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Dragon Ball
alt title(s): Dragonball Z; Dragonball GT
The early days.

Dragonball began as a manga written by Akira Toriyama, chronicling the adventures of a cheerful monkey boy named Goku, in a story that was originally based off the Chinese tale Journey To The West. The manga was soon adapted into one of the most popular anime ever made.

In Dragonball, Goku and a huge cast of friends and enemies search for the magical Dragonballs that they could use to make a wish come true. Of course, no sooner had someone gathered and used the Dragonballs than they would have to be sought out again. On top of all this Goku was training up to fight in the periodic "Strongest Under the Heavens" tournament. The series is generally broken down into the following saga's: Emperor Pilaf, the first World Martial Arts Tournament, the Red Ribbon Army, Tenshinhan, King Piccolo and Piccolo Jr, with minor filler plots. After defeating these major threats to the world, Goku finally won the tournament on his third attempt and went off to get married.

The later series.

After this, Dragonball as an anime featured a name change to Dragonball Z, while it continued uninterrupted as Dragonball in the manga. The reason was the Dragonball Z period had a change in focus from martial arts comedy to more serious epic battles. The American translation of the manga had their run of this part also called Dragonball Z to prevent confusion. At the start it revealed that Goku was not simply a boy with a tail but one of the last of the alien race, the Saiyans. He was sent into space shortly before the Saiyan planet was destroyed (shades of Superman). Goku and his friends, reinforced by former enemies (a recurring theme) had to fight progressively more powerful villains. Although Goku and his martial arts skills (which let he and his friends fly, throw energy blasts and read minds) dominated the battles, the story was mostly about Goku's son Gohan and how he faces the challenges. Running seven years and nearly 300 episodes, the series can be broken down into the four primary Big Bad's of the series: Vegeta, Frieza, Cell and Majin Buu. Both Dragonball the manga and Dragonball Z the anime came to a triumphant conclusion after Gohan is married and his own daughter Pan enters the "Strongest Under the Heavens" tournament.

Since Dragonball saga was a superhit, Dragonball GT was created as an anime-only continuation by Toei, with some character design and plot supervision by Toriyama. It chronicled Goku being accidentally reduced to the age he started the series at by a wish. The story has him travel into space to retrieve the more powerful (and more dangerous) "Black Star Dragonballs" after they were scattered into the cosmos. Goku and his companions retrieved the Dragonballs, faced many terrible threats including the parasite Baby, Super Android 17 (for a whole two episodes) the Dark Dragons and other minor threats that include reviving many previous enemies, until in the end the Dragonballs vanished forever and Goku with them. DBGT was generally not very well received, lasting only 67 episodes before cancellation, and its status as part of Dragonball canon has since been compromised, because...

After several years of no new media beyond console video games, Dragonball was brought into a new generation with the announcement of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, simply titled Dragonball Online. While it has, as of yet, only been released in Asia, it should be noted for one important reason: Dragonball Online takes place on Earth, 216 years after the events at the conclusion of the manga series, and according to Akira Toriyama, who has been one of the hands-on lead designers of the game, is considered canon to the world of Dragonball. So far, only three playable races have been announced: Human, Namekian, and Majin, though whether Sayains will be available, as well as Beast-Men, Androids, Freezians (Freeza's race), and other alien races will be entered, and when, has yet to be seen.

The success of Dragonball is hard to dispute — it became one of the biggest hits ever in Japan, Americans always have an idea of what it is when they hear its title, every single Latino who grew up during the 90's has watched it, it's still running on TV and merchandising is alive and well. It is sometimes derided for being simplistic and for drawn-out multi-episode fights with little happening, but the show is aimed at kids of age 9 and over, with older adults not really in the picture. Dragonball — particularly when written by Akira Toriyama — is supposed to be fun and it generally achieves this. The quality of later arcs is a contested topic, with many claiming that Seasonal Rot sets in somewhere during or immediately following the Freeza arc.

There were many Non Serial Movies (only a few could be wedged into the series' timeline) released at least once a year, three set in Dragonballs timeline and thirteen for Dragonball Z. Two made-for-tv movies were made for Dragonball Z, which are technically in canon. There was also a seventeenth feature film based on the original series produced to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the franchise, as well as a web special in 2008 produced to commemorating the 40th anniversary of Shonen Jump.

An American-made movie premiered in April of 2009: Dragonball Evolution. A direct adaptation only in the broadest sense, leading many fans to dismiss it. Rumors of a sequel are slipping around...

Toei has begun airing a "refreshing" of DBZ, streamlining it to fit better with the manga, giving it new opening and closing themes, touching up the film, and rerecording dialogue with as much of the original cast as possible. This project is called DragonBall Kai, and the official website is here. A commercial for it is here. So far they've done a good job.

There are a couple of Abridged Series out there, including Alternate Reality DBZ and the enormously popular version by Team Four Star.

This show is the trope namer for:

Here is the Character Sheet for the cast of the Dragonball Saga.

This show provides examples of:

