nothing to point to that says that he's anything above average and what carries him through is his latent power and rage boosts.
Using Tien is just stupid. Tien have shown several clever tactics and skill. Him getting outsmarted by Goku, who he was about even with when they first fought, simply shows that Goku is better than him in this area. And it's an outright lie to say that Tien never used strategy. He had a brilliant one when he destroyed the ring during the 22 World Martial Arts Tournament, which would eventually forced Goku into a ring out since he couldn't fly while he could. He only messed up because he stood within Goku's attack range.
Vegeta, even when outclassed, also showed more tactical smarts than Gohan even when outclass. Just look at his entire fight with Recoome when he got several sneak attacks in despite fighting a losing battle. So you can't used the excuse, 'well, Gohan is almost always outclass' as an excuse for his poor ability to think ahead and just use bull charges.
The only fighters that Gohan are superior to from a technical point of view are the androids who are more like street brawlers and Fat Buu who relies heavily on his broken and natural abilities to get ahead. Even then, Buu showed pretty interesting stuff when he was getting his butt handed to him by Kid Buu.
kinisking wrote:
Gohan does not mourn to himself that he should have let Goku or Vegeta handle Dabura. I don't know where you're getting that from?
See the thing is Gohan didn't go from meek and having confident issues to thinking he was the best thing ever! He went from a person with a regular esteem that had an insecure moment to a person that was having a confident moment. That's not unheard of considering it was two different events and two different days. Just because he has insecure moments doesn't mean he's insecure. Just because he has confident moments doesn't mean he's only confident. I don't see why he can't be a mix of both? Insecure when he fails at something and confident when he thinks he has a chance at succeeding. Just like a regular person.
Gohan said he'll hold him off and told Krillin to get others to safety implying that he was confident in his ability to fight Beerus.
In ROF, he interrupts Shisami's and Piccolo's fight because he's confident he'll be able to end it. He doesn't want to "take any chances" with Piccolo. What Gohan said to bulma wasn't confident, I'll agree. But I'm not here to debate whether or not he has insecure moments. I'm just saying it's not part of his default character. He's a regular person that has confident moments and insecure moments. He knows when to be confident and knows when to be humble, that's one of the reasons why I like him.
Again, you're assuming A WHOLE LOT. Like I said, Gohan didn't want Gotenks to fight. He rejected the notion completely. He only let them fight when they fused without his permission and he noticed how strong they were. Even then, he told them to be careful. If anything Trunks was the one who was being cocky. He was the one who flat out disrespected Piccolo and told him that Boo wouldn't be able to do anything to them.
He mourned about his performance to Dabura after Vegeta tore him a new one.
Gohan went from having confident issues, to toying and humoring Super Buu. That doesn't make any sense no matter how he sliced it, especially since there is a huge different between having confidence and being Vegeta.
That really isn't confident. That's a hold the line mentality.
The point is that Gohan's character isn't default to self-confidence. He's normally cautious, which is why he said, 'I can take care of his men, maybe' and him taking care of Shisami quickly instead of letting the fight drag is showing Gohan as being cautious, not self-confident. Namely, Piccolo maybe able to handle this guy, but it's best to take him down quickly just in case he has something up his sleeve. Basically the same mentality he should of had against Super Buu.
That isn't assuming, that is exactly what happened. He saw Buu, but instead of taking him out quickly and being down with it, he humored Buu and Goten and Trunks' request to fight. If he had the same mentality he showed in Resurrection 'F' with with Shisami, he could have easily said, 'You can probably beat Buu, but best not to take any chances' and then one-shot Buu. The fact that he didn't kill Buu right away instead of listening to his request to fight Gotenks shows that he was being arrogant, especially when Piccolo said something wasn't right. So, Gohan has no excuse, especially if you're going to reference Gohan taking out Shisami.
