History CommonKnowledge / DragonBall

* Nowadays, everyone "knows" that Dr. Gero created the androids to get revenge on Goku for killing his son, who was an elite soldier in the Red Ribbon Army. Actually, it's more complicated than that: Gero's son was felled by an enemy bullet, and there's no evidence or reason to believe Goku ever even encountered him. While it's true Gero's anger at Goku was born from a love towards his son, he doesn't blame him for killing his son; he hates Goku for dismantling the Red Ribbon Army, which (in his eyes) meant his son's death was in vain. Not only that, but revenge on Goku wasn't his only reason for creating androids: he helped make androids as part of the Red Ribbon Army's technological development program, and some materials suggest he dreamed of replacing Earth's entire population with artificial beings even before he joined the Red Ribbon Army. In fact, Goku even met and befriended an Android when he was a kid, well before he toppled the Red Ribbon Army.

* By far one of the most notorious (though likely discredited now) was the widely-repeated claim that Toriyama always planned to end the series after the Frieza storyline or the Cell storyline, but was forced by his editors or publishers to continue because the manga was so successful. In fact, the end of the Frieza arc seems to have been one of the few places Toriyama ''didn't'' plan to end the series, given that it clearly sets up another plot point in the form of Goku mysteriously surviving. And while he did intend on the Cell arc being the EndOfAnAge, he was still intending on continuing past then with Gohan as the main character and a LighterAndSofter tone. The only one which seems certain is that Toriyama originally had no notion of continuing beyond the original Dragon Ball quest with Goku and Bulma, having just finished a long-running series in ''Dr Slump'' and citing reluctance to commit himself to another multi-year serialization. The Saiyan arc is also fairly likely, given that Toriyama claimed the name "Z" was specifically to suggest its finality and the many minor retcons that needed to be made to facilitate Frieza, but it's not entirely confirmed. The misconception is attributed mainly to a badly-translated interview from the very early days of online anime fandom in the late 1990s, which caught on and has been repeated for the past 20 years. Another factor is that, while the manga pretty much jumps straight from Namek exploding to the revelation that Frieza has returned as a cyborg over the course of one chapter, the anime stuck a {{Filler}} arc in there, which would give the viewers the impression that the manga had spent some time spinning its wheels trying to figure out what to do next, when in reality, it just jumped straight into the next plot.

* By far one of the most notorious (though likely discredited now) was the widely-repeated claim that Toriyama always planned to end the series after the Frieza storyline or the Cell storyline, but was forced by his editors or publishers to continue because the manga was so successful. In fact, the end of the Frieza arc seems to have been one of the few places Toriyama ''didn't'' plan to end the series, given that it clearly sets up another plot point in the form of Goku mysteriously surviving. The only one which seems certain is that Toriyama originally had no notion of continuing beyond the original Dragon Ball quest with Goku and Bulma, having just finished a long-running series in ''Dr Slump'' and citing reluctance to commit himself to another multi-year serialisation. The Saiyan arc is also fairly likely, given that Toriyama claimed the name "Z" was specifically to suggest its finality and the many minor retcons that needed to be made to facilitate Frieza, but it's not entirely confirmed. The misconception is attributed mainly to a badly-translated interview from the very early days of online anime fandom in the late 1990s, which caught on and has been repeated for the past 20 years. Another factor is that, while the manga pretty much jumps straight from Namek exploding to the revelation that Frieza has returned as a cyborg over the course of one chapter, the anime stuck a {{Filler}} arc in there, which would give the viewers the impression that the manga had spent some time spinning its wheels trying to figure out what to do next, when in reality, it just jumped straight into the next plot.

