#He also knows Trunks and Goten are going to surpass them it's not about being the best anymore he's past that he just wants to Not Need Gok

[shannonsketches]

Why is the anime so weird, it's not even the same series dude?? It's like,

Anime:

GOKU: I have a great idea to bring peace to the universe, and my leadership and compassion alone will unite us all. I have No Flaws and am A True Relatable Everyman :)

VEGETA: NO! I AM THE BEST AND I WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS UNTIL I AM RECOGNIZED AS SUCH!!!!

Manga:

GOKU: Vegeta what's cornmeal made of? I know it's what the corn eats, but what's it made of? VEGETA: Hey Kakarot let's play the quiet game until one of us dies.

[sweetescapeartist]

WHY DIDN'T VEGETA'S TAIL GROW BACK?

Well, first I have to briefly speak about the other Saiyans. Don't worry, I won't bore ya with too much explaining. I'll keep it as brief as possible.

SON GOKU:

His tail kept growing back over & over until Kami permanently removed it.

SON GOHAN:

It grew back once. Due to him being a hybrid Saiyan, the tail did not keep growing back as it would for a full-blood Saiyan.

GOTEN & TRUNKS [+ Pan & Bra]:

In 2003 Toriyama stated that Saiyan tails seem to be a recessive trait.

So, since Trunks & Goten are half Earthling, the physical traits of Saiyans are recessive compared to the dominant Earthling physical traits. Gohan seems to have been a rare case of being born with the recessive trait of having a tail, while the other Saiyan hybrids are born without tails. (But Saiyan abilities are a dominant trait.)

(You have to take some of these statements with a grain of salt because around this time, Toriyama was burned out from DB and just answered any kind of way at times. But, this one seems like he put some thought into it.)

VEGETA:

His tail should have kept growing back, but it did not for some reason. 🤔

Many fans have gone with the explanation from a Sub-Story of the video game "DBZ: Kakarot" that said that a Saiyan's tail has an 8% chance of regrowing if they have surpassed the power of their Great Ape form while in base. This simply makes zero sense. It is literally impossible for the base power of a Saiyan to surpass the Oozaru power since there is no set power level for Oozaru & it is a 10× multiplier. People should not take as gospel these kind of nonsensical statements from side quests that are solely meant to pad out the gameplay.

But, should you believe me? You can be the judge of that.

MY EXPLANATION USING CONTEXT CLUES:

So, for full-blood Saiyans of Universe 7, their tails will always grow back. But there can be ways to prevent them from regrowing.

As we know with Goku, he had godly intervention to permanently remove it. But what about Vegeta? Here's my explanation...

The Medical Machine permanently closed up Vegeta's tail glands.

The Medical Machine (healing chamber) heals and seals all wounds. Since a missing tail is a wound, it was sealed up permanently. So if Vegeta had not gone into the Medical Machine, then his tail would have regrown (but, he would've died).

Now, if it was the improved Medical Machine from Resurrection F that they call a "Regeneration Machine", then it's very possible that Vegeta's tail would've been regenerated.

But, the healing technology hadn't yet advanced to that extent in DBZ.

(The DBS version of Broly probably had his tail cauterized by Paragus so that Broly wouldn't go out of control and unknowingly kill his father then accidentally destroy the planet & end up killing himself.)

EXTRA... (you don't have to read it)

In the same 2003 interview that I linked earlier, Toriyama says that the tails of Saiyans get in the way once you're as powerful as Goku & Vegeta. But due to not being burned out from.DB at that time, he forgot that Goku trained his tail and so did Nappa & Vegeta. But, it is a weakness if it gets cut off in Oozaru form.

He also says "it is thought that..." which is just Toriyama's way of not giving a real answer.

Then in a 2016 interview, Toriyama has gotten back into enjoying DB and answers more truthfully & thoughtfully. He says that the tails do not get in the way of fighting (Goku strengthened his tail and Vegeta & Nappa wrapped their strengthened tails around their bodies like belts). He got rid of tails because he was overthinking how Saiyans would put pants on.

It's honestly a silly reason. 😅 But that's only the out-of-universe answer.

An in-universe answer requires looking at the specific details from the series to make a conclusion. As well as using certain statements that further explain ideas in Dragon Ball without contradicting the series or what Toriyama says during times when he's interest in his series. Thus, I came to my conclusion.

[dragon-ball-meta]

What kind of character is Vegeta, in your opinion? And what kind of character would you want him to be? Clearly these stans don’t know what they want, but what would you like to see and, who is he?

Vegeta is an object lesson, first and foremost. Vegeta is a lesson on hubris, arrogance, jealousy. Vegeta is a foil to Goku; where Goku sought to become stronger to push himself to be the best version of himself he could be, Vegeta sought power for power's sake. Where Goku believed in working hard to surpass your limits and even the supposed "elite", Vegeta felt that power was his birthright, and that no one had the right to take that from him. It was an insult to try to surpass him or take that from him. The worst insult. The man attacked his own son and nearly doomed the universe for the sake of it, knowing what the consequences would be. Whereas Goku is warm and affectionate with Gohan (and Goten), Vegeta was cold and uncaring with his own son, to the point of even being willing to let him die in the name of glory-chasing. But Vegeta is also an example of both people being able to change, AND of accepting responsibility for one’s actions and the consequences therein. The people around him softened him, his heart. They didn’t wholesale reject him or refuse to associate with him, even if only for Bulma and Trunks’ sakes, and that had an effect on him. Seeing Goku being the exact opposite of what he’d always considered to be a Saiayn, be “weak”, yet still somehow ascend to become one of the greatest in the universe while staying so humble about it... that challenged his entire worldview and eventually triggered a change in him too. When he faced Buu, knowing he was the reason Buu was even revived, he had no illusions of really winning. For the first time, Vegeta, cautious , cowardly to a point, actually stepped forward and willingly entered a fight he knew he wouldn’t survive, and for the first time, fought for someone outside himself. He also had no illusions of where he was going when he died. He knew he deserved Hell. He knew he was going there and accepted it. But he still embraced death for the sake of having a chance to stop that monster from killing his family or anyone else. When he had the opportunity to make a wish on the Dragon Balls, he made certain to phrase the wish in such a way that those he had murdered over his own ego were revived as well. Granted, I don’t think this arc was the best-handled, it felt rather sudden, and I think Piccolo’s a bit more of a naturally-flowing example of that sort of redemptive arc, but it’s there. That’s part of why I’m so insistent that people see Vegeta’s faults; that’s what lets you truly see and appreciate how far he’s come. I also think people misunderstand Vegeta’s desire to compete with Goku again. The whole “you’re number one” thing was Vegeta accepting that Goku was unique and in many ways a better warrior than he himself, but that didn’t mean Vegeta was going to stop chasing him. Goku is still very much a motivator for Vegeta, though whereas before it was about him reclaiming that “birthright”, now it’s closer to Goku’s own motivation. Goku is the measuring stick against which Vegeta measures himself in order to push himself to be the best HE can be. Not simply about ego, but self-improvement. That doesn’t mean Goku’s his “buddy” or anything; Lord knows the two still butt heads about a lot of things. But he does have a quiet admiration for aspects of who Goku is now. He’s still a hardass, he’s still grumpy and standoffish, and it’s still very hard for him to be OPENLY affectionate in front of others especailly, but he’s come a long way as a character. This weird obsession people have, though, where he either goes full “I WILL BE THE GREATEST!” or full “I will accept I am second fiddle but also become quite friendly and openly affectionate with my family”... neither of those are him. They’re just not. Just like Krillin will probably never be the uber-badass intimidating hardened warrior, Tien will never be a goofy comedian, Piccolo will never be some Casanova... certain core traits are a part of who they are as characters. It’s what makes them so unique, and we should embrace those, not want them to change to the point of not being who they are anymore. That’s my condensed thoughts on that, anyways.

[duhragonball]

I was thinking about Goku and Krillin's friendship and it occured to me that they spent months training with Roshi together but then only saw each other for maybe a day every few years. Have you ever had a realization that tripped you out like this?

This is a really good ask, anon, and I just wanted to take a moment to say so. 

I have had a few ‘a-ha’ moments like these, but I’m kind of blanking on specific examples.  I’ll see what I can come up with.

1) For openers, there’s the whole thing where the Red Ribbon Army has a Dragon Radar, but it’s nowhere near as sophisticated as the handheld one Bulma invented.  I think the same holds true for Emperor Pilaf, but his gang is only three people.   You’d expect the RRA to have the best equipment possible, because that’s their whole deal, and by normal standards they probably do have the best possible Dragon Radar... but Bulma’s is simply that much better, because she’s on another level.   And it’s easy to overlook that, because Bulma’s supposed to be a genius teenager, like Donatello in TMNT, but the RRA’s Dragon Radar is the first hint that she’s even more special than we could have guessed. 

2) Rewatching Dragon Ball in 2019, I gained a new appreciation for the filler episodes where Mr. Popo trained Goku.  The first time I saw them, I was hoping we’d see Goku grow up and make progress over the three year gap, but instead they just focused on his early days on the Lookout, with Popo just saying things and Goku failing to understand.  It was very frustrating to watch.  

But in 2019, I noticed that all those episodes get paid off in the Piccolo Junior fight.   Popo kept telling Goku to be “quicker than lightning” and “quiet as the sky”, and Goku just couldn’t figure out how to do that, let alone fight at the same time.   He had to unlearn all the stuff that had helped him defeat King Piccolo, and he couldn’t do it... at first.    But by the time he fought Piccolo Junior, he put it all together, as demonstrated with his big finishing move.   Piccolo thought he had vaporized Goku, only for Goku to fly up into the air and crash into him.   Why didn’t Piccolo sense Goku’s presence?   Because Goku had learned to become as “quiet as the sky”.  Why couldn’t Piccolo dodge it?   Because Goku had learned to become “quicker than lightning.”  So it vindicates those filler episodes pretty nicely.   They weren’t just marking time, but they were setting up what the manga was going to do later.

3) I think last year, it hit me that Vegeta had probably never lost a fight before he went to Earth.   That alone isn’t probably any big deduction.  The only people stronger than him were all working for Frieza, and he knew to steer clear of them until he was ready.   But it explains why he was so giddy about the zenkai effect.   He had always known about it, but he never mentioned or cared about it until he experienced it for himself after losing to Goku, and then Zarbon. 

Yeah, I think this occurred to me during a conversation about Vegeta killing Nappa instead of helping him.   In theory, Nappa could have recovered and gotten a lot stronger, just like Vegeta did.   But Saiyans Saga Vegeta didn’t care about that.   He only gave his henchmen one chancemand discarded them as soon as they lost.   This attitude would also explain why he never dared to challenge anyone at a higher level.    He knew no one would show him any mercy, so the zenkai boost would have been meaningless to him. 

So he might have regretted killing Nappa after he experienced the zenkai firsthand, although he was so drunk on his own increased power that he probably never stopped to consider it.   But before Earth, Vegeta probably dismissed the zenkai as a crutch for lesser Saiyans.   In his mind, a truly great Saiyan never loses battles in the first place.  Or so he believed, until he lost a few times, and became stronger for it, and had to reconsider.

And that also explains how he warmed up to the Super Saiyan Legend over the course of one afternoon.   He and Goku made such sick gains that week that he started to wonder if you could zenkai your way to Super Saiyan, and then he was begging Krillin to shoot him just so he could get a step closer.

4) In the same vein, it occurred to me at some point that Bardock was probably stronger than King Vegeta, and neither of them realized it.   Maybe it was just a dub-ism, but I’m pretty sure “Father of Goku” has a line about Bardock’s power level being 10000.   At the time it was released, 10k wasn’t that big a deal, but in the Saiyans Saga, Vegeta was somewhere around 18-24k. Later, he would claim to have surpassed his father as a child, so I think it’s fair to assume that King Vegeta must have been in that 10,000 neighborhood. 

Which makes a nice subtle commentary on why the Saiyan Kingdom failed. They tried to breed better warriors, putting all their stock in the royal family, when the true secret lay in warriors like Bardock, who were constantly getting clobbered and healed.  Prince Vegeta only started to make real progress once he began fighting on that same regimen.

5) Also about “Father of Goku,” Frieza only wanted Planet Kanassa subjugated because of the psychic powers of its inhabitants.   I think the dub insinuated that the planet itself gave people those powers, but whatever the case, Frieza heard about these people with unusual powers and wanted them stamped out immediately.   Just like he wiped out the Saiyans over the Super Saiyan Legend, and just like he planned to destroy Namek to prevent anyone else from using the Dragon Balls. 

In short, Frieza fears and despises legends.  Why?  Because he’s so powerful that real people can’t hurt him, so his fears naturally turn to half-truths and folklore.   He chases down ghost stories and rumors, because let’s face it, what else does he have to occupy his time.   That’s why King Cold was happy to have the Saiyans working for him, while Frieza wanted them all dead.   Cold didn’t share Frieza’s hangups.   Cold barely knew what a Super Saiyan was, while Frieza thought about it all the time. 

6) One day I thought about that timeline where Cell killed Trunks and took the time machine to find the androids.    That specific timeline is pretty much empty.  The Z-fighters are all dead, and so are all of the androids and Trunks.  They don’t even have a Cell anymore because he went back in time and never returned.   There’s still a population, I guess, because the Trunks of that world wouldn’t have just stood by while Cell absorbed everyone on Earth, but that’s about it.   Bulma might have survived Cell’s attack on Trunks, but she’d be the only “name” character on the board.  It just sounds like a pretty depressing world.   Maybe this was the timeline Whis picked out to relocate Blunks and Future Mai in Dragon Ball Super.

7) It sort of blows my mind that the entire Majin Buu arc takes place over a couple of days.    Like, episode 207 through 250 all takes place over one day.   We know this because Goku only had 24 hours to be back in the living world, and that time was cut short by his use of SSJ3.  Then the Elder Kai started doing his ritual to make Gohan stronger, and that took like 25 hours, I’m pretty sure.  That wrapped up in #262, and there was no break in the action from that point onward, all the way up to the defeat of Kid Buu in #287.  So yeah, eighty episodes over two days.   It’s practically real-time footage, save for skipping over the Elder Kai’s ritual and Goten and Trunks practicing and sleeping. 

It’s hard to catch on to this, though, because so much stuff happens in the anime version that leads you to think that it’s a much longer span of time.    After Vegeta wrecks the stadium, the anime can’t decide whether or not Mr. Satan would stay there or return to his dojo.   In the Fusion Saga, Mr. Satan wanders from Buu’s house to the nearest town, then he wanders to the next town over, doing his “Last Man on Earth” bit, except this all happens during the Gotenks/Super Buu fight, which barely lasts half an hour.   In the afterlife, Chi-Chi is worried that she can’t find Gohan, but she wouldn’t have even been there that long, and wouldn’t she still be in line to meet King Yemma?  She was one of the last Earthlings to die, so how did she end up in heaven so quickly?

8) I used to think Movie 13 (the Hirudegarn one) was canon, but the last time I watched it, I noticed all these glaring problems.  They use the Dragon Balls in this one, which means it has to be set six months after the wish to make everyone forget about Majin Buum which means it’s been a year since Kid Buu was defeated.  Okay, fine, except Gohan and Videl are still in high school.   Shouldn’t they have graduated by then?   

More importantly, their high school and Bulma’s house seem to be in the same city.   I guess that’s an easy mistake to make.   It took me a long time to even notice, but Orange Star High is in Satan City, which is a totally different place from West City.   I mean, right?  They’re not terribly far apart, but they’re not the same place either.

Then again, they seemed to make the same error in Episode 287, where Bulma’s out shopping and Great Saiyaman 1 and 2 foil a robbery.   Are they in West City or Satan City?  Maybe there’s more to this...

