History Headscratchers / DragonBallZ

** If I had to guess on why they went with "Rock the Dragon" it was probably because the song was made while Saban still had rights to the show and that Shuki Levy had a hand in making/deciding what the them song would be. I say this because
*** 1) I don't think any of Saban's shows have used the original Japanese theme when it comes to anime, or their Tokusatsu shows for that matter...
*** and 2) Shuki's belief on theme songs seems to be that they should be simple and memorable, which often boils down to "repeat yourself over and over again..." for some reason.

* How many times has Ginyu swapped bodies before? Hell, was that even his original body on Namek?

** Goku probably gave Krillin and Gohan the only Senzu beans he had shortly after he left Korin.

*** But why with only one kid? How come she hasn't lightened up in regards to Gohans education? IS that she favors Goten for looking like his dad (not likely, I think), or has dismiss Goten as lost cause in this case (once, again, I don't think this is the case) or what? Why be obsessed about one kid getting a good education and not the

*** Goku took everything over Cell's waist off with his instant transmission attack. It's either what the above poster said and the loss of everything but your legs is still considered a "minor" injury, Cell was lying and or mistaken about his own regeneration abilities (which seems likely, considering his near death experience was an explosion inside him it seems unlikely enough of his head would survive to do anything) or the writer didn't know what was up.

*** But why with only one kid? How come she hasn't lightened up in regards to Gohans education? IS that she favors Goten for looking like his dad (not likely, I think), or has dismiss Goten as lost cause in this case (once, again, I don't think this is the case) or what? Why be obsessed about one kid getting a good education and not the other?
*** I think that Gohan is studying of his own accord by that point. ChiChi being so obsessed with Gohan's education is something that anyone that's seen Dragonball would agree is something that just came out of nowhere anyway.
* Why is it, for all of Goku's efforts to rehabilitate his enemies, turn them into friends, and keep his growing network of people alive, does Goku never seem to show any interest in reconnecting with his brother, Raditz, or the biological father he never knew while he's dead? Granted, Raditz was trying to kill his son and didn't give Goku a lot of time to really think about what was going on, other than to save him, but every other major villain he ever met after that also tried to kill Gohan and didn't receive the existential cold shoulder. He's also never been too curious about his mother either, and doesn't seem too interested to see Grandpa Gohan when he has the change to either. I just can't figure that out.
** For Raditz, the guy did kidnap Gohan and didn't give Goku time to think, as you have said. As for the other guys that tried to kill Gohan? Simply put, [[PapaBear do ''not'' mess with Gohan when Goku is around, or he will end you without hesitation.]] As for his own parents? Good question. He probably assumed they were like the other Saiyans (ie, evil), understood that they paid for their crimes with their lives and didn't think twice about it. Plus, he had no real emotional attachment to them, as he was sent to Earth when he was a newborn. As for Grandpa Gohan? He met him once again the Afterlife, near the end of the original Dragonball series, so he knows that Grandpa Gohan is happy and well in the Afterlife.
** Not to mention that the Earth Dragon Balls can't revive anyone who's been dead for more than a year, and the Namek Dragon Balls were unavailable (either being used to revive the other heroes at the end of the Freeza Saga, or on a planet they didn't know the location of until the end of the Buu Saga). He could have revived the Saiyans or Grandpa Gohan with the Namek balls sometime after the end of the series, but a lot of things could have happened after the end of the series.
** Isn't there a limited time where you go from a body to a spirit and thus can't be brought back? Even if Goku used the Namekian Dragonballs, Grandpa Gohan would would probably be a spirit by now. Plus, the guy was old, so if he were brought back, he'd have only a decade at most before he'd die...again. Easier to just let the man rest in eternity. As for the Sayians, considering what they were, I'm not sure Goku (or even Vegeta) wants to risk bringing back a murderous race of space warriors. Goku's and Vegeta's parents included (imagine the family reunion!) Would make for an interesting fanfic, though.
*** The Dragon Balls (the original Earth ones at least, we didn't know all the limitations of first gen Namekian Balls and know nothing about the current gen Namekian balls and not much about Dende's Dragon Balls is actually set.) can't bring you back after a year and Raditz fell behind Goku's friends. We know in the Dragon Ball Universe that reincarnation is real so it's entirely plausible that normal people are reborn rather quickly and that bringing back Bardock would "kill" some thirty something guy on Frieza planet #6856. It might be as simple as Goku halfway understands that death is natural and only seeks to change it in events where he feels he personally screwed up.

