Why all of the negativity for Dragon Ball's Chi-Chi?

Over the years, fans of the Dragon Ball franchise have been bad-mouthing Goku's wife, Chi-Chi, for quite some time. And, to be honest, it really feels like the franchise itself is pretty much pushing her into the background, one series after another. The marriages of Vegeta and Bulma, Gohan and Videl, and even Krillin and Android 18 were given more attention than Goku and Chi-Chi's and they're supposed to be the main couple of the franchise.

Personally, i can't see where the hate for Chi-Chi comes from, seems to me that certain points of her character are being overlooked and/or ignored.

1. She's a Mom - Any mother worthy of even calling herself that would, at the very least, be hesitant to allow their small, young child to train to battle enemies such as the Saiyans, the Androids or Cell, especially when there was a high chance that they were heading into battles where they could have gotten themselves killed. When all's said and done; Chi-Chi was basically just doing what a good mother should do; protect her child from the dangers out there as best she could.

2. She herself is a fighter - As a trained combatant herself, Chi-Chi has seen first hand how dangerous fighting can be. Also, was there really any reason for her to not believe that Gohan would not possess his father's durability? For all she could have assumed, Gohan could have been incredibly fragile compared to Goku. She already realizes that she's nowhere near as durable her husband.

3. She witnessed Goku's fights at the end of Dragon Ball - Keep in mind that Chi-Chi watched first hand as Goku was blasted by Tien, then again by Piccolo, was smashed into the ground by a giant version of Piccolo and was nearly crushed to death by him. Witnessed Goku get blasted through the chest by Piccolo and then watched helplessly as he was writhing in pain and was viciously pummeled and tortured by the Evil Namekian. And you know that it had to be traumatic for her to simply watch helplessly as her fiancee was about to be blasted into oblivion. She was clearly beyond relieved when she saw that Goku was still alive. After witnessing her husband go through all of that, it seems pretty obvious why she wouldn't want history to repeat itself on Goku or worse, Gohan.

4. All she wanted was for Gohan to become a success in life - Is it really wrong that Chi-Chi wanted Gohan to learn a trade? That she didn't want learning how to fight and constantly training to fight to be all he'd ever know? When all is said and done; Chi-Chi just wanted to help Gohan make something out of his life. To find his place in a world where combat wasn't always around every corner, where the power of the mind is valued over a simple flexing of muscles. Also, keep in mind that Goku is a Saiyan; fighting is basically second (if not first) nature to him, he can't help that. But Gohan is only half-Saiyan, so fighting is more of a last minute defense mechanism for him. Which means, combat shouldn't have to be the only thing he needs to focus on. Whether Chi-Chi knew about it or not.

and finally—

5. Chi-Chi has proven time and again to be a loyal and loving wife - She's constantly showing how much she cares for her husband and sons. Despite Goku's antics and actions, she still stays with and later on even acts the issue she was upset about wasn't even important. Also, a major show of Chi-Chi's love for Goku in my opinion is this; Goku died twice in the DBZ series, twice, and after the first time ran for as long as it did and he left her for Planet Namek, he disappeared without a trace for another long period of time. Then after he died again, he chose to stay dead and left Chi-Chi to raise Gohan (and then Goten) herself. Then later on, he even decided leave her again to go train Uub and when he got turned back into a child, he was willing to stay that way. Yet, in spite of all that, Chi-Chi remained his wife, not just in legal terms, but also in emotional terms. He died once and then, after coming back, he left her for who knows how long after going off to Namek, but did she even consider remarrying? No. He died a second time, chose not to be brought back to life and stayed gone for, again, who knows how long, but did she consider remarrying that time? Once again, no. Chi-Chi has been widowed by Goku's battles twice and was basically left behind by him on several occasions, and yet, in spite of all that, she still remains his wife and his wife alone. Months to Years of him not being around and she still remains faithful to him. For crying out loud, she stuck him even after he was turned back into a child, how many other women would be willing to do that?

Also, from where i stand, Goku clearly does love Chi-Chi. He obviously considers her a reason for him not to allow his enemies to win, she was on his mind when he was with the Snake Princess, and he has hugged her, held her and even spoken to her in certain ways that would only feel appropriate for two people in love to do.