[tokiro07]

I think I may have talked about this before, but I really hope that DBS: Broly sets a precedent for canonizing older, non-canon characters and plotpoints

That being said, I realized today that I don’t really want every single Dragon Ball movie to be rehashed into excuses for Goku to get stronger ad infinitum

Instead I think it would be cool if they were rehashed to be excuses for EVERYONE ELSE to get stronger! 

It’s basically gotten to the point where Goku is incomparable to basically everyone else anyway, so when the “final” Dragon Ball villain finally shows up in the next X number of years, I think it would be good for the rest of the cast to be a bit more balanced with him. Sure, we know he’d still be the last one standing and would probably get another power-up to shoot ahead as always, but it would be a lot more engaging if the rest of the cast was at least able to put up a real fight. I don’t imagine they’d each be getting a movie, but I don’t want them to have super short OVAs either, so I think somewhere between 5 and 10 episodes each would do really well

So let’s say we bring back Dr. Wheelo from World’s Strongest; while it might be cool to get more scenes with Roshi, I don’t think we quite need the whole “stealing Roshi’s body” plotline anymore. Instead, we could use it as an excuse to bring back Android 13 using Dr. Wheelo as the impetus. From there, this plotline follows Krillin, 18 and 17 on a family trip, wherein we get to meet 17′s wife and children. Wheelo shows up with 13, maybe 14 and 15 too, trying to get 17 and 18 so he can use them to upgrade either his own robot body or further upgrade 13. After the group dispatches with 14 and 15, Wheelo has 13 upgrade himself into Super Android 13 with their cores like in the film; this necessitates that 17 and 18 get stronger by also finding a way to become Super Androids, which also ties in and canonizes certain aspects of the Super 17 Arc from GT. At the same time, Krillin is also finding a way to upgrade himself, leaving him to beat Wheelo while Super 17 and 18 beat Super 13

Lord Slug gets repurposed as specifically a Piccolo villain and showcases a new Namekian transformation, perhaps the armored form seen in Dragon Ball Heroes; in order for Piccolo to defeat Slug, he needs to also access this armored form. It’s been stated that in order for Piccolo to fully regain the power of the Nameless Namekian he would need to reabsorb King Piccolo and allow evil back into his heart. The need to attain the armored form may be what prompts him to bring back King Piccolo’s soul and absorb it, with the major character arc of the film being Piccolo confronting the villain he used to be and finally overcoming it once and for all. Garlic Jr. could also serve this same purpose, and I actually think it would be interesting for Garlic Jr. and Slug to somehow team up, but I also think it would be better if it were a bit more focused and only chose one. 

Turles could be repurposed as a Universe 6 Saiyan, giving him an opportunity to be redesigned to look less like Goku so as not to overlap with Goku Black. Vegeta finally makes good on his promise to visit Planet Sadala and decides to bring his family with him so that Trunks can be closer to his heritage. Goten either sneaks aboard or Vegeta allows him to come with because he thinks it’s an opportunity he’d never get from Goku. After taking in the Saiyan culture and giving Vegeta some time to reflect on how things could or should have been for him and his race and family, the plot shifts to Turles betraying Sadala, possibly under Frost’s orders, and attempting to drain it with the Tree of Might. Because he’s draining the Saiyans and not Earthlings, he gets a massive powerup that far outstrips what he got in the original film, allowing him to easily dispatch with Cabba, Caulifla and Kale. This in turn requires either Vegeta fight him with the powers he’s currently learning from Beerus in the manga or Trunks and Goten gain a power up as Gotenks. I do think that Turles would be better served as a Vegeta villain specifically in this case, as while I think Goten and Trunks need more development, Vegeta definitely deserves to have a story where he’s the hero

Tapion and Hirudegarn could easily provide Trunks with the development that he’d otherwise be getting from Turles, repurposing the sibling relationship he developed with Tapion in Wrath of the Dragon to have a bit more of a lasting impact (actually forcing Trunks to be confronted with the choice of killing Tapion rather than just having Hirudegarn escape from Tapion’s body before Trunks does anything as just one example). This would not only build up Trunks’ character, but would give him a really easy powerup in the form of Tapion’s Brave Sword

Garlic Jr., if not a Piccolo villain, could then in turn be a Goten villain, as Garlic Jr. was previously always defeated by child Gohan. Goten could be confronted with Garlic Jr. while Trunks is busy with Hirudegarn, forcing Goten to fight without relying on fusion and ultimately finding his own way of fighting that’s distinct from Goku’s ever-evolving Super Saiyan forms and Gohan’s Potential Unleashed. This would also make it even more impactful when Goten and Trunks reunite into Gotenks later in a bigger final battle

Bojack would then return as Gohan’s villain, but this time Gohan would have Videl with him (who would also be given an opportunity to improve her skills), as well as a slightly older Pan who may exhibit the same kind of untapped strength as Gohan did at her age. Gohan would either find some way to surpass Potential Unleashed to defeat Bojack or would specifically be able to beat him because his family is there fighting with him. Perhaps something like “Bonds Unleashed,” wherein Gohan exceeds his potential through the power of his love for his family or something silly like that? It’d also be a good chance to revisit Bojack’s team and develop them a bit more, especially fan-favorite Zangya

Cooler could give us a chance to develop Frieza on his own a bit, allowing him to finally reach the Fifth Form and subsequently combine it with the Golden Form while also exploring the culture of Frieza’s species, or at least the dynamics within his family as galactic conquerors

Janemba doesn’t really have anyone in particular aside from Goku and Vegeta that he would make a ton of sense to be a villain for, but given how frequently Janemba is compared to Buu, I could see him being a way for Buu and Uub to team up, fully reintroducing Uub and giving us a way for Buu to level up, maybe somehow channeling his Super or Kid forms in a more constructive way

Baby of course would be a way to reintroduce Super Saiyan 4, but seeing as he’s a Tuffle Machine Mutant, I could definitely see him coming into conflict with Broly as a way to get Broly up to Legendary Super Saiyan 2 or beyond. That said, Broly’s probably going to be brought back long before they rehash Baby, I just think that would be really interesting, especially since Legendary Super Saiyan is such a similar concept to Super Saiyan 4 (going Super Saiyan while in a pseudo-Great Ape state as opposed to going Super Saiyan while actually in Great Ape). My main problem is that I’m not sure how SS4 can be introduced at this point since it might conflict with SSG and SSB, but that’s an issue for the writers. I also don’t think it’d necessarily be good to have Baby remove Vegeta from the plot by possessing him like in GT, so maybe Baby’s Saiyan body should be a Universe 6 Saiyan. Perhaps Cabba would be a good candidate, since he’s pretty clearly far weaker than Caulifla and Kale, so it might lead to some good development for him

Finally, the Shadow Dragons would be a good way to tie everyone back together, with each of them (barring Frieza, probably) taking on a different Shadow Dragon using what they’ve learned; since I couldn’t find a place for Tien or Yamcha, perhaps they can team up to beat any of the Shadow Dragons that the others don’t get to. I don’t think it would be good to end things on a repurposed villain, so of course Omega Shenron wouldn’t be the final Dragon Ball villain this time around, but perhaps this would be where Goku finalizes and masters whatever abilities he’ll be using against the true final villain

I don’t know if other people would like this as much as I would, I just think it’d be really cool to revisit all of these characters and concepts, tweak their designs a bit and also give the extended cast a way to powerup and get closer to Goku’s level. Probably won’t happen, but I’d personally love to see it

[dbzebra]

Surpassing The Strongest CH 2

A/N: Sorry this took so long, I hit a wall for a long time but finally got past it! Just a reminder, this is kind of an End of Z retelling but will have obvious changes going forward. Also i apologize in advance for the linebreaks, tumblr ruined my formatting so i had to imprpovise lol Enjoy! 

Chapter 2: Goten’s Resolve

“Train hard, study well, eat well and sleep well. That is the Turtle Hermit way to learn!”

Those were the words Master Roshi had told Goku and Krillin during their first day of martial arts training all those years ago. That motto had stuck with Goku his entire life, and molded it into how he trained both himself and his sons throughout their lives, even to this day. 

It was break time from training. Father and son were lying in the grass with their hands behind their heads, watching the fluffy clouds roll by. Pan wasn’t due back for a few more minutes going by the speed of her approaching energy, so they took the time to relax for a bit. 

Neither really spoke for a while, just listening to the sounds of nature. Birds chirped happily, the wind softly rustling the leaves above their heads, and the quaint sound of the river flowing nearby. 

It was Son Goten who finally spoke up, breaking the silence, not breaking his gaze from the clouds. 

“So, what’s next on the agenda?” Goten knew his father likely had an intense training schedule planned, but he was ready. 

“Well, besides our regular sparring, our next step-- is to help you reach Super Saiyan 3.”

“Me? Reach level 3?” Goten quickly sat up, pointing to himself with a dumbfounded look. 

“Of course!” Goku replied, sitting up as well. “That’s been your goal from the start since you began training again, right? And after what you showed me earlier, I think all that’s left is for you to push for the top.”

“Easier said than done! Trust me, I’ve been trying, it ain’t working!” Goten said. 

Goku grinned and put both hands on Goten’s shoulders. “You did it before as Gotenks, and you were only a kid back then. I can feel it in your energy, Goten.  You just gotta break through that last barrier.” 

“How did it work for you? Like how did you reach level three?”

Goku looked up to the sky for a few moments, trying to recall just how he ascended beyond Super Saiyan 2 back in Other World. “Super Saiyan 3 was much different than the previous two forms. While levels one and two required intense rage--in most cases, level three was a different beast entirely. It took intense training and complete mastery of Super Saiyan 2.  At the time, I was wondering how I could go even further beyond or if it was even possible. So one day, I was training with this guy called Pikkon. I kept feeling this really tiny tugging feeling deep inside.” Goku pointed to his stomach, and mimicked a back-and-forth motion with his hands. “And over the years of focus and training, the more I fought the more I felt it. So I worked towards that. I kept pulling back every time I felt that pull. Harder and harder, until--” he made a fist and then opened it-- “Bam! I unleashed all my energy once. And that’s when it happened.”

“...I don’t get it.” Pulling? It all sounded like crap, if he was being honest. But to be fair, he probably wouldn’t be able to explain the feeling either. 

“Just try it out. I know you did this earlier. Remember how you went level three as Gotenks, and combine that with what I told you.” Goku stayed in his cross-legged position, while Goten jumped up to his feet.

The teen took a deep breath. “Alright. Here I go…!”

Goten bent his knees and  let out a mighty roar that reached the heavens. His muscles bulged and once again electricity swirled around the teen as he ascended to Super Saiyan 2, bringing his ki to its utmost limits. The earth itself seemingly began trembling in fear of the awesome display of raw power.

‘This next energy… has to come from deep inside! Push hard to find it!’

The words that Goku had said to him and Trunks that day long ago echoed in his mind. The same words from when they took a break from learning the Fusion technique to see a first-hand demonstration of the ultimate Super Saiyan transformation.

“I did it back then, so I can do it now!” Goten told himself. He gritted his teeth hard and when he closed his eyes, he could almost  see the visage of a Great Ape roaring. As he continued powering up, he felt a tiny, almost insignificant tug from within. That miniscule flicker deep in his stomach was like a just-barely-lit candle. “There!”

This was it.  He had found it! The tremors began increasing in ferocity as the ground cracked beneath him and small rocks rose up into the air.  The ‘flame’ from within grew in size and heat. Goku watched on, smiling  with pride.

But just as he had it, he lost it. Goten’s  golden hair reverted to its original black color and he dropped to his knees. The stones that floated around the teen fell back to the earth and everything was quiet again. Panting and out of breath, the disheartened teenager cursed under his breath and teen slammed the ground with his fist, causing it to shatter beneath him. “I… I can’t do it, Dad! I just can’t! I’ve been stuck doing the same thing for months, it’s not working! I’m just not strong enough to turn Super Saiyan 3!!”

For the last eight months, Goten tried and failed to ascend. He thought he wasn’t making any progress at all, but that was usually the case with self evaluation: you judge yourself much harder. To Goku, however, he  noticed as clear as day that  his son was making leaps and bounds of progress in strength. 

Goku went to console his son, gently putting a hand on each of  his shoulders. “Hey, don't be that way! It’s totally okay! You are good enough, Goten. Remember, you were the youngest Super Saiyan ever, and reached Super Saiyan 2 at only fifteen! You were right there! I promise you!! It took me six years to reach level three, and I was dead! You're doing great.” Goku said, and it seemed to encourage his son going by the faint grin that dared to appear on the teen’s face. ”Let’s switch gears. How ‘bout we try some image training instead?” 

“Image training? What the heck is that?” Goten looked completely lost. 

Goku put his hand on his chin to think how to explain it. It was one of those things where it was easy to understand, but putting into words was a bit more complicated. But after a moment, it came to him. “Basically, it’s kinda like meditating, but you project an image of yourself in your mind. Then, you link up with someone else using telepathy, and fight that way.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How do you get stronger just by thinking about it?” Goten flatly said, causing Goku to chuckle in response. Much like himself at that age, Goten was never one to mince words. 

“Just trust me, Goten. Your brother and I did the same thing while we were training to fight Cell.” Goku said and crossed his arms, keeping the same grin. “And besides, if we do this image training, you might get to see my secret ultimate technique.”

Now Goten was interested. It never took much to convince him. “Really? What’s it look like?!”

“You won’t know unless you try it out!” Goku goaded his son further. In all honesty, the new technique he developed was a finishing move, meant for a new enemy in case one ever came. It normally took a lot out of him, but just showing Goten once wouldn’t hurt. 

Just as they were about to continue however, the two Saiyans sensed a familiar energy source rapidly approaching. Goku had sensed it from far off from a while ago, but he could see that his son was too preoccupied to notice until now. 

“Guess we’ll save the image training for later then!” Goku said and jumped back to his feet. 

Still seated in the grass and leaning backwards on his hands, Goten turned to the direction of the approaching person. It was far too large to be Pan’s. He knew who this was. The teen’s wide smile returned as another young man with short lavender hair wearing a sleeveless yellow vest and black pants dropped down on the grass in front of his oldest friend.

“Hey bro! What brings you by our neck of the woods?” Goten asked. Still a little sore from training, he held out his hand and Trunks pulled him up. 

Trunks smirked and poked Goten playfully in the chest. “I heard through the grapevine that you were gonna enter the Tournament next week. Tryin’ to sneak a win by without telling’ me?” He raised an eyebrow at his friend. Knowing Goten like he did, he figured there wasn’t any malicious intent. 

“Ah, Mar told you? Sorry about that.” Goten replied with a sigh. “I legitimately thought you already knew and planned on entering. I meant to tell you, really!” Between spending hours with Marron after school on their date yesterday, the excitement over his new gi the night before,  and then the morning training, he didn’t really get an opportunity. 

“It’s fine. I’m just glad to be out of my house. My dad hasn’t shut the hell up about it since! He was grilling me all morning! God, I had to practically throw Bulla at him just for a momentary distraction then I just bailed.” Trunks threw his hands up in frustration. His family got on his last damn nerve sometimes. 

“I hear that. This one over here,” Goten said, gesturing to his father with his thumb, “pulled me out of bed at the crack of dawn while I was in the middle of an awesome dream!”

“Oh quit complaining.” Goku scolded his son while Goten shrugged.

Trunks snickered. “An awesome dream, you say? What kinda dream was it?” 

Goten shot him a dirty look, but before he could think of a comeback, a little toddler dressed in a red gi flew in and landed in the middle of them. 

“I’m back Grandpa!!” Pan chirped, raising her little fists in the air. “I flew around the whoooole world again, just like you said!”

With that signature Son grin of his, Goku smiled down at her. “That’s amazing, Pan! Thats your fastest time yet!”

Pan’s dark eyes lit up at hearing that she was getting better. “Think I’ll be ready for the Toonament?” She asked, innocently tilting her head to the side. 

