Why is there (or actually is there...?) so much toxic fanon in the Dragon Ball fandom?

[SupremeKai25]

You think this fandom is toxic? You should consider yourself lucky that romance is irrelevant in Dragon Ball and shipping wars never took a hold in this fandom.

Go ask Horikoshi author of My Hero Academia what he thinks about that. I heard the My Hero fandom is a bit unstable these days, LOL!

Or just look at Naruto in 2014. Shipping wars constitute a large part of a fandom's toxicity, and as a matter of fact, shipping wars are not a thing in Dragon Ball.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

You think this fandom is toxic? You should consider yourself lucky that romance is irrelevant in Dragon Ball and shipping wars never took a hold in this fandom.

Go ask Horikoshi author of My Hero Academia what he thinks about that. I heard the My Hero fandom is a bit unstable these days, LOL!

Or just look at Naruto in 2014. Shipping wars constitute a large part of a fandom's toxicity, and as a matter of fact, shipping wars are not a thing in Dragon Ball.

Is there the same kind of hatred toward any of the Japanese My Hero Academia or Naruto cast that we see towards Masako Nozawa as Goku?

I'd rather see shipping wars than see the kind of disrespect we've seen towards Nozawa, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

[SupremeKai25]

You think this fandom is toxic? You should consider yourself lucky that romance is irrelevant in Dragon Ball and shipping wars never took a hold in this fandom.

Go ask Horikoshi author of My Hero Academia what he thinks about that. I heard the My Hero fandom is a bit unstable these days, LOL!

Or just look at Naruto in 2014. Shipping wars constitute a large part of a fandom's toxicity, and as a matter of fact, shipping wars are not a thing in Dragon Ball.

Is there the same kind of hatred toward any of the Japanese My Hero Academia or Naruto cast that we see towards Masako Nozawa as Goku?

I'd rather see shipping wars than see the kind of disrespect we've seen towards Nozawa, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Uhm, Yes? I'm not going to link or post anything because it's very terrible vitriol, but you can easily look for yourself on Twitter or Reddit. It's not even that difficult to find because Horikoshi is getting hated right now, since MHA officially ends this week.

Sakura is more hated than every Dragon Ball character and voice actor put together, and the writer of a Sakura light novel (Jun Esaka) got death threats sent to her and her newborn child by Sakura haters/Hinata stans/NaruHina stans.

Like I'm sorry but your post just reads like out of touch. Nothing in this fandom comes close to the vitriol of the shipping wars or wars between Sakura stans and Hinata stans.

[MasenkoHA]

You think this fandom is toxic? You should consider yourself lucky that romance is irrelevant in Dragon Ball and shipping wars never took a hold in this fandom.

Go ask Horikoshi author of My Hero Academia what he thinks about that. I heard the My Hero fandom is a bit unstable these days, LOL!

Or just look at Naruto in 2014. Shipping wars constitute a large part of a fandom's toxicity, and as a matter of fact, shipping wars are not a thing in Dragon Ball.

Is there the same kind of hatred toward any of the Japanese My Hero Academia or Naruto cast that we see towards Masako Nozawa as Goku?

I'd rather see shipping wars than see the kind of disrespect we've seen towards Nozawa, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Hey now using GameFAQ Forum is cheating. Deadass one of the most toxic nerd focused message boards I've ever glanced at.

But I agree, being one of the few anime fandoms free of shipping wars doesn't relieve Dragon Ball of toxicity in the fandom.

[Shaddy]

I mean, Dragon Ball kinda passed it's chance to even have shipping wars.

Someone said once that the modern fandom idiom absolutely would not be able to handle Vegeta the way he was in the manga, and I kinda see it. He's a mass murderer who constantly, constantly talks himself up, and subsequently repeatedly eats shit while making a series of increasingly-large self-destructive decisions, that somehow, coincidentally, puts him on the side of the heroes just long enough to become a sorta-ally, despite being maybe the second most-evil person in the series behind Freeza himself. Only for him to, multiple times, completely ruin that relationship and doom the group, all while being treated like more and more of a friend to the heroes anyway, even swooping up the female lead of the damn series and conceiving a child with her in the process, and giving only one pretty weak apology late in the series before he dies anyway.

The way the internet talks about stories nowadays would have you believe this is the worst character ever. He's an Azula without the pity, an Itachi without the remorse, a Vriska (Vrisgeta?) without the satire, because the ideas of "logical character progression" in criticism get in the way of just how masterfully Toriyama forced a psychopathic, genocidal complete fucking loser into the group, and succeeded on the vibes of the character alone. It turns out being really entertaining to watch can trump all scores of what "makes sense" from a writing perspective. He's the Riverdale of people.

