Dragon Ball Z Abridged

Because fuck consistency.

The Goku/Gohan thing is pretty cringeworthy to be honest; it was first legitimately funny when it was a one off gag or two, but now its pretty clear they're making a story arc out of it which will cultivate at the Cell games.

And it just seems so mean-spirited towards Goku, who just seems misguided at his worst and does show he actually does care about Gohan. At the very least, I don't think anyone else really agrees with Gohan's attitude(even if nothing is being done to stop it) and his future self is pretty clearly insane for thinking that way.

I guess I just consider it one of the worst jokes because it implies Goku is a terrible father in canon too, when most of his absence is due to circumstance. Like if it was an Hilariously Abusive Childhood, I'd let it rock because it would fit in the series` Refuge in Audacity nature, but we're clearly meant to be taking it seriously now and its just..."Plz stahp"

Actually, rewatching the last episode, it didn't really seem to take Gohan's side, nor did it with the whole thing about Piccolo's near death.

edited 3rd Aug '15 5:03:04 AM by OmniGoat

Again, it could be resolved in the HTC as how he goes Super Saiyan.

So, Because SSG Goku is scrawnier than normal goku, what if the next movie brings back the Kaioken? KSSGSS Goku, now with purple hair.

If Gohan's frustration towards Goku causes him to become a Super Saiyan, that doesn't resolve anything. Gohan's still so angry at his father that it made him a Super Saiyan, and Goku's still shirking responsibility for his callousness towards his family. That advances the subplot but doesn't resolve it.

Here's the thing: the Cell Saga is the where Goku starts to actually deserve all of the blame he gets. After Frieza's defeat, Canon Goku does all of the following:

• Refuse to come home because he's training in space, abandoning his family in a fashion similar to his training at Kaio-sama's planet, but without the pressing threat of dangerous foes to blow up the Earth. He doesn't come home not because the Earth is in danger, but because his hobbies are more important than his family.
• When he finally does come home, he comes the long way, flying in a spaceship even though he has the ability to teleport. After abandoning them for the better part of a year, he postpones his reunion with his family for no reason at all.
• Despite being able to solve the entire conflict in five seconds because he and Gohan hadn't gone in the RoSaT yet, Goku conveniently forgets he can teleport while Vegeta and Piccolo are getting slaughtered trying to prevent Cell from reaching the Androids. Goku only finally uses his ability after both combatants are down, and only to rescue them; no effort is ever made to just pop 17 and 18 to some other part of the planet or to New Namek or Kaio-sama's world, anywhere he wouldn't be able to find them.
• Goku's entire plan for defeating Cell makes no sense. He forms it based on conditions as they enter the RoSaT, yet it hinges on Vegeta's abject failure despite the fact that both Trunks and Vegeta are significantly more powerful than even Semi-Perfect Cell - who, mind you, only had to become a thing because Goku didn't teleport 17 and 18 to safety - and also on the assumption that once Cell does inevitably achieve his Perfect Form, he'll be too powerful for anyone but Gohan to defeat.
• He also relies too heavily on Gohan having a bloodlust fighting spirit like Vegeta and himself. Piccolo actually gets to call Goku out on this one, because Piccolo learned from making the same mistake back in the fight with Nappa.
• Then, not only does Goku set his son up against Cell without emotionally preparing him or even telling him this is going to happen, but he gives Cell a Senzu immediately before setting him up in a deathmatch with his son.
• He outright murders Kaio-sama by teleporting Semi-Perfect Cell to his planet. He never apologizes for this. Kaio-sama still holds it against him in Dragon Ball Super.
• Once all is said and done, Goku dissuades the crew from using New Namek's balls to revive him, declaring he's just going to stay dead. His logic is that the world is safer without him, despite the fact that his death was the catalyst for the apocalypse that set this entire plot in motion to begin with.

The Cell Saga is a mess for many reasons, and Goku does not emerge from that unscathed. He consistently makes bad choices to advance the plot or even just 'cause he can.

