Complete list of plotholes/continuity issues in the manga?

[Analytical Delusion]

I've searched a bit on the forums (as well as the main site) and I've seen a couple of smaller discussions, but not a complete or comprehensive list of plotholes and continuity issues. Does one exist?

[One_Instance]

Yes, it's right here. Be aware that this includes inconsistencies that are dub only.

[Lord Beerus]

Yes, it does.

[dbzfan7]

A good one is the Dragon Balls error. Essentially after the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai which is 8 month's after the DB's were used, Goku goes to find his Grampa's ball. Problem is it takes a year til they turn back into their marble forms. So the whole Red Ribbon Arc can't even work.

[FortuneSSJ]

Whenever I watch/play something, I always follow the flow without thinking too much about plotholes.

In this series, there was only one plothole that bothered me since I was a kid:
Goku Instant Kamehameha to Cell in Cell games.

Goku killed Cell righ there.
Cell to regenerate needs his core. The core is inside his head. Goku blew his upper part. KO.

In some dubs, they changed the script and it was said that in order to destroy Cell, you need to destroy every cell of his. This isn't the original script but hides the plothole.

Besides this one, the rest is okay to me and doesn't bother me.

[Cetra]

I still fail to understand how Saiyajin Saga Goku is like 7 times faster than Boo Saga Gohan.

For everyone who does not understand what I mean:

Snake Path is about 1 Million km long.

Goku made it in 2 days. That makes about 21000 km/h. And we do not even take breaks into consideration. If we do he has to be even faster. We can also not say how long he ran or was flying around and how much being in the otherworld helped him but let's be honest, no matter how great that would be, the one to compare him to is Boo Saga Gohan, so it does not matter anyway.

Gohan was troubled being late and could fly after he had his Saiyaman costume. Given the distance and the time he needed he was about 3000 km/h fast.

Now of course we could also say "Goku had to hurry faster because his case was more important" but Gohan also totally did not want to be late - no matter what and even if he did not try as much as Goku, in the end it does really not matter because the discrepancy is way too great, which is why all the variables really do not matter. The only thing is that no one really bothered about consistency when it comes to such things.

[Lord Beerus]

Yes, it's right here. Be aware that this includes inconsistencies that are dub only.

I'd be a bit cautious in trusting the DB Wiki.

[sayian_nation_]

I still fail to understand how Saiyajin Saga Goku is like 7 times faster than Boo Saga Gohan.

For everyone who does not understand what I mean:

Snake Path is about 1 Million km long.

Goku made it in 2 days. That makes about 21000 km/h. And we do not even take breaks into consideration. If we do he has to be even faster.

Goku was like half way through snake way when he fell to the underworld. Then when he found the way out by taking those stairs it led him back to King Yemmas office, back to the beginning of snake way! Lol so yea, he so would of made it sooner, though the forbidden fruit he ate off the tree helped him tremendously.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Let's see...