“Wait, Pan, you’re seriously going to enter the Tournament? There’s no Junior Division, don’t tell me she’s gonna fight with the rest of us!”  Trunks was baffled. Pan nodded up at him, her smile still as wide as could be. She didn’t seem to have a care in the world. 

Goku proudly pat his granddaughter on the head. “Don’t worry about her. She may not win, but she’ll do just fine!” 

“She might end up doing better than Goten.” Trunks added.

“Very funny.” Goten dusted some blades of grass off of his pants, and glanced over to Trunks again, who teasing smirk only seemed to get bigger. The younger Saiyan sighed, shaking his head with a smile. “Dad, can we take a little break?”

“Sure, don’t go too far though. We’re gonna pick up where we left off in a bit.” Goku replied and Goten nodded in affirmation. 

The two teenaged Saiyans walked over to the riverbank for a private chat. They kept their voices low, so a certain little toddler didn’t accidentally overhear certain stuff and then go repeating it, which would end badly for the both of them. 

Trunks stood peering over the rushing waters with his hands shoved into his vest pockets. It was mesmerizing.. His phone buzzed, but decided it wasn’t that important. Meanwhile Goten put his hands behind his head and leaned on the tree nearby, staring up at the branches above. The sun was shining high in the sky; its warm light breaking through the gaps between the trees.

When he was small, he used to play a game where he had to only stay in the shaded parts and couldn’t touch where the sun hit. He smiled at the memory for a moment as his thoughts drifted back to the upcoming main event. 

“So, you gonna enter?” 

Trunks blew air out his nostrils and smirked. “You bet your ass I am.  I’m not just gonna let you just walk in and sweep the competition against a bunch of nobodies! I’ll win,  just like I did last time. If only Mr. Satan was entering, I’d smack him into next month.” 

“Yeah right!” Goten fired back and puffed out his chest a bit, the confidence in his voice building.. “The outcome won’t be the same as last time, I can promise you that. I’ve been training constantly!” 

“HA!” Trunks scoffed. “Good one, man. If by ‘training’, you mean you’ve just been getting handsy with Marron all the freakin’ time, then sure! Meanwhile, I’ve actually been training!” Trunks said, with his usual smug smile. He felt a little bad, but busting on Goten was too easy. 

Goten’s whole face flushed a scarlet color at how nonchalantly Trunks could just bring up what he did with his girlfriend in private. Any confidence he had in that moment fizzled right out.  “H-Hey!! Mar and I aren’t getting handsy!!” Goten blurted out louder than he intended and then swiftly covered his mouth with his hands. “That much…” He said again, practically as a whisper that time.

Trunks tried not to burst out laughing as Goten looked towards Pan, hoping she didn’t overhear him and then go repeating it to Videl or Gohan. Or worse, his mother. Not that she would get mad, just that her teasing comments would only get worse!

“Cut the bullshit, Goten. We’ve been friends for like, seventeen years, and I know when you’re lying. Even after all these years, you still have no poker face. And Marron isn’t exactly the best at keeping something like that hidden either.”

Was he really that obvious?! Goten kicked himself for being such an open book. He huffed and kicked a nearby pebble into the river. 

“Look, no shame! I’m proud of you, man. Good for you. Marron’s a real catch!” Trunks said and proudly patted Goten on the back. The older Saiyan figured Goten would fire right back with a comeback of his own, likely about all those vulgar girls who kept throwing themselves at him at school. It wasn’t his fault he was so good looking! Trunks may have had the outer confidence and charisma of his mother, but like his father Vegeta, Trunks was a bit of a prude when it came down to it, for the lack of a better word. He was all talk, as Marron had pointed out. 

However Goten’s gaze didn’t leave the gentle flowing river, his eyebrows furrowed as if he were lost in thought. Trunks’ face fell. “Hey, my bad, man. I didn’t mean it that way. I really am happy for you.”

“Huh?” Goten blinked, coming out of his thoughts. He put a hand behind his head with an apologetic smile. “Oh, don’t worry, it’s fine. I should be the one apologizing. I’m just… really distracted.”

“You alright, bro?”

Goten didn’t respond immediately, but after a moment he slowly nodded. “I dunno why, but I’m really nervous about this Tournament. I’ve hit a wall trying to reach Super Saiyan 3, and it’s stressing me out. Nothing’s working, and I don’t know what to do. At this rate, I’m almost afraid I’ll end up fighting my dad in the first round and getting wiped out like some chump.”

Trunks knew how Goten felt. Living up to Vegeta’s expectations was tough at times. And frustrating. He also had no luck on reaching the third level. What came easy to them while fused together proved to be their ultimate challenge while separate. But he wasn’t giving up. And he wasn’t about to let Goten give up either.. “Tell me something, Goten. Why do you choose to fight?” He knew the answer fully well, but wanted to hear Goten say it.

“Why does that matter?”

“Just humor me.”

Goten sighed, and then his lips curled into a smile when he thought of a certain pretty blonde. “Marron.” Her name rolled off his tongue effortlessly. “Mar is the reason I started training again. She’s the reason I want to get stronger. She means the entire world to me.  I’d do anything to keep that smile of hers safe.”

After the fight against Majin Buu, Son Goten slowly grew out of fighting over the years. Sure, he trained for exercise or if he had nothing else to do, but it wasn’t much of a priority for him until he started dating Marron two years ago. Once they became a couple, it was like a lightbulb went off in the boy’s head. He knew what he had to do--what he wanted to do. And so he trained intensely, day after day.  To prevent anything like the Majin Buu incident from happening ever again. 

Feeling a second wind, and not wanting to be left behind, Trunks soon joined him as well. It wasn’t long before Goten had closed the gap between them, and together the boys broke through the first Super Saiyan barrier: finally reaching Super Saiyan 2. 

“My point is, look how far you’ve come since then. Marron may be a loudmouth, but she’s a true ride-or-die girl. If there’s anyone who doesn’t care where you place in the Tournament, it’s her.”

“Yeah, you’re right. She said something similar yesterday.”

“See?” Trunks smiled. “I’m far from being the best at pep talks, but I know for a fact that you’re much stronger than you think. I wouldn’t count yourself out just yet. Forcing Super Saiyan 3 won’t help things either. It’ll happen, man. For both of us. Basically, what I’m getting at is; it’s just a Tournament. We have our whole lives to surpass our dads. Let’s just make this one a fun reunion where there’s no genocidal egomaniacs for once.”

Goten truly started to feel better.  “Thanks, man. Really.” He said and the duo did their signature double fist bump. 

“Hey, I have an idea.” 

Goten turned, eyeing his friend suspiciously.. Whenever Trunks Briefs uttered the words ‘I have an idea’ it usually was always something insane, but he decided to hear him out. “Lay it on me.”

“Why don’t we enter as Gotenks? Nobody could stop us that way, not even your dad!” Trunks said excitedly, pumping his fists. “I don’t care about the prize money either, so when we win, I’d just give you my half.”

Goten was touched.  Trunks really was a true friend. Sure, they busted on each other constantly, to the point where outsiders may think they disliked each other, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. When it came down to it, they had each other’s back. 

“I appreciate it, really, but… I can’t. I want to go up against my dad with my own strength. If we won the Tournament that way, I’d feel like I cheated. Besides, the fusion only lasts for thirty minutes; less if we went full power. And then we’d have to wait a whole hour to be able to fuse again, so it’s not exactly practical.”

“Shit, you’re right. I forgot about that.” Trunks replied, scratching his head. His phone buzzed from his pocket again, but ignored it.  “Was worth a shot!”

After the third time his phone buzzed, Trunks picked up and immediately got an earful from his mother, ordering him to come home. He groaned and quickly  hung up. For a moment he considered tossing his stupid phone into the river. But used his better judgement and shoved it back into his pocket.

“Well that’s my cue. Gotta get going before I really get in trouble. My mom just realized I snuck out. Besides, I should let you get back to training.”

“Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

Trunks chuckled. “Next time I’ll see you it’ll be Tournament day. I hope you’ll be ready, man. It’s gonna be me versus you in the final round.” Trunks said with a smirk. “Oh, and tell Marron I said hi.”

“You can count on that.” Goten replied. “And sure.”

A translucent white colored aura surrounded Trunks’ body. He waved and he took off to the west like a torpedo. And like that he was gone over the horizon.

Goku came up, with Pan trotting along behind him. “Feelin’ up for some lunch before we continue?”

“You bet!” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two days had passed since then. Only four days remained until the big day.

Feeling revitalized, Son Goten continued his training. The day quickly approached, and he wanted to be ready. Super Saiyan 3 or not.  The young half Saiyan blitzed back and forth, kicking  and punching ferociously into the air, appearing only as a blue to the untrained eye. He kept vanishing and reappearing across the whole sky, leaving a golden trail in his tracks. Lighting swirled around his body like a thunderstorm. Goten  fired blasts forward, and teleported in front of his own oncoming attacks and blocked at the last possible second. 

On both of his wrists and ankles, he wore large, red colored weighted training bands. Each one had  twenty-five tons of force. One hundred tons total.  And yet, Son Goten made it look easy.

Meanwhile, a small hot-pink colored air jet sped towards Mt. Paozu. On the side of the left wing had the number 404 written in big black font. The opposite side sported the signature Capsule Corporation logo. 

Bubbly pop music blared from the radio as the teenage girl with hair tied into twin tails piloting the car enthusiastically sang along. She had sunglasses resting on top of her head and wore a small pink crop top and blue short-shorts that showed off her fit, athletic figure. The blonde was giddy with excitement- she was planning to surprise Goten during his training today. She could already picture his adorably stupid face, and giggled to herself just thinking about it! 

From the sky Marron could see Goku and Gohan’s home sitting side by side, in front of Grandpa Gohan’s old nut. It made a picturesque sight for the blonde. She wondered if she’d be living out here with Goten in a house of their own someday. 

Just then, shockwaves shook the air car violently back and forth, but Marron was no chump when it came to this. She easily got the vehicle under control and continued on her path.  Sure, she knew how to fly now, and her fear of heights was long gone, but she still overall preferred traveling this way. The wind while flying was still a bit too much for her.  Unless of course, she got to ride on the Nimbus with a certain boy.

Out of the corner of her light blue eyes, Marron saw a flicker of gold. She could just barely see, but she knew. High in the air appearing like a golden star in the middle of the day. It was beautiful. The blonde smiled as she lowered in altitude as she approached a field next to a river located nearby from the two homes, touching down on the grass a few moments later. 

Marron hopped out of the vehicle and stretched, taking in the clean air of the country and the quietness of nature. She was a city girl at heart, but in some ways this came pretty close. The blonde pressed the button on the side of her jet and with a puff of smoke, the jet returned to its capsule. She moved the sunglasses to her face to cover from the sun. Once her eyes adjusted, Marron pulled out the ribbons from her hair and shook her head from side to side, freely allowing her blonde locks to cascade down to her shoulders. Much better, she felt, 

She squinted and looked up to see if she could see him, but the sub was too bright even with her sunglasses. 

 Just then, as if on cue, a golden haired boy dropped down on the grass in front of her. 

“Hey, babe!” Goten said. Seeing Marron was exactly what he needed right now. He sensed her up in the air and he waved, but he was too far away for her to see. A warm smile curled onto the boy’s lips. He wore a white muscle shirt with blue sweatpants, and his signature yellow boots.

“Hey yourself~” She couldn’t help but gawk. Her blue eyes glanced over his muscles, and for a moment she wondered if it was more than the summer heat that made her feel hot all of a sudden. Marron fanned herself with her hand, trying to ignore the obvious that ran through her mind. But the blonde shook off her dirty idea when he walked up to her. “I hope I’m not interrupting your training.”

“Nah, perfect timing actually. Was gonna do one more thing then take a break. It’s great to see you, Mar. You look great--like a movie star.” Still in the Super Saiyan 2 state, Goten went over to his girlfriend and kissed her forehead.  “I’d hug you right now, but I’m all gross and sweaty from training.” 

Marron giggled, and ran her freshly manicured fingers through her hair. “There’d be plenty of time for that later~!” She winked at him and he grinned.  But when she noticed he was alone, she was a little confused. Not too long ago, she sensed another ki with Goten, who she assumed was his dad. “Oh! Where’s Goku? I thought he’d be with you.”

“Dad? He’s out doing some solo training somewhere in the wilderness. We sparred earlier, but said we should train separately for a little bit. So he got me this heavy training gear. I’ve been out here pretty much all day. After today though, I’m all done training until the Tournament. My dad recommended that I should rest my muscles a bit beforehand so I don’t mess myself up for the fights. I’m free tomorrow, so let’s go somewhere!”

Marron clasped her hands together happily. “Oh, that sounds amazing!”

“Then it’s a date.”

But for now, he had to get back to work. He removed the weights from his wrists and ankles, placing them back in their box. With a click of the button on the side, the box returned to its capsule form. 

Sighing with relief, Goten stretched his arms and legs as Marron watched. He punched the air a few times, satisfied with the result. She loved watching him. Not just because she generally preferred watching fights over fighting herself, the blonde genuinely loved watching her Goten grow and get stronger. She was so happy for him. 

Next, he moved to doing ten thousand push-ups wearing a fifty ton turtle shell on his back, courtesy of Master Roshi. It was a bit of a struggle getting it on, but he managed. Marron sat on top of the shell, her long legs dangling off to the side. She almost wanted to mess with him, but didn’t want her Goten to get distracted when he looked so serious.. So instead she just gave him support. It was getting warmer out, but the mountain breeze made the humidity doable. She didn’t care if her hair got frizzy. 

“Ok, here goes!!”

Fifty tons on your back was heavier than he thought. Harder than the previous exercise, if he was being honest. But transforming into Super Saiyan 2 made it much more doable. In his training, Goten had discovered a form, not quite Super Saiyan 3, but something beyond Super Saiyan 2. However that form was for another day. He wanted to perfect the second level as much as possible.

He started off strong, but about halfway through he really started to feel the strain. But this was normal for him. Unfortunately,  it didn’t get any easier from then on. Normally, it was child’s play. But coupled with wearing a heavy turtle shell on his back, it was no easy task. Still, Goten thought it was fun. 

He counted off the numbers, quickly approaching his goal of ten-thousand. 

“Hey~~” Marron hummed, cutely twirling a strand of hair in between her thumb and index finger. “You’re doing an awesome job! When you finish, I’ll give you a present~”

Goten grinned. “What kind?”

“You’ll just have to see~” She said, giggling. 

“Easy for you to say, you’re just sitting up there looking all hot in that little outfit!” Goten joked as he continued his workout. Marron gasped slightly and touched her blushing cheeks at the compliment. He was too sweet. Always knew how to make her blush. 

The minutes rolled by. Marron happily timed him. And soon he was in the final stretch. 

“9,998…” He grunted, his arms felt like jelly. “9,999…. 10,000!! Aaaand, done!” Goten cried out and practically collapsed onto the grass, drenched in sweat. In between his heavy breaths, he laughed slightly. He could feel he was progressing. A little more each day. He recalled what Trunks and his father told him, which only fueled his refound drive further. 

“You beat your record! Congrats, sweetheart!” Goten winced, almost losing his balance, and it weren’t for Marron helping him up, he very well might have. With a grunt, Goten dropped the ten ton turtle shell, cracking the ground around it upon impact. She happily pecked him on the cheek for a job well done.

He dropped back to base form--his hair and eyes now their original black color. “I’m exhausted…” He grabbed a fruit from a nearby tree and ate it whole. And then loudly burped. Goten sheepishly smiled. “That hit the spot…”

Marron giggled, walking up to him with her hands behind her back. “Well, I’m a woman of my word. Time for your surprise. Okay~ Close your eyes.”

“Why should I? You might play a trick on me.” 

Marron pouted. “Rude. I’d never do that!” Her voice came out squeakier than she intended but it just made him smile bigger. He thought her voice was adorable.

“There. They’re closed.” Goten said, still grinning. He liked to playfully push her buttons; her cute pouting face made it  worth it. “Now can I have a hint?” He sniffed the air, trying to guess. “Is it a snack?”