  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Averted by the Z-Sword. Everyone thinks that it's unbreakable and stupidly sharp, but it's not.
    • To be fair, it only broke when it went up against the (according to Supreme Kai) hardest material in the universe. It cut through a sizable rock pretty cleanly, so it's not really an aversion. It's still an Absurdly Sharp Blade.
    • Played with when King Cold believed that Trunks only managed to kill Freiza because of his sword (which probably does qualify for this trope). Amused, Trunks decided to let Cold test this theory and gives him the sword, knowing that Cold would attempt to kill him with it. When Cold attempts to kill Trunks with it, Trunks stops the blade with his hand and kills Cold with a ki blast to the heart.
      • And then there's the fact that Goku can stop the sword using his frickin' index finger alone. Considering Trunks defeated Freeza in all of 15 seconds and was powered up to a Super Saiyan, either Goku is God himself or that blade can't cut through toilet paper.
  • Acrofatic: Fat Majin Buu and Dodoria, but just about every main character can fly and do acrobatic stuff, so it's kinda cheapened here.
  • Adaptation Decay: They don't call it Drag-On Ball Z for nothing. It's slightly worse if you compare it to the manga.
    • Slightly? Goku's Super Saiyan 3 transformation in the manga: around three pages. In the cartoon? Five minutes counting all the filler. It did bring some Crowning Musicof Awesome, however, so maybe it's Justified!
      • And three pages is a long time in a manga.
  • Adaptation Distillation: Dragonball Kai, in re-adapting the Dragonball Z anime to match more closely to the manga original.
    • There is an inherent problem with translating directly from the manga page, which the original anime did. Primarily showing an explosion on the comic page takes up one panel with a half-second glance while it takes 90 seconds of the anime to animate (To say nothing of Talking Is A Free Action). To fit one manga into a half-hour show meant that there was plenty of Padding and reaction shots. Dragonball Kai is cutting that down to a third of its original length and thereby allowing for a swift watch almost equal to reading the manga.
    • For those who have severe problems with the writing and plotting of the show and the comic, there's several decent video games, including an excellent series from Spike. The Dragonball fighting games focus on Toriyama's strong points (i.e., his character and attack designs, which are world-class and translate to 3D fighting games perfectly), and add Competitive Balance to a massive cast of Cant Catch Up Ensemble Darkhorses, which effectively turns The Goku Show into a battle royale with dozens of viable characters. Also, your favorite transformations and super-moves are accessible without all of the original series's plot baggage that went with them.
  • Adaptation Dye Job: Bulma, and her daughter, Bra.
  • Adaptation Expansion: While the anime contains a lot of filler, it also contains a great deal of expansion of the story arcs, often for the purpose of developing the characters. The most positive version of this was the Saiyan Saga, which showed us the year that passed before the Saiyans arrived, as far as fleshing out Gohan's training and Piccolo's Heel Face Turn as a result of his time with Gohan.
  • Adult Child: Son Goku is a rare positive example of this trope. If only more "adults" in real life can be so unconditionally kind, idealistic, compassionate and forgiving as he is.
    • On the other hand Majin Buu is the bad kind of adult child, though he does redeem himself.
  • AI Is A Crapshoot: Inversion: it took Dr. Gero 16 androids to finally get one that was evil.
    • Then they killed him because they were too evil.
    • Actually, it's implied they held over some feelings of resentment prior to being forcibly converted. And then they were continuously put to sleep by remote control. That would piss them off.
  • Air Jousting
  • Aliens Speaking English Japanese
  • Anime Anatomy: Subverted in Dragonball Kai. Due to the show airing on a morning timeslot, they had to censor baby Goku's penis and balls, but his genitals were censored to a degree (i.e. covered up by the furniture he was sitting on).
    • Completely Subverted in the uncut rerelease. Baby Goku and even four-year-old Gohan appear uncensored in DBZ.
  • Animation Bump: The anime was animated almost directly from Toriyama's manga drawings, and, as a result, frames and images that come directly from the manga are noticeably more detailed than other frames.
  • Apocalypse How: Future Trunks went back in time to prevent the world being wasted by Androids, after the Z-Fighters were killed and Goku died a heart attack.
  • Afraid Of Needles: Goku [anime-only].
  • Anyone Can Die: Everyone on Earth in the entire span of the Majin Buu arc alone, has died or has been dead around the time with the exception of Dende (who has died before) and Mr. Satan (or Hercule) and his puppy. Even the Kings Of all Cosmos, have died (The Supreme Kai hasn't died before, but sort of had experienced death through Kibito, who he merged with).
  • Arc Fatigue: It even used to be called Are They Still On Namek?
  • Art Evolution: From the beginning of Dragonball to the end of Dragonball GT, Toriyama's style went from loose and rounded to precise and angled. Especially the eyes.
  • Arthur Dent: Bulma.
  • Artistic Age: Gohan during the Cell Games fits Type 1, while little Goku in the original Dragonball goes in Type 2.
  • Ass Kicking Pose: Frequently. Parodied by the Ginyu Force members, whose poses are anything but asskicking.
  • Avenging The Villain: Piccolo's son.
  • Ax Crazy: All forms of Majin Buu, especially Kid Buu.
  • Backstab Backfire
  • Bad Ass: Loads.
  • Badass Decay: Vegeta, arguably. Even he gets sick of being relegated to a second-string hero, and eventually attempts a short-lived Face Heel Turn to reclaim his badass status.
    • Still doesn't work because he eventually sacrifices himself for the world anyway.
  • Badass Family: Goku's, of course.
  • Badass Mustache: Hercule/Mr. Satan. Briefly, Vegeta as well.
    • Not really Vegeta, considering that people made fun of him for it, to the point that he shaved it off and asked everybody how he looked afterwards.
  • Badass Normal: Krillin Mr. Satan, being the only fighter with no grasp of ki.
    • Yajirobe also qualifies. Fights an enraged kid Goku to a standstill, single-handedly kills one of Piccolo Daimaou's minions in a single strike, and manages to cut Oozaru Vegeta's tail off when Gohan and Krillin failed to.
  • Bash Brothers: Trunks and Goten.
  • Bastard Understudy: Adjutant Black to Supreme Commander Red of the Red Ribbon Army.
  • Bardock Can Breathe In Space: Certain aliens are able to survive without air. Saiyans aren't one of them. Doesn't stop Bardock from flying into space to confront Frieza.
    • That's because he was still within the planet's atmosphere.
      • Doesn't matter. Atmospheric pressure drops rapidly with altitude, especially when the planet's gravity is that strong. If it's the middle of the day and most of the sky is black with stars in it, you're too high up to breathe.
      • Are we honestly expected to believe Bardock was honestly caring about the lack of air there was when he was trying to save his entire planet?! Plus Saiyans have never had their lung capacity stated, so its possible they could go quite a while without breathing in some air.
    • A better example would be some filler episodes in which Vegeta is seen flying between planets without a spaceship or any apparent breathing apparatus.
    • This rather good fanfiction posits that ki users of the Saiyans' level can gather and compress several minutes' worth of air around their bodies for short periods of extravehicular activity.
    • There's a much earlier, and often ignored example of when Goku used used Nyoibou to extend and put Boss Rabbit and his Mooks on the Moon. Although back then, the theme of Dragonball was much sillier.
  • Battle Aura: Features distinctive colors for different characters and situations.
  • Battle Royale With Cheese
  • Beam Of Enlightenment
  • Become a Real Girl: Krillin uses the Dragon Balls to wish Androids 17 & 18 fully human. When the dragon says he can't, he wishes to remove the bombs inside their bodies instead.
  • Beam Spam: Vegeta in particular is notorious for using this... ...to little effect.
  • Beware The Nice Ones: Son Goku and especially his eldest boy Son Gohan: People in this universe are nice because they can afford to be nice.
  • Big Bad: Piccolo, Vegeta, Frieza, Cell, Buu, and a few others thrown in-between.
  • Big Eater: All the Saiyans.
  • Big Good: By the end of the series, Goku is pretty much the strongest guy in the whole damn universe.