* In the Buu saga, all of humanity is killed, and then only the "good" people are revived. The memory of everything relating to Buu and his deeds is then erased to make life easier for Fat Buu. But... doesn't this mean that, as far as everybody can remember, one day all the assholes just randomly keeled over? Did nobody question this?
** They probably erased their memory of the assholes as well.

* How come Bulma, Krillin, Videl, Yamcha, and the rest of the group didn't just ''fly'' away from Kami's Lookout in order to avoid being turned into chocolate by Super Buu?
** Because it wouldn't have made a difference. Super Buu would have just turned them into chocolate ten seconds later.
** The better question is why 18 wasn't the one to confront Buu. Sure, she wouldn't stand a chance against him, but being that she's on par with a Super Saiyan, she could at least have bought some time and created a distraction that would let Videl carry Marron away.
*** Two reasons. The first was mentioned by the Troper above you. It wouldn't have made any difference whatsoever. She not on par with Super Saiyan, she's slightly above the bare minimum for a Super Saiyan. Vegeta and Trunks were wiping the floor with Imperfect Cell and Goku was keeping up with Perfect Cell. By comparison the only thing 18 could do against Imperfect Cell was run for her life. The second was there was always the off chance that Buu found Krillin amusing but the reality is they were all in way over their heads.

* When they wished to bring back everyone but the most evil people(not simply the evil people, but the most evil), why was Dabura not revived. The guy wasn't [[AffablyEvil that bad a guy]](there's also a possibility some of his nastiness is a result of being majined), and was in the midst of having a HeelFaceTurn [[RedemptionEqualsDeath while trying to stop Buu.]]
** Dabura was ''the Devil''. That makes him pretty damn evil, and he wasn't making a HeelFaceTurn at all.
*** The problem here is that there isn't much evidence supporting that Dabura was particularly evil. We know he's the most powerful being from his dimension which seems to be implied to be Hell but it's only implied. What we do know is that HFIL is the Hell of the DBZverse and Dabura is definitely NOT from there or at the very least he's never mentioned earlier. We also know that the Devil of the DBZverse is Piccolo. He's the evil half of GOD/Kami. While the Majin process apparently requires you to have evil in your heart or something along those lines Majin Buu doesn't seem to be evil so much as immature.
**** ''Majin Buu doesn't seem to be evil so much as immature'' Yeah, except Buu was fully created by Bibidi and never was submitted to the Majin process; his capacity to rebel against Babidi is proof enough. And for evidence that Dabura is evil: the only person to ever resist Babidi's control is the one that wasn't fully evil at that point; so when ''Vegeta'' is the "not-so-evil" guy, it's not a stretch to imagine that the other "Majins" are ''completely'', unambiguously evil.
*** The dragon can't affect people more powerful than it who don't want to be. Maybe Dabura just decided he was happier in heaven and chose not to be revived.
* Morality in Dragonball. How exactly does that crap work? I ask it here because it's relevant to the Buu Saga and the wish that all the good people be revived. A previous troper mentioned Dabura but Vegeta is just as vexing, if his suicide attack on Buu didn't qualify him as a "good" person then the only way he should be on the approved list after is if they called in a favor from King Yemma but it while the Saiyan Saga claims that Yemma directly chooses who goes where by the Buu Saga it seems that the "universe" decides on it's own hence the surprise at Vegeta's revival. While I guess saving the universe, or trying, has it's benefits but he already tried that with Cell and again with Buu. Is there some sort of meter and he just lucked into ticking over the top at a very convienent moment? Is Piccolo good? He seemed to have been arguably worse than Vegeta he simply lacked the raw power to do the kind of damage that filler arc Vegeta did and everything else can be chalked up you don't say no to Emperor Frieza if breathing is an addiction you have. He certainly had fewer choices than Piccolo even if you want to argue that he didn't seem too put off by being a murderer.
** Presumably, they used Vegeta's actions after the death- and not only his actions in life- when deciding if he sufficiently atoned himself to qualify as "good".
** You answered your own question, OP. The reason they probably allowed Vegeta to keep his body was because they had chalked all the atrocities he had committed in his young life to be him acting under Frieza's orders, 'cause if he didn't, he'd be killed. Of course, then one has to wonder...How good are the ones doing the deciding if they apparently take JustFollowingOrders as a reasonable excuse?

* When Gohan was getting angry when Spopovitch tried to ''murder'' Videl, why couldn't he just use energy-based attacks that would hurt Spopovitch, but would still keep him from entering the ring instead of standing and doing nothing?
** Good question. I guess entering the ring when its not your turn is against the rules, and shooting Spopovitch with a ki blast, even if he were standing well outside the ring, counts.

