Can DB Ever Move Past Goku?

[UltraInstinctRorikon]

Bait and switch implies he intended to mess with the audience. He got far enough along with Gohan as the protagonist that he felt it wasn't working so he changed back. That's not a bad thing to not follow through with a plan.if the author doesn't think it's working.

Gohan had already become the strongest in the story and defeated Cell, so the end of the Buu arc was not going to be the start of his story and I find it odd that you think his story is only starting after a 500+ chapter story of which he played an important role for 2/3 of it. Finally people don't like him because he was written to become the main character. They like him because he's likable.

But then we go back to his reasoning. A reasoning I find merely to show his incompetence with writing. He spends several arcs focusing on a character, only to right at the finale of the final arc's conclusion gives the win to someone else. Like I've never seen anything like this in other fiction where they narratively push the child of the main character to be the main event throughout the series only to say "no" for the finale. I don't think Toriyama is deliberately doing this to spite anyone, it's just clear he's incompetent at long term story telling and works on whims.

His reasoning for Gohan not beating Buu is that he loves school now and he's a school boy essentially. Which was his own writing, his own cause, for wanting to write slice of life. Had Toriyama not wanted to write slice of life, then Gohan would no longer 'love school', and thus he would have no reason to not beat Buu, in his own views.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

But then we go back to his reasoning. A reasoning I find merely to show his incompetence with writing. He spends several arcs focusing on a character, only to right at the finale of the final arc's conclusion gives the win to someone else. Like I've never seen anything like this in other fiction where they narratively push the child of the main character to be the main event throughout the series only to say "no" for the finale. I don't think Toriyama is deliberately doing this to spite anyone, it's just clear he's incompetent at long term story telling and works on whims.

His reasoning for Gohan not beating Buu is that he loves school now and he's a school boy essentially. Which was his own writing, his own cause, for wanting to write slice of life. Had Toriyama not wanted to write slice of life, then Gohan would no longer 'love school', and thus he would have no reason to not beat Buu, in his own views.

'Incompetent' is an unnecessarily harsh way to describe Toriyama's writing. He wasn't sitting down to plan this all out ahead of time. There were no storyboards to keep track of plot points or aids to help brainstorm ideas. Toriyama was writing (and drawing!) everything from week to week. It must have been an exhausting schedule. By the time Buu comes around there's a good chance Toriyama could only motivate himself enough to meet deadlines by following the whims in his head. This wasn't a 20 year old artist with tons of ideas buzzing in his head and energy pulsing through his veins. Toriyama was a man in his mid 30s who'd been at this for a lot longer than he had ever planned to be.

I think it's fair to say that Toriyama isn't a Tolkein. He isn't someone who could ever plan a story out to the point where he'd be able to tell you the day of the week an event happens or what he moon will look like on that day. But Toriyama has shown that he can plan out an arc. He did it in the battle against Vegeta. He did it in the Red Ribbon Arc. And he managed it at the end of the Freeza fight (even if the rest of the arc is a bit all over the place).

[ABED]

You keep insisting that's Gohan's arc. It's not. Gohan had a complete story in his first arc. And you also keep insisting that he got cold feet at the last minute but If the conclusion of his arc is to become the strongest and take Goku's role, he had already done that in the Cell arc.

I think it's fair to say that Toriyama isn't a Tolkein. He isn't someone who could ever plan a story out to the point where he'd be able to tell you the day of the week an event happens or what he moon will look like on that day. But Toriyama has shown that he can plan out an arc. He did it in the battle against Vegeta. He did it in the Red Ribbon Arc. And he managed it at the end of the Freeza fight (even if the rest of the arc is a bit all over the place).

Plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. Planning isn't what makes for good writing. And Tolkien planned less than you think.

[UltraInstinctRorikon]

The quote system on this forum is very frustrating to me so I'm going to post the usernames I'm responding to since I keep messing up the quotes.

@It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips

Didn't he have a lot of free reign with Buu arc? And I've read a lot of things editors changed for the inherent betterment of the series. I don't really think writing is his strong suit. It's not intended to be an insult but he's pretty hit and miss with it in my opinion.

@ABED

Gohan's build up as the successor was progressed from the Saiyan Arc, to Frieza, to Cell with Goku dying and moving on and passing on the torch in story to Gohan for him to be protector of the earth. What should've been next was seeing Gohan get by without his father taking up that role that's missing. It was the obvious thing to do. And if Toriyama had cold feet with it, he shouldn't have written Gohan in Supreme Kai's World undergoing that training, he should've kept him benched and quit hyping him the two times.

