Gohan - Scholar or Scientist?

[Piccolo Daimao]

In the manga, Gohan had always aspired to be a scholar. But I think I recall Goku mentioning that Gohan wanted to be a scientist, before Gohan stepped up to fight Cell. By the way, I'm quoting this from Viz, so is this just a translation error? Or is it just Goku's mistake?

I think, in Dragon Ball Online, they do have that thing where it says that Gohan published a book called "Groundbreaking Science" or something explaining ki and stuff. Could he have been both?

[dylanmorgan17]

Heya Piccolo,

Of course Gohan did say he wanted to be a scholar at age four but at the age being however intelligent for his age I could not imagine that Gohan would know exactly what being a scholar would mean for himself. At nine years old however he would have broader understanding of what he would like to do other than being a flat out scholar.

Now with my understanding of scholarship being a university student, I do not think scholar is a generalised field of academia. I think you can be scholar for all sorts of fields and perhaps Gohan understandably chose science as the field he chose to specialise in as oposed to business or marketing. As dumb as Goku I do not necessarily feel that he made a mistake here because the two things may go hand in hand, so give the lovable manchild some credit.

Now I do take the Dragonball Online timeline to be cannon so I believe that he is a scientific scholar in the field of (just speculating) bio-chemistry.

Hope this answers your question Piccolo.

[Piccolo Daimao]

Yeah, I understand that scholar has a broad meaning, but I was just wondering why it seemingly changed from consistently "scholar" to a one-time mention of "scientist".

In the manga, when he, Bulma and Trunks go to inspect the time machine and Cell's cicada, I think Gohan does identify it as being such, and something else. In the anime, it shows him reading a book on cicadas, which could be percieved as a nice little bit of foreshadowing.

[Herms]

In the manga, Gohan had always aspired to be a scholar. But I think I recall Goku mentioning that Gohan wanted to be a scientist, before Gohan stepped up to fight Cell. By the way, I'm quoting this from Viz, so is this just a translation error? Or is it just Goku's mistake?

In Japanese Goku says gakusha/"scholar" there, which is the same word always used for Gohan's aspirations. It's a fairly vague term; scientist is kagakusha, a take-off of that (gaku=study/scholarship, while kagaku=science, and sha=person).

[Piccolo Daimao]

In the manga, Gohan had always aspired to be a scholar. But I think I recall Goku mentioning that Gohan wanted to be a scientist, before Gohan stepped up to fight Cell. By the way, I'm quoting this from Viz, so is this just a translation error? Or is it just Goku's mistake?

In Japanese Goku says gakusha/"scholar" there, which is the same word always used for Gohan's aspirations. It's a fairly vague term; scientist is kagakusha, a take-off of that (gaku=study/scholarship, while kagaku=science, and sha=person).

Ah, OK. So Viz was wrong. Or just vague, perhaps as much as the original despite maybe losing consistency. Either way, I understand now.