Character Popularity

Discussion regarding the entirety of the franchise in a general (meta) sense, including such aspects as: production, trends, merchandise, fan culture, and more.
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TheGmGoken
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Character Popularity

Post by TheGmGoken » Mon Jun 09, 2014 9:57 pm

I got some questions about the characters popularity in Dragon Ball Z. Who's the top ten popular characters in Japan and Worldwide. What's Pan popularity? How about Oov? What's Goten popularity worldwide as I know he ain't popular worldwide. How popular is the new character Beerus and Whis.

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B
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Re: Character Popularity

Post by B » Mon Jun 09, 2014 10:21 pm

Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, (Future) Trunks, and Piccolo are the most popular characters; roughly in that order. There were a handful of polls taken when the series was running(Gohan completely plummets between the Cell arc and the Buu arc), but you're not gonna find anything concrete after that, beyond obvious stuff like which characters get the most attention/merchandise.
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Re: Character Popularity

Post by Vijay » Tue Jun 10, 2014 2:00 am

I dont know about Japan, but Gohan seems to be extremely popular. True, Goku toys & merchandises are/were a rage, but Gohan is somewhat widely known at least here in Malaysia.

Guys like Piccolo, Gotenks, Broly are hardly talked about. Only Goku & Gohan gets a pass.

ButI'd say DBZ villains are engraved deeply in the memories of anyone who's heard the name of DBZ in Malaysia. Frieza & Cell are popular while Majin Buu is forgotten...

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Re: Character Popularity

Post by Blade » Tue Jun 10, 2014 4:10 am

It's impossible to really gauge, especially when you consider the polls published in Jump during the serialisation, which aren't particularly revealing and seemed to just go along with whoever was prominent in the narrative at the point of publishing - with the exception of Piccolo in the Buu arc, who seemed to be a perennially popular character, even when he was much less involved in the story (in a fighting role, at least).
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Re: Character Popularity

Post by jda95 » Tue Jun 10, 2014 4:30 am

Goten doesn't seem to be particularly unpopular in Japan, he was 6th place in the popularity poll published in Landmark which seems to have been collected from Japanese fans a fair while after serialization ended.

For anyone who's interested, the top 20 characters listed there:
Other than Karin's place above pretty much everyone else below him, nothing much is too surprising there. The book doesn't really seem to mention anything about the polls other than it's just from "fans".

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Re: Character Popularity

Post by Black_Liger » Tue Jun 10, 2014 9:13 pm

Gohan is extremely popular with girls here in latino america. Same with Future Trunks.
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Re: Character Popularity

Post by Retan » Tue Jun 10, 2014 11:20 pm

Vegeta was the most popular here in the U.S by a country mile when Viz did a poll if I remember correctly.

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Re: Character Popularity

Post by RandomGuy96 » Wed Jun 11, 2014 1:04 am

Does "Majin Buu" refer to all of its incarnations?
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RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
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Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.

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Re: Character Popularity

Post by TheGmGoken » Wed Jun 11, 2014 1:47 am

RandomGuy96 wrote:Does "Majin Buu" refer to all of its incarnations?
If Trunks wasn't separated I'm sure Boo wasn't either

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Re: Character Popularity

Post by RandomGuy96 » Wed Jun 11, 2014 3:24 am

TheGmGoken wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:Does "Majin Buu" refer to all of its incarnations?
If Trunks wasn't separated I'm sure Boo wasn't either
Well, in that case, when was that poll released? Before any form other than fatso appeared? As Super Buu was pounding Gohan into the ground? After Pure Buu died?
The Monkey King wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.

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Re: Character Popularity

Post by Kid Buu » Wed Jun 11, 2014 3:32 am

RandomGuy96 wrote:
TheGmGoken wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:Does "Majin Buu" refer to all of its incarnations?
If Trunks wasn't separated I'm sure Boo wasn't either
Well, in that case, when was that poll released? Before any form other than fatso appeared? As Super Buu was pounding Gohan into the ground? After Pure Buu died?
There was actually a popularity poll released when Buu was beating down on Gohan:

Weekly Shōnen Jump #5/6 for 1995, near the end of the Buu arc (this issue has chapter 501, the color chapter where Goku comes to the rescue while Gotenks-absorbed Buu continues to beat up on Gohan), and lists Goku in first place, followed by Vegeta, Trunks, Gotenks, and Piccolo.

http://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/majin-buu/

So I assume the other poll list listed came after the Super Buu stuff.
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Re: Character Popularity

Post by DonZ » Fri Jun 13, 2014 8:25 am

Black_Liger wrote:Gohan is extremely popular with girls here in latino america. Same with Future Trunks.
Girls like "Bishounens" (cute, young, handsome boys) so i wouldn't be surprised. Especially with Future Trunks.

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