  • Boobs Of Steel: Pretty much inverted completely. The female fighters (Eighteen, Videl, etc.) tend to be modestly endowed, while the non-fighters (such as Bulma) are fairly stacked. ChiChi would be just about the only exception, and even she pretty much goes into complete non-fighter status by the time Z starts.
  • Bowdlerized: Both dubs, but the first one to a much greater extent.
  • Break The Cutie: Mostly Gohan, but Goten and Pan aren't exactly left out. Another example occurs late in '"Z'' with the Supreme Kai's comrades/Nakama getting taken out by Buu, and his mentor is killed right in front of him.
  • Broken Base: Never ask a group of DBZ fans which dub they prefer: FUNimation or Ocean Group
    • While you're at it, ask if the Orange Boxsets are worth buying. If you just enjoy being flamed, say that the FU Nimation dub is a good dub.
      • Just mention dubs in general, really. Subs vs. Dubs will never, ever end.
      • We of Latin America got lucky till around 2005, before that, EVERYTHING was Translated straight from japanesse, not passin' through censors nor anything. We got "Die", not "Sent to a different dimension"
  • Bus Full Of Innocents
  • Butt Monkey: Krillin and Yamcha.
  • Calling Your Attacks
  • Canon Immigrant: In the weirdest fashion with GT. Toriyama was, for the most part, uninvolved, yet one of the GT-only characters, Gill, is his creation. Huh? I think the entirety of GT is kind of "Canon Immigrant".
  • Can't Catch Up: Takes this concept and runs with it. If you didn't have Saiyan blood in you, you might as well not have shown up to the fight for all the good you'll do.)
    • By the end of the series, even the final big bad Super Buu is desperately trying to play catchup with the Saiyans. Gohan was able to effortlessly defeat Super Buu without the need (or ability) to transform. Later, when Buu had absorbed Gohan and obtained his power, he was easily beaten by the original Super Saiyan form of Vegetto, who was probably capable of at least one and probably two more levels of Super Saiyan transformations on top of that. The only reason there was any tension at all for the final battle against Kid Buu was that Goku and Vegeta didn't want to fuse again on PRINCIPLE.
    • Later subverted in the MMORPG sequel to the series (story by Akira Toriyama himself!) which reveals that Goku and Vegeta failed to rebuild their race. Guess what race is NOT playable.
  • Celestial Bureaucracy: All souls in the afterlife have their deeds listed in a file like a resume, and stamped by Lord Enma for approval to go Heaven or sent to Hell.
  • Character Magnetic Team: To a ridiculous extent, all throughout the series.
  • Charles Atlas Super Power
  • Chickification: ChiChi, #18, Videl... even Pan, to a degree.
    • It affects each character in different ways. ChiChi didn't so much become a weaker character as just retire from fighting, becoming an Education Mama as tough as she ever was (Z is littered with "Oh, you forgot ChiChi could kick ass, didn't you" moments). #18 didn't go through Chickification at all, retaining her entire character, but just joined pretty much the entire cast besides the Saiyans as mostly unimportant. Videl's pretty much the only one who went through true, complete Chickification. It's pretty jarring in her case, since the episode first showing it is a Time Skip, so the change happens practically within a single episode.
  • The Chick: Bulma or Pan, depending on the era.
  • Circles Of HFIL
  • Collectible Card Game: Three of them, with honorable mention of DBZ being the theme of a set of Ani-Mayhem. The first game was surprisingly popular and well-liked, lasting for several years and covering all of Z and GT.
  • Complete Monster: Freeza was such a long lasting villain and so irredeemable that pretty much dying twice and his spectacular final death at the hands of Trunks is quite frankly not painful or humiliating enough.
    • His sickening attack on the Namek village attains a level of chilling brutality that few anime have matched since.
  • Cracking Up: especially Buu
  • Cross Over: with Doctor Slump
  • Crossdressing Voices: Most notably Masako Nozawa as Goku, Gohan and Goten. And Linda Young as Frieza in the English dub.
  • Crouching Moron Hidden Badass: Goku, Gohan, Goten...and even Krillin
  • Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Plentiful and frequent.
  • Crowning Music Of Awesome: Both the original and the dubs have their fair share of awesome tunes.
    • Most of the music in the original was done by Hironobu Kageyama. Yes, that Hironobu Kageyama.
    • Super Saiyan 3 music in the FU Nimation Dub.
    • DRAGON! DRAGON! ROCK THE DRAGON, also from the dub. Seriously, hearing that as a kid, you knew one thing only: Holy SHIT!
  • Cute Bruiser: Pan, Videl, ChiChi.
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Both the Kaioken and the Spirit Bomb can kill the wielder (the Spirit Bomb can destroy the world if Goku's not careful).
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Almost all enemies and Big Bads wind up becoming allies.
  • Death Is Cheap: And how!
  • Defeating The Undefeatable: Many of the major villains... Frieza probably tops the list.
    • The series is rife with this after Frieza. Later Big Bads have the ability to regenerate from the smallest of pieces. And somehow, removing the absorbed fighters from Super Buu made him way stronger. With the ability to regenerate from almost nothing. It's ridiculous.
      • Actually, Kid Buu is weaker than Super Buu, but he's so damn crazy and ruthless he's a much more dangerous creature. Word of God said that Goku and Gotenks are almost identical in strength, and expository dialog says that Super Buu could have crushed Gotenks but wanted to stay around and wait for Gohan to finish powering up.
      • Kid Buu, is stronger than the original Super Buu. Removing the Z-Fighters he absorbed made him weaker. However, removing the Fat Buu, revealed that it acted as a sort of Power Limiter and Restraining Bolt, made him much stronger. Possibly not as much as when he absorbed Gohan, but too dangerous to be left unchecked. Being the embodiment of Chaotic Evil, this is made all the more awesome.
      • Considering that Goku was able to hold his own against Kid Buu for an extended battle without being able to reach his full power (due to the fact that he was currently alive) and was more or less doing just as well against Fat Buu (before he split) back when he could access his full power, it seems likely that Kid Buu is the weakest version of Buu around other than Fat Buu, post separation.
      • Let's just say that the Power Levels of Majin Buu in his various forms are contendable and leave it from there. The fact of the matter is Goku killed a legendary God-killer. If that isn't an example of this trope, then it's hard to see what is.
  • Detonation Moon: Many many times.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu: ChiChi slaps Majin Buu, the scourge of the universe, in the face and gets turned into an egg and crushed in response.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Demon King Piccolo does the unthinkable after getting his big wish and blows the Dragon into pieces with one shot. At that time in the series, that was pretty much equivalent to killing God.
    • Arguably this happens constantly from that point onward, as every villain after that is way stronger than Piccolo.
  • Ditzy Genius: Bulma. Especially in Dragon Ball and in the Frieza saga.
  • Discontinuity: Many fans refuse to acknowledge GT for any reason.
  • Distribution Of Ninjutsu
  • Does Not Know His Own Strength: Goku and Gohan in some filler episodes.
    • And in one of the manga chapters, Goku playfully flicks ChiChi and accidentally sends her through a wall.
  • Do Not Adjust Your Set - Piccolo Daimao introducing himself as the new ruler of the world, and Cell announcing the Cell Games.
  • Dragons Up The Yin Yang - The titular Dragon Balls summon a wish-granting dragon when brought together.
  • Earth Shattering Kaboom: Happened to Planet Vegeta, Planet Namek...and even Planet Earth itself (Twice if you include GT).
    • Also, the Saiyans (excluding Goku and the Saiyan children), Freeza and Majin Buu have had histories of doing this for kicks.
  • Education Mama: ChiChi.
  • Emergency Energy Tank: Senzu beans, which instantly restore physical energy to 100%, as well as instantly heal injuries (as shown when eating a bean put Vegeta's arm back in place after it was dislocated by a kick from Android 18).
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: There's Vegeta and Cooler, but oh dear god Broly.
  • Eye Scream: Ironically, Goku in the early series gave this to Yamcha using his Jan Ken Fist (otherwise known as "Rock, Paper, Scissors Attack") Goku delivers a "Rock" (a punch), which Yamcha blocks, delivers the "Scissors" (eye poke) to his eyes, then finished it off with "Paper" (a slap) that knocked him away.
  • Executive Meddling: A big victim of this.
  • Explosion Propulsion