“No peeking. Or else.” Marron said in a demanding voice, but it still  just came off as cute. 

Marron leaned up, and cupped Goten’s cheeks in her hands. Before he could respond, the blonde gently kissed him on the lips. It was only for a moment, but they were both smiling when she pulled back.

“Pretty great surprise.”

“You’re welcome.” She purred and they kissed again, deeper this time.

After breaking apart that time, she held his hand in hers as they walked along the riverbank, which led to a large lake with multiple branching paths. The same lake where he taught her how to fly. Marron smiled at the memory.

“I’m dying out here!” He took a whiff of his black muscle shirt and grimaced. “Ew. And I smell like crap too. I'm gonna take a swim and cool off. Wanna join me?” 

“I would, but I don’t have my bathing suit with me.”

“So?”

“So I’m not getting down to my underwear!” Marron huffed. 

“It’s not like I haven’t seen you in your underwear before. Besides, nobody else is around. We’re all alone out here.”

“T-T-This is different! Idiot Goten!” Marron’s entire face turned a bright crimson-red from ear to ear at the implication. The blonde definitely didn’t mind if one thing led to another and passion got the best of them right there on the grass, but… but what if they got caught??! She’d probably die of embarrassment if that happened.

Goten only kept his smile; he could tell her imagination was running wild again. He threw off his clothes and laid them on the grass nearby. threw them in a pile nearby. He’d wash them later. Now down to just his boxers, he jumped high into the air and did a cannonball into the lake causing a big splash. He emerged a moment later, spitting water out of his mouth. He swam on his back, just relaxing. The cold temperature instantly made him feel refreshed. It was like he could feel his sore muscles being healed.

Marron dipped her feet into the water.. She closed her eyes and exhaled happily. Life didn’t get much better than this. She sighed blissfully and closed her eyes.  “Hey~ Where should we go tomorrow? The waterpark? Aquarium?” 

No response.

“Goten?” She opened them again to see that he was gone. Cracking a smile, Marron tried to listen for where he could be. “...Come on out, you dork.”

Something touched her foot and she yelped. 

“Goten!!” Marron said again, the panic in her voice growing and she pulled her feet out of the water.  She looked around, still nothing. She pouted. He was playing with her. Well she’ll show him. She had her own ways of playing with him. 

Just then, the teenaged Saiyan poked his head out from underwater and splashed the blonde right in the face. 

“Got ya!” He snickered.

She really didn’t have plans on going in the water. 

Until of course, he just declared war. 

“Oh, that’s it. It is so on.” 

“Bring it, Blondie.”  Goten deviously smiled back as he disappeared underwater, preparing for his next attack.

Marron smirked and dove right in after him.  

She’d made him pay for that. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four more days rolled by. 

This was it. 

The 28th ‘Strongest Under the Heavens’ World Martial Arts Tournament had finally arrived. 

Skilled fighters who wanted to test their abilities  against the best of the best. Devoted fans who wanted to see one of the world’s biggest events from across the planet. All flocked to Papaya Island. It was the most anticipated event on the planet. Even those who didn’t attend planned to have their eyes glued to the television and radio for this year’s competition. 

Krillin, 18, and Marron were the first of the group to arrive. The family of three stepped out of their red capsule jet and then returned it to their capsule. Roshi and Oolong were next. Marron happily greeted the old man with a hug, Master Roshi was practically her grandfather: always kind to her and gave her wise advice whenever she needed it. If Marron ever got into an argument with her parents, Roshi’s island was always her first stop. 

A blue aircar landed nearby, and out jumped Yamcha, wearing a yellow suit and his black hair tied back into a ponytail. Puar sat on his shoulder “Hey man! Good to see ya!” He greeted his old friend and then waved to 18 and Marron, his goddaughter. It felt like yesterday he was babysitting and telling her stories as a toddler , and now she was a beautiful young woman. Time really flies. 

“Yamcha! How are ya, man? You here to enter?” Krillin asked. 

Yamcha shook his head. “Me? No way. With all those Saiyans, and mostly likely Piccolo too, I’d just embarrass myself. I’m just gonna watch.”

“I’d think you’d do great, Uncle Yamcha!!” Marron exclaimed, coming to his defense. 

Yamcha smiled at her. “Never change, Marron.” The blonde giggled in reply. 

“By the way, have you seen Tien?” The former monk asked. 

Yamcha shook his head. “I mentioned the Tournament to him when I went to visit last month, but haven’t heard much since. Knowing Tien though, he’ll be here.”

18 looked around,  honestly unconcerned with what they were talking about. 

She could tell Marron was preoccupied too. The teen kept fixing  her hair in her pocket mirror, wanting it to be perfect. 

18 smiled. “Teenagers.” She fondly remembered those times when she was that age, just her and her twin brother against the whole world. “Are you here or not, 17? You better not have bailed.”

“Goku said he’d meet us at the main gate. No use idling around here.” 

“Let’s get movin’ then!”

The Son family arrived at the southwestern side of the island. The family of seven, consisting of Goku, Chi-Chi, Gohan, Goten, Videl and the Ox King all made their way towards the registration tables to meet up with their friends and sign up. 

Goten felt nostalgic as he walked with his hands behind his head, wearing his new gi. This was the place he finally met his dad for the first time. Changed his life for the better. 

Pan clung to her grandfather’s pant leg, in awe of her surroundings. Everything looked so much fun!. Gohan and Videl prepped the toddler for today's fights the previous night. They were admittedly a little worried, but knew Pan could handle herself. And there were so many of their friends and family around--Gohan himself included-- that in the slim possibility of something going wrong, they’d intervene in an instant. 

“This place is really buzzing! Far cry from when I entered way back when.” Chi-Chi said.

“It doesn’t even feel like a Tournament anymore.” Videl added. “It’s like a festival! Even more so than last time.”

Pan tugged on Goku’s pant leg. “Hey Grandpa! Grandpa! Let’s go play!” The toddler said and  ran off into the crowd.

“Be back later guys!” Goku called and ran off. 

“Don’t go too far, Dad! You’ll miss registration!!” Gohan called. Goku gave his older son a thumbs up and disappeared into the crowd after his young granddaughter. 

“Two peas in a pod, those two.” Chi-Chi sighed.

“They’ll be alright, Mom.” Gohan said. “Dad’s great with Pan, He won’t lose track of time.”

Pan and Goku went on a ‘carnival adventure', as Pan described it. Well, it felt like one to her at least. She got to try all types of good food, fed the birds, met a giant robot bunny, and even won first place at one of the games, winning her a giant teddy that was at least three times  her size!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, a small boat arrived at the docks on the southeastern port of the island. Out stepped a small boy, no older than ten. Frail, almost appearing malnourished. He had dark skin, and black hair styled into a spiky mohawk. The young boy’s clothing was dirty and torn up a bit from his life on his family’s farm. 

“T-Thank you for the ride, sir.” He reached into his pockets and pulled out a small sac. “Please, it’s not much, but please take this zeni for helping me.” He was supposed to use it to buy food, but the boy couldn’t just accept a free ride.

“No, please, put your money away, my boy.” The jolly old boat captain said with a laugh. “You came quite a long way to get here, I couldn’t take the last of your change like that. It’s the least I could do. After all, you’re fighting in the Tournament, correct? You’ll need food to keep yourself strong!”

The young boy’s eyes sparkled a bit, and he smiled for the first time all afternoon. It helped ease his pounding nerves somewhat. 

“Do you by any chance know which way I have to go? It’s my first time in a big city like this, and it’s rather intimidating.” He said, trailing off and looking around behind him at the bustling crowds and stalls that seemed endless. 

“Head straight that way.” The captain replied, pointing behind the boy. “You can’t miss it, it’s the huge building with the multicolored streamers coming out in every direction.”

“Thanks again! I’m in your debt.” The boy bowed his head, clasping his hands over his chest gratefully. 

“Wait, I never caught your name, son!”

“Uub. My name is Uub.” The boy now known as Uub replied meekly. He always felt his name was weird, 

“Well Uub,  good luck in the Tournament.”

Uub  bowed to the captain one last time, and was on his way. 

The captain waved as he watched the boy go, happy he could help. “What a nice lad. I hope he makes it to the top.” He got back into his boat and made a U-turn back to the mainland to pick up the next round of passengers. Hopefully they were as nice as Uub was. 

As Uub made his way through the city, he was shocked how big everything was. Skyscrapers that seemed to go on forever. He felt so tiny in comparison. Uub looked down to the ground, avoiding eye contact with most people. Just keep following the signs, he told himself.

Eventually, Uub reached the Tournament grounds. Bustling crowds lined multiple stalls. Food, games, merchandise, you name it. Uub was in awe. They were practically giving food away! His stomach grumbled just thinking about it. Figuring he should fight on a full stomach, young Uub got in line at the nearest burger stand. He never had one before, as his village was very poor. Uub’s village, a tropical settling to the south of Papaya Island, didn’t have the luxuries of fast food. He hoped to change that. 

While he was in line, a little girl with short black hair wearing a red gi ran by a few yards behind him, happily giggling. Not too long after, a certain man with a signature palm tree hairstyle ran after the girl. When the man passed Uub, he stopped for a moment to stare to really confirm it.

“So it’s really true. He’s here!”

“Grandpa, come on!!” The little girl’s voice could be heard from up ahead. But when Uub turned around, the little girl and whoever she was talking to were already gone. 

Uub paid for his burger with his last two hundred  zeni. He just  stared at it for a moment, his mouth watering. “My first burger… Mom, Dad, everyone, I hope you’re proud of me! I’ll try my best!” 

Uub devoured his burger and got on his way. As he walked, he saw monks directing people where to go. Up ahead he saw a man at a booth with ‘Registration’ written on the front in big bold letters. Uub smiled. He made it. He really made it. Uub timidly approached the table when he saw there wasn’t much of a line. 

“Hello!”

“Hi…” 

“Are you here to register for the Tournament, my boy?” he smiled warmly at the young boy. 

“Y-Yes. M-My name is Uub.” Uub averted his eyes. This was too nerve wracking.

The monk looked him up and down for a moment and then wrote something down on his clipboard. “Uub,” he repeated, “okay, you’re all registered. Please follow the path behind me to the courtyard. There you will draw a number.. The preliminary test will begin in about a half hour.”

“Thank you, sir.” Uub nodded and continued on his way. It was becoming real for him now. He gulped. This was it. No going back now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Goku returned with Pan, lugging along her prize from earlier. He found the rest of his family idling around the foot court about an hour later. Still plenty of time to register. 

“Mama! Papa! Look! I won at the hammer game! I rang the bell and then it exploded!! The nice man gave me Mister Bear!” Pan cried happily, jumping up and down. Videl and Gohan looked at each other and smiled. 

“That’s amazing, Panny!” Videl said. “I’ll take your bear for you so he doesn’t get lost, okay?” 

Pan happily nodded her agreement and then ran back over to Goku. “Grandpa are we really at the Toonament?”

“Sure are, kiddo! You still wanna fight, right?”

“Mhmm!”

Goku’s ki sense picked up on someone familiar approaching. He turned around and saw the Briefs family: Vegeta, Bulma, Trunks, and little Bulla.

Bulla and Pan ran over and hugged each other. 

Trunks nodded to Goten. The lavender haired teen wore sweatpants and a black muscle shirt with ‘Capsule’ written on the front in big white letters.. For a moment the two teens stared each other down, electricity sparking between them. Their friendly rivalry was reaching its peak, both believing they’d face the other in the final round. 

Chi-Chi pinched Goten’s ear while Bulma clonked Trunks on the head.

“Be nice, Goten!”

“Yeah, don’t be a hotshot! We already have enough of those with your father around!”

Chi-Chi and Bulma playfully scolded their respective sons. Even when they were practically adults, Goten and Trunks were still easily defeated by their mothers, just like when they were small. 

“You’re entering too, Vegeta?” Goku asked his former rival, now close friend.

Vegeta smirked. “For once, Kakarot, I’m fighting just for the fun of it.”

“Plus, he’s been gettin a little tummy lately!” Bulma poked her husband’s chest causing him to blush and storm off with a scowl. Trunks sighed in exasperation while Goku and Bulma grinned.

Bulla trotted after Vegeta. “Daddy, why do you call Mister Goku a carrot?”

Vegeta knelt down and patted his daughter on the head. “I’ll explain it later, Princess.”

“I almost forgot!” Chi-Chi exclaimed. “Before anything happens, boys, are you gonna ban Super Saiyan this time around too?”

Everyone glanced to Goten and Trunks. The two most likely culprits to break the rule anyway. 

Goten put his hands up in defense. “Hey, don’t look at me! It was an accident last time!” 

“Yeah, besides, we should give those sheep out there a show! Something they’ll never forget.” Trunks added. 

“That’s that then. Anything goes.” Goku said and Vegeta smirked in affirmation. The boys high-fived each other, and with that, once the group finished their little pit stop they were on their way.

The two families went as one big group and together they reached their meetup spot and linked up with Krillin and the others. Even Piccolo and Dende showed up, but they were off to the side, not liking the attention and looks from the crowd.. Piccolo had decided to enter rather last minute, upon the request of little Pan. He couldn’t say no to her, no matter how hard he tried.

“There they are!” Krillin pointed at them, about ten yards away. Goku waved from afar.  

When Marron saw Goten, standing clad in his brand new orange and black gi, the blonde practically flung herself at the young half Saiyan. He happily caught her and spun her around, and they shared a quick smooch. 

“I’m so glad you came, Mar.” She looked gorgeous with that pretty red dress of hers. She was his cheerleader. His number one fan and reason for going on. With her in his corner, he felt like he was the strongest guy in the universe. 

“Of course, sweetheart! You’d think I’d ever miss my boyfriend becoming World Champion? She winked at him. She started fussing over his gi, adjusting it so he looked neat. He looked so handsome, she thought. “I’ll be cheering for you~”

“Can I have one more good luck kiss?” Goten said in a low tone, so nobody heard him but her. His  strong yet gentle arms wrapped around her waist. She smelled really good. 

“I’d be happy to.” Marron replied with a sultry grin.. She flipped her hair behind her back, draped her arms around Goten’s neck.

Just before their lips touched again though, Goten was yanked backward. Marron pouted at the culprit. 

“Come on, lover boy. You two can be gross and suck face all you want later, unless you want to watch the Tournament from the stands. As a spectator.” Trunks grumbled as he dragged Goten away over to the registration stands. 

Marron only giggled and blew her boyfriend a kiss. “Byyye! Good luck! I love you!”

Goten waved back with both hands as he got dragged away, mouthing ‘I love you too’ and Marron just about melted. 

The two teenaged Saiyans went to sign up while Marron went with Chi-Chi and her mother to find a seat. Krillin stayed around to chat with Goku and Yamcha, catching up and reminiscing about the previous times they were all here. 

From deep in the crowd, a blonde woman with a big red ribbon spotted that signature hairstyle. That was unmistakable, even with his back to her. After all these years she could spot him from a mile away. Luckily, she kept her firearms at home. Well, most of them. She had no plans on using them. Unless they needed a crowd clearer. Maybe. 

“I knew he’d be here.” She said to the taller man, her husband, beside her.

“Yes. It’s been too long.” The bald man said. He turned to the smaller man on his shoulder and smiled. “Figures we’d reunite here, right Chiaotzu?”

Chiaotzu nodded. “I’ll be fighting as well.”

And like that, the blonde ran off ahead in the direction of their old friends. She ran right up to Goku and playfully slapped him on the back. “Long time no see, boys!”

“Hey, what’s the-- L-Launch?!! Is that you?!” Goku’s irritation immediately turned to joy at the sight of his lifelong friend. All three of the former Turtle School fighters greeted Launch happily. 

“Wait, if you’re here, that must mean…” Krillin started to say, and then the duo in question appeared. Tien and Chiaotzu. 

