That's the point I'm trying to make. I don't really see what different role he could play in the series if he trained a little more. On one hand it makes sense for him to want to maintain himself. On the other hand since he won't train as much as Goku and Vegeta he'd play the same role for the same reasons as he does. He'd just have more moments to shine as a fighter to show he improved.
I just think they needed a convenient excuse for Freeza to see the classical Super Saiyan form. It's annoying they nerfed Gohan to do so. Especially since the stronger Gohan is the more impressive it is for a villain to beat him. But since Gohan probably won't be relevent anymore it's a relatively minor problem even though it's a glaring continuity issue.
Cell's an outlier. Even when Gohan was the strongest person in the entire universe, it still accomplished less than nothing. It actively made Majin Buu stronger and the threat he posed more dire.
That's not reality ensuing, that's genre ensuing. Reality would be if Gohan's position as the most powerful fighter in the universe meant that he could live a life of peace and nothing would ever threaten him and his family again.
It's the shonen genre that insists that there will always be a villain several times more powerful than the last just around the next corner until the final credits roll. Gohan's unwillingness to bank on the fact that his writer is going to keep throwing increasingly larger threats at him is simply a lack of Genre Savvy.
This does not happen in reality. When a cop arrests a criminal, he does not then have to fight the criminal's father, followed by their mob boss, and then the overarching crime syndicate that their mob belonged to, before going on to battle a physical manifestation of the abstract concept of crime given shape and form, all culminating in a duel to the death with the God of Crime. That's strictly a shonen thing.
edited 7th Dec '15 10:05:39 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I'm siding with Gohan on this one. Even if he could see a Serial Escalation going on, he probably didn't think it would get any farther because the last opponent's power was already inevitably so stupidly beyond their wildest imagination. He probably couldn't comprehend it getting worse until it actually happens.
Seriously; since he's someone who personally fought someone who was so ridiculously strong that he could casually destroy the entire solar system, how could he have possibly thought it would get even worse from there? On paper, it's easy. Actually experiencing it, however, would be a total Mind Screw.
edited 7th Dec '15 10:15:16 AM by BaffleBlend
"It's liberating, realizing you never need to be competent." — UltimatepheerAt this point it's just a matter of patter recognition. Ever since he was four, he had to face a parade of progressively stronger bad guys coming out of the woodwork every few years. Gohan is intelligent, you'd think he'd catch on.
Okay that's sounds awesome. Somebody call Japan.
There's always been a reason for it, though. Largely rooted in his father.
Prior to the seven year timeskip, Gohan's only had two adventures and one of them was completely unnecessary.
Raditz, Nappa, Vegeta, Dodoria, Zarbon, the Ginyu Force, Frieza, Mecha-Frieza, King Cold. These may be broken up into anywhere between 2 and 6 arcs depending on how you define an "arc" but for Gohan, it's one long sequence of battles with the same goddamn guys. Raditz was the first representative of the PTO Gohan ever encountered and was a result of Goku's past catching up to him. Frieza wasn't the next villain, he was the Big Bad of the Myth Arc that's haunted Gohan for his entire life.
Then they came back to Earth just in time for Goku's actions on Earth to catch up with them in the form of the Androids - which only ever became a threat because Goku allowed them to be one, refusing to prematurely abort them because he wanted to fight them. From where Gohan's standing, that entire conflict was superfluous; it exists only because of Goku and Vegeta's love of fighting.
Even Majin Buu can be argued to have been completely unnecessary if Goku and Vegeta hadn't gone off half-cocked and empowered him.
Gohan wasn't there for Piccolo Daimao. He wasn't there for the Red Ribbon Army or Pilaf. He wasn't there for Tien's murderous ambitions or Piccolo's attempt at avenging his own death. He missed everything before the PTO took over the show, and everything after the PTO is a direct consequence of Goku and Vegeta's insistence on making potential problems worse.
From his position, it's not hard to reason that once the PTO was finally defeated and off their back, the Earth would have seen never-ending peace were it not for Goku and Vegeta's incessant determination to have enemies to fight.
edited 7th Dec '15 10:29:13 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.See, everyone keeps missing the point; its not that Gohan doesn't want to fight or has no reason to, its that he's getting weaker for absolutely no reason other than to get him out of the spotlight.
Nowhere has it ever been implied in the series that not training actively lowers your Power Level like it does for Gohan. Krillin barely trains and is still considered stronger than Tien, who does nothing but train. Piccolo does no active training that we can see and is never implied to be any weaker than he was before.