  • Expy: Master Roshi is an expy of God from Dr. Slump (not to be confused with Dragon Ball's Kami-sama).
  • Extreme Omnivore: Yajirobe, who eats Cymbal after defeating him.
    • I Am A Humanitarian: And briefly considered eating a (presumably) dead Goku before deciding he would probably taste bad.
  • Eyedscreen: When Trunks falls.
  • Fake Ultimate Hero: Mr. Satan or "Hercule".
    • Though to his credit, he is a kind-hearted and caring person who genuinely wants to help people.
  • Fan Disservice: Early on, Goku got a full-frontal nudity shot in every volume... and he was only a kid.
  • Fanservice: To defeat an invisible man, Krillin removes Bulma's shirt in front of Master Roshi, giving him a colossal nosebleed that reveals the invisible man.
  • Fantastic Racism: Freeza's fear-motivated motivation for exterminating "the Saiyan-monkeys." The Saiyans themselves were as a rule disdainful of anyone who isn't a Saiyan.
  • Feed Me: What exactly does the scouter say about Goku's power level, Vegeta? Wait, don't answer that.
    • It's 1006.
      • This is later shown to have been an error, as the scouter was upside down at the time. The actual reading is 9001; over 9000.
  • Fiction 500: Bulma's family, due to them owning Capsule Corp.
  • Fighting Series: Obviously
  • Filler: DBZ is one of the most notorious of all anime series for this, including not just adding extra arcs, but stretching out battles because the manga hadn't concluded them yet. And we mean stretching them out.
    • Here's a good example. In the manga, Freeza destroyed Namek in five minutes. In the anime, that event lasted ten episodes.
      • Ten episodes of extreme heroic asskicking, but still...
  • Final First Hug: Vegeta's heartbreaking farewell to Trunks.
  • Finger Poke Of Doom: Most of the villains get one, though the heroes get them as well.
  • Follow The Leader: Inspired a lot of current Shonen manga. The creators of One Piece, Naruto, Bleach have all admitted to being inspired by Dragonball to certain levels of degree.
    • Naruto goes so far as to having the titular character wear florescent orange/yellow and blue attire, similar to Goku. Except he's a freaking ninja. Not to mention they both eat a lot, they both transform into giant monsters (kinda)...
  • For The Evulz: Kid Buu was pretty much this.
  • Freaky Friday: Captain Ginyu has the power to switch bodies with anyone, which he does with Goku. Eventually however, it backfires on him when he tries to take Vegeta's body and ends up in a frog's instead, rendering him harmless as his power requires the use of his voice.
  • Friendly Target: Poor, poor Krillin and Android 16.
  • From A Single Cell: Cell and Buu. Even moreso with Buu.
  • Future Badass: Future Trunks.
  • Game Breaking Injury: The final fight between Goku and Piccolo
    • Still didn't stop him, somehow.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: (Latin Americans Love Dragon Ball Z).
    • The United States Loves Vegeta.
  • Go Out With A Smile: Twice with Goku.
  • Gratuitous English: Most alien and supernatural creatures have name-puns based off English words, and Toriyama had said that Vegeta's attacks used English names to highlight his alien nature.
  • Gravity Screw
  • Green Space Babe: Subverted in a recent web special where everyone is surprised the wife of Vegeta's brother is a adorable cartoonish alien. The exception is Master Roshi, who points out that Saiyans seem to have strange tastes in women. Unfortuntely, he said it in earshot of Bulma AND ChiChi, and gets severely beaten for it..
    • Played straight with Zangya, one of Bojack's henchmen.
  • Growing The Beard: For the manga's first run in Japan, it was the Tenkaichi Budoukai, which was when Dragon Ball started transitioning away from slapstick comedy into a fighting series.
  • Half Human Hybrid: It helps that Saiyans are incredibly similar to humans, but genetic mixes often prove to be stronger than purebloods. Gohan, Goten and Trunks are all half-Saiyan, and Pan is quarter-Saiyan and, thus far, the only female to use a Kamehameha.
  • Hard Work Hardly Works: Vegeta, Piccolo and Krillin who Can't Catch Up to Goku. Ever. Possibly subverted, as Gohan, Goten, and Trunks have even more potential than Goku, but little of his drive to train. But as Gohan explicitly surpasses Goku twice, the second time without even trying, it seems that Goku's Hard Work Hardly Works either.
    • It's hard to make this claim stick in a series where Training From HFIL is what enables the defeat of practically every villain in the series (its also explicitly stated that Gohan received extreme off-screen training that allowed him to remain a Super-Saiyan full time, something that's supposed to be hard to do.)
  • Heel Face Turn: Piccolo and Vegeta are the most notable examples.
  • Heroic RROD: Especially Goku's Kaiou-ken power-up technique. It strained his body so hard that Yajirobe's congratulatory slap on the shoulder was agonizingly painful to him.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In spades.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Goten and Trunks.
  • Hey Its That Voice: Where do we even begin?
    • The FUNimation dub was their first major import, using hometown voice actors - everything they've done since mostly draws from this same pool.
    • Heck, Team Four Star's Abridged Series even uses an all-star cast of abridged dubbers.
  • High School Sweethearts: Gohan and Videl.
  • Holy Halo: Worn by dead characters in the good (not hell) afterlife.
  • Homage: Dragon Ball is a homage to the classic Journey To The West, while Dragon Ball Z, at least the first few parts of it, is a homage to Super Man and Western Sci-Fi themes).
  • Honor Before Reason: Son Goku's unfailing and unconditional love for all life has turned practically every villain he met, with the exception of Freeza and Cell, into paragons of heroism.
    • Even Buu, who is pretty much evil incarnate, was transformed into an incredibly nice yet timid person after being killed.
  • Hot Shoujo Dad: Son Goku, Kurillin and especially Vegeta have been worshipped as such amongst certain fangirl communities. Heck, even Piccolo is subject to this worship, with his fatherly relationship to Son Gohan as justification.
  • Hot Shounen Mom: Pretty much every mother on the show - especially Bulma's {unnamed} mother.
  • How Much More Can He Take: Goku vs Frieza.
  • Huge Guy Tiny Girl: Goku and ChiChi, Gohan and Videl slightly moreso. GT's art style skewered it, but in most manga images, her shoulders are level with his waist. Also inverted with Krillin and 18.
  • Hulk's Cooldown Hug Corollary
  • Hulking Out: Goku and Gohan's Oozaru transformation.
  • Humans Are Bastards: It turns out that humans are selfish, childish, misguided idiots who only worry when something bad happens them, can't put anything in perspective, and will only do anything as simple as, say, raise up your hands to fuel the Spirit Bomb when a voice encompassing the Earth asks (Vegeta actually said "please" the first time) (Vegeta didn't even give them that much detail 'cos they're so dumb), and defeat the Big Bad when their Fake Ultimate Hero tells them do it. The only that was good about that whole moment was the said moment was a Crowning Moment Of Awesome for Mr. Satan!
    • Now, now, lets be fair. The last guy to telepathically communicate with everyone on the planet that day was Babidi, who was having Buu slaughter the populace and tended to blow up the heads of people who he communicated with. And whenever someone raised up their hands to this new voice, they tended to collapse from the resultant energy drain since Goku was taking a lot more power than normal (why they didn't just teleport Gohan and Gotenks over to join in, is anyone's guess). If it wasn't for their blind trust of Mr. Satan, there wasn't any reason why people who don't know Goku would even consider following his and Vegeta's request.
    • But Babidi wasn't polite about his demands, he was an asshole. Those that did raise their hands immediately didn't go to the rest of the population not to, they did so unwillingly citing their own personal reasons not to do so. Some weren't as gracious to give a reason other carry on their ridiculous lives.
    • Also, it was two particularly despicable humans that triggered the release of Fat Buu's evil side (and ultimately, his transformation into the eviler Super Buu) by shooting his puppy and later Mr.Satan. Why? Because they were using Buu's destruction spree as an excuse to kill people for fun (when they're introduced they shoot an old couple to death and then revel in how fun it is).
  • Hypocritical Humor: VIZ Media, the translators for the original manga, censored the shots of Bulma naked for the VIZBig editions. 12-year-old Goku's nude shots are completely uncensored.
  • I Am Not Left Handed: Numerous villains deliberately limit themselves in combat.
