Thoughts on SSJ2 Teen Gohan

[Saiga]

I don't believe either transformation was supposed to be disturbing, scary, or something to hate. I'd say the ones making that claim are actually missing the point.

Given the demographic and Toriyama's style, I think these were meant to be awesome. The suddenly cold behaviour, the brutal actions... these things are awesome to many young boys. While older fans may see problems with this, like how Goku and Gohan are certainly behaving poorly or eerily, the series wasn't written for them. It was written for people who find "true Saiyans fight alone" to be ridiculously cool instead of rock-fucking-stupid.

It's perfectly fine to interpret the text differently but I think it's kind of rude to insist that people looking at it differently to you are missing the point.

[Saturnine]

This discussion...

Sorry, but what is this, Tumblr? Of course Gohan's brutality was meant to be badass and it WAS badass. I don't think a normal viewer thinks about how disturbing or mentally demented such actions are, a normal viewer just grabs his popcorn and revels in the slaughter that ensues

[Gorou]

Another uber character , who lost time with the enemy instead of finishing it.

I've said, I do not like these kinds of characters. In Dragon Ball (except Goku that he ALWAYS does, because is characterized in this way), there are three character which acting in this way, in the group of good: Ted Gohan SSJ2, Gotenks e Vegeth. The first two have sin of arrogance , the last only for pure stupidity.

What I can not stand in any way is just Vegeth. The others two can find interesting, for other qualities.

The dualism expressed by this Gohan is incredibly interesting. Gohan has always been the more empathetic characters, more altruistic and more inclined to not tollerating in any way the cruelty and bullying, of all the cast. The influence of this transformation, has made him cynical, ruthless, vindictive, arrogant (something that the usual self would have hated). And this brief change, I found incredibly unexpected and interesting.

The first thing he does is killed, without pity, even as they fled, a group of children (because the cell jr are children - that if you think about it, maybe they were not even evil in nature; maybe they only follow their father's orders), and then play to humiliate and torture Cell. It is very different from his previous rage's attacks , because here, is fully aware.

Then, he makes the mistake of not killing Cell, but I enjoyed that, later, he realize the mistake, and is the only character in the arc to show grief and repentance for his bad decision (Krilin and Vegeta have never done). This made me appreciate even more him.

In addition, is the protagonist of two of the most iconic and beautiful scenes of the entire franchising: its transformation (masterfully rendered in the anime) and the Father-Son Kamehameha.

Negative sides: his ""battle"" with Cell. There's nothing more boring to one-way battles. Goku vs Cell was a 100 times more beautiful.
It is an enormous sin. Cell, that in the previous forms has always been tactical and calculating, he could show the true skill of its perfect body, giving us a clash of tactics against brute force (example: it could blind Gohan with Solar flare, and hurt him with his kiezan, and we would have a balanced confrontation, even without the inconsistent regeneration).

[Captain Strawberry]

You're supposed to hate Gohan after he turns Super Saiyan 2, he's portrayed in a way where that intent is obvious.

Then Toriyama objectively failed.

Well I did notice it in the sub when watching kai

[z_cherub]

This discussion...

Sorry, but what is this, Tumblr? Of course Gohan's brutality was meant to be badass and it WAS badass. I don't think a normal viewer thinks about how disturbing or mentally demented such actions are, a normal viewer just grabs his popcorn and revels in the slaughter that ensues

Agreed that it was supposed to bad ass and that it was, but like Son's initial SSJ transformation, it was bad ass, but also bittersweet for those that watched him grow up from an innocent carefree kid in the woods to an angry, borderline sadistic warrior that you weren't sure he'd come back from at the time. If you jumped in with the beginning of Z, maybe it didn't matter as much, I don't know...