YMMV / Dragon Ball Z

For the other YMMV subpages:

• Dragon Ball
• Dragon Ball GT
• Dragon Ball Z Kai
• Dragon Ball Super

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Tropes with their own pages

• Alternative Character Interpretations
• Ass Pulls
• Awesome Music
• Complete Monster
• Ensemble Darkhorse
• Fanon
• Franchise Original Sin
• Fridge
• Harsher In Hindsight
• Hilarious In Hindsight
• Magnificent Bastard
• Memetic Losers
• Memetic Mutation
• Moral Event Horizon
• Nightmare Fuel
• Signature Scene
• Tear Jerker
• The Woobie
• Woolseyism

General subjectives

A - B

• Accidental Aesop: Do not give in Hard Work Fallacy and always find multiple ways to progress. While the cast that Can't Catch Up had the disadvantage of not being a Saiyan, they never tried to get stronger via other methods outside of normal training on their end. The non-Saiyan cast just kept training with their clearly outdated methods while Vegeta spent his days training in gravity chambers when it is clearly not closing the gap. Goku succeeded because he had multiple teachers and training methods of varying styles, which allowed him to move ahead whenever he supposedly plateaus.
• Alternate Self Shipping: There is Future Bulma×Bulma as well as Future Trunks×Trunks. Both pairings are technically possible in-universe, thanks to Bulma being a genius and inventing a time-machine.
• Americans Hate Tingle: See here.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • It's impressive how quickly all of the characters get used to the fact that Goku had come back from the dead after seven years in the Buu Saga, especially for Goten who until that point had never even met him. Compare to when they're fairly bereaved when Goku chose to stay dead, and in fact some of their life choices were based around Goku's death (Chi-Chi allowing Goten to train, Vegeta and Bulma getting married).
  • This is addressed (though Played for Laughs) in the Buu Saga. Mr. Satan is in tears over the fact that his daughter is dead, and despite the fact that everyone they love is dead, the surviving main characters are extremely nonchalant over it, even the seven-year-old boy who watched his mother be murdered.
  • After all the stuff Gohan went through since he was four years old, it's amazing that he's still sane and relatively normal. Then again, he did become a superhero, and we all know that cliche.
  • In the Buu arc, Goku and Vegeta escape from Earth's destruction leaving their children and Piccolo to die. The next chapters goes back to Mr. Satan gags with Goku and Vegeta stoic about saving the guy instead. This is averted in the anime where Vegeta vents his anger on Goku.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Nappa is easily defeated by Goku, though admittedly he killed several of the Z Fighters beforehand.
  • This happens with Recoome to an even greater extent. After completely trashing Vegeta, Gohan, and Krillin, Goku arrives, heals them all, and pulls a One-Hit KO on him.
  • Burter, who ends up getting absolutely trashed by Goku essentially two-shotting him and ignoring everything that he and Jeice throw at him.... and then Burter just gets finished off by Vegeta.
  • Babidi, who is defeated by Piccolo without much effort and is later Killed Off for Real by Buu. This is justified as Babidi wasn't really a fighter in the first place.
  • In the movies: Once Gohan reaches his state of Super Saiyan 2, Bojack simply is no match for him. In Fusion Reborn, Frieza himself became this for Gohan, and Super Janemba for Gogeta.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The Frieza Saga was most infamous for this, as almost the entire second half was the singular goal of fighting Frieza, and Goku vs. Frieza alone was 20 episodes. Because of this, Arc Fatigue was once called "Are They Still on Namek?"
  • The Buu Saga, moreso in the anime since in the manga it went by quicker since at this point, it was more like series fatigue for Akira Toriyama.
• Audience-Coloring Adaptation: While the manga isn't immune to Arc Fatigue, it is infinitely more fast-paced than its anime adaptation. As a result of the anime, though, the franchise as a whole is practically synonymous with overly long, dragged out fights. Part of the reason for the dragged out feeling of the anime is that it goes by a one episode per chapter basis - nine twelve page chapters for Namek to blow up is a lot more palatable than nine half hour long episodes.
• Awesome Ego: See here.
• Ginyu Transformation theme, which was first used in the Namek Saga, but would be subsequently used for some of the series' most epic moments, such as the demises of Frieza and Cell, and the androids waking up.
• Badass Decay:
  • In the anime, Frieza was damn near unstoppable when he was the Big Bad, as was Cell. They're a lot less threatening in Hell, even when they team up, and Pikkon defeats them with a fraction of the effort it took Goku and Gohan. Counts as Villain Decay as well. Frieza, however, got some of his badass back in Resurrection 'F'.
  • A number of the Z Fighters suffer from this in part because they Can't Catch Up to the Saiyans.
  • Vegeta. 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.
  • Gohan suffers from this early in the Buu Saga due to the fact that he more or less gave up fighting and focused on academics after defeating Cell. After watching Gohan struggle against Dabura, Vegeta points out that he had actually gotten weaker than he was seven years ago. However, he gets a power up later on in the saga that makes him stronger than ever. Too bad he still got shafted in favor of Goku at the last minute.
  • Not a character, but an ability. The Destructo Disc was a dangerous attack used by Krillin that could cut through anything and was impossible to catch. Even Nappa, who had just beaten most of the Z Fighters, was angrily warned by Vegeta to avoid the attack. As the series went on, it became less of a threat. In one case during the filler Garlic Jr. Saga, Vinegar easily caught it. Other times, it would just break through characters like Cell.
• Base-Breaking Character: See here.
• Better on DVD: The filler is significantly less annoying when you don't have to wait 23½ hours for the next twenty minutes of story.^note Or when you don't know that it's filler, like most Western fans who didn't start with easy access to or intensive knowledge of the manga. It must have been absolutely hell for fans when it aired weekly in Japan.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Immediately after Vegeta's departure, Chi-Chi, for some reason, shows callous No Sympathy behavior towards Goku not only by ignoring him despite being gravely injured but also blames him for what happened to Gohan despite not being as injured as him. There is no explanation for her sudden Jerkass behavior aside for comedy, is complete OOC for someone like her, and is never mentioned again, with every scenes before and thereafter shows her being somewhat caring to Goku.
  • An infamous filler has Vegeta desire to take over the Earth, which leads to a fight with Gohan, after finding out that both Goku and Frieza had (apparently) died. This is especially odd considering that Vegeta later said that he actually wants to see Goku alive and it's never mentioned again, Gohan is seen in the next episode uninjured and Vegeta, who flew off, is standing exactly where he was in the previous episode, also uninjured.
• Broken Base:
  • What do you watch Dragon Ball Z for? Is it for the action scenes and villains? Or, for the story and characters? There are even those who enjoy the series all together.
  • There are many who love Vegeta and his Character Development and there are also those who think he gets off too easy.
  • The Buu Saga. Some like it for Buu, the introduction of Super Saiyan 3, the Fusion Dance, and for returning to the more humorous, mystical stylings of early Dragon Ball. Others, however, believe that the saga went on for far too long. A third camp says the original manga version was actually too rushed and that the anime adaptation improves it by fleshing out story elements and padding out fight scenes into proper set pieces.^note For example, this massively improves the Goku/Majin Vegeta fight (which was just a couple panels in the manga) by making it longer and giving it more spectacle. Lastly, some argue that the Buu Saga is a self-parody/deconstructive take on the series itself and that viewing it like a conventional saga is missing the point of it.
  • The quality of the Funimation dub. Some think it's great and faithful to the original with some good Woolseyism, while others don't like it for adding too much Dub Text, changing the characterization of characters too much, and replacing the original score. The improved quality of the dubs for Dragon Ball Z Kai and Dragon Ball Super (and, to a lesser extent, Dragon Ball) also skewed the perception of some fans who mistakenly believe the original dub of DBZ to be of the same quality.
  • Bruce Faulconer's replacement score. Some fans love it and think it's just as good if not better than the original Shunsuke Kikuchi score and wish he would return to Dragon Ball. Another group hates his music, seeing it as inferior to the original score and are happy that Funimation moved away from his stuff; and there's a third group who like both for different reasons. There's also a fourth faction that say that while the Faulconer score isn't inherently bad and you can like it if you want, they don't care and ignore it.
  • Frieza's third form. Like Super Saiyan 3, some fans loathe it for looking overly complicated and ridiculous, and many note that it looks less like an augment of Frieza and more of a homage to Alien. Other fans, however, believe this form looks very intimidating and lets Frieza look every bit like the monster he is inside. It also helps that this both averts Monstrosity Equals Weakness and makes Frieza's Final Form much more unsuspected and chilling.
  • Gohan's character development after the Cell Games. Does it make sense for his character, since Gohan doesn't really like to fight outside of sport or spending quality time, or is he wasting his god-given talent and being shafted in order to bring Goku back into the series as The Hero?
  • Goku's insistence on Passing the Torch in the Cell and Buu Sagas. The reasoning behind this was because Toriyama wanted to retire the character, but Goku's characterization led to half the fanbase scratching their heads over why Goku would put the world at risk for the sake of giving his kids a chance to shine.
  • The debate on which form of Buu is stronger, Super Buu or Kid Buu. Does not help that the manga never explicitly say which is stronger, only that Kid Buu is the most dangerous because he's insane. Goku himself offers little help because although he did not want to fight Super Buu and was evenly matched against Kid Buu, he lied or misled people several times throughout the arc about how strong he was. Namely, he claimed he was weaker than Fat Buu, which wasn't true, and led Vegeta to believe that they were even in power because he did not reveal that he could become a Super Saiyan 3. This debate becomes especially bad if you factor in the anime where it claim Kid Buu is the strongest form of Buu.
  • Who's stronger between Super Saiyan 3 Goku or Gotenks? For extra flames, ask if Super Saiyan 3 Goku is stronger than Gohan.
  • The discussion of where DBZ should have ended. There are many fans who believed that series should have ended after the Frieza Saga with Goku dead and Gohan taking up the mantle. There are others who wanted the series to end after the Cell Saga with Gohan becoming the new hero with Goku's death. Then there's yet another group that believed that series should have ended with Gohan killing Buu.
  • Try asking a fan what is the Dragon Ball canon. Most will answer that it is anything Toriyama writes or says and any new information he gives overrides anything that came before. Others will insist that there is no canon since neither Toriyama nor Toei ever gave an official canon so fans are free to cherry pick what they believe happened. Another fraction only sees the manga as the only true canon and disregard anything that isn't in it.
  • The DBZ dub versus the Kai dub. Fans of Kai call it the superior dub, believing that Funimation finally did Dragon Ball right after the polarizing reception of the DBZ dub. Fans of DBZ think the dub is fine, especially the later parts from the Cell Saga onward and the remastered DVD sets where some of the more questionable vocal performances are redone and the Saiyan and Namek Saga redub with the Funimation's voices.
  • Whether the collective name of the heroes are the Z Fighters or the Dragon Warriors. For most of the series' American run they were called the Z Fighters, but Funimation started referring to them as the Dragon Warriors starting with Kai: The Final Chapters and Super. And it became even more confusing thanks to the English version of "Pledge of Z", the theme song of Resurrection 'F', which had the chorus verse of "We are Team Z!"