    • As do the heroes. Usually in the form of weighted training clothes; these will be thrown away immediately after the villain reveals his own handicap. Our hero is also not left handed!
  • I Am X Son Of Y: "I am Vegeta, Prince of the Saiyajin Warrior Race!!"
  • I Am Your Opponent
  • I Sense A Disturbance In The Force: Mostly starts with the Saiyan Saga, after which almost all the main characters were force- ki-sensitive.
  • Idiot Hero: Goku, although much of that is because of a major head trauma, and he lived a sheltered life until he turned 12. And technically, Mr. Satan.
  • Inaction Sequence: Used and abused in Z, to the point that some viewers started calling the series "Drag-On Ball".
  • Involuntary Shapeshifting: If a Saiyan with a tail looks at the full moon, they transform into giant ape-like creatures that typically go on a berserk rampage. This can be stopped by cutting their tail off. A fairly minor part of the story, and by the end of the first story arc of Dragon Ball Z, all Saiyans are rendered permanently tail-less, and the moon destroyed for good measure.
    • Picked up later in GT, but nobody cares.
      • I do. (Said by most of the latinamerican poulation)
  • Invulnerable Attack
  • Ki Attacks
  • Kiai
  • Kick The Dog: All the villains, and even all the heroes who used to be villains, are guilty of this, especially Piccolo and Vegeta.
  • Kid Hero: Subverted with 11-year-old (9 in the Japanese version) Gohan during the Cell Games. Gohan's hybrid human-Saiyan heritage make him potentially the most powerful being on earth. Too bad his gentle personality rendered him unable to use that power and potentially kill Cell, even when the villain threatened not only his life but the lives of his friends.
    • He's 11 in all versions.
  • Kill Em All: What Majin Buu eventually did to natives of Earth. You can do that when you have an attack called "Human Extinction."
  • King Of All Cosmos: Nearly every deity.
  • Koichi Yamadera: Stood in for Hirotaka Suzuoki as Tenshinhan in episodes 82 and 84 of Z.
  • Kung Fu Sonic Boom: Every time from the Freeza Saga onwards.
  • Laughably Evil: Almost every single major villain had his fair share of comedic traits. Majin Buu takes this trope to the extreme.
  • Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid: Goku offers to spare Raditz' life and ends up spending his own to make up for that blunder. He doesn't get smarter later on, but his power level usually made up for it.
  • Lego Genetics: The logic of Cell's creation: He's created from Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Freeza and King Cold's DNA (Plus the humans' on the anime)? He's born knowing all their techniques and possesses all their strengths.
    • It's even implied that many of Cell's personality traits derive from some of his 'parents'. He inherited Goku's love and desire for a challenge, while at the same time getting Frieza's tendency to lose it when he realizes he's outmatched. His politeness comes from Freeza, and his arrogance from Vegeta and Freeza.
  • Licked By The Dog: Gohan's got an entire musical number dedicated to how much he loves Piccolo, the literal embodiment of evil.
  • Lightning Bruiser: While this applies to every fighter in the series, Brolly is the ultimate example of this trope. He is literally a walking mountain of muscle, with the power and brute force to match, but still possesses speed enough to completely avoid the attacks of Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Future Trunks and Piccolo (he simply chooses not to for most of the fight). This trait also nullified whatever advantage Future Trunks may have had when he temporarily became a similar Mass of Muscles to fight Perfect Cell.
  • Lights Off Their Eyes
  • Living Prop: Bulma and Vegeta's daughter, Bra, and Kuririn and 18's daughter, Marron. Given their overall plot relevance, they mainly exist as a way for Toriyama to establish that their parents were/are still romantically involved, without having to actually write romance, as was both shy about and afraid he'd be terrible at it. Gohan and Trunks served the same function while also being legitimately relevant characters in their own right... until GT, anyway.
  • Loads And Loads Of Characters: Even Toriyama admitting to forgetting about some of them entirely.
  • Look What I Can Do Now
  • Mac Guffin: The titular Dragon Balls.
  • Male Gaze
  • Maniac Monkeys: The Saiyans.
  • Market Based Title: While the animated adaptations have the same name as they do in Japan, the manga version is only called Dragon Ball there. The parts of the manga that correspond with the Dragon Ball Z anime were released in the United States with the Z attached.
  • Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game: Dragonball Online. Double plus for fans who hate Dragonball GT in that Dragonball Online is considered canon by Toriyama, and says that Dragonball GT never happened.
  • Master Apprentice Chain: Several, starting with Mutaito > Mutenroshi > Son Gohan, Sr./Son Goku > Uub
    • Also: Mutaito > Tsurusennin > Tenshinhan & Chiaotzu
    • Mutaito > Mutenroshi > Ox-King > Chi-Chi > Son Goten
    • Arguably, Piccolo > Son Gohan > Videl
  • Megumi Hayashibara: The blind kid Majin Buu meets
  • Memetic Mutation: "It's over nine-THOUSAND!!!"
    • THE BALLS ARE INERT!
      • THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS GOING TO DIE!!!!
    • SHOOP DA WHOOP
  • Memetic Number: See the Nine-Thousand ref above.
  • Mighty Glacier: Trunks when he reaches Super Saiyan Stage 3, a level that sits between Super Saiyan 1 and 2, which sacrifices speed for power. In this state he possessed enough power to kill Perfect Cell, but lacked the speed necessary to make it useful. Perfect Cell, Goku and Vegeta also reached this level, but were savvy enough to figure out its critical weakness and elected not to use it (Vegeta choosing to stop at Stage 2, and Perfect Cell and Goku going onward to the Full Power stage). In fact, Trunks doesn't figure out this form's weakness until Cell explicitly tells him why he can't win with it.
    • Actually, it's implied Cell made him think he could win, as he went to a similar stage saying everybody he could do it, but then returned to his "perfect" form, because well it wouldn't be perfect. It later reappeared again when Cell had his own Unstoppable Rage against Super Saiyan 2 Gohan, which Trunks was the one to point out its ineffectiveness.
  • Mind Screw: The fusion dance was literally mind fuck, seriously what was Toriyama thinking!?
  • Missing Episode
  • Mix And Match Man: Cell.
  • Moses In The Bullrushes: A variation, as Goku was sent to destroy humanity, not to escape death.
    • Kami (Also a variation, as he raised himself)
  • The Messiah: Goku loves life. All life. In full swing by the time of the Piccolo Junior arc of Dragonball, after which the only villain Goku himself is directly responsible for killing is Kid Buu.
    • And he specifically asks for him to be reincarnated as a good person. Seriously.
      • Not true at all. Goku killed MANY Red Ribbon Army Soldiers.
      • That was when he was younger. His reasoning was that they were bad guys hurting people, and didn't think to hold back when he dealt with them. Apparently in Dragon Ball, Children Are Innocent doesn't mean they can't be Chaotic Good, to the point of borderline sociopathy.
      • Discounting the movies, Goku, Gohan and Vegeta were all playing Janken to determine the order in which they'd kill Babidi's henchmen. Granted, Goku's opponent ended up blowing himself up, but Goku did deliberately flare his power so that said opponent (who was draining it at the time) would end up getting too big a dose of it.
  • The Movie
  • Mr Magoo And The Monster: Buu meets a blind kid.
  • My Kung Fu Is Stronger Than Yours
  • Names To Know In Anime: Too many. Akira Toriyama, original writer; Masako Nozawa, voice of all Son family males; Ryo Horikawa, voice of Vegeta; Norio Wakamoto, voice of Cell; Ryusei Nakao, voice of Freeza; Toru Furuya, voice of Yamucha; his fellow Slapstick member, Toshio Furukawa, voice of Piccolo...
  • Narm: "It's over nine-THOUSAND!!!"
    • Every single time Freeza talks in the FU Nimation dub. "Ooh, now I'm stoked."
  • Nemean Skinning: As Goku said to Bulma and the others when appearing in an attire based on the skin of a tiger: "It was either him or me, I swear!"
  • Never Say Die: Taken to the extreme in the first DBZ dub. Getting blasted into ashes was called "being sent into another dimension." But that's sort of justified as death is a multiverse of many heavens for different planets.
    • And as Baba proves, you don't even need to die to go there.
  • Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Vegeta is behind everything. Everything. Read the page for more details than your mind can handle.
