I'm happy that GT Pan never turned Super Saiyan.

[Zinnia]

I think that wanting Pan to go SSJ is one of the most nonsensical things people constantly cry over and I personally never felt the need for that to happen. The writers are in charge of the series, they're the ones making creative decisions and they shouldn't be getting shunned for not pandering to the "buy new merch of [new form] NOW!!" marketing that's sadly surrounding this franchise.

I consider GT Pan to be one of the most unique DB characters in regards to writing - with how she avoided the fate of being a female "transformer" where she quickly goes through all forms just to catch up just because of the potential excuse. I didn't like it with both Gotenks and Caulifla achieving strongest forms in such a short time span since their debut.

Pan can even take a different route like Gohan does with Ultimate and Beast. She can perhaps master her base form to the fullest and NOT need any transformation at all. It is not needed to be an interesting, nor strong character at all.

And with GT Pan turning out to be a Martial Arts expert in the Goku Jr movie (and in DBO lore too IIRC), it's great to see that this is the route she takes. A fresh character that somehow, by sheer luck, avoided being used for quick-buck merchandise purposes.

[PhantomSaiyan]

Pan can even take a different route like Gohan does with Ultimate and Beast. She can perhaps master her base form to the fullest and NOT need any transformation at all. It is not needed to be an interesting, nor strong character at all.

Or instead she can be completely useless like she was in gt

[Zinnia]

Or instead she can be completely useless like she was in gt

Or you can stop being ignorant and realize that without Pan, Goku wouldn't ever control Golden Oozaru meaning Baby would eventually overpower him, cut his tail off and bring him back to base then kill him off.

Without even bringing up that, who was it that defeated Lord Luud when you had to hit him from the inside? Oh wait, Pan.

[PhantomSaiyan]

Or you can stop being ignorant and realize that without Pan, Goku wouldn't ever control Golden Oozaru meaning Baby would eventually overpower him, cut his tail off and bring him back to base then kill him off.

Without even bringing up that, who was it that defeated Lord Luud when you had to hit him from the inside? Oh wait, Pan.

Wow great, so her role is either helping in making GT Goku's show, or defeating a filler tier villain that the majority of the community doesn't even remember. Seriously, take that guy out of GT and literally nothing changes, how does that contirbute to the plot?

If these are her greatest feats in the show then I'm not sure how that can help with your argument... If you're satisfied with her treatment in Gt then good for you but I think I speak for many when I say we expected a LOT more out of her. She definitely had the potential for greatness

[AliTheZombie13]

I also don't think she needed a transformation per se, transformations in this franchise are overdone and often lack meaningful character journeys to justify them anyway. So yeah, I agree with you when you say what fans want is extremely superficial and wouldn't improve her character at all. (Which, by the way, already has a good character journey behind her, but fans gotta ignore that because her hair doesn't turn blonde, that says more about them than the character.)

However, the show does have a huge problem with conveying her strength and setting her up to be rescued. I know that's too much to dream about in the Goku & Vegeta franchise, but Pan gets outright mocked for not being a Super Saiyan in GT. Read: The sequence where they need to power up SSJ4 Goku while Baby is distracted.

If they had a moment, just one, that showed her defeating a super powerful enemy that even Goku & Trunks were struggling with in Super Saiyan form while still being in her base, then her reception would've been infinitely better.

PS: Some fans did try to design her as a Super Saiyan and... Yeah, I think it was for the best that we never got that.

[Zinnia]

Wow great, so her role is either helping in making GT Goku's show,

???
Saving Goku is a major part of everyone's development. He IS the main character the story revolves about. You don't see people complaining about Yajirobe whose existence was to save Goku from Piccolo Daimao and then deliver Senzu Beans for many times after.

Or about Future Trunks whose debut in the first place was to save Goku from his illness. Why is saving Goku some a bad point for her, except for bias?

defeating a filler tier villain that the majority of the community doesn't even remember. Seriously, take that guy out of GT and literally nothing changes, how does that contirbute to the plot?

