Voodoo Shark / Dragon Ball

• The Non-Serial Movie Wrath of the Dragon gives a possible origin for Future Trunks's sword, by having Canon Foreigner Tapion give the present Trunks his sword at the end of the movie. It's a touching scene... that makes basically no sense with what we know about Future Trunks. For one, Tapion's sword was a magic sword meant to slay a monster strong enough to trounce the post-Buu cast, but Future Trunks's sword was explicitly shown to be a completely normal sword, and outright broke in at least one fight prior to then against far weaker opponents. It also implies that Future Trunks had a similar encounter with his version of Tapion and the film's villain, Hirudegarn, prior to showing up in the series, but Future Trunks was far weaker than Hirudegarn and would have been squished like a bug by it, and it raises the question of why he didn't tell the Z-Warriors about it. More importantly, he wouldn't have been able to open the box to release Tapion at all without the Dragon Balls. The only way to make it jibe with canon is to say that Tapion and Future Trunks's swords are different swords, and they just look identical by complete coincidence, which makes the entire thing pointless.
  • Even if Trunks was able to open up Tapion's box with strength alone, the ensuing havoc that would have been wreaked by Hoi and Hirudegarn would've absolutely caught the attention of the Androids. But since 17 and 18 are nowhere near Super Saiyan 3 Goku's level, there's no way they would've been able to survive the fight either.
• In the series, Frieza suffered notoriously heavy Uniqueness Decay, with pretty much every arc introducing stronger villains than him. To a lot of fans, this raised the question of why he was considered "the most powerful being in the universe" when, among other things, a group of cyborgs built by a random Earth scientist could be stronger than him, and Frieza himself personally knew the infinitely stronger Beerus. Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' attempts to avert this by claiming that Frieza was Unskilled, but Strong, and when he actually trains, he quickly ascends to a level of power above Goku, who at the time was comparable to Beerus. Okay, fair enough, Frieza's a lazy guy, but... why is a simple alien mutant able to get strength equal to an actual Physical God? If Frieza hasn't trained at all, how come he can use things like specialized ki techniques? If all it takes is just four months of workout to hit Goku's level, why was he worried about Super Saiyans at all? If he never trained a day in his life before coming Back from the Dead, why did he think he could take on Goku again as a cyborg after losing to him on Namek, even though Goku had a full year to train? How did he even train himself, for that matter? "Four months of training" has become something of a fandom joke for exactly this reason.
• Goten and Trunks were able to achieve Super Saiyan at a young age with no explanation originally. For years this confused people due to the lack of explanation for why they had achieved the form so easily, and it reared its head again with Dragon Ball Super and the ability for Saiyans of the Universe 6 to turn Super Saiyan too quickly. Officially, Toriyama would explain that all Saiyans have cells in them called S-Cells that are what allows a Saiyan to achieve the form, with half-Saiyans having more S-Cells than pure-blooded Saiyans. However, this raises several questions. Why do Half-Saiyans have greater amounts of S-Cells, when one would think them being hybrids would result in less from a scientific angle? Why does being more gentle seem to raise the amount of S-Cells one has, as demonstrated by the Universe 6 Saiyans being more friendly and peaceful? Why would intense emotions be the trigger to cause the form if it comes down to cells? In addition, why would focusing your energy into your back as people like Caulifla do be able to work? It's generally agreed that Toriyama made it up to handwave why the two could become Super Saiyans at a young age. It should be noted that this is actually a carry over from the manga where Future Trunks, Gohan, and Vegeta all seemingly earn their transformations off screen without any explanation (in the two's case, it was brushed aside as they "trained") and no emotion connected to it.
• Power Levels were apparently created because Toriyama was tired of people debating which villain was stronger than which, by attaching a number to them and then showing that a flat number was pointless due to the Z-Warriors being able to power up (giving rise to another infamous meme). That was the idea, but since the scouters were also able to measure the absolute power of someone as well (along with the fact that the villains can't power up without transformations, and remained static in their power levels) this has instead caused the reverse to happen since it still gave people a definitive range for each character. This in turn led to a number of issues, including the infamous issue with Frieza's status as the most powerful being in the universe after the Frieza arc. Super would later abandon this approach entirely and focus on non-power based gimmicks and only vague relatives instead of giving absolute values.
