GT treating the Z movies as having happened

[Kid Buu]

Vegeeta was an antagonist in the Freeza arc. He got to kill a few minor villains, but he was never a protagonist.

Fair enough he wasn't a protagonist but he served a purpose in the story without it coming across as "the plot is just stalling until Goku returns".

I mean, it's mostly just Gohan and Kurilin hiding from Vegeeta while he kills Freeza's fodder henchmen (only Zarbon wasn't totally pathetic). A pretty tedious game of cat-and-mouse.

The whole time, it's building up to Gokuu finally arriving and saving the day.

Yeah pretty much. I still really enjoy early Namek more than the latter bits.

[Kenji]

Pan never had much potential based on what we saw of the other Earthling/Saiyan mixes. Gohan, Goten, and Trunks didn't inherit the same passion for fighting that their Saiyan fathers had; there's no reason to think Pan would be any different, especially when she's only a quarter Saiyan.

That kind of mindset goes against Dragon Ball's ethos of "If you work hard enough, anybody can reach the top."
And Pan being a quarter-Saiyan doesn't really matter, as her great-great-greatson ends up becoming a Super Saiyan while she didn't.
There is no way you can read any of that other than blatant sexism.

Dragon Ball GT's worst offenses—barring queerphobia and racist shit—is how it handled Pan and completely dropped having a planned character arc for her and developing her as the co-lead.

It does seem like Pan will get that long awaited character arc in Super, but who knows what they'll do now that Toriyama is no longer with us.

In general, Dragon Ball has had a pretty awful track record on how it treated its female combatants.
I don't think Toriyama's presence would actually increase Pan's chances of actually being a good character, in fact, I'd say his presence decreases her chances of being anything noteworthy.

If you take Panzy's character in Daima as being Toriyama's take on GT Pan, then you can bet that Super!Pan wouldn't do anything other than looking cute and maaaaayyyyyyybe doing one minor useful thing during the whole show, but not more than that.

It's not anything new, Toriyama liked to introduce competent female characters, only to reduce them to nothing more than housewives after they're "put in their place" by a stronger male counterpart.
- Chi-chi was introduced as a strong female fighter... Only to be completely outmatched by Goku and becoming a hysterical mother parody.
- #18 was introduced as deadlier than Vegeta... Only for her to turn around and say "Oh, btw, my brother is even stronger" and be reduced to a damsel love interest after that.
- Videl was introduced as a strong female fighter with unlimited potential far above her father... Only to be brutally massacred in a disgusting display of "Women are allowed to be strong, but not too much. They're actually delicate defenseless little flowers, please feel sorry for this horrible man beating her up."

There is virtually no difference between how GT treated Pan and Toriyama treated his female cast.
Well, actually, there is: The GT Producers were disgusting enough to admit they don't view women favorably.

GT had all the pieces to make it just as good as what came before it, but somehow they managed to drop nearly every piece they had in the toilet. A proper arc for Pan, even if nothing else in the show changes, would've gone a long way in improving its quality.

GT in particular does seem to evoke a lot of that reaction in fans.
"This was such a wasted potential, it could've been much more than this."

But when you're over 40, and you realize that half of your time alive is gone, and every second you spend is precious... You realize that there are far more important things in life than getting frustrated that a 30-year old cartoon made for kids didn't turn out exactly the way you wanted it to be.

I mean, it's been 30 years, GT's time to shine and production has long ceased and no amount of our frustration will change it for better.
What we can do, however, is appreciate what is, rather than what we could get.

[Kid Buu]

I actually feel more nostalgia for GT than Z these days, but that might be because I saw GT in Japanese first. The soundtrack slaps hard.

[Zebra]

That kind of mindset goes against Dragon Ball's ethos of "If you work hard enough, anybody can reach the top."

That was never the case. Gokuu was always depicted as a freakish prodigy who makes ridiculous gains to get stronger.

And Pan being a quarter-Saiyan doesn't really matter, as her great-great-greatson ends up becoming a Super Saiyan while she didn't.

