How do you feel about the trope where everyone waits for Goku?

[Jord]

To me it's one of the worst tropes Z did.
It was okay the first time, with the fight against Vegeta and Nappa, showing off the power difference.
Then it got old quickly on Namek and with Buu, with only the Cell fight being an exception. (Even though they had to wait for Goku to heal from his contrived disease, coming up with an idea.)

Namek was worst in this regards. Namek was exciting until Ginyu and his men arrive. Then it's "wait for Goku" time.
He arrives, fucks up the Ginyu's and gets his body fucked up.
Freeza arrives and it's "wait for Goku time" with the rest barely doing any worthwhile damage.
Heck, even when Trunks arrives, we get a quick fight, followed by everyone waiting for Goku to arrive.

I get he's the main character but making everyone else look dumb or weak gets tiresome fast.

To me, I like how GT doesn't even pretend. No contrived ways to get Goku out of action for more than 2 episodes. They knew people wanted to see Goku fight and they did. Heck, even when he was stuck in Hell for 2 episodes, they gave us a Goku vs Freeza and Cell fight.

[Xeogran]

It did lead to some badass scenes like the way Goku manhandled Recoome and Jeice/Burter, so the wait was vindicated.
Piccolo vs 17 also happened because Goku was ill and unable to fight the Androids himself.

But I like it more when he's away due to training rather than healing. Training sequences are always cool.

I however didn't like it in Moro arc because nothing of worth happened while the cast was fighting Moro's prisoners, all the important ones were left for Goku to beat and even 7-3 survived his fight with Piccolo/Gohan/Androids.

[Kid Buu]

I think it's just how much the Recoome situation cloned the Nappa situation makes it stand out to me:

1.) Nappa beats down Piccolo, Gohan and Krillin. Goku shows up and defeats Nappa easily, but loses to Vegeta and needs the others to bail him out.

2.) Recoome beats down Vegeta, Gohan and Krillin. Goku shows up and defeats Recoome easily, but loses to Captain Ginyu and needs the others to bail him out.

Overall I still enjoy the Namek arc, but definitely prefer the first half of the arc where it was more about the DB hunt to the second half.

[MasenkoHA]

I mean your choices are

Goku dominates all his opponents

Goku gets his ass beat then comes back stronger than ever necessitating everyone waiting for Goku in the interim

Goku is indisposed of some inconvenience and everyone has to wait for Goku.

In a series about getting stronger and fighting stronger opponents the latter two are just going to happen a lot

[Kenji]

I personally hate it.

It's okay for Goku to be stronger than every single other character. In fact, I would go further and say said strength is a result of his hard work and determination, as Toriyama puts it in the Saiyan arc and the manga's ending. But the way Toriyama executes it is that everyone else, no matter how hard or how long they train, is just pathetically weak and will forever live in Goku's shadow, who is just biologically and magically superior for practically no reason other than just existing as the story's main character.

That characters just stand around repeating "So is there nothing we can do?! We're just gonna stand here and stare?!" - "We're nowhere near their level, so let's just watch!" ad-nauseam is a testament that none of this is some grand plan on Toriyama's part to stick to some foreign code of honor, but rather just skill issue. He doesn't know how to write fight scenes where multiple characters get to engage in the action and it shows. So his shortcut solution to this is to just make everyone pathetically weak and get knocked out/sidelined as fast as possible.

Likewise, it's a skill issue on Toriyama's part that he just doesn't know how to make the main antagonist of his story intimidating and showcase his strength other than making every other character not named Goku a punching bag. There's only so many times you can execute the same writing tactic before it becomes tiresome, irritating and diminishes the other characters' relevance and strength. As MistareFusion once pointed out about Yamcha's treatment in the franchise, "If you have a guy who is supposed to be strong, but who gets beaten up a lot repeatedly, and he's never actually shown being strong... Then, he's just the guy who gets beaten up a lot repeatedly." I feel like you could apply that to every single other character. These characters are supposed to be strong, just not as strong as Goku, but I feel like Toriyama and the Toei writers are failing hard on executing that.

[MasenkoHA]

I. As MistareFusion once pointed out about Yamcha's treatment in the franchise, "If you have a guy who is supposed to be strong, but who gets beaten up a lot repeatedly, and he's never actually shown being strong... Then, he's just the guy who gets beaten up a lot repeatedly." I feel like you could apply that to every single other character. These characters are supposed to be strong, just not as strong as Goku, but I feel like Toriyama and the Toei writers are failing hard on executing that.

And with respect to MistareFusion…no?


We can establish these characters are strong and have them lose to create stakes. They’re not mutually exclusive.