• Dragon Ball GT
  • The Shadow Dragons were supposed to have been generated by overuse of the Dragon Balls. They absorbed negative energy with every wish granted, but would release that energy gradually over time, something they couldn't do once Bulma's Dragon Radar made them easy to find and events of the show necessitated use far more frequent than intended. But then it's made clear this specifically applied to the use of Earth's Dragon Balls. Earth's original Dragon Balls went inert when Piccolo and Kami re-fused and the current ones were recreated by Dende from the originals, yet Dende didn't notice the negative energy when he remade them? Then there's the Neglectful Precursor factor of keeping such a major drawback to the Dragon Balls' use a secret. For that matter, how did the Kais know about the Shadow Dragons, but the Namekians - the race who created the Dragon Balls - apparently didn't? For that matter, if the Kais did know, why didn't they give Dende a heads up to perhaps create a longer recharge time or devise a way to deal with the negative energy before restoring Earth's Dragon Balls?
  • At one point, it's revealed that Baby is actually Dr. Myuu's creator and that Dr. Myuu was actually just a machine created by Baby at some point to continue his development, rather than Baby being a creation of Dr. Myuu. It brings up questions as to how this is possible, as it's shown Baby was not quite fully developed when he was first discovered. And it's never further expanded upon when Myuu was created or why Baby wasn't in shape beforehand. The writers seem to try and explain away this logic by giving Baby the backstory that he was originally a bio-robot fetus that was launched into space by the Tuffles so that it might one day destroy the Saiyans. If anything this further adds to the argument of those who question how Baby could have made the Machine Mutants while still a fetus.
• Dragon Ball Super
  • The manga adaptation of Super often tries to explain plotholes in either the outlines given to Toyotaro or the anime, which can result this issue happening. For specifics:
    • To explain why Vegito defused back in Z, rather than saying something about Majin Buu's being causing the fusion to split, Gowasu explains that the Potara Fusion has a one hour time limit, and is only permanent when a Supreme Kai is involved. The Voodoo Shark comes in is the manga where Toyotaro has an additional rule that only officially promoted Supreme Kai's are permanent. The issue is that, while the Kai's having some kind of process to promote one of their own isn't an issue, the earrings magically knowing if someone is an "official" Supreme Kai seems like an out of no where reason compared to the anime, where it is treated as a unique part of the Kai's being. While the Kai's basically use magic and godly power, how would the earrings just know the person holding it is an "official" Supreme Kai or not, and why would they allow this kind of rule to exist? Zamasu even states in the manga that it was mainly a title, yet he isn't considered one by the earrings, despite having been in training to become one, so unless there is some kind of ritual involved^note Weirder still; the manga has Future Trunks be revealed to have been named a Supreme Kai before his timeline's Shin was killed fighting Dabura, but Trunks is shown having no idea he was made one, so while there is something that seems to allow for one to be appointed, it isn't given further explanation, and somehow can be done without another person knowing about it., it doesn't make sense for Supreme Kai's to have such a hard rule about their powers. Plus, this rule is made unnecessary, because Fused Zamasu manages to remain a fused being anyway, because his base fusees are the same person, so having him defuse ended up being unnecessary except to make sure the arc ends with Future Zen'o erasing the timeline from existing like in the anime.
    • In both the anime and manga, Goku Black is able to get stronger while fighting the heroes, implied to be due to getting used to Goku's body, and getting the Came Back Strong power that Saiyan's have. As the later reason had not ben referenced for a long time, some felt this was strange that this power would suddenly reappear. The manga adaptation tries to address this by Future Trunks theorizing that there must be a limit to how much power a Saiyan can unlock this way. The issue is that it doesn't make sense that the Saiyan's would just have an arbitrary limit their body can improve, seeing at it is basically a generic superpower (since Gohan, a Half-Saiyan, has the ability too). Furthermore, Goku Black is actually a Zamasu from another timeline who took Goku's body, meaning he would have taken over the body of a Goku who should have reached said limit, and yet he improves thanks to being beaten up. Worse, since the manga also implies that part of Goku Black's increasing power was because he was adjusting to Goku's body, the whole "body limit" explanation is completely pointless since there already was a perfectly fine explanation being used. Plus the series has originally somewhat written around this by having almost all the foes introduced after Frieza become stronger faster than the heroes could keep up, but this new explanation now makes the power seem less like a genetic power, and instead like some magical ability that sometimes works.
