Dragon Ball Z Abridged

That just sounds like standard denial. Or was he basing that off of fights he's seen from Goku?

At least one comment is based off his performance, yeah.

Or he just finds it hard to believe his hero and the person he admires and aspires to be like was beaten by some punk kid.

Hell, have we considered that Tien didn't actually know he'd become stronger than Tao-Pai Pai.

When they actually fight in the 23 Budokai, he doesn't seem to fully believe it himself until the fight (and that's being generous) starts. When was the last time he even saw Tao? Tien might not have had anything to compare himself to.

Also, all the beating he took might have skewed his perspective. He never realized he'd become stronger until the opportunity to actually fight Tao came up, so at that point in the story (three years before their match) it's natural for him to not know he's already surpassed his teacher.

Or at least that's my thought on the whole thing.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Dec 16th 2018 at 6:45:15 AM

Oh it's definitely bpossible, and it'd fit the direction of his character. But what makes it weird is that it doesn't get addressed.

That's true, but a lot of things in this series get swept under the rug or just ignored.

That's kinda how it is with Dragonball, not that other series are that much better.

That the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai even treats Tenshinhan surpassing Taopaipai like some great culmination of his character, even though Taopaipai already got curbstomped by a Goku that Tenshinhan beat just makes it even weirder to me.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 16th 2018 at 6:58:07 AM

Well, Tao Pai Pai' was explicitly powered up, which made it obvious that he needed a power up if he was going to be a threat. Kuririn was afraid of robot Tao even though he's stronger than old Tao by a pretty large margin.

I think the emotional climax was more important than anything else, and him beating Tao wasn't supposed to show us anything other than him being badass. Also indirectly shows that he's still stronger than Kuririn at this stage.

and Seems logical.

Although we should remember that Tien didn't beat Goku. He won that fight, but he didn't beat Goku.

That still doesn't change the fact that it is weird to have the main arc villain keep talking up to a guy Goku already defeated years ago. Like, you can explain within the logic of the universe, but it is still sounds weird in the narrative.

In that sense, it would make sense if Goku haven't defeated Tao Pai Pai in the Red Ribbon arc. Frankly, just change a few details so that Tao simply went away after "killing" Goku and nothing in that arc would change. Then Tao would still by the mysterious stupidly strong mercenary that defeated Goku by the time the Crane School came around, so the fact he has appendices (or people of the same school, anyway) would be more meaningful, as would be his ultimate defeat latter.

Of course, having a villain defeat Goku and just vanish for a while wouldn't be satisfying for the type of story Dragon Ball is, so that wouldn't really work in the big picture.

It seems worth reminding everyone that there was a three year gap between Tao's defeat and Tenshinhan's fight with Goku. It could be that Tien was about pre-Karin Tower Goku's level at that time, so Tao would be impressive to Tien.

Also they only know Goku beat Tao, but not necessarily how easy/hard it was.

For me, what I like is that Grandpa Gohan and Goku fought pretty evenly after Tao, even though Tao was tougher than Jackie Chun at the tournament, and Roshi says he's scared of Tao.

At some point, Gohan surpassed Roshi.

...I suppose maybe he kept his body and trained while dead, but. Aside from weird Annin filler there's no indication of that.

At some point, Grandpa Gohan was the strongest person on, Earth.

And since Kakarot was sent to Earth because the power levels were so low. There'a an honestly funny irony to that.

Given that he had the right to return to Earth for a day, it's not a stretch to think he was allowed to keep his body.

...I mean, so does Frieza though.

The return for a day thing.

Hell, Vegeta during Buu.

Baba doesn't entirely seem to just use that trick on the deserving.

She explicitly uses it because she likes to hire fighters for her tournaments.

Edited by unnoun on Dec 17th 2018 at 8:30:25 AM

But Gohan specifically had an arrangement to be brought back if Goku challenged Baba. It wasn't something she just did for her convenience.

For Vegeta's case, Enma did it because of Boo, and both Goku and Enma mention that it's lucky he thought ahead to do so. It's definitely not something that would happen in normal circumstances, and Baba has waaaay less authority than Enma.

Freeza would presumably be the same since the situation is that much more dire.

Edited by Saiga on Dec 17th 2018 at 11:34:08 PM

...Doesnt she have a pink ghost as her assistant?

My beef with Gohan keeping his body is that he'd need a sponsor and there's no indication he ever met God. Also his death is treated as a certainty; there's no ambiguity around his corpse mysteriously vanishing as it would if God gave him the thumbs up to keep it.

Goku knows the full moon monster killed Gohan, implying that his body was still there the next morning.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 17th 2018 at 11:32:09 AM

I thought I remembered a line where Goku said something like "I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find you!". Either way, Gohan has his body when he fights Goku at Baba's, so maybe he was allowed to have a body in heaven and got some training in to prepare before the fated day came.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Dec 17th 2018 at 12:09:50 PM

As Unnoun noted, Vegeta and Frieza have their bodies when they're given their 24-hour passes too. It'd kinda defeat the purpose if you weren't allowed to temporarily use your body during the pass. So Gohan having his body during his 24-hour window isn't indicative of anything.

Reading back through the fight, Kame-sennin chastizes himself for not recognizing Gohan right off the bat. He starts out the fight like, "Who is this amazingly strong guy?!" but ends it like, "OHHHHH it's Gohan, that explains everything." So yeah, Gohan probably is just legit that strong.

The topic of resurrecting Gohan also comes up, but Gohan refuses it because he's fond of all the hot babes in the afterlife. Which doesn't really sound like he's spending his time training.

Endurance training. Plenty of fights have been lost due to stamina issues.

I'd put the anime version of this fight about here, too. Not the manga version, the manga version's too short and off-panel, the anime took a plot point that didn't get much elaboration and polished it into a truly magnificent fight.

The manga fight is essentially two punches from each side and talking

Seriously I think they talk during it more than fighting

Y'know, going back to a previous conversation about how magic works in Dragon Ball, Babidi's Mind Control is another example of how magic is limited by power level. Babidi was able to boost Vegeta's power because Vegeta let him, but Vegeta also resisted the mind control aspect by just being that powerful.

Much like Shenron's wish-granting, Babidi's magic could only influence Vegeta in the ways that he permitted because Vegeta was too strong to enchant against his will.

I do like the implication that for all the gravitas, Goku's not even taking the fight seriously.

One could even go Machiavellian with that implication and assert that Goku knows that going Super-Dee-Duper Saiyan and stomping Vegeta is just going to make him even more bitter. He's drawing out the fight so that Vegeta feels validated by how close the match truly is and can thus move on with his life.

But that's all headcanon. The real reason is because Super-Dee-Duper Saiyan wasn't a thing yet. Writing by the seat of his pants and all that.

Wasn't it also later justified by how it ate up his time on Earth? Or did Goku not know that part when he used it?