Headscratchers / Dragon Ball The Show

• What's with all the grunting sounds? How many times have we all seen stuff online about Z fighters taking a crap?
  • Presumably, because a character producing absurd amounts of power with obvious difficulty and staying dead silent the entire time would be really freakin' weird. The grunting sounds are annoying (and, of course, lend themselves to lowbrow humor) but a lack of them would be disconcerting.
    • Try clenching your muscles really really hard as if you are charging up. Hurts a little. Imagine doing this while generating on the order of (estimating) several giga-joules of energy.
    • I don't know about you guys, but hearing that grunting actually psyched me up. Maybe I'm just weird.
    • When me and my friends lift weights at the gym, we grunt a lot, especially during the final reps. We never think of that as weird.
  • It's called kiai. As far as transforming/powering up, it could be the same train of thought as well as keeping the characters familiar. Remember, after Gohan reaches the Super Saiyan 2 form, he's VERY quiet and it's VERY unsettling.

• Why do people keep say Toriyama originally intended to end the series at the Freeza Saga when there is absolutely no proof of it?
  • He actually said so in a Shonen Jump interview. Actually, it was an extension for the loyal fans, but more because of Executive Meddling that it continued.
    • He's also said that his initial plan was to stop it after the Piccolo arc: Goku's grown up and married, he finally won the Budokai, Piccolo's defeated, everybody's alive and happy.
    • Fun fact: Dragon Ball Z Kai is touted as being DBZ "as the creator original intended it," so it's likely to end without ever getting into the Garlic Jr. Saga or beyond. Tough break on that version of Krillin (what with not getting the hot, blonde wife).
    • No, Kai is going through the whole series. Except Garlic Jr., of course, since that's filler.
  • It's just something that went around in the early days of the internet that people just accepted without question. The supposed interview where he mentions this never existed; see the following essays on Toriyama's writing process and his actual statements on ending/continuing the series. [1]
    • The only documented ending points that this troper knows of are 1) When he said he'd planned to end it after they gathered the dragon balls and 2) When he said in one of the early post-volume letters that he was thinking of running it for 10 volumes.

• So according to Dragon Ball Online, Goku and Vegeta knew their lives were coming to an end and left Earth for one final battle. Why the rush? It's not like they'd cease to exist after dying, they could just have their fight in Other World.
  • Like GT, Online has very questionable canonicity - whether Toriyama has given it his stamp of approval or not. I can't say for sure but I imagine that they were worried Vegeta was going to Hell... he may have had a heel face turn, but lets be honest: Vegeta never truly became Heaven material did he?
    • Yes, actually. In the end of the Buu arc, the Dragon Balls are used to specifically resurrect all the good people who died since the start of the tournament, and Goku conspicuously points out that Vegeta being raised by that wish means yes, he is one of the good guys now.
    • There's a massive difference between being good enough to be ressurected and being good enough for Heaven. Heaven is suppposed to be where the pure of heart live after death. The evil go to Hell/HFIL and the rest go to Limbo as a little puff of smoke. If Enma considers a man who spent his entire life killing, torturing and generally being being a douche to everyone he met - a man who was only a hero for a few years - in the same league as Goku or Olibu then frankly someone needs to seriously consider replacing him. It should also be pointed out that we know for certain Vegeta didn't go to Heaven during the Buu saga because Piccolo outright said so; and seeing as Kami was on first name terms with Enma as well as knowing Fortuneteller Baba (a woman with the power to grant Afterlife Visa's) he would have had a vast knowledge of what makes you a Heaven, Hell or Limbo type of person.
    • Basically above. Sacrificing himself to defeat Buu was probably the act that kept him from going to full-on HFIL.
    • Not even that. Piccolo (who has all of Kami's knowledge by this point) flat-out tells Vegeta that he's going straight to hell for all he's done, Heroic Sacrifice or not. Yama kept Vegeta around because the powers that be figured he might be needed as a last resort against Buu in the future, and they were right. Furthermore, is Limbo established as a specific place of rest? It seems to just be the station between heaven and hell. Yama tells Goku "You've done enough good to go straight to the upper world!" It sounds like a simple "good go to heaven, bad go to hell" rule, unless one's killed by a "demon" (such as Piccolo Sr. or his spawn), in which case they are established as drifting in limbo, unable to rest.
    • Except that Yama (or someone in that whole decision-making process) seems to have the ability to override this morality scale, as shown when Dabura was sent to Heaven instead, based on the logic that he would enjoy hell too much. So, presumably, someone could do the same for Vegeta if they so wished...or maybe they WOULD, in fact, send him down to HFIL, but give him the task of keeping all the villains down there in line. That way, they wouldn't have to call down Goku or Pikkon every time there was a small squabble. And something tells me that Vegeta wouldn't say no to the opportunity to put Frieza in his place as often as he deemed necessary.
    • Dragon Ball's afterlife runs on a reincarnation system, where Yama's office is just a pit stop before being sent on to your next life (with some folks receiving an extended stay in Hell first). Getting hang around in Other World as long as you want, going where you please, is a very special privilege only given out to those the Kais take a personal interest in.
  • Saiyans are a warrior culture. To die of old age means that they weren't fighting enough. Can you imagine someone like Vegeta spending his remaining years sitting in a home being spoon fed by a nurse?