    • To explain why Android 17 had become so strong since his last appearance in the original series^note When Android 17 was last shown fighting in the original series, he was about as strong as Piccolo who had fused with Kami, both of whom were weaker than Imperfect Cell during his final appearance. In Super, he is strong enough that he can hold his own against Super Saiyan Blue Goku, making it one of the largest leaps in raw power the series has had., Toyotaro has 17 reveal that the Cell Jrs made back in the original series had survived, and he'd essentially taken them with him, domesticated them, and basically used them to train and get stronger. Although this would at least be a reason how he got that strong, this creates more questions, because the Cell Jrs were always implied, no matter the adaptation, to have been killed by Gohan. Even if they could have regenerated, the fact they aren't shown doing so, Cell is shocked Gohan defeated them so easily, and they are never referenced again after, makes it clear Gohan flat out kills them. If a single one survived, why didn't it show up and attack Gohan when he fought Cell; a single one surviving all but guarantees Cell's victory since it could have stopped the heroes from helping Gohan in his beam clash with Cell. Plus it doesn't make sense 17 could do that, when the Cell Jrs were so much more powerful than him, that he would have easily been killed by them if they wanted. Even if all of this is possible, why doesn't 17 suggest bringing one to join in the Tournament, when a single Cell Jr, though not as strong as Cell, is basically going to be stronger than all three human characters combined? There also is the issue of how 17 became so strong, since it doesn't explain how he could become that strong from training them given how much stronger they are than he was.
  • A minor one, but Future Trunks' hair is changed from Z's lavender to light blue. It's insinuated, however, that his hair was always light blue from the moment he was born, matching his mother's hair. While this makes more sense than his lavender hair in the anime, as Trunks' lavender hair was based on Bulma's hair being colored lavender in colored pages of the manga with the latter's hair color being changed to light blue, clips of Z keep his old hair color and present Trunks retains the lavender hair as well, meaning Future Trunks for some reason has different genetics to present Trunks.
• Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot has a couple:
  • The game attempts to explain why Funny Animals, which were common in the original Dragon Ball, mostly disappeared after the Saiyan Saga. According to a sidequest, a drug called animorphaline which turns humans into beastmen was popular back when Goku and Bulma were kids, and not many are seen anymore because the fad ended. Bulma says King Furry became a dog from taking animorphaline, but this is contradicted by the anime showing that his walls are lined with paintings of his ancestors who are also all dogs. The original series also features very young animal people, including babies, showing them living all over the world no matter how remote, and Oolong even says in Kakarot that he was born a pig.^note It doesn't make sense even within the context of the game itself. The entire plot of the quest in which you learn about animorphaline is that two guys took some, and you have to help them change back. Sounds normal, except that the reason they want to change back is because, since all the other beastmen are gone, they're forced to live in a cave as outcasts due to looking like freaks in the city... except if you actually go to the city, there's still plenty of beastmen around, and nobody cares. They're also pretty baffled that Oolong is a natural-born pig, and say he must have had a rough life because of it, but again, nobody cares or thinks it's weird that Oolong is a pig.
  • It also attempts to tone down Piccolo destroying the moon. It claims that Piccolo was able to create an illusion of the moon to destroy in order to turn Gohan from a Great Ape back to normal. The problem is that such an explanation for how he did it wasn't necessary at all! Back in the original Dragon Ball, Roshi was able to blow up the moon with a Kamehameha just fine and Piccolo is much more powerful than Roshi at this point. More importantly, the Earth was just fine without a moon, as nothing was implied to have changed, and Kami bringing the moon back years later seems to wrap up a plot point than have any real meaningful relevance. Additionally this raises the question: when did Piccolo have this sort of illusion power? Let alone illusions powerful enough to persist even two years after, including while he was dead? How come he never used this ability before? Why didn't he do this before to impede the Saiyans?
  • Goku comes up with the idea that that Saiyans don't need their tails anymore once they "outgrow" their potential which... only makes things even more confusing than before seeing how it doesn't serve to make much sense. Oozarus transform and boast a whopping ten times boost in strength, dwarfing Goku and Gohan, the other Saiyans there at the time. Logically, this would mean that Saiyans shouldn't grow back their tails until they're at least past the hundred thousands at base, but Gohan wouldn't reach this level until Frieza's fight, and Vegeta wouldn't reach it until after his Zenkai boost from Krillin. This should mean that since tails are also stated to grow back in extremely stressful situations, both should have gotten their tails back mid/near end of arc given this explanation, but never do.