Becoming a Super Saiyan is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, because all of the Super Saiyans in GT were fodder except Gokuu.

Gokuu Junior and Vegeeta Junior seem to have inherited the same passion for fighting their ancestors had despite having little Saiyan blood, but they're just half-assed knockoffs of Gokuu and Vegeeta. Gokuu Junior is literally Pan's great-great-grandson; clearly none of her other descendants were anything special, so Gokuu Junior is an outlier.

If you need to basically be a clone of Gokuu and Vegeeta to like fighting or do cool stuff, then Pan never had a chance. Her general uselessness in GT wasn't because she was female, but because she wasn't Gokuu in any sense.

[Kenji]

That kind of mindset goes against Dragon Ball's ethos of "If you work hard enough, anybody can reach the top."

That was never the case. Gokuu was always depicted as a freakish prodigy who makes ridiculous gains to get stronger.

And Pan being a quarter-Saiyan doesn't really matter, as her great-great-greatson ends up becoming a Super Saiyan while she didn't.

Becoming a Super Saiyan is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, because all of the Super Saiyans in GT were fodder except Gokuu.

Gokuu Junior and Vegeeta Junior seem to have inherited the same passion for fighting their ancestors had despite having little Saiyan blood, but they're just half-assed knockoffs of Gokuu and Vegeeta. If you need to basically be a clone of Gokuu and Vegeeta to like fighting or do cool stuff, then Pan never had a chance.

You need to stop paying attention to the execution and pay attention to the message.

The message of Dragon Ball was always that you should always improve on yourself, and that anybody can be that strong if they work hard for it. And yes, that includes Pan, Videl, Chi-chi, #18, or whatever other character you want to include in this list.

If the writer can't convey that in the story, that's more a skill issue than anything.
And yes, I'm saying Toriyama is a flawed writer who didn't execute his message very well himself, come at me.
Doesn't stop from being a good message, though. I do wish Dragon Ball followed up on it, no matter who's writing it.
The show has nothing to lose and only to gain.

[Zebra]

You need to stop paying attention to the execution and pay attention to the message.

The message is hollow when the execution is terrible.

The message of Dragon Ball was always that you should always improve on yourself, and that anybody can be that strong if they work hard for it.

Yet so many characters remain weak despite having trained so much (i.e Tenshinhan), so it's a pretty pretentious message if anything.

The message is more, "anyone can be strong if they're a Saiyan, or just plain Gokuu".

[Kenji]

I do want to ask one last thing:

If you think the message was always hollow and pretentious, the characters were always fodder compared to the Saiyans/Goku, and none of this matters because the execution was always dogshit horrible... Why is it suddenly a problem when GT keeps on doing it?

Shouldn't it be more of a case of GT making more obvious a problem that has always existed in Dragon Ball, rather than inventing it? Shouldn't this line of thinking make the entire franchise "Goku Time" by your definition? Why is GT and only GT fair to define as "Goku Time" if you yourself is claiming everyone else was always fodder compared to Goku and the message was always hollow because its execution was always terrible?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I actually feel more nostalgia for GT than Z these days, but that might be because I saw GT in Japanese first. The soundtrack slaps hard.

GT also always aired with the original score in the UK and Ireland because we got the Blue Water dub.

[The Dark Knight]

Yet so many characters remain weak despite having trained so much (i.e Tenshinhan), so it's a pretty pretentious message if anything. The message is more, "anyone can be strong if they're a Saiyan, or just plain Gokuu".

This was never the case in the original manga. The Saiyans may have had an advantage later on, but despite that advantage, characters like Tien and especially Piccolo still got to shine alongside them.

[WittyUsername]

Dragon Ball’s message about hard work and self-improvement is heavily undermined by the fact that someone like Tenshinhan trains all the time, but is nowhere near the same league as the Saiyans.

In my opinion though, the hybrid Saiyans are the biggest thing that go against Dragon Ball’s supposed ethos. Gohan is a nerd who prefers studying over training, but he has unfathomable potential simply because of his genetics. The Boo arc literally has him become the strongest unfused character in the series simply by sitting around and doing nothing.