As part of that, up until Frieza's defeat, Goku had always abandoned his family by circumstance, but in the Cell Saga, he starts doing it by choice. What time he does spend with Gohan is spent trying to pass a torch he never really asks if Gohan wants to accept. Gohan's okay with this at first, but by the time the Cell Games arrive and Goku is telling him to go fight an impossible foe who Goku just healed to ensure it's the hardest fight possible for him, he's lost his taste for it because that's just not who he is.

edited 3rd Aug '15 8:52:20 AM by TobiasDrake

To be fair, at that point he might not have been able to sense ki from such a long distance. He can teleport anywhere, but he is still limited to where he can sense.

That is one of my favorite parts of the show. Ir remember us that, yeah, not everyone actually like fighting all the time. And is one of the few points that Goku is shown to be unambiguously wrong.

Again, to be fair, if he was already dead before Gero started working on the Androids, nothing like that would have happened. Maybe. Still shitty logic, though.

Other than that, I fully agree with the points being made. I think this was all a result of Toriyama not thinking too much on the plot as he went on, but that is how things are if you interpret from an in-story perspective. In the end, I would say Goku's main mistake in raising Gohan, was not realizing his son is not him.

edited 3rd Aug '15 9:08:31 AM by Heatth

Actually, that wouldn't work. Instant Transmission only allows Goku to teleport to people whose ki he can sense. Since the Androids lack ki, he can't go straight to them. Also, the only they could have done this is after or around the time Cell had absorbed Android 17 and Android 18 was in hiding. Even once Krillin found Android 18, there's no way for Goku to no that and teleport over there. Especially since he was already in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber by that point.

Again, Instant Transmission can only take Goku to people. Since I do believe Cell's self-destruct would have blown up the Earth, Goku's only option was to take him to Kaiou-sama's world. Also, Kaiou-sama refused to be resurrected by the Dragon Balls when they wished everyone Cell killed back to life. His grudge is unwarranted.

Have you ever heard of planning for the worst case scenario? I don't think you have.

edited 3rd Aug '15 9:28:28 AM by Zelenal

Goku could have gone to Piccolo once Cell arrived and started to beat them. He probably wouldn't be able to convince the Androids to flee with him at first, but he could have tried. 18 might actually be willing after her brother got absorbed and 16 beaten.

After Cell arrives, Piccolo and 17 start fighting him together, and after Piccolo goes down, 16 starts fighting Cell to protect them. During that time, there's no reason to assume 17 and 18 would be unwilling to escape with Goku.

The fact that Goku was able to hone in on Piccolo and Tien's energy signature and arrive at the scene of the battle to rescue them undercuts any argument based on Goku being incapable of arriving at the scene of the battle. If he had done this before 17 was absorbed and 18 had fled to an island somewhere, he could have rescued them well in advance of Vegeta finishing his training in the RoSaT.

edited 3rd Aug '15 9:45:33 AM by TobiasDrake

They have their review of Resurrection F up on Youtube.

Judging by the situation, I'd say he would've been unable to save 17 - the Androids didn't really internalize that they were boned until Cell absorbed 17 and took a chunk out of 16's head - I doubt 17 would've accepted Goku's help.

After that point, Goku could've honed in on Tien while Tien was holding Cell off (or Cell himself, iirc he doesn't have to teleport right next to someone he's zeroed onto - and either way at the time Cell was being distracted), or just gone to Kame House and flown the rest of the way, since it clearly wasn't far from there. By then, it's likely 18 would've been willing to take the save (though not 16, who wouldn't have been able to do anything about it anyway).

edited 3rd Aug '15 9:58:54 AM by KnownUnknown

The one defense I can think of against Goku not teleporting in to help the Androids is that Android 16 would probably have switched into his Murder Goku protocol if he had. 16's level of sentience is questionable.