• The Dragon Balls are turned into stones for 1 year after they are used. In the end of the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai, they were active once again. However, only 8 months had passed between the last wish & the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai.
• In the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, Goku uses the Super Kamehameha to kill Piccolo, and Kami with him, and says that they can bring back Kami with the Dragon Balls after that. However, he later says that if Kami dies, the DBs are gone too. He somehow forgets about this before that revelation.
• The narrator says that regular Kaio-ken doubles the power of the user. However, Goku uses Kaio-ken x2 as if it was a level above the regular Kaio-ken in the same chapter.
• When Goku blasted Vegeta with his Kaio-ken x4 Kamehameha, Vegeta was having a monologue in his head, and he says that he is the strongest in the universe. However, we later learn that there are many others much stronger than him in Freeza's forces.
• Vegeta's battle power when he got to Namek was 24.000. After getting a near-death power-up through his 1st fight with Zarbon, he obviously got stronger. However, Jheese's scouter reads Vegeta's battle power as being close to 20.000, which is obviously false. This one is fixed in a latter edition of the Kanzenban release, where his battle power is now close to 30.000, instead of 20.000.
• Freeza says that he destroyed Planet Vegeta 30 years ago. However, Planet Vegeta was actually destroyed 23 years ago.
• Freeza is surprised that a guy like Goku existed, who was stronger than Ginyu. Vegeta, Piccolo, and Gohan had surpassed Ginyu during their fight with Freeza, so Freeza shouldn't be surprised at that point.
• When Trunks came to warn Goku about the Artificial Humans, he says that the Artificial Humans from the future are #19 & #20. However, we later learn that they are actually #17 & #18, and Trunks doesn't recognize #19 & #20 when he sees them.
• During Cell's explanation about his identity to Piccolo, he says that Trunks' DNA during his fight with Mecha Freeza & Cold wasn't collected because they already had enough Saiyan DNA. However, Trunks never fought Mecha Freeza & Cold in his timeline, Goku was the one who killed them.
• Goku blows up Cell's upper body, and he was able to regenerate. Later, we learn that Cell won't be able to regenerate if his nucleus in his head is destroyed. Goku's attack should have destroyed the nucleus.
• Kaioshin says that Majin Boo killed the other 4 Kaioshin. However, he later says that the 2 of them weren't killed, but absorbed.
• When SS3 Goku fought Fat Boo, Boo used Vegeta's Rapid-Fire Ki Blasts, which was how Goku found out about Boo's Mimicry ability. However, Vegeta never used that technique against Boo.
• Goku says that he told Boo to wait for an opponent stronger than him (SS Gotenks), and that he looked happy about it. Goku never said that this opponent would have been stronger than him.
• When Gotenks & Boo were fighting inside the Room of Spirit and Time, Goku didn't know where they were, and he found it strange that he couldn't sense Gotenks' & Boo's ki. He should have been searching for Goten's & Trunks' ki, since the kids began fighting Boo & merged after they got inside the RoSaT, not before.

There are also strength/speed feats that are inconsistent with feats of much stronger characters in later arcs, there are small errors in the art at times, and the colors in colored pages are not always consistent (we've seen Karin in various colors, for example). Gags aren't included.

Extra - Contradictions in Toriyama's new stories:

• Toriyama said in an interview that there are 3 Kaioshins, and that they work in shifts. However, the manga shows that there are 5 Kaioshins, and they are divided into the Kaioshins of the North, East, West, and South respectively, with the Dai Kaioshin supervising them all.
• Toriyama said in an interview that Beerus destroyed Kaio's planet after losing in a car-racing video-game. However, Whis says in DBZ: Battle of Gods that Beerus destroyed the planet after losing in hide-and-seek.
• In DBZ: Battle of Gods, it is said that Vegeta has a brother in another planet (a reference to Tarble from DB: Heya! Son Goku & Friends Return!!). However, Vegeta says in the manga (when trying to figure out how Trunks was a Super Saiyan), while speaking in his head, that he, Goku, and Gohan were the only remaining Saiyans.
• In DBZ: Battle of Gods, Bulma says that she is 38 years-old, while she actually should be 45. Mai also says that she is 41, which would make her 12 years-old in her first appearance in the manga, but she looks much older than that, which makes it impossible for her to be 41.
• In DBZ: Battle of Gods, Mr. Satan doesn't know who Dende is and doesn't know that he is the Kami of Earth, while he met him & learned that he is the Kami of Earth in the manga.
• In Jaco The Galactic Patrolman, Omori says that Bulma went after the Dragon Balls after graduating the university. However, Bulma is still shown going to school in the manga.
• In the manga, Shenlong can grant 3 wishes (or 2, when one wish is used to revive lots of people). However, in DBZ: Battle of Gods, Shenlong only grants one wish (he only granted one wish when Pilaf summoned him, and also granted only one wish when Goku summoned him). Then in DBZ: Resurrection "F", he only grants 2 wishes, even though none of the wishes revived more than one person.
• In DBZ: Battle of Gods, we learn that the gods' ki like Beerus, Whis, and the Super Saiyan God can't be sensed by mortals, and in DBZ: Resurrection "F", Goku says that he can't use Shunkan Ido because he can't sense Beerus' & Whis' ki, since they are gods. However, we've seen mortals sensing the ki of gods in the manga, such as when Gohan & Piccolo could sense Kami Dende's ki, and Goku traveled to Kaio numerous times by using Shunkan Ido.
• In DBZ: Resurrection "F", Shisami was said to be equal in ability to Zarbon & Dodoria, but he could fight evenly with Piccolo 4 months later, without any explanation.

