What Retcon Would You Undo *Or* Tweak?

[BWri]

I would undo the existence of the Room of Spirit and Time even though its use in the Boo arc is very good and also I wouldn’t actually undo it, but holy hell is its whole existence (and having apparently been a known entity since back before the 23rd) kind of something you have to not think too hard about.

Oh yeah, agreed on all fronts. I've thought before that it would have made sense to have it be a place on Yardrat, but then it'd be more difficult to have it play a role in the boo arc (which is its most interesting use for sure).

Interesting that Super expands the concept by having there just be...other ones. Like the one Goku and Merus train in during the Moro arc is similar to the point where Goku immediately just knows what it is by its design.

I'd just have it be something that only shows up once every few years. So times when they really need it (like during the prep for the Saiyans) it wouldn't be there and other times they'd possibly be lucky. Or just have it show up at very specific times of the year, like a solar eclipse.

[MasenkoHA]

I could be misremembering but didn’t Toriyama (or at least Toei in the anime) handwave that training in the Room of Spirit and Time was incredibly intense? The implication being it would have been too intense for the Saiyan era Z warriors and they likely would have died training.

I think the bigger issue is that Goku apparently always knew of this room. I’d change it so Piccolo (now fused with Kami) is the one who tells Goku and Vegeta about the room with the idea being Kami deliberately withheld information about the Room’s existence.

[jjgp1112]

I could be misremembering but didn’t Toriyama (or at least Toei in the anime) handwave that training in the Room of Spirit and Time was incredibly intense? The implication being it would have been too intense for the Saiyan era Z warriors and they likely would have died training.

I think the bigger issue is that Goku apparently always knew of this room. I’d change it so Piccolo (now fused with Kami) is the one who tells Goku and Vegeta about the room with the idea being Kami deliberately withheld information about the Room’s existence.

Yeah, pretty much where I stand. It's plausible Goku would've avoided it pre-King Kai training but he really never thought to try it out as a cheat code for the Android threat? Piccolo/Kami hiding it from everyone makes more sense.

[PurestEvil]

Not sure why people think DB- is a retcon. The Bardock Special was Toei-produced.

Personally, it would be Super Saiyan Bargain Sale.

[MasenkoHA]

Not sure why people think DB- is a retcon. The Bardock Special was Toei-produced.

Personally, it would be Super Saiyan Bargain Sale.

The Bardock special was a Toei exclusive but the manga itself had Raditz state Goku was sent to conquer earth. So “Ackshually Bardock and Gine sent Goku to earth so he could be spared from Freeza” is the retcon.

[Koitsukai]

- ROSAT. It came out of nowhere, really.
- Goku coming from a particular "caring" family, that undermines the whole Earth-raised stuff that makes him a good saiyan, it wasn't his environment after all, it was genetics.
- New characters doing stuff in the past that makes already existing characters look less independent. Beerus and planet Vegeta. They don't need to include that to hype these characters. For instance, I enjoyed Moro having to do with Buu's rampage in some way, it supplements it, it doesn't completely change it like Beerus and Freeza.


- I don't have a problem with the potara timelimit (even if it lets them fuse now without major issues), but I would've preferred if the reason for it was that they were in another timeline or they were using the earrings from another universe.

[SupremeKai25]

The Potara plot hole was caused by Z btw. The Old Supreme Kai said that the Potara fusion is permanent, yet Vegito defused inside of Majin Buu. And afaik the "Influence of Buu's body defused them" explanation was just an interpretation from Goku, and not an objective story fact.

So in truth Super merely tried to fix the mess that DBZ started.

[MasenkoHA]

The Potara plot hole was caused by Z btw. The Old Supreme Kai said that the Potara fusion is permanent, yet Vegito defused inside of Majin Buu. And afaik the "Influence of Buu's body defused them" explanation was just an interpretation from Goku, and not an objective story fact.

So in truth Super merely tried to fix the mess that DBZ started.

That’s not a plot hole. I agree that I prefer Super just saying “actually potara earrings have a time limit for mortals”’ over the Boo’s GI problems explanation in Z but the latter isn’t actually a plot hole.


And let’s be real the retcon in Super only exist because Super wanted to bring Vegetto back for fan service and needed a explanation for why Goku and Vegeta needed not worry about a permanent fusion.

[kyppk]

The Bardock special was a Toei exclusive but the manga itself had Raditz state Goku was sent to conquer earth. So “Ackshually Bardock and Gine sent Goku to earth so he could be spared from Freeza” is the retcon.

I'm not sure this really is a retcon since Raditz could know the truth and be simply lying to Goku to get Goku to do what he wants, something he does repeatedly; or, Raditz doesn't know and is just guessing himself, since that's typically what Saiyan babies did when sent off to another planet.