C - H

• Can't Un-Hear It: See here.
• Catharsis Factor: Because of the host of Smug Supers and Complete Monsters in the series, fans have taking great satisfaction in watching the villain go down:
  • Goku beating up Nappa after he caused the deaths of almost all the Z Fighters and mocked Goku for arriving too late to save his friends.
  • Frieza, Z's first Complete Monster, murdered countless people including killing Dende, tortured Vegeta to death, and killed Krillin by blowing him up from the inside out. Therefore, it was immensely satisfying when Goku went Super Saiyan, and beat and humiliated him, going as far as to give Frieza "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Him being chopped into pieces by Future Trunks before being vaporized is also considered one of the highlights of the series.
  • Even though he's technically on the hero's side at this point, Vegeta still served as a massive Jerkass throughout most of the Cell Saga, insulting everyone he comes across for little to no reason, not caring about the fate of his wife and child, and even allowing Semi-Perfect Cell to absorb Android 18 to get stronger for the sake of sating his own ego. Thus, not many complained when the result of his jerkassery was the mother of all humbling beatdowns by Perfect Cell.
  • Gohan going Super Saiyan 2 and slowly torturing Cell to death. Yeah, it was horrifying seeing sweet Gohan lose himself in rage, but it felt so good watching Cell suffer after he ate cities and stepped on 16's head, killing him permanently. Gohan killing Cell by destroying every cell in his body was also a catharsis moment since he bragged about how Goku died for nothing after his Heroic Sacrifice and murdered Future Trunks.
  • Future Trunks destroying Future 17, 18, and Cell. If you watched the TV Special, History of Trunks, you saw how absolutely horrible 17 and 18 were, including killing Gohan by shooting him to death with energy blasts while he's pinned to a building and screaming in agony. Cell's trail of death was also well known, especially if he succeeded stealing Trunks' time machine. The only drawback was that the beatdown were short since Trunks is a no nonsense fighter.
  • Babidi getting his head punched to pieces by Majin Buu is very satisfying, after having to watch the former abuse Buu, murder his minions after they succeed, and use Buu's power to kill entire cities of people.
  • Super Buu getting beating up by Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks, Ultimate Gohan, and then Super Vegito; and then having his personality erased by Vegeta in that order. This guy had caused a massive amount of death by wiping out all life on earth aside from the heroes, eating most of the main cast alive, and mentally tortured Gohan in the English dub by invoking the memories of his brother and mentor. Although, what made Super Buu especially annoying was that he was an Invincible Villain who kept getting ahead thanks to the heroes' carelessness, his own absurd use of backup plans and Vegito forfeiting his fight by willingly getting absorbed in order to undermine Super Buu- on top of being an insufferable prick who throws a tantrum anytime he loses. So anytime that the heroes give him a humiliating Curb-Stomp Battle, especially in Super Vegito's case to the point of putting the fear of God into him, all culminating in being rendered Deader than Dead by Vegeta tearing Fat Buu from Super Buu's body, returning him back to Kid Buu was especially satisfying.
• Character Perception Evolution: Nappa is a very odd and rather hilarious case of this. Initially, he was seen as nothing more than just "the other Saiyan besides Vegeta" and a brutish Dumb Muscle with no other personality traits. Several years later however, the widely acclaimed parody series Dragon Ball Z Abridged famously rewrote his character into a Lethally Stupid Cloudcuckoolander, which proved such a big hit with fans that he ended up becoming the series' Breakout Character. Humorously, this in turn led to canon Nappa gaining a lot more fans as a result of having Abridged Nappa's personality projected onto him, with many now declaring him a waste of a perfectly good character, up to the point where some wished he had lived and redeemed himself alongside Vegeta!
• Crack Pairing: You can see loads of fanart of this type of shipping on DeviantArt. The infamous absolute peak is, was and will be Goku x Anne Frank.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • Vegeta:
    • He turned a Saibamen into pulp and made Cui explode like a firework by just pointing at them. Plus, both were done so casually.
    • He became a Super Saiyan by training in 500 times Earth's gravity before finally cracking and giving up which is what caused him to transform.
    • He ripped off Android 19's arms while being drained of energy by him.
    • He vaporized half of Perfect Cell's body shortly after Cell completed his final form, proving that Cell was Not So Invincible After All.
    • He actually managed to find the strength to harm Beerus despite being a mere Super Saiyan through pure rage alone after Beerus slapped Bulma.
  • Frieza. He impaled Krillin in the chest with one of his head horns and then started to shift his head up and down, further injuring Krillin while also causing more blood to leak out of him. Later, he used a paintball style Beam Spam on Piccolo, threw a mountain at Goku using his mind, and imprisoned Goku in a golden sphere of energy in order to toy around with like a soccer ball. And he made Krillin implode from the inside out without touching him.
  • Gotenks, the Awesome Ego nonwithstanding. He is able to tear dimensions with his scream. One of his attacks includes summoning explosive ghosts to do his bidding. He even turns Super Buu into a ball at one point to enact a game of catch. There's also his ability to turn Super Saiyan 3 with little effort, actually managing it better than the person who showed Goten and Trunks the technique. The person in question, Goku, comparatively found the transformation exhausting, and it took everything for him to draw out its power in an all out battle.
  • Vegito is even more ridiculous. While overpowered on his own, even by the show's standards, he manages to deal humiliating damage to Buu after being turned into a chocolate jawbreaker, noting that normally one can't move or think, let alone speak well enough, to taunt Buu some more. In Super, Vegito, while in Super Saiyan Blue, doesn't even break a sweat fighting against Fusion Zamasu, who was at that point one of the strongest individuals in the multiverse.
  • Majin Buu as a whole is literally made of Crazy Awesome and with each new form, the amount of crazy awesomeness he produces skyrockets:
    • Fat Buu turned Dabura, the King of the Demon Realm, into a cookie and then ate him, destroyed a city by breathing at it and turned dozen of human into clay and used that clay to build his own house.
    • Super Buu goes even further. The first thing he does in his debut is kill a psychopathic gunman by pouring himself down the gunman's throat until he explodes. He does this while laughing. Then he murdered the entire human race in under a minute without having to move an inch by firing billions of ki blasts into the air. Oh, and he did this out of boredom. To cap off his crazy awesomeness, when Piccolo attempts to outsmart Buu by blowing up the entrance to the time chamber, locking him in the pocket dimension, Buu's response is to tear a hole between the dimensions and escape.
    • Kid Buu. Being completely unrestrained in battle, his fighting involves Beam Spam while using Self-Duplication stretching his limbs to extreme lengths and even taking time to whistle or beat his chest in midst battle. And unlike most villains who are Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy, Kid Buu is too crazy to care about ego and how to attack.
  • Broly, being a massive Breakout Character, is a Super Saiyan Blood Knight. He uses sheer Super-Strength in his fights, omitting the need for fancy moves or techniques. Doing so, he still manages to make the Z Fighters look like amateurs for most of their confrontations.
  • Janemba, who releases all the denizens of Hell at one point, while turning the Afterlife into a jelly bean dimension, creating a clone of Goku to counter the Kamehameha technique, a bunch of clones and control of inter dimensional portals to launch attacks. After going One-Winged Angel, he enhances his dimensional portals to teleportation, beats a Super Saiyan 3 Goku, a feat that the aforementioned Kid Buu couldn't pull off and has a sword that cuts through dimensions from the swipes of the sword.
• Creator Worship: Fans love to make fun of Toriyama's lack of planning, forgetfulness, and his tendencies to leave behind his human characters. Despite this, the fanbase loves him and are skeptical of any work that doesn't have his involvement. This love extend to other manga authors like Eiichirō Oda, who practically worships him. The worship has only increased greatly after his passing in March 2024. Everyone and everything paid tribute to him, to the point where El Salvador made a declaration of nationwide mourning for him. This shows how much Toriyama's work has impacted the world.
