Uranai Baba and Roshi can't be brother and sister...

[Alestat]

Approximately Age 250
Fortuneteller Baba begins her fortune-telling business.
Daizenshū 7

Age 430
Master Roshi is born.
Daizenshū 7

We know that Roshi has consumed the immortality elixir so he's not ageing anymore. There was another explanation with the phoenix, but that was just a joke. (Probably Tao Pai Pai and Tsurusen'nin also drunk from the elixir or found another way to achieve "immortality").
Uranai Baba has her long lifespan presumably because she is the servant of the Other World.

Still this whole thing makes no sense. This would mean that Uranai Baba was at least around 200 yrs old when Roshi born, and their mother was at least 220.
I know there were a lot of contradictions in the early storyline, but in the Daizenshū/Chōzenshū series the editors tried to solve most of these mysteries, though they totally forgot about this one.

Do you guys have any theory or explanation for this situation? I'm working on a dōjinshi and one part of it takes place at the young Roshi's era and I could really use a young female character for my story, like Uranai Baba. But I just can't do it this way, since she supposed to be over 200 yrs old at that time...

[Doctor.]

Kame-sennin lied about the elixir, he said it himself. They're just that old naturally.

[Alestat]

Kame-sennin lied about the elixir, he said it himself. They're just that old naturally.

Source pls.

[rereboy]

Kame-sennin lied about the elixir, he said it himself. They're just that old naturally.

Source pls.

He stated it to Tenshinhan.

[Alestat]

Kame-sennin lied about the elixir, he said it himself. They're just that old naturally.

Source pls.

He stated it to Tenshinhan.

During the fight with Pikkoro Daimaō, or when?

[rereboy]

During the fight with Pikkoro Daimaō, or when?

When he used that gas can to immobilize Tenshinhan before facing Piccolo Daimao.

[Dorexx]

Wouldn't be too far fetched to think Baba would have some magical resources and/or abilities at her disposal to temporarily (or not) turn herself into a young, attractive girl. (if not for real, an illusion)

[Alestat]

During the fight with Pikkoro Daimaō, or when?

When he used that gas can to immobilize Tenshinhan before facing Piccolo Daimao.

Ok so he really lied to Tenshin about he's being "indestructible", but he never lied about his immortality. That's not the same thing. Ofc he can die, it happened several times, but I still say the elixir thing could be true and he's clearly not ageing.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

You have a problem with Roshi and Baba being brother and sister because they have an absurdly large gap between their births? And yet they live on a version of Earth where a Human-Class Earthling like Bluma could technically have sex with a Monster-Class Earthling like Pilaf, an Animal-Class Earthling like Oolong or even an actual alien like Vegeta and produce a viable offspring...

I think you need to just open up your mind a bit and roll with the flow of what the story says. lol

[DBZGTKOSDH]

During the fight with Pikkoro Daimaō, or when?

When he used that gas can to immobilize Tenshinhan before facing Piccolo Daimao.

Ok so he really lied to Tenshin about he's being "indestructible", but he never lied about his immortality. That's not the same thing. Ofc he can die, it happened several times, but I still say the elixir thing could be true and he's clearly not ageing.

He said that the Immortallity Elixir in general was a lie. Kame-sennin & Uranai Baba (along with Tsuru-sennin & Taopaipai) probably aren't immortal, they just have huge life-spawn apparently, and their parents also lived for hundreds of years apparently, so it seems that it's genetic, not from a magical elixir or phoenix.

[Herms]

I assume their parents were (are?) likewise extremely long-lived. In real life it's not uncommon for a family to have a "baby" brother or sister, born many years after their siblings. Kame-sennin and Uranai Baba's age gap could just be a comically exaggerated version of the same phenomenon.

Still, it might be worth noting that Baba being in the fortune-telling business for 500 years originates from an anime-only line. So while it is incorporated into the official timeline, you could still choose to write it off as silly filler nonsense, I guess.

Of course, for that matter nothing in the manga specifies exactly how old Kame-sennin is. Karin says he climbed up Karin Tower about 300 years ago, so he's at least that old, but I don't think anything sets an upper limit on his age. It makes sense to assume he climbed the tower as a young man (the way the anime depicts it), and that therefore he's only slightly older than 300. That's the approach the guidebooks take. But if we only go by the manga, it's technically possible for him to be over 500; it would just mean he was already over 200 years old when he climbed Karin Tower. I guess it's up to you to decide if that's better or worse than the idea of him being at least 200 years younger than his big sister.

[Alestat]

Everyone who said the elixir stuff was a lie, you were right:
不老不死の水などありゃせんよ。。。　うそじゃ。。。

So while it is incorporated into the official timeline, you could still choose to write it off as silly filler nonsense, I guess.

I'll do that.