In the majority of Yamcha’s battles he loses after demonstrating how strong he is just to show serious things are.

For the Saibaman fight specifically we already established the Saibaman are as strong as Raditz i.e the guy Goku and Picco the two strongest fighters had trouble with and only won because 1. Gohan got a rage boost 2. Goku sacrificed himself. The fact that Yamcha can stand toe to toe with a creature as strong as Raditz shows how far he’s come after God’s training. He also only lost because said Saibaman did a kamikaze. His alternative was…die to Nappa. And most of the Z fighters needed to die to set the stage for the next arc. Yamcha just isn’t an interesting character like Kuririn so Kuririn got spared to go to Namek.

[Kid Buu]

I always felt like the point of that Yamcha Saibaman scene wasn't even about strength, but rather to show the difference between the humans and the villains. The humans fight under tournament rules, while the villains fight to the death.

[Jord]

It did lead to some badass scenes like the way Goku manhandled Recoome and Jeice/Burter, so the wait was vindicated.
Piccolo vs 17 also happened because Goku was ill and unable to fight the Androids himself.

But I like it more when he's away due to training rather than healing. Training sequences are always cool.

I however didn't like it in Moro arc because nothing of worth happened while the cast was fighting Moro's prisoners, all the important ones were left for Goku to beat and even 7-3 survived his fight with Piccolo/Gohan/Androids.

I do agree with you that training sequences are better than him just waiting in the rejuvenation tank or in bed. Training sequences at least show some kind of progress and built anticipation.

[Jord]

I always felt like the point of that Yamcha Saibaman scene wasn't even about strength, but rather to show the difference between the humans and the villains. The humans fight under tournament rules, while the villains fight to the death.

That is a fair point, and it let to a great scene with Kuriririn. After Nappa gets serious though, the trope starts to set in. Heck, they even wrote in an 3 hour pause in the fight where the characters wait for Goku.

One of the SNES games had an alternate storyline in which Gohan doesn't chicken out and blasts Nappa at the right time, with Tenshinhan also delivering his final Kikoho I believe, beating Nappa together. Vegeta then kills Piccolo before Goku arrives to get back to the status quo, but even then it feels more engaging than just getting crushed and waiting.

[Kenji]

And with respect to MistareFusion…no?


We can establish these characters are strong and have them lose to create stakes. They’re not mutually exclusive.

In the majority of Yamcha’s battles he loses after demonstrating how strong he is just to show serious things are.

For the Saibaman fight specifically we already established the Saibaman are as strong as Raditz i.e the guy Goku and Picco the two strongest fighters had trouble with and only won because 1. Gohan got a rage boost 2. Goku sacrificed himself. The fact that Yamcha can stand toe to toe with a creature as strong as Raditz shows how far he’s come after God’s training. He also only lost because said Saibaman did a kamikaze. His alternative was…die to Nappa. And most of the Z fighters needed to die to set the stage for the next arc. Yamcha just isn’t an interesting character like Kuririn so Kuririn got spared to go to Namek.

If Yamcha dying to the Saibamen were a self-contained incident, or so were the other fighters getting absolutely demolished by Nappa, who Goku defeated so easily, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. But Yamcha's entire purpose in the 21st Budokai, the 22nd Budokai, the 23rd Budokai, and the Saiyans, was just to be beaten up to show how strong the villains were. In two of these instances, he was thoroughly humiliated by his opponents, three if you count how his Saibamen death has canonically become a joke about how pathetic he is.

There are only so many times you can pull the "humiliating Goku's friends to show how strong/serious the enemies are" card before it loses all impact and his allies just become pathetic liabilities.

[Kid Buu]

Yamcha didn't face any villains at the 21st or 23rd Budokai though.

[MasenkoHA]

And with respect to MistareFusion…no?


We can establish these characters are strong and have them lose to create stakes. They’re not mutually exclusive.

In the majority of Yamcha’s battles he loses after demonstrating how strong he is just to show serious things are.

For the Saibaman fight specifically we already established the Saibaman are as strong as Raditz i.e the guy Goku and Picco the two strongest fighters had trouble with and only won because 1. Gohan got a rage boost 2. Goku sacrificed himself. The fact that Yamcha can stand toe to toe with a creature as strong as Raditz shows how far he’s come after God’s training. He also only lost because said Saibaman did a kamikaze. His alternative was…die to Nappa. And most of the Z fighters needed to die to set the stage for the next arc. Yamcha just isn’t an interesting character like Kuririn so Kuririn got spared to go to Namek.