* It's common for fans to think that the ''Anime/DragonBallGT'' special "A Hero's Legacy" (the one with Goku's IdenticalGrandson descendant) came out after the anime, as a DistantFinale. This is a pretty forgivable mistake, as not only is it chronologically ''far'' after the series, but it expands on ideas that were already present in the ''GT'' epilogue, and most DVD collections of the series put it at the very end of their listings. In reality, though, it came out right before the start of the Super 17 arc, about halfway into the series. It becomes noticeable if you pay attention to some of the dialogue--Pan never recounts any post-Baby Saga events, because they hadn't aired or likely even been conceived of yet.
* Goku is often stated to be overconfident, relying on Gohan and Goten/Trunks/Gotenks rather than dealing with the threat (Cell & Buu) himself. For Gohan, it was giving up against Cell and throwing a Senzu Bean to him when he faced off against Gohan. And for Buu, many point to how he stated that he could have defeated Buu with Super Saiyan 3, but had gave Goten and Trunks the opportunity. For the former, while Goku was called out for giving Cell a Senzu Bean, he knew full well Gohan could go Super Saiyan 2 and surpass him. There's also the fact that Goku outright admits that Cell was stronger than him. And for Buu, it's safe to say that Gotenks most likely could have won, if not for the hunters shooting Bee (which no one could have predicted) and Gotenks being cocky. It's also worth noting that Goku knows he won't be around forever and it'll land on the future generations to protect Earth. Gohan had already surpassed Goku during the Cell Games, and Goten and Trunks needed to step up to help protect the planet.
** Similarly, people have pointed out that Goku didn't use Super Saiyan 3 when fighting Vegeta. While it does stand to reason he could have won, there's also the fact that when Goku used it against Buu, he pretty much used up all the time he had remaining in doing so.

* It's common for fans to think that the ''Anime/DragonBallGT'' special "A Hero's Legacy" (the one with Goku's IdenticalGrandson descendant) came out after the anime, as a DistantFinale. This is a pretty forgivable mistake, as not only is it chronologically ''far'' after the series, but it expands on ideas that were already present in the ''GT'' epilogue, and most DVD collections of the series put it at the very end of their listings. In reality, though, it came out right before the start of the Super 17 arc, about halfway into the series. It becomes noticeable if you pay attention to some of the dialogue--Pan never recounts any post-Baby Saga events, because they hadn't aired or likely even been conceived of yet.

* The infamous "Namek will explode in five minutes" plot point is one of the most notorious and widely-cited examples of the MagicCountdown trope in all of fiction. What a lot of people don't understand is that this isn't just a case of the countdown progressing as fast as the plot requires it to, there's an in-universe explanation: it was established as early as the 21st Budokai Tenkaichi that from an in-universe perspective, battles between high-level fighters are sometimes too fast for ordinary people to follow. The audience is often seeing a "decompressed" version of the fight that they can actually follow along with. During the Budokai Tenkaichi, Krillin and Jackie Chun (Roshi) had a prolonged exchange in the span of a few seconds and had to recreate what happened in slow motion for the benefit of the announcer and spectators. By the time of Namek, Goku would become hundreds of thousands of times stronger, and fives minutes would be plenty of time. The perception is not helped by the anime's notorious padding and filler due to catching up to the fight in the manga, resulting in the whole fight taking longer than it should have even taking in consideration the warriors' increased speed, whereas in the manga the fight was short and straightforward.
* Nowadays, everyone "knows" that Dr. Gero created the androids to get revenge on Goku for killing his son, who was an elite soldier in the Red Ribbon Army. Actually, it's more complicated than that: Gero's son was felled by an enemy bullet, and there's no evidence or reason to believe Goku ever even encountered him. While it's true Gero's anger at Goku was born from a love towards his son, he doesn't blame him for killing his son; he hates Goku for dismantling the Red Ribbon Army, which (in his eyes) meant his son's death was in vain. Not only that, but revenge on Goku wasn't his only reason for creating androids: he helped make androids as part of the Red Ribbon Army's technological development program, and some materials suggest he dreamed of replacing Earth's entire population with artificial beings even before he joined the Red Ribbon Army.

* The infamous "Namek will explode in five minutes" plot point is one of the most notorious and widely-cited examples of the MagicCountdown trope in all of fiction. What a lot of people don't understand is that this isn't just a case of the countdown progressing as fast as the plot requires it to, there's an in-universe explanation: it was established as early as the 21st Budokai Tenkaichi that from an in-universe perspective, battles between high-level fighters are sometimes too fast for ordinary people to follow. The audience is often seeing a "decompressed" version of the fight that they can actually follow along with. During the Budokai Tenkaichi, Krillin and Jackie Chun (Roshi) had a prolonged exchange in the span of a few seconds and had to recreate what happened in slow motion for the benefit of the announcer and spectators. By the time of Namek, Goku would become hundreds of thousands of times stronger, and fives minutes would be plenty of time.