The counterpoint to that is that Goku never actually met any of the androids between 16 and 18 at any point until 16's arrival to the Cell Games, while none of the others spent much time interacting with 16, so he would have no way of knowing about this. For all anyone knew, the Androids were trying to kill Goku just for sport, not because of their programming, and Cell's arrival on the scene had pretty firmly kicked the situation across the Godzilla Threshold.

edited 3rd Aug '15 10:08:28 AM by TobiasDrake

Did Bulma mess up with 16 brain when fixing him? I don't think that was the case. During the Cell's games 16 even said to Goku's face he was till after him. So I don't think 16 would have switched to "kill Goku mode" once he recognized Cell's treat. He would have postponed it, just like he actually did eventually.

I do agree wit Unkown that the Androids wouldn't have agreed to Goku's help until 17 was absorbed. Only 16 actually recognized Cell's treat at that point. By the point 16 was defeated, though, I do think 18 would have agreed to anything to get away from Cell.

I thought Bulma rewired 16 to no longer have the Murder Goku protocol, but I can't recall for certain. I could be wrong.

x4 The only problem with that is that Goku would then have to find 16 and 18 himself which, given how they lack ki signatures, he wouldn't be able to easily do. Depending upon how things played out, they could have easily gotten far enough away that Goku couldn't find them before he'd have to go rescue Tenshinhan and Piccolo.

Not necessarily. 18 and 16 only escaped after Tien showed up, when he was buying time for them by stymying Cell with his Kikoho. If he'd showed up while Tien was still firing it, he could grab them, teleport to safety, then go back for Tien and Piccolo.

You mean he was stimmying Cell with his great big all-these-triangles-make-a-square balls.

Yes. In the anime, we even get to see that his triangle hand gesture has a zoom-feature. Somehow.

edited 3rd Aug '15 10:47:10 AM by TobiasDrake

That's truly nonsense, even for this show, but it's the greatest kind of nonsense.

I'm now just imagining Tenshinhan using his Shin Kikouhou as a telescope.

edited 3rd Aug '15 10:52:41 AM by Zelenal

Having never seen Dragon Ball (Or Dragon Ball Z, for that matter), i just accepted that as a feature.

It amplifies and enhances energy. He's just seeing zoomed and enhanced light before he fires KI through it.

I think in the manga they don't really emphasize the triangle. In fact his hands don't actually make a perfect triangle anyway. It is way too round. It is more like a drop.

Yep. He also fires it with one hand after Nappa breaks off his arm, forming an incomplete imitation of the triangle gesture. The video games divide the Kikoho, the one-armed Kikoho, and the multiple-firing Kikoho into separate attacks but that's just because they need to pad out their movelists; same reason they make special attacks out of cool combos the characters performed once.

As for the square blast that it produces, this is actually plot relevant. Tien used the Kikoho to perfectly destroy the arena without harming the spectators during the final match of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai. It was a Hail Mary play to defeat Goku; the logic being that he could fly and Goku couldn't, so without an arena to land on when he came down from his jump, Goku would have no choice but to ring-out.

edited 3rd Aug '15 11:46:36 AM by TobiasDrake

Skipped everything since my last post to make a correction on something I was already clear about: I'm not saying he'd go SS out of anger, I'm saying he could do it out of a personal breakthrough on his relationship with his father, as I'd said before. Vegeta reached it out of a breakthrough on himself. Goten may reach it after one regarding the general family. Who knows?

As he admits, the "review" wasn't really much of one.

"And then Tien shows up, and just decides "I'm going to make triangles into fucking squares!"

edited 3rd Aug '15 11:59:26 AM by wanderlustwarrior

Abridged Vegeta reached it by throwing a temper tantrum until it happened.

edited 3rd Aug '15 12:05:27 PM by TobiasDrake

And crying. Which he did one other time in the series, when his bravado finally broke down and he realized he just wasn't good enough.

I love how nettled Cell sounds in this latest episode, especially when he is imitating "Tri-Clops".