If Yamcha dying to the Saibamen were a self-contained incident, or so were the other fighters getting absolutely demolished by Nappa, who Goku defeated so easily, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. But Yamcha's entire purpose in the 21st Budokai, the 22nd Budokai, the 23rd Budokai, and the Saiyans, was just to be beaten up to show how strong the villains were. In two of these instances, he was thoroughly humiliated by his opponents, three if you count how his Saibamen death has canonically become a joke about how pathetic he is.

There are only so many times you can pull the "humiliating Goku's friends to show how strong/serious the enemies are" card before it loses all impact and his allies just become pathetic liabilities.

It’s a tournament. There’s going to be a Winner, a Runner Up, semi finalists etc. And obviously Goku as the main character is going to make it to the finals

21st Tenkaichi Budokai the story is obviously structured to culminate in Master vs Student so we should understand that of course the final match is Goku vs Roshi. Krillin not Yamucha is the character we’ve been following this arc so of course he’s going to make it to the semi finals. So Yamcha was either going to be the other semi finalists or lose in the quarterfinals. Since we need to establish just how good “The Invincible Old Master” is instead of just being told he’s good we need Jackie Chun to fight someone significant not a character we don’t know so Yamcha just had to be it. Turtle Hermit training isn’t going to seem very effective if he did as good as Goku or Kuririn so he just had to get knocked out without landing a single blow.


In the 22nd tournament again the story is set up for the final match to be the two prize students between rival schools i.e Goku and Tenshinhan. Since we need to escalate the rivalry the prize student from the bad school needs to maim someone from the good school. So Tenshinhan needs to fight Kuririn or Yamcha in the quarterfinals and show how low the Crane School will go. Toriyama could have swapped it and Krillin get maimed by Tenshinhan and Yamcha beat Chaozu in the Quarters but seeing a friendly respectful match between two buddies (Goku vs Kuririn) is more rewarding than Goku fighting Yamcha a guy he’s cordial with and winning.

For the 23rd tournament yeah…Yamcha getting clowned by God as Shen seemed a bit mean spirited I guess but we, hopefully by now, understand that Goku and Piccolo have to be the final match. It also makes sense for the semi finalist to be God and Tenshinhan in the latter case so he and Goku can have their rematch after their last match ended in a draw outside a technicality. That means again Yamcha had to lose in the quarterfinals. Goku needed to fight Chi Chi so he wasn’t going to fight Goku. If he fought Piccolo it would have been the third time Yamcha lost in the Quarterfinals to the guy Goku faced in the finals. That means Yamcha had to lose to Tenshinhan (a repeat of the 22nd) or he had to lose to God.


And like despite all the jokes in the fandom at no point, other than maybe his match against Chun does Yamcha come off as a complete hopeless loser. Tenshinhan was somewhat surprised how good Yamcha was and assumed he had to be best the Turtle school had to offer. As embarrassing as it was for Yamcha to get knocked around by Shen’s Clumsy Fu he still got God to act a bit more serious (not something Yadjirobe can claim) and Yamcha showed off his own unique ki blast that was his own invention and not taken from the Turtle or Crane school. And even the infamous Saibaman fight, he again still stood against a monster as strong as the strongest warrior at that point not named Vegeta or Nappa. Dying to a kamikaze is honestly more dignified than the alternative where he just hopelessly get smashed to death by Nappa.

[Kenji]

The alternative would be having Toriyama, and those who came after Toriyama, write more scenarios where the entire gang gets to engage in the action and take wins of their own against opponents that are also strong, just not as strong as Goku/The Main Antagonist. Alternatively, the alternative would be Toriyama, and those who came after Toriyama, find more creative and interesting ways to deliver tension and stakes than simply relying on the same old trope every time.

"And then this supposed team of super strong guys get their asses kicked/knocked out/dead/sidelined effortlessly, only to just stand around and do nothing after" is just not an interesting scenario, at least not for me, even less when executed at least once per arc.

[JulieYBM]

I don't really like it, because Gokuu isn't really changing as a character in the lead up to the late arrival and the other characters are having their big moments for development get squashed. The Recoom moment could ha e possibly worked if it had been a subversion of the Nappa moment with the focus on the story remaining on Gohan, Kuririn and Vegeta, but it didn't really keep the momentum up, even if they were technically doing things to advance the plot. Ultimately, it feels like empty calories.

[Mr Baggins]

Complaining that a character didn't "get a win" is utterly fucking meaningless. These aren't real people or sports teams for folks to bet on. How often must this be repeated?