To get back into the “Goku Time” debate, I think the fact that the anime placed so much emphasis on Gohan, as well as the fact that Toriyama randomly decided to have him be the one to defeat Cell, is probably the big reason why the fandom has such an aversion to Goku supposedly hogging the spotlight.

[JulieYBM]

Jesus Christ, my forum account is twenty years old today.

Pan never had much potential based on what we saw of the other Earthling/Saiyan mixes. Gohan, Goten, and Trunks didn't inherit the same passion for fighting that their Saiyan fathers had; there's no reason to think Pan would be any different, especially when she's only a quarter Saiyan.

Toriyama was the one who came up with her GT design, and nothing about it came across like a warrior or martial artist at all. She just looked like a typical delinquent. Overall, she wasn't treated much worse than the other side characters; they were all pretty useless in GT. At least her presence could be felt more than the rest throughout the show, even though she was just an annoying damsel-in-distress.

None of that is important. Pan was clearly co-lead with established flaws that she needed to grow from. In a series about fighting, she would be seen developing in part by fighting foes and growing from it.

She never had much room for growth when she lacked a real passion for fighting. Ultimately, she was just too weak to keep up with Gokuu, and we all knew she wasn't going to catch up when Vegeeta, Gohan, Goten, Trunks, Oob, etc hadn't.

When so many other side characters were already given the shaft, it's no surprise Pan didn't amount to much.

Instead of having growth both in-and-out of battle, her relevance beomes strickly serving as a damsel in distress and catalyst for Gokuu to have cheap motivation for winning mostly otherwise empty battles that ultimately mean nothing, because Gokuu doesn't ever really change in the grand scheme of things. It's the same issue as in Daima and Super: Gokuu beats the antagonist and doesn't really grow and change, in place of letting someone else do so and change.

That's just how Dragon Ball has mostly always been. Everyone else sucks to make Gokuu look better.

I would definitely say early Namek (pre-Ginyu Force) is Vegeta's story and the early Buu arc is Gohan's. Outside of that most of Z is either Goku time or waiting for Goku time.

Vegeeta was an antagonist in the Freeza arc. He got to kill a few minor villains, but he was never a protagonist.

I'm criticizing the writing decisions to not have Pan receive focus and growth. The in-universe depiction of Pan reflecting said poor writing is irrelevant. If Pan isn't strong enough...you write her to become strong. You write her to learn lessons from the story and grow as a character. It's not that fucking hard to understand.

[Kid Buu]

Jesus Christ, my forum account is twenty years old today.

Congrats. Join the 20s club!

I actually feel more nostalgia for GT than Z these days, but that might be because I saw GT in Japanese first. The soundtrack slaps hard.

GT also always aired with the original score in the UK and Ireland because we got the Blue Water dub.

Yeah, I think if anything it's really the music that hits the nostalgia feels. Though I do like the Falcouner score I never rewatch DBZ with it.

[Kenji]

To get back into the “Goku Time” debate, I think the fact that the anime placed so much emphasis on Gohan, as well as the fact that Toriyama randomly decided to have him be the one to defeat Cell, is probably the big reason why the fandom has such an aversion to Goku supposedly hogging the spotlight.

That, and the fact that Cell, Boo and even the initial portion of GT placed a huge amount of focus on "passing the torch to the new generation," which was promptly abandoned in favor of more Goku and Vegeta each time it happened. I guess GT was just the time it stung the most for whatever reason. Personally, I stopped caring and just accepted Goku was the protagonist as soon as Gohan's High School Adventures were over.

[The Dark Knight]

The Boo arc literally has him become the strongest unfused character in the series simply by sitting around and doing nothing.

Sitting still for 24 hours straight, with nothing to do or look at, is a lot harder than people realize; in fact it's borderline torture. Gohan deserved every ounce of power he got from doing that.

Jesus Christ, my forum account is twenty years old today.

Congrats. Join the 20s club!