* A popular joke among fans is that the reason Lunch [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome completely vanished]] after the 23rd Budokai was because Toriyama forgot she existed. This mistake is entirely understandable, given that [[UnreliableNarrator Toriyama claimed exactly that]] in a 2003 interview, but [[https://www.kanzenshuu.com/rumor/akira-toriyama-forgot-lunch/ research showed this to be completely unture]]. Lunch was actually [[PutOnTheBus quietly written out of the series]] over the TimeSkip, but would continue to make appearances in {{Filler}} episodes and official artwork years afterwards, and was even supposed to have made an appearance as a part of the montage of people helping power the Genki-Dama during the FinalBattle with Kid Buu before her appearance was replaced with that of Android 17.

* Potara Fusions are permanent, ''Super'' [[{{Retcon}} retconned]] them so they're temporary. A common complaint towards ''Super'' as people accuse the series of "going against canon" regarding the aforementioned fusion. However, while Old Kai did say the fusion would be permanent, Vegito still defused while inside Super Buu for unknown reasons with no explanation given.

* Many claim that Vegeta could have killed Perfect Cell if he didn't miss his Final Flash. While they are correct about Vegeta having the potential to kill Cell, the issue is people think Vegeta missed. However, the lead-up to Vegeta's iconic Final Flash had him bait Cell into standing still while he charged his attack. Not only that, but while Cell initially took him up on his offer, it was only just before the attack hit that he realized he was in danger and dodged at the last possible second, causing the attack to just barely miss him. In short, Vegeta didn't miss his Final Flash, but Cell narrowly avoided a direct hit that could have completely killed him.

** His death in the Saiyan Saga is remembered by fans the world over for being an embarrassing and indignified defeat that every other MemeticLoser after him has paid homage to in fan works if not in canon. Most people forget that he was ''winning'' the fight against the Saibamen up until they used their self-destruct attack, which no one had any way of predicting. Plus, he volunteered to fight in place of Krillin ''specifically'' to make sure Krillin, who had died once already and thus ran the risk of being KilledOffForReal as far as they knew, wouldn't be in danger. Of course, the fact that he ultimately died to a glorified {{Mook}} who was weaker than Raditz, and his fellows generally performed better than he did (Tien handily defeats his Saibamen, Piccolo kills one with casual ease, and Krillin kills ''three'' when enraged), doesn't help his reputation.

* One common claim is that ''Dragon Ball'' is based on the classic Chinese novel ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest''. At most, the series takes a few cues from ''Journey'' (the characters of Goku, Oolong, and Ox-King specifically), but even these ties cease to be relevant after the first dozen or so episodes (out of ~450), after which Goku's name is virtually the only thing tying it to its alleged source material.

* One common claim is that ''Dragon Ball'' is based on the classic Chinese novel ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest''. At most, the series takes a few cues from ''Journey'' (the characters of Goku, Oolong, and Ox-King specifically), but even these ties cease to be relevant after the first dozen or so episodes (out of ~450), after which Goku's name is virtually the only thing tying it to its alleged source material.

* One common claim is that the series is based on the classic Chinese novel ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest''. At most, the series takes a few cues from ''Journey'' (the characters of Goku, Oolong, and Ox-King specifically), but even these ties cease to be relevant after the first dozen or so episodes (out of ~450), after which Goku's name is virtually the only thing tying it to its alleged source material.

* One of the most infamous examples of this is the "Goku is a terrible father" statement made by some fans. Toriyama has never denied that Goku has flaws as a father, but the series regularly shows that Goku loves Gohan, Gohan looks up to Goku heavily, and that many of the supposed pieces of "evidence" are regularly taken out of context, ignore details about what happened, or are from moments where [[WhatTheHellHero Goku is called out for a mistake that affected Gohan]]. Goku is a flawed father, but still shown as a generally good one regularly despite the claims by people.

* The consensus on Raditz is that he was a low-class warrior for Saiyan Standards. Although the character fell victim to the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil to the point that the Saibamen that Nappa brought to earth and the mooks that Frieza brought to Namek rivaled or even surpassed him in power, the truth is that he was indeed a Mid-class Saiyan, which may not sound impressive until Toriyama confirms that the vast majority of the Saiyan population was low-class with only 10 being middle class, so Raditz was more powerful than the vast majority of the population.

