Well, if someone does something they don't enjoy specifically for their family (as I said, dad at the One Direction concert) then I think that speaks well of them as a family man.
There's just not a whole ton Vegeta enjoys in life aside from fighting, sparring, and training, so I'm not sure how much Bulma and Trunks can participate in that.
The worst you can say about Vegeta is that he doesn't hide that he's not enjoying himself (and that is important tbf), but that's really it.
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Family is secondary to Vegeta until the situation is literally life or death. Again, that's a huge step up from where he started, but decent father and husband it does not make.
He's like the dad in one of those movies where the father/husband is super busy and/or distant until their kid/wife gets kidnapped in which case they go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge to get them back. It shows they care, but it doesn't magically make up for everything else (or shouldn't, anyway).
edited 6th Jan '18 12:41:01 PM by LSBK
Make it clear what he's always been?
Like, nothing Goku does in Super strikes me as out of character. Of course Goku wouldn't care when his kids were born or would interrupt training for something that to him has no impact on their safety or comfort. He didn't care enough to return to them when he could after Namek. Goku doesn't know his birthday, or ever shown any inclination he particularly cares about it, or even what his own age is. He'd obviously assume its the same for everyone. And of course he'd see Vegeta, who is equally or more obsessed with Training than he his as sharing the same values.
Idle thought; this was stated on the last page:
Did he, though?
Goku marries Chi-Chi after winning the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai and then the story timeskips forward to Goku introducing his friends to Gohan. We have no idea what the intervening years were like for him, other than the fact that Piccolo spent those years training to kill him and, unlike Gohan's seven-year skill decay, Goku seems to have kept pace with Piccolo just fine.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I didn't say Goku stopped training, I said he wouldn't have gone off on long journeys that would otherwise allow him to miss the birth or not even understand what pregnancy or kissing are.
And, yeah, Super hasn't given Goku any traits he didn't have before, but they're certainly being played up a lot more. Which is apparently to Toriyama's vision, but, well, you can disagree with a writer about their "vision" making a character better.
edited 6th Jan '18 1:01:20 PM by LSBK
Okay you know what this is flat out complete BULLSHIT!!!!
Goku was never an incompetent father at least from the start. Z started with him being a family man raising Gohan & being there providing for the first several years of Gohan's life till his death in Raditz's battle. He may not be the perfect father but he still did his best before they decided to turn him into a dumbass fight monkey.
You should not take Goku's characterization in Super as truly indicative as to who he truly is cause ya wanna know what Super does. Super does what later seasons of The Simpsons did to Flanders or later seasons of Family Guy did to the later cast, flanderization.
Though this is obvious considering Super is a sequel series 20 years later with known severe writing problems. If your getting all your info from Super then your getting it from a bad source.
edited 6th Jan '18 1:36:13 PM by slimcoder
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Goku's a pretty decent dad in the Saiyan and Freeza arcs and then it's all downhill from there.
Like, Super has definitely cranked up all these attributes a lot, but they were present right from the Cell arc at least.
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Usually the author knows their characters pretty well, dude. And it's not just Super. It's in keeping with his characterization in Z as well as in Dragon Ball. Literally the only time we know that he spent to go home and be a family man was offscreen, and even then as mentioned above, he was still in some way training and keeping up with Piccolo. Later in Z, he was dead for years, and he didn't once ask King Kai to let him speak with his wife or second child, even knowing full well that he could.
And when he was spending time with Chi Chi and Gohan? He'd pretty much cut his friends out of his life. Goku does not have the focus fo sustain training, family, and friends/rivals/mentors. One of the latter two frequently falls by the wayside.
I've been thinking about something since this last couple of pages - usually it annoys me when people excuse a character as being aloof or inconsiderate by assuming they're autistic when they clearly have the capacity to understand and choose... but maybe Goku might actually be, and that's okay if he is.
edited 6th Jan '18 2:01:10 PM by wanderlustwarrior
When did I say authors don't know their characters? I just said you can disagree with an author about what's best for the character. That and Toriyama has by his own admission forgotten a lot of what he wrote, and also it is entirely possible to disagree with an author's interpretation of their own work. I'm not full on Death of the Author, but I'm not going to say "The author said this, so it's definitely what I'm going to think" either.