It seems to me that by using Goku and Chi-Chi's relationship for comedy's sake, the writers really passed up a lot of opportunities to make them a very interesting Anime couple. For example; if you take away the anti-fighting aspect of Chi-Chi's character (at least after the Saiyan Sagas), then she and Goku could have been written as a battle couple; two people who are married and have a child and will both kick the snot out of you if you threaten said child. Their whole family could have been a force to be reckoned with (more so then they are now). I'm just saying, Goku and Chi-Chi's relationship really could had used just a bit more fleshing out, as opposed to simply pushing it aside in favor the other three subsequent romances.

edited 9th Jun '16 3:22:59 PM by srebak

I'm going to call it the "Sakura-effect.'' Partly though Toriyama's own flanderization, but mostly through Toei, Chi-Chi ended up morphing into a Nagging Housewife. Like, the entire punch line of her character would be her nagging and Goku somehow being scared of his wife. For people who don't particularly find that funny, I can see the character rubbing them the wrong way.

Same thing happened with Sakura in Naruto. Started off harsh to Naruto and her arc was supposed to be about warming up to him. The anime filler decided to highlight her punching the guy for the sake of humor and that became the trait people associated with the character. Later shitty development in the manga only made it worse.

Chi-Chi is a massive case of flanderization, she was turned into a housewife despite being a former warrior woman, and of course she was made a naggy type as well (although she seemed to peter out in later years).

Admittedly Goku isn't really that great of an husband either. The only good healthy couples I can think of in Dragonball was Krillin and Android 18 (which is really funny as that couple working pretty well was not something you would expect considering 18's demeanor due to being an Android) and Gohan and Videl.

The rest were either bad or just unhealthy. Don't even get me started on Vegeta and Bulma. Or what Bulma would do to Yamcha....

Well Chi-Chi does tend to scream a lot & the what she did to Goku at the end of the Saiyan Saga was pretty harsh. With Goku, the dude's pretty chill & its easier to hate someone with a more visibly negative personality. Chi-Chi spends a lot of time screaming & being a pretty bad helicopter mom that you forget Goku's not father of the year.

Goku's problem seems to be more that he has no clue (being an alien) on just how to be a father and a husband really. He also didn't have any examples to draw from being that his only caretaker was an eldery grandfather....

I mean he isn't as bad as Vegeta who did have a father and was still a massive asshole to his future son. And Chi-Chi isn't as bad as Bulma. I never really quite liked Vegeta or Bulma....

edited 9th Jun '16 5:20:23 PM by Ecrivan

She embodies every single bad stereotype of an Education Mama. Including only caring about the first born to succeed, she doesn't give a crap about the second born son's education AT ALL.

Her trying to get Gohan to succeed isn't presented as a good thing in the story at all as well and is just presented as an obstacle in the story that's it. She is crabby and controlling and not very 'loving', hell DBZA does a better job of presenting Chichi and Goku having a loving relationship.

She was a fighter but she was only a fighter as a rival/bad girl once she switches sides to be fully good she doesn't ever fight again outside of one filler bit. which is a very bad and very common Shonen stereotype for women, if there is a Heel–Face Turn expect them to not do much of anything anymore ever, 18 is another victim of this as well.

edited 9th Jun '16 5:24:47 PM by Memers

Well she is a product of her time. Again completely ignoring a half-dead Goku just cause she was pissed at him for things he wasn't even responsible for sticks to people's minds for a long time.

18 does fight in some movies if I recall correctly. I might be wrong though

Honestly part of the problem is that if you were not a Saiyan you were destined to be left behind in Dragonball. No matter if you were human, android, Namekian, or some other alien race or something.

And there was no female Saiyans left alive so you wouldn't see any genuine warrior women that would stick. That's one of the problems I always had with Dragonball. If you were not a Saiyan, well your pretty much screwed.....

edited 9th Jun '16 5:28:50 PM by Ecrivan

srebak: You've got a really positive take on her character given that she's consistently portrayed as a naggy shrew at best. I don't remember her having any particularly strong reaction to Goku getting beaten up. In fact, after he was practically on death's door following the fight with Vegeta? Yajirobe actually called her out on completely ignoring that he was obviously suffering greatly. I don't consider that a loyal and loving wife.

Oh, and she's not a fighter. Yeah, she isn't completely useless by normal human standards, but she doesn't enjoy it, she doesn't train and the one real fight she had in the entire manga was just because she got pissed at Goku for not remembering who she was.

Ecrivan: Chichi was never a warrior woman. Where did you get that? The closest she got was throwing the knife thing on her helmet at a dinosaur, an attack she didn't even see land because she was cowering in fear. A reasonable reaction to a giant dinosaur, but not warrior woman material.

I never watched the original Dragonball but I do recall somewhere reading that Chi-Chi was a bit of a fighter in her earlier years. I might be remembering the information wrong or received misinformation though....