Uh, the point being, the way Dragon Ball fandom developed, at least in the US, we didn't have the chance to get shipping wars or saiyan vriscourse. Every couple except Bulma was pretty much settled from the moment they first laid eyes on one another, Goku was already married with a child when most people first started watching, and Yamcha's thing with Bluma was only really present in the Saiyan arc before he was dead for Freeza and they split in the Android timeskip.

If Dragon Ball started today, we probably would have a lot of this stuff. But we've built this tower of duct tape on the backs of mostly dudes who watched toonami decades ago and think that Vegeta is a role model to get them to work out because he was a bit sad about not being as strong as Goku sometimes.

[JulieYBM]

Toxic Julie posts about Yamcha needing to get together with Tenshinhan would be amazing if Dragon Ball was a new title being released weekly in the year 2024.

[Majin Buu]

Hey now using GameFAQ Forum is cheating. Deadass one of the most toxic nerd focused message boards I've ever glanced at.

As someone who used to regularly post in that cesspool, I wholeheartedly agree.

[Saiya6Cit]

You think this fandom is toxic? You should consider yourself lucky that romance is irrelevant in Dragon Ball and shipping wars never took a hold in this fandom..

Oh... do you... really.... think so?

Then obviously you had never had to deal with the Yamcha fans... whilst being a Vegeta and Bulma fan. Just last week I had one of those at my Deviantart account, I swear they don't get tired of it.

And also in Latin America there are these group of people who support Gochi (Goku + Chichi) simply because they married (for hispanics a wedding is still something very... important because of traditions) and despise on Vegebul (Vegeta + Bulma) because they did not. And don't even make me start on the girls who ship Trunks + Pan or Goten + Bra, because in Hispanic culture age difference is not that bad as long as the man supports the woman financially and respects her/treats her nicely. ...

[FinalForumPodcast]

My thoughts on canon in Dragon Ball are that the instant you start talking about anything that's outside the purview of the 519 chapters of the manga as written by Toriyama, it's non-canon and it's all equally valid and invalid. I enjoy too much of the stuff outside what was originally written by Toriyama to just outright dismiss anyone's enjoyment of any aspect as "non-canon." The canon label in Dragon Ball borders on meaningless.

Even the manga is not exempt from "canon" hiccups.
Toei Bardock makes a cameo and is directly acknowledged during Namek.
Some of the Kaios from the Toei Afterlife Tournament arc make cameos and are directly acknowledged during Boo.

Canon never mattered in Dragon Ball.

Mentioning that in his mind, a character exists is not the same as acknowledging that the events that character undertook in the anime exist....but frankly I overall think we agree.

Getting up-in-arms about canon in the Dragon Ball franchise is pretty futile, considering how loose that concept has always applied to every aspect of it.

[Kunzait_83]

I mean, Dragon Ball kinda passed it's chance to even have shipping wars.

Someone said once that the modern fandom idiom absolutely would not be able to handle Vegeta the way he was in the manga, and I kinda see it.

.......

The way the internet talks about stories nowadays would have you believe this is the worst character ever.

........

Uh, the point being, the way Dragon Ball fandom developed, at least in the US, we didn't have the chance to get shipping wars or saiyan vriscourse. Every couple except Bulma was pretty much settled from the moment they first laid eyes on one another, Goku was already married with a child when most people first started watching, and Yamcha's thing with Bluma was only really present in the Saiyan arc before he was dead for Freeza and they split in the Android timeskip.

If Dragon Ball started today, we probably would have a lot of this stuff. But we've built this tower of duct tape on the backs of mostly dudes who watched toonami decades ago and think that Vegeta is a role model to get them to work out because he was a bit sad about not being as strong as Goku sometimes.

Just to lend some pre-dub/pre-FUNimation/pre-Ocean even context into this: these kinds of discussions about Vegeta actually DID sometimes occasionally come up in the old pre-dub/fansub-only years.

Allow me to do my best to sum up what those kinds of discussions were like at the time to the best of my memory/ability:

Person A: "I don't get it! Why do so many people love Vegeta?! He's an unrepentant, genocidal mass murderer and yet everyone seems to worship this guy as the ultimate badass anti-hero!"

Person B: "But... Vegeta's hot."

Person A: "He slaughtered children on Namek! Children. And he's such a fucking asshole to everyone at all times to boot!"

