Was Garlic Jr. so popular and Toei brought him back?

[TheRed259]

Was Garlic Jr. such a popular character back then in Japan and Toei decided to make a whole arc (10 episodes) about him? Why did they bring back a character from a non-canon movie to the actual show?

[nickzambuto]

The kids love Garlic Jr.

[Cipher]

I can't offer anything concrete on this, though I'd speculate it related his 1) being the only movie villain with a fate that allowed him to easily be brought back, and 2) having a personal connection to Gohan, but I'd love to to know if any material has come out over the years providing background on this admittedly pretty left-field decision.

[WittyUsername]

I think it had less to do with popularity, and more to do with Toei needing a villain for their filler arc, and deciding that reusing an already existing villain would be more convenient than coming up with a new one from scratch.

[precita]

At the time his arc came out weren't there only 5 DBZ movies? It's very simple why he was chosen:

Movies 2, 3 and 4 can in no way fit into the canon story. Either Goku or the other humans/Piccolo would be dead at the time, they weren't all together so it wouldn't fit. The Cooler movie on the other hand feels better to take place on Earth during the 3 years of training for the Androids.

The Garlic Jr. movie can easily be set as a prequel to DBZ, just with the only minor plot hole of Krillin seeing Gohan. Besides that, nothing else prevents it from fitting. It's also kinda of nice Goku and Piccolo have an uneasy team-up truce before Radditz, making their second team-up easier to swallow.

[DB1984]

And when he was brought back, they had Shigeru Chiba voice him. I dodn't know why they didn't have him voice him before, seeing how he also voices the similar-looking Emperor Pilaf.

[Hellspawn28]

They just needed a character for a filler arc and it was easier to bring back someone who was not really dead. I still wish they should have made up their own villain instead.

[JulieYBM]

I wish Garlic Junior would be brought back for Dragon Ball Super. I believe Kamiya Akira has returned to voicing him for Dragon Ball Heroes! It would be fun to have those two for a filler arc next year.

[Robo4900]

I wish Garlic Junior would be brought back for Dragon Ball Super. I believe Kamiya Akira has returned to voicing him for Dragon Ball Heroes! It would be fun to have those two for a filler arc next year.

I'd love to see that purely to see people who take canon seriously having an aneurysm.

[precita]

Garlic Jr. will make a triumphant return to Super where he will open the Dead Zone for the third time! And we will find out Garlic Jr. has been secretly training in the Dead Zone for decades since he was trapped there, and he's now about as strong as Super Saiyan Blue Kaoiken x 100 Goku!

With Goku gone training with Whis, it is up to Gohan to stop him once again!

[Grimlock]

Yeah, for people who really think Dragon Ball Super has no filler or the appearance of filler characters (like Gregory), they would certainly react to a movie character in Dragon Ball Super in a hilariously way. I'd like for a movie character to appear in the anime continuity too, but not Garlic Junior, he's boring as heck and I don't know about his popularity.

If I go by Dragon Ball Heroes, then I'd say he's barely remembered. He got a what-if form and appeared in a couple of trailers so far but that's it.

[KBABZ]

I think the others have got it right; he was the most plausible character to return (at least as far as DB movies go) and he has a direct relationship with several characters, including Gohan and Kami.

[Kataphrut]

I got the impression he was one of the least popular, since he doesn't show up in the games as often as other movie villains. I think he and Wheelo are the only ones left out of Xenoverse 2 at this point.

[DevoSlice88]

As other posters have said, I think that the reason they used Garlic Jr. in the filler arc between Frieza's defeat on Namek and his return when Trunks shows up is because Movie #1 fits in the most easily with the anime canon. It kind of makes Dead Zone a prequel to the beginning of Z by bringing the character back. I never really understood the hate for the Garlic Jr. arc because Dead Zone was one of my favorite of the DBZ movies so I liked seeing him come back. Even though the plot was kind of stupid because the idiot fell for the exact same trick and let himself get sucked into his own fucking trap AGAIN. Well done guy, well done. Like come on bro, Garlie Sr. is turning in his grave. Hahaha

On the other hand, I've always thought that Cooler would've made a cool villain to have showed up during this arc instead. They could've pretty much made a re-telling of Movie #5 with a few changes to make it fit during that time line of the anime. For example, Goku wouldn't be there, it would've occurred on Earth instead of New Namek (I think that's where they fought in Movie #5 but I haven't seen it in a while so forgive me if I got that wrong), Gohan, Krillin, Piccolo, etc. would have been the heroes. I just think it could've worked well in that point of the series. Rather than rehashing Garlic Jr.'s story.

Also I think it would've made a perfect segway into the next arc where King Cold and Frieza arrive on Earth only to be quickly smoked by Trunks. King Cold would've been more pissed when he learned his son Cooler was already defeated by the Z-fighters and he may have put up more of a fight. Then whole Cold family would've been taken care of in one 10-15 episode span. Plus it would've made Cooler anime canon which I think would've been pretty cool.