• Creepy Awesome: Frieza, Cell and Majin Buu.
• Creepy Cute: Vegeta as a child, the Cell Juniors, and Kid Buu.
• Critical Dissonance:
  • As time passes on, and the mixed reception of Super has made DBZ the source of criticism for many anime reviewers for being the source of many of Super problems, new anime fans who grew up with more complex shonen series find it quite dull. Dragon Ball is still a popular franchise despite the criticisms, however, especially with the young crowd due to its accessibility and thanks to the many well-made video games.
  • The Cell Saga gets its own mention. It is one of the most popular parts outside of its country of origin due to the Super Saiyan transformations, the Darker and Edgier tone, Cell, Future Trunks and Super Saiyan 2 Gohan. The critics and the other part of the fanbase, however, question the countless stupid decisions made by the characters that range on Idiot Ball, the confusing timelines, finding Cell lacking in personality and having a shallow motivation, how Yamcha was treated unfairly so that Trunks could be born, how undeveloped Android 16 was making his death quite underwhelming, and the shoehorning of Gohan into the spotlight when up until that point he was rather inconsequential. The anime did take steps to fix some of these issues, such as spending more time developing Gohan for example, but the criticism still remains to this day.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • A dub example. Freeza impaling Krillin? Horrifying. Frieza talking like a cowboy while torturing him? Hilarious.
  • Another example from a dub is Freeza's Bond One-Liner after making Krillin explode:
    Freeza: Heh heh heh heh heh heh... Pop goes the weasel!
• Crossover Ship: A lot occurs with Sailor Moon, mostly due to their shared popularity of the early Toonami block.
• Complete Monster: Has its own page.
• Die for Our Ship: Yamcha frequently gets this from a vocal minority of Vegeta/Bulma fans who portray him as a rapist/womanizer, while glossing over Yamcha's selfless deeds for both characters, Bulma always flirting with other males while with Yamcha, and Vegeta not fully caring about Bulma and Trunks until Future Trunks' death by Cell.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • She's not a villain by any means, but Bulma is often hit with this. As fans will pull a Ron the Death Eater and make Yamcha out to be an abusive Jerkass, they'll likewise erase all of Bulma's flaws; her selfishness, her temper, and her vanity, just to portray her as the helpless, abused victim needing to be saved by her true love, Vegeta.
  • Piccolo gets this, despite not being a villain since the start of the Saiyan Saga. Goku putting Gohan in the Cell Games is a big Never Live It Down moment for him within the fandom. He put his eleven (nine in the manga) years old son against a killer android when Gohan didn't have the love to fight like him and it took Piccolo pointed this out for Goku to realized it. Thing is, Piccolo did the exact same thing in the Saiyan Saga. He kidnapped Gohan and trained him to fight against two genocidal aliens when Gohan was only five and had no battle experience. He then chews Gohan out to the point of tears when he's too scared to fight effectively. So, the fandom is getting on Goku's case for something Piccolo gets a free pass on.
  • Vegeta, with help from the FUNimation dub. This really comes into play in who's the better father debate, Goku or Vegeta. Fans call Goku a bad father for abandoning his family to train and not coming back to life for the seven years he was dead, while Vegeta stood by his family the entire time and even took Trunks to the park despite all his flaws. This is disregarding that Vegeta ignored Trunks when he was a baby and couldn't be bothered to save Bulma and his child when Android 20 shot down their car. He also had an abusive relationship with Future Trunks. He physically attacked and demeaned Trunks several times before finally coming to accept him, after he's killed by Cell. Vegeta is also the same person who sold his soul for power, abandoning his family and his own morals just so he can finally beat Goku and be his old evil self again. This also comes into play when fans praised Vegeta for helping Gohan defeat Cell and coming up with the plan that killed Majin Buu. This is ignoring that it was Vegeta's fault that Cell became perfect and Buu woke up because Vegeta just couldn't wait to fight Goku.
  • Raditz. There are fanworks that portray him as a Jerkass Woobie due to supposedly being considered a weakling to the Saiyan race, and feel he could be redeemed if he wasn't killed off. This is ignoring that Raditz has no sympathetic attributes at all in the series, and him being treated as a weakling is Fanon, as the manga makes it clear Nappa considered him a valued ally before Vegeta (who treats everyone with scorn at this point) ditched the idea of reviving him. There are at least three popular fan works that try to make him seem nicer than he really is in canon.
  • Bardock, with added help from Dub Text. He only had one panel in the manga and a TV special, but he is still a popular character in the fanbase. He just finished his own What If? manga spinoff.
  • King Vegeta. He is always listed as evil in all materials such as the video games and he never express any regret for his actions. According to King Kai in Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, King Vegeta wiped out the Tuffles without any provocation. He's even seen trying to kill a baby (Broly). Yet many fans think King Vegeta was just a benevolent ruler whose evil was entirely forced on him by Frieza. Once again, Dub Text plays a heavy part.
  • The Saiyan race in general, due to their incredible popularity, and with most of the Ensemble Dark Horse statuses belonging to those like Bardock, Broly, King Vegeta and Fasha/Celypa. Some fans are willing to overlook the fact they stole their planet from the peaceful Tuffles, and worked willingly with Frieza until he betrayed them, just to paint them as innocent victims.
  • Frieza's brother, Cooler. Possibly because he was powerful, handsome looking, and one of the few villains in the franchise to actually show care for his henchmen (though that might've contributed from how respectful they are towards him).
  • Despite being redeemed villains, Androids 17 and 18 get some of this treatment due to their attractive looks, 17's devil may care thrill-seeking attitude making him a cool character to imagine hanging out with (not to mention a likable Foil to Goku), and 18 being one of the least hostile of the regular female characters after joining the heroes. Many fans tend to forget that these two twins were once villains on a mission to kill Goku as a means of entertainment. They're no saints, even though they did redeem themselves and became good people, with 18 in particular marrying Krillin between the Cell and Buu sagas. That said, going after Goku was more likely due to Dr. Gero's programming^note if not in their own brains, then definitely their comrade Android 16's, since he was the one truly driven to kill Goku while the twins just needed something to do, as they were technically kidnapped and forcibly turned into cyborgs so it's not entirely their fault. Still, they were a legitimate threat during their time as the villains.
  • Cell counts, as shown on the Alternative Character Interpretation entry. There are also those who downplay his actions, saying that Cell just wanted to get stronger, test himself, and have a fun tournament, which makes him no different than Goku. This is ignoring that Cell literally ate cities, tortured the Z-Fighters, crushed Android 16's head for no real reason other than to be a dick, and mocked Goku's Heroic Sacrifice. Cell also freely admitted to wanting to terrorize the Earth once he defeats everyone in the Cell Games all so he can enjoy the looks of horror in people's faces. It is important to remember that yes, Cell has some of Goku's qualities due to shared cells, but by that same token, he has qualities of Frieza and King Cold.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The franchise has its own page.
• Even Better Sequel: While Dragon Ball may have started the franchise, and is iconic in its own right, DBZ managed to be even better, becoming the trope codifier of shonen anime in general. DBZ is what most people think of when they think of Dragon Ball, said to have tighter action, better pacing, better fighting, and more memorable characters than its predecessor.
• Evil Is Cool: Many villains are considered to be incredibly cool villains and would go on to become some of the most iconic villains in fiction.
  • Nappa is the first bad guy the heroes fight in Z to truly challenge them as well as being an epic Hero Killer. He's become more appreciated as time goes on by the Fandom for his more subtle nobility and badassery.

