Why is Toriyama taking a massive dump on Gohan?

[dbzfan7]

Vegeta is a saiyan. So his priorities are pretty much food and fighting. They naturally have huge appetites. In Super's case, watch episode 2 where he goes crazy with all the food he gets. He and Goku get into a fight about food in the 2008 special. Vegeta definitely falls into the category of "Loves food, fighing, and has pretty much no life outside of that." Essentially the criteria of if you're allowed to be useful or important.

All of those are examples from the recent stuff. Vegeta exhibited almost NO obsessive interest in food or eating during the original series. If he does now, that's definitely a new thing for him (and while small, definitely feels kinda lame to tack onto him). There's also nothing that I can ever remember being said anywhere about Saiya-jin having naturally bigger appetites (if someone else can cite something to correct me, all the more so if it isn't something from a fucking guidebook, please feel free): as far as I can recall, the whole "big appetite" thing was primarily Goku's shtick.

ALL the other characters from Yamucha and Kuririn on down, exhibited some random examples of "ravenous appetites" in the past, but that came almost ENTIRELY from exerting themselves in training and fighting, and always came across more as a general "the harder you work, the hungrier you get, so these guys tend to get REALLY hungry" gag. As far as a steady fixation on food goes, again, that was always really just Goku's thing: and has over the years grown to be among the more irritating and shallow things that later shonen series have taken from DB.

It's not just a Goku thing. Saiyans are ravenous and eat a ton.

From D4

Appetite
Gluttonous aliens that will eat anything.
They eat more than is considered sensible on Earth. They have no likes nor dislikes when it comes to food.

Vegeta is the same as Goku as it's what saiyans do. As said before he freaking ate people. Vegeta chowed down during the tournament lunch break alongside Goku and Gohan as being pigs. You can start a whole thread on the topic and other people can go more how ravenous appetites is a saiyan thing, and not simply a Goku thing.

[dbgtFO]

Vegeta is a saiyan. So his priorities are pretty much food and fighting. They naturally have huge appetites. In Super's case, watch episode 2 where he goes crazy with all the food he gets. He and Goku get into a fight about food in the 2008 special. Vegeta definitely falls into the category of "Loves food, fighing, and has pretty much no life outside of that." Essentially the criteria of if you're allowed to be useful or important.

All of those are examples from the recent stuff. Vegeta exhibited almost NO obsessive interest in food or eating during the original series. If he does now, that's definitely a new thing for him, and while small, definitely feels kinda lame to tack onto him (if for no other reason than "SHONEN HERO LOVE FOOD!!!" is about the most beyond fucking tired and annoying shit at this point). There's also nothing that I can ever remember being said anywhere about Saiya-jin having naturally bigger appetites (if someone else can cite something to correct me, all the more so if it isn't something from a fucking guidebook, please feel free): as far as I can recall, the whole "big appetite" thing was primarily Goku's shtick.

There was the scene at the 25th Budokai, when Goku and co. ate lunch after Trunks won the Junior division.
IIRC some character(Krillin, maybe) remarked that all Saiyans have big appetites apparently.

[dbzfan7]

Vegeta is a saiyan. So his priorities are pretty much food and fighting. They naturally have huge appetites. In Super's case, watch episode 2 where he goes crazy with all the food he gets. He and Goku get into a fight about food in the 2008 special. Vegeta definitely falls into the category of "Loves food, fighing, and has pretty much no life outside of that." Essentially the criteria of if you're allowed to be useful or important.

All of those are examples from the recent stuff. Vegeta exhibited almost NO obsessive interest in food or eating during the original series. If he does now, that's definitely a new thing for him, and while small, definitely feels kinda lame to tack onto him (if for no other reason than "SHONEN HERO LOVE FOOD!!!" is about the most beyond fucking tired and annoying shit at this point). There's also nothing that I can ever remember being said anywhere about Saiya-jin having naturally bigger appetites (if someone else can cite something to correct me, all the more so if it isn't something from a fucking guidebook, please feel free): as far as I can recall, the whole "big appetite" thing was primarily Goku's shtick.

There was the scene at the 25th Budokai, when Goku and co. ate lunch after Trunks won the Junior division.
IIRC some character(Krillin, maybe) remarked that all Saiyans have big appetites apparently.

Yes it was Krillin. My manga has him wonder what Saiyan stomachs are made of, as Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan eat a ton of food. Not sure what the japanese version says though, but from the anime it was pretty much a comment on how saiyans eat a lot.

Spoiler:

[sintzu]

Did Toriyama ever let him win a fight where he wasn't babied?

He only won one fight and was helped by Goku&Vegeta.

[Kunzait_83]

You can start a whole thread on the topic and other people can go more how ravenous appetites is a saiyan thing, and not simply a Goku thing.

That's quite alright, I'm good thanks.

I definitely remembered the 25th Budokai scene in question when I posted earlier but I could've sworn that Kuririn was chowing down same as they were and that it was simply another "hearty meal after a fight" bit, but I guess not.

And yes I did bring up the cannibalism thing earlier, but somewhere in the back of my head I figured that Vegeta eating slain victims of his planet raids was less just a Saiya-jin thing and more something that a lot of other members of Freeza's empire did in general because... well because an enterprise like Freeza's organization attracts a fucked up sort of people. But now that I'm actually thinking back on it, its really something you only ever see the Saiya-jin do, so that further backs that up.

Goku was for long stretches of the series the only Saiya-jin character, so it makes sense that he'd stick out more as the most prominent example. From an "in-universe" perspective (and on a general storytelling level during the Saiya-jin and Freeza arcs) the whole "appetite" thing is definitely to further hammer home the Saiya-jin race as basically "space barbarians", especially since almost all the most prominent examples of them eating (particularly in the anime) is them eating the corpses of other people that they've killed.

That said, Freeza-era cannibalism and that one bit in the 25th Budokai aside, Vegeta's appetite was weirdly never really given as much focus throughout the original series. Future Trunks, half Saiya-jin though he is, NEVER showed any signs of it (apart from one scene in the Trunks TV special where it looks more like he's just trying to mimic Gohan cause he's his master and he idolizes him); but then he's a pretty stoic, low key, PTSD-ish sort of character in general, so there's that. Aside from one or two VERY scattered moments and the whole cannibalism thing, Goku's largely the main focus of the whole "big appetite" thing. Gohan gets a couple more moments here or there himself, but they always play mostly as "well, on at least SOME level he's his father's son".

But yeah, Saiya-jin were barbaric, nomadic savages, so huge hearty appetites definitely go hand in hand with them. Dunno why I spaced on that.