Oh, and also back in my age guide, I wrote the following about Trunks' age:
However, when I wrote that I didn't have all the facts at hand, and there's quite a bit more to add to that. So yeah, apparently now I have to make entire new guides just to explain what I messed up or left out of my previous guides. This is not an encouraging trend.About Trunks' timeline. We know he's born in Age 766, and when he first arrives in the past he says he's 17, meaning he must have comes from Age 783. But later, when Trunks finds Cell's time machine, he sees that the time machine came from Age 788 and says that this is three years in the future from when he came, meaning he came from Age 785. So apparently 2 years passed for Trunks between his first and second visit to the past. I guess.
How to Make a Calendar
Well anyway, to start off, where exactly do all those specific years you see in the guidebooks or DB Online come from? There is in fact only one specific year ever mentioned throughout the entire manga: Age 788, the year Cell came from in his stolen time machine. This comes from chapter 358, where Trunks investigates Cell’s time machine. It’s ultimately from this single year that all the other ones derive from, though as you can imagine this is far from a straightforward process.
Now, if Cell came from the year Age 788, then what year does he arrive in, and when do the other events of the series take place? In chapter 358, Trunks says that Age 788 is 3 years even further in the future than the year he came from, meaning Trunks must have come from Age 785. In chapter 334, back when Trunks first traveled from the future, he tells Goku that he came from roughly 20 years in the future. But how much time passed for Trunks between his first and second trips into the past? In chapter 335, Trunks tells Goku that he’ll come back again in 3 years (from Goku’s perspective) if he manages to survive long enough in his own time for the time machine to charge up enough energy for another round trip, so obviously some significant amount of time must have passed between Trunks’ two time trips. In the side-story chapter “Trunks: the Story”, Bulma says that it takes 8 months for the time machine to fully charge for a round trip. So Age 785 would be at least 20 years and 8 months after Goku’s return to Earth. Accordingly, Daizenshuu 7 sets Age 764 as the year Goku returns to Earth. The 8 months gets rounded up to a year, probably because a passage of 8 months usually will take you into the next year. Going by this, the battle with the androids and Cell is in Age 767, 3 years later.
However, there is a bit of a hiccup in all this. In chapter 363, when Cell gives Piccolo his impromptu autobiography, he says that the research to complete him has already begun, though he won’t be completed until 24 years in the future. If Cell won’t be completed for 24 years, then obviously the year he sets out in the time machine must be at least that far in the future. But if the year is 767, then Cell wouldn’t be completed until 791…but Trunks says Cell came from 788. We could try to resolve this contradiction by saying that the year of the Cell Games is 764 (essentially pushing back all the daizenshuu year numbers by 3), but if Cell really did come from 24 years in the future, then this would mean that 4 years passed for Trunks between his first and second trips to the past. After all, when he first appears, Trunks says that he’s from 20 years in the future, so 3 years later when the artificial humans appear, that future would now be only 17 years from the present. But if Cell came from 24 years in the future, and Trunks came from 3 years earlier, then Trunks came from 21 years in the future…4 years later than the initial future he came from. So more time would have actually passed for him than Goku and the others.
That’s kind of odd, but is it actually contradictory? Well, Trunks tells Bulma the first time he appears that he’s 17, so if 4 years did pass for him, when he next appears he’d be 21, even though he looks the same. And yet after spending just 1 year training inside the Room of Spirit and Time, Trunks is notably taller (Bulma even comments on this when he returns to his own future). Also, as mentioned earlier, Bulma says in “Trunks: the Story” that it takes only 8 months for the time machine to charge for a round trip. So why would Trunks wait 4 years? Confusing things even more, in chapter 419 after Trunks defeats the androids in his own timeline and prepares for a third trip to the past, the narrator says that after “over 3 years” the time machine has “finally” accumulated enough energy for a round trip. This would fit in well with 4 years passing between Trunks’ first and second trips to the past, but contradicts what “Trunks: the Story” says about the time machine needing only 8 months to charge for a round trip.
All in all, I think it makes the most sense to disregard Cell and the chapter 419 narrator’s statements and say that there’s only an 8 month gap between Trunks’ first two trips. Otherwise, you have to believe that Trunks went from 17 to 21 between his two trips without changing in appearance at all, then went from 21 to 22 and changed noticeably. And you have to ignore all the official birth years and other dates given throughout Daizenshuu 7, the GT Perfect Files, the SEG, and now DB Online. And of course you have to ignore what Bulma says in “Trunks: the Story” (though either way you have to ignore something said in the manga).
To review, in the manga we’re told that Cell came from Age 788, and Trunks says he came from 3 years earlier, placing his second trip in 785. Based on the “8 months to charge” rule said in “Trunks: the Story”, Daizenshuu 7 places Trunks’ first trip in Age 784, and since at that time Trunks said he was from about 20 years in the future, the year Trunks kills Freeza and Goku returns to Earth becomes 764. That places the battles with the androids and Cell in 767, the Boo arc in 774, and the end of the manga in 784. Backtracking, Goku fought Vegeta and Freeza in 762 and Raditz in 761, the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai was in 756, the 22nd in 753, the 21st in 750, and the start of the manga in 749. More details on the exact gaps between events is in my old timeline evaluation thread.
There’s a slight inconsistency in Daizenshuu 4, which says that the heart medicine Trunks gave Goku was brought from Age 785, while according to Daizenshuu 7’s setup Trunks brought it from 784. The 785 date contradictions Daizenshuu 7 but not necessarily the manga: after all, if just 8 months are needed to charge the time machine, then potentially Trunks could have left for his first trip in January-April 785 and for his second in September-December 785. Probably this mention of 785 is just an artifact of them having not worked out the detailed timeline yet.
Trunks' Age
Now to go more in-depth about Trunks’ age, if you can stand it. When he first appears, he identifies himself as being 17 years old. He tells Goku that he’ll be born 2 and a half years in the future, so since he comes from “about 20 years” in the future, that should technically put him at 17 and a half. His exact birth year as given in Daizenshuu 7 and the SEGs is 766. There seems to be a slight problem with this, though. Daizenshuu 7 places Trunks’ first trip to the past where he kills Freeza and meets Goku as being in August of 764, which derives from how it places the Goku/Freeza fight in December 762, which comes from…well, it’s a long story. See the timeline evaluation thread. The point is, if Trunks shows up in August 764, shouldn’t two and a half years later be sometime in 767? But that’s only if you assume that it refers literally to 30 months. Though any way you slice it, it seems like Trunks would have to be born pretty late in 766 for this to work. Which actually fits pretty well: Trunks says that he’ll be born in 2.5 years, and the androids will show up in 3 years, on May 12th. If there’s about half a year separating Trunks’ birth from the androids’ arrival, and the androids show on in early May, then that would in fact place Trunks’ birth late in the previous year, or very early in the current one at the latest.
Fast forward to the Boo arc, when the main timeline’s Trunks is said to be 8 years old. The Boo arc is established as taking place 7 years after the Cell Games, so if Trunks was born about half a year before that, technically he should be only 7 and a half by then. Furthermore, Goten is said to be 7 in the Boo arc, but if he wasn’t even born at all during the Cell Games, then logically the oldest he could be is somewhere over 6 years (though the timing of Goten’s birth is a whole ‘nother ball of wax). I think this seeming confusion is at least partially due to a cultural difference. In Japan, traditionally age is counted as increasing with the New Year, rather than at individual birthdays. So when the year changes over, everyone’s age goes up by 1. Going by this, if Trunks is born in 766 it makes sense to count him as 8 by 774, because by then he’s been around for 8 New Years, even if his actual birthday hasn’t come around 8 times yet.
Switching back to the future timeline’s Trunks, he tells Goku that Gohan was killed 4 years ago. In Viz, they changed this line to “16 years from now”, switching its reference point from Trunks’ future perspective to Goku and co.’s present one (if Trunks came from about 20 years in the future, then 4 years ago for him would be 16 years in the future for everyone else). In “Trunks: the Story” though, after Gohan is killed the narrator says that “about 3 years” pass, at which point Trunks heads for the past. I suppose we could resolve this by saying that “about 3 years” means something like 3.5 years, and that Trunks simply rounded up while the narrator rounded down. It’s also possible that a further year or so passes between Trunks getting beat up by the androids 3 years after Gohan’s death, and his venture into the past, but there’s absolutely nothing in the manga to indicate this. Oh, and Bulma refers to Gohan as having been killed 3 years ago (no “about” for her), and…she tells Trunks to go 17 years into the past to give the medicine to Goku, instead of 20 years like Trunks originally said he had travelled. So, um…let’s just move on, shall we?
Daizenshuu 7’s alternate timeline explanation assigns specific years to the events in future Trunks’ life. He’s born in Age 766, just like his main timeline counterpart, the androids come in 767 like in the main timeline too, Gohan dies in 780, then Trunks leaves for his first trip in 784 (so they went with Trunks’ original statement on when Gohan died instead of what’s said in “Trunks: the Story”). Then he goes for his second trip in 785 (as mentioned before, this seems to go by the 8-month rule in “Trunks: the Story” instead of what’s said in chapter 419). Then he kills his own timeline’s Cell in 788; this is based on the narrator’s comment in chapter 419 about over 3 years passing, as well as on how earlier in the manga Cell was established to have stolen Trunks’ time machine in 788.
I said earlier how in the manga Cell tells Piccolo he won’t be born for 24 years, and how this causes lots of trouble. Daizenshuu 7’s bio for Cell seems to try and fix this by saying that Cell began being worked on in 762 (the year of the battle with Vegeta, which is when Cell mentions his cells from Goku and co. were collected), and then he was born in 786. So the 24 years Cell mentions is used for his total development time, instead of just the remaining development time when he talks to Piccolo. Interesting, though that raises the question of what Cell did in the two years between being completed and stealing the time machine.
Well anyway, I don’t know what lesson or point there is to all of this, other than to highlight how confusing this stuff can be.
Trunks TV Special
After re-watching the Trunks TV special, I wanted to note that it has its own somewhat unique timeline.
First, the narrator says that the androids appear half a year after Goku dies from his heart disease. In the manga, Trunks tells Goku that he will come down with the disease and die "not long from now". So this moves the timing of Goku's death back two and a half years. My guess is that they did this so that they could show baby Trunks present at Goku's death.
After the androids show up and kill Vegeta, Piccolo, and everyone, the narrator then says 13 years pass, and the special's main story begins: Trunks begins to train under Gohan, only for Gohan to be killed by the androids. If the androids show up in Age 767 (per Daizenshuu 7), then that would place this part of the special in Age 780. This fits in with Daizenshuu 7's alternate timeline chart putting Gohan's death in 780, but there is as usual a complication (for the record, while Daizenshuu 7's detailed timeline for the main series incorporates some things from the anime, its alternate timeline chart seems to be based entirely on the manga). After Gohan's death, the narrator says that 3 years pass before the time machine is completed and Trunks heads to the past. As I went over above, originally in the manga Trunks says 4 years pass between Gohan's death and his trip, while in "Trunks: the Story" the narrator says "about 3 years pass", while Bulma just says 3 years (no "about"). Daizenshuu 7 goes with the original timeframe, 4 years, and so places Gohan's death in 780 and Trunks' first time trip in 784. The TV special though goes with the later timeframe, so for it Trunks would leave in 783, leaving a 2 year gap between this trip and his second one (which as explained above is more or less set in stone as 785).
Tying into this is how in the manga a year passed between the battle where Gohan loses his arm and the one in which he is killed, while in the anime this isn't necessarily so. The dialogue between Gohan and the androids before their final battle is changed so that No.17 doesn't say how long it's been since they fought last. I suppose there's nothing saying that a year didn't pass, but you'd think the narrator would mention something like that. Anyway, if you assume that a year does pass in the anime too, then this would move forward Gohan's death from 780 to 781, and make Trunks go on his first time trip in 784 like in the daizenshuu timeline.
Finally, in the TV special Bulma talks with Trunks about going back "about 20 years" into the past. This fixes the mistake in "Trunks: the Story" where Bulma says he'll go 17 years into the past.
Index of sources
To try and make this marginally easier to keep track of, I’ve sorted out all the bits of information I mentioned above out by source.
Manga
Chapter 333 (DBZ 139)
--Trunks says he’s 17 (during first time trip)
Chapter 334 (DBZ 140)
--Trunks says he came from roughly 20 years in the future (during his first time trip)
Chapter 335 (DBZ 141)
--Trunks says he’ll be born 2 and a half years from now
--Trunks says androids will attack in 3 years, on May 12th
--Trunks says Gohan killed 4 years ago (in his timeline)
--Trunks says Goku will die “not long from now”
--Trunks says he’ll return in 3 years (from Goku’s perspective) if he survives long enough in his own timeline
Chapter 358 (DBZ 164)
--Trunks says Cell came from Age 788, and that he came from 3 years earlier (during second time trip)
--Trunks says Cell arrived in this timeline “about 4 years ago”
Chapter 363 (DBZ 169)
--Cell says he won’t be completed until 24 years in the future
--Cell says it takes him 3 years to mature after returning to egg form
Chapter 419 (DBZ 225)
--Narrator says 3 years pass between Trunks defeating the androids in his timeline and his fight with Cell; says the time machine has “finally” charged up for a round trip
Trunks: the Story
--No.17 says he last fought Gohan about a year ago
--Narrator says “about 3 years” pass between Gohan’s death and Trunks’ first time trip
--Bulma says time machine takes 8 months to charge for a round trip
--Bulma says Gohan killed 3 years before Trunks’ first time trip
--Bulma tells Trunks to go 17 years into past
Anime
Trunks TV Special
--Narrator says half a year passes between Goku’s death and androids’ attack; Trunks present at Goku’s death
--Narrator says 13 years pass between androids’ attack and Trunks beginning to train with Gohan
--Narrator says 3 years pass between Gohan’s death and time machine’s completion
--Bulma says Trunks will go “about 20 years” into the past
Daizenshuu 7
Alternate timeline explanation
Age 764: Freeza attacks Earth
Age 766: Trunks is born
Age 767: Androids attack
Age 780: Gohan dies
Age 784: Trunks’ first time trip
Age 785: Trunks’ second time trip
Age 788: Trunks kills his timelines’ Cell
Cell bio
Age 762: Cell’s development begins
Age 786: Cell’s development finishes
Combined Timeline
Now I’ve tried to throw all that contradictory information together into a single timeline. To make things easier to keep track of, and since the official DB “Age” timeline is based off one possible interpretation of these conflicting sources, I’m going to designate the year Freeza comes to Earth and Trunks shows up as “Year 0” and list everything in relation to that. So when Trunks says he comes from about 20 years in the future, that becomes approximately “Year 20”, and when Cell shows up 1 year before Trunks that becomes “Year -1”. The specific years given in Daizenshuu 7 are converted into this system; so since it has Freeza coming to Earth in Age 764 and Gohan being killed in Age 780, I’ve listed it as placing Gohan’s death in Year 16. I’m also just throwing together events from the parallel timelines into one list. Events that only occur in the “main” series timeline are italicized.
I’ve listed the source for each date in parenthesis. When multiple sources are listed, if they’re separated by commas it means that the same date is given in those different sources (ie, both chapter 334 and Daizenshuu 7 say Trunks initially comes from 20 years in the future). But if the two sources are combined with a + mark, it means I’ve only obtained that date by combining information from those sources. So for instance in chapter 358 Trunks says Cell came from 3 years further in the future than he did, while in chapter 363 Cell says he won’t be completed for another 24 years. By combining those two sources you get that Trunks came from 21 years in the future. On that note, Trunks: the Story has Bulma describing Trunks as going 17 years into the past during his initial trip, contradicting pretty much everything else. The side-story also has other information that fits in better with what we’re told elsewhere, so when using that information together with the idea that Trunks goes about 20 years into the past (as said in chapter 334) I’ve listed it as “Trunks: the Story+c334”. When combining that information with the side-story’s 17 year figure, I’ve uncharitably labeled it “Trunks: the Story+stupid”.
Well anyway, here it is. Hopefully it makes enough sense, given the subject matter:
Year -2
--Gero’s computer begins creating Cell (D7)
Year -1
--Cell arrives in “main” timeline (c358)
--Cell goes underground to grow? (c363)
Year 0
--Freeza comes to Earth
--Trunks appears and warns Goku and co.
--Goku dies “not long from now” (c335)
Year 2
--Trunks is born (D7)
--Cell’s underground growth ends? (c363)
Year 2.5
--Trunks is born (c335)
--Goku dies (TV special)
Year 3
--Androids attack on May 12th (c335, D7)
Year 14
--Gohan is killed (Trunks: the Story+stupid)
Year 16
--Gohan is killed (c335, D7)
--Gohan starts training Trunks (TV special)
Year 17
--Trunks’ first time trip (Trunks: the Story+stupid)
--Gohan is killed (Trunks: the Story+c334)
Year 19
--Time machine is complete (TV special)
Year 20, approximately
--Time machine completed, Trunks’ first time trip (c334, TV special, D7)
--8 months later, Trunks’ second time trip? (Trunks: the Story)
Year 21
--Trunks’ second time trip (D7)
Year 22
--Cell’s development finishes (D7)
Year 24
--Trunks’ second time trip, assuming Cell travels to past the same year his development ends (c358+c363)
--Trunks kills his timelines’ Cell (D7)
Year 27
--Cell’s development is completed (c363)
--Cell goes to past? (c358)
--Assuming Trunks’ 2nd trip is in Year 24, this would be the year Trunks kills Cell in his own timeline (c419)
Gah Sorry,ut I´m still going to go by the oficial given birth dates even if there some mistakes here and there.