* It's often claimed by fans that the villains for the Android Saga were originally intended to Android 19 and Dr Gero, only to then be changed to 17 and 18 due to ExecutiveMeddling, and then ''again'' to Cell after his editor was left dissatisfied. While the part about them being changed due to complaints is true, it wasn't Toriyama's then-current editor Yu Kondo who had him change the identity of the BigBad, but his close friend and previous editor Kazuhiko Torishima, who personally called Toriyama to complain to him about his follow-up to Freiza being "a fat guy and a geezer". Kondo ''was'' the one who pushed for Toriyama to change Cell's design to Perfect Cell, but he had nothing to do with the more radical changes in direction the story took.

** As part of this, there's also a perception that the ''Z'' era is the "Goku Show" in contrast to the ensemble story prior. It's quite the other way around. The original stories focused almost entirely on Goku and, with an occasional rare exception, no one else did anything relevant. By contrast, in ''Z'', Goku didn't take up a lot of spotlight, often being out of the action while the story focused on characters like Gohan, Krillin, Piccolo, and Vegeta (''Super'' more clearly presents him as the focus though).

* It's often claimed by fans that the villains for the Android Saga were originally intended to Android 19 and Dr Gero, only to then be changed to 17 and 18 due to ExecutiveMeddling, and then ''again'' to Cell after his editor was left dissatisfied. While the part about them being changed due to complaints is true, it wasn't Toriyama's then-current editor Yu Kondo who had him change the identity of the BigBad, but his close friend and previous editor Kazuhiko Torishima, who personally called Toriyama to complain to him about his follow-up to Freiza being "a fat guy and a geezer". Kondo ''was'' the one who pushed for Toriyama to change Cell's design to Perfect Cell, but he had nothing to do with the more radical changes in direction the story took.

* The consensus on Raditz is that he was a low-class warrior for Saiyan Standards. Although the character fell victim to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil to the point that the Saibamen that Nappa brought to earth and the mooks that Frieza brought to Namek rivaled or even surpassed him in power, the truth is that he was indeed a Mid-class Saiyan, which may not sound impressive until Toriyama confirms that the vast majority of the Saiyan population was low-class with only 10 being middle class, so Raditz was more powerful than the vast majority of the population.

* Most people believe that Gohan is a teenager in the Android saga, particularly because Gohan is known as "Teen Gohan" in English dub video games to refer to him in that saga. Except he isn't. The Android saga takes place ten years after his birth, and taking his training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber into account, Gohan is only 11 years old; a pre-teen.

** He's also often regarded as the [[MemeticLoser weakest fighter]] of the main cast. While he undeniably landed into CantCatchUp, by the end of the manga, he was at least stronger than (among others) Yajirobe, Korin, Chiaotzu, and Master Roshi. It was his attempts to stay in the game in the Saiyan and Android Sagas, where most of the people even weaker than him had dropped off, that landed him in loser territory.
** His death in the Saiyan Saga is remembered by fans the world over for being an embarrassing and indignified defeat that every other MemeticLoser after him has paid homage to in fan works if not in canon. Most people forget that he was ''winning'' the fight against the Saibamen up until they used their self-destruct attack, which no one had any way of predicting. Of course, the fact that he ultimately died to a glorified {{Mook}} who was weaker than Raditz, and his fellows generally performed better than he did (Tien handily defeats his Saibamen, Piccolo kills one with casual ease, and Krillin kills ''three'' when enraged), doesn't help his reputation.

* Yamcha is known for being an utterly useless weakling who is constantly getting killed off. Actually, he only dies twice (the same number of times as Goku), was the first person to use a ki technique, and ends up saving everyone from Goku's Great Ape form in the original series. However, it is true that he has never won at the Tenka'Ichi Budoukai and he was the first to die in the battles with the Saiyans and got nearly killed during the first fight against the Androids. This may also be conflation with Krillin, who actually [[TheyKilledKennyAgain does die with some frequency]] - indeed, Yamcha died the first time because he didn't want Krillin to risk sacrificing himself again.