  • Vegeta is considered the Trope Codifier for The Rival in Shounen. His badassary, Awesome Ego, fantastic fights and confident demeanor created one of the most popular villains turned anti heroes in the medium.

  • Frieza is perhaps the closest the franchise has to an overarching villain. He's a tyrannical alien conqueror, but his cool various forms, sophisticated demeanor and speech patterns, fantastic fights, sadism and over the top dog kickery have made him the most popular villain in the franchise. He is the Trope Codifier for the modern idea of One-Winged Angel in media and still has influence in media all around the world.

  • Freeza's minions Zarbon, Captain Ginyu, and Recoome are all pretty popular in their own right due to their charisma, fights, cool abilities and designs.
  • Androids 17 and 18 proved to be two of the most dangerous villains the heroes would face. They wiped the floor with the heroes while maintaining a lax stoic demeanor till Cell arrived

  • Cell is considered a terrifying and very intelligent bad guy. He starts off as a scary horror villain, but is able to become a powerful and sophisticated villain. It's why he's easily one of the most popular Dragon Ball villains in the West.

  • Majin Buu's Super and Kid Buu incarnations are considered fun and badass villains. Super Buu manages to be a genius who runs the heroes through hoops all across his run as main villain, while Kid Buu is a terrifying childishly evil force of nature who proves unstoppable. They are both also easily two of the funniest villains in Z.
  • Garlic Jr., Cooler, Broly, Zangya and Super Janemba are the most popular of the movie villains for their cool designs, fight scenes, and abilities.
• Fair for Its Day:
  • The original Ocean dub. By today's standards, it wouldn't be considered good with all the cuts, omissions of death, and changing certain characters. One cannot deny, however, that the Ocean dub is what got many people into the fandom, especially after it premiered on Toonami.
  • The Funimation dub, when considering the most "uncut" form in which it was released. It was an early anime dub of a kid-oriented shonen series that made concessions for older fans, such as restoring some of the violence and language from the Toonami version on the DVD release, redubbing early, heavily bowdlerised episodes to be more faithful to the original Japanese version, and eventually restoring the original Japanese music score for later releases. Nonetheless, compared to modern anime dubs such as those for Dragon Ball Z Kai and Super, there are still many awkward relics such as Dub Text, Filling the Silence, mispronunciation of Japanese attack names, inconsistently alternating between Gosh Dang It to Heck! and awkwardly placed Obligatory Swearing, changing the beloved "CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA" and "WE GOTTA POWER" openings to a generic rock score (although the Japanese endings were retained), and generally altering characters' personalities. A viewer accustomed to later uncensored/uncut dubs would find the Funimation dub to be dated halfway between the bowdlerized Ocean dub and the uncensored, extremely faithful dub of Dragon Ball Z Kai.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Few topics on the internet (outside of Shipping) can match the volatility brought about by the question: who would win in a fight between Goku and Superman? Fan art, essays, and ridiculously detailed videos have been created in an effort to answer this question.
  • With One-Punch Man for the same reason as Superman. There have been wars over whether Saitama is stronger than Goku or vice versa. Ironically, One-Punch Man is an affectionate parody of shonen tropes with characters being expies of Dragon Ball characters (e.g. Boros). Still, that doesn't stop fans from comparing who is stronger of the two.
  • In a country specific case, with Saint Seiya in Brazil. It's understandable since Saint Seiya was the breakout anime in Brazil in the middle of the '90s and Dragon Ball Z one of those who followed the anime hype during the beginning of the 2000s. Internet fights are common between the fandoms.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Android 17 (DB Super) is referred as "Ranger 17" by many players. This is aided by the fact his internal ID is R17.
  • Because of how Krillin, Bulma, and Vegeta's names are pronounced in the Big Green dub, their versions in that dub often have their names spelled as "Clearin", "Blooma", and "Vegituh".
  • Before their roles in the Big Green dub were discovered, the voices of Ed Marcus and Paul Bandley were referred as that of the "Old Bastards" due to how old they sounded in their miscast roles. Similarly, Doug Rand was referred to as "That Guy Who Is Trying Too Hard to Sound Cool" because of the myriad of odd and rough voices he uses to voice multiple characters.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Due to both being popularized to Western audiences by Toonami, it has this with Sailor Moon.
  • This happens with other Shonen Jump series, especially One Piece.
  • A very strange one has popped up with Shrek, mostly because of both series' memetic status as well as the fact that Shrek and Goku are both Memetic Badasses^note although Goku is one in a more unironic sense and were frequently treated as Those Two Guys in terms of Joke Character suggestions for the Super Smash Bros. series.
  • To an extent, many Sonic the Hedgehog fans are also fans of the Dragon Ball series, especially Z in particular, due to the similarities the Sonic and Dragon Ball series share without being exactly the same. The many Dragon Ball Z-influenced Sonic fan works, such as Super Mario Bros. Z (Also a Super Mario Bros. crossover), Ed Edd 'n' Eddy Z (also an Ed, Edd n Eddy crossover) and Nazo Unleashed attest to this. Although there is a one-sided rivalry coming from Dragon Ball fans who accuse the Sonic series of ripping off the Dragon Ball series, such as the Super forms. (Most Sonic fans who aren't also Dragon Ball fans simply don't care for Dragon Ball).
• Gateway Series: Along with Sailor Moon, DBZ introduced a new generation to anime in North America.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Ask the American audience who was the best villain in the series is. Cell would most likely get the most votes. In Japan, he actually ranks behind both Frieza and Buu.
  • Android/Cell Saga in general is more popular in the United States thanks to Cell, time travel, Future Trunks, and someone else becoming the hero of the saga besides Goku. While the Cell Saga is well liked in Japan, with Trunks in particular standing out as a Breakout Character from it, it is generally considered the weakest story arc there due to how unrelentingly dark it gets when compared to the other sagas.
  • Piccolo is popular amongst the African-American population, often even being considered an "honorary Black man". The reasons for this include his "non-white" skin color, his deep voice, his vaguely Muslim-esque clothing, his unwillingness to engage in the same nonsense as most of the cast, becoming an honorary father to Gohan, and last (but certainly not least), the fact that his people were invaded, enslaved and nearly wiped out by a tyrannical empire that wanted to exploit their most valuable resource.
  • DBZ in general is even more popular internationally than it was in Japan (which it is still very popular). For example, in the week of September 16-22, 2002, DBZ was once the highest rated show on cable and one of the top three shows in all television (cable or broadcast) for preteen/younger teenaged boys (9-14) in America.
• Glurge: Vegeta's death speech gets embellished a little too hard in the Funimation dub. Although, the speech is cleaned up in the Remastered DVD set:
  "Kakarot... Listen. Destroy... Frieza. He made me what I am... don't let him do it to anyone else..."
• Growing the Beard:
  • While the Saiyan Saga was mostly built upon the legacy of the original Dragon Ball, DBZ really grew into its own at the start of the Frieza Saga. The epic saga which had the heroes severely underpowered against an army of superpowered aliens with no hope of escaping, an Enemy Civil War, and a dark villain who is feared by all, even the Kais. There's also the introduction of the Super Saiyan, which has become an iconic staple of the franchise.
  • For the English voice cast, it was around the Androids Saga and Imperfect Cell Saga that they really started to fulfill their roles as the characters, especially Piccolo and Vegeta. Not to mention that by this point, the Funimation cast had stopped trying to mimic The Ocean Group voices and instead portrayed their roles with their own styles.
  • The dub in general hit its stride around the Perfect Cell Saga. By then, they had a good mix of staying truer to the Japanese text while still adding Woolseyisms.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Frieza's viewpoint about the Saiyans ("You do realize how hypocritical this is? Your outrage over the loss of innocent lives? The Saiyan race isn't exactly known for its mercy. Compared to you brutes, I'm a saint!") becomes somewhat more depressing when we learn that in Super, a certain evil Saiyan who looks exactly like Goku commits genocide on a multi-planetary scale.^note While it is revealed that he is a full-blooded Saiyan, he is actually Zamasu in Goku's body. Then we have the eventual appearance of Broly in Dragon Ball Super: Broly ("The greatest enemy is a Saiyan" anyone?).
  • Guldo's ability to stop time is portrayed as mostly useless since it only works when he's holding his breath. He's out of shape which means he can only do it for a few seconds at most and he's the weakest of the Ginyu Force, being easily overpowered by Krillin and Gohan. Two years later, and in the same magazine no less, DIO would show just how much damage a time stopping ability could do in the hands of someone truly powerful. It later becomes this within the franchise with the introduction of Hit.
  • In some localizations of the original Dragon Ball, Goku had the nickname "Monkey Boy" given to him by his friends in reference to his monkey-like tail and characteristics. However, with the frequent use of the term "Monkey" as a racial slur towards Goku and the other Saiyans by Frieza and his men in DBZ, his friends' nickname sounds awfully racist in retrospect.
  • When Ginyu switches bodies with Goku, it is treated as humorous moment for the most part since Ginyu is laughably incompetent at using Goku's body to the point that Gohan and Krillin can beat him up, and he gets utterly stomp by Vegeta. Then comes Dragon Ball Super, where Goku Black shows exactly how dangerous Goku's power and abilities are in the wrong hands, especially with someone who knows how to add their own skills on top of Goku's powerset.
  • When Vegeta is telling Goku about how he's cast out because he's born with a low battle power and is therefore considered worthless by Saiyan's society. This becomes hasher when you take Minus, in which Goku was sent to Earth not because he was weak, but to save and protect him from Frieza. Until he recovers the memories of his parents in the Granolah Saga, Goku is led to believe that he was thrown away when it's the furthest thing from the truth.
  • In the Japanese dub, the episode where Buu kills nearly the entire supporting cast by turning them into candy and eating them. Master Roshi is one of those killed, and it becomes a lot more tragic when you learn that his voice actor, Kohei Miyauchi, died shortly after the episode was completed and it marked the final time he voiced the character.
  • During the Buu Saga, there's a subplot involving a duo of snipers killing innocent people For the Evulz. One of the shooters is reluctant at first until the more sadistic of the duo talks him into it. This sounds eerily similar to the Beltway Sniper Attacks that happened in the Virginia and D.C. areas in October 2002. Adding to it was that the English dub of those episodes first aired on Toonami when the shooting spree was still going on.
  • Watching Future Trunks fighting to change his future and prevent its destruction becomes this when you find out what Super did to it...
  • The filler episode with Mr. Shu, the teacher who abuses and belittles Gohan hits this when his English voice actor, a teacher and principal in real life, had one of his former students claim he'd been abusive to his students and staff, around the time the episode originally aired in the U.S. no less.
  • Future Gohan being ultimately murdered by the Future Androids eerily became this when (adult) Gohan's voice actor in the Latin American Spanish dub, Luis Alfonso Mendoza, was murdered in February 2020. The fact that Mendoza was shot to death can also make all the scenes during the Buu Saga in which Gohan, as the Great Saiyaman, had to stop thugs who were constantly shooting at him very cringeworthy.
• He's Just Hiding: Some people theorize this about Android 16. Because we don't see him again after the Cell Saga and because he wasn't a human with a soul, it's easy to assume Shenron didn't revive him. However, during the climax of the Buu Saga, we see Android 8 giving his energy to Goku after everybody Buu killed was revived, and in Super, we see that Arale is still alive too. So, it's not too far off to believe 16 was revived and chose to live a life of solitude in nature.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: A Q&A section in one of the volumes revealed that Android 16 was based on Gero's dead son. This makes Gero's attempts to keep the other (violent and rebellious) Androids from activating him seem less like he's afraid of 16 and more like he's afraid of them hurting him.
• Heartwarming Moments: Have their own page.
• Ho Yay: Has its own page.
• Hype Backlash:
  • Often lumped together with Pokémon: The Series and Sailor Moon in this respect. Some people watching DBZ in the present consider it to be an unremarkable anime with far too much screaming and powering up. The fact that it was outright referred to as "the greatest action cartoon ever made" by Toonami didn't help either.
  • Broly's extreme popularity within the fandom has this effect on some once they finally watch his movies. It's even worse in the East where he is seen as The Scrappy.
  • This is one reason why the Japanese version of the series is so contentious in the West. Among Western anime fans, a widely held opinion in the Subbing Versus Dubbing debate is that the Japanese version is inarguably better and more "hardcore" than the English dub, with stronger voice performances and the series' content being in its raw, unaltered form. As such, many fans of the dub watched DBZ in Japanese expecting an even cooler version of a widely loved mainstream anime, only to be highly disappointed by Goku and many other characters sounding less badass and more cartoonish and childish, which happened on a wider scale with Super. While this reaction has dampened over time, due to the Japanese version getting greater exposure and more fans gaining respect for it, this still holds to an extent.