Did I miss anything?

[Lord Beerus]

I think you got em all, DBZGTKOSDH. Nice work. I can always count on you for insightful DB info on the go.

[Analytical Delusion]

Thanks a ton guys! Epic list DBZGTKOSDH, really appreciate you putting that together.

[Lord Beerus]

I find it funny that complain that modern Toriyama is incredibly inconsistent, yet Toriyama from the days of when he was writing and drawing the manga was far more inconsistent and guilty of continuity errors. Hell, most of the contradictions from BOG and Jaco are pretty minor compared to the ones in the manga.

[dbzfan7]

I find it funny that complain that modern Toriyama is incredibly inconsistent, yet Toriyama from the days of when he was writing and drawing the manga was far more inconsistent and guilty of continuity errors. Hell, most of the contradictions from BOG and Jaco are pretty minor compared to the ones in the manga.

10 years of writing for a manga in the 80's and 90's (Different time, different standards) vs a few new things that don't have nearly as much work in them. Yeah...real fair comparison. No shit the Manga has more holes cause it's waaaay longer than the movies and Jaco. This is also 2015, and perish the thought people actually want some consistency in the story telling. Another thing that bugs people is the minor things are so easy to either fix or change, you kinda wonder why they even exist.

[Faustus]

10 years of writing for a manga in the 80's and 90's (Different time, different standards) vs a few new things that don't have nearly as much work in them. Yeah...real fair comparison. No shit the Manga has more holes cause it's waaaay longer than the movies and Jaco. This is also 2015, and perish the thought people actually want some consistency in their story telling. Another thing that bugs people is the minor things are so easy to either fix or change, you kinda wonder why they even exist.

I'm confused as to why you believe people had much lower standards for consistency in their manga back in the 80s and 90s. I suspect your feeling this way has more to do with the fact that a number of us were a lot younger back then, and so either didn't notice the glaring errors or just plain didn't care.

The length of the manga isn't a valid excuse either when it has quite significant contradictions occur between plot-points within mere chapters of one another (I'm thinking of the 23rd tournament and Cell's-nucleus ones in particular)!

Besides, you'd think the more minor an inconsistency, the more we might be willing to give it a pass.

[dbzfan7]

10 years of writing for a manga in the 80's and 90's (Different time, different standards) vs a few new things that don't have nearly as much work in them. Yeah...real fair comparison. No shit the Manga has more holes cause it's waaaay longer than the movies and Jaco. This is also 2015, and perish the thought people actually want some consistency in their story telling. Another thing that bugs people is the minor things are so easy to either fix or change, you kinda wonder why they even exist.

I'm confused as to why you believe people had much lower standards for consistency in their manga back in the 80s and 90s. I suspect your feeling this way has more to do with the fact that a number of us were a lot younger back then, and so either didn't notice the glaring errors or just plain didn't care.

The length of the manga isn't a valid excuse either when it has quite significant contradictions occur between plot-points within chapters of one another (I'm thinking of the 23rd tournament and Cell's-nucleus ones in particular)!

Besides, you'd think the more minor an inconsistency, the more we might be willing to give it a pass.

I never said people had much lower standards. I said the standard in story telling in general was most likely lower. Which is why most things in the past get some free passes in things like story telling, art, acting, gameplay, etc as things have changed.

I'm not defending the manga for having holes, I'm saying of course it has more holes cause the longer a story is, the more likely you'll be able to find more problems with it than a shorter story. Comparing an entire serialization to a movie is silly. You can say the movie doesn't have as big a hole as one aspect of the manga, but to compare the amount of holes is ridiculous.

Now that is all dependent on the story itself. In all actuality the quality of a story determines how willing we are to subside our disbelief. You can find problems in some of the best works of fiction. However your enjoyment dictates how much you'll forgive an issue you might see. So if you were super hyped and satisfied, you won't really care about said issue. If you weren't satisfied or just mildly entertained, then those issues will bug you a lot more.