    • It also could be stated that had Piccolo simply ignored Raditz and simply shut up about the Dragon Balls, a large portion of the conflict would have been avoided in DBZ. I suppose his eventual demise was a form of Karmic Death.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The aforementioned Namek massacre by Freeza, Cell and Majin Buu's methods of "eating" their victims, Freeza's transformations, Son Goku's first tranformation into Super Saiyan... the list goes on and on...
  • Nimbus Privileges: The Trope Namer.
  • No Accounting For Taste: Vegeta and Bulma, Goku and Chi Chi.
  • Noblewoman's Laugh: Freeza in the Japanese version.
  • Nobody Calls Me Chicken: Vegeta
  • No One Could Survive That
  • Not Quite Dead: Some villains were quite notorious for this, more so in the movies.
  • Not So Harmless: General Blue. Goku made such quick work of the other Red Ribbon officers, it came as a tremendous surprise when Blue turned out to have the edge over him. Especially given that Blue's own superiors were dismissive of him as a bungling idiot who they'd probably dispose of after his next failure.
  • Obsolete Mentor: Master Roshi.
  • Older Than They Think: Once Dragonball's plot became more space oriented, it became increasingly similar to Superman mythos. You can't deny it.
  • Ominous Walk: Cell does this regularly knowing that his enemies own fear will make them easier to defeat.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Nearly every Big Bad, with Kid Buu being the ultimate distillation of the trope.
  • One Winged Angel: Most Big Bads, often resulting in a Bishonen Line.
  • Opt Out: Goku's giving the right to fight Cell to Gohan and also his initial refusal to be resurrected by the Dragon Balls.
  • Out Of The Inferno: A lot of Big Bads, but Cell is the worst offender...particularly after he achieved perfection.
  • Overtook The Manga: The reason all those battles took so many episodes; Toriyama hadn't written the outcomes in the comics yet.
    • Mini-arcs like the Garlic Jr. saga and Otherworld Tournament were created for the anime for the same reason.
  • Padding: As above.
    • For a classic example, take Gohan's mauling of the Cell Jrs. Cell creates seven of them, one for each of Gohan's friends watching the fight... but if you pay attention, Gohan actually kills eight.
  • Pals With Jesus: Goku [and co. through him] personally knows all the deities, and is stronger than them.
  • Pastel Chalked Freeze Frame: For particularly tense or dramatic cliffhangers.
  • Pet the Dog: Piccolo took Gohan to train him to fight the Saiyans, but ended up caring about the kid. Fat Buu literally did this with a puppy he found, learning that being nice can be more fun than hurting people.
  • Periphery Demographic: For some reason, the North American fanbase is mostly female, considering the fact that this show is more popular with girls than it is with guys, although it appealed equally to both sexes everywhere else.
    • And since it's a Shonen series, it still fits.
  • Person Of Mass Destruction: Everyone
  • Pillar Of Light
  • Potty Failure: Goku, Oolong, Krillin, Trunks and even Bulma pee their pants at different points of the series. Bulma's accident is even depicted three times, in the manga, anime and a movie!
  • Pound Of Flesh Twist: Freeza's immortality wish is stopped by a language barrier.
  • Power Echoes
  • Power Floats: When characters raise their Power Level. Combines with - in order of ascending power - Dramatic Wind, Swirling Dust, and Chunky Updraft.
  • Power Levels: DBZ, Saiyan Saga to Freeza Saga.
  • Psychotic Smirk - Vegeta.
    • Super Buu gets an honorable mention for having a particularly perverted psycho smirk.
  • Public Domain Character: Son Goku and Gyumaoh.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Ginyu Force from DBZ.
  • Raised By Wolves: Goku and ChiChi had both lived pretty sheltered lives before they turned 12, the latter's was only so because he was needlessly violent and overprotective of his wealth and daughter, not to mention living on top of Frypan Mountain. Goku, on the other hand turned into an Oozaru in a full moon, and accidentally killed his grandfather, and he only taught him how to fight, fish, and be nice to girls, and that's it. No important social skills were taught to Goku, unfortunately, and he had to learn some of them himself (such as, humorously, the difference between boys and girls). Even to this day, he still struggles, but at least he looks good in a tuxedo.
    • Then there's Majin Buu, the Laughably Evil Big Bad who isn't actually all that evil, just misguided. Ironically, when Goku fought him and the relationship between Babidi and Buu was now breaking down, he asked him as to why he listens to Babidi as Buu is too gifted a fighter to do so. This ironically played a part in Buu getting rid of Babidi. When Mr. Satan asked why he kills, he answered that his creator Bibidi said "kill", while Babidi said "destroy". Mr. Satan pointed out that those two are gone, and he could something better and kinder with his time. When Buu asked if killing is bad, Mr. Satan said it is. Afterwards, Buu simply said "Okie-dokie! Buu no kill no more." For that short time, Mr. Satan actually saved the world by asking the Big Bad to stop.
  • Readings Are Off The Scale: Power-detecting "scouters" would helpfully indicate this to you by exploding off of your face.
    • Somehow, your ear isn't blown off by this event, either.
      • With the exception of Bulma, everyone else who wears a scouter could probably laugh off at least a small nuke. Why Bulma didn't need to go to the ER for at least some minor burns to the ears after the first Goku/Vegeta duel, is anyone's guess.
  • Recycled Script: The Dragon Ball movies are all very loose adaptations of story arcs from the original manga and TV series. While the DBZ movies are more unique, they can be matched up to certain fights from the TV series as well.
    • Curse of the Blood Rubies adapts the first Dragon Ball hunt, with the original character King Gurume substituting Emperor Pilaf as the ultimate antagonist.
    • Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle starts off with a sub-plot involving Goku and Krillen being sent to find the titular Princess (eventually revealed to be a precious diamond) for Master Roshi, just like when they were sent to find a cute girl for Roshi in the manga.
    • Mystical Adventure combines the Red Ribbon Army and 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai arcs and puts them in an entirely different context.
    • Dead Zone mirrors the battle with Raditz. Common elements are the introduction of Gohan, Piccolo and Goku teaming up to rescue the kidnapped Gohan.
    • The Tree of Might matches up to the battle with Nappa and Vegeta. The lesser characters fight the minions and lose, while Goku stops them easy, a parallel to the Nappa fight. Tullece is an evil Saiyan who has come to Earth to take advantage of a precious resource (mirroring Vegeta's quest for the Dragon Balls). Goku has the upperhand over Turles, until he eats the fruit of might and becomes incredibly strong (Vegeta transformed in the main timeline) and is defeated only by a group effort (Spirit Bomb in the movie, and over the course of the fight with Vegeta everyone takes a bite out of him). Also, Gohan turns into a Great Ape.
    • The Lord Slug movie matches the plot of the King Piccolo arc. An evil Namekian wishes for his youth and power. This one is painfully obvious.
    • Cooler's Revenge is a very obvious duplicate of the Freeza arc, both ending with Goku turning Super Saiyan. Cooler is even Freeza's older brother.
    • The Return of Cooler plays off of Freeza's transformation into a cyborg by having Cooler return as a rebuilt robot.
    • Super Android 13 is based off the Android Saga. Featuring the three main Super Saiyans battling three androids who attack a city. Also plays with a bit of Cell, as Android 13 absorbs his allies, 14 and 15.
    • The Legendary Super Saiyan is based off the battle with Cell's second form and Goku's fight at the Cell games. Broly is somewhat weak until he transforms into his ultimate form, leaving the characters powerless against him. In the anime, Cell was easily defeated by a powered up Vegeta, but when he got an upgrade he was unstoppable. He fought Goku in the Cell games and it ended with Goku quitting. The movie ends with Goku getting thrashed, but at the last second wins. One of the more original movies.
    • Bojack Unbound is a very obvious spin on Gohan's fight with Cell. Goku is already dead and Gohan becomes Super Saiyan and fights Bojsvk, loses, then comes back as Super Saiyan 2 and wins with the help of his father. Also, Bojack's minions represent the Cell Jr's, who fight the other characters.
    • Fusion Reborn is based off the Buu Saga. A large, fat and jovial enemy is beaten on by Super Saiyan 3 Goku, only to transform into a smaller and sleeker form, who is ruthless. It takes a Fusion to beat him. Parallels the Buu Saga, where the main villain is a fat clown who takes a slimmer and more diabolical form and it takes a fusion of Goku and Vegeta to stop him (Vegetto in the manga, Gogeta in the movie).