Logically speaking, even if Gohan quit being a fighter and never trained a day in his life, he should still be able to fucking handle his transformations : Its just clunky writing on Toriyama's part to keep the Serial Escalation going, while keeping focus on the likes of Goku & Vegeta. It destroys my Willing Suspension of Disbelief because I can actively tell when things aren't making sense in-universe and are only justified by outside powers.
TL;DR: Its not that Gohan doesn't want to fight, its that Toriyama has to pull new reasons out of his ass and actively nerf him so he doesn't just steamroll everything as he logically should.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I hold to my theory that Gohan is such a nerd now that his battle power is embarrassed to be seen with him.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Piccolo no longer trains hard, he's always meditating or weight training every time we see him. That goes back to my point about most people believing in keeping up some level of fitness. Piccolo's not beating himself to death anymore but he's always putting in some kind of effort.
Krillen and Yamucha don't make as much of an effort, but they still have jobs that routinely keep them standing up and moving...of course outside of GT there was never any reason to assume Gohan got so out of shape again until Revival Of F, and given he was able to whip himself back into shape so quickly by swinging the heavy sword around, Gohan might get back in shape just by returning to his superhero hobby. It could be he fell behind in his own routine due to poor planning. After all, he learned of Videl's pregnancy through a third party. Three to six months of inactivity will do a real number on you, much more than simply slowing down.
edited 7th Dec '15 12:00:48 PM by IndirectActiveTransport
Buldogue's lawyerIf you ask me, it's really only natural that Gohan's not getting as much focus now: his character arc concluded long ago, so there's really not much to do with him now. Giving him roles at this point would be Padding at best unless they began a brand new string of development with him.
edited 7th Dec '15 12:00:44 PM by BaffleBlend
"It's liberating, realizing you never need to be competent." — UltimatepheerIt'd be better padding that repeating 2/3rds of the "new" movies, he's going to get a "new" role anyway because the choice was made to do a prequel rather than move forward with the time skip after Pan was born and he really doesn't need a new role. Him and Videl being Saiyaman and Saiyaman 2 would have been a much preferred method of padding.
Buldogue's lawyerYes.
The Super Saiyan may be an inherent part of the Saiyans' blood, but that doesn't mean it comes naturally to them. Goku and Gohan spent a long time mastering the state. Becoming a Super Saiyan might be a racial trait, but the Full Powered Super Saiyan form is an invention of training and discipline, not a biological instinct.
Sorry to play devil's advocate since I think Gohan's depowering is stupid too, but that part at least does make sense. If Gohan's gotten rusty at transforming after having not done it in a long time, he might just have to relearn Full Powered Super Saiyan.
edited 7th Dec '15 1:22:56 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.But Goku was able to maintain the form throughout his entire fight with Frieza, even go back into it when the fight resumed. So Goku as a completely untrained Super Saiyan is able to have better control over someone who has mastered it, but who has simply not used it in a while?
That....reeks of Fridge Logic to me.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Goku's better at fighting than Gohan is.
This isn't a judgment on their power but on their relative approach. Gohan is reactionary. His best trick was always his Hidden Power, a massive well of strength he could briefly tap into when exposed to stimulus that enraged him. Unlike his father, he didn't eagerly seek out new masters to learn under and new skills to learn. His masters - Piccolo, Goku, the Kaioshins - sought him out. Even his Potential Unlock from Guru was Krillin's idea.
Goku is proactive. His Saiyan instincts allow him to master new techniques and abilities faster, often from just seeing them in use and replicating what he witnessed. He made up his mind one day that he was going to go train under Kame-sennin and that was that. Then he traveled the world seeking new masters to train from inbetween his own adventures. He constantly strives to improve his strength, his skill, and his combat mastery.
In fact, by the time he arrived on Namek, he already had a power-boosting ability and had mastered it to the extent that he could raise his power instantly in tiny bursts, milking all the strength out of it while maintaining a visibly low battle power. He had experience with unstable power boosts well in advance of achieving the Super Saiyan form.
So yes, it makes perfect sense to me that, both characters being inexperienced, Proactive Combat Master Goku would have a much easier time with the Super Saiyan form than Reactive Technical Pacifist Gohan.
edited 7th Dec '15 2:02:37 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

Gohan is still the seventh strongest person in the entire universe. Almost nothing can threaten his family.
edited 7th Dec '15 9:25:31 AM by PushoverMediaCritic