There is no such thing as a "filler tier villain", especially not Luud who was a major part of Dr Myuu's schemes.
"but take him out and nothing changes"
We could say that about a lot of characters you know? What do Botamo or Magetta contribute to the plot, or Cabba, or even Toppo? You can use that argument to anyone who isn't a main villain.

but I think I speak for many when I say we expected a LOT more out of her. She definitely had the potential for greatness

Says who? She's an inexperienced 9 year old, who STILL helped a lot. What did Pan do in Super Hero to obtain such praise? Played a hostage and re-learned how to fly, yet I don't see you complaining about that, with people supposedly go thinking "omg they redeemed Pan she so cute now" completely disregarding that she amounted to almost nothing in Super Hero besides being cute mascot for the audience.

[Zinnia]

but Pan gets outright mocked for not being a Super Saiyan in GT. Read: The sequence where they need to power up SSJ4 Goku while Baby is distracted.

Ehh, I don't think it was any mocking. Pan's energy was just as valuable as any other, Goku didn't say she didn't give enough or something. You're viewing it through the wrong lens.
If anything, it's a praise how she contributed to the end-game despite not even having a fancy transformation.

[The Monkey King]

Pan’s role was to be strong but still lose to the enemies and then be rescued by Goku, to be a “heroine who makes Goku a hero”. To go off-topic a bit, even the hit movie Titanic moved women because it’s a story where the heroine (now an old woman) remembers the hero; isn’t that basic movie-making? If the hero doesn’t rescue the heroine, maybe adults will understand that life is like that too sometimes, but for children it becomes a very harsh story. Stories where the hero rescues the heroine have a sense of security. Therefore we created a pattern where Pan is imperiled and Goku gets mad at the enemy: “I won’t let you get away with this!”

Dragon Ball GT has an episode where Pan is turned into a doll, but that episode established the pattern of “Pan sets the incident in motion while Goku resolves it”. So it would break that pattern to make Pan a Super Saiyan and strong. But perhaps Pan could have become a Super Saiyan if the episode where she was turned into a doll had been a later one.

https://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations ... interview/

Pan was literally written as a damsel in distress for Goku to save so he could look cool, of course she didn't get super saiyan

GT apologists will really spend time out of their day defending the bad creative decisions of a 30 year old anime.

No surprise you're the same user who started crying over a "GT means Goku Time" joke in a different thread.

[Zinnia]

Pan was literally written as a damsel in distress for Goku to save so he could look cool, of course she didn't get super saiyan

I was ready for someone to pull this interview, it's not a shock for me. GT wasn't an one-man work, it's a work of an entire studio of people, one person saying something means nothing when what we see is different. Pan, at many points of GT, helped moving the plot forward and this is a fact no matter what he says.

Morishita isn't the sole person responsible for GT nor for all of it's episodes, his word isn't absolute.

As for being a damsel in distress? So was Vegeta, who screwed up far more through all of DB than Pan ever did. Yet he got Super Saiyan anyway, and still continued screwing up. This form isn't some holy grail of good writing.

defending the bad creative decisions of a 30 year old anime.

They're good creative decisions, but not enough people have realized that yet, maybe some did after the recent insane spam of new tarnsformations.

[AliTheZombie13]

GT had good and bad creative decisions.

Making Pan a damsel was a bad one.
Never allowing her to shine more and defeating more bad guys herself or saving her comrades was another bad one.
Never giving her Super Saiyan or making her weaker than Goku was a "whatever" one.

Either way, I don't understand why fans get so fixated on a character being weaker than Goku. By the point GT happened, that should be the norm and I'm actually happy they cut off the very annoying character journey of someone realizing they're way out of their league and giving up fighting entirely. (Read: Videl, I will never forgive what they've done to you.)

[JulieYBM]

I think that wanting Pan to go SSJ is one of the most nonsensical things people constantly cry over and I personally never felt the need for that to happen.

I think the lack of her transforming—being the only Earth Saiyan who is big into martial arts and does not transform—is pretty shitty. We have both Pan and Bra—two Saiyans who are the same age that Son Gohan was when he first became a Super Saiyan—and neither of them are allowed to have a cool moment where they transform and defeat a chararacter who is providing an obstacle for them to overcome? That's not just lame, that's clearly a bias against girls that just ties into the sexist and misogynistic bias against the women throughout the series. Artificial Human #18 getting something in the way of a cool, dramatic scene when Kuririn is killed is nice and all, but one right does make up for a series-long—hell, franchise-long—set of wrongs.

Honestly, your choice of the phrase 'constantly cry over' does not endear anyone to your position, either.