    • Wrath of the Dragon is based on Super Buu and Kid Buu. Hildegarn is a monster (Super Buu with a few absorptions) that can beat even Gohan, and when it looks to be defeated it grows into an even deadlier form. It takes Goku and his ultimate move to destroy the villain. Very obvious.
    • And the tenth anniversary movie Path to Power retells the first arc of the original Dragon Ball, but with the Red Ribbon Army as the main antagonists.
  • Red Oni Blue Oni: This relationship exists with Goku playing the red to various other characters, although Vegeta is the best and longest running example. They even have the right colors on their uniforms.
    • And then there's Mez and Goz, an actual pair of a red oni and a blue oni.
  • Reincarnation: Believe it or not, the last Big Bad had been reincarnated into a human, whose "last" battle with Goku was Toriyama's swan song for the series.
  • Relationship Writing Fumble: Akira Toriyama admitted he's not very good at romance. This is largely why in the cases of Goku&Chi-Chi and Vegeta&Bulma pairs, it's difficult to see how they stay together. More so the latter for some fans.
  • The Rival
  • Road Sign Reversal: Bulma was fleeing from General Blue through an abandoned pirate hideout. She came to an intersection and drew an arrow on the ground in dust to tell Goku which way she went, but Blue got to it first and changed it to point the opposite direction.
  • Rock Paper Scissors: Who can forget that scene with the Ginyu Force?
    • It's also one of Goku's attack sets, the Janken fist. "Rock" gives a solid punch, "Paper" gives a fierce slap, and "Scissors" gives an eye-poke. Perhaps this is why when fighting a Big Bad, you never "Rock, Paper, Scissors" on who gets to fight him. Ask Vegeta.
    • In the anime, at least, this is also how Goku, Gohan and Vegeta decide who fights Puipui, Yakon and Dabura in Babidi's ship. Kaioshin about has a coronary watching them.
  • Sculpted Physique: No, not the chiseled bodies of the protagonists, but the seemingly carved from rock, steel, or plastic looking villains and aliens. ... who also had a set of washboard abs.
  • Senseless Sacrifice
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Future Trunks.
  • Shonen
  • Shout Out: To Disney's Cinderella of all things. Say it with me now, "Bibidi, Babidi, Buu".
    • The scene where King Cold's menions rebuild Freiza is an obvious shout out to The Six Million Dollar Man, right down to the dialogue.
  • Sinister Silhouettes: Ginyu Force is seen as this at one point, and one of the earlier opening sequences has Vegeta and Nappa as silhouetttes doing a Power Walk.
    • The closing of Kai does this with all of the villains up to Freeza, showing them as black figures with glowing, red eyes.
  • Sissy Villain: Frieza.
  • Slap On The Wrist Nuke: The Tenkai Ichi Budokai games.
  • Smug Super: Pick an enemy of the main cast, any enemy.
  • So Last Season: Everything. Attacks, Power-ups, warriors, Big Bads, everything. It gets to the point were if something was used last season, you can be sure that it's not going to have any real impact now. In particular, the Spirit Bomb went totally unmentioned after it failed to kill Frieza, so when Vegeta suggested using it against Kid Buu, Goku was visibly shocked at the suggestion.
    • The most notable subversion of this, however, is likely the Taiyou-ken/Solar Flare. It maintains incredible utility far past its original inception back in Dragon Ball, serving as the only form of effective defense against higher level foes. It's even later used by Cell against the heroes themselves to useful effect.
  • Sorting Algorithm Of Evil
    • Subverted with Babidi's Elite Mooks who were defeated so easily by the heroes it even shocked the King Of All Cosmos. If anything, they were slightly mightier than the Big Bad of two seasons prior. Even The Dragon was just as strong as last season's Big Bad at full strength.
  • Spell My Name With An S: The romanizations of many characters' name tend to vary between Japanese media. Even the English adaptation of the manga and anime can't seen to agree on which spelling to use.
    • Even Toriyama couldn't decide, judging from Bulma's wardrobe - At the beginning she's wearing a shirt saying "Bulma," but later has a hat reading "Buruma." And then there's Kulil Kurir Krillin.
  • Spirited Competitor: Goku. Cell acts like one, but that changes when he starts to lose.
    • Majin Buu is an incredibly spirited competitor. He's like Goku in many ways. If he wasn't pink and have an antenna, you'd wonder if he's part Saiyan.
  • Split Personality Merge
  • Stat O Vision: Scouters.
  • Storming The Castle: Goku did this against the Red Ribbon Army at their headquarters. By himself. At age 13. And won.
  • Strange Bedfellows
  • Stunt Casting: For Dragon Ball Kai. Aya Hirano as Dende? Sure, the character's original seiyuu died back in 2003, but that's who they're going with?
  • Super Mode: Super Saiyan.
  • Supernatural Martial Arts: One of the most infamous examples.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: The kind-hearted and sweet Son Gohan becoming a bloodthirsty and sadistic murderer when he fought Cell as a Super Saiyan 2.
    • Goku, to a lesser extent when first transforming into a Super Saiyan.
  • Summers Family Tree: Due to equal parts intermarriage, fusion, cloning and absorption.
  • Super Empowering
  • Super Power Meltdown: Chiaotzu, Android 16 and 18, and Cell.
  • T Word Euphemism: Lord Pilaf's minions on the "K-word".
  • Taken For Granite: Dabura's spit turns people into stone, which Piccolo and Krillin became until he was killed.
  • Talking The Monster To Death: When all the Saiyans at that point couldn't save the Earth, Mr. Satan defeated stopped Majin Buu from turning it into a lifeless mudball doing this.
  • Taught By Experience
  • Tear Jerker
  • Tears Of Remorse
  • Temporal Paradox: Trunks's and Cell's time-traveling shenanigans results in quite the merry-go-round. Made wierder by the discovery that his time machine actually goes into another timeline instead of its own.
  • The Only One Allowed To Defeat You: Vegeta's justification for helping Goku, which gradually loses its credibility as their respect for each other strengthens.
    • In the non-canonical movie, Vegeta hilariously shouts "Kakarotto Wa Ore No Mono Da!!" when Android 13 is beating his rival to death, and charges in to protect Goku. The context of this sentence is "Kakaroto is MY PREY hands off him", but "Ore No Mono Da" is usually used by jealous ex-boyfriends to say "belongs to me", leading many squealing fangirls to construe this as a Ho Yay moment.
  • Theme Naming: Nearly even family group, alien race or team has theme to it.
    • Saiyans are word plays on vegetables: Vegeta, Kakarott, Brolly, Bardock and Raditz.
      • Saiyajin—the Japanese name for Saiyans—is a play on "yasai", the Japanese word for "vegetable." Similarly, Tsufurujin ("Tuffles" in the dub) is a play on "furutsu" or "fruits." One of the only Tsufurujin who is named in the source material is called "Dr. Raichi" which is a play on the fruit lychee.
    • Bulma is a corruption of buruma, those panty-shorts anime schoolgirls wear in PE classes, which is itself a corruptions of bloomers. Her dad is Dr. Briefs, and her kids are Trunks and Bra.
    • Piccolo and all of his minions/spawns are musical instruments: Tamborine, Cymbal, etc.
    • There are many, many more examples than just the ones above. Not enough room to list them all, and some (like the Ginyu Force) require some Bilingual Bonus to understand.
  • They Just Didn't Care: The Movie
  • Time Skip: Several.
  • Time Travel
  • Time To Unlock More True Potential
  • Training From Hell: They keep trying to find ways to top themselves, beginning with weighted clothing and continuing to rooms that can simulate 200 times normal gravity and beyond.
  • Transformation Is A Free Action: Literally every time someone charges up the most that is done about is stand around and comment on how their power level is going up.
    • Subverted yet also played straight at the same time only once when Trunks attacks Cell while Cell transforms into his Perfect Form. It doesn't even work.
  • Trivial Pursuit: Lunch.
  • Too Dumb To Live: Mr. Satan is literally the champion of this trope. Even with the amounts of comic relief pain he suffers (slapped by Cell, being blown away by the Kung Fu Sonic Booms of the Z-Senshi Saiyans fighting the Big Bad complete rocks smacking his face, harming himself when jumping off a cliff of the homeworld of the Kaioshin, after believing it's all his dream, and still afterwards etc.), he ironically is the only member of the cast who didn't die ever.