• Why are there so few female Saiyans? Was Goku's mother just some random woman nobody cared about? There's only the one I can recall for sure, on Bardock's squad, but even assuming there are others, it still seems the numbers are a little short.
  • We mostly saw the fighters. The females were, presumably, mostly off making babies, and are less combat-oriented. The two females of saiyan blood we've seen (Pan and Bra/Bulla), were notably less powerful and, in Bra's case, less interested in fighting in the first place.
    • We also have the female member of Bardock's group. Fasha, and the fact that she along with the rest of the group's growing power levels (IE, taking down an enemy encampment that not even Frieza's elite forces could handle) was what caused Frieza to become paranoid enough to destroy the Saiyan race to prevent them from potentially overthrowing them would indicate that she was pretty strong.
  • The only time in the story when female saiyans were available was during Bardock's movie, and the only one that mattered to the plot was Fasha, which is why none other appeared.
  • We can potentially solve this problem using science. If we look at the children born during the series - Gohan, Goten, Trunks, Pan, and Bra; then take into account out of the thirty odd Saiyans we have seen there are only two females we can resonably conclude that the male birth rate is at least 60%. Given that we know the Saiyans evolved as a warrior race and have developed certain traits to aid these characteristics (decreased aging, ability to increase their strength after every battle) it would make sense that they produce far more of the physically stronger gender to increase their chances to fight. We should also remember that if Vegeta and Nappa's attitude toward women is any indication the Saiyan race is probably an incredibly sexist one that has limits on women fighting. It would therefore seem likely that Fasha was a very unique case.
    • Of course in the manga we never see any women at all, so there could have been billions of them on Planet Vegeta for all we know.
    • Maybe there aren't any!
  • A civilization like the Saiyans that exists in a state of near-constant war, regularly send off their new-born offspring in pods to the four corners of the galaxy and are perfectly willing to murder and assault each other for little to no reason could only survive long term if their population is continuously replenished. Put simply the women need to stay home and make babies. The closest human civilization that comes close to the Saiyans are the Spartans; and in that instance the women considered it a matter of intense pride and honour that they stayed back and raised the strongest and most capable children possible in order to keep Sparta powerful. It is also worth noting that the Spartan women were also perfectly capable warriors, with rights and privileges far beyond that of females from other ancient and classical civilizations and frequently defended their city from attacks or helped train their sons. They were far from the little oppressed housewives that people frequently envisage when they think of women from the past. In my opinion if you just substitute Spartan for Saiyan every single time you have a social question like this you already have a quality set of answers standing by.

• Did Toriyama have ANY say about what went into the Anime? I assume he at least watched the episodes first, and if that's true then in certain episodes, such as Roshi's fake story about the creation of the Dragon Balls, why didn't Toriyama say to them "Actually I have my own plan on the origins of the Dragon Balls..." and even if he didn't watch the episodes why did Toei think that it'd be a good idea to make their own origin for them, the series is NAMED after them so surely they thought Toriyama would eventually get to the origin of them? The same goes for other things but that one comes to mind most.
  • Not that much say. In fact according to him he was waaaay too busy drawing the manga to even watch the show. He freely admits he hasn't seen the movies either. However he did pick voice actors like Nozawa for their parts, so I don't think he was entirely powerless either.
  • He also did a couple of character designs for filler arcs. IIRC, both Grand Kai from the Otherworld Tournament and Giru from GT were created by him. So he wasn't completely uninvolved in the anime, but he didn't have much input as to the story.