Still 仙人 [(Kame)Sen'nin] in chinese Xiānrén means "immortal person", so I still believe that when Toriyama created his character he wanted him to be immortal (not ageing) and as I know there's no proof against it nor in favor. Though the "long lifespan genetics" theory also possible, like in the Bible and other scriptures, where the ancient ppl lived for hundreds of yrs.

Thx for the info everyone.

[Pantalones]

Yeah, I figure Roshi and family were originally intended to be "immortal" in the "doesn't die of old age" sense (kinda like Lord of the Rings elves--you can stab them and they die, but they never die just from getting old and breaking down naturally), which is basically indistinguishable from just having an absurdly long lifespan. Except, unlike elves, they do get old... they just never die of age.

a Human-Class Earthling like Bluma could technically have sex with a Monster-Class Earthling like Giran, an Animal-Class Earthling like Oolong or even an actual alien like Vegeta and produce a viable offspring...

Wait, really? I mean, obviously humans and Saiyans can crossbreed (we see it happen many times, and they're physically near-identical anyway aside from Saiyans' tails so it's not too surprising)... but where is it said that somebody like Giran or Oolong could get a human pregnant?

If that's so, I wonder if that's where the more human-like but still "weird" characters who show up in Dragonball might have come from. Vampires like the guy from Baba's tournament are "monster-class" Earthlings in Dragonball, right? Chiaotzu, do you have some Chinese vampire ancestry...? XD

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Daizenshu 4's Race Guide I believe. I could be wrong on that, but I know it is somewhere in one of the books. Anyway, it is stated that the Animal-Class and Monster-Class Earthlings have trouble reproducing with mates of different species. So I'm guessing that means a dog person will have an easier time having a kid if he's trying with another Animal-Class and even better if it is another dog person.

I take part of that back though. Apparently Giran isn't an "Earthling", so I'll substitute it with Pilaf above...

[Pantalones]

Ahhh, okay. I think I actually remember reading that somewhere before (that they can do it but have trouble with actually making babies that way)--sounds vaguely familiar, anyway.

I would think Giran would qualify as an "Earthling" in the sense of "a being from Earth or living on Earth"... though I get what you mean by that (he's outside of the human/monster/furry categories that were mentioned as being able to interbreed with each other.) I guess he must just be some kind of mutant dinosaur or something. He's never described as a demon or anything like that, is he? (Or do they ever mention what he is at all?)

[Herms]

I would think Giran would qualify as an "Earthling" in the sense of "a being from Earth or living on Earth"... though I get what you mean by that (he's outside of the human/monster/furry categories that were mentioned as being able to interbreed with each other.) I guess he must just be some kind of mutant dinosaur or something.

Yeah, the Japanese word commonly translated as "Earthling" is Chikyuu-jin, literally "Earth person". Presumably Giran doesn't get classified as a Chikyuu-jin because he counts as a monster rather than a person. It's similar to how Boo's dog Bee gets put in the same "Animals and Monsters" section as Giran, while the King of the World gets in the "Earthling" section along with Pilaf. In other words, the King is a Dog Man (an Animal-Type Earthling) while Bee is simply a dog, and Pilaf is a Monster Man (a Monster-Type Earthling) while Giran is simply a monster. Obviously all these characters are from Earth and could reasonably be described as "Earthling" in English, but Chikyuu-jin in Japanese implies a certain degree of human(oid)-ness that Bee and Giran don't meet. Of course, even seen in that light it's still a bit arbitrary, since Giran's pretty humanoid. I guess the fact that he openly proclaims himself to be a monster (kaijuu) gets him tossed in the "flat-out monster" category. A similar case is how Boo is called a Majin (Magic Man) while Yakon is called a Majuu (Magic Beast). The apparent idea is that Boo, weird as he may be, still counts as a type of man/person/human(oid)/whatever, while Yakon is more of an animal. Which is somewhat odd, because Yakon (like Giran) is overall still pretty humanoid and obviously sentient. Maybe it just comes down to whether or not the character in question wears clothes? I don't know...I feel like there's some sort of weird logic underlying all this, but it still seems pretty arbitrary too. I guess any system of classifying a bunch of oddball fantasy/sci-fi creatures is going to run into problems like this at some point.

He's never described as a demon or anything like that, is he? (Or do they ever mention what he is at all?)

As mentioned above, Giran describes himself as a kaijuu/monster. He's an obvious homage to Godzilla-style giant monsters (dai-kaijuu) even though he's not nearly as big. In the anime, he's also shown to be chief of the "Giran Clan", a race of guys just like him.

Giran's never described as a demon in the actual series, but one of the old RPG games did have an extra demon henchman for Piccolo that was based off Giran.

[Sshadow5001]

Wait...so the whole magic bird or special elixir was all lies? So he can just live for a long time.