I - R

• Iron Woobie: Future Trunks and Tapion from the 13th movie.
• It Was His Sled: Most spoilers in the series have been mainstream for years, despite being shocking at the time. This lends itself to the fact that DBZ is where most of the international fans caught onto the franchise, and a number of them still aren't even aware that many examples of this were supposed to be as surprising, and the list below isn't even all of them:
  • Goku is a part of an alien race called the Saiyans, and he has a brother named Raditz. He also dies in his fight with his brother.
  • Piccolo undergoes a Heel–Face Turn. Vegeta does as well... Sort of.
  • Planet Vegeta was actually destroyed by Frieza, not an asteroid.
  • Goku is the Super Saiyan. Also, as an addendum, the Super Saiyan isn't the Chosen One among the Saiyan race but actually a Super Mode transformation that any Saiyan can, in theory, learn.
  • Cell is the true Big Bad of the Android Saga.
  • Babidi successfully revives Buu.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: There was once a time where fans of Dragon Ball could express their interest in the franchise in the open. However, it achieved popularity inside and outside Japan. It may be different in Latin America as well as Latino-based boards, but if you said you like DBZ (except for maybe the original Dragon Ball) on English boards or in anime clubs? You'll be asked why or told how bad it is, if not flat out insulted as having poor taste. However, in The New '10s, this has changed a lot.
• Jerkass Woobie: Vegeta counts especially in the Funimation dub. He's the Big Bad in the Saiyan Saga, but when you find out about what happened to him, it's pretty hard not to pity him. This all culminates in the Buu Saga, when he states the reasoning for all his pride is due to being under frieza all his life and his people killed so he sees it as all he has left. His pride and not being as strong as he wishes can make him strangely sympathetic and relatable.
• Just Here for Godzilla: If there are three things that stick out in the last saga of the series, it's the Fusion Dance, Super Saiyan 3 and Majin Buu's outright Crazy Is Cool-ness.
• Love to Hate: Frieza, Cell, and Super Buu. Some fans even think this of pre-Character Development Vegeta.
• Macekre
  • The Ocean dub for the Saiyan Saga and the early-Namek Saga had its scripts supervised by Saban Entertainment, who wanted content more suitable for syndication (i.e. like a typical '90s Saturday morning cartoon show). As a result, the first 67 episodes of the series were edited down to 53, it was subject to strict censors (Never Say "Die", removal of blood, violence against the five-year old Gohan was lessened), and lots of juvenile dialogue was added. This also created a few Dub Induced Plot Holes such as Vegeta saying Goku's father was "a brilliant scientist" and Goku believing that Vegeta in his Great Ape form killed Grandpa Gohan instead of realizing it was he himself who did it.
  • The early Funimation dub was not subject to the same censors as the Ocean dub, and they were allowed to dub the episodes unedited for most part. However, due to using the same scriptwriters, who translated in the same loose manner as before, the dialogue was just as juvenile. The late-Namek Saga is a big offender as Goku and especially Frieza had some significant Dub Personality Changes.
  • The French dub is infamous for being a "Blind Idiot" Translation. There are "gems" like Goku being ocassionally very rude towards other people, Krillin and Trunks being "seriously wounded" instead of dead, blatant plot holes such as Goku not realizing it was him as a Great Ape who killed Grandpa Gohan and that Vegeta was the murderer instead, techniques constantly changing names and sometimes transformations and characters suffering from the same thing (Piccolo is "Little Heart" for some inexplicable reason). The most damning factor of all, however, is that it was the translation of choice for many other European dubs, causing a domino effect where a significant portion of Western Europe has the same butchered translation. For example, Spain had six different dubs for each of its regional languages, and all of them have most of the problems the French dub had.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Vegeta, as the fans often use his pride to claim that he is extremely superior to other fictional princes.^note Disney princes are often the targets here, and then again... the rivalry between American and Japanese animation fans happen.
  • Broly. His power is maximum.
  • Mr. Popo, due to a fight scene he has in the anime where he takes on Super Saiyan Goten and Trunks at the same time. And this is before mentioning his Abridged counterpart...
  • Tien. His win/loss record really isn't any better than Krillin or Yamcha's. He's still managed to endear himself with the fanbase for his feats against Nappa, Cell, and Buu.
  • Fans claim that Goku is the strongest character in all of anime, is the father of every shonen hero for the last three decades, and can kick Superman's butt.
  • Gohan. He's even more of a badass than his father. He can be the strongest in the universe if he trains and when he loses his temper, he will destroy you. Not to mention the ongoing myth that Gohan's Ultimate Form plus Super Saiyan will cause the planet to explode.
  • Chi-Chi is the strongest being in the universe since she can control Goku. Doesn't help that several characters actually do believe this, including Piccolo who says he didn't want to cross Chi-Chi for this reason.
  • Mr. Satan is the grand champion of all time. He certainly didn't get backhanded by Cell and was sent flying miles away into a mountain. That was all smoke and mirrors.
  • Humorously, the farmer gets this treatment as well as the Memetic Loser trope. The reason is that he seems to appear a total of three times in the series looking slightly different with each appearance meaning he has survived multiple close encounters with the heroes which is more than most people can claim.
  • Yamcha of all people gets this treatment in certain franchise works.
  • Thanks to Twitter user Lonely, Future Trunks, who is capable of stopping any catastrophe before they even start with minimal effort.
• Memetic Hair: Super Saiyan hair.
• Memetic Loser: Has its own page.
• Memetic Molester: Cell. If his habit of sticking his tail in people and sucking them dry wasn't creepy enough, the way he advances on 18 before absorbing her...
  • Thanks to Team Four Star and DevilArtemis, Zarbon has become this in the last 5 years or so.
• Memetic Mutation: The franchise has its own page.
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • Mr. Popo, thanks to Team Four Star.
  • Chi-Chi thanks to her temperament and how overprotective she is of Gohan.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Many fans tend to sympathize with Bardock and his fellow Saiyans too much. While it is true that they were quite badass and that Bardock in the end faces off against a far greater evil, it is often forgotten that the Saiyans weren't exactly a bunch of nice, cool people, but a horde of heartless star conquerors who served said greater evil. This is even brought up in Goku's battle with Frieza, where Goku acknowledges that the Saiyans brought their demise upon themselves due to becoming that way.
  • Among fans, keeping track of each character's Power Levels and using these as evidence of who would win in a fight is common, despite the fact that Toriyama only introduced the concept of power levels to point out that they weren't an accurate method of measuring one's ability.
  • Among some fans, Vegeta is seen as the better warrior because he relies on his own strength, even if does leads to him getting his butt kicked most of time. These fans find it endearing that Vegeta is willing to fight and die even if he is outmatched. They also praise him for training much harder than Goku, who has everything handed to him. This, of course, ignores that Goku does train very hard, he in fact trained long before Vegeta did. He just doesn't torture himself to become stronger, and eventually, Whis points out that Vegeta is stunting his own growth by training without proper rest. Goku also prefers fighting without help, but knows when to swallow his pride for the greater good. Part of this is culture clash since self dependence is more favored over teamwork in the West, while the East puts more emphasis on teamwork and often paints lone wolves like Vegeta in a negative light.
  • Mr. Satan's name is not Hercule. Hercule is his censored name for the North American version. Satan is not his last name either, but his ring name. His real name is apparently Mark. Funimation later set the name into Mark "Hercule" Satan.
• Mis-blamed:
  • Toriyama didn't write the anime. He wrote the manga it was adapted from. The pacing of the anime was actually out of his hands; Toei intentionally made filler arcs with his mild supervision, and padded the episodes so they wouldn't overtake the manga.
  • The Chickification of Videl is often blamed on sexism on Toriyama's part. In fact, Toriyama only wrote the manga, in which this never even happens - it only happens in GT, which Toriyama wasn't a big part of, and Super, which Toriyama doesn't actually write beyond basic plot outlines for story arcs, meaning how Videl is handled is all up to the actual anime writers.
  • In a case where Toriyama escaped blame when it belonged to him, many Gohan fans who dislike how he never got to truly take up the mantle as The Hero blame the Japanese fandom and their extreme love for Goku as not allowing it to happen, and by extension Toriyama's editors for listening to them. In fact, Toriyama was beyond adhering to editors and fans by the Buu Saga, and has flat out said that the decision to reverse his course on Gohan and give Goku the spotlight again was made by him all on his own because he just didn't feel like Gohan was suited for the role after all.
  • Funimation is usually blamed for having a female voice actor for Frieza, but the Ocean dub had already done so before the recast.
  • Contrary to what some fans believe, most of the censorship in the Ocean dub was actually ordered by then-distributor Saban Entertainment, and not the Ocean Group themselves. Supposedly, Saban feared that no station would carry the series in a favorable time slot if it was broadcast uncut, and given the slew of anime being broadcast heavily edited in the United States during that period, it's not hard to see why. Of course, this became moot once Toonami picked up the series a couple years later.
  • The use of the term "android" to include Androids 17 and 18, who are more accurately described as cyborgs, is often considered a translation error, or at the very least a case of Lost in Translation. In reality, the Japanese term jinzoningen (literally "artificial human") has roughly the same meaning as English "android", a human like robot, and usually doesn't include cyborgs, either.
• Moe: Kid Goten and Pan are seen as this by the fans.
• Moment of Awesome: Has its own page.
• Moral Event Horizon: See here.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Whether he sounds like Masako Nozawa or Sean Schemmel, Goku's prolonged screaming is sure to excite at least one viewer, if only because his screaming is almost always followed by him doing something amazing.
• My Real Daddy: While the manga is done by Toriyama only, and the anime adaptation is pretty faithful to it despite the filler, there are some interpretations of the characters that are considered vastly superior to Toriyama own intent:
  • Bardock, Goku's father, is an odd case, as he wasn't written originally by Toriyama. Instead, Bardock was the focus of a special called Bardock: The Father of Goku, which dealt with the destruction of Planet Vegeta. The tragic nature of the character who didn't have anything heroic to his name other than friendship with his fallen comrades, and died by the hand of Frieza without doing much, was so memorable it made Bardock the Breakout Character he is known today. When Toriyama decided to write him in Minus, most of the critical reception was negative since it wasn't like in the animated special. As such, Bardock real daddy is mostly considered to be Takao Koyama, the writer of the special, than Toriyama himself.
  • Koyama's interpretation of Future Trunks and Future Gohan in the second animated special is considered to be vastly superior to Toriyama own version, "Trunks: the story". The main difference with both versions is that in the manga, Trunks was already a Super Saiyan and couldn't save Gohan. In the animated special, however, Trunks transforms due to Gohan's tragic death. As such, Trunks' transformation is widely considered to be one of the series' most memorable Signature Scenes.
  • Android 16 is a minor example. While both versions of the character are the same, the anime added more scenes, which made him a more effective character, since in the manga, his character traits like his liking of nature are more of a Informed Attribute.
• Narm: Has its own page.
• Narm Charm: The Obligatory Swearing in the uncut Funimation version is laughable and forced at times, but many kids (and adults) at the time found it cool and were drawn to the uncut version because of it:
  Vegeta: If there's anything I've learned from this ordeal, it's that I am a freaking genius!
• Nausea Fuel: Perfect Cell literally vomiting out 18 after how much of a beating Super Saiyan 2 Gohan gave him, made worse in the uncut where she's actually seen sliding out his mouth.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Yamcha getting killed by a Saibaman, which in fact provides the current trope image, and losing Bulma to Vegeta.
  • Krillin dying a lot and his general Butt-Monkey status.
  • At the end of the Saiyan Saga, Chi-Chi was completely neglectful of Goku, caring nothing for his health and only showed concern for Gohan. This is what most fans best remember for, and it leads into Accuser of the Brethren territory, as every good deed Chi-Chi does after this incident is overlooked and/or ignored in favor of this incident.
  • Goku giving Cell a Senzu Bean and putting his eleven years old son against a killer bio-android are sadly things that many fans best remember him for, along with his fear of needles only appearing in the anime.
  • Goku's Super Saiyan 3 transformation.^note Both because Goku could have very easily ended the Buu Saga right away and because, in a series already holding a reputation for lengthy power-up scenes, this was one of the longest by far.
  • Vegeta's fear of worms and him screaming "It's over 9000!!". Fans usually make art of it, along with Goku's fear of needles.