• Was it ever explained exactly why Kami created the Dragon Balls? Or does Toriyama want us to not think about it too much?
  • To grant the people of Earth's wishes of course!
    • I mean the real reason, of course.
    • Because the original unseparated guy wanted all the power that came with ruling the world, and to do that, 1) he had do all sorts of stuff like generally stay at the tower and not lord his power over the humans, and 2) after he split, Kami wanted to be helpful.
  • I always thought that after the massive genocide and disaster that King Piccolo's reign caused, Kami created the Dragon Balls to bring hope.
    • He wanted people to journey for them, they were supposed to be very hard to locate, but not impossible; so as to give people hope in even the darkest of times. Unfortunately, Bulma's dragon radar arguably made the Dragon Balls nothing more than a simple Reset Button; greatly cheapening their intended purpose as a grand symbol for hope. Whether or not you consider GT to be canon, you have to admit that the idea behind the Shadow Dragon Saga fit well into the canon, at least on a fundamental level (the dragon balls were being constantly abused and there were consequences due to that abuse.)
    • Yeah, according to his explanation after the battle against Piccolo Jr, the Dragon Balls were meant to grant a miracle to a hero diligent enough to gather them all, presumably after an entire lifetime of searching.
  • He created them as an unknowing imitation of the original Namekian Dragon Balls. Something of a racial memory, perhaps.

• Why were so many heroes and villains afraid that they would die if the planet they were standing on blew up? I mean, Vegeta and Nappa had the ability to destroy planets at the very beginning of DBZ and Goku was able to survive their blasts and it stands to reason that a planet that can be destroyed by a relatively weak ki blast, then the planet's explosion couldn't produce much more energy than it took to create the blast to cause a self destruct in the first place. And they never mentioned fear of being unable to breath in space, it was always the fear that the explosion would kill them.
  • This is stated by Frieza in the Original Language Anime; essentially that he would destroy the planet because Goku wouldn't be able to breathe in space, but Frieza could.
    • He also said it in the English dub.
    • He also said in the original Japanese manga, so it's canon.
    • Vegeta was therefore committing an almost suicidal action when he tried to blow up Earth. Shows just how off the rocker he gets when he finds he's outclassed.
    • Not necessarily. If Frieza, who was much, much stronger than Vegeta at that point had to wait five minutes for his blast to destroy Namek, Vegeta's would have likely taken even longer, which would give him time to get off the planet and leave everyone else to die.
    • In Frieza's case, he was in his final form (and each of his forms was explicitly stated to have less emotional control of itself than his original) and (according to Goku) wanted to fight Goku (more or less) fair and square, so he subconsciously limited the area of detonation in his attack to just nuke the core rather than the planet (Goku deliberately did a similar thing with his Genki-Dama, which he was afraid would destroy Namek if he couldn't control it), which is why there was a countdown at all. Goku even pointed out that if he really wanted to nuke the planet, there was nothing even SSJ Goku could have done to keep Frieza from just firing another blast straight down and finishing the job. My guess is that Vegeta can hold his breath for long enough for his ship to come find him. Goku's shown pretty good lung capacity much earlier in the series, and Vegeta subsequently stays underwater for many minutes while escaping from Frieza's base.
    • Surviving in deep space isn't just a matter of holding your breath, though.
    • The very first scene of the first Episode (of Kai at least) was Bardock, Goku's Dad, in Outer Space yelling at Frieza. Vegeta and Nappa are shown in Outer Space at least once (although thay may have been filler). I'm willing to bet that Goku could survive in space after Namek blew, however Goku has never had to test that ability and knows very little about his people. Frieza was just bluffing when he implied that Goku wouldn't have to cause him to panic.
    • For the last time, everything about Bardock apart from the fact that he existed and that he looked like Goku is filler. Popular, well-liked, well-known filler, but filler nevertheless.
    • The being alive in space part was made canon by his new Mini Manga.
    • What Mini Manga? If you're talking about the "Episode Bardock" thing, it wasn't really done by Toriyama. It was done by Ooishi Naho, with Toriyama as an 'advisor', which basically means he did nothing. I don't count it as canon.
    • Too bad that Toriyama does.
    • But everyone knows that Goku was able to travel to the moon using only his power pole, which is not nearly as fast as the DBZ flying. Goku has spent quite a bit of time without atmosphere.
  • I don't think Saiyans can actually survive in space longer than a moment or two. That's how long Goku would have been in space itself to drop off the Rabbit Gang and that story seems to indicate that the Dragon World moon has an atmosphere. Bardock was probably on the outer edges of Planet Vegeta's atmosphere; technically in space but just barely within the protection of the planet. Vegeta and Nappa were hovering near their space pods which were most likely casting an artificial atmospheric bubble.
  • Meanwhile, back with 'Vegeta blowing up Earth' earlier in this conversation, my personal theory is that Vegeta kinda forgot that he couldn't breathe in space. As to why he could breathe in space during that filler scene, I'm assuming that the ship he had could give out large enough amounts of oxygen around itself. Then again, I could just be looking too much into it...