Goku may have always had the traits in Super but he has not always been written the way he is written in Super. That's an important distinction.
edited 6th Jan '18 1:47:54 PM by LSBK
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Okay aside from getting Gohan to fight Cell what else does he do?
Cause going downhill implies he does a lot of bad stuff.
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Eh you can say the same for everyone else. They kinda just stop talking to each other for years at a time between arcs.
Yeah Toriyama is very forgetful & their is contradictions in his claims so I'm not inclined to completely take his word for the matter.
edited 6th Jan '18 1:47:38 PM by slimcoder
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."![]()
I don't even super mind him getting Gohan to fight Cell, it's giving Cell the Senzu bean that's being a terrible dad, as is not using the Instant Transmission to return to earth immediately after he learned it. Like, not even returning quickly to save everyone from friggin Freeza, but returning quickly to spend time with his family. He would prefer to just travel by spaceship than return to see his family again after he nearly died and hasn't seen them for almost two years
Let's take just Goku's fatherhood and family actions in Z if we're going to disregard Super and DB:
- Starts off with a couple of years as dad and father, all offscreen, and all without contacting lifelong friends.
- Finally introduces son to friends, son gets kidnapped by Goku's own family (brother), Goku goes to fight him.
- Dies.
- Trains, in order to fight stronger guys and protect planet, including his family.
- Doesn't check up on his son that he died rescuing. Also doesn't address his (long-lost, antagonist) brother being condemned to hell, ever. (that last point is giving me flashbacks to Supernatural...)
- Friends die. Comes back to Earth. Saves son, beats up a bad guy, but no actual punishment to people who killed his friends.
- Allows son off to God/Kami/Kai knows where, with no further training, while he heals so he can train (eventually to fight people and bring back his friends)
- Goes to Namek. Fights bad guys, including one that killed his best friend and threatened his son. Almost lets him go.
- Sends son home. Spends years away from family again, only returning when they might die.
- Future Trunks timeline: Dies a couple years after this, with no more bad guys. Androids kill everyone. Doesn't work with King Kai to use Namekian balls to save anyone (not that he ''had' to, but still.
- Main series timeline: leaves wife, goes off to train, for once with son and son's actual father figure. A couple heart attack spasms later, trains with son again. Recognizes son's growth and strength as a fighter, not as a chronically abandoned pre-teen. Recognizes son could surpass him as a fighter.
- Fights, loses, sends son in to beat opponent he couldn't, heals opponent who could and would likely kill his son.
- He himself realizes he may not be thinking straight, as a fighter or father
- Dies.
- Helps son win fight.
And then there's the Buu arc:
- Completely absent for the first seven years of his second son's life, doesn't call, allow for revival, or anything.
- Only comes back for 24 hours in order to fight his friends.
- Leads charge for a necessary fight... which he then miscalculates against both Majin Vegeta and Buu, to enjoy himself more, dooming much of planet.
- Volunteers his and Vegeta's untested children as opponents. They almost die.
- Due to removing himself from plot, his sons and wife do die.
- Beats the bad guy, leaves, then goes off to train the reincarnated bad guy, abandoning his family.
Whether my abbreviation is jade or rose tinted, it's undeniable that the only family time he had was Gohan's first 5 years, and then three years and one HTC year, of training to fight.
By all rights, Goten should either hate Goku, or be one of those estranged sons who just calls dad by their first name.
Well how far something is doesn't ever seem to be a problem, he just has to know where they are at to sense them.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Someone clearly did
Speaking of which. You say Goku was "Providing" for Gohan. But he's never held a job. Like, one can say the money from the World Tournament was some providing, but that's not something Goku was doing all those years he was (aledgedly) raising Gohan.
@Wanderlustwarrior Don't forget the "I'm gonna leave alive (And heal!) all the people who threatened/tried to kill my son and bank that I'll always be there and able to stop them"
edited 6th Jan '18 2:13:39 PM by Ghilz

Vegeta is a tsundere dad. He says he won't go because Bulma would be mad at him but it's pretty clear he thinks it would be wrong not to be there anyway. Bulma even notices him being tsuntsun about his daughter and tells Trunks to go show her to him.
Not exactly great but he isn't being forced and he isn't indifferent.