* Thinking about it, why DID they bring Vegeta along with them to the fight on Babidi's ship? Supreme Kai knew that the Majin Powerup worked by bringing out the inner evil in person, and Vegeta doesn't exactly hide that he's a jerk. Hell, the whole Cell Games Saga is his damn fault because he wanted a good fight, which the Z Fighters should have remembered. The plan should have been to just bring in Goku and Gohan. The two of them would have been able to Curbstomp everyone inside the ship without expending too much energy and then they pimp slap Babidi. Buu never gets released, day is saved, Goku can fight it out with Vegeta now. Everyone lives, everybody's happy, Supreme Kai buries Buu's egg on a moon or something. Instead, they bring the jerk along and are surprised when he sells out for a power up and screws everyone over.
** My guess is because Vegeta wouldn't be so happy with missing out on an opportunity to get into a fight and even if the other fighters told him not to go, he would have gone anyway since Vegeta is too damn stubborn to listen to other people's warnings (like how he punched Future Trunks in the stomach so he could fight the androids because he didn't want to wait for Goku to help and he wanted to prove he was strong).
** Plus, wasn't Vegeta supposed to ''stay'' at the tournament originally? Goku was all, "We'll take care of it, so just stick around and stuff." but Vegeta would've have it, so he went anyway. You really can't convince him to listen to you, so they more or less just gave up and hope he doesn't screw anything up in the process of coming with them.
* When they were trying to convince everybody to donate their energy to the Spirit Bomb, why didn't Gohan don his Great Saiyaman outfit? The populace isn't going to listen to Son Gohan, because only a handful of people even know who he is. The Great Saiyaman, on the other hand, has instant credibility.
** Gohan didn't have time to zip back home and don another pair. He probably didn't even ''have'' another pair, as we only see him wearing one set, and that got ruined a while back.
* How did none of the spectators recognize Piccolo when he participated in the tournament? Aside from his father's reign of terror, in the last arc of the original ''DragonBall'' series he participated in the same tournament wearing the exact same outfit and using a very similar pseudonym, not to mention openly declared himself to be the reincarnation/son of Piccolo Daimao, destroyed the arena, and nearly killed Goku, and his appearance is not exactly forgettable. Yet it never occurred to anybody but the ref that the seven-foot-tall green guy in a turban seemed kind of familiar.
** The tournament announcer recognized Piccolo and Goku. He was seemingly the only one not riding the Hercule Satan bandwagon. The announcer flat out said he believed all tournaments since the last one in Dragonball to be boring. He remembers the fights with Goku, Tien and the rest of the gang. Everyone else is too busy being enamored with Hercule to remember the old tournaments too much.
* Babidi says, in his global announcement I think, that his original goal was to rule the universe with Buu at his command, but since Vegeta destroyed his spaceship, he will settle with terrorizing earth. Why doesn't he warp himself and Buu away from earth using the ol' paparapah?
** Maybe he can't. Maybe he can only warp other people and not himself.
* It's a fairly minor headscratcher, but when things were looking so grim for the entire universe that King Yemma brought back Vegeta, why not throw in Cell for good measure? Granted, he wouldn't be much of a challenge to Buu, but consider this: what they needed most desperately was time to cook up something like fusion or a genki dama. So what better than to use a guy who is very tough to finish off and who got a warehouse full of techniques to keep Buu occupied. I know it's a bit of a stretch, but if the universe is at stake...
** Vegeta they can plausibly get to cooperate and not cause apocalyptic trouble once the dust clears. Cell... notsomuch.
** I'm fairly sure we don't want Cell anywhere near this fight. First, Cell is fairly powerful and may have gotten more powerful in the afterlife. (Hey Goku does it twice, clearly being dead doesn't stop you from training.) And we know he gets that silly Zenkai boost. He's nearly as hard to kill as Buu and much smarter. Buu most likely either never kill Cell or best case scenario, eventually get bored of fighting him and find a way to absorb him. If Super Buu's Gottenks, Gohan and Piccolo forms taught us nothing it's that the new personalities have a fair bit of influence on him. The last thing the world needs is Buu with Cell's personality as a major influence or Cell managing to over power Buu and learn his techniques or absorb him. Either way sending Cell to fight Buu had a lot of ways to turn a bad situation worse. Though you could make an very solid argument that Buu was far enough past the Godzillathreshold that you simply throw everything because it's not like there is really anything worse than destroying all reality and maybe Cell would just rule over it forever?