* Many people have brought up the series' [[StrictlyFormula formulaic]] nature of Goku constantly coming up against a big threat, losing, either training or finding some other MacGuffin in order to get stronger, and finishing off the threat in a rematch. In all of the fights in DBZ's run, this has ''never'' happened to Goku once. A good number of the [[NonSerialMovie Non-Serial Movies]] follow the formula of "Goku gets his ass kicked initially, then powers up somehow and wins in the rematch", though, [[AudienceColoringAdaptation and may be to blame for this perception]].

** As part of this, there's a perception that the ''Z'' era is the "Goku Show" in contrast to the ensemble story prior. It's quite the other way around. The original stories focused almost entirely on Goku and, with an occasional rare exception, no one else did anything relevant. By contrast, in ''Z'', Goku didn't take up a lot of spotlight, often being out of the action while the story focused on characters like Gohan, Krillin, Piccolo, and Vegeta (''Super'' more clearly presents him as the focus though).
* Creator/{{Funimation}}'s English dub may have been responsible for plenty of [[{{Narm}} unintentionally hilarious moments]], but the famously [[MemeticMutation memetastic]] line '''''"IT'S OVER NINE-THOUSAAAAAAAAND!"''''' was not one of them. The infamous line comes from the first American dub, which ran in syndication for two seasons before being cancelled. This dub used a voice cast of talent from Creator/TheOceanGroup and Brian Drummond provided the iconic [[ChewingtheScenery hammy]] line read. When Funimation redubbed that episode after the show became a runaway hit on Creator/CartoonNetwork, they actually gave the line a fairly understated read ([[LargeHam by Vegeta's standards, anyway]]). Delivered by Creator/ChristopherSabat, it was more like "It's over nine-''thousand!"''

* Contrary to popular belief, Goku is not [[NeverLearnedToRead illiterate]]. He was explicitly taught reading and writing by Master Roshi, as well as at least some math. He's also seen driving a car in the Cell arc (both anime and manga), which in Japan means he must have passed a written test probably requiring more than a primary school level of literacy. (He does have terrible handwriting, though.)

* Nowadays, everyone "knows" that Dr. Gero created the androids to get revenge on Goku for killing his son, who was an elite soldier in the Red Ribbon Army. Actually, it's more complicated than that: Gero's son was felled by an enemy bullet, and there's no evidence or reason to believe Goku ever even encountered him. While it's true Gero's anger at Goku was born from a love of his son, he doesn't blame him for killing his son; he hates Goku for dismantling the Red Ribbon Army, which (in his eyes) meant his son's death was in vain. Not only that, but revenge on Goku wasn't his only reason for creating androids: he helped make androids as part of the Red Ribbon Army's technological development program, and some materials suggest he dreamed of replacing Earth's entire population with artificial beings even before he joined the Red Ribbon Army.

* By far one of the most notorious (though maybe discredited now) was the widely-repeated claim that Toriyama always planned to end the series after the Frieza storyline or the Cell storyline, but was forced by his editors or publishers to continue because the manga was so successful. In fact, the end of the Frieza arc seems to have been one of the few places Toriyama ''didn't'' plan to end the series, given that it clearly sets up another plot point in the form of Goku mysteriously surviving. The only one which seems certain is that Toriyama originally had no notion of continuing beyond the original Dragon Ball quest with Goku and Bulma, having just finished a long-running series in ''Dr Slump'' and citing reluctance to commit himself to another multi-year serialisation. The Saiyan arc is also fairly likely, given that Toriyama claimed the name "Z" was specifically to suggest its finality and the many minor retcons that needed to be made to facilitate Frieza, but it's not entirely confirmed. The misconception is attributed mainly to a poorly-translated interview from the very early days of online anime fandom in the late 1990s, which caught on and has been repeated for the past 20 years. Another factor is that, while the manga pretty much jumps straight from Namek exploding to the revelation that Frieza has returned as a cyborg over the course of one chapter, the anime stuck a {{Filler}} arc in there, which would give the viewers the impression that the manga had spent some time spinning its wheels trying to figure out what to do next, when in reality, it just jumped straight into the next plot.
* For that matter, there's no evidence that Toriyama was forced by ExecutiveMeddling to make Goku the main character again due to popularity: in fact, by the end of the Cell Saga, a poll suggested that Gohan was the most popular character in the whole manga. Not only that, but Toriyama claimed his editor at the time was fairly permissive, which wouldn't match up with said editor forcing him to change the entire structure of the arc. Toriyama himself has claimed that he felt Gohan just didn't fit in the protagonist role, and it's ''really'' evident in those early Buu Saga chapters that he was struggling to make Gohan work as a main character and story driver, before he started reintroducing characters from prior arcs and kicking the series into an actual plot. Gohan did suffer a major decline in popularity over the course of the Buu Saga (a later poll had him falling all the way to sixth place), but it seems to have happened ''because'' of him not having much to do and being pushed to a minor role, not the other way around.