The writers are in charge of the series, they're the ones making creative decisions and they shouldn't be getting shunned for not pandering to the "buy new merch of [new form] NOW!!" marketing that's sadly surrounding this franchise.

When you put out your work—especially commercial art—you are inviting people to criticize it. That's what people do. I don't really think the primary argument from anyone is based in merchandise of all things, either. The people arguing in favor of Pan also obtaining a Super Saiyan form are people who do so because they not only like Pan individually, but also because they like female characters in general. Like...you do understand that us women and girls who watch these shows like it when the female characters meant to represent people like us get to do cool shit, right?

I consider GT Pan to be one of the most unique DB characters in regards to writing - with how she avoided the fate of being a female "transformer" where she quickly goes through all forms just to catch up just because of the potential excuse. I didn't like it with both Gotenks and Caulifla achieving strongest forms in such a short time span since their debut.

There's nothing unique about being denied the same basic transformations that any male character is. In fact, it's even more emblematic of the series' issue with regards to how its female characters are used.

Pan can even take a different route like Gohan does with Ultimate and Beast. She can perhaps master her base form to the fullest and NOT need any transformation at all. It is not needed to be an interesting, nor strong character at all.

And with GT Pan turning out to be a Martial Arts expert in the Goku Jr movie (and in DBO lore too IIRC), it's great to see that this is the route she takes. A fresh character that somehow, by sheer luck, avoided being used for quick-buck merchandise purposes.

Pan doesn't take a different route, though. Do you really thing people would be complaining if Pan had received recognition within the series of being on the same level as the other characters? Of having more character moments dedicated to showing off her growth and getting to actually defeat opponents? As both the granddaughter of the main character and a dedicated deurtergonist, Pan's written in with very little in the way of just letting her win. There's no reason why she couldn't have achieved some big moment of "Woah, Pan's grown stronger through her character journey and while facing General Rilld!" There's really no reason Pan couldn't have defeated more of these smaller enemies herself, either.

[PhantomSaiyan]

???
Saving Goku is a major part of everyone's development. He IS the main character the story revolves about. You don't see people complaining about Yajirobe whose existence was to save Goku from Piccolo Daimao and then deliver Senzu Beans for many times after.

Yajirobe has nowhere near the same amout of expectations as Pan. Pan was shown to be a prodigy since way back when Toriyama wrote end of Z in the manga. Based on that alone she should have had a MUCH better role than just helping the mc powering up or being a damsel in distress. Btw, Goku getting his rationality back with Pan makes no sense considering he killed his own grandpa in that state, but whatever, this isn't about that.

Or about Future Trunks whose debut in the first place was to save Goku from his illness. Why is saving Goku some a bad point for her, except for bias?

More like saving the ENTIRE timeline and allowing the arc to exist in the first place, not really comparable to Pan's minimal role.

There is no such thing as a "filler tier villain", especially not Luud who was a major part of Dr Myuu's schemes.
"but take him out and nothing changes"
We could say that about a lot of characters you know? What do Botamo or Magetta contribute to the plot, or Cabba, or even Toppo? You can use that argument to anyone who isn't a main villain.

Yeah that's why you don't see me using them to validate other character's accomplishments or make them seem bigger than they are.
Btw, Botamo and Magetta might be Ludd tier, but Cabba and Toppo? Absolutely not

Says who? She's an inexperienced 9 year old, who STILL helped a lot. What did Pan do in Super Hero to obtain such praise? Played a hostage and re-learned how to fly, yet I don't see you complaining about that, with people supposedly go thinking "omg they redeemed Pan she so cute now" completely disregarding that she amounted to almost nothing in Super Hero besides being cute mascot for the audience.

Says literally everyone, that's why you're defending her in this thread. Judging by everything we are shown from her in end of Z she was supposed to perform much better in gt. They almost feel like completely different characters. The daughter of Gohan who has shown just as much if not more potential than her father? Yeah, a character like that deserved better.
If her biggest claim to fame is defeating Lord Ludd then brother, the bar is not only low, it's in hell
And I like how her being inexperienced and 9 year old is supposed to justify her incompetence in Gt, meanawhile her being even younger in Super Hero is somehow not cool. No she wasn't a mascot, she was an actually likeable character that was fun to watch.

