Dragonball Gohanverse is a web-animated series based on the Dragon Ball franchise, created by Daitomodachi of Kakyoin Waifu Connoisseur fame. It revolves around Emo Gohan, a depressed, foul-mouthed and hard-drinking version of Gohan from Universe 7DT.
The first season, consisting of 7 episodes, focuses on Emo's battle with Gohan Black, an evil (and British) Gohan from a different universe who has kidnapped Chi-Chi, intending to...make her a normal mother instead of the sexual deviant she is. Who's really the bad guy here?
In June 2020, Daitomodachi announced that Gohanverse would be part of a larger project called the Gohan Cinematic Universe, or GCU. Similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the GCU is a combined setting with multiple planned story arcs, or "phases". Phase One of the GCU is set to conclude with Dragon Ball Gohanverse: PE and Android 21: A Gohanverse Movie, and Phase Two will begin with the second season of Gohanverse and a second OVA.
The playlist for the series is here
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The Gohan Cinematic Universe provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Slick Gohan's involvement in the story, including a possible fight with Absalon at the end of Season 2, had to be cut due to the sudden death of Slick (the voice actor of all the Slickverse characters).
- Alliance of Alternates: The Council of Gohans, consisting of Gohans from other universes. They have their own set of rules, called the "Gohan Accords."
- Art Evolution: The first 5 episodes of Gohanverse were animated in Source Filmmaker. During production for episode 6, Daitomodachi switched to using Blender.
- Ascended Extra: Emo occasionally appeared in some of Daitomodachi's other Dragon Ball animations before becoming the protagonist of his own series.
- Battle Aura:
- Black has a pink battle aura, shown in the first opening. In Super Saiyan Rosé form, his aura is a lighter shade of pink.
- Users of El Blanco gain a white aura.
- Brick Joke:
- In the first episode of the Gohan Black arc, Emo notes that a corner of their house is clean of Vegeta's stains. In the last episode of the arc Vegeta shows up and notices that his stain is missing.
- When Absalon describes A Pimp Named Gohan in Episode 7, he says that he's richer than Jeff Bezos. Guess who end up hiring Hit to kill him in Hit vs Gohana?
- Calling Your Attacks: Wouldn't be a Dragon Ball animation without this trope.
- The Cameo: Kakyoin makes a brief appearance during Android 21's fight against Slicko Gokhan. He, along with Daki, make a brief appearance in Episode 11 in Emo's Twitch chat as KakyWaifuLover69 and Daiki-chan, respectively
- Excuse Me While I Multitask: To further express his superiority over Emo's incomplete El Blanco form, Gohan Black reads a book Kakashi-style during their Beam Struggle. This is reversed after Emo achieves the true power of El Blanco and takes a moment to post on Twitter, to emphasize him regaining control of the fight while Black inches closer towards a Villainous Breakdown.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Emo shows his Twitch chat to Black, it shows a brief conversation between Kakyoin, Daki, and Klee and that Dai is his top donator.kakyWaifuLover69 (Kakyoin): and that is how i traveled teh galaxy on her bountiful brestskakyWaifuLover69 (Kakyoin): wait nokakyWaifuLover69 (Kakyoin): put the waifus back on stream!Daiki-chan (Daki): Kak, there weren't any waifus to begin with?kakyWaifuLover69 (Kakyoin): quiet redcap, im looking for those sweet anime breadsts!Daiki-chan (Daki): What are breadsts?kakyWaifuLover69 (Kakyoin): its hard to type with only one handSpark-knightKlee (Klee): Why does uncle Kaky have only one hand?Daiki-chan (Daki): Kid, you don't want to know.
- Fusion Dance:
- Gohan Black is the result of Zamasu merging with the Gohan of Universe KAL10 to save him from being erased from existence by El Hermano.
- Daitomodachi confirmed that Emo will fuse with someone in the series, and the trailer for the Android 21 movie seems to hint that that someone is Slick Goku. In the episode itself they do fuse with the Potara earrings.
- Hero Antagonist: The first few episodes of Season 1 paint Black as one compared to Emo, since he appears to genuinely want to reform Chi-Chi and give Emo a chance at a normal life and family. However, he goes too far in his efforts, which causes him to lose the moral high ground.
- Metronomic Man Mashing: Black does this to Emo in the Season 1 opener.
- Gets a Call-Back in Episode 11, where Zamasu does this to Gohan A.
Emo Gohan: Deja vu! I’ve been in this place before. - Mystical White Hair: The El Blanco form and Oni King form gives its users this.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Due to Emo and Slick Goku killing Android 21, this causes Baby Gohan to go rogue and try to use the Mulit-Dimensional Dragon Balls to wipe out every Gohan in the multiverse!