Basically, the OP paints her devotion to her family as a dramatic thing that is supposed to make us feel sorry for her, but the actual series just keeps playing that for awkward cheap laughs, she gets like two whole moments where she kind of works dramatically (both in anime only filler), and she even gets the most undignified death scene in the whole series.

It's not so much that they turn her into a joke, but into the oldest, most groan inducing kind of sexist bad joke.

edited 9th Jun '16 5:33:56 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

She was a very minor character in Dragonball. She shows up in the first arc for a bit part where she's running from a T rex, throws this weird blade thing stuck on her helmet at it and chops its head off while she cowers in fear. She crushes on Yamcha a little bit but he's not into little girls, which brings into question why she's wearing a bikini around.

Just after that, she meets Goku, gets embarrassed and says he has to marry her because otherwise she can't be a bride anymore after he poked her crotch or something like that, then disappears for about six years or so before showing up at a tournament looking way different. Goku doesn't remember that he promised to marry her, she gets pissed and attacks him, loses badly even though he's holding back and then reminds him of who she is. Having nothing better to do, Goku agrees to get married. After a timeskip, suddenly Gohan exists. That's it.

I don't really have much of an opinion on Chichi but there is almost nothing to actually like about her unless you really love bad, repetitive jokes.

edited 9th Jun '16 5:37:40 PM by Arha

Well, Chi-Chi is what happens when you decide to keep drawing a character as a form of punishing yourself. No, seriously. Toriyama didn't like drawing Chi-Chi, so he made her get married to Goku so he'd be forced to keep drawing her.

On the one hand, a lot of her concerns are valid if you're looking at the situation of Dragon Ball realistically. On the other hand, this isn't our world, it's the world of Dragon Ball. And especially in the anime, her actions go past being sensible to being absolutely over-the-top.

But then again, she's practically a gag character. She's pretty much comic relief. So criticising her is like...criticising Mr. Satan for not realising Cell was way stronger than him. Of course, the real messed up part is that Akira Toriyama wrote her to be pretty much a gag character, as opposed to practically everyone else in the story. But...that's another topic altogether.

The woman said that her son getting an immediate education is more important than the fucking world. The fuck man?

She's not even that funny. She's so mean to everyone & never gets any comeuppance. At least Mr. Satan gets comedic injuries.

edited 9th Jun '16 5:40:22 PM by slimcoder

A comic relief character can be criticized as long as they're bad comic relief.

Personally, I think Dragon Ball characters only work as comedy players when they still have some relevance. Oolong, for instance, was funny when he was a screwed up creep who actually tagged along and was a deserving Butt-Monkey; after he was left at Kame House just to spout some inanity every fifty episodes he became an eyesore. On the other hand, Vegeta growing exasperated with Goku in the battlefield or Beerus being a dick while trolling the Saiyans on his superior power was way funnier than cutaways to these irrelevant characters doing quick attempts to prove that no, really, they're still funny even if that's all there is to them now.

edited 9th Jun '16 5:41:11 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

As said, she's comic relief and the story does not take her or her tirades seriously. The only way I could see her grating is if the brand of humor she brings isn't your cup of tea. In which I don't blame you, cuz the Henpecked Husband trope is severely overplayed in Anime.

Yeah no one likes the "idot husband, nagging wife" jokes.

Someone's gotta like them if they keep putting them in :V

Toei, I assume.

Oh, it's a trope that still sells well. American sitcoms and cartoons pull it off very often too.

That doesn't mean it's actually funny anymore, just that there's a lot of people with bad taste or who take veeeeeeeeeeery long to get tired of the same joke.

And, you know, children, who are the actual target audience for the original Dragon Ball. Z stage included.

I think I really disliked Chi-Chi back when I was a kid watching Z. Guess the henpeck husband is also to build sympathy for the guys since their mostly the mains.

While I do understand why Chi-Chi has some issues with Goku due to the situation I honestly do not understand why in the hell she thought marrying an alien guy who's main love is fighting and food was a good idea. I know it's actually more of an cultural thing and was partly due to the fact Goku didn't understand when he was younger that poking or worrying about girls crotches was not an acceptable thing to do (unless they were married) but he was a child and an alien on an alien world at that time when that happened.

She had to of known what Goku is at some point and atleast knew what she was getting into....

edited 9th Jun '16 6:44:16 PM by Ecrivan

She didn't know Goku was an alien until after years of marriage and having a children.

I figured. The food and fighting thing still should of been prominent though.

She said he had to marry her because he touched her crotch when checking her sex. Then they didn't meet again for about six years, after which they got married immediately. So yeah, the relationship is really shallow.

edited 9th Jun '16 8:07:42 PM by Arha