Characters and their age at the end of DB

[Michsi]

I remember when I first read the story how shocked I was to realize just how old the characters really were at the end . I think I felt it mostly with Bulma and Krillin. I kept thinking about how young they were at the start, 16 and 13, and how old they had gotten , 50 and 47. As a kid that sorta bothered me and I can only assume it was because it made me aware that the characters I had grown so attached to weren't forever, something that differed from the other cartoons where time seemed to have stopped.
Did anybody else have similar thoughts or feelings.

[VegettoEX]

Seeing the characters grow up, have families, and move on with their lives in their own ways was definitely one of the reasons that I was drawn into the world.

A lot of it is done in a totally superficial and borderline-terribly-written way ("Hey, these two got together because... uhh... they did!"), but even that does its own job in furthering the world. I hadn't seen/read anything like that at the time -- I wasn't into other fandoms like it (such as comics, American or otherwise) at the time, so I didn't even know that story lines like this existed.

[Piccolo Daimao]

Yeah, it's heartwarming to see that, like Kame-sennin, he'd come into his own and kind of become a mentor in his own right, which is a far cry from the 12-year-old boy at the beginning of the series, who was socially removed from the world and could only determine a person's gender by patting their genitalia. And like Kame-sennin, he made a name for himself from the Tenkaichi Budoukais (and would've been forever remembered, if it hadn't been for the entire "normal Earthling" population apparently suffering from brain damage when Mr. Satan inexplicably became their saviour).

But he, as well as other characters, genuinely grow as people. Whenever people talk about character development, they always go for the obvious ones, like Piccolo and Vegeta, but I think that characters like Gokuu and Kuririn are unfairly neglected in this way. There's even a subtle, yet clear, difference between 12-year-old Gokuu and 15-year-old Gokuu, and not only in appearance. Then there's them respectively forming their own families (I still don't like the idea of Kuririn & #18 having a relationship based around NOTHING, but at least he finally got married like he wanted), etc.

[CyberpunkCentral]

Well, Goku and Vegeta don't age much.

[Ashura]

For the same reasons as Mike, I really was drawn into DB. I remember the culture shock of watching Funimation's original 13 episode DB dub, watching DBZ, and then my friend giving me movies 6 and 12. 12 was the biggest shock, since it was radically different than what I was used to in the Saiyan stuff vs. Vegeta.

It was that point he explained to me just how much things progressed, and that a lot of Japanese media did this. He specifically mentioned Jojo's Bizarre Adventure to me at the time, which has run the gamut of characters, premise, mood, and even theme and it blew my mind.

I think that's how manga/anime differs from other things when it runs a long time. There's this need in a lot of Western media to keep things to the status quo, while anime tends to change things up the longer they run, applying time to the equation. Mainly so the author probably doesn't burn out, but even if it's that simple in reasoning it's a nice thing either way.

If you look at Thundercats -- which has quite a few episodes, continuing plotline, and is as vintage as Dragon Ball -- they actually pretty much keep the status quo for most of the 100+ episodes it ran. It's only near the very end where they change things up and send them to New Thundera, and even then the characters haven't outwardly aged. Could you imagine if they instead, 70 episodes in, flash forwarded to when Lion-O was an old-man and his grandson was then the hero? (Which is sort of what the new series is, kind-of, but you get the point.) The biggest changes in Thundercats were 'who's the villain this year?'

[Piccolo Daimao]

Well, Goku and Vegeta don't age much.

Physically, not as much as the others, but definitely mentally. Vegeta starts off as an evil bastard even among Saiyans, who only cares about himself. But by the end of the Cell arc, it's shown that he actually cares about his son, no matter how contemptuously he treats him, and even gives him a subtle goodbye gesture as he returns to his own time.

And then, gradually over the 7 years, he mellows out and reluctantly ends up loving his unlikely family, yet finds himself hating the soft person that he's become, to the point that he'd risk their lives just to return to his former self and fight Gokuu. But then, he finally admits that Gokuu will always be better than him and puts his superiority complex behind him.

