Why is Gohan so stupid?

[dragonmagico]

I dunno if things in the trailer for the new movie counts as spoilers but just to be safe I will be mentioning that so be warned.

Like I fully understand he WANTS to be just a scholar, but someone as supposedly smart as him should realize by now he can't be *just* a scholar. The last two times he stopped training (post cell time skip and post bog) people he says he cares about died. Yet in the new movie trailer we can see he once again gave up training, saying Goku and Vegeta will handle everything. I'm not saying he has to give up being a scholar but man you think someone as smart as he thinks he is would realize we don't always get everything we want and we need to find balance in life instead of going hyper obsession on just one thing.


So I fully understand why piccolo was upset with him, especially considering he's died more than anyone else due to Gohan's lazy attitude. But like what's it gonna take for Gohan to get his head out of his butt? Is pan going to have to die before the message that hey maybe he should be doing both training and learning sticks?

[Hugo Boss]

A better question would be: why should Gohan carry Goku’s legacy if he wants to follow another path? Gohan’s fighting career ended in Androids arc. Peace is what he deserved after fighting for so long since he was a little child. If he wants to fight, be it when he wants to have some fun. And by no means we should expect Gohan to be a perfect balanced warrior, father, son, husband. None is perfect. Sometimes we don’t give the necessary attention to important stuff and that happens all the time. Despite that, Gohan always finds a way to recover his fighting spirit, he does what he has to do.

[VegettoEX]

I mean, part of this is that Gohan's not a real person: he's a fictional character. And to that end, in the modern era he's written by a fairly uncoordinated team: you have underlying material from Akira Toriyama, and then you have adaptations and extensions of that work through Toei Animation's television series writing staff on the anime side, and then Toyotaro on the manga side. And beyond that, you have stuff that's largely wholesale directly from Toriyama himself that goes into the films.

All of them have done their own spin/take on the character, generally in large swaths of rough accordance with each other, but with lots of minutia that's exclusive to their own version.

And that also means you're going to have all these different folks taking different elements they've liked/disliked in the past, and either doing their own take on it, or going in different directions... and on top of that, they may or may not care what the others have done in their own respective versions (see, most specifically, here: Toriyama himself).

There's also the fact that people aren't always reasonable, don't always make the best decisions, and quite frankly, aren't perfect.

Gohan's not perfect. No character in the series is. They have their own motivations and desires that may be completely separate from the impending realities of their situations.

I think that makes them more interesting characters.*

(*This is not necessarily a statement that also means "I personally enjoy the specific stories that the writers have been telling us since 2013.)

[Majin Buu]

There's no guarantee that he would have become the ultimate warrior who always wins even if he wasn't "stupid". Just look at Future Gohan.

Judging by what we saw of him, he completely forsook being a scholar and was at the top of his game as a fighter (until he lost his arm); and not only did he fail to defeat the androids, he got killed in the process- and this was after a long stretch of making no progress against them.

For all the complaints about Gohan not keeping up with his training, doing so didn't help his future counterpart at all; and going by the same logic people use to bash present Gohan, that should have made all the difference (especially considering Future Gohan's world was in a far more dire state).

[Cursed Lemon]

Because he's Goku's son lol

[MasenkoHA]

Fwiw in real life people do change and go back and forth on their priorities and goals all the time




It does seem a bit regressive for Gohan to go backwards on his character arc in Super. Was that whole bit anime only? i.e not part of Toriyama's concept outlines

[Koitsukai]

I don't think it has anything to do with Gohan, but the author. Toriyama doesn't seem to have a problem with telling the same beat over and over again. Perhaps he cannot come up with something better, or original for him.

[super michael]

There's no guarantee that he would have become the ultimate warrior who always wins even if he wasn't "stupid". Just look at Future Gohan.

Judging by what we saw of him, he completely forsook being a scholar and was at the top of his game as a fighter (until he lost his arm); and not only did he fail to defeat the androids, he got killed in the process- and this was after a long stretch of making no progress against them.

For all the complaints about Gohan not keeping up with his training, doing so didn't help his future counterpart at all; and going by the same logic people use to bash present Gohan, that should have made all the difference (especially considering Future Gohan's world was in a far more dire state).

Future Gohan may have trained nearly his entire life, however what he lacked was a skillful and stronger partner. The only time Future Gohan learned anything was from Piccolo for 6 months.
He didn't have Piccolo (fused with Nails) and Goku to teach him.

As for the present counterpart he has Goku around, but he no longer trains with him after the Cell Saga. He only sticks to Piccolo to train with him, doesn't try to train with Whis.

Cell Game Gohan is the result of when he trains with the best.
Future Gohan is the result when he can't train with the best.
DBS Gohan is the result when he refuse to train with the best.

[Majin Buu]

Future Gohan may have trained nearly his entire life, however what he lacked was a skillful and stronger partner. The only time Future Gohan learned anything was from Piccolo for 6 months.
He didn't have Piccolo (fused with Nails) and Goku to teach him.

By all accounts he was a pretty skilled fighter even without Goku and Piccolo.

As for present Gohan, even if he hadn't slacked off and trained enough to have gotten to SSJ2 Goku's and SSJ2 Majin Vegeta's strength, we know that level of power wasn't enough to beat Majin Buu; so him keeping up training during those 7 years wouldn't have mattered anyway unless he somehow reached Super Saiyan 3 himself, and I don't see that happening.

[Saiya6Cit]

I remember reading somewhere that Toriyama wanted precisely that, make Gohan to be the opposite to Goku. If you think about it it also happens in real life. Many Medical Drs and Lawyers somehow expect their children to continue the legacy but maybe they are not into that.