  • In the Subbing Versus Dubbing debate, a favorite argument by sub fans to denounce the dub is its poor quality voice acting, various alternations to the original dialogue, replacing the original score, and kid friendly censorship.
  • Fans of the Funimation dub will forever remember the original Japanese version of the series for Masako Nozawa's "Granny Goku" voice. Whether the voice is good or bad is up for debate, but these fans claim that the original version is absolutely terrible because of Nozawa's performance alone.
  • One of the most infamous examples of this is the idea that Goku is a bad father to Gohan. This stems from how he was dead twice and not there for Gohan, and how he made Gohan fight Cell. The series has shown consistently that Goku loves Gohan, has done his best to protect him, and that he regrets not being able to be there all the time for him. The Cell part is the worst he gets as a father as the other characters point out how bad this was and Goku acknowledges he made a mistake. Despite this, fans still use this as ammo to say Goku is a bad father.
• Older Than They Think: You probably think Tapion is based on Link from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but, according to Wikipedia, Wrath of the Dragon was released in 1995, while Ocarina of Time was released in 1998. The Crono reference is still obvious, though.
• Once Original, Now Common: Nowadays, DBZ, while still beloved in many parts of the world, especially Latin America, is more known for its writing problems, especially in the later parts, and the fact the series is more about spectacle than an actual story. While the manga has remained hugely influential in the shonen demographic since the '90s, many can agree its successors took DBZ's strengths alongside other genres to make it more compelling and even influential. The degree of the effect has generally ranged from "it's kinda boring compared to stuff now" to "it flat out sucks".
• Padding: To prevent the anime from overtaking the source material, Toei Animation had to create an immense amount of Filler episodes, up to and including flashbacks from episodes prior, even usage of scenes from the original Dragon Ball anime to pad material long enough for the manga to forge ahead. The Namek Arc is the most notorious example with constant cuts to other characters, several of which weren't vital to the current storyline such as Chi-Chi and Roshi on Earth trying to fly a ship to Namek or the Ginyu Force on King Kai's Planet to battle Tien, Yamcha, and Chiaotzu. Other times, you'll see characters just talking for an immense amount of time, take several episodes to gather enough energy, or just flat out delaying fights for a later episode.
• Periphery Demographic:
  • Much like Sailor Moon, DBZ was conceived and marketed for young boys, but also attracted a sizable fanbase of older anime fans, which led to the releases of uncut, uncensored versions of the series in the West. Come The New '10s, and adult fans became the primary Western demographic for the Dragon Ball franchise. The series also has a sizable fanbase of women, who are drawn in by the attractive male heroes and strong female characters such as Android 18.
  • Another sizable segment of the fanbase is African American men. According to the linked article, African American fans strongly relate to Goku's struggle as an alien who grows up in another world and finds out about his heritage, as well as the willingness of the male characters to explore and show their emotions.
• Popularity Polynomial: During the mid-2000s, it wasn't popular to say you liked the series outside of the original Dragon Ball. The fall of anime in general in the West during that time period also didn't help. However, the series has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity thanks to Kai, the movies released during The New '10s, Super, FighterZ, and even DBZ Abridged. Toriyama's greater involvements in projects after the widely panned Dragonball Evolution was also a huge benefit.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: Zigzagged. Some of the video game adaptations such as Budokai 3, the Budokai Tenkaichi series, Legends, Legendary Super Warriors, Origins & Origins 2, Attack of the Saiyans, Legacy of Goku II, Raging Blast, Xenoverse, among others are considered both great adaptations of the series and solid games. FighterZ in particular was a breakout hit, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest Dragon Ball games of all time as well as a polished, deep and gorgeous fighting game in its own right. Others, such as Sagas, the first Budokai, Taiketsu, Ultimate Battle 22, Final Bout and the NES game released in North America as Dragon Power, range from being mediocre to being almost unplayable. About the only redeeming quality in some of the latter games is their music.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Having Masako Nozawa voice Bardock, Scholar Gohan, and Goten. Hearing an old woman's raspy man voice as a ruthless warrior and a bespectacled adult man can be rather jarring. Raditz also got away with having a different voice, so why not those two? For Goten, he's already a miniature Goku, so him having the exact same voice as his father even as a teen keeps him from being little more than a clone and a Replacement Scrappy. Her flagship role, Adult!Goku, is infamous for this; while she was fitting for his child voice, some, mostly Western fans, felt such a high-pitched voice coming from a masculine character was head scratch worthy.
  • Hikaru Midorikawa as Tenshinhan, from 2006 onwards. While Midorikawa is an excellent voice actor, more than competent and has a very quirky, recognizable voice, he sounds absolutely nothing like Hirotaka Suzuoki. Plus he already plays Android #16.
  • Pauline Newstone from the Ocean dub and Linda Young from Funimation as Frieza. It made the gender confusion worse in the West since Frieza already have many girly qualities. This was subverted with the casting of Chris Ayres for Dragon Ball Z Kai onwards.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Main Timeline Trunks. The Trunks introduced in the Android Saga was a badass from a dark future whose experiences had humbled him and made him serious, making him very popular among fans. But when history changed so that the androids were defeated, the Trunks of the main timeline was allowed to grow up with both his parents and came off as a spoiled, cocky brat. However, this is mostly in the West. In a popularity poll done before the Buu Saga ended in Japan, Trunks was the third most popular character followed by Gotenks. The exact same ranking as Future Trunks when he was polled.
  • Gohan for the Japanese audience was the belief among Western fans. As the story goes, Toriyama replaced Goku with Gohan as the main hero of the series after the Cell Saga, but the Japanese audience didn't buy it and demanded Goku be brought back. However, Toriyama himself has stated that he brought back Goku simply because he determined that Gohan was unsuited to be the main hero.
  • Goten for some, came off as a poor man's substitute for Goku and never became as beloved as Goku or Gohan.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • For some fans, Chi-Chi. She left a bad taste in many fans' mouths after she neglected Goku after he was badly injured from his fight with Vegeta and blamed him for Gohan being forced to fight, despite him being dead when Piccolo kidnapped Gohan and had no say in the matter. She started to win fans over after she throws Mr. Shu out the window and chase him off the property. Then after Goku becomes sick with his heart virus, there were several episodes showing Chi-Chi caring for him, close to tears in worry. Her pure joy at Goku's recovery from his illness and the tender moment afterwards won over many fans. She won many more after she became more mellow in the Buu Saga onward and trained Goten. She also earn some Woobie points for her future counterpart, who lost both her husband and only son, and her main timeline counterpart blames herself for Goku dying in the Cell Games because she undermined Gohan's training and for being too hard on Goku.
  • Fat Buu wasn't very well-received when he first appeared, in the West anyway, mostly since despite his build-up as this galaxy-destroying Eldritch Abomination, he was a silly pink blob that turned people into candy. After he kills Babidi and starts gradually making a Heel–Face Turn, though, he won some fans over. It also helps that the saga got more legitimately intimidating villains with his later forms, Super Buu and Kid Buu.
  • Mr. Satan, or Hercule if you prefer, managed to get a pretty big dose of this right at the same time for the Western fanbase. His general personality of Small Name, Big Ego and taking credit for defeating Cell after everything the Z Fighters went through pissed off a lot of fans. The Buu Saga ultimately revealed that even with his ego, he actually does appreciate his fans and would refuse to betray their trust and he was ultimately granted a neat pair of awesome moments near the end both his What the Hell, Hero? moment and his rescue of an injured Vegeta. Some fans of the anime and manga still feel his cons ultimately outweigh his positives, but it's safe to say he's a lot better-received compared to when he first appeared. Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods solidly establishes him as a friend to Goku's family, and has him donate his own prize money to them.
  • Goten and Trunks (to the Western fanbase) got this at the very end of DBZ when they're seen as teenagers. Trunks has lost most of the arrogance, becoming much more polite like Future Trunks. What remains of his arrogance is expressed in mutually friendly banter between himself and Goten. Goten, meanwhile, has developed his own look and personality, becoming his own character instead of just a carbon copy of young Goku. That the relationship between the two is also absolutely dripping with Ho Yay won over a lot of Yaoi Fans, as well.
• Retroactive Recognition: Brian Drummond voiced Vegeta in the Ocean dub, and was later overshadowed by Christopher Sabat due to the Funimation dub becoming the definitive English version from that point onwards. As such, many Death Note fans have noted that Ocean!Vegeta sounds a lot like Dub!Ryuk, to the point that Ryuk's exclamation of "the symptoms are staaaaartiiiiing!" in an early episode is highly reminiscent of Vegeta's most memetic line.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Yamcha frequently falls victim to this in fanfics focusing on Vegeta and Bulma's relationship. Because the events that led to Bulma breaking up with Yamcha and getting together with Vegeta are never touched upon, it's not uncommon for fanfic writers to portray him as a drunkard or unfaithful-if not outright abusive-so that Bulma can run to Vegeta for comfort. Sometimes they'll even write him as an outright Yandere who tries to kill Vegeta and/or Bulma, when he's shown to be perfectly fine with their relationship in canon.
  • Goku gets this when it comes to his fathering skills. Some fans tend to act as though he is a terrible father who doesn't care about his kids. In many countries, including Japan, Goku is more commonly seen as a good father, illustrating a clear case of Culture Clash among fans of the show. Goku gets this again regarding on how "heroic" he is. Toriyama has gone on record saying that he was dissatisfied with the "righteous hero"-type portrayal of Goku in the anime. He tries to portray Goku as someone who doesn't fight for others, but fights only to battle strong people. At the same time, Toriyama also says in several interviews that Goku is a nice and good person, but is hopeless when it comes to a good battle. Some fans had taking Toriyama's words to mean that Goku is an amoral asshole who only cares about fighting and nothing else, ignoring all the times Goku has shown concern for his friends, family, and others like his battle with Raditz and the other Saiyans as well as him trying to pass the torch so future generations won't depend on him to save the day. May be another case of Culture Clash since this view of Goku seems primarily a Western's interpretation, while the East still views Goku as a very heroic character despite his flaws. Even stranger, some fans think Goku being an asshole is a good thing since they despise the idea of him being anything like Superman.
  • Chi-Chi. In canon, she can be an overbearing person whose Education Mama tendencies can reach annoying and illogical levels, which the anime plays up. She is also a dedicated mom and wife who dearly loves her family and most of her actions are done out of fear of them being hurt or killed. While some criticism against her character is well-deserved and understandable (her constant nagging and complaining, her Skewed Priorities, and Insane Troll Logic), some of it can be biased and unwarranted (her dislike of some characters, her overprotectiveness). Fans also go as far as to ignore her good qualities traits and act as though she’s a heartless jerkass who hates her family. Even the English dub and Super get in on this, with the former exaggerating her bad qualities while downplaying her good ones, while the latter reverts her back to her old characterization with her bad personality traits (her being too overbearing and hot-tempered) before the Buu Saga.
  • Despite being the White Sheep of the Saiyans, and having been described by Toriyama himself as a gentle, caring person, some people say that Gine was just as bad as the other Saiyans since she did take part in missions to cleanse planets before becoming a butcher, and that after her death, she went to Hell, with a couple of fanfics showing her there (which, given all of the good things that Toriyama said about her, is very unlikely). This is ignoring the fact that it's never clarified if she actually killed anyone, and was in fact described to have been a very poor fighter, which is why she retired from missions. Even if she did kill a few people and never spoke out against the Saiyans' genocidal tendencies, that doesn't change the fact that she has been officially described as a good person by Toriyama himself.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • There are fans who sincerely believe that the Saiyan genocide at the hands of Frieza was probably the best thing he has ever done. This is due to the fact that most of the Saiyans were rude, bloodthirsty beings. Other fans go even further, saying that Vegeta's brutal torture at the hands of Frieza was a well-deserved punishment.
  • Like the characters in the series, most fans wanted Cell to kill Mr. Satan and his pupils when they attempted to fight him and mocked Goku and his friends.
  • After he helped Cell to become perfect by attacking his own son, fans wanted Vegeta to pay for his arrogance.