Both of you are now 20 years closer to meeting grandpa Gohan.

[Koitsukai]

You know, these people aren’t real. The so called lack of passion comes from the writers, not something inherent to the real-life characters the saiyans are based on. You simply have to choose to give a character passion.
With Pan in particular, we’re talking about a pretty much brand new character who clearly showed passion in EoZ. The "she had no fighting passion" argument doesn't work with her, at all.

It isn't inherited either, the passion, there's no passion gene. The main thing to inherit in this show is the power, which all of the hybrids got already.

[MasenkoHA]

Dragon Ball’s message about hard work and self-improvement is heavily undermined by the fact that someone like Tenshinhan trains all the time, but is nowhere near the same league as the Saiyans.

In my opinion though, the hybrid Saiyans are the biggest thing that go against Dragon Ball’s supposed ethos. Gohan is a nerd who prefers studying over training, but he has unfathomable potential simply because of his genetics. The Boo arc literally has him become the strongest unfused character in the series simply by sitting around and doing nothing.

To get back into the “Goku Time” debate, I think the fact that the anime placed so much emphasis on Gohan, as well as the fact that Toriyama randomly decided to have him be the one to defeat Cell, is probably the big reason why the fandom has such an aversion to Goku supposedly hogging the spotlight.

Gohan becomes the strongest and then still gets one upped by Majin Boo and gets his ass kicked six ways to Sunday. It’s not like it actually mattered in the end that he got a power up handed to him.


Almost every time a character is just hand gifted a power up it really never mattered. Even when Goku drank the Super God Water, probably the single worst example in the story of a character being given the win button, his victory against King Piccolo is almost immediately followed up with some humble pie served by Mr.Popo and Goku realizing he’ll actually need to train to fight the new Piccolo.


Like in real life some people are genetically predisposed to having an easier time gaining muscles, they still have to work for them. The Saiyans are at an advantage with their near death power ups but they still have to actually battle or at least work themselves out to near death like Goku on his way to Namek.

The hybrid Saiyans natural power is only useful as far as giving a handy explanation for why these toddlers can play with the big boys, since they’re not willing to put in the work they’re still ultimately surpassed by Goku and Vegeta

[JulieYBM]

The Majin Buu arc is muddled a lot by it being what was then the last arc of the series. Ignoring Dragon Ball GT introducing Super Saiyan 4, we're left with this idea that Gokuu and Vegeta will forever be behind Ultimate Gohan and Gotenks and the various Majin Buu forms. Gohan gets his ritual-based power up and Gotenks gets Super Saiyan 3 because it's funnier that way. We talk a lot about how Toriyama tried to write Dragon Ball Super as if he had been writing it in the 1990s, but I think that kind of doesn't fly when the Majin Buu arc itself needed to be altered to not do what it does with Gohan and introducing Fusion like it does.

This is a big part of why I don't care for Ultimate Gohan and wish that it had been left in the past during Dragon Ball Super. Either come up with Beast sooner or just give Gohan Super Saiyan God for the Tournament of Power arc.

[Skar]

I think the message in DB was more like "hard work let's you realize more of your potential if you have it" since almost all the strongest characters are prodigies, mutants, or some outlier compared to other members of their race. Goku was a low-class Saiyan but worked hard to unlock transformations that only Saiyans can achieve. If we imagine Goku as a human without Zenkais and transformations then by the end of Freeza saga might've only been slightly above Krillin.

Broly was a freak mutation and surpassed the god forms without God ki in a few hours or however long the battle lasted. The strongest humans were the Saiyan hybrids, cyborgs, and Buu's reincarnation that were far beyond regular humans with far less training. The strongest alien at the time was Freeza who was a mutant of his race and caught up to a few sagas worth of Saiyan transformations in a few months. The Gods of Destruction might be an example of hard work but for all we know they might be like Freeza and mutants of their race born naturally stronger with higher potential than everyone else. At the top are the Angels who are a type of deity that so far no mortal or former mortal like the GoDs has come close to.