He never did take Goku's role in full. Even with Cell that was coached on at the end by his father. But it was the perfect way to make him standalone in future arcs because then he wouldn't need that anymore. We never got to see Gohan achieve being "The Successor" in full so his progression was not concluded.

[ABED]

Gohan's build up as the successor was progressed from the Saiyan Arc, to Frieza, to Cell with Goku dying and moving on and passing on the torch in story to Gohan for him to be protector of the earth. What should've been next was seeing Gohan get by without his father taking up that role that's missing. It was the obvious thing to do. And if Toriyama had cold feet with it, he shouldn't have written Gohan in Supreme Kai's World undergoing that training, he should've kept him benched and quit hyping him the two times.

He never did take Goku's role in full. Even with Cell that was coached on at the end by his father. But it was the perfect way to make him standalone in future arcs because then he wouldn't need that anymore. We never got to see Gohan achieve being "The Successor" in full so his progression was not concluded.

He didn't take it because that's not really Goku's role. Goku is a powerful fighter who enjoys a good battle and will protect innocent people if he has to but it's not his raison detre. The reason he doesn't fully become a successor is because Toriyama didn't feel he was suited for it. If he doesn't think that arc is having it's desire effect, why complete it?

He couldn't know from the outset that it wasn't going to work and unlike a novel or even graphic novel, he can't go back and edit his previous work before it's fully complete. He has to by necessity make it up as he goes.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

@It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips

Didn't he have a lot of free reign with Buu arc? And I've read a lot of things editors changed for the inherent betterment of the series. I don't really think writing is his strong suit. It's not intended to be an insult but he's pretty hit and miss with it in my opinion.

Freedom to do what you want isn't always a good thing when you're burned out but I don't know how much liberty Toriyama had. With how all over the place the Buu Arc is I'd guess "too much" but it's still just a guess.

And sorry if I came off as terse! I guess I took "incompetent" as much harsher than you meant it. Hope you have a great night!

[ABED]

The effect of Toriyama's editors is I think overstated. I don't think they changed anything, they simply provided valuable input. A good creative person will listen to constructive feedback.

[MasenkoHA]

The effect of Toriyama's editors is I think overstated. I don't think they changed anything, they simply provided valuable input. A good creative person will listen to constructive feedback.

Yeah, people act like editorial mandates dictated the direction the Jinzo Ningen arc went in but other than maybe rushing Cell’s transformation to Perfect (which fine by me Semi-Perfect Cell wasn’t interesting and the editor was right he looked like a moron) there wasn’t that much pressure. It was mostly Toriyama taking a former editor’s jabs to consideration.


And it all worked for the best. 19 and 20 were not engaging villains (and honestly reminded me of how Whedon being forced to dump his Anointed One plot for Spike and Dru in Buffy because of the child actor’s unexpected puberty worked for the best) and I don’t know if 18 would have been redeemed if she and 17 ended up being “the real big bads” and making Cell a transforming villain meant Toriyama could tie him and the Cyborgs together instead of “Yes these are the real villains but now here’s a greater more evil villain”

[Majin Buu]

The Boo arc had Gohan slacking on his training and became weaker as a result. The turns of events could've shown Gohan to always be prepared for the next threat but that never came into effect till the Tournament of Power.

Which goes to the point I and many others have been making: Of course he slacked off, he's not Goku, he's not a dedicated martial artist that aims to surpass his limits like Goku is. He's going to enjoy the 7 years of peace without doing much fighting because fighting just isn't what he's about at the end of the day. Toriyama is just writing Gohan in-character.

And like Abed said, he already went through that arc anyway.

Which goes to what I brought up earlier about him inexplicably messing up due to being overconfident again when he should know better at this point given the price he paid for that last time; which by the way, this happens again after all of his hidden potential was brought out...again.

Toriyama had reached the point where he simply couldn't do anything more with Gohan without fundamentally altering the story, thus he reset his character development (again) for the sake of making plot stuff happen (again). Gohan's "arc" had been paid off and concluded not once, but twice at this point. Toriyama simply had no interest in doing it a third time.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

The Boo arc had Gohan slacking on his training and became weaker as a result. The turns of events could've shown Gohan to always be prepared for the next threat but that never came into effect till the Tournament of Power.