S - Z

• Sacred Cow:
  • Goku, as one of the most iconic anime characters and biggest Memetic Badasses of all time, particularly after the Popularity Polynomial set in and DBZ became popular on the Internet. Very few people familiar with DBZ label him as "overhyped" or "overrated", and most fans agree that his place in otaku and pop culture is well deserved. Goku's genuine popularity and legendary reputation is one reason why the prospect of him as a Super Smash Bros. character is treated like a legitimate possibility by some fans rather than an absolute joke like with many other non-gaming characters.
  • Within the Japanese cast, Masako Nozawa (the voice for Goku, Gohan and the other male members of their family) is considered this. Though most of her Dragon Ball voices^note save for child characters and Goku Black are very polarizing in the American fanbase, she is considered a Living Legend as a voice actress and her performances are absolutely beloved in her native Japan (and she does have her fair share of American fans as well).
  • Sean Schemmel's English Goku voice is considered this (particularly in modern Dragon Ball works) by fans of the Funimation dub, as he continues to make the character more palatable for American fans that don't like Nozawa's performance.
• Saved by the Fans: Vegeta. He was supposed to die in the Saiyan Saga, but was saved by fan demand.
• Seasonal Rot: The Buu Saga is seen as this by some fans. Most of the issues pointed are the story being more over the top than ever, Piccolo being Demoted to Extra, Buu lacking any solid motivation, Vegeta making a Senseless Sacrifice despite an attempt to develop him, Goku and Vegeta being the Spotlight-Stealing Squad again when the series appeared to be focusing on Gohan, the divisive characters of Goten and Trunks/Gotenks, and having characters repeatedly make dumb decisions in order to pad out the story. However, this sentiment seems be based more in the West. In Japan, Buu was a more popular villain than Cell (who was seen as a step down from Frieza) and Japan's audience wanted Goku back (he was ranked #1 on a fan poll) so they didn't mind him taking over the last leg of the arc along with Vegeta (who ranked #2 on the same poll). They actually liked Trunks/Gotenks significantly more than Gohan and saw the latter as something of a Replacement Scrappy for the former; in that same poll, Trunks is ranked 3rd followed by Gotenks at 4th, and ratings dropped when Gohan came back in the story, after spiking while Gotenks was fighting Buu in the time chamber. In addition, those that do like the Buu Saga love that it's over the top, arguing that it harkens back to the more zany, creative, and irreverent stylings of early Dragon Ball and find that refreshing after the long stretch of Darker and Edgier story arcs that preceded it. These fans also argue that the Character Development was the point of Vegeta's sacrifice and that defeating Buu is irrelevant to that, that Piccolo is given more to do in being a mentor/straight man to Goten and Trunks/Gotenks rather than getting curb-stomped by the Big Bad yet again (to the point that he low-key carries the "Super Buu at the Lookout" part of the story), that Goku and Vegeta should be the ones that defeat Buu because they were both complicit in Buu's release, that Buu's hedonistic nature makes him unpredictable and thus engaging, and that Goten and Trunks/Gotenks are fun characters whose antics are justified by their characterization as immature, inexperienced brats, with Gotenks in particular giving us some of the series' most creative attacks.
• Self-Fanservice: Fans tend to make Android 18 much curvier than she actually is in fanart, often putting her on Bulma's level, if not higher.
• Sequel Displacement: The original Dragon Ball is said to have better storytelling than DBZ, but in the West, the latter is better remembered and more iconic than the former. This is because the initial attempts to dub Dragon Ball were a huge failure. More than half of DBZ had already aired in the United States before Dragon Ball finally received a proper dub. Some fans even have the habit of referring to the franchise as a whole as DBZ, owing to its aforementioned iconic status. As a result of all this, many casual fans are unaware that Goku's adult form debuted in later parts of Dragon Ball, due to its reputation as "that prequel to DBZ where Goku and Bulma are kids".
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: The debates over who Trunks' romantic partner should be have gone on for more than two decades. The three most popular candidates have historically been Pan, Marron, and Goten, with all three sides going after each other. Then Super and its associated movies began hinting at Mai as Trunks' love interest. Although Mai is not without her fans, the three warring factions mostly set aside their differences to unite against her; they consider her completely unacceptable, whereas any of the first three listed could at least be tolerated.
• Shocking Moments:
  • DBZ starts like this: Goku has a son. Goku has a brother. Goku is an alien. Goku dies. However, it's only this if you've seen Dragon Ball first.
  • Goku's fight with Vegeta, specifically their Beam-O-War when Vegeta tries to destroy the Earth because he's lost his temper from things not going his way.
  • Goku going Super Saiyan the first time.
  • Admit it, you were shocked when Trunks appears, turns Super Saiyan kills Frieza and King Cold.
  • Vegeta performing his Final Flash technique against Cell. The sheer scale of the attack was unlike anything DBZ had provided prior to it.
  • Gohan going Super Saiyan 2.
  • Goku transforming into a Super Saiyan 3.
  • The Buu Saga could be pretty uneven in tone, but it was still pretty shocking when Super Buu killed every single human being on Earth in the span of about three minutes, and then later successfully blew up the Earth as Kid Buu.
• Signature Scene: See here.
• So Bad, It's Good:
  • Some fans have this opinion of the Ocean dub. The treasure trove of Narm and Ho Yay greatly helps.
  • The AB Groupe dub, better known as the "Big Green" dub after Piccolo's Dub Name Change in it. The script is a "Blind Idiot" Translation from Japanese to French to English, there are only a handful of actors and most of them are miscast and given terrible direction, and nearly everyone speaks like a Motor Mouth (for example, when they say “Son Goku” it comes off as more like "Songoku" as if it was just one word). The result is an unintentionally hilarious World of Ham dub with gaffs like Vegeta calling Goku by that name and not "Kakarot"; Kamehameha being yelled for every technique Goku does, even if it's not the actual Kamehameha; and Gohan's dragon, Icarus, speaking.
  • Even the early Funimation dub falls into this, with its own share of dodgy performances and cheesy lines like Goku's Superman-esque speech to Frieza and a lot of Frieza's lines thanks to dodgy translations:
    Frieza: (while swinging an impaled Krillin on one of his horns) Hey, whip it! YEEEEEHAAA! That's it, buckaroo! Ride 'em, cowboy!
• Special Effect Failure:
  • In the Funimation dub of the episode "The Renewed Goku", when King Kai makes a premonition that Vegeta would die at the hands of Frieza after failing to destroy him, you notice that his voice sounds faded out. It's as if the voice actor portraying Kai (Sean Schemmel) was talking through a microphone that was turned off while another mic was a little bit far away from him.
  • The electrical aura of a Super Saiyan 2 and 3 is far less impressive in the anime than it is in the manga, and sometimes not present to the point that it can be difficult to tell the difference between a Super Saiyan and a Super Saiyan 2.
• Strangled by the Red String: The Japanese voice actors have even commented on the rushed romantic relationships. The relationship between Bulma and Vegeta is a particularly glaring example, yet at the same time, a relatively beloved one. Their relationship had so little buildup and came out of nowhere. Even Goku's reaction upon hearing that they had a child is one of disbelief. It helps that it does manage to be somewhat realistically portrayed in spite of its implausible nature: The conception of Trunks was implied to be from a one-night stand, and it took years for them to actually become close to each other.
• Strawman Has a Point: In the Funimation dub, Goku gave Vegeta a what the hell moment after the latter kills Burter and Recoome, whom both were unconscious, saying he was being pointlessly cruel. How does the latter respond? That they did deserve it, especially since Recoome would have killed Gohan and Krillin had Goku arrived late, and then proceeds to tell Goku that his kindness would bring about his own defeat.
• Subbing Versus Dubbing: DBZ has been very hotly debated in this respect. In addition to the usual question of Japanese vs. English voice cast, the English dub has been criticized for replacing the original score, engaging in a lot of Dub Text and Filling the Silence, altering the tone of the series to make it more hardcore, altering characters' personalities, and for the earlier dubs being heavily censored; with the original Japanese version generally preferred by hardcore fans. However, after the Funimation dub became the singular definitive English version and the company began redubbing it uncut, English DBZ began to gain more support, with fans citing its strengths more often, such as the improved performances and various Woolseyisms. This sentiment has only increased as DBZ has become more heavily marketed to adults than children in the West and subsequent English dubs of later Dragon Ball series have increased in quality. In a medium where the original Japanese version is almost always preferred worldwide, DBZ and its successors stand out for having an original Japanese version that is as debated in the West as the English dubs of other series are.
• Superlative Dubbing:
  • A specific example with Goku. As DBZ was introduced to America separately from the original Dragon Ball, giving Goku a childlike voice similar to Masako Nozawa's performance would have come across as very strange to American fans. He was therefore voiced by various adult male actors before eventually settling on Kirby Morrow for the Canadian dub and Sean Schemmel for the American dub, the latter of which is considered to be the definitive Goku voice by many American fans. While Goku's character in the dub was initially criticized for being changed from a goofy manchild to a serious hero akin to Superman, his character would gradually be aligned more with the Japanese original over time, eliminating this particular criticism of American-adapted DBZ. Of note is the fact that, while Nozawa voiced Dukemon/Gallantmon in Digimon Tamers in a very similar manner to Goku,^note Vocal Dissonance on a manly character, similar delivery and all, her performance wasn't met with the same controversy when uncovered by Western fans because the character's English dub voice (Steve Blum) wasn't nearly as beloved there as Schemmel was for Goku.
  • It's generally agreed that the Funimation dub got better with time. The "uncut" redub of the first 63 episodes is generally very well-liked, and introduced elements such as better performances, more faithful dialogue translations, and rare profanity that would pave the way for the English dub's full-blown beard growing with Dragon Ball Z Kai.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The insert song "Battle Point Unlimited" (used in episode 120, when Trunks goes Super Saiyan and kills Frieza) is a pastiche of an entire album (1985's A Secret Wish) by the German Synth-Pop band Propaganda. In this case, the plagiarism is so bad that it's possible to recreate the entirety of "Battle Point Unlimited" using samples from A Secret Wish. Fittingly for Dragon Ball, it was composed by Kenji Yamamoto, who would be fired from Toei Animation midway through the production of Dragon Ball Z Kai after executives learned that he had spent his career plagiarizing numerous western artists such as Pink Floyd, James Horner, Danny Elfman, and Journey.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Raditz. He's the long-lost brother of the main character Goku, so you would expect him to be a major part of the plot. Instead, he's killed at the beginning of DBZ and is rarely mentioned again. Some might think he's irredeemable, considering his willingness to kill his own brother and nephew, but he's no more evil than Vegeta starts out as.
  • Nappa plays a huge role in the Saiyan Saga, being the one who kills off most of the heroes. However, after being killed by Vegeta, he stays dead in a series where death is famously cheap. Any time Nappa appears again, it's just a quick cameo in Hell. Like Raditz, he's a bastard, but no worse than Vegeta.
  • You'd think that King Cold, being Frieza's father and the real leader of the Planet Trade Organization, would be an Arc Villain. Instead, he ends up getting killed off with little fanfare just to show how powerful Future Trunks is.
  • Videl is introduced as a slightly irritating but quickly charming character who dovetails nicely with Gohan and the extended Z Fighter family, and even has early episodes dedicated to the relationship between the two... only for her to be relegated to the Kami's Lookout crew, then turned into chocolate by Super Buu and effectively written out of the story. Pretty much everything in the early high school portion of the story is unimportant, outside of establishing what's new since the Time Skip.
  • Goten and Trunks' contribution to the fight. Much like Gohan in the Cell Saga, it's implied that the pair are intended to be the saviors of the day, and hopefully the future, given how prodigious their power levels are for their age. They were absorbed by Super Buu not long after Gohan received his power up.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • After dying in the fight with the Saiyans, the human characters end up on King Kai's planet. Not only is this the best chance they could get to train, but it also would allow for them to gain techniques like the Kaioken and Spirit Bomb, abilities that could easily have helped with their issues of being unable to catch up. Despite this being an obvious plot point, it never happens, and the human characters just hang out. The anime adaptation does at least have them train and become a bit stronger, but they never gain the chance to learn techniques like the Kaioken, seemingly out of fear of removing a key part of Goku's arsenal. The Daizenshuu states they did learn it and got stronger, but nothing in the series supports this idea, and the characters never once indicate such.
  • A minor example with Spopovitch's death. After what the guy did to Videl, many fans wanted to see Gohan beat the snot out of him. Heck, they even built it up. The death he gets ends up being appropriately gruesome, which feels karmic given his gruesome treatment of Videl in the tournament. However, it's at the hands of Babidi. Gohan's only involvement with Spopovich was to get his energy stolen by him and Yamu.