[WittyUsername]

Dragon Ball’s message about hard work and self-improvement is heavily undermined by the fact that someone like Tenshinhan trains all the time, but is nowhere near the same league as the Saiyans.

In my opinion though, the hybrid Saiyans are the biggest thing that go against Dragon Ball’s supposed ethos. Gohan is a nerd who prefers studying over training, but he has unfathomable potential simply because of his genetics. The Boo arc literally has him become the strongest unfused character in the series simply by sitting around and doing nothing.

To get back into the “Goku Time” debate, I think the fact that the anime placed so much emphasis on Gohan, as well as the fact that Toriyama randomly decided to have him be the one to defeat Cell, is probably the big reason why the fandom has such an aversion to Goku supposedly hogging the spotlight.

Gohan becomes the strongest and then still gets one upped by Majin Boo and gets his ass kicked six ways to Sunday. It’s not like it actually mattered in the end that he got a power up handed to him.


Almost every time a character is just hand gifted a power up it really never mattered. Even when Goku drank the Super God Water, probably the single worst example in the story of a character being given the win button, his victory against King Piccolo is almost immediately followed up with some humble pie served by Mr.Popo and Goku realizing he’ll actually need to train to fight the new Piccolo.


Like in real life some people are genetically predisposed to having an easier time gaining muscles, they still have to work for them. The Saiyans are at an advantage with their near death power ups but they still have to actually battle or at least work themselves out to near death like Goku on his way to Namek.

The hybrid Saiyans natural power is only useful as far as giving a handy explanation for why these toddlers can play with the big boys, since they’re not willing to put in the work they’re still ultimately surpassed by Goku and Vegeta

Even in that specific example, Goku receives an even more massive power-up after the fight against Ginyu, without needing to do any additional training.

[MasenkoHA]

Dragon Ball’s message about hard work and self-improvement is heavily undermined by the fact that someone like Tenshinhan trains all the time, but is nowhere near the same league as the Saiyans.

In my opinion though, the hybrid Saiyans are the biggest thing that go against Dragon Ball’s supposed ethos. Gohan is a nerd who prefers studying over training, but he has unfathomable potential simply because of his genetics. The Boo arc literally has him become the strongest unfused character in the series simply by sitting around and doing nothing.

To get back into the “Goku Time” debate, I think the fact that the anime placed so much emphasis on Gohan, as well as the fact that Toriyama randomly decided to have him be the one to defeat Cell, is probably the big reason why the fandom has such an aversion to Goku supposedly hogging the spotlight.

Gohan becomes the strongest and then still gets one upped by Majin Boo and gets his ass kicked six ways to Sunday. It’s not like it actually mattered in the end that he got a power up handed to him.


Almost every time a character is just hand gifted a power up it really never mattered. Even when Goku drank the Super God Water, probably the single worst example in the story of a character being given the win button, his victory against King Piccolo is almost immediately followed up with some humble pie served by Mr.Popo and Goku realizing he’ll actually need to train to fight the new Piccolo.


Like in real life some people are genetically predisposed to having an easier time gaining muscles, they still have to work for them. The Saiyans are at an advantage with their near death power ups but they still have to actually battle or at least work themselves out to near death like Goku on his way to Namek.

The hybrid Saiyans natural power is only useful as far as giving a handy explanation for why these toddlers can play with the big boys, since they’re not willing to put in the work they’re still ultimately surpassed by Goku and Vegeta

Even in that specific example, Goku receives an even more massive power-up after the fight against Ginyu, without needing to do any additional training.

Right and he still had to train to get far enough for that power up to matter. He still had to participate in battle to even get said power up.


I don’t think it’s a breaking revelation that Toriyama loves
his shortcuts to keep the momentum of his weekly series up. But I also think fans way overstate how much those power hand outs and genetic blessings actually matter. At no point in the series does anyone get by with zero training or effort. Even Gohan, genetic lottery winner that he is, still had to train with the only point where he slacks off and got his hand out ended with the tables getting turned on him pretty quickly and having to defer to characters who actually kept up with their training.