What is it about injuries to the left arm in the series?

[SuicidalZerg]

Is it just me, or is the left arm the most frequently injured body part in the Dragon Ball series?:

Goku loses the use of all but his right arm in the fight vs the original Piccolo Daimao
Piccolo's reincarnation rips his own left arm off after it's severely injured (then regenerates it)
Piccolo then burns Goku's left arm while he's tormenting him after blasting a hole in his chest and breaking his legs
Piccolo gets his left arm blown off by Raditz
Tenshinhan gets his left arm cut clean off by Nappa
Freeza's left arm (not to mention the rest of his lower body) gets cut off by his own disc
Android 18 breaks Vegeta's left arm
Cell absorbs Piccolo's left arm
Cell gets his left arm (and legs, wings, and... horns? [best way I can describe them, anyways]) blown off by Gohan's Kamehameha
Gohan nearly gets his left arm blown off defending Vegeta from Cell's attack (And in the future timeline, he actually did get his left arm blown off by the Androids)
Majin Boo severely injures Vegeta's left arm in their first fight
Vegeta's left shoulder is run through by one of Omega Shenron's spikes

The only right arm injuries I recall seeing are Freeza ripping Nail's left arm off, and Vegeta blowing away half of Cell's right torso.

[Insertclevername]

Probably just a coincidence. Though, most people in Dragon Ball happen to be right handed, so immobilizing their left arms is a good way of really injuring the character, but not taking them out of the fight.

[WesMan23]

Perhaps Toriyama has something against left-handed people and that's his way of showing it.

[Blade]

Historical cultural attitudes towards left-handedness in Japan are similar to those of the Western world wherein it was traditionally perceived to carry a negative connotation. Japanese table etiquette, for example, requires one to eat with chopsticks from their right hand.

It's an interesting commonality that you have raised, and one which has caught my interest. I'd love to see someone shed some properly informed insight on this - my only assumption, in light of the aforementioned attitudes, is that Toriyama or the writing staff wanted to demonstrate great injuries but not show them to be entirely disabling. That would be to say that even if the left arm is disabled the right arm can still fight or be used to muster some form of resistance. This isn't always the case - Vegeta's crippling defeat by #18, for example, but in the other cases more often than not the fight doesn't end upon the injury being inflicted.

[kei17]

Japanese table etiquette, for example, requires one to eat with chopsticks from their right hand.

I know you're talking about historical things, but to be clear, let me point out that no one complains about holding chopsticks with your left hand in the current era. It's completely accepted.

[Blade]

Japanese table etiquette, for example, requires one to eat with chopsticks from their right hand.

I know you're talking about historical things, but to be clear, let me point out that no one complains about holding chopsticks with your left hand in the current era. It's completely accepted.

Yes, I was - I did mention that it was part of historical cultural attitudes in my post.

I've visited a few times, and certainly no one ever pulled me up over it!

[Bussani]

You know, if I were writing a story, I'd probably make it the left arm that gets injured as well. I'm right handed, so when I imagine fighting back with a one handed Kamehameha or anything like that, I automatically imagine using my right hand. Maybe Toriyama did the same thing? I mean, he did try out Kamehameha poses when he first came up with it.

[Unicorn_Bazooka]

THEY HATE LEFT-HANDED PEOPLE! D:<

[Ketchup_Revenge]

THEY HATE LEFT-HANDED PEOPLE! D:<

Everyone does. I feel that pain everyday.

[Kid Buu]

People tend to have damaged arms in Bleach a lot too, wonder if its an anime thing?

[bkev]

Anyone ever consider that it might have just been easier for Toriyama to draw?