  • In the manga, the fight between Goku and Majin Vegeta is utterly wasted. This was the rematch fans had been wanting to see for years, and it only lasts a few panels as Majin Buu is released and Goku talks Vegeta into stopping the fight. The anime, where the fight is much longer and more intense, doesn't really fix this as while the fight is extended, the fight is ultimately pointless to the arc's story.
  • Anime only example. In the manga, the training for the Saiyan Saga just has brief panels showing it. For Goku, this shows him sparring with King Kai. One would think that given how the anime expands upon training, we would see more of this. However, none of the training we see Goku go through in the anime involves sparring with King Kai.
  • The conclusion to Gohan's arc: After having a power up with the Grand Elder on Namek and defeating Cell after Goku's death, it's heavily implied that Gohan is taking his father's role as the effective protector of the Earth. The Buu Saga reverses this by de-powering him and having Goku come back so the plot can concentrate on him and Vegeta. Even after having a second power up that's implied to have unlocked his latent inner power, it turns out to be completely useless against Super Buu after he absorbs Gotenks and Piccolo.
  • The World Martial Arts Tournament that opens the Buu Saga. Those familiar with the earliest sagas were probably expecting a modern take on the famous set piece. It's completely ignored part way through the proceedings and only shows up again to demonstrate how ruthless Majin Vegeta is.
• Too Cool to Live: Vegito is widely regarded as the strongest fighter in the entire Dragon Ball continuity, so strong that he toys with Super Buu (+ Gohan) and easily has the capability to destroy him. He only lasts for four episodes before getting swallowed by Buu and reverting back to Goku and Vegeta. Goku and Vegeta crush their Potara earrings, and Vegito isn't seen again until the Future Trunks arc of Super, over two decades since he first debuted.
• Tough Act to Follow: The Frieza Saga is considered the most popular and beloved arc in the entire franchise, and the measuring stick for every other arc that followed. In Japan, it's especially considered to be superior to the Android/Cell Saga, with that arc not enjoying the same popularity that it did in the West. That said, the Frieza Saga still consistently tops opinion polls in pretty much every region of the world. In the West, however, many fans have this opinion of the Android/Cell Saga and its titular villain, often saying that the Buu Saga and everything else in the franchise that followed has never quite been of the same quality.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: Most scenes with Bulma during the anime's Frieza Saga; she needed to be there because nobody else could fly the spaceship, but after that her importance was non-existent. As a result, there are several episodes that cut away from the main plot to show Bulma reading magazines, hiding from Frieza's soldiers, fighting giant crabs in the ocean, etc. Amusingly enough, there's one segment in the show where Krillin and Gohan hear her screaming in the distance and wonder if she really was literally trapped by mountain lions (to which Krillin responds "I'd feel sorry for the lion.")
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Chi-Chi comes off as this for some fans. The series makes her out to be hysterical and unreasonable for freaking out over Gohan's safety and education. While she goes too far, there are times when she actually has good points.
  • Nappa and Raditz proved this in light of Vegeta's redemption, with many fans feeling they deserved their own even given that Vegeta got redeemed. Nappa in particular has fans who feel he deserved a redemption since he was A Lighter Shade of Black next to Vegeta.
• Unpopular Popular Character:
  • In-Universe, very few people actually like Vegeta, probably because he killed (or helped to kill) most of them.^note And he stole Yamcha's girlfriend. Goku, Bulma and their children together seem to be the only ones that like him, and even they sometimes get tired of him. To many fans though, he's one of the best things about DBZ.
  • Zangya. In Bojack Unbound, she only appears in ten minutes, speaks very little and is not even respected by the main villain. And in Fusion Reborn, she only appears in a second. But she is incredibly popular among fans, and many see her as Draco in Leather Pants.
  • Frieza, Cell and Buu. Nearly everyone in the series either fear or hate them but are among the most popular characters in the fanbase.
  • Inverted with Mr. Satan. Almost every human on Earth looks up to him, but a lot of fans in real life (especially American fans) dislike him and look down on him for taking away Gohan's credit of defeating Cell. It wasn't until the Buu Saga where he showed redeeming qualities. Of course, while Satan's glory hounding is certainly contemptible, such fans probably don't realize that Goku and friends don't really care about getting credit, in fact Goku chose to stay dead precisely to avoid recognition for his kills and unwanted attention from bad people resulting from that recognition.
• Values Dissonance:
  • In many of the nude scenes, Americans see Ho Yay or even shotacon that no Japanese viewer would see.
  • Goku's parenting skills. In North America, especially the U.S., Goku comes off as a neglectful father and husband. In other parts of the world, especially the Asian countries, Goku comes off as a good father who spoils Gohan (too much according to Japan).
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Puar is supposed to be male according to Word of God, but ended up female in the Ocean and Funimation dubs. It didn't help that, in all versions of the anime, Puar is voiced by a woman.
  • Chiaotzu. While Chiaotzu has a more masculine appearance than Puar, his makeup and his relationship with Tenshinhan, along with being voiced by a woman in all versions can make the whole issue seem rather confusing.
  • Zigzagged with Frieza. In Japan, Latin America and Europe, he was given a baritone, which helped to avert this. On the flip side, many viewers of the Ocean and Funimation dubs initially assumed that the character was female due to the polite mannerisms, the prominent lips, and the overall color scheme (white, pink, purple). This was made worse by the fact that in these versions, Frieza was voiced by women.
  • The little blind boy who has his eyes healed by Majin Buu, thanks to (again) being voiced by a woman who doesn't much sound like a little boy.
• Vindicated by History:
  • For a long time, you couldn't say that you remotely liked Bruce Faulconer's replacement score. To utter such words would have you mocked for enjoying music that was inferior to Shunsuke Kikuchi's original score and made some fans questioned your fandom. While the Faulconer score remains a divisive topic among the American fanbase, appreciation for it has grown; particularly for Vegeta's Super Saiyan Theme, Ginyu Transformation, Goku's Super Saiyan 3 transformation, and the DBZ Finale theme. Nowadays, it's not uncommon to see fans who overall prefer the Kikuchi score express some appreciation for Faulconer; and even those who flat out don't like Faulconer's music will usually at least acknowledge that it got better over time. Most of this new respect happened because of Dragon Ball Z Kai, which originally had a completely different musical score that broke the fanbase even more. Some fans even wish Faulconer would return to Dragon Ball.
  • The Great Saiyaman was, at least in the West, very divisive when the series aired overseas. For many, this was the exact opposite direction they thought Gohan would go in after his climatic battle with Cell. Finding that they "ruined" Gohan by making him this dorky Large Ham that didn't match up to the idea of what was wanted for Gohan and was largely met with disapproval if not outright hate. Nowadays, the Great Saiyaman is received much more positively, fans learning to accept that Gohan was always a goofy kid, and that this was how he chose to express himself, which was the intention from the beginning. Similarly, Gohan's lack of fighting spirit and decisions to not keep up his training in the Buu arc was also heavily criticized and met with much disappointment in the West, but come the 2020's, there's FAR more fans being completely understanding as to why Gohan wouldn't want to pursue something he didn't enjoy and was undoubtedly traumatized by.
  • The English cast. Until about the mid-2000s, it was popular to bash the English voice actors along with the rest of the dub. Now, the English cast is beloved by fans on both sides of the Pacific, especially after their work on Dragon Ball Z Kai.
  • Funimation as a whole gets this. In the early to mid-2000s, the company was roundly bashed by fans of the original Japanese version. They were often compared to 4Kids Entertainment and it was common to find websites dedicated to criticizing them. Now, they are one of the most renowned dubbing companies in the world. Fans of DBZ are also quick to defend the dub, especially the later seasons and their redubbing of the first two sagas. Additionally, the censored dub, which was the root of most of the 4Kids comparisons, fell out of favor over time.
  • The series itself, and to a lesser extent the entire Dragon Ball franchise in the West, Latino country not included. In the late '90s and early '00s, there was a general anti-DBZ sentiment around most internet communities. It used to be held up as an example of everything wrong with "modern anime" in the West and was usually seen as the Lowest Common Denominator standard for bad anime. Now, it's become much more socially acceptable to mention you watched or even enjoyed DBZ even when it originally aired in the West. As a result, DBZ reclaimed its crown as possibly the most popular anime out there, and became a well respected staple of geekdom with a very large and active fandom of old and new fans. To put the hatred into perspective, VG Cats once described Inuyasha as "freaking Dragon Ball Z for girls"◊ to insult it. At the time, this was a very common sentiment, and it even evolved into Memetic Mutation to insult anime series people didn't like.
• Wangst: Vegeta throws angry tantrums whenever it looks like somebody has surpassed him. By the end of the series, though, he gets better. In the Buu arc, he sells his soul to Babidi, kills hundreds of innocents just to fight Goku again and feel like a "true" Saiyan once more and in the process also recovers the worst traits of his initial personality that he'd somewhat abandoned after his humiliating loss to Cell and Goku's death, all for almost no reason besides being an egotistical dick. Between this and his refusal to fuse even when the entire universe is at stake and he knows it, it makes his desire to be strong again look less like a genuine desire to not feel weak from a vulnerable man and more like an extremely childish tantrum.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: This is a series for ten year old boys, but the high amount of violence wouldn't pass for a kids show in the States. Not helped by the fact that its primary demographic in the West in The New '10s shifted to adult fans. The Namek Saga, for example, is possibly the most graphic and violent saga that the series has given us, which was controversial for its time and one of the reasons why the series was criticized in the '90s by Moral Guardians.
• The Woobie:
  • Future Trunks, what with being the only hope left in an apocalyptic hellhole of a Bad Future where the villains could kill him at most any time and just leave him alive to toy with him for roughly twenty years until he finally turns the tables and it was awesome.
  • Yamcha has it pretty hard. His long-term girlfriend of several years leaves him for a former Space Pirate and he has never found a steady girlfriend since his break up. He's also continuously hit with the Worf Effect to the point that he is considered the biggest Memetic Loser in the series. The more vocal parts of the fandom have no sympathy for him and is often demonized in fan fictions where he's portrayed as a Domestic Abuser, which is why Bulma left him for Vegeta. In addition, fan works constantly portray him as a selfish glory hog who is weak because he was caught off guard by a Saibaman's suicide attack, even though that attack could've killed anyone on the battlefield except maybe Piccolo.
  • Present Chi-Chi. While she can be annoying, overprotective of Gohan, and can sometimes be selfish when it comes to her priorities, she's shown many times that she loves her family very much, yet fans ignore her good qualities and portray her even worse in fanfictions, possibly bordering on Moral Event Horizon treatment of Goku and her sons. Also, in the show, she had to go through watching Goku (who was her fiance at the time) almost getting murdered by Piccolo, who was his mortal enemy. She also had to go through dealing with her son Gohan getting kidnapped by Raditz and then Piccolo. Is it any wonder she was so angry when Gohan said he wanted to go to Namek to revive Piccolo? And she has to deal with a lot of stress because of her son and husband getting put in dangerous situations. This may be why she wants Gohan to become a scholar, because she feels that education is the only way to survive, and she may not want Gohan to depend on fighting forever.
  • Future Chi-Chi. She ends up losing her husband to the heart virus and then ends up losing her son to a battle with the Androids.
  • Gohan is a woobie for having to go through witnessing his father die twice. He never was a fighter at heart and ever since he was 4, his childhood has been nothing but struggle. In the Cell Saga, he's shown to have a lot of self esteem issues. During his battle with Cell, it was hard for fans to watch Gohan turn from a Nice Guy into a homicidal manic that would make Frieza proud. Considering all the things Cell did, it's kind of hard to blame him. He does get better in the later Arcs.
  • Android 18 has some of woobieness in the Cell Saga. She was a human forcibly converted into an android and programmed to kill Goku, and was in the middle of the saga being chased and stalked by Cell, got to see her brother eaten, and got absorbed herself on the verge of death.
  • Fat Buu. He just can't win against another form of himself. First, Evil Buu quickly beats him into submission, not even really toying with him. Then Mr. Buu defends Mr.Satan and helps buy time in facing Kid Buu. Kid Buu is in all likelihood vastly stronger than the lean, grey Evil Buu, but takes his sweet time mercilessly slaughtering Mr. Buu and eventually causes the latter to deplete his ki reserves. It takes a freakin' lot to elicit that feeling between two amorphous blobs which usually take shape, when it probably doesn't make sense how the match is even possible. (It doesn't affect him on a deeper level, but when you have *fanfare* "The Woooorld Champiooon" on your side, what will?) But he's far from the first in the series.
• Woolseyism: Has its own page.

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