* The consensus on Raditz is that he was a wimp for Saiyan Standards. Although the character fell victim to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil to the point that the Saibamen that Nappa brought to earth and the mooks that Frieza brought to Namek rivaled or even surpassed him in power, the truth is that he was indeed a Mid-class Saiyan, which may not sound impressive until Toriyama confirms that the vast majority of the Saiyan population was low-class with only 10 being middle class, so Raditz was more powerful than the vast majority of the population.

* Many fans and especially detractors have brought up the series' [[StrictlyFormula formulaic]] nature of Goku constantly coming up against a big threat, losing, either training or finding some other MacGuffin in order to get stronger, and finishing off the threat in a rematch. In all of the fights in DBZ's run, this has ''never'' happened to Goku once. A good number of the [[NonSerialMovie Non-Serial Movies]] follow the formula of "Goku gets his ass kicked initially, then powers up somehow and wins in the rematch", though, [[AudienceColoringAdaptation and may be to blame for this perception]].

* The consensus on Raditz is that he was a wimp for Saiyan Standards. Although the character fell victim to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil to the point that the Saibamen that Nappa brought to earth and the mooks that Frieza brought to Namek rivaled or even surpassed him in power, the truth is that he was indeed a Mid-class Saiyan, which may not sound impressive until Toriyama confirms that the vast majority of the Saiyan population was low-class with only 10 being middle class, so Raditz was more powerful than the vast majority of the population.
* It's a common criticism of the series that [[DeathIsCheap killing characters off has no weight to it since they can be just resurrected with the Dragon Balls.]] Actually, the Dragon Balls ''do'' have several limitations to their use that makes this more complicated - they can't bring the same person back to life more than once, a wish that resurrects multiple people can only bring back people that died within that same year (individuals can be wished back at a later date, but if it's been longer than a year they retain any injuries), they can't bring back people that died of natural causes, they can only be used once a year, and if their creator is killed they cease to function. In fact, these factors are utilized for drama multiple times in the series - Krillin and Goku both die more than once, necessitating alternate methods to bring them back, and because Piccolo is linked to Kami, killing him disables Earth's Dragon Balls, requiring the use of Namek's instead.

* The consensus on Raditz is that he was a wimp for Saiyan Standards. Although the character fell victim to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil to the point that the Saibamen that Nappa brought to earth and the mooks that Frieza brought to Namek rivaled or even surpassed him in power, the truth is that he was indeed a Mid-class Saiyan, which may not sound impressive until Toriyama confirms that the vast majority of the Saiyan population was low-class with only 10 being middle class, so Raditz was more powerful than the vast majority of the population.

* Yamcha is known for being an utterly useless weakling who is constantly getting killed off. Actually, he only dies twice (the same number of times as Goku), was the first person to use a ki technique, and ends up saving everyone from Goku's Great Ape form in the original series. However, it is true that he has never won at the Tenka'Ichi Budoukai and he was the first to die in the battles with the Saiyans and the Androids (though [[HealingHerb he got better]] before actually dying in the latter case). This may also be conflation with Krillin, who actually [[TheyKilledKennyAgain does die with some frequency]] - indeed, Yamcha died the first time because he didn't want Krillin to risk sacrificing himself again.

** His death in the Saiyan Saga is remembered by fans the world over for being an embarrassing and indignified defeat that every other MemeticLoser after him has paid homage to in fan works if not in canon. Most people forget that he was ''winning'' the fight against the Saibamen up until they used their self-destruct attack, which no one had any way of predicting. Of course, the fact that he ultimately died to a glorified {{Mook}} who was weaker than Raditz, and his fellows performed even better than he did, doesn't help his reputation.