[Faustus]

I never said people had much lower standards. I said the standard in story telling in general was most likely lower. Which is why most things in the past get some free passes in things like story telling, art, acting, gameplay, etc as things have changed.

I'm not defending the manga for having holes, I'm saying of course it has more holes cause the longer a story is, the more likely you'll be able to find more problems with it than a shorter story. Comparing an entire serialization to a movie is silly. You can say the movie doesn't have as big a hole as one aspect of the manga, but to compare the amount of holes is ridiculous.

Now that is all dependent on the story itself. In all actuality the quality of a story determines how willing we are to subside our disbelief. You can find problems in some of the best works of fiction. However your enjoyment dictates how much you'll forgive an issue you might see. So if you were super hyped and satisfied, you won't really care about said issue. If you weren't satisfied or just mildly entertained, then those issues will bug you a lot more.

Ok then: why do you think they were (at all) lower?

The length of the overall story is irrelevant when inconsistencies in the manga often occur within the span of a single arc. Surely new films failing to square with this or that minor tidbit of information from 10 years' worth of material is somewhat less heinous in your eyes? In fact, I'd say they get more of a pass from me precisely because they have so much more material to take into account, not to mention from so long ago - and even then the incongruities remain rather insignificant relative to some of the manga's more egregious failings in this regard.

I suppose that could very well be the case for many, but it seems to me that on the contrary there are several here for whom the quality of the story is determined, whether in whole or in part, by the number of inconsistencies it contains rather than vice versa, as you suggest. If so, then it's not unreasonable to be assigning plot-holes "weights", as it were, in the abstract - outside of our opinions of the story at large, our all too variable subjective impressions of whether the story has entertained us sufficiently that we can suspend judgment on this inconsistency or that. My point is this: Plot-hole for plot-hole, your opinion of the story excluded, is the quibble over Bulma age in BoG really so much less excusable than Goku at the 23rd tournament forgetting then remembering that Kami dies with the dragon balls for nothing else than sheer plot convenience? Is any inconsistency in the new films? If not, then you (and this is a general "you", not you dbzfan7) are going to have to learn to articulate better reasons than "look: inconsistency!" as to why you think Toriyama's stories now are generally worse than his older stuff. Give us those reasons why the niggling little errors appear to you here in a much more negative light than before.

[dbzfan7]

I never said people had much lower standards. I said the standard in story telling in general was most likely lower. Which is why most things in the past get some free passes in things like story telling, art, acting, gameplay, etc as things have changed.

I'm not defending the manga for having holes, I'm saying of course it has more holes cause the longer a story is, the more likely you'll be able to find more problems with it than a shorter story. Comparing an entire serialization to a movie is silly. You can say the movie doesn't have as big a hole as one aspect of the manga, but to compare the amount of holes is ridiculous.

Now that is all dependent on the story itself. In all actuality the quality of a story determines how willing we are to subside our disbelief. You can find problems in some of the best works of fiction. However your enjoyment dictates how much you'll forgive an issue you might see. So if you were super hyped and satisfied, you won't really care about said issue. If you weren't satisfied or just mildly entertained, then those issues will bug you a lot more.

Ok then: why do you think they were (at all) lower?

The length of the overall story is irrelevant when inconsistencies in the manga often occur within the span of a single arc. Surely new films failing to square with this or that minor tidbit of information from 10 years' worth of material is somewhat less heinous in your eyes? In fact, I'd say they get more of a pass from me precisely because they have so much more material to take into account, not to mention from so long ago - and even then the incongruities remain rather insignificant relative to some of the manga's more egregious failings in this regard.

I suppose that could very well be the case for many, but it seems to me that on the contrary there are several here for whom the quality of the story is determined, whether in whole or in part, by the number of inconsistencies it contains rather than vice versa, as you suggest. If so, then it's not unreasonable to be assigning plot-holes "weights", as it were, in the abstract - outside of our opinions of the story at large, our all too variable subjective impressions of whether the story has entertained us sufficiently that we can suspend judgment on this inconsistency or that. My point is this: Plot-hole for plot-hole, your opinion of the story excluded, is the quibble over Bulma age in BoG really so much less excusable than Goku at the 23rd tournament forgetting then remembering that Kami dies with the dragon balls for nothing else than plot convenience? Is any inconsistency in the new films? If not, then you (and this is a general "you", not you dbzfan7) are going to have to learn to articulate better reasons than "look: inconsistency!" as to why you think Toriyama's stories now are generally worse than his older stuff.