• What's with the idea of presenting something as high and sacred and then watering it down? I mean, back in Dragon Ball, "Kami's Tower" was this lofty forbidden place that only the strongest could enter. Fast forward in time, and you have little kids running around God's own palace. Okay, "Super Saiyan" kids, but still.
  • The "only the strongest" thing is descriptive, not proscriptive. You can only get there if you're strong enough to climb all the way up- which, at the time the statement was made, was something only the strongest could do. Then power levels started rising, as per shonen standard. By the time the main characters start hanging out there, they're all strong enough to make the climb. Or the flight, to be more accurate.

• Just out of curiosity, just how sick was Toriyama of the show toward the end? Why didn't he just let someone else handle it if he were tired of the series? Someone he could trust would do the series justice?
  • I can think of a reason.
  • Think about it: Why would he hand over an obvious cash-making series to someone else and have them recieve all the money instead? 'Tis a sad fact sometimes: The creator cares more about money than the thing he/she's working on, and it shows, especially during the Buu saga.
  • But if Toriyama wanted Gohan to be the hero of the Buu saga, why didn't he just go on and do it? To hell with what the fans and other people wanted! He created the damned thing, so he gets to have final say as to what happens.
    • The "bending to the fans' will" thing was just an urban legend. Toriyama didn't let Gohan be the final hero because he decided that he wouldn't fit the part as well as Goku. Sure, fans would say he decided wrong, but he did in fact have the final say.

• So what happens to Bardock after Episode of Bardock?
  • It isn't canon in any way (to the point that it wasn't even written by Toriyama) so it's fair to say that until Ooishi makes another one Bardock's fate is left completely to your imagination. There is probably some fan fiction somewhere that could help.
    • Well the fanon that most fans have constructed is the idea that Bardock by traveling into the past became the "Original Super Saiyan" of Legend that all the stories of the Super Saiyan are derived from. The one that Frieza's lineage feared, and the one that all Saiyans wanted to be like. It is also implied that Bardock landed on Planet Vegeta years before the Saiyans arrived, so his presence there sets the events of the entire series in motion.
    • As happens too often with Dragon Ball, even the clearly canon parts, the facts contradict themselves. If the legend of the Super Saiyan is a Saiyan myth and not a Frieza's racial myth why did Frieza pass that kind of hope onto his subjects instead of keeping it on the down low? Bardock clearly didn't destroy the planet he was on but maybe Vegeta heard that the last Super Saiyan blew up the planet he was on when he transformed from the same guy who told King Kai that planet Vegeta's guardian summoned a comet to blow up the planet. A guy whose credibility was high enough that Dodoria who's at worst in Frieza's top ten trusted officials thought he was holding onto a valuable secret when he revealed the truth to Vegeta. I really think the Dragon Ball world is just really really unbelievably bad at keep records and passing them around reliably.

• The show has a No Hugging, No Kissing policy, but yet they don't hesitate to show genitals, buttocks, perverted old men, and women in bikinis. Am I the only one who is confused about this logic?
  • No Hugging, No Kissing? There are three main relationships in this show. Goku who loves his wife but doesn't pay attention to the relationship beyond Chi Chi brings me dinner, Vegeta who for 90% of the relationship thought of Bulma as a one-night stand and Gohan and Videl who did kiss, hug and tell each other they love each other constantly.
  • Well you did make a good point, it's just they they never illustrated the scenes, but showed naked people all the time. What gives?
  • Values Dissonance. In Japan, nudity and stuff is just more accepted as normal, and is as much fodder for jokes as farts and pratfalls in the US. And it's not so much a No Hugging, No Kissing policy as Akira Toriyama feels he doesn't write romance very well, so he didn't include it on the page.

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