The retcon is the reason Goku was sent to earth and not why Raditz says Goku was sent to Earth since that has no bearing on why Goku was actually sent to Earth. Regardless, Raditz is consistent in either timeline because he isn't a reliable source ironically enough.

[MasenkoHA]

The Bardock special was a Toei exclusive but the manga itself had Raditz state Goku was sent to conquer earth. So “Ackshually Bardock and Gine sent Goku to earth so he could be spared from Freeza” is the retcon.

I'm not sure this really is a retcon since Raditz could know the truth and be simply lying to Goku to get Goku to do what he wants, something he does repeatedly; or, Raditz doesn't know and is just guessing himself, since that's typically what Saiyan babies did when sent off to another planet.

The retcon is the reason Goku was sent to earth and not why Raditz says Goku was sent to Earth since that has no bearing on why Goku was actually sent to Earth. Regardless, Raditz is consistent in either timeline because he isn't a reliable source ironically enough.

It’s a retcon because we have no reason to believe Raditz was wrong. He’s also clearly not lying because he’s pissed to find the earth completely intact. Vegeta even considers Goku a traitor. There is no reason to believe anything else until Dragon Ball Minus came out….nearly 20 years after the original manga ended to revise this and say Bardock and Gine were the ones to send him to earth to spare him and Raditz made an incorrect assumption.

[coola]

99% decisions made by Toriyama after series ended in 1995

[Cipher]

To anyone fussing over the Potata time limit because it lets them fuse “without issue”: Blue Vegetto pops apart after minutes. The same bit that retconned the permanence also established why they’re no longer useful at the characters’ current power.

[Yuji]

I could be misremembering but didn’t Toriyama (or at least Toei in the anime) handwave that training in the Room of Spirit and Time was incredibly intense? The implication being it would have been too intense for the Saiyan era Z warriors and they likely would have died training.

I think the bigger issue is that Goku apparently always knew of this room. I’d change it so Piccolo (now fused with Kami) is the one who tells Goku and Vegeta about the room with the idea being Kami deliberately withheld information about the Room’s existence.

Didn't Goku say he spent a month inside it as a kid? If kid Goku can handle a month, then the Saiyan arc warriors could have handled at least six months.

[ABED]

The Room of Spirit and time has several issues - Supplies, a time limit (You can only spend two years inside the RoSaT over the course of your lifetime, the gravity is more intense, if I recall the air is thinner, and the temperature wildly fluctuates from REALLY cold to REALLY warm throughout the day. I could see how that would wear on anyone.

For the cyborgs, they had 3 whole years, so I don't see that there would be pressing need to train an extra year

[Ringworm128]

Main thing I'd do is erase Minus/change the Broli Super movie to fit in with Bardock TV special and filler segment where King Vegeta tries to fight Freeza. That includes using the old character and location designs.

I'd undo Raditz telling Goku he's an alien. I don't really have anything against it. But since the introduction of Saiyans has shaped the direction, storytelling, and style of the franchise more than anything else, I'd be very curious to see a world where that never happened, and what Dragon Ball would look like without it.

Was that really a retcon though? We knew nothing about Goku's parents before the Z portion of the series, so finding out he's an alien didn't really undo any previous information.

[DBZAOTA482]

All of Dragon Ball Minus. It totally undermines the poetic meaning behind Goku's backstory and him defeating Frieza by making it a Superman-ripoff.

[Hellspawn28]

I still think Moro sealing up Elder Kaioshin in the Z Sword would make more sense than Beerus doing it. Elder Kaioshin said that the person who locked him up was less dangerous and weaker than Buu. I could believe that Moro used to be weaker than Majin Buu millions of years ago.

[theherodjl]

I still think Moro sealing up Elder Kaioshin in the Z Sword would make more sense than Beerus doing it. Elder Kaioshin said that the person who locked him up was less dangerous and weaker than Buu. I could believe that Moro used to be weaker than Majin Buu millions of years ago.

That could work...but then you have to wonder why Moro would even do that when he was totally going to kill Dai Kaioshin and South Kaioshin. Moro likely would've rather killed off the Kaioshin because then Beerus & Whis would also disappear and he would have no one left to stop him. It's just not his style to let others live when he wants to absorb their power.

[WittyUsername]

Was that really a retcon though? We knew nothing about Goku's parents before the Z portion of the series, so finding out he's an alien didn't really undo any previous information.

A retcon doesn’t necessarily have to explicitly contradict anything that was shown before. The definition of a retcon is an addition to a story that retroactively offers a new interpretation to previous material in that story. When Dragon Ball was first written, Goku wasn’t intended to be an alien, but the reveal that he is one retroactively changes what we were previously shown.

[MyVisionity]

No, it's called retroactive continuity. The continuity has to be altered. Goku being an alien does not contradict anything that was previously written, so it is not a retcon.