Maybe his longer life is due to his lifestyle choice. Maybe having advanced Ki control can help fight off the reaper as it were. I mean for all we know Kuririn, Yamcha and Tien might still be kicking around for hundreds of years.

It might be similar for Saiyans too. Vegeta does say that they stay at their prime longer so they can fight longer, however past Saiyans didn't stick around long enough to reach old age as they likely fought to the grave...then Freeza kinda blew them up.

[TheZFighter]

I love some of the things viewed as unrealistic and flawed in the Dragon Ball universe.

[Alestat]

A similar case is how Boo is called a Majin (Magic Man) while Yakon is called a Majuu (Magic Beast).

Wait, so Ma stands for (Ma)gic? I always thought "ma" is for 魔 - evil, demonic, wicked etc. - as you can see on Pikkoro Daimao's clothes. And Majin stands for a demonic person, demon, devil etc.
With this logic Majū (魔獣) is something like "Evil creature, evil beast, evil brute, evil monster". Also if you put the jū kanji into the translator separately, it reads it as "Kemono", like in the word "Bakemono" which also means monster but that's written differently (化け物). Also why would they categorize Yakon as a "magical being"? The energy absorption isn't necessary a magical ability. Am I wrong?

Edit:
Ok I checked the 魔 sign's Chinese meaning and that really means magic. So in Majin Buu's case your are probably right, since the whole saga was about magic and most of the characters had "magical names" too.
But I still don't agree with the Majū thing. I know that a significant part of the Japanese folklore based on the Chinese fairy tales and Buddhist/Hindu monsters and gods, still I would read the 魔 as a Japanese kanji, so it means evil, it makes more sense to me.

This is a Majū:

Just a simple monster (probably evil ) without any magical abilities.

[Herms]

Wait...so the whole magic bird or special elixir was all lies? So he can just live for a long time.

He says he lied about the "elixir/water of immortality" and that it doesn't actually exist. But the immortal phoenix is apparently real...it just died of food poisoning. Sea Turtle even has to remind Kame-sennin about how the phoenix died, so it doesn't seem like it's just something Kame-sennin made up. Of course, even if they phoenix did exist, the fact that it died obviously makes it questionable whether it could really grant anyone immortality. But at any rate, while Kame-sennin says that he was going to have the phoenix grant Goku and Bulma immortality, he never actually claims that he owes his own long life to the phoenix. In fact, it's that same chapter where Sea Turtle says Kame-sennin supposedly drank the immortality elixir.

Maybe his longer life is due to his lifestyle choice. Maybe having advanced Ki control can help fight off the reaper as it were. I mean for all we know Kuririn, Yamcha and Tenshinhan might still be kicking around for hundreds of years.

That could be it. Sennin/xian are a standard concept of Asian mythology, which is a big part of why Toriyama felt free to just introduce one into DB and never quite explain why the guy can live for centuries. In the legends there are various different ways they're supposed to obtain their immortality. This bit from Wikipedia sums it up:

On one the hand, neidan (內丹 "internal alchemy") techniques included taixi (胎息 "embryo respiration") breath control, meditation, visualization, sexual training, and Tao Yin exercises (which later evolved into Qigong and T'ai chi ch'uan). On the other hand, waidan (外丹 "external alchemy") techniques for immortality included alchemical recipes, magic plants, rare minerals, herbal medicines, drugs, and dietetic techniques like inedia.

So basically, your idea of advanced ki control making him long-lived fits pretty neatly into the tradition of "internal alchemy" (Qigong is essentially ki control; the Japanese term for a standard ki blast is kikou-ha, "Qigong wave", and Tenshinhan's Kikouhou means "Qigong Cannon"). All the talk about an immortality elixir would be "external alchemy". It's a big part of sennin legends, and again that's why Toriyama just throws in talk about elixirs without bothering to explain. Of course, in the DB world the "external alchemy" aspect of the sennin legends turns out to just be a pack of lies.

Wait, so Ma stands for (Ma)gic? I always thought "ma" is for 魔 - evil, demonic, wicked etc. - as you can see on Pikkoro Daimao's clothes. And Majin stands for a demonic person, demon, devil etc.

In Japanese 魔 can mean both demon and magic, depending on context. With Piccolo it definitely means demon. With the Boo stuff, it seems more like magic, especially with Bibidi and Babidi being wizards. With Yakon, I suppose it's open to interpretation: he's a wizard's servant, but I guess he doesn't do anything overtly magical, though he's also not necessarily demonic (it looks like the current Kanzenshuu translation of chapter 451's title is "The Demon Beast Yakon's Feast"). At any rate, my main point is that Yakon and Boo are described with similar terms, except Yakon is a beast version and Boo is a human version.