Dragon Ball - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Dragonball Z; Dragonball GT

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. After defeating several major threats to the world, Goku finally won the tournament on his third attempt and went off to get married.

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. 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 and lacked the guidance of Toriyama. It chronicled Goku being accidently 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 revival of most of their previous enemies) until in the end the Dragonballs vanished forever and Goku with them.

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 ~~Alternate Continuity~~ Non Serial Movies 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. Every so often there is another OAV released or a new spin on the original story, sometimes as a Milestone Celebration.

An American-made ~~Live Action Adaptation~~ movie with a similar title and character names premiered in April of 2009: Dragonball Evolution.

Toei has announced it will be going back and "refreshing" 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

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 its unbreakable and stupidly sharp, but its not.
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 Distillation (Dragonball Kai)
Adaptation Dye Job: Bulma, and her daughter, Bra.
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.)
AI Is A Crapshoot (Inversion: it took Dr. Gero 16 androids to finally get one that was evil)
Air Jousting
Alas Poor Villain - This troper may be alone in this, but when I saw Goku's sheer pity for the hideously dismembered Freeza and the pain he felt for his suffering, even I felt sorry for the monster... then he just had to be the Ungrateful Bastard and attack Goku when he had his back turned.
- And just before that fight, we see Vegeta cry, begging Goku to avenge their species while he lay dying.
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)
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 (The reason why Future Trunks went back in time was to prevent the world being wasted by Androids, after the Z-Fighters are killed and Goku dies 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).
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)
Ass Kicking Pose
Avenging The Villain (Piccolo's son)
Axe Crazy (All forms of Majin Buu, especially Kid Buu.)
Bad Ass (Oh so many examples, though the most standout example would probably be Brolly)
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.)
Badass Family (Goku's, of course.)
Badass Mustache Hercule/Mr. Satan. ~~Briefly, Vegeta as well.~~ That never happened!
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)
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 planets 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.
- 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. This tends to work a lot better if (a) the air is good to start with, and (b) the pressurized base station you're trying to reach isn't holed...
- 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
Battle Royale With Cheese
Beam Of Enlightenment
Become a Real Girl (Krillin uses the Dragon Balls to wish Androids 17 & 18 were 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 Eater (all the Saiyans)
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)
Broken Base (Never ask a group of DBZ fans which dub they prefer: FUNimation or Ocean Group)
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".)
Cant 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)
The Chick (Bulma or Pan, depending on the era)
Circles Of HFIL
Collectible Card Game
Complete Monster - Freeza has crossed the line so many times and so extravagantly 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 villge 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.)
- To the point that this troper could've sworn Frieza was a girl, even when the characters kept saying "he".
Crouching Moron Hidden Badass (Goku, Gohan, Goten...and even Krillin)
Crowning Moment Of Awesome (Plentiful and frequent)
Cute Bruiser (Pan, Videl, Chichi)
Dangerous Forbidden Technique
Defeat Means Friendship (Almost all enemies and Big Bad's end up becoming allies to Goku)
Death Is Cheap (when you have Dragon Balls capable of bringing people back from the dead, well...)
- That being said, death suddenly wasn't cheap anymore in the story arcs where the Dragon Balls were put out of commission, which seemed to happen a lot in the Z period.
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.)
- Averted when Bardock tries to destroy Freeza, emperor of large part of the galaxy whose empire expanded to at least 79 planets, feared across the cosmos, with a ki blast only for Freeza to laugh at him and kill him and destroy Planet Vegeta.
Discontinuity (GT? Never happened, okay? It helps that it indeed didn't happen in the manga, at least.)
- Still despite the heresy, most fans do praise it for giving the series some closure. So it wasn't all bad.
  - GT was really a victim of anti-hype. A few hardcore fans said it sucked just on word-of-mouth, possibly without even watching it first, so now that's become the official belief of the Church of DBZ.
  - Just take it as being canon to the anime. Problem solved.
- The Movie on the other hand...
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 Chi Chi 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.
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)
Ensemble Darkhorse (The reason why Vegeta is part of the main cast, was because he was such a loveable Magnificent Bastard.)
- And in the movies, Cooler and Brolly.
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)
Expy - Master Roshi is an expy of God from Dr. Slump (not to be confused with Dragon Ball's Kami-sama).
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.
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).
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)
Germans Love David Hasselhoff (Latin Americans Love Dragon Ball Z).
Go Out With A Smile (Twice with Goku).
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.)
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.)
