Why is Gohan so stupid?

[super michael]

Being good at school doesn't make you smart in normal life. Gohan is just dumb in real life.

Maybe it is better to wait and see the movie, to see if Gohan is truly dumb. However most people that are good in schools and got a degree, are normally good in normal life.

[Cipher]

You ever fallen off of a workout routine because you were busy with work/school/stuff you enjoyed doing more?

Also, Gohan doesn’t owe the world his life just because he could be good at fighting. Obviously he’ll keep getting put in that spot and respond to it because he’s selfless enough, but geez.

[super michael]

You ever fallen off of a workout routine because you were busy with work/school/stuff you enjoyed doing more?

Also, Gohan doesn’t owe the world his life just because he could be good at fighting. Obviously he’ll keep getting put in that spot and respond to it because he’s selfless enough, but geez.

The unlimited ROSAT exist, so Gohan being busy isn't a good excuse. If the ROSAT didn't exist than that is understandable. All he needs to sacrifice is 1 day or less to make it 1 year or less in the ROSAT. He can train with Goku, but Gohan refuse to do that.

Gohan having power means he can protect his family, however he doesn't owe the world anything so in that you are correct.

[Hugo Boss]

So, do you think it’s reasonable for Gohan to spend one year worth of his life doing something he doesn’t have to do (he has Goku and Vegeta to protect Earth and their family), something that he doesn’t like that much as his father, instead of using his time with things that actually matter to him? Yes, one day will pass on Earth and for his family and work, but he will get older regardless.

[super michael]

So, do you think it’s reasonable for Gohan to spend one year worth of his life doing something he doesn’t have to do (he has Goku and Vegeta to protect Earth and their family), something that he doesn’t like that much as his father, instead of using his time with things that actually matter to him? Yes, one day will pass on Earth and for his family and work, but he will get older regardless.

Gohan didn't seem to have any problem in Goku Black Saga training alone in Vegeta gravity chamber.
Gohan didn't have any problem training with Piccolo, before he even knew about the ToP.
Gohan was training with Piccolo before the invasion, don't know if he was training before he was aware there was going to be an invasion.

However for some reason he doesn't seem to want to train with Goku, which is weird since Gohan had no problem training with Goku before the Android shows up and didn't have any problem training in the ROSAT with Goku.

[Koitsukai]

He can simply not want to do it. Nothing beats not wanting to do something you don't even have to do.

[super michael]

He can simply not want to do it. Nothing beats not wanting to do something you don't even have to do.

Why wouldn't Gohan want to train with Goku? What reason could he have to hate Goku?

[Hugo Boss]

Why wouldn't Gohan want to train with Goku? What reason could he have to hate Goku?

It’s about motivation. He has no reason to hate Goku, I’m not sure why you brought up this question. He simply prefers to train with Piccolo. He even brought this up while he was training with Goku. Goku is too complacent with him, while Piccolo is very strict.

[super michael]

Why wouldn't Gohan want to train with Goku? What reason could he have to hate Goku?

It’s about motivation. He has no reason to hate Goku, I’m not sure why you brought up this question. He simply prefers to train with Piccolo. He even brought this up while he was training with Goku. Goku is too complacent with him, while Piccolo is very strict.

I forgot about that interview, that is a good point.
As for Goku being complacent with Gohan, that I am sure was filler. It was before Goku transformed into SSJ and shot his Kamehameha at Base Gohan, which Gohan struggled so much until he transforms.

[Cipher]

The unlimited ROSAT exist, so Gohan being busy isn't a good excuse. If the ROSAT didn't exist than that is understandable. All he needs to sacrifice is 1 day or less to make it 1 year or less in the ROSAT. He can train with Goku, but Gohan refuse to do that.

Gohan having power means he can protect his family, however he doesn't owe the world anything so in that you are correct.

1) A day in the RoSaT is a year from his perspective, which is a year spent away from his research and writing--mental space he can't (and doesn't want to) afford. Try diving back into a thesis after being away from it for a year.

2) The RoSaT is a literal hellscape; it sucks to be in.

3) He's giving up a year of his lifespan to do so.

4) It's not his passion and there are other people equipped to confront supervillainous threats.

He'll learn some kind of lesson about trying to balance his potential/responsibility in a supeheroic sense with his own interests this time around, surely, but it's not really immoral or unreasonable that he's pursuing other passions over training. Especially when he's already so strong.

[DBZAOTA482]

Elder Kai's ritual gave him brain damage.

[Koitsukai]

He can simply not want to do it. Nothing beats not wanting to do something you don't even have to do.

Why wouldn't Gohan want to train with Goku? What reason could he have to hate Goku?

Reasons stated above by other posters. He wants to spend his time doing something else. It has nothing to do with hating people lol

[Seekeroftruth]

I am more disgusted at the entire premise of the movie. Really, Cell is the main villain? This movie is a bankrupt on creativity and is just a cash grab by using nostalgia as bait.

[lancerman]

It's worth noting that Gohan throughout his life has never actually needed to train to hit the powers that were decisive in battles. When we first see him, he loses his mind and is the only person that can actually do any damage to Raditz solo. Yeah he trains with Piccolo, but it doesn't really amount to anything and he only matters in the battle when he loses his mind again and gets a power boost. On Namek he got a power boost from Guru. He trained for the Androids and with Goku, but none of that amounted for anything until he got another rage boost and went SSJ2. Then Elder Kai gave him his Ultimate form.

Goku continously trained and pushed himself constantly for everything he got. Gohan is a phenom who just needs to get motivated enough to blow up on somebody. It's easy to see why someone like him wouldn't see the value in staying in training and vigilant.

[Swarna]

Gohan is a general victim of DB's terrible writing and character work, and probably the biggest casualty of it.

The worst is that we keep revisiting this point about the character, he says something that indicates a change or shift in attitude, and then the next time we see him he still has the same dilemma as if that never happened. Toei and Toriyama have unintentionally created a brain-dead amnesiac and/or sociopath with how much he appears to not give a fuck about real threats but simultaneously keeps saying he'll change. As a Gohan fanboy, I'd rather they have shelved the character outright instead of doing this fan service bait over and over again.

It's obvious they don't have the writing chops or balls to do anything with characters other than Goku/Vegeta. In the Q&A with Toriyama, he still had the same attitude about Gohan he's always had with regards to leading roles. He was scared the movie was gonna be boring, because Gohan is "plain". Toriyama genuinely thinks you can't make anyone other than thugs and brutes like Goku/Vegeta/Broly-type characters exciting and lead a DB story. Decades of fiction, and even other shonen with a variety of leading personalities stand in stark contrast to this. Please don't give me that crap about the "feel of DB" existing within Goku or how DB stories are written currently. It just shows a complete lack of imagination. A story doesn't have to be written like trash and retread the same things over and over again to have a specific theme or feel to it.

Spoiler:

Gohan was basically a side character NPC in his own movie! Piccolo was really the star of the show. I enjoyed the movie overall and many of the character interactions, but have to work really hard to overlook the writing (although that's not really different to other DBS-era content). Piccolo had to emotionally manipulate him into doing things through the whole movie. If you actually think about what Piccolo was doing, it's kind of fucked up. Dude leaves Pan alone with 2 Goku-level threats just to trick Gohan into awakening.

There's plenty of creative writing space and directions to go with DB characters like Gohan, Piccolo, and others, but the past couple decades have shown it's not possible because either they think DB isn't DB without bad writing and Goku/Vegeta repetition or genuinely don't know how to write and progress characters in an adequate manner.