Again, if you're satisfied with her in gt good for you, but don't act like she was important, or like she had any sort of satisfying character arc, she didn't. There's a reason why people vastly prefer her in Super Hero and trust me, it's not just cuteness.

[AliTheZombie13]

Sorry to say, but both are bad.
I don't see how Pan kicking some unnamed Red Ribbon goons makes her character of the year or something.
"Cute baby girl who occasionally does something minor, but otherwise needs to be protected at all costs" is a trope that needs to die in this franchise. Make the girls do something, give them actual wins, dammit.

[PhantomSaiyan]

I don't see how Pan kicking some unnamed Red Ribbon goons makes her character of the year or something.

Good thing nobody called her character of the year then.
I simply said she was more likeable and endearing than her GT counterpart and had scenes and character interactions that were actually fun to watch. This Pan is way more reminiscent of the character she was in end of Z.

I'm all for letting her have actual wins too, but at least let the girl learn how to fly first lol

[Vegeta th3 4th]

I don't think she should've been handed the form like the U6 Saiyans were, but is it really unreasonable to give her Ssj1 during the shadow dragons arc ? We would've gotten 3 arcs worth of build up to that. Vegeta should've been given Ssj3, while Goten and Trunks should've had Ssj2. Gohan should've at the bare minimum kept his Mystic form. The reason none of these scenarios happened was due to the staff's fear of it taking away screen time from Goku.

[Zephyr]

The whole conversation is really strange.

I'm pretty sure the writers get shunned more for their explicitly and deliberately sexist treatment of Pan as a character, of which her not becoming Super Saiyan is ultimately a symptom. Goten and Trunks got it in the bargain sale, so Pan getting it should practically be a given, even if nothing substantial would have been done with it. The reasoning of the writers/producers for why she doesn't get it is bafflingly stupid, as if her becoming a Super Saiyan would make it any more difficult for her to be a "damsel in distress". All of the other Saiyans were able to become blonde, and they were still mostly 'useless'. Pan having the ability would change nothing in that regard. They invented a solution that wasn't even necessary, to solve a problem they decided to create.

The merch argument also collapses in on itself. New toys happen whether new forms are made or not. It's one thing to criticize a narratively-empty, or narratively-damaging, transformation as consequently effectively existing "just to sell merch", but it's another thing entirely to criticize something because it might possibly result in merch. As if having too many toys represents some fail-state of a character. Given the "even the little kids can go Super Saiyan!" precedent that the Boo arc set, Pan becoming one feels like it would be a foregone conclusion, as obligatory and expected as someone getting taller as they grow up. In this way, Pan going Super Saiyan would have served "quick-buck merchandise purposes" as much as Goku becoming an adult and getting a new character design in Ch. 166.

There was no good reason to not give Pan Super Saiyan. It wouldn't necessarily have changed anything that really mattered in terms of the story, but it would have been less needlessly sexist.

[VegettoEX]

The whole conversation is really strange.

I agree -- largely in its tone than in its content.

Who are you folks appearing out of nowhere, guns blazing with antagonism from the very first post in a thread? Why do you feel this attitude is necessary, nevermind acceptable? All it does is fuel further toxicity, and makes it so no-one wants to listen to what you have to say (either those that actively want to have the conversation, or those driving-by just looking at what chat is going on at any given time). This isn't the way to hold a conversation, and it's not representative of what Kanzenshuu aims to foster. Please re-assess what it is you're looking to get out of your time here by reviewing the community guidelines, which you agreed to (twice!) prior to registration.

[Hellspawn28]

I feel like they probably wanted Pan to go SSj in GT, but Bandai was probably like "Boys don't want to buy a Girl Super Saiyan". Taking us 20+ years to finally get one.

[AliTheZombie13]

I'm all for making Pan strong and giving her a unique form of her own.
Where I draw the line is giving her Super Saiyan specifically.

If the fanarts are any indication, why would you want Pan to look like more of the same with that same horrible spiky haircut that doesn't mesh at all with her current design? She looks so good with the bangs, the shoulder-length hair and the bandana. Why ruin such a unique design like this? It's no wonder Toriyama didn't even bother.

If I was making that show, I'd just give her "Mystic Pan" or something, where she retains her base look, but is stronger than the Saiyans.

[JulieYBM]

they should've made pan's hair blue and given her a girlfriend, honestly