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.)
Hard Work Hardly Works (Vegeta, Piccolo and Krillin who Cant 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.)
- Its 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 (Nearly every major character started out as a bad guy—including Goku himself to an extent going by flashbacks where he got a head injury resulting in amnesia that permanently changed his line of thought)
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)
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).
Hot Shoujo Dad (Son Goku, Kurillin and especially Vegeta has 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)
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
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 Momentof Awesome for Mr. Satan!
Hypocritical Humor (VIZ Media, the translators for the original manga, censored the shots of Bulma naked for the VIZ Big editions. 12-year-old Goku's nude shots are completely uncensored.)
- The difference is, Bulma's naked shots are Fanservice, whereas Goku's naked shots are for comedy and happen to be very big Fan Disservice.
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 Your Opponent
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.)
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.
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)
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. 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, Tenshinhan, Yamucha, Kuririn, Vegeta, Piccolo and Freeza's DNA? He's born knowing all their techniques and possesses all their strengths)
Licked By The Dog (Gohan's got an entire musical number dedicated to how much he loves Piccolo, the literal embodiment of evil.)
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.
Megumi Hayashibara (minor roles)
Memetic Mutation ("It's over nine-THOUSAND!!!")
- THE BALLS ARE INERT!
  - THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS GOING TO DIE!!!!
- SHOOP DA WHOOP
Mind Screw (The fusion dance was literally mind fuck, seriously what was Toriyama thinking!?)
- He was probably finding new and creative...and funny moves to use against the new Big Bad.
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.
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!!!")
Nemean Skinning
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.
Nice Job Breaking It Hero (Vegeta is behind everything. Everything. Read the page for more details than your mind can handle.)
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)
Noblewomans 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.
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)
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)
Padding (as above)
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. 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)
Pillar Of Light
Person Of Mass Destruction - Everyone
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 Dramatic Wind, Swirling Dust, and Chunky Updraft.
Power Levels (DBZ, Saiyan Saga to Freeza Saga)
Psychotic Smirk - Vegeta. Full Stop.
- Super Buu gets an honorable mention for having a particularly perverted psycho smirk.
Quirky Miniboss Squad (The Ginyu Force from DBZ)
Raised By Wolves - Goku and ChiChi had lived pretty sheltered lives before they turned 12, but at least ChiChi had her father, and 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, 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 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.)
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.
- The most original of the movies seems to be The World's Strongest, which this troper cannot find any parallel for in the series, and the two Broly sequels, though they are sequels and not completely original.
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.
- 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)
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 attacks. "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")
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.
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.)
Sorting Algorithm Of Evil
- Subverted with Babidi's 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.)
Spirited Competitor (Goku. Cell acts like one, but then changes when he starts to lose)
- Majin Boo 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 Saiyyan
Stat O Vision (Sayian Scouters)
Strange Bedfellows
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.)
Summers Family Tree Due to equal parts intermarriage, fusion, cloning and absorption.
Super Empowering
Super Power Meltdown (Chiaotzu, Android 16 and 18, and Cell)
Taken For Granite (Dabura's spit turns people into stone, which Piccolo and Krillin became until he was killed)
Taught By Experience
Tear Jerker
Temporal Paradox
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 (Sayians are word plays on vegetables "Vegeta," "Kakarott," "Brolly." 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.)
- There are much, much more examples than just the ones above. Almost too many to name them here.
They Just Didnt Care - The Movie
Time Skip (several)
Time Travel
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.)
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.
- 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 CharlesAtlasSuperpowers, 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.
  - 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.
- 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.
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.
Unstoppable Rage (Gohan, and the other Saiyans at times also)
Unusually Uninteresting Sight
Viva La Evolution (Saiyans, Cell, and other villains to extreme degrees)
Voice Of The Legion
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 Cant 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.)
Willfully Weak
Word Of God (concerning DBGT's canonicity)
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 Fight Like A Cow (Vegetto was a master of this. And then he got turned into a jawbreaker. And continued.)
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.)