It didn’t need to be said, but both Tien and Chiaotzu had gotten stronger. Much stronger. Goku couldn’t wait to see their new abilities. 

“My apologies for the surprise.” Tien said with his usual serious expression. Launch stuck her tongue out and  blew raspberries at him. Chiaotzu laughed at that. “It’s good to see you all again.”

Yamcha  patted Tien on the shoulder with a grin. “Come on, man, we’re your pals. No need to be so serious!”

“So how’s married life treatin’ ya?” Krillin smirked jokingly.

“Great! Right Tien?” Launch poked Tien in the chest. 

“Um, y-yes.” Tien blushed. The Turtle trio all exchanged similar grins. He still wasn’t the best at expressing his emotions in public, especially when teased, but they also knew him too well. 

“This one is a big worrywort. Especially now.” Launch patted her stomach. She was pregnant with her first child. Eight weeks. Admittedly it was a little trippy to find out, after her blue self was the first to learn the news, but her blonde self was equally as happy. Her life on the farm in the western mountains--a life without crime-- was much better than she had imagined. 

Each of the Turtle School trio and Master Roshi sported similar elated grins, as they hugged Launch and gave their congratulations to the future parents. Their little gang would soon have one more member.

A voice came over the sound system. “Last call for registration! I repeat, last call for registration. Please come to the registration desk! Registration will be closing in three minutes!”

“Well, that’s my cue!” Goku said and went to sign up along with Tien and Chiaotzu. The three fighters signed up at the very end, in their typical fashion. The three fighters waved and parted ways with Yamcha, Roshi, Krillin, and Launch, who went to join the others. 

“Just wait till everyone sees you! This’ll be a great surprise!” Yamcha exclaimed. Just like old times. 

The last remaining fighters signed up, and registration came to a close. 

In a private room of the main building, a middle aged man with blond hair adjusted his tie in the mirror. He wore an impeccable suit, ready for another year at the best job in the world. 

He peered out the window at the crowd of participants gathering in the fighters courtyard while thousands of  guests filed into their seats of the main stadium. The man cleared his throat, smiling. Announcing and commentating the World Martial Arts Tournament  was second nature to him now. 

Tournaments past were some of the most exhilarating moments of his life. 

And only one thought echoed through his mind.

“They’ll be here this time. I just know it.”

[joan-frias]

Back to Earth

A Gohan x Videl Fanfiction

.

EAST DISTRICT, MOUNT PAOZU

Chi-Chi is yelling inside their house as their family is getting ready for the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament. Her loud voice can be heard outside as she calls out her two sons.

CHI-CHI: Gohan! Goten! What's taking you so long?

GOHAN: Coming, Mom!

Chi-Chi goes out of their house carrying a large furoshiki turned into a handbag. She's wearing a yellow cheongsam with violet bandana around her shoulder.

Gohan is behind Chi-Chi, and Goten is the last to come out of the house. The two boys are ready to fight, as Goten is wearing his usual orange gi over a blue long-sleeved undershirt, and Gohan is on his Great Saiyaman costume, but this time, with his white bandana and sunglasses. The older Saiyan is carrying a duffle bag.

GOHAN: Flying Nimbus!

The yellow fluffy cloud flies in, stopping in front of the three. Gohan helps Chi-Chi climb the cloud.

CHI-CHI: Let's get going!

Nimbus starts flying as the two Saiyan brothers follow at either side.

.

CAPSULE CORPORATION, WEST CITY

The Son family arrives at Capsule Corporation. On the compound was a big airship and beside it are Bulma, Vegeta and Trunks. The three landed beside the airship, with Gohan helping his mother climb down Nimbus.

BULMA: Hey guys!

CHI-CHI: Are we late?

BULMA: You're actually quite early.

Bulma is wearing a red dress with a yellow scarf around her neck. Vegeta is wearing an all-black outfit, while Trunks is on his mustard hoodie and green shorts. The father and son are carrying bags containing their fighting clothes.

TRUNKS: Hey Goten! Mom allowed me to go join the tournament with Dad.

GOTEN: Really?

BULMA: As if I have a choice! Your dad was the one who insisted.

VEGETA: It's time to show us the fruits of his training.

GOTEN: Mom, can I join, too?

CHI-CHI: Goten, that might be dangerous.

BULMA: My words, exactly.

VEGETA: You told me Kakarot was also a kid when he started joining.

BULMA: He was twelve, not eight!

VEGETA: What's the difference? Besides, being a Saiyan, we are trained to fight even at a young age.

BULMA: Well, this is Earth and not the Planet Vegeta you once ruled. Things go differently here.

VEGETA: I know my son's capabilities and I know he has a fair chance on this tournament. Might start them at a young age to hone their fighting skills as soon as they can.

BULMA: I swear, if something happens to my Trunks you will sleep outside the room for the whole month.

Vegeta could only grumble in disagreement. Gohan and Chi-Chi grin at the couple's conversation.

GOTEN: Can I really not join, Mom?

CHI-CHI: Goten, I told you. You cannot.

Goten pouted in disappointment.

GOHAN: Come on, Mom. I've trained with Goten and I'm pretty sure he can hold up his own on that tournament. He's actually strong.

CHI-CHI: Gohan, don't back up your bother.

GOHAN: I'm not. I'm telling my actual observation during these past weeks we've trained together. If given the chance to train more, I actually think these kids might surpass me.

VEGETA: You sound like your father during the Cell Games when he was talking about you.

GOHAN: (quite embarrassed) I'm just... telling the truth. (laughs nervously)

Chi-Chi looks at Goten who is still looking at her with his eyes being hopeful. In the end, Chi-Chi surrenders.

CHI-CHI: Fine!

Goten is filled with glee.

GOTEN: Thanks, Mom!

CHI-CHI: But if you got matched up with Vegeta then you should quit the fight, okay?

VEGETA: (quite offended) And why am I being singled out?

CHI-CHI: Because I know you won't be merciful against my Goten. It doesn't help that he looks a lot like Goku.

VEGETA: I'm not dumb enough to blow my chances into fighting Kakarot!

BULMA: Are you even sure you and Goku will get to fight against each other?

VEGETA: I will make sure it's us in the end.

BULMA: Don't forget Gohan and the others.

VEGETA: Why do you think I've been training hard all this time? I'll win against them and I will win over Kakarot.

BULMA: (exhales deeply) I sometimes wonder if I have to be jealous with that obsession of yours over Goku.

The others also started arriving. Krillin and his family arrived with Master Roshi and Oolong. Yamcha arrived with Puar. Even the Ox-King is there to join them.

All of them aboard the airship that will take them to the tournament's venue. Bulma is the one driving. Beside her is Vegeta, and behind her are Master Roshi, Oolong and Gohan. On the other side were Krillin and his family. Behind them are Yamcha and Chi-Chi, and on the other side are Goten, Trunks and Puar who are watching the surroundings they passed on through the window of the airship. The Ox-King is behind them all.

BULMA: Are you sure Goku is really coming back?

GOHAN: That's what he said. You know Dad never breaks his promise.

YAMCHA: He even married someone because of a promise.

All of them laugh.

CHI-CHI: By the way, Yamcha, are you also joining the tournament?

YAMCHA: Nah! I would not like to embarrass myself fighting these powerhouse fighters.

VEGETA: It's good for you to acknowledge that.

YAMCHA: But... how about Tien and Chiaotzu? Aren't they coming?

GOHAN: I wasn't able to inform them. I don't know how to reach them.

YAMCHA: Yeah... haven't seen them, too, since the Cell Games. For sure they will be happy to see Goku again.

KRILLIN: And Goku will be happy to see them, too.

GOHAN: I'm sure Dad won't recognize you, Krillin.

KRILLIN: Yeah... I figured that out, too.

MASTER ROSHI: It's been a long time since we've seen him.

OX-KING: It sure is a long time since you've all been together.

GOHAN: By the way... Vegeta, Tunks, and Goten, I think it's better if we don't turn to Super Saiyan.

VEGETA: And why is that?

BULMA: Of course, it's obvious! Not only is being a Super Saiyan already an odd occurrence here on Earth, but if you turn blond people might recognize you as those people who were on the Cell Games. And with all the media around the venue, it sure will blow up. I can only imagine those reporters in front of my house trying to get a story. That will be chaotic!

VEGETA: Then I'll just kill them all.

BULMA: Oh, Vegeta! Will you behave?

VEGETA: Fine! I won't turn to Super Saiyan. It doesn't matter anyway. I'll win no matter what.

TRUNKS: And I won't turn into Super Saiyan, too.

GOTEN: Me, too!

GOHAN: Thanks, guys.

BULMA: Oh! I think we finally arrived.

PAPAYA ISLAND

In front of them is Papaya Island, the venue of the tournament. Lots of airships are also coming to that island, not only for the guests but also for the media as well. The group arrives on a jam-packed tournament venue. Lots of people are on the island, and there are also a lot of stalls and shops around the place where people can buy food, refreshments and other things such as collectibles and memorabilia connected to the tournament.

KRILLIN: Wow! I don't remember the tournament being this crowded.

BULMA: Times sure changed in here.

KRILLIN: It actually feels like a festival in here.

YAMCHA: I wonder if Goku is here already.

Suddenly, the people come rushing into the entrance of the venue. There lands a big airship with the logo 'MR. SATAN' on it. Everyone started talking about it, being excited about the arrival of their world champion.

KRILLIN: It looks like the world champion has already arrived.

BULMA: He sure does know how to do an entrance.

Mr. Satan goes down his ship.

MR. SATAN: Yeah!

The people cheer in glee. Some even chanted his name. The reporters rush in to interview him.

REPORTER #1: Mr. Satan, what are the odds of you winning this year?

MR. SATAN: A hundred and twenty percent! They might as well deliver the prize to my hotel room.

He laughs proudly. The people cheered more.

Videl goes down the airship, quite annoyed at the display of his father's conceit and the crowd's pleasure on it.

REPORTER #2: Ms. Videl, we've heard you're joining the senior division this year, with the possibility of fighting your own father. What will your strategy be if you are faced with him in the finals?

VIDEL: (quite annoyed) Maybe I'll punch and kick him. What do you think?

Mr. Satan just laughed at his daughter's sarcasm.

YAMCHA: Wow! It seems like Mr. Satan is really into this celebrity business.

GOTEN: Mr. Piccolo is here!

Piccolo is seen under a palm tree. Gohan goes to him.

GOHAN: Piccolo! You came!

Piccolo smiles.

GOHAN: Have you seen my father yet?

PICCOLO: Not yet, but he will come.

Piccolo notices Gohan's costume.

PICCOLO: Are you really going to compete with that outfit?

GOHAN: Why? It's cool, right?

Piccolo looks at him, as if he's about to say something. In the end he just stays quiet.

CHI-CHI: Oh, where could Goku be?

KRILLIN: I'll go look for him.

YAMCHA: Me, too!

Suddenly, the long awaited Saiyan appears. Goku arrives with Fortune Teller Baba.

GOKU: Hey guys!

EVERYONE: Goku!

Krillin is about to cry as he looks at his best friend. Yamcha, Puar, and Oolong are smiling widely.

Bulma is tearing up. Vegeta is just staring, as well as Trunks who have never met Goku before (he was still a baby during the Cell Games). Android 18 is also just staring, with a clueless Marron beside her.

Even Piccolo is smiling, as well as the Ox-King and Master Roshi. Chi-Chi has started crying. Goten is just staring at the man who suddenly appeared making everybody suddenly overjoyed.

GOHAN: Dad...

It was Gohan who first rushed to Goku.

GOHAN: Dad!

Gohan ran to his father as if he was the same nine-year old kid he was when Goku left them and decided to stay in the other world. He gives his father a tight embrace, which Goku reciprocates.

GOKU: Whoa, Gohan! You've grown so much!

Gohan laughs at his father's remark, though tears are also present in his eyes.

The others also come rushing to Goku. Krillin who is crying, Yamcha, Oolong, and Puar. They all surround Goku.

GOKU: Wow! Everyone is here! It's nice to see you all, guys. You've all changed a lot.

After that, Goku comes to Master Roshi.

MASTER ROSHI: Welcome back, Goku. It's been a while.

GOKU: It sure, is. Looking good, Master.

MASTER ROSHI: Getting old is not bad at all.

Goku smiles. Then he looks at Bulma.

GOKU: Bulma!

BULMA: Hey, Goku! How's it going?

GOKU: Fine... You cut your hair.

BULMA: Yeah... Being a mother is quite a lot.

Goku looks down at Trunks.

GOKU: Trunks has really grown up.

Trunks just stares at him.

GOKU: Vegeta!

Vegeta just nods.

Goku turns around and finds Chi-Chi.

GOKU: Hey, Chi-Chi...

Goku comes closer to the teary-eyed Chi-Chi.

CHI-CHI: You're late...

Goku holds her by the shoulders.

GOKU: I'm sorry...

CHI-CHI: Oh Goku...

Chi-Chi collapsed in his arms, crying gently on his chest. Goku kisses her head, calming her down while stroking her back. He smiles at the Ox-King who is watching them, and the big guy smiles back at Goku. After a few moments, Chi-Chi lets go and wipes her tears away.

CHI-CHI: Okay... this has to stop. I have to stop crying.

With a little more effort Chi-Chi was able to fully stop crying. She smiles at her husband who looks lovingly at her.

Goku then notices a small boy with black spiky hair behind Chi-Chi. The small guy seems surprised at the sudden attention. He moves back to his grandfather, the Ox-King, and hid behind his big leg.

GOKU: Hey, Chi... were you...

Goku looks at Chi-Chi, who seems to know what's going on with her husband's head. She nods as confirmation, then smiles.

CHI-CHI: I found out two months after the Cell Games.

Goku gapes at her, amazed at what he heard. He looks at the small tot, who is still looking bashfully at the taller version of him.

CHI-CHI: Goten, go meet your Dad.

Goten looks at Chi-Chi who gave him a reassuring smile. He then looks back at Goku, still unsure as he clings tightly on his grandfather's huge leg.

OX-KING: Come on, Goten. Don't you want to meet your Dad?

Goku sits down, still amazed at what he's seeing.

GOKU: Hey... I'm Goku.

Goten looks shy, but answers anyway.

GOTEN: I'm Goten...

Goku smiles at him, and after staring for a few more moments, Goten finally seems to warm up on him.

GOTEN: Daddy!

Goten rushes to Goku, the latter almost falling down with the impact.

GOKU: Whoa! You don't only look like me. You're also as strong!

Goku stands up and carries Goten. He smiles joyfully at his kid, who seems overjoyed into finally meeting him.

GOTEN: I'm joining the tournament as well.

GOKU: Really?

Goku gives Chi-Chi a questioning look.

CHI-CHI: Oh, it can't be helped! He's your son after all.

Goku laughs at what Chi-Chi said.

GOKU: Were you training hard?

GOTEN: Yes! I'm training with Gohan back home.

GOKU: Wow... So that's why you're so strong.

GOTEN: And also Mom, too.

Once again, Goku looks at Chi-Chi, quite impressed at what he just learned. His wife just shrugged.

FORTUNE TELLER BABA: Goku!

Goku looks at the fortune teller.

FORTUNE TELLER BABA: Remember, you only have twenty-four hours here on earth.

GOKU: I will. Thanks, Baba.

FORTUNE TELLER BABA: I'll go now.

The fortune teller leaves.

GOTEN: That woman looks strange.

GOKU: She is a little strange, but she's nice.

Goku once again smiles at Goten, obviously amazed of the surprise that's been handed to him.

But the group needs to proceed with what they really came here for. It was Piccolo who reminded them that.

PICCOLO: We must go in and register, or else we'll be late.

GOKU: Right!

All of them goes to the registration booth. It was a long line, but after some time of waiting they had their turn to register.

GOHAN: The Great Saiyaman!

REGISTRAR: Great Se... what is that again?