    • Doesn't Mr. Satan subvert this trope? I mean, he's actually Too Dumb To Die or something. This is lampshaded by Krillin in the Cell games. When Mr. Satan challenges Cell, everyone thinks he's going to die, but they can't be bothered to save him. Cell then just bats him away without really harming him. Turns out even Cell can't be bothered to soil his hands with an idiot like Mr. Satan.
    • And of course, by extension, virtually the entire human race is, yes, Too Dumb To Live. Firstly, the fact that they have been plagued with weird happenings, and men with Charles Atlas Superpowers, one Fake Ultimate Hero comes along, and takes the credit for killing Cell, and their suspension of disbelief is found to be in overdrive. Despite the fact he hasn't given any logical reason for them to believe him. They all get killed off by Majin Buu (they mistaked his attack for fireworks), get magically revived again, with no explanation, and so when a voice tells you Majin Buu is Not Quite Dead so do something as simple as raise up your hands, impassionately, mind you, they want to carry on with their own idiotic, aimless lives, not taking the seriousness of the situation and putting very little in perspective...their Fake Ultimate Hero calls out for what they are...and then they raise their hands.
      • They believed him because he's the only survivor taking any credit for it (cause the Z-Senshi don't want to be bothered with all that publicity), and they didn't trust Goku since the last guy who telepathically communicated with the entire planet that day was Babidi, the sadistic prick who sicced Buu on them in the first place, and enjoyed telepathically making people's heads explode. It didn't help that the few people that did raise their arms out of curiosity ended up having most of their energy drained. It was only logical to expect it to be another one of Babidi's tricks.
      • Not to mention that Goku's defeat of Piccolo Daimaou was very public and well-publicized, yet practically everyone forgot he existed by the Cell era and especially at the point in the fight against Buu mentioned above. You'd think that he'd be legendary.
      • They didn't really know who was fighting Piccolo Daimaou, since they only had a long distance shot of the fight and everyone involved had super speed. Though they did know that Piccolo Jr. was the Daimaou's reincarnation, and that Goku beat *him*, [1]. I guess it could just be a retcon, kinda like how everyone seemed to forget that ki using super martial artists were well known and world famous back during Goku's kid years, up to even Oolong being able to recognize Goku's grandpa's name.
    • In the words of Vegeta in the critical situation in question: "They're like children! Every little thing has to done for them! They deserve to die!"
    • Freeza twice barely survives a battle with a Super Saiyan, the first time due to a mercy act, and the second due to an Ass Pull miracle. Both times, he deliberately returns for more.
  • Took A Level In Jerkass: Vegeta finally settles on "good guy" and shows no signs of wanting to go back to a villain, until Majin Buu shows up.
  • Troper Force: The Ginyu Force.
  • Ugly Guy Hot Wife: Krillin and Android 18.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Hey, I like the show, but that doesn't mean the artwork staff couldn't have gone for a less...inflammatory design of their black characters. Watch this video to see for yourself.
    • Japanese people don't see too many black people in their country. The only examples where they would see a black person is probably from media imported from the States, which only started giving them positive roles in 1980's. Prior to that blacks were given very let's say, non-empowering roles, hence what you see in anime form that era.
    • It doesn't help, though, that when Bulma first meets Mr. Popo she blurts out "Doesn't he look a little dangerous?" Of course, it might just have been culture shock from the fact that he arrived on a magic carpet, but still...
      • Perhaps she watched the Abridged Series?
      • Note, however, that the black people in Dragonball Z all tend to be somewhat awesome. Mr. Black was by far the most competent member of the Red Ribbon Army, who casually killed off his commanding officer when he found out that he was just going to wish for height. Mr. Popo (though whether he was supposed to be ethnically black or literally black as Djinn were often described as is up for debate) casually slapped around a recharged Goku after he just finished killing the legendary Piccolo Daimaou, was credited with being the guy who was responsible for most of Goku's training for the battle against Piccolo Jr., is the guy who created the statue of Sheng Long that Kami-sama uses to grant wishes, showed Bulma how to use Kami-sama's spaceship to get to Namek, and finally, was the one who saved Dende from Buu when the latter escaped the Room of Spirit and Time. Even the black boxer who was one of the finalists in the Buu Saga's Tenkaichi Budokai was at least polite and pragmatic, albeit inconceivably weaker than the person he was trying to form a tag team with.
  • Unlucky Childhood Friend: Bulma almost ended up like this to Goku. Then she found Vegeta.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Gohan, and the other Saiyans at times also.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight
    • Subverted and then immediately played straight when the Dragon is summoned at Capsule Corp. Everybody else in the city freaks out... until they learn it's from Capsule Corp. and assume it's just another experiment, continuing with their lives.
  • Viva La Evolution: Saiyans, Cell, and other villains to extreme degrees.
  • Voice Of The Legion: Fused characters.
  • Walking The Earth: what Mr. Satan was reduced to when Majin Buu killed off the human race.
  • We Are Team Cannon Fodder: All the same reasons for Can't Catch Up. At one point every main character besides the Saiyan's attack the Big Bad while he is preoccupied with dueling Kamehameha waves. And he just shrugs them off.
  • What Could Have Been
  • What The Hell, Hero?: Piccolo delivers this to Goku when the latter sends his 11-year old son (9 in the manga) to fight Cell without helping him.
    • Funnily enough, Goku delivers it to aforementioned son (after Gohan becomes his Superpowered Evil Side) when Gohan refuses to finish Cell off.
  • Whats A Number Four: How did Yamcha get those scars?
  • Why Does Everyone Think I'm Deadpool: Pick any Idiot Hero of a shonen anime airing within the last fifteen years or so and you will find someone out there declaring them a Goku Ersatz. Similarly, Goku himself has pretty much been pinned as Japanese Superman thanks to similar origin stories and Flying Brick status.
  • Willfully Weak
  • Word Of God: Concerning DBGT's canonicity.
  • The Worf Barrage: The Kamehameha was the ultimate energy technique in Dragon Ball and it always did some damage even if it was only Clothing Damage. Raditz negating the attack full out was a sign of things to come. And the Spirit Bomb is only a finishing move once in the whole series.
  • World Of Cardboard Speech: Several. Goku's declaration that he has turned into the feared Super Saiyan to Frieza, and later verbal shreds him talking about how he was bested by "a monkey." Vegeta also got a few in the Majin Buu saga, one right before he kills himself to defeat Buu. Some time later he acknowledges that he will never fully surpass Goku, but that realization is what leads to the solution to finally stop Buu.
  • Wuxia: The anime adaptation lovingly pays homage to the conventions of the Classic Shaw Brothers Kung-Fu films of the 60's, in lighting, camera movement, costume design and especially the sublime musical score by Kikuichi Shunsuke.
  • You Are Number Six: androids.
  • You Fail Biology Forever: Even if you ignore Cell, most hybrids aren't capable of reaching sexual maturity, so Pan, technically, should not exist. That or Saiyajin and humans are genetically similar enough to be the same species, so... probably best not to think about it too much.
    • This was a point This Troper was about to make. To put it simply, hybrids in general are usually infertile to both parent species.
  • You Fight Like A Cow: Vegetto was a master of this. And then he got turned into a jawbreaker. And continued.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Bulma and Trunks
  • You Should Know This Already: Pretty much the entire series. Nowadays, fans relish any chance to watch/read DB with someone who has never touched it before, living vicariously through them that all this is "new."
  • You Suck: ...but you can be better. All humans have the potential for Charles Atlas Superpowers, you just have to train and have patience. Ask Videl, after her training she because stronger than her Fake Ultimate Hero father [whose strength was actually pretty herculean], and can fly.
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