Also, the Saiyan arc remains the golden standard for how to utilize a larger cast in any story like this. The loss of all those supporting characters mattered because they raised the stakes and made an impact, showed a real difference in attitude between the good and bad guys (the point wasn't just that they died, it's HOW they died), furthered certain character arcs, and established that these two nasty alien dudes were the most vile, intimidating opponents they've faced yet. That's having your support characters support the narrative as they were designed and intended to. The generic battle shonen formula of giving every protagonist their own special (read: irrelevant) opponent to beat for a self-fellating "win" while grinding the plot to a halt à la One Piece is not.

Forget about fanservice for a moment and stop to consider the character's role, and more broadly what that role was meant to accomplish narratively. Criticizing it is fine, but that's the level of analysis people should be operating from. That's a much more insightful way to engage with the actual themes than regurgitating some youtube video complaining that Yamcha got beat up.

P.S. – the Moro arc was mediocre for a reason.

To me, I like how GT doesn't even pretend.

GT fumbles even with the characters it wants to focus on, so I couldn't care less.

[Jord]

The alternative would be having Toriyama, and those who came after Toriyama, write more scenarios where the entire gang gets to engage in the action and take wins of their own against opponents that are also strong, just not as strong as Goku/The Main Antagonist. Alternatively, the alternative would be Toriyama, and those who came after Toriyama, find more creative and interesting ways to deliver tension and stakes than simply relying on the same old trope every time.

"And then this supposed team of super strong guys get their asses kicked/knocked out/dead/sidelined effortlessly, only to just stand around and do nothing after" is just not an interesting scenario, at least not for me, even less when executed at least once per arc.

The easy way would be to split them up. Have a main bad guy, who is handled by Vegeta/Goku/Gohan, while the rest need to stop the henchmen in a different place in order to prevent the stakes from getting higher.

[nineko]

This trope was bad, but its replacement in Super, e.g. "Buu fell asleep", isn't any better. I guess Dragon Ball really isn't meant for an ensemble cast. Someone recently wondered about something tangentially related to this.

[Kenji]

...

As a writer, you want me to relate to your character, right?
You want to pass on to me the message that your character is successful, strong and that he inspires others to be just like him.
You want to go even further and pass on to me the message that said character's success comes from hard work and determination.

You utterly and completely failed on said task the moment you start revealing said character has special biology that allows them to become even stronger even when defeated by merely existing. You failed even harder when you have a supporting cast that supposedly trains just as hard, sometimes even harder than your main character, and they remain pathetic in comparison and hopeless to catch up with them. That doesn't make me relate to Goku, or think his success comes from hard work and determination.

I'm not that dense, Toriyama is just not that good of a writer.

[VegettoEX]

As a writer, you want me to relate to your character, right?

This doesn't have to necessarily be the goal, no.

[SupremeKai25]

This:

As a writer, you want me to relate to your character, right?

And this

You want to pass on to me the message that your character is successful, strong and that he inspires others to be just like him.
You want to go even further and pass on to me the message that said character's success comes from hard work and determination.

Are two very different things.

First of all, a writer absolutely doesn't have to make a relatable protagonist (which seems to be what you're talking about in your second part, talking about a protagonist must be "inspiring", "hard-working", and so on). Look at George RR Martin and how many of his protagonists are utterly vile and despicable people (the show adaptation even toned down a lot of the villainy with people like Cersei and Tyrion Lannister). The fact that we can relate with these despicable people proves the writer's talent, but also shows that you don't have to write honest, hard-working protagonists if you want your audience to relate with them... and you also don't necessarily have to write morally upstanding and inspiring protagonists either. Writers can make whoever they want, they don't have to make relatable protagonists that inspire you. Lots of protagonists throughout fictions are evil villains that you'd wanna punch IRL.

There's also the difference between "protagonist vs. hero", "antagonist vs. villain" that usually gets ignored in these discussions. Goku is the protagonist but that doesn't automatically make him a pure good hero, which is why Toriyama writes him as a true neutral person who lives for the thrill of battle.

Secondly, just because a character is a prodigy who won the genetic lottery doesn't mean we can't sympathize with him. That goes for IRL too. But let's talk about Dragon Ball. Gohan is the ultimate winner at the genetic lottery, this guy rarely trains but he's still one of the most powerful mortals in the setting, eclipsing warriors whose whole life revolves around training. Just because Gohan won the genetic lottery doesn't mean we can't relate to his struggles and the pain he goes through when he sees one of his best friend horrifically slain by the villain.

Similarly, just because Goku won the genetic lottery by being born a Saiyan instead of a human doesn't invalidate his struggles and the emotion we feel from watching him overcome challenges through great effort. We sympathize with Goku because, despite having been born in one of the strongest species in the universe, he shows the mindset of a real champion; tenacious, determined to win, but also humble enough to let other people teach him.