GOHAN: The Great Saiyaman!

REGISTRAR: Okay... (writes on the list) Next!

GOKU: What is that Great Saiyaman?

GOHAN: It's my superhero name.

Trunks is next in line.

REGISTRAR: Oh! Another one for the junior division.

TRUNKS: What is that?

REGISTRAR: All the contestants under 15 years old will compete in a separate Junior Division match.

TRUNKS: Goten! They said we can't fight with the adults.

BULMA: That's not in the rules before. Guess they changed it since last time.

CHI-CHI: I think that's better.

TRUNKS: But I want to fight with the adults!

REGISTRAR: I'm sorry, but rules are rules. Next!

Trunks was not able to alter the registrar's resolve, which makes him grumpy.

After registration, the fighters included in the tournament all proceed to the competition hall.

GOKU: Alright! Let's go, guys!

CHI-CHI: Do great, Honey! And you too, Gohan and Goten.

GOKU: We will. See you in a bit!

BULMA: Do your best, guys!

Android 18 gives Marron to Master Roshi.

MASTER ROSHI: Don't worry. I'll take care of her.

ANDROID 18: You better.

MARRON: Bye Mom and Dad! Good luck!

KRILLIN: Bye, Sweetie! We'll be back soon, okay? Stay close to Master Roshi and the others.

All of them walks to the venue. 

The preliminary assessment will be done first. All the participants who registered are taken to a wide open space near the arena.

KRILLIN: Wow! Look at all these people!

GOHAN: Is this how it usually is?

KRILLIN: Yeah... But I think there are a lot more this year.

The World Tournament Announcer comes to them.

ANNOUNCER: Wow! It really is you!

Goku and Krillin look at the announcer.

GOKU: Hey!

KRILLIN: It's been a long time!

ANNOUNCER: It sure is! I never thought I will see you again, though I am always hoping I would... (moves closer and whispers) By the way. It's not Mr. Satan who really beat Cell, right? It was you, right?

Goku and Krillin just laugh.

GOHAN: (on his mind) It sure is nice to see someone recognize Dad for how strong he really is.

ANNOUNCER: To be honest, this tournament has been totally lame since that last fight you were in. Mediocre fights, you know. No fun at all. But now you're all here, and I'm excited to see amazing fights later.

The announcer notices Android 18 and Vegeta.

ANNOUNCER: Are they with you also?

GOKU: Yes.

ANNOUNCER: That's great! This really is a great day. (notices Piccolo) So, can you promise to not destroy the ring this time?

PICCOLO: I'll try not to.

ANNOUNCER: (laughs) That's what I'm talking about... (notices Goku's halo) Hey, what's the deal with that thing on your head?

GOKU: Oh, this? (points at the halo) Actually, I've been dead since my fight with Cell. I just came back today for this tournament.

ANNOUNCER: You know, I've witnessed a lot of weird things involving you, so I'll buy that.

The person in-charge of the preliminary announces the start of the competition.

ANNOUNCER: That's my cue! See you in a bit, guys!

GOKU: See ya!

The World Tournament Announcer leaves.

IN-CHARGE: Today, we have 194 contestants who registered for this competition. Only 16 will have the chance to go to the semi finals. Mr. Satan, as the defending champion, will automatically move in, so only 15 among you will move on after this preliminary competition… As for the junior division, there will be no elimination round. All of the contestants for the junior division, please come this way.

The children fighting in the junior division all went to the person in-charge. They were then escorted outside the venue. After that, a punching machine was wheeled in.

IN-CHARGE: We will use this punching machine to select the top 15. The 15 highest scorers will move on to the next round.

KRILLIN: A punching machine?

GOHAN: What is that?

IN-CHARGE: For a little demonstration and to set the bar, here is our world champion, Mr. Satan!

Mr. Satan comes in, and again the people cheered and rejoiced for him.

KRILLIN: These people cheer not knowing they might even be stronger than him.

Cameras flash as the media covering the event capture the moment of the world champion. Piccolo, being annoyed himself, does his magic trick paralyzing all the cameras around.

GOHAN: Piccolo?

PICCOLO: All the cameras not only of those here but also those who will watch has all been destroyed. No one will find out about you so you can fight properly.

GOHAN: Thank you, Piccolo.

The media were all frustrated, and Mr. Satan is also quite annoyed. Still, he continues to show them what to do with the punching machine.

The world champion got a decent score of 137, which awed everyone, except for the Z Fighters of course. After the display, Mr. Satan leaves the venue and the competition starts.

It was that time when Gohan suddenly remembers something.

GOHAN: Dad, I'll just go look for a friend.

GOKU: Huh? Okay...

Gohan looks around, trying to find someone from the crowd that started to line up for their turn in the punching machine. As the crowd rush to the machine, he was able to single out the person that made him join the competition in the first place.

GOHAN: Videl!

Videl looks at him.

VIDEL: Gohan!

She suddenly remembers the disguise he wears and the reason behind it. She nervously covers her mouth.

VIDEL: I'm sorry...

GOHAN: It's okay... How's it been?

VIDEL: Great! I trained enough for me to beat you.

Gohan laughs.

VIDEL: How about you?

GOHAN: Great as well. I've trained enough, maybe I might be able to beat you?

Both of them laugh. Then suddenly, Videl seems awkward as she starts to blush.

VIDEL: Did you miss... I mean, of course, you miss school... going to class, you know...

GOHAN: Yeah... but this is about to end so I guess after this, everything will be back to normal.

VIDEL: Yeah... as you say...

Videl seems a little disappointed, which makes Gohan frown in confusion.

GOHAN: (on his mind) Is there something wrong? Did I say something bad?

The Z Fighters are now about to have their turn in the punching machine. Android 18 is the first to try it. She got 774 points, shocking everyone around except those who really knows how she really is.

VIDEL: That is impossible...

GOHAN: (laughs nervously) Maybe something's wrong... he he...

After Krillin's reproach Android 18 repeats the act, earning a lower score of 203, which is still high as compared to the bar set by Mr. Satan. It still shocked others, but it was the trend as the other Z Fighters follow suit. Krillin got 193 points, Goku got 188, Piccolo got 210, and Vegeta... well, his impatience got to him that he destroyed the punching machine in just one punch.

GOHAN: Oops! (on his mind) Trust Vegeta to not hold back his strength.

Everyone is shocked and kind of frightened by what Vegeta did, as well as the high scores that the participants before him got. And because the punching machine was destroyed, they have to replace it disrupting the flow of the preliminary assessment.

GOHAN: Ah, Videl, how is your flying skill? Has it improved?

VIDEL: Gohan! Aren't you shocked at what you just witnessed?

GOHAN: Huh? Ah... Ha ha! W-Well, y-yeah...

VIDEL: That man just destroyed the machine! I can't believe it!

Vegeta went to the other Z Fighters.

VIDEL: That group... they are incredible! They surpassed the score that my father set earlier. All of them got 200 points or close. It was amazing! Incredible...

GOHAN: Well, yeah...

Since it will take some time to get the replacement of the punching machine, those who are done with their turn are advised to wait for the result. Goku and the others decided to go see the junior division competition.

VIDEL: They're coming this way... Look at them walk...So confident and... so sure. Who are these people?

Goku stops upon seeing Gohan. Videl is shocked not only because he's one of those contestants who had unbelievable scores in the punching machine.

VIDEL: (on her mind) This man… it can't be!

GOKU: (looks at Videl) Is she the friend you mentioned earlier?

GOHAN: Uh... yeah...

KRILLIN: Friend, or girlfriend?

Krillin gives Gohan a teasing smile. Gohan gives him an awkward smile.

GOHAN: Krillin, you're embarrassing me.

GOKU: We'll go check on the junior competition.

GOHAN: I'll go after we're finished.

GOKU: Okay... see yah!

The group leaves.

VIDEL: (bewildered) You know those people?

GOHAN: Well, yeah... Actually, that guy in orange gi is my father.

Videl is shocked, and it's because her guess was confirmed.

VIDEL: But... I thought your father is dead!

GOHAN: He is. See that halo above his head? He just came back to join the competition today.

VIDEL: (more confused) What kind of people are you?

Gohan finally realizes what the conversation has turned into. He suddenly does not know how to answer Videl's question. He just looks at her, praying that he did not appear much more strange than he thinks he already seems to her.

At that moment, Videl is finally being able to grasp Gohan's peculiarity a little.

VIDEL: Gohan... there are a lot you haven't told me yet, right?

GOHAN: B-But... what do you want me to tell you?

VIDEL: I don't know... you tell me...

Gohan looks down.

GOHAN: All I can say is that... things that happen in my life and the people around me are not usually what other people experience. Our life is quite different than yours...

Videl looks at Gohan, who is obviously worried. She kind of feels guilty. To console Gohan and somehow fix the situation, she holds his hand.

VIDEL: Different is okay. It's not necessarily bad. Sometimes, it's actually amazing.

Gohan looks at Videl, who smiles at him. He suddenly feels a lot better he was able to smile back.

Videl feels good that Gohan's mood has improved. She likes that he smiled back at her. She likes it a lot it warms her heart. Though it gives her that unexplainable feeling inside her that makes her a little confused and distracted - the feeling that only Gohan was able to give her.

She starts feeling that again, and it makes her feel alarmed. She looks away trying to shake the feeling off, realizing she can't because she can feel her hand holding Gohan's. She lets go of his hand.

But Gohan has other plans. He instead holds her hand, more tightly than she did. Videl looks at their hands holding, then looks at Gohan giving him a questioning look. Gohan grins at her, quite awkwardly, obviously shy, definitely pleading he lets him hold her hand. Videl felt that. She smiles and lets him hold her hand while they wait for their turn in the preliminary assessment.

[mana-the-saiyan]

The Character Defence: Broly

In the few years that I have been a Dragon Ball Z fan, I’ve grown to love so much of it. But there is a trend that occurs in every fandom and in truth, every person. The constant battles and bickering about characters. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and clearly this is mine but I’ve seen some tremendous hate for him but I’m going to put forward a defence of Broly.

1) Broly is Non-Canon. For the Dragon Ball community, canon has been a shifty thing. A general consensus seems to point to one solid conclusion: If Toriyama didn’t write it, it’s non-canon. This is to help ease over fans who try to fight over this particular point and hopefully this closes that particular wound: Your love for a character is your love. It may not matter if it belongs within the cannonical storyline but no one can take away the joy you have about your favorite character(s).

I personally love the Super Saiyan 4 transformation from GT. I love the design and everything about it and I readily accept that it’s not part of canon. I accept it because in the end, it doesn’t diminish the love I have for the form itself and Broly not being in canon shouldn’t make you love him less.

2) Broly is too OP. This is almost a joke at Dragon Ball itself. The premise of the show follows Goku & co battling enemies far stronger than any enemy before. If they weren’t, it would get boring really quickly. But Broly seems to reserve a special kind of resentment and confusion in this regard. To the best of my knowledge, he is currently the only character confirmed to be a galaxy buster by an on screen demonstration. By comparison, the villain that would make the most sense in terms of what characters that were present for a scale would be Cell (based on the appearance of Future Trunks and Pre-Super Saiyan 2 Gohan. It most likely would be placed during the ten day wait for the Cell games if established in mainstream canon)

Now already this sounds like I’m reiterating old facts that everyone knows but I do so for a good reason. It’s been expressed multiple times throughout the series, in particular the Tournament of Power, that a Saiyan has every capability of surpassing their current limits. (Spoilers) Vegeta expresses this himself to Belmod in the ToP when Goku is going for his final battle against Jiren when he achieves Ultra Instinct again.

What should also be common knowledge is the Zenkai boost ability. A quick recap: Zenkai boost is what a Saiyan gets when placed near death and then allowed to recover. Best example is during the Frieza Saga after Goku heals in the medical pod. It allows the Saiyan’s power to rise exponentially at a near 33% rate (based on Vegeta’s power level Pre-Recoome and Post-Recoome) on average though it could vary.

A Saiyan’s ability to surpass limits coupled with a near death power boost is how Broly could have gotten so strong. After all, it’s quite clear that throughout his childhood, Paragus was less than exceptional as a father and used Broly as more of a tool than anything, most likely leading to quite a few Zenkai boosts before the events of the first movie.

Long Story Short: A rough childhood along side his Saiyan genes could easily mean Broly attained his power by simply living through numerous harships.

3) Broly is 1-Dimensional. A fairly common complaint but an important one to him. Broly was born (in movie canon) at the same time as Goku. Goku was quite the fussy kid, meaning that Broly never could really rest easily. Have you heard a baby scream without stopping? But beyond the constant screaming, it’s also the day Broly gets stabbed in the chest and when Planet Vegeta is destroyed. Broly endured a lot of trauma, more than people give him credit for. Of course he’s going to associate everything negative in his life with Goku. His earliest memories were hearing him scream, being stabbed and nearly dying in a planet wide explosion.

Remeber how I said Paragus was a particularly bad father? He also had a hand to play. Paragus would have used Broly’s exceptionally high power level to his advantage and would no doubt use him like a weapon. Broly’s only interaction prior to the movie was casually destroying and killing at his father’s behest.

Without a doubt if Broly had received a similar up bringing to Goku, he would be radically different. While he would still associate his near death to Goku, it wouldn’t consume him. It would more so just make him give Goku the cold shoulder at best and maybe hostile remarks at worst, rather than a direct murder attempt. Being treated like a weapon and being forced to fight no doubt left him with a mental state that though such acts of violence would get him praised and allow him to get attention.

Long Story Short: A bad childhood followed by worse parenting are to blame for Broly’s mental state rather than lazy writing.

4) Broly went out like a sucker. He did but upon some thought, it would make sense. Where Goku punched him at the end of the first movie was also where he was stabbed as a child. In a way, it’s an almost tragic poetic flaw; his first wound that nearly killed him would later be the wound that almost kills him again. Upon watching the battle he has with the Z-Fighters, he has no other weak points. He took a full powered Kamehameha point blank for fun but that’s because the blast hit a wide area rather than a focused point.

If you want to bring up the Special Beam Canon and it’s piercing properties, this is where I stop you. Even if Piccolo wanted to use it, he wouldn’t have the time to charge it. Most of the battle is Broly trashing the rest of the fighters with almost no effort on his part. Even if Piccolo did charge it and it was fired, it’s doubtful that he would aim for that ONE spot. Piccolo never knew about it in the first place and would most likely aim for a different area such as the upper chest ala Raditz, the heart or perhaps even the head. But we’ve also seen the attack being deflected, notably during the battle between Piccolo and Imperfect Cell. Who’s to say Broly couldn’t deflect it similarly?

5) Broly mistook Goten for Goku. (Spoilers) For those that don’t know, Broly survives the events of his first movie and arrives on earth in the second. There he is frozen (for what the movie guide describes as several years) until his is awoken by Goten crying near by. When Broly goes under, the events of the battle are entierly fresh in his mind. So much so that his is in a state of flight-or-fight because of his near death. He is awoken by the sounds of crying, crying that reminds him all too vividly of his own traumatic childhood and he simply wants it to end. The last thin he really sees is Goku’s face (before he blows up, escapes in a pod and makes his way to earth?) and since Goten is an almost exact carbon copy of him, Broly simply lashes out with animalistic insinct.

His near death and sudden awakening from his traumatic past hitting him again throws what rational thought he has out as he wants to SURVIVE. In his mind, killing Goten (Goku by extension) would end that torment for him. The last thing from his past would be laid to rest and he could relax.

That brings us back to his mental state. He’s fine when he encounters everyone else. I dare say he even smiles when he is introduced to everyone. But upon seeing Goku (Goten by extension after a few years), his thoughts of peace are shattered as the one trigger that brings back all the torment he’s endured stares him in the face. He simply seems to exhibit a very violent survival reflex.