Person B: "Yeah I know, but... he's hot."

Person A: "And its not like he always kicks ass in fights either: he loses at least as much as he wins! He's a bully, he's arrogant, entitled, he's just a lowlife shitbag, and I don't get why the characters in the series put up with him nor why all the fans do either!"

Person B: "I know, I understand all of that. But the thing is... he's hot."

In essence, back in the early 90s there were simply a LOT of people drawn in by the sexual magnetism of a short dude with shredded abs, a giant widows-peak with receding hairline, and a perpetual scowl. Blood-on-his-hands be damned.

For further context: during this same time period, many similar such people (i.e. nerds) were also REALLY into Lestat from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles books for much the same reasons. Wolverine (short, hairball, fugly-faced comic book Logan I mean, not tall, strapping, handsome Hugh Jackman movie Logan who didn't exist yet) also enjoyed a similar such reception.

Even Steven fucking Seagal (speaking of widows-peaks with a perpetual scowl on a guy who is also a giant shitbag), at one point during around this time, was seen as "sexy" by some not-insubstantial contingent of people.

Point being, the pre-dub fanbase actually had the benefit over the Toonami/dub-era audience of being A) generally older on average and B) having a MUCH better contextual framework of DB by generally not having usually skipped the first half of it (at least nowhere to near the same extent).

And even within THAT context: it still didn't dampen Vegeta's popularity not one little bit.

Why?

"'Cause he's hot."

Sometimes the dick or clit just wants what the dick or clit wants.

[JulieYBM]

People love the taboo of falling for an evil character. I think it helps that a lot of villains have queer characteristics, which queer people can latch on to and view as relatable and sexy. Vegeta gets boring after the first part of the Namek arc, but that sort of ruthlessness and smug demeanor is hot as hell.

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

You think this fandom is toxic? You should consider yourself lucky that romance is irrelevant in Dragon Ball and shipping wars never took a hold in this fandom.

Go ask Horikoshi author of My Hero Academia what he thinks about that. I heard the My Hero fandom is a bit unstable these days, LOL!

Or just look at Naruto in 2014. Shipping wars constitute a large part of a fandom's toxicity, and as a matter of fact, shipping wars are not a thing in Dragon Ball.

Man I am now having flashbacks to when Bleach originally ended in 2016 and the fandom had a giant meltdown because Ichigo didn't end up with Rukia.

[Dr. Casey]

Pretty rare to have any larger group that isn't toxic and high-strung to some extent, especially if said group has prolonged contact with each other. Even in smaller 'large groups' like a 15 member family gathering or a classroom of 25 kids, social interactions are often bumpier than in a very small group of two or three.

[Shaddy]

In essence, back in the early 90s there were simply a LOT of people drawn in by the sexual magnetism of a short dude with shredded abs, a giant widows-peak with receding hairline, and a perpetual scowl. Blood-on-his-hands be damned.

For further context: during this same time period, many similar such people (i.e. nerds) were also REALLY into Lestat from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles books for much the same reasons. Wolverine (short, hairball, fugly-faced comic book Logan I mean, not tall, strapping, handsome Hugh Jackman movie Logan who didn't exist yet) also enjoyed a similar such reception.

Even Steven fucking Seagal (speaking of widows-peaks with a perpetual scowl on a guy who is also a giant shitbag), at one point during around this time, was seen as "sexy" by some not-insubstantial contingent of people.

Point being, the pre-dub fanbase actually had the benefit over the Toonami/dub-era audience of being A) generally older on average and B) having a MUCH better contextual framework of DB by generally not having usually skipped the first half of it (at least nowhere to near the same extent).

And even within THAT context: it still didn't dampen Vegeta's popularity not one little bit.

Why?

"'Cause he's hot."

Sometimes the dick or clit just wants what the dick or clit wants.

Oh I understand this part of it. Every character I compared Vegeta to was highly lusted-after within their own fandoms, and like Julie says, them being horrible bastards is part of the appeal, not just an unfortunate trait to be dismissed. All four of these chucklefucks are both horrible people acting on their own autonomy to commit terrible acts (Yes including Itachi, don't fucking @ me) and are semi-tragic reflections of the kind of emotional nightmare produced by a deeply fucked-up society. Vegeta is just the least apologetic about it, both as a character and in his treatment by the story. I mean what, the Super chapter where he apologizes for murdering all those namekians came out, what, 30 years after the one where he did it? And possibly wasn't even Toriyama's call anyway.