- Origins Episode: The History of Gohan Black details Black's origin.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Absalon states that every Gohan on the council, himself included, hates Emo Gohan.
- Prequel: The History of Gohan Black and Absalon vs. El Hermano take place before the first season of Gohanverse, and explain Black's origin and how El Hermano got sealed in the Dead Zone respectively.
- Re-Cut: After episode 7 was taken down due to copyright issues, Daitomodachi announced that he would be working on an "extended cut" of the episode.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: El Blanco users have these.
- Shout-Out:
- The Council's base of operations is the Normandy from Mass Effect.
- Absalon's Kamehameha Kick in Absalon VS El Hermano, Gohana's Lightning Wolf Fang Fist in Hit vs Gohana, and Black's Holy Light Grenade in Episode 11 brings with it the "flash attack name one letter at a time before framing result of attack with the full name" title card aesthetic of Kamen Rider Zero-One.
- Crossing over with Mythology Gag, the trailer for season 2 is done in the style of Toonami, voiceover included.
- When Piccolo punches a tree he says to himself "Power, I need more Power!" a quote from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening. Much like Vergil, Piccolo is becoming obsessed with power to protect his loved ones at the expense of his loved ones.
- The pose Piccolo strikes before transforming into his Oni King form is almost one-to-one as the one Goliath takes in the opening of Gargoyles.
- The second OP for the Saint Gohan Beast arc contains slight references to Naruto and Spider-Man: The Animated Series, specifically it recreates shots from those series’ own OPs.
- Shown Their Work: Despite refraining from profanity otherwise, Gohan Black uses the word "cuckold" to describe Kakyoin at one point, justifying himself by saying that it's "Shakespearean". As the Internet will tell you, he's not wrong in the slightest: "cuckold" is a word originating all the way back in the 13th century (it's taken from how the cuckoo bird is known for laying eggs in other birds' nests), and Shakespeare's plays often featured the word as a demeaning descriptor for certain characters— for example, Othello has Iago use the word as an insult to prey on the titular character's fear of his wife's infidelity.Black: Look it up!
- Silence Is Golden: The History of Gohan Black has a montage of the Son family of Universe KAL10 spending time with one another while Goku's heart disease slowly begins to kill him, interspersed with Zamasu trying and failing to find redeeming qualities among the mortals of Universe KAL10, which only has a melancholic piano melody in the background and no sound effects or dialogue. Another music-only scene happens in the same OVA, as Gohan cries over his mom's death and El Hermano erases Universe KAL10.
- Slasher Smile: El Hermano pulls this off multiple times, particularly in the Absalon VS El Hermano OVA. Android 21 pulls off a few of her own in her movie.
- Take That!:
- Grand Priest Gohan informs Emo that he can play with the room's Google Stadia whenever he needs entertainment during their year of training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, which only depresses Emo further. It's revealed two episodes later that Emo even read and memorized the entirety of the Gohan Accords because he would rather do anything else besides touching the console.
Grand Priest Gohan: (to Absalon) And you said getting one was a waste of money!
Emo Gohan: It was.- Despite El Hermano effectively being a villainous representation of fans who disliked how Gohan was increasingly Demoted to Extra following his battle against Cell, one of the things that prevents him from being a case of Take That, Audience! is how the series regularly makes fun of a number of plot points from the following Buu Saga:
- The Potara Fusion— used by Emo Gohan and Slick Goku to take out Android 21— is outright called a Deus ex Machina by El Hermano.
- While El Hermano lists many power-ups that he would spare a Gohan over, such as the Kaioken or Super Saiyan God transformation, the Elder Kai training and resultant "Ultimate" form are not among them. It's implied that the multitude of Gohans he killed in the "Absalon vs El Hermano" OVA were using it, and the one confirmed individual user is unceremoniously killed off by Android 21.
- The Gohan who gets absorbed by Android 21 also remarks that Videl looked better when she had her original Girlish Pigtails hairstyle.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Absalon, Black, and Emo don't like each other (the former two really disliking the latter), but have to team up to stop Baby Gohan from wiping out all Gohans in the multiverse.
- Title Drop: In episode 7:Absalon: You're part of the Gohanverse, kid. You best get used to it.
- Villain Protagonist: The first few episodes of Season 1 paint Emo as one in comparison to Black, since he only wants to rescue Chi-Chi so he won't lose his source of income. But when Black goes too far…
- You Are Already Dead: A non-lethal example in Baby Gohan vs Kefla. At the end of their fight Baby Gohan reveals to Kefla that she fell under his mind control abilities at the start of the fight when she got some of his blood on her. This caused her to unconsciously hold back while fighting him and he defeats her by simply ordering her to fall asleep.