6) Why was Broly almost killed? Less of a complaint and more of a good question. Broly was born with a power level of 10,000. King Vegeta at the time was barely above that. No doubt the king gave it consideration as to using Broly. But what would happen if one day Broly didn’t want to take orders from the king? What could he do against a warrior who’s power would ecplipse his own once he became an adult?

Had King Vegeta not ordered his death, Broly may have even grown strong enough to challenge Frieza long before Goku would have, beating the tyrant and becoming the greatest warrior ever known. Dragon Ball could be a whole lot different with that train of thought.

7) Broly one shots too many characters. This basically ties into my “Broly is too OP” argument. But lets go a bit further into detail by comparing his fight with the Z-Fighters against them vs Cell. Cell (Perfect and Super Perfect) took the likes of Future Trunks, Vegeta, Goku and Gohan to beat, easily the most powerful characters at the time. But during that fight, each fighter worked individually or as a tag team in some cases to bring down Cell.

Broly functioned in a very similar fashion for most of it. But where they diverge is how they ended. Cell was beaten by a Super Saiyan 2 Gohan after an intense beam struggle. Broly was beaten by four fighters (Gohan, Trunks, Piccolo and Vegeta) channeling their power into Goku who then beat Broly. That is the final nail in the coffin for this argument.

Gohan during the fight received no ki transfers from the other fighters and barely beat Cell during the beam struggle. Goku on the other hand took noticeable leaps in power with each ki transfer. Pre-Vegeta boost Goku almost punched directly through Broly’s ki barrier, meaning that there was very little difference remaining. After receiving Vegeta’s power, Goku was finally strong enough to push through Broly’s ki and strike him, ending the events of the first movie. The difference is simple for this comparison: Gohan worked alone as a Super Saiyan 2 and barely won while Goku received energy from four other fighters and ended the lengthy battle with one strike.

Why does this matter? Because it gives us a scale. In the main canon, Buu was the only one held to a similar power level. He tore apart planets left and right and while not explicitly seen trashing galaxies (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here or at any point), it is heavily implied he did. Broly direclty showed us his power by trashing a galaxy in the beginning of his movie, giving us a clear indicator to his power. Compared to Cell who COULD reach similar heights but never did, it’s pretty easy to see why he can trash around other characters so easily. I won’t say he’s stronger than Buu who took a Super Saiyan 3 Goku to kill while Broly was handled by a Super Saiyan Goku with four fighters, it’s pretty easy to see how he is able to beat most other fighters.

All in all, Broly receives a bit more flak than he actually deserves. He’s a character who went through a lot of suffering very early on in his life and rather than be given the chance to move on and recover, he was used as a weapon and treated as such for most of his life. He is a powerful individual in the Dragon Ball universe that is a very serious contender on the villain roster. Had he been given a better up bringing, Dragon ball would be very different and would see him as the most powerful player on the character roster. Canon or not, Broly has made quite the impact on the fandom as a whole and certainly deserved his spotlight in the games and movies. In the end, he’s an example of what even Goku could have been if he received a Saiyan upbringing instead of his earthling one. Also, apologies if there are spelling mistakes throughout.

[wallturkey]

What If Vegeta Trained Gohan After The Cell Games?

This idea has been in my head for a while, and I figured Tumblr was a good place to put down the stories inside my head.

A few weeks after the Cell Games, Vegeta is at Capsule Corporation. He is still despondent after the death of his longtime rival. Without Kakarot, the urge to train is diminished. He still does so, but spends more and more time trying to figure out how to be a father. That is until Gohan walks in. Gohan is in Super Saiyan form, retaining his ability to stay in the transformed state indefinitely.

“What are you doing here?” Vegeta is incensed simply by the boy’s presence. It reminds him of the man he will never get to beat.

“I respect my father’s decision,” Gohan’s tone was respectful, but determined. “But he was wrong. His absence does not protect the Earth from danger. There will be new threats. If I want to be ready, I need to be stronger.” He locked eyes with Vegeta. “I need to embrace my heritage. I want to train with the rightful King of the Saiyans.”

Vegeta's eyes widened. His heart raced. All the old feelings returned. He had a new future. He smiled his vicious smile. “Prepare for punishment. I will make an elite Saiyan warrior out of you.”

Years pass. Gohan spends most of his time at Capsule Corp, training constantly. He spends an hour a day with Bulma being tutored to satiate Chi-Chi, who eventually visits as well, after Goten and Trunks have joined Vegeta and Gohan’s training. Because of this, all four of them become immensely powerful. All three boys have also learned under Bulma’s tutelage, keeping up their intelligence.

At Chi-Chi’s insistence, Gohan enrolls in Orange Star High School as he does in the anime. Day 1 starts as it does in DBZ proper. Gohan runs into bank robbers, goes Super Saiyan, and dispatches them easily. He returns to normal and goes to school. All goes well until Videl questions him. “The Gold Fighter was wearing a white shirt, a black vest, and red pants.”

“But he had gold hair.” Erasa chimed in.

“Like this?” Bolstered by the Saiyan pride fostered by Vegeta, Gohan transforms right there in the classroom, and brings the world to a halt. Gohan, the Gold Fighter is immediately a household name. It quickly comes out that he is the son of former World Martial Arts Champion Son Goku, and Videl steps in to help him handle the publicity... On the condition that he train her.

The next day, Videl arrives at Capsule Corp. Vegeta refuses to train her, so he focuses his attention on Goten and Trunks, who are decked in Bulma’s rendition of Saiyan armor. Gohan trains Videl, and within a day she learns the basics of ki control. The next day, she has taken to the air, if only barely. Suitably impressed, Vegeta steps in.

“Who are you?” He asked incredulously. “Very few earthlings are this naturally adept.”

Videl stood strong. “I’m the daughter of Mr. Satan, the World Martial Arts Champion!”

Vegeta stared, confused, before a sudden spark of realization hit him, and he burst into laughter. “That oaf? He’s about as strong as an Arlian beetle!”

“I know him!” Goten chimed in. “He’s the strongest guy on Earth not like us!”

Vegeta looked angry. “Then he isn’t strong.”

Videl mirrored his rage. “It’s his training that made me this good. If he learned this stuff he could outclass you!”

Vegeta laughed once more before regaining his poise. “I very much doubt that, girl. But you have potential. Keep it up and you could find yourself among Earth’s ACTUAL warriors. I will train you.”

Videl’s first instinct is to refuse, but seeing Goten and Trunks flying and firing blasts, throwing punches and kicks way above her head convinces her that she wants that power.

3 days into Vegeta’s training, Videl is almost destroyed, but feeling incredibly strong. Feeling bold, Gohan helps her up and wipes her hair from her face.

“You’ve come so far, Videl. I’m impressed!” Gohan smiled. “But you should consider cutting your hair.”

“You like girls with short hair?” Videl stared into Gohan’s eyes.

“Uh, I don’t know.” Gohan was stupefied. “But as a fighter your hair is just getting in the way.”

“And those pigtails make free weapons for your enemy.” Vegeta chided without looking.”

“WHAT’S IT MATTER TO YOU?” Videl yells before angrily leaving and flying off, not even realizing this was the first time she flew home on her own.

The next day the Saiyans were surprised to see Videl show up with the pixie-cut.

“Who’s the new boy?” Goten energetically blurted out.

Videl ignored him. “I have an idea!” All eyebrows quirked. “We should all enter the Tenkaichi Budokai!”

“The what?” Vegeta was already agitated.

“It’s the tournament my dad one decades ago.” Gohan replied.

“Videl’s dad won the last tournament, but that was before I was born.” Goten added.

“And why should we enter?” Vegeta scoffed.

“For one, first prize is 100 million Zeni.” Videl quickly added.

“My wife is heir to the biggest fortune on the planet. I don’t need money.”

“More importantly, I need someone to knock my dad off his high horse.”

Vegeta smiled. “That’s almost worth it.”

Videl got angry. “Come on! What will it take?”

“What if I join in?” A familiar voice echoed through the room.

“Dad?”

“Kakarot?”

Goten, Trunks, and Videl looked around confused as Vegeta and Gohan looked with sudden hope and excitement.

“It turns out that due to my heroic efforts in life, I've earned a bit of credit! I can spend a full day on Earth. I think I’ll use it to fight in the tournament!”

“At last! I can prove that I have surpassed you!” Vegeta shouted with glee.

Goku laughed. “You can try.”

Fast-forward to the tournament. Pretty much everything proceeds as normal, with a few changes. First, Gohan enters under his real name. Second, Tien enters the tournament as well, eliminating Mighty Mask from reaching the final 16. Third, as Gohan’s abilities are public knowledge, and speculation about his presence at the Cell Games has already started, the no-Super Saiyan rule isn’t instituted among the Z fighters.

Goten and Trunks dominate the Junior Division, and meet up in the finals. But this time, Trunks’ hubris gets the better of him, and Goten is victorious. In the exhibition, Goten takes to Mr. Satan’s antics, and hits him softly. Mr. Satan plays it up(although it did really hurt), and the “Let Goten win” narrative holds true.

The main tournament begins proper, and the 1st round looks like this:

Krillin Vs Pintar

Ma Jr(Piccolo) Vs Shin

Videl Vs Spopovitch

Gohan Vs Kibito

Vegeta Vs Goku

Tien Vs Yamu

18 Vs Jewel

Mr. Satan Vs Killa

Krillin eliminated Pintar with a single kick.

Piccolo again discovers Shin’s identity as the Supreme Kai, but at Gohan’s insistence goes through with the fight. It is an intense battle, but in the end Shin uses speed and tactics to outplay Piccolo and overpower him, winning by ringout.

Videl beats down Spopovitch, and once again kicks hard enough to spin his head around. He returns his head to proper position, then assaults Videl mercilessly. However, under Vegeta’s tutelage, Videl has grown smarter and tougher. A surprise energy blast blinds Spopovitch, and a swift kick gives Videl the win by ringout. She is still heavily hurt, and Goku retrieves Senzu Beans to help her out. Spopovitch almost attacks in rage, but Yamu reminds him of their mission.

Kibito once again asks to see Gohan’s power. Gohan goes full power Super Saiyan 2, then Yamu and Spopovitch attack. However, this time, Gohan overpowers Supreme Kai’s hold, and easily knocks away his attackers. Yamu is disqualified, but it doesn’t matter. Enraged at their failure, Babidi blows up their heads from afar. Kibito, unsure of how to proceed, forfeits the match.

After an intermission due to mysterious cranial combustions, Vegeta battles Goku. This battle is by far the most exciting of the 1st round. Vegeta and Goku both battle at full power Super Saiyan 2, shaking the very earth beneath them. Eventually, Goku uses Instant Transmission, which Vegeta specifically trained for. He counters the move, and drives Goku into the ground for a ringout. Vegeta is victorious.

Tien advances automatically due to Yamu’s disqualification and subsequent death.

18 eliminates Jewel with ease.

Mr. Satan, though rusty from lack of training, overpowers Killa and wins a hard-fought victory.

Between rounds, Supreme Kai explains what happened with Yamu and Spopovitch, about the wizard Babidi and their purpose here. Goku, hopeful for more fights, says he’ll go, but Vegeta convinces them to let the tournament play out first, as he doesn’t want to miss the opportunity to face Gohan, who he now views as Kakarot’s(and possibly his) superior.

Round Two begins.

Krillin faces the Supreme Kai, and although he puts up a decent fight, Shin defeats him handily.

Videl goes all-out against Gohan. He pulls his punches and avoids direct attacks, enraging her. Her ferocity is eventually enough to force him to go Super Saiyan, and he throws her out as gently as he can.

Tien battles Vegeta, and is enough to force Vegeta to Super Saiyan 2, where he easily beats Tien unconscious.

Before the final match of the 2nd round, 18 corners Mr. Satan. She reminds him that he’s screwed, period. She makes him an offer. She can make him look good in defeat for 50,000,000 Zeni, or she’ll throw the match for 100,000,000 Zeni. Mr. Satan, not wanting to face Vegeta, chooses the first. 18 fakes great effort, but knocks Mr. Satan out of the ring. The crowd immediately assumes he would rather give up his title than hit a woman, protecting his reputation.

Supreme Kai challenges Gohan in the Semi-Finals, and puts him through paces. However, he is no match for Gohan at Super Saiyan 2, and Gohan is victorious.

Vegeta, upon seeing 18 across the ring, remembers the humiliation she put him through in the Android Saga, and immediately assaults at Super Saiyan 2. 18 only holds out for a few minutes before Vegeta begins a vicious beatdown. He relentlessly hits her, years of aggression unleashed, to the dismay and boos of the crowd. Krillin screams for him to stop. Vegeta looks to mock him, but sees Gohan, his final opponent. He tosses 18 out of the ring, mercifully ending the fight.

There’s a short intermission as anticipation builds for the final match. People throughout the world are tuning in for the fight of the century. When the fight begins, Vegeta and Gohan both start at Full Power Super Saiyan 2. The fight is so intense most people have trouble following. Slow-Motion cameras are brought in just to capture clips of the battle. Things escalate when Vegeta attempts a Galick Gun, which becomes a full-on beam struggle as Gohan counters with a Masenko. Vegeta appears to have the advantage, pressing down on Gohan, until Gohan starts to transform. Vegeta abandons the struggle as Gohan goes Super Saiyan 3. Vegeta mocks Gohan, claiming him to be desperate. Gohan counters by telling Vegeta he already lost. Gohan transformed first, and he won’t give Vegeta the chance. Vegeta instantly realizes his error. He tries to go Super Saiyan 3, but Gohan eliminates him before he can do so.

Gohan wins the Tenkaichi Budokai.

Gohan accepts the title, but refers everything else to Chi-Chi, who is ecstatic. Goku locates Babidi’s hideout via Instant Transmission, and Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Krillin, Piccolo, Tien, 18, Videl, Kibito, and Shin warp to that location, with Goten and Trunks grabbing on at the last second to come along.

The door to Babidi’s hideout was open. Supreme Kai warns them of the obvious trap, but the team doesn’t care, and steps right in. Piccolo and Krillin protest Trunks and Goten coming along, but Vegeta intercedes.

“The boys are stronger than either of you. If you can go, they can go.”

They enter the hideout, and Pui Pui welcomes them. He explains the 3 fighters before Babidi system.at the Z Fighters have to beat 3 fighters on 3 levels to get to Babidi. Trunks aggressively steps forward to fight Pui Pui. They are transported to Pui Pui’s home, thinking the gravity(10 times that of Earth) gives him the advantage. However, under Vegeta’s tutelage Trunks has dealt with several hundred times Earth’s gravity, and quickly dispatches Pui Pui with the Galick Gun.

Goku gets the opportunity to fight Yakon, and defeats him by going Super Saiyan 2. Yakon eats so much light energy he explodes.

The final warrior is Dabura, and Gohan goes against him. At Super Saiyan 2 Gohan is easily outclassing Dabura, and Babidi is terrified that his plan is failing and he’ll be wiped out. He desperately urges Dabura to do something. Thinking quickly, Dabura turns and spits on Videl, turning her to stone. Gohan breaks down, and goes full rage mode, transforming to Super Saiyan 3. With an instantaneous strike, he decapitates Dabura.

In this moment, Babidi sees his chance, and enters Gohan’s mind. He latches on to Gohan’s rage and tries to awaken the darkness within him. Gohan fights and resists, but Babidi sees an opportunity in Gohan’s mind. Using his magic, he regrows Gohan’s tail and shows him a full moon. The entire team is terrified as they have to fight the most powerful force they have ever seen...

Majin Golden Great Ape Gohan.

The raging Golden Oozaru levels mountains and knocks the Z Fighters around effortlessly. Babidi woops in victory as his power needed to revive Majin Buu goes from zero to full instantly.

Trunks and Goten go Super Saiyan 2, Piccolo, Tien, Shin, Kibito, and Krillin charge up to full power, and Vegeta and Goku go Super Saiyan 3, and they are still barely holding on. They barely notice Majin Buu’s awakening, as they are relentlessly beat down. All seems lost until Vegeta sees Videl awakening from her petrification.