...At least, I hope that's a bigger factor of these characters' than two of them being younger than fifteen. Both the women, perhaps unsurprisingly.

[JulieYBM]

In essence, back in the early 90s there were simply a LOT of people drawn in by the sexual magnetism of a short dude with shredded abs, a giant widows-peak with receding hairline, and a perpetual scowl. Blood-on-his-hands be damned.

For further context: during this same time period, many similar such people (i.e. nerds) were also REALLY into Lestat from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles books for much the same reasons. Wolverine (short, hairball, fugly-faced comic book Logan I mean, not tall, strapping, handsome Hugh Jackman movie Logan who didn't exist yet) also enjoyed a similar such reception.

Even Steven fucking Seagal (speaking of widows-peaks with a perpetual scowl on a guy who is also a giant shitbag), at one point during around this time, was seen as "sexy" by some not-insubstantial contingent of people.

Point being, the pre-dub fanbase actually had the benefit over the Toonami/dub-era audience of being A) generally older on average and B) having a MUCH better contextual framework of DB by generally not having usually skipped the first half of it (at least nowhere to near the same extent).

And even within THAT context: it still didn't dampen Vegeta's popularity not one little bit.

Why?

"'Cause he's hot."

Sometimes the dick or clit just wants what the dick or clit wants.

Oh I understand this part of it. Every character I compared Vegeta to was highly lusted-after within their own fandoms, and like Julie says, them being horrible bastards is part of the appeal, not just an unfortunate trait to be dismissed. All four of these chucklefucks are both horrible people acting on their own autonomy to commit terrible acts (Yes including Itachi, don't fucking @ me) and are semi-tragic reflections of the kind of emotional nightmare produced by a deeply fucked-up society. Vegeta is just the least apologetic about it, both as a character and in his treatment by the story. I mean what, the Super chapter where he apologizes for murdering all those namekians came out, what, 30 years after the one where he did it? And possibly wasn't even Toriyama's call anyway.

...At least, I hope that's a bigger factor of these characters' than two of them being younger than fifteen. Both the women, perhaps unsurprisingly.

Sure, Itachi committed genocide against his own clan, but I can fix him!

[Shaddy]

Sure, Itachi committed genocide against his own clan, but I can fix him!

-Masashi Kishimoto

[Goe]

Personally, I am not sure there is currently so much toxicity in DB fandom, but it was in early 2000s.

I was an active member of another DB forum between 2006 and 2010. In this forum, the word canon wasn't used because that word was popularized later, but even if the word "canon" wasn't known yet, it was the concept: the manga was the authentic story, and movies, filler, videogames wasn't. Everyone who commited a mistake (for example, talking about an anime filler as "authentic") was called a n00b and sometimes cyberbullied. Lots of new users were teenagers or even children so they usually said some non-sense things like "who would win, Perfect Cell or Broly? I think Broly because is the Legendary Super Saiyajin". Being the Legendary Super Saiyajin wasn't a good reason, so a bunch of members would insult that poor user, and if he/she has a forum, his/her forum would probably be hacked for being a n00b.

In that forum, for being popular, you:

1) should consider Toriyama's manga is perfect, while Toei's anime is full of inconsistences.
2) should never say Toriyama commited a mistake (One guy said Toriyama did a mistake because Goku destroyed Cell's head and later Cell said his regeneration organ is in his head and people made fun of him telling Cell's words weren't literal. They also justified Bardock breathing in outer space saying "there may be oxygen near planet Vegeta". However, trying to justify Toei's mistakes was dangerous there).
3) should never commit a mistake about DB (for example: saying Videl is stronger than Chichi).
4) should be careful about other information (for example, one guy was target of laughs because he admitted being still a virgin)
5) should be a friend of the popular guys of the forum, and not the impopular. The impopular users were target to account hacks, hacks of their forums (if they had an own forum), and cyberbullied in some ways (for example, finding real photos of them and doing humiliating photoshop editings to make laugh of them. Other form of cyberbullying was doing dubbed videos with loquendo making fun of them). Even the girlfriend of one of that users was cyberbullied even not being a member of the forum.

That kind of things happened between 2007 and 2008. At the beggining, forum admins and mods tried to stop it, but under pressure of the forum bullies (who were popular) decided to tolerate that until someone share a photo of the forum admin. Then, the admin was worried to became a victim of photoshop editings and absolutely forbade that kind of things.

I was not underage but too young then (19-20 years), and remember not being a bully but being afraid of facing bullies, so I never complained about at the time of the events. I tried to stop participating in that forum but I loved DB so much and I couldn't, but that was REAL TOXICITY.