Which goes to the point I and many others have been making: Of course he slacked off, he's not Goku, he's not a dedicated martial artist that aims to surpass his limits like Goku is. He's going to enjoy the 7 years of peace without doing much fighting because fighting just isn't what he's about at the end of the day. Toriyama is just writing Gohan in-character.

Toriyama was not "writing Gohan in character." Toriyama decided Gohan had slacked on his training for the same reason he decided Vegeta hadn't. Once he'd decided to bring back Goku, Gohan had to become a tertiary character again and Vegeta's love of battle had to return. There is nothing about wanting to study that means you need to be a shut in who never sees the sun or give up all other interests and hobbies. The only in story reason for Gohan to become weaker was how inconvenient it'd be if Goku and Vegeta were overshadowed by him. It's the same situation the Kaioshin found himself in. Vegeta and Goku needed to be the stars so all of his good advice had to backfire so that he came off as incompetent.

I know the fandom has decided that Gohan can't have a personality or traits outside of being book smart but try to think about how ridiculous Gohan's "character progression" is. For his whole life being weak has meant that other people can hurt him, his family, and his friends. One of Gohan's oldest memories is getting kidnapped and watching his father bleed to death. I can believe that such a child might grow up with a deep fear of violence and be ineffectual in a real fight. But that's not where Gohan ends up. Gohan ends up as a perfectly well adjusted boy who doesn't seem to have any experience with combat except on the most superficial level. He treats martial arts like someone who took a summer of karate as a teenager.

Now, I'm not saying Gohan should have been some grimdark, edgy 90s anti-hero or ptsd riddled mess. Both would be really out of place in Dragon Ball. But calling Buu Arc Gohan "in character" seems like a post hoc rationalization to me. There's no character. There's the role Toriyama wanted him to fill and there's the ways Gohan had to contort to fit said role. Gohan's trajectory makes no sense.

[UltraInstinctRorikon]

Yeah I recall even as a child wondering what happened to Gohan's personality in the Buu arc. And now that we have proof Toriyama was shifting his focus to write a slice of life for his own personal wants after a long shonen run, It's clear the Gohan in Buu arc is not the Gohan we all fell in love with prior but a new incarnation entirely. Which can have it's own fans, sure, but for us who grew up with the character from start to finish it'll always be jarring for us. But least we have Future Gohan to show us what Gohan would've truly been like personality wise older. Just a more mature Gohan with all the traits we came to love about him.

Kinda reminds me of Broken Skulls discussion with Stone Cold and Randy Orton where Orton says his baby face run was terrible because he thought he had to change everything about his character and demeanors to fit that role since he was accustomed to heel, and it really was terrible and they took the belt off of him cause it was clear he was not ready. It was only when he learned he can still keep his character and doesn't have to do all the dorky smiling and all that and still be Randy Orton.

This is why when people, mainly Goku fans who say "Gohan was not different at all" seem to miss. Gohan did not 'like' school, he always was more entertained goofing off and sparring. He only did schooling cause his mom forced him to so just from that alone is a huge difference. We see he dresses up as a cringey comic book hero as per Toriyama's typical gags, but nothing in the series prior showed he liked masked super heroes who do weird poses.

[ABED]

But least we have Future Gohan to show us what Gohan would've truly been like personality wise older.

A generic fighting shonen protagonist trying his darnedest to be his father? I'd say we dodged a bullet.

I haven't seen that interview with Orton yet but if that's what he was saying, he's wrong. He didn't take to the babyface role because he was an asshole and the title was taken from him because he was too young and immature for it. The cocky heel came easier for him because that's kinda who he was. It's not the same thing as what happened with Gohan.

I see where you're coming from with Gohan not enjoying studying, but he doesn't like "goofing off" either. He trained because he was forced to and he wasn't goofing around when he was training for the cyborgs. He didn't train for the fun of it. I think given Gohan's age from the beginning and end of DBZ, it's an easy buy that Gohan's interests would change a lot, especially during peace time. He's still who Gohan has always been at his core - a polite young man who wants to contribute.

[Skar]

But then we go back to his reasoning. A reasoning I find merely to show his incompetence with writing. He spends several arcs focusing on a character, only to right at the finale of the final arc's conclusion gives the win to someone else. Like I've never seen anything like this in other fiction where they narratively push the child of the main character to be the main event throughout the series only to say "no" for the finale. I don't think Toriyama is deliberately doing this to spite anyone, it's just clear he's incompetent at long term story telling and works on whims.