“Kakarot! The girl!”

Goku looks confused until he also sees Videl. He quickly grabs her and carries her up. Explaining the situation as best he can, he tells Videl she is the only one can reach him.

Videl calls out to Gohan, and does get his attention. After some loving words, and finally recognizing that she is okay, Gohan regains control.... and starts to transform.

His eyes go yellow, his hair grows long and red fur adorns his chest.

Gohan has gone Super Saiyan 4.

Everyone stands in awe of Gohan’s overwhelming power.

The team moves on to face Babidi, who transports everyone out of the hideout. He boasts about the awakening of Majin Buu, who looks around happily and yawns. Babidi commands Buu to destroy the Z Fighters, and Gohan obliterates Buu with a single ki blast. Babidi is shocked and scared frozen. Piccolo moves forward and chops Babidi in half. In his final breaths, Babidi pleads for mercy.

“Where was mercy when Buu was unleashed upon the galaxy?” Shin spat through gritted teeth. “Where was mercy when he slaughtered my fellow Kais?”

“Please... That was my father’s doing....”

“And you sought to set him loose on the universe once more. You give no mercy, and you shall receive none.”

And Shin annihilates Babidi.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, Buu reforms in front of everyone, and seems unfazed by the previous event.

“You strong! You play with Buu some more?” Buu’s stomach rumbles. “Buu Hungry!”

After much deliberation, Goku convinces the team that Buu might not be a threat so long as he is satiated. However, he burned most of his remaining time, and leaves to spend the rest of it with Chi-Chi and Goten. The rest take Buu to Capsule Corp for a post-tournament/post-saving the world feast.

[tigerlover16-uk]

Why is everyone so angry over Toyotaro then over the thing with Goku not knowing when Gohan and Goten were born then? What if this is Toriyama's suggestion?

No, I’m pretty sure this is strictly Toyotaro’s nonsense because of the context.

Here’s the thing. The scene that initially started this controversy in the anime? The context there was that Vegeta was being a Tsundere and refusing to go train with Goku because he wanted to be there for his second child’s birth. But, being Vegeta, he’s not exactly open with his feelings and he refuses to just SAY why it’s important to him, coming up with an excuse that “Bulma would never forgive me if I left now”

This seemed odd to Goku, because Bulma told him to take Vegeta along just before this, and he had to wonder why she would hold a grudge for not being around for the birth when Chichi holds no resentment to him for not being around for Goten’s birth. So he comments, before really thinking about it or how it might sound mind, “Really? I was dead when Goten was born”

Now, this sounds bad yes, but it’s a case of Goku speaking before thinking and not meaning anything wrong. A lot of people took it as Goku being dismissive of Goten and the importance of childbirth and being there for your family. And while I get people getting that impression from the word choice… with the context mentioned, it’s pretty clear he didn’t mean that at all, and he probably would have been a lot more understanding of Vegeta’s motivations from the start if the prince of all drama queens had just been honest with him.

It’s also clear that it wasn’t the intent on the writers to portray Goku in a negative light with that in regards to his parenting skills, or tear him down in favour of propping up Vegeta. You know why?

Because say what you will about their overall handling of Goku, there’s plenty of issues especially with how they overplay their “Lol, Goku’s an idiot” jokes, especially in the Future Trunks saga. But the Super anime frequently portrays Goku as a loving and supportive parent.

Goku spends plenty of time hanging out with Goten while he’s working and at home, and is physically affectionate towards him. He’s happy for Gohan and the life he’s leading, and despite how Goku would be happy if Gohan were to train and become a fighter again (And he has been visibly happy and supportive of Gohan doing so this saga), he fully supports Gohan’s scholarly ambitions and realizes how important they are to him. As shown in episode 30, when Goku was quick to shrug off Gohan not being able to take part in the tournament against universe 6 because of a conference, saying “Studying’s important too”.

Goku loves his granddaughter Pan and dotes on her a lot. He’s considerate of his family’s well being, and despite wanting to go train with King Kai to make sure he was prepared for future threats to the earth, at the start of the show he was ready to keep farming to support everyone, only leaving to train after Mr Satan gave the family plenty of money to support themselves.

He flew into a rage we haven’t seen from him since Frieza killed Krillin when Goku Black revealed he’d murdered an alternate version of Chichi and Goten. And to top it off, in episode 77 itself, Goku was very happy to take Goten along with him to train with Whis, showing he’s happy to spend quality time with his son.

For all the shows ups and downs with how it writes Goku, it has never tried to paint Goku as anything else but a loving and supportive father who does care about his children and family. So it’s clear with that scene given all this context, that there was never any intention to tear Goku down or imply he doesn’t consider Goten’s birth an important thing.

Keep in mind, despite not being around for Goten’s birth, he and Goten bonded immediately after meeting each other, and after Goku came back to life they seem to just have a perfectly normal father son relationship as though Goku’s always been around, no resentment or anything.

Whereas Vegeta, even though he has grown a lot as a person and loves his family, was still willing to up and leave them at the drop of a hat back at the start of the RF saga to train with Whis. Goku knows that while Vegeta is a good guy and loves his family, he’s still a bit self-obsessed and wouldn’t normally pass up an excuse to go training, especially if it meant risking Goku surpassing him again.

So Vegeta’s reaction was weird enough for Goku to comment on, and since Whis showed up very quickly after and Goku just wanted to get going to train, he didn’t dwell on why Vegeta was being so reluctant and against leaving at the moment. He might have caught onto why it mattered so much on his own, we don’t know because of how the scene played out. 

It’s likely that Goku might have just assumed that simply being around for your family was the most important thing. Now, you can argue that it was inconsiderate for him to not realize that being around for your child’s birth is a significant thing to a lot of people, but really they didn’t KNOW the baby was going to be born that day (And by the looks of things, she might not have been if not for Whis speeding things up), there’s not indication that Goku wanted to be gone for more than the rest of the day, and Whis could always keep an eye on things with his staff and take Vegeta back if Bulma went into labour.

And, well, the significance of the whole thing might not have immediately occurred to Goku because Bulma told him to bring Vegeta anyway, so it didn’t seem like there was any urgency for Vegeta to stay.

Could this exchange have been written a lot better and differently? Absolutely, no arguments there. But as it is, I don’t think it’s really that bad, or that Goku really comes off as that dismissive of either Goten, or the significance of having a child. It was just a conversation that was handled awkwardly between the two because Vegeta wasn’t being open with his feelings.

The word choice is shaky, but with everything in context I never saw it in the worst possible light or framing Goku in a negative way on purpose. People say stupid things without realizing it or how they might be taken all the time in real life, I know I’ve been there, no real harm done in the long run.

The manga though? That’s a different case entirely, because the context of the whole manga points to a writer having a specific bias against Goku.

Looking back, the manga seems to portray Goku as dismissive of his children at best, indignant about them at worst. Almost every scene of Goku together with Goten from the anime? Not in the manga, I can’t even remember the last time they shared panels together. Even the scene at the very start of Super with Goten on the tractor had Goku looking a lot more annoyed with Goten after saving him from falling off a cliff.

And Gohan? Oh boy, you know that moment I brought up where anime Goku was supportive of his son being a scholar and being understanding of Gohan having to miss out on the U6 tournament because of the conference?

Well, in the manga, when Vegeta suggests having Gohan on the teams roster, Goku calls him crazy and dismisses Gohan as having become a total bookworm, and admonishing him for focusing on studying and how he lost his Gi. And later when he asks Videl why Gohan isn’t around to watch the tournament and she mentions the conference, Goku gets indignant and basically insulted Gohan for it, being offended at his own son for having a job and responsibilities to live up to and not just dropping everything to come see him beat people up.

Doesn’t exactly paint Goku as a supportive or caring father, now does it? Also, that scene of Goku flying into a rage over Goku Black murdering Goten and Chichi? Didn’t happen in the manga. Black just comments “oh yeah, I killed you” and Goku makes a comment about “Guess i’m going to have to avenge… myself” and doesn’t even consider what Black might have done to his family, his first real concern after finding out about his alternate self’s murder in the anime.

On the flip side of this, Toyotaro still finds the time to fill up the last two sagas of the manga with moments of Vegeta being a good family man with Bulma and both versions of Trunks. Sure, the anime does this too, but it gives every couple good moments and every father is given some scenes doting on their children.

But it’s notable that Vegebul is the only couple that gets any real shipping moments in the manga, and Vegeta is also given comparatively more prominence in the Future Trunks saga compared to the anime, in the process sidelining Future Trunks himself a good amount might I add. This includes being the one to fight Goku Black during every encounter, with Goku not even getting a real confrontation with him.

Heck, Toyotaro outright takes a moment from the last episode of the anime where Goten goes to hug Goku after the whole ordeal with Zamasu and Chichi comes over expressing worry over Goku’s state, and removes Goten and Chichi from the scene entirely to give that moment to Vegeta, Trunks and Bulma.

Not to mention the scene where a severely exhausted Vegeta to the point he should barely be able to survive any more attacks at this point, randomly powers up after getting angry and destroys TWO merged Zamasu clones instantly, when Goku after achieving “Perfected” Super saiyan blue, a much more powerful upgrade to SSB, could only fight evenly with one Merged Zamasu for a while in an effort to burn through his potara time limit.

And then much of the first chapter of the universe survival saga in the manga is focused on Vegeta sparring with Whis and then Beerus, and outright retcons the super saiyan god prophecy to include Vegeta as Beerus’ destined rival alongside Goku.

If you think this all makes Toyotaro seem a little bit biased towards Vegeta and that he probably doesn’t have much respect for Goku’s parenting skills. Well then, you’re probably right.

And then we get to the big issue. You know that scene I just talked about in detail from the anime.

Well, here Goku states that he doesn’t know when either Goten OR Gohan was born, and Vegeta outright says “You may not be a bad guy, but as a father you’re the worst”.

The framing of this moment is the exact opposite of the anime.  Now first off, yes, Goku wasn’t around for Goten’s birth because he was dead. That’s a neutral fact. But GOHAN? Goku lived with Chichi the entire five years between Dragon Ball and the start of DBZ. He raised Gohan with her that whole time. Those are canon facts. The idea of him not knowing when Gohan was born is utter nonsense.

I mean, even if we were to accept that for some inexplicable reason he had to go away for a bit while Chichi was heavily pregnant (Which is never implied), and wasn’t around the day when Gohan was actually born… he should know when Gohan’s birthday is. Even if somehow we can believe he wasn’t around for the birth immediate after it happened, Goku SHOULD know when it did. The only explanation that he doesn’t in this case, is he just doesn’t care to remember it and it’s not that big a deal.

Especially problematic though is Vegeta outright calling Goku the worst father ever (Yeah, real funny mr never hugged his son until he was 8, punches him in the face for doing the thing you told him to do, didn’t care if he and his mother died at one point). That line makes it clear that the intent of this exchange is that Goku is supposed to be portrayed as a bad father here in this continuity, and as a contrast to make Vegeta look like the better, more considerate parent by comparison.

That is literally the worst way you can do anything like this.

The anime exchange was awkwardly worded, but ultimately harmless and it wasn’t meant in the way some people concluded because… well, some people who don’t like DBS’ handling of Goku take any excuse they can to complain about it and immediately jump to the worst possible conclusions with things like this.

But the manga scene? With the way this is handled, and taking into considering how Toyotaro usually handles Goku, especially in regards to how he perceives his children in contrast to the anime, and his fixation and glorification of Vegeta at several points, it’s visibly clear through the writing that Toyotaro (NOT Toriyama, because Toriyama writes Goku as a loving and supportive family man all the time) has about as much understanding of Goku’s parenting skills as your average TFS fanboy.

And it only gets worse. In the most recent chapter (Where Toyotaro also had Vegeta be the one to refuse to let Goten and Trunks compete in the ToP because “They’re just kids” and had him be a lot more immediately happy and excited around everyone else about Bulla’s birth), Toyotaro brought up that Goku in the manga has never seen a baby be born AND doesn’t even know HOW they’re born, wondering if Whis magically popping Bulla out of Bulma’s tummy was the standard birthing procedure.

…

…

…

Yeah, bull####!

I mean, I could believe that Goku didn’t actually witness the birth itself. I know some father’s sit in a waiting room while it’s happening, for example. But I CANNOT believe that Goku wasn’t told by Chichi, or anyone else at any point, how baby’s are actually born. You could get away with a comment like that with kid Goku, or even Goku at the end of Dragon Ball. But as a middle aged adult?!

No, there is literally no way that makes sense for his character to not know that sort of thing. The way that scene was handled infantilizes Goku and makes him a huge manchild. And it was Toyotaro that chose to portray him that way, because Goku makes no similar comment in the anime.

The way all of this is framed it DOES make it clear that Goku is pretty indifferent to the birth of his own children and the significance of it. It makes it clear Goku doesn’t know a thing about childbirth, or seemingly any significance in having a child.

The anime moment from episode 77 could have been written better, but this was outright written to frame Goku as a dismissive, bad father who doesn’t have much respect for his children, but Vegeta does because he’s super dad.

And before any Vegeta or Vegebul fan says anything, NO, I’m not trying to attack Toyotaro for “Giving them a moment” or whatever they want to say to play the victim card. I love Vegeta, and I was happy to see him put so much importance on the birth of his new baby in the anime. I’m happy for how much he’s grown.

But the way things were handled in the manga was insulting to Goku’s character, and you should NEVER tear down one character to build up another. That’s bad and stupid writing. It would be just as bad if either version made Vegeta regress severely or look worse than he should be as a parent at this point to make Goku look better by comparison.

I’m sure you’re wondering anon “Well, Toriyama signs off on everything, he must approve of this”. Toriyama makes corrections where he feels they’re needed yes, but he can make mistakes or just not think too hard about something. He’s only human. We don’t know how he actually feels about what Toyotaro did, and given his own writing of Goku and how the anime handles Goku as a parent, it’s clear that whatever the case, the manga’s attitude to Goku’s parenting skills isn’t on him. It’s on Toyotaro specifically.

Look, I have my issues with how Goku is written in the DBS anime too, I won’t argue too hard with people who find it annoying. But I stand by that the anime scene didn’t make Goku look as bad as people make it out to be, but the manga?

This isn’t even all of the problems with DBS manga Goku, but it is very much more insulting to me personally than just about anything the anime’s done. I can overlook moments of making him look overly stupid after some time to grumble about it, but what Toyotaro did here was so far out of character, so damaging and the complete antithesis of everything canon Goku’s character should be about, that it just makes me sick. 

This mess IS on Toyotaro, and regardless of what the man wants to say about Goku being his favourite character, it’s clear through his actual writing where his real priorities lie, and that he fundamentally doesn’t understand who Goku is as a person.

[kabutots]

GT Deserves A Second Chance

I admire GT.

I mean, I only had two major issues with it as a kid: Goku being turned into a child and Pan's voice actress being incredibly shrill.

I'm saying this because I'm looking back on it and...I don't hold any animosity for it. It set itself apart from Z by acting like the original Dragon Ball. It had that sense of adventure with collecting the (black star) dragon balls. Ask yourself this:

Was there any point of adventure in finding the dragon balls in Z?

No, there wasn't. The characters could fly and scoop them up, a prime example being in the Wrath of the Dragon movie. There were no longer any multi-episode stories about getting just one of them, there was no journey around the world to find them. Z took the grand adventure aspect of Dragon Ball and the actual martial arts and turned the series into an absurdly grandiose spectacle of screaming and energy beams.

But GT went against that and decided to be more like Dragon Ball. Actually, it tried to meld the two together. There was adventure through the stars and a sense of wonder, but it also had Super Saiyan 4. Did it do it perfectly? No, but there is clearly effort put into it. There are solid ideas and it truly comes off as someone trying to pay homage to Toriyama's writing of Dragon Ball while still maintaining the action of