I don't perceive toxicity in DB fandom nowadays except to some anecdotes. For example:

1) I said I like 1990s Bardock more than Super Bardock and someone called me fanboy and ordered me to shut up (in Youtube)
2) I said I prefer Tenkaichi 2 more than 3 and someone ordered me to shut up (Youtube)
3) When Toriyama died, someone post in Instagram a photo of him and a bunch of quotes he supposely said. I said I disagree with one of that quotes but despite of that, I love Toriyama and I am a big fan of him. 2 guys insulted me for cuestioning Toriyama's words.

But they are anecdotical. According to my experience, DB fandom was really toxic about 18 years ago. Nowadays there are some toxic fans, but I guess almost all franchises have a bunch of them.

[Bloodthroe]

I don't know, but it reminds me of the wrestling fandom a lot, where people just argue over who could beat who. Just enjoy the ride and try not to get emotional about it.

[WittyUsername]

On the subject of Vegeta’s redemption, I think what really bugs me is how a lot of fans act as if he had a tragic upbringing and that Freeza ruined his life (which was little more than a dubism), when the evidence would suggest otherwise. By all accounts, Vegeta was an evil little bastard even by Saiyan standards, and he didn’t give a crap about the death of his people, or even his family, other than the fact that it gave him no one to rule over. If he truly cared about preserving the Saiyan race, he wouldn’t have gleefully killed Nappa for an incredibly flimsy reason.

The only reason Vegeta even hated Freeza was because working for him damaged his ego. He wasn’t out to avenge his people. He wanted to kill Freeza so he could be top dog. That’s not sympathetic, which is why I always roll my eyes when people complain about how Goku “stole” Vegeta’s kill in RF.

Vegeta also never expressed any actual remorse over his actions, at least not in the original series, nor did he have to face any consequences. He’s just accepted as part of the group, and even gets to have his own family. Piccolo and Majin Boo honestly have more believable redemption arcs than him.

[super michael]

On the subject of Vegeta’s redemption, I think what really bugs me is how a lot of fans act as if he had a tragic upbringing and that Freeza ruined his life (which was little more than a dubism), when the evidence would suggest otherwise. By all accounts, Vegeta was an evil little bastard even by Saiyan standards, and he didn’t give a crap about the death of his people, or even his family, other than the fact that it gave him no one to rule over. If he truly cared about preserving the Saiyan race, he wouldn’t have gleefully killed Nappa for an incredibly flimsy reason.

The only reason Vegeta even hated Freeza was because working for him damaged his ego. He wasn’t out to avenge his people. He wanted to kill Freeza so he could be top dog. That’s not sympathetic, which is why I always roll my eyes when people complain about how Goku “stole” Vegeta’s kill in RF.

Vegeta also never expressed any actual remorse over his actions, at least not in the original series, nor did he have to face any consequences. He’s just accepted as part of the group, and even gets to have his own family. Piccolo and Majin Boo honestly have more believable redemption arcs than him.

I agree no matter what Vegeta did, everyone still accepted him.

Vegeta let Cell go to get his perfect form and even attacked his own son, so he doesn't get to kill Cell.
Vegeta got possessed on purpose, just to get a power up to close the gap between himself and Goku.
Vegeta killed innocent people, just to get Goku to fight. Vegeta was going to kill more, if Goku refused to fight him.
Vegeta knocked Goku out and went to fight Boo by himself, even though that decrease his odds of winning.
Vegeta destroyed the Potara and refused to do the fusion dance. Therefore unable to protect the earth from Kid Boo.


Vegeta never thought of reviving the Saiyan planet or the Saiyans at all. He only thought about immortality.

As for DBS I don't like how they want everyone to think that Goku isn't a expert at martial art, especially in DBS Super Hero. That completely contradicts everything that he learned in DB/DBZ. The episode of Beerus in a costume, that was extremely bad, with how Goku was written. He had no common sense, a total pest and completely dumb. He couldn't see through anything at all.

Goku being forgetful in Goku Black Saga, is why Zamasu was unbeatable. Goku couldn't wait for Master Roshi to give him the tag, even though Master Roshi told him he was going to get it for him, which Master Roshi entered his house, while Goku was outside. He believe senzu beans gives immortality.

The writers of DBS they didn't care if the writing was good or if it made sense, the only thing they cared was that Goku has to be dumb no matter what. They didn't care how often they did it or if they went overboard.