*** A better question would be: Why would Yemma not revive every fighter who took part in the Otherworld tournament and just have them all attack at once? Perhaps the best answer was hinted at by Vegito. It's quality, not quantity. Tossing a bunch of fodder at Buu isn't going to accomplish much, especially if Buu feels like absorbing everything. Even #18 was fodder compared to Buu, and was dispatched effortlessly. But Vegeta just fought Buu in a better match than most could hope to top, and Vegeta likely got the old "Saiyan power boost" he constantly got on Namek due to Buu beating the ever-loving snot out of him before the sacrificial attack.
*** This has been said elsewhere as well but the villains keeping their bodies in hell is anime-only filler. In the manga it's made clear that only the righteous get to keep their bodies and all the villains stay as spirits (looking like puff clouds) for the exact reason of preventing them from training and starting a riot in hell.
* Kind of minor but when Fat Buu builds his house, how exactly does he have indoor plumbing? There doesn't seem to be a water
source anywhere in the area and Buu doesn't strike me as being....savvy enough to figure out how to build a network of pipes under his house.
** We see Fat Buu perform various magics ranging from transforming items into a completely different object to healing wounded creatures. And he was the pet of two different wizards. [[AWizardDidIt Magic tends to be the answer to a lot of questions]].
* Haven't seen anyone mention this yet and I'm not sure if it's filler, but after Kid Buu finally dies there is an episode where Fat Buu wanders around town getting into hijinx and being his derpy self. I get that they used the dragon balls to make people forget about Buu's attacks when he was evil to make life easier for him, but wouldn't they still freak out about seeing a giant pink bubble gum monster in a diaper who sounds like Beaker from the Muppets just walking down town? Are the citizens in Dragon Ball just so desensitized to seeing weirdness by now that this sort of thing doesn't phase them?
** This is a world where dinosaurs that would frighten Tyrannosaurus Rex are alive and well, and where various beasts compete in the widely popular martial arts tournament. Buu stands out, sure, but he isn't an oddity compared to other "normal" thing in the world.
* It is assumed that Chi Chi and Bulma and Muten Roshi must pay their electrical bills for their house. '''''Why?''''' After all, everyone around them is capable of expunging massive levels of energy, so you'd think that this would be enough to provide them power for time immemorial. Of course, this is never mentioned but assumed, so it might be a moot point. Still, this would mean that they could solve the world energy crisis just by zapping some energy into the wires. You'd think they'd do something useful with all that galaxy-busting energy.
** We're never really given a reason to think the world of dragon ball is suffering any kind of energy crisis, and the Z fighters kind of prefer to not have a lot of attention on them anyway. Also, Toriyama probably never thought of it, but we've never seen anybody use ki energy like electricity to power a generator or shock somebody or anything like that, so maybe it just can't be used that way.
* This might have just been in the dub but after Kid Buu [[ArcFatigue finally]] dies Goku and Vegeta go over with Mr. Satan to find the injured Good Buu. Vegeta decides he's going to obliterate him right there, saying he could still be dangerous if he ever gets angry again and produces another Evil Buu. Except, Vegeta was watching when Good Buu fought Kid Buu earlier and Good Buu was getting angry and blowing steam and he didn't produce another evil Buu or anything. So what exactly is Vegeta worried about? I wouldn't mind except it seems like a cheap way to add some arbitrary tension.
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** maybe Frieza isn't as much of a crazy Omnicidal Maniac as he seemed, maybe he only resorts to violence and murder when it is less beneficial than diplomacy, in this case he'd lose trade if he just conquered all the people with money in the universe, he'd also be out of a job and stuff to do.

* Okay, I've got a few things concerning Akira Toriyama's rather notorious AssPull decisions. If he intended Gohan to be Goku's successor, why in the seven hells did he go against it in the Buu saga? It wasn't as if the series would collapse without Goku and Gohan was popular enough to keep the series alive and loved, but why-oh-why did he do the things he did to Gohan? Not only has Gohan almost stopped training completely (thanks to Chi Chi's influence and parental control over him), he has actually ''got weaker and horribly rusty'' over seven years to the point that he can't take on a considerably weakened '' '''[[AxCrazy Bro]][[OmnicidalManiac ly]]''' '' at his strongest and he has proven to be a poor successor. If that was what he had in mind, then why did he have Goku die in the Cell saga?

** Can't claim to know what goes on in Toriyama's mind of course and it bugs me too, but I'm guessing by the time the Buu saga rolled around he was just sick and tired of the series and wanted to move on to other things and just wasn't paying much attention to what he was doing (it would explain a LOT of the problems with the Buu saga), and decided to pander to the base a bit by making Goku and Vegeta the heroes again.