but he didnt slack off. he doesnt like fighting, never did, never will. and as far as gohan knows, the strongest threat they will ever face is dead. nothing stronger than cell will show up. we know better but they dont. look how surprised they were at how monstrously strong buu turned out to be. even goku, training all those years, still underestimated buu and let him out of the bag.
he didnt slack off because its not like he was sitting on his ass eating cheetos and watching tv thse 7 years. he had an infant brother to take care of, as well as an aging mother and studies to cover. he probably worked more than anyone else in the z fighters in the timeskip and people say hes a lazy slacker?
second is he is "strongest in the universe but doesnt accomplish much".
of course. thats part of the story's tension.
no one was able to do anything on their own. you needed to be a fusion or use genkidama to stand any chance of killing this thing.
and ultimate gohan IIRC didnt really "toy with buu". he landed a few punches, then buu blew himself up, then gotenks got absorbed. toriyama needed this to be a team effort ultimately, not "gohan saves the day again". its redundant of the last arc. it plays with our expectations to see gohan power up, expecting to wrap this up in a final showdown, only for buu to be more dangerous than any of them could have expected.
sure hes become a goofball teen, but hes also mature and level headed which gives the illusion that hes weaker than before (hes not, he just lost all that volatile anger he had as a child. goku even said angry gohan would be stronger than anyone else). it comes off as goofy because what gohan considers to be good social interaction and "cool" was so radically different to what everyone else thought to be cool. the price of a sheltered life and quirky personality.
sure he beat up criminals but when smack came to smack, he stood his ground and fought to his last breath vs buu in all their encounters. he was the only one blasting buu's egg hoping to stop his rebirth, subverting the typical trope of standing there and letting this happen. do you think goku would blast cell's egg or freeza mid transformation? no? then gohan had the right idea didnt he.
what would you have toriyama do? make dabura yakon level just to give gohan someone to beat?
though i admit most of the hate comes from the dub fans who view the series as just about fighting, explosions and muscles. you dont have that, they write you off.