It's easier to consider what could've been in hindsight. Who knows what Toriyama would've done differently with Gohan if he had the chance. Maybe Toriyama would've had Gohan play less of role if he decided that Gohan wasn't fit as a main character earlier on. For example, Goku achieves SSJ2 or sacrifices himself to defeat Cell and Gohan is a stronger SSJ1 than his future counterpart but that's it.

[ABED]

Toriyama decided Gohan had slacked on his training for the same reason he decided Vegeta hadn't.

It's not a plot contrivance. Even if Vegeta didn't want to fight again, why wouldn't he keep training to be as strong as he could be?

[PurestEvil]

If Gohan should be a main character, Toriyama should not have made Gohan persist as a reactive character. A reactive character likely would not be a substantial enough protagonist to entertain the audience. Even though I wish Toriyama had not shafted Gohan, I believe he made the right choice in keeping Goku as the main character.

[jjgp1112]

If Gohan should be a main character, Toriyama should not have made Gohan persist as a reactive character. A reactive character likely would not be a substantial enough protagonist to entertain the audience. Even though I wish Toriyama had not shafted Gohan, I believe he made the right choice in keeping Goku as the main character.

That's where I stand too. My problem with the way the Buu saga ended was how Gohan basically ceased to exist after the absorption. Even if Goku's gonna be a hero, at least resolve that damn plot thread, too.

[super michael]

Toriyama decided Gohan had slacked on his training for the same reason he decided Vegeta hadn't.

It's not a plot contrivance. Even if Vegeta didn't want to fight again, why wouldn't he keep training to be as strong as he could be?

We know that Gohan never liked to fight, that was made clear on his first appearance. Gohan isn't the type that train when there is peace, so it isn't a surprise that Gohan became a slacker after Cell defeat.

As for Vegeta his goal has always been to surpass Goku, so it is no surprise that Vegeta continued to train.

Gohan isn't like Goku, Vegeta, Tien, Piccolo, Goten, Trunks and Future Trunks who likes to train and get strong.

[MasenkoHA]

Yeah I recall even as a child wondering what happened to Gohan's personality in the Buu arc.

Mostly he grew up. Gohan’s personality was built on being the cute kid character.

Can you really describe Gohan’s pre-Boo character outside of what’s required by the story?

He starts off a sheltered very polite and fairly articulate young boy who wants to be a great scholar, even telling Piccolo he wants to be a scholar not a fighter. He gets forced to being a child soldier by Piccolo and he really obviously does not want to be on the battle field. And it’s only out of a sense of duty, because Piccolo sacrificed himself to save Gohan, that he goes to Namek. Even training with his dad for the 3 years wait for the Cyborgs and then the Room of Spirit and Time was more of a “young boys want to spend time with their father”’ thing. He’s also not fighting these all powerful cyborgs to test his strength like Goku and Vegeta he’s fighting to save the world. He is a reactionary character and it makes perfect sense for him to not keep up with his training in a 7 year era of peace, and it also makes sense that he would want to help people.

And now that we have proof Toriyama was shifting his focus to write a slice of life for his own personal wants after a long shonen run,

It’s still a Shonen run. It didn’t switch demographics. A brief foray into parodying the super hero genre isn’t much different than Toriyama going harder on the sci fi in the Cyborg arc. I wouldn’t even call the Great Saiyaman stuff “slice of life”

It's clear the Gohan in Buu arc is not the Gohan we all fell in love with prior but a new incarnation entirely.

Gohan, age 4: “I want to be a scholar!”
Gohan, age 16- *Continues his studying habits that he can now focus full time on with no threat to mankind*

Totally different character.

. But least we have Future Gohan to show us what Gohan would've truly been like personality wise older

Future Gohan is a Gohan who grew up in a world where his friends are all dead and two psychopathic cyborgs have murdered most of the world’s population for kicks. It’s not anymore of a “true personality” than a Gohan who didn’t grow up with that horror.

It’s like one of the smartest things GT did was not make Trunks act like Future Trunks because why would he?

This is why when people, mainly Goku fans who say "Gohan was not different at all" seem to miss. Gohan did not 'like' school, he always was more entertained goofing off and sparring. He only did schooling cause his mom forced him to so just from that alone is a huge difference. We see he dresses up as a cringey comic book hero as per Toriyama's typical gags, but nothing in the series prior showed he liked masked super heroes who do weird poses.

Most of that goofing off was Toei additions. Toei pretty much did try to make him more Goku jr esque.