Because it's been 20 years? Do you not think story telling quality has not evolved since then? Somethings concepts have become cliche. Some have been done to death. Story telling terms and tropes have become more apparent and recognizable. Just like how graphics evolve over time, so does the standard of story telling. Our expectations now a days are higher than they were 20 years ago. I don't think it's wrong to say we expect more from stories than we did back in the 80's or 90's.

Length but also quality plays a part. It's not fair to compare an entire manga to a slim movie. Sure a story arc is more comparable, but 520 or so chapters vs an hour movie is pretty unfair.

And who says those are excusable? Maybe back then people didn't care but now a days we look back to see how stories have held up. We don't just sweep them under the carpet. Besides people have come up with plenty of reasons (though plot hole for some is over exaggerating). What's silly is when people make so light of these "inconsistencies" they can't think of how easily avoidable some of them are. Though this isn't the Movie continuity issues thread now is it?

[SaiyaJedi]

Because it's been 20 years? Do you not think story telling quality has not evolved since then? Somethings concepts have become cliche. Some have been done to death. Story telling terms and tropes have become more apparent and recognizable. Just like how graphics evolve over time, so does the standard of story telling. Our expectations now a days are higher than they were 20 years ago. I don't think it's wrong to say we expect more from stories than we did back in the 80's or 90's.

Japanese comics as a medium of storytelling have existed for quite a bit longer than Akira Toriyama's career. While times and tastes have changed, I doubt anyone would dispute the notion that Osamu Tezuka, who started in the 1940s, was a master of the medium, and a far better storyteller than Toriyama. The things that people find interesting or plausible will of course shift with changes in society and (the general public's) scientific understanding. Once-novel plot devices become cliché and ripe for parody, while new ones take their place to repeat the cycle. Storytelling itself, however, is a timeless craft that transcends such trivial concerns.

Toriyama can of course create a ripping yarn, but he was never much concerned with things like continuity or character depth in his quest to let his readers have a good time. His longtime friend and colleague Masakazu Katsura has been merciless towards him about this (all in good fun, of course). This is even more apparent when reading through in Jump, since a number of inconsistencies get papered over in time for the collected release. (Chapter 63, for instance, was a mess of continuity mistakes.) Japanese readers even noticed things like this and wrote letters pointing them out to him after the fact (which might be why the exchange between Kuririn and Gohan in Chapter 213 was altered so drastically for the tankōbon).

Nostalgia blinds people to the fact that they were once able to enjoy something so rife with errors, when they now have much more exacting demands for consistency. The comic Dragon Ball ended 20 years ago this month. For better or worse, it seems monolithic, set in stone, rather than the product of a rather careless cartoonist working on a weekly deadline. Toriyama is not and has never been especially concerned with continuity. That everything seems to hang together as well as it does is an incredibly happy accident, but that doesn't mean it is actually more coherent, if you stop to examine things more closely. Toriyama's new material only seems glaringly "off" because people have had time to construct their own internal consistencies based on the author's own not-too-terribly-consistent work. There is nothing new under the sun.

[dbzfan7]

Japanese comics as a medium of storytelling have existed for quite a bit longer than Akira Toriyama's career. While times and tastes have changed, I doubt anyone would dispute the notion that Osamu Tezuka, who started in the 1940s was a master of the medium, and a far better storyteller than Toriyama. The things that people find interesting or plausible will of course shift with changes in society and (the general public's) scientific understanding. Once-novel plot devices become cliché and ripe for parody, while new ones take their place to repeat the cycle. Storytelling itself, however, is a timeless craft that transcends such trivial concerns.