[JulieYBM]

I have to agree, the aging and the changing is one of my favorite things about Dragon Ball (and Japanese cartoons and comics in general). Change keeps the story fresh and adds to our ability to appreciate the past for what it was while enjoying the present. I can list off all the reasons I love the Red Ribbon/Twenty-Second Tenka'ichi era and be able to bounce it off about what I love about the Saiyan and Namek era. Change is good.

Being, in general, a fan of a few American superheroes, I really do wish that industry to more open to change and letting characters grow older. Stuff like Spider-Man: One More Day or the constant rebooting really killed my interest in getting into comics and also hurts my ability to invest in the cartoons because eventually a series will end after 52-65 episodes and we'll have covered only a small portion of those characters' worlds and lives.

[Michsi]

I keep thinking about how the editors initially were against Goku changing physically from a kid character to and an adult and then how Toriyama just kept on aging them. It made me think that maybe even the japanese fans weren't so keen on having a character change so drastically. There really aren't that many stories that cover such a long period of time, mostly just have one significant time skip and even then, the purpose is mostly to change a kid character into an young adult.
But I do agree that it was one of the many things that set this story apart from the others and it was nice to see the characters develope and mature but seeing them as old as they were added to the bittersweetness of the ending.

[Cipher]

Funny. I was just thinking last night about how strange it is that Goku isn't very old by the end of the series.

Trunks spends a lot of the early Boo arc referring to Goku as an "old man," but biologically, he's only 27.

Chronologically, Goku's either 35 or 36. He starts the series as a 12-year-old and three years pass between each Tenkaichi Budokai, making him either 18 or 19 by the end of Dragon Ball, depending on whether or not he hits a birthday in the eight months or so he trains with Kame-Sennin. Five years pass before Raditz arrives, making him 23 or 24. One more year passes until the Saiyans arrive, making him 24 or 25. Then there's one more year before Goku arrives on Earth after Namek and three years until the Androids arrive, making him 28 or 29 in the Cell arc. Seven more before the Boo arc places him at 35 or 36.

Biologically, it's not really clear whether or not he ages in the afterlife (but I'm guessing he doesn't). So take off the eight years he spends dead, and he's only 27 or 28 in the Boo arc. Add one year for the Room of Spirit and Time if you want, and he's still only 28 or 29. Why is Trunks calling him old? Vegeta is probably close to two decades older than Goku by this point, if Goku doesn't age while dead.

Although you're dealing with someone who is either 42-43 or 50-51 by GT, which, yeah, I guess is fairly old.

Anyway, the fact that characters age dramatically is one of my favorite things about the series. To my knowledge, it hasn't really been replicated in any major shonen property since. It really gives a slightly bittersweet tinge to an otherwise silly series. The final scene between Goku and Kuririn at the end of GT, in which Kuririn comments that while Goku and Kame-Sennin haven't changed at all, he's completely different, is heartbreaking. You're like, where did this good writing come from all of a sudden?

[Michsi]

The final scene between Goku and Kuririn at the end of GT, in which Kuririn comments that while Goku and Kame-Sennin haven't changed at all, he's completely different, is heartbreaking. You're like, where did this good writing come from all of a sudden?

Agreed. I might not like 90% of GT but the ending scene with Krillin and Piccolo are done right,( though the others were pretty underwhelming despite that most of them weren't supposed to know he be gone for good ) and the one with Krillin pulls at the heart strings a little more than expected.

[Piccolo Daimao]

Herms' Age guide, check it out: http://www.daizex.fanboyreview.net/view ... =Age+guide

But yeah, that scene was really good. It's kind of ironic how, previously, Kuririn was somewhat jealous that Gokuu had grown so much taller than him, when he was one year younger than him. But then, Kuririn was an ageing man with hair and a moustache, while Gokuu still looked roughly the same as he was back at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai.

[TheGreatness25]

Well there were time gaps between arcs, which was nice. I like seeing a character's progression. It's kind of like when I was young and I made created wrestlers for wrestling games at the time. So let's see, that started in, let's say 1999, and lasted until about 1008 or so. And some characters I'd make every year over and over and over. And every year there would be a different hair style, or a different move, or a different style, some would go from nobodies to champions eventually, through different characteristics and before I knew it, I just made an entire world within the game. So that kind of stuff always strikes me.

Dragon Ball has that feeling, but not as much as me personally doing it, or as much as some comics like Batman, for example, where you have a guy who went from being a kid whose parents were killed, being raised by Batman, being a kid sidekick, then through college, and then moving on to being something totally different. My point is that you feel it a lot more with time. The thing is that DBZ just goes, "Oh, well it's been 7 years and here's what's happened" whereas something like Batman was years and years and years in the making. The characters are older than we are and the comics have kind of taken their own spin after a while. So in the case of Robin, it's been like 40 years that he was portrayed as one character and then boom, evolved into something else. Some characters move on, get husbands/wives, etc. I see it a lot with the Batman world, and I think that it's done an awesome job building itself to life (you have your own police force, your own politicians, your own city life that is actively happening around the story). Oh and I'm not even a comics guy, I just like certain ones.

[dprez]

The "human" aspect of how the Dragon Ball characters lived out there lives gave it sort of a comfortable feel, and also a sense of realism that they are just like us but super strong and whatnot. The 23rd TB where everyone got older and changed, and then there's the boo-arc and the 28th TB where more dramatic changes in their looks happen. It's even more cool that Goku and Vegeta are the only ones who don't age

Makes me wonder how the little half-saiyans will age...

[Pantalones]

I still don't like the idea of Kuririn & #18 having a relationship based around NOTHING, but at least he finally got married like he wanted

Well, there was a 7-year gap between "thanks for removing that bomb, but I'm not going to marry you or anything" and "we're married and had a kid 3 or 4 years ago." Even a couple of years is a lot in terms of getting to know people, so who knows what could've happened in that gap that actually led to them getting married?

(Plus, there's plenty of people in real life that seem to have relationships based on nothing. So even if there really wasn't any really good reason for them to get married... that doesn't necessarily make it super unrealistic or anything.)

[Piccolo Daimao]

Makes me wonder how the little half-saiyans will age...

I think they'd age mostly like normal Earthlings (perhaps retaining their prime for a little longer than normal Earthlings), judging by the designs of Gohan, Goten and Trunks. While Gokuu still looks as if he hasn't even reached puberty at 16, Gohan looks normal for his age. Same for Goten and Trunks when they become teenagers.

I think the only thing that's really "Saiyan" about the Saiyan-Earthling hybrids are their inborn power. Other than that, they pretty much act like normal Earthlings and don't have the battle heart of full-blooded Saiyans like Gokuu and Vegeta.

I still don't like the idea of Kuririn & #18 having a relationship based around NOTHING, but at least he finally got married like he wanted

Well, there was a 7-year gap between "thanks for removing that bomb, but I'm not going to marry you or anything" and "we're married and had a kid 3 or 4 years ago." Even a couple of years is a lot in terms of getting to know people, so who knows what could've happened in that gap that actually led to them getting married?

(Plus, there's plenty of people in real life that seem to have relationships based on nothing. So even if there really wasn't any really good reason for them to get married... that doesn't necessarily make it super unrealistic or anything.)

I just don't like both the way it started up in the first place and its reasoning from a story perspective. Goku & Chi-Chi or even freakin' Vegeta & Bulma I can tolerate, but the retarded Kuririn & #18 subplot literally offers nothing to the DB world and pisses me off more than the other "relationships". I mean, seriously, Kuririn gets a raging hard-on just because an attractive woman who just beat the shit out of his friends gave him a teasing, meaningless peck on the cheek, and forms a strange infatuation with her because of that, even going as far to claim that she's "not that bad".

He later refuses to detonate her because of his crush, and we even see a thought bubble of that kiss above his head. Later, he wastes their last wish on the entirely pointless act of removing the Androids' bombs, which #18 somehow mistakes for compassion. 7 years later, they're inexplicably married with a child. I just don't get it. The only connection that #18 even had with Kuririn (and the rest of the heroes) is that she was trying to kill his best friend, but he's still the only one who claims that the Androids aren't as bad as the future ones (with literally nothing to back that up, other than the fact that they didn't kill them outright: it's not as if he knew that everything would turn out alright and the Androids wouldn't kill everyone).

You can say that there are plenty of people in real-life that seem to have relationships based on nothing. But that's not the point. Most of those relationships end up dying after a short time; in DB, these kinds of relationships are portrayed as being permanent happy marriages where they have kids and the husband can't be arsed to move out of the place he's presumably been crashing at for the past 20 years or so. Besides, what the fuck was the point of introducing #18 as yet another background character who does nothing but just gawp at the sidelines commenting on the characters' strengths.

Since Toriyama doesn't ever flesh out relationships, I'll tell you what happened. Sometime in those 7 years, #18 visited Kuririn and said she'd go out with him, because she's an insecure bitch who was apparently brain damaged during Dr. Gero's experiments on her. Kuririn subsequently jizzed in his pants and #18 ended up living the rest of his life having Roushi steal her panties and take photographs of her while she was sleeping in her and Kuririn's bedroom, as trying to molest her when she was awake would've meant FATALITY.

[Cipher]

Since Toriyama doesn't ever flesh in relationships, I'll tell you what happened. Sometime in those 7 years, #18 visited Kuririn and said she'd go out with him, because she's an insecure bitch who was apparently brain damaged during Dr. Gero's experiments on her. Kuririn subsequently jizzed in his pants and #18 ended up living the rest of his life having Roushi steal her panties and take photographs of her while she was sleeping in her and Kuririn's bedroom, as trying to molest her when she was awake would've meant FATALITY.

Well, to be fair, GT at least implies Kuririn and family have their own house. They appear to be living in a city and are shown fixing a house that is decidedly not Kame-Sennin's in "Don't You See?"

Which makes sense, because #18 cleans up at the 25th Tenkaichi Budokai and Kuririn probably does something for money. (Why no one but Yamcha and #18 display a desire to capitalize on their superhuman strength is beyond me.)

[Piccolo Daimao]

Since Toriyama doesn't ever flesh in relationships, I'll tell you what happened. Sometime in those 7 years, #18 visited Kuririn and said she'd go out with him, because she's an insecure bitch who was apparently brain damaged during Dr. Gero's experiments on her. Kuririn subsequently jizzed in his pants and #18 ended up living the rest of his life having Roushi steal her panties and take photographs of her while she was sleeping in her and Kuririn's bedroom, as trying to molest her when she was awake would've meant FATALITY.

Well, to be fair, GT at least implies Kuririn and family have their own house. They appear to be living in a city and are shown fixing a house that is decidedly not Kame-Sennin's in "Don't You See?"

Which makes sense, because #18 cleans up at the 25th Tenkaichi Budokai and Kuririn probably does something for money. (Why no one but Yamcha and #18 display a desire to capitalize on their superhuman strength is beyond me.)

GT's irrelevant because it's not manga canon.

And I guess it's because they're pure martial artists, they're content with their lives, yadda yadda. If they really want money, they can just leech off Bulma.

[Ashura]

GT's irrelevant because it's not manga canon.

I like how you say this, but your version of events is a, uh, badly made up erotic mini-fanfiction?

I think it's at least a tiny bit more relevant than that.

Jus' sayin'.

[Chibi Gohan]

I'd say the aging aspect helped me enjoy Dragon Ball a lot more than other cartoons or shows in general. It gave a sense that it was a realistic world that grew as the series went on. When you think of the series from beginning to end, it really gives a sense of awe of how much things changed throughout the series.

[Kingdom Heartless]

I love how much time passes throughout Dragon Ball. I'm not big on all anime series where no time seems to pass at all, and the characters don't seem to grow up.

A big part of Dragon Ball's appeal to me is how you feel like you're getting the full story of some of these character's lives, not just their lives over a 6 month period or something like that.

The first part of Naruto, for example, could have used a bigger time frame to go across... at least then Naruto's dedication to Sasuke may have been somewhat more believable.