He may have wanted to be a scholar because of Chi Chi, but that’s like Goku being a martial artist because he was raised by Grandpa Gohan. Kids are products of their environment. Nobody is gonna say Grandpa Gohan forced Goku to be a fighter.

Telling Piccolo he doesn’t want to be a fighter but a scholar kind of points to it being something he wants and not something forced on him.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Gohan, age 4: “I want to be a scholar!”
Gohan, age 16- *Continues his studying habits that he can now focus full time on with no threat to mankind*

Totally different character.

"Characters only do things because they enjoy them!" "People don't respond to major events in their lives!" "It's totally normal to ignore character development if the regression is towards the very first version of the character we were introduced to!"

Vegeta turning his back on his promise (ignoring all of the events of the Cell Arc and the resolution to his conflict with M Trunks) is dumb. Gohan losing all common sense and becoming a dead weight shut in is dumb. You can't have major life events, try to pass them off as important, and then insist 'no, actually, they don't matter. They wouldn't have any impact on the character." This is so obviously stupid that even someone like, someone who spends most of their free time reading pulpy scifi, can see how dumb it is.

In the cartoon show Gargoyles one of the characters is shot because a friend came over unannounced and started playing with the gun she'd left unattended. After that moment whenever we see the character arrive home we see her remove the magazine from her weapon and place it inside a safe. According to this fandom if she had continued to leave her weapon hanging from a coat rack and gotten shot again by the same friend under the same circumstances, that would be completely in character for both. After all she likes leaving her gun lying around and her friend likes playing with guns! So it would be in character for this exact same scenario to come up again!

No. That would be stupid and if it had happened nobody would argue that it was in character. We'd call both characters complete morons.

[Majin Buu]

Toriyama was not "writing Gohan in character." Toriyama decided Gohan had slacked on his training for the same reason he decided Vegeta hadn't. Once he'd decided to bring back Goku, Gohan had to become a tertiary character again and Vegeta's love of battle had to return. There is nothing about wanting to study that means you need to be a shut in who never sees the sun or give up all other interests and hobbies.

No one ever said otherwise. He simply prioritizes academics over fighting. Fighting is something he only does when he has to. It's not something he hardcore dedicates himself to like Goku and Vegeta.

I know the fandom has decided that Gohan can't have a personality or traits outside of being book smart but try to think about how ridiculous Gohan's "character progression" is.

It seems to me many Gohan fans have decided that the series is an unmitigated failure simply because their favorite character never became the badass lead character they wanted (I can play the hyperbole game too).

But calling Buu Arc Gohan "in character" seems like a post hoc rationalization to me. There's no character. There's the role Toriyama wanted him to fill and there's the ways Gohan had to contort to fit said role. Gohan's trajectory makes no sense.

His character trajectory may be inconsistent due to Toriyama resetting his development, but he's not being written like a different character like you and UltraInstinctRorikon are insinuating.

Yeah I recall even as a child wondering what happened to Gohan's personality in the Buu arc. And now that we have proof Toriyama was shifting his focus to write a slice of life for his own personal wants after a long shonen run, It's clear the Gohan in Buu arc is not the Gohan we all fell in love with prior but a new incarnation entirely. Which can have it's own fans, sure, but for us who grew up with the character from start to finish it'll always be jarring for us. But least we have Future Gohan to show us what Gohan would've truly been like personality wise older. Just a more mature Gohan with all the traits we came to love about him.

In other words, Toriyama didn't take the character in the direction you wanted.

I grew up with the character the same way you did and I'm satisfied with what we got with him. I think him saving the Earth by becoming the strongest and defeating the big bad is the logical end point for his "arc", which we got in the Cell arc. I've never needed anything more than that from him in terms of trajectory and going into the Buu arc, had no desire to see that play out again with an older Gohan. Quite frankly, I think this whole issue of Gohan being "shafted" is overblown.

This is why when people, mainly Goku fans who say "Gohan was not different at all" seem to miss. Gohan did not 'like' school, he always was more entertained goofing off and sparring. He only did schooling cause his mom forced him to so just from that alone is a huge difference. We see he dresses up as a cringey comic book hero as per Toriyama's typical gags, but nothing in the series prior showed he liked masked super heroes who do weird poses.

I'm pretty sure it was never established that Gohan didn't like school or academics. His desire to help in a fight often conflicted with Chichi's overbearing desire that he focus on his studies, but he himself has never expressed that he dislikes academics.