Exactly why I believe times have changed and so expectations and what may have been acceptable back then, isn't now. No way to really know til ya go back and see just how a story holds up objectively and subjectively. Of course some people back then are high above the bar, but there is clearly a set level between good and poor. Some people from the past may be a lot better than some people today too. Though as ideas are used, new concepts becoming groundbreaking, others get stale. What was a great idea back could be considered over used or out of place today. Some references or concepts might fly by someone like me as if I don't live in Japan nor was really born at the time. So something would be considered before my time perhaps. If I didn't understand it that wouldn't make something I didn't get bad, just before my time. Dragon Ball ended around when I was born. This is why people always ask the question "What holds or stands the test of time". Because over time tastes change, new expectations are made, and possibly more hidden goodies or errors may stand out more.

Toriyama can of course create a ripping yarn, but he was never much concerned with things like continuity or character depth in his quest to let his readers have a good time. His longtime friend and colleague Masakazu Katsura has been merciless towards him about this (all in good fun, of course). This is even more apparent when reading through in Jump, since a number of inconsistencies get papered over in time for the collected release. (Chapter 63, for instance, was a mess of continuity mistakes.) Japanese readers even noticed things like this and wrote letters pointing them out to him after the fact (which might be why the exchange between Kuririn and Gohan in Chapter 213 was altered so drastically for the tankōbon).

Those are really interesting tibits there. I would like or hope more people today would do the same thing and show some concern, so maybe more deliberate action will be taken. I like how apparently people were able to point out issues, and some were fixed.

Nostalgia blinds people to the fact that they were once able to enjoy something so rife with errors, when they now have much more exacting demands for consistency. The comic Dragon Ball ended 20 years ago this month. For better or worse, it seems monolithic, set in stone, rather than the product of a rather careless cartoonist working on a weekly deadline. Toriyama is not and has never been especially concerned with continuity. That everything seems to hang together as well as it does is an incredibly happy accident, but that doesn't mean it is actually more coherent, if you stop to examine things more closely. Toriyama's new material only seems glaringly "off" because people have had time to construct their own internal consistencies based on the author's own not-too-terribly-consistent work. There is nothing new under the sun.

The weekly deadlines probably made things harder back then, where as now I'd think he'd have more time to formulate his work and thoughts. A lot of people's internal consistencies are pretty much base on whatever Toriyama originally put out, so some of us are usually are bothered when he goes against his own work. I had stated that Toriyama cares more about telling his story, rather than being consistent. That's just how he is I think. With such a long on going continuity, some of us really like to see him follow what he laid out. Though suspension of disbelief is different for us all, so some people don't care about changes so long as they're entertained, and nothing is really wrong with that.

[EXBadguy]

10 years of writing for a manga in the 80's and 90's (Different time, different standards) vs a few new things that don't have nearly as much work in them. Yeah...real fair comparison. No shit the Manga has more holes cause it's waaaay longer than the movies and Jaco. This is also 2015, and perish the thought people actually want some consistency in the story telling. Another thing that bugs people is the minor things are so easy to either fix or change, you kinda wonder why they even exist.

About time somebody says this! Take SSG for example, people expected better from this form, what do we get, a STUPID SKINNY KAIOKEN KNOCKOFF! If that ain't lazy and oversimplified, then I dunno what is. I'm not asking for an "over the top" form, all I'm saying is have the form live up to its name.

I find it funny that complain that modern Toriyama is incredibly inconsistent, yet Toriyama from the days of when he was writing and drawing the manga was far more inconsistent and guilty of continuity errors. Hell, most of the contradictions from BOG and Jaco are pretty minor compared to the ones in the manga.

Well I think the opposite. These inconsistencies in the movies and Minus are way bigger than all of the sagas combined. Most of the inconsistencies the old Toriyama made can be overlooked and figured out while the ones in the new movies are inexcusable. Baby Goku wearing clothes when he should've been naked, Bulma's age, Goten and Trunks' not looking older when they should be(heck, they could've made their faces a little more refined and have Goten's hair different or longer, idc), DENDE'S PHYSICAL APPEARANCE AND VOICE(how could ANYONE not notice that), the Super Saiyan God backstory, and the list goes on.

Alright, I somewhat do agree that the old Toriyama was starting to lose his edge when the Buu saga started, but other than that, the modern Toriyama is still worse.