I agree Gohan could be both. If he would want to. Bruce Banner, Tony Stark and even Peter Parker are both, scientific genius and superheroes, but Gohan does not want to and IRL Toriyama does not want to let's just deal with it.

Must confessed I was a little triggered by the title but K.

[Grimlock]

so him keeping up training during those 7 years wouldn't have mattered anyway unless he somehow reached Super Saiyan 3 himself, and I don't see that happening.

Gotta be amused when sometimes people think of some ideas that, especially by coincidence, has already been used.

There's a scenario in Dragon Ball Heroes where Piccolo and Gohan kept training for those seven years, and that's exactly what happened, he achieved Super Saiyan 3. That's the explanation for the existence of Super Saiyan 3 Gohan in said game.

He didn't have Piccolo (fused with Nails)

He did, Freeza saga played out exactly the same. Unless you mean Piccolo fused with Kami instead.

[Koitsukai]

Future Gohan may have trained nearly his entire life, however what he lacked was a skillful and stronger partner. The only time Future Gohan learned anything was from Piccolo for 6 months.
He didn't have Piccolo (fused with Nails) and Goku to teach him.

By all accounts he was a pretty skilled fighter even without Goku and Piccolo.

As for present Gohan, even if he hadn't slacked off and trained enough to have gotten to SSJ2 Goku's and SSJ2 Majin Vegeta's strength, we know that level of power wasn't enough to beat Majin Buu; so him keeping up training during those 7 years wouldn't have mattered anyway unless he somehow reached Super Saiyan 3 himself, and I don't see that happening.

I dunno. He could've gotten some of the power the old Kaioshin unlocked for him. Probably not all of it, but even if he got like 75% of it, it would still be enough to defeat Fat Buu.
Captain Hindsight would say he could've mastered SS2 like Vegeta and Trunks did, without needing to go SS3.

[super michael]

Future Gohan may have trained nearly his entire life, however what he lacked was a skillful and stronger partner. The only time Future Gohan learned anything was from Piccolo for 6 months.
He didn't have Piccolo (fused with Nails) and Goku to teach him.

By all accounts he was a pretty skilled fighter even without Goku and Piccolo.

As for present Gohan, even if he hadn't slacked off and trained enough to have gotten to SSJ2 Goku's and SSJ2 Majin Vegeta's strength, we know that level of power wasn't enough to beat Majin Buu; so him keeping up training during those 7 years wouldn't have mattered anyway unless he somehow reached Super Saiyan 3 himself, and I don't see that happening.

Future Trunks shows us that it is possible to make SSJ2 as strong as SSJ3, plus had Gohan continued training he would have got stronger than SSJ2 Goku and SSJ2 Majin Vegeta.

I guess he was a skillful fighter, but with mentors that helps someone grow in skills more. Take Goku training with Mr Popo an example, sure before Goku was skillful but after his training his skills increased to a whole new level and not just his power level.

DBS Gohan would be stronger than Goku and Vegeta, if he was willing to train with Goku and Whis. There is literally the ROSAT with no limit.

He did, Freeza saga played out exactly the same. Unless you mean Piccolo fused with Kami instead.

Present Gohan was able to train with Piccolo (Nails fused) and Goku, since they knew about the Android invasion. Without the invasion then Gohan wouldn't be allowed to train.
Future Gohan didn't know about the invasion, therefore Chi Chi wouldn't allow Gohan to train with them. By the time the invasion started, it was too late Goku is dead and Piccolo died not to long after.

[PurestEvil]

Perhaps Gohan was the "うすのろ" all along

[UltraInstinctRorikon]

Toriyama had a change of heart 3/4 into the Buu arc he won't ever escape that role.

[Majin Buu]

I dunno. He could've gotten some of the power the old Kaioshin unlocked for him. Probably not all of it, but even if he got like 75% of it, it would still be enough to defeat Fat Buu.
Captain Hindsight would say he could've mastered SS2 like Vegeta and Trunks did, without needing to go SS3.

Maybe, maybe not. It's all speculation.

I guess he was a skillful fighter, but with mentors that helps someone grow in skills more. Take Goku training with Mr Popo an example, sure before Goku was skillful but after his training his skills increased to a whole new level and not just his power level.

Sure, but the point was that keeping up with his training didn't help him in the end.

[Grimlock]

Present Gohan was able to train with Piccolo (Nails fused) and Goku, since they knew about the Android invasion. Without the invasion then Gohan wouldn't be allowed to train.
Future Gohan didn't know about the invasion, therefore Chi Chi wouldn't allow Gohan to train with them. By the time the invasion started, it was too late Goku is dead and Piccolo died not to long after.

We don't know that. Sure, with Trunks warning, they dedicated three years to training, but even without his warning, there's nothing saying they didn't train at all or that Gohan didn't sneak out sometimes to train. They probably trained in the meantime, just not as much.

Also, from the moment Goku dies until the androids appear, there is a timeskip of six months (I'd also provide a source to where this is stated in Dragon Ball Super, but I can't find any clip. It is mentioned in episode 60, during Trunks and Trunks dialogue). Chi-Chi probably wouldn't be so annoying with studies after his husband had just died, she may have had taken easy in the meantime, not forcing him to study every day. Six months may not be a long time to train, but as we see in the present timeline, neither would three years be enough for them as well.

[WittyUsername]

What kind of scholar is Gohan even supposed to be? That’s a pretty vague profession.

[Hugo Boss]

What kind of scholar is Gohan even supposed to be? That’s a pretty vague profession.

Spoiler alert:

Spoiler:

- This question will be answered in the new movie.

[lansing]

Being good at school doesn't make you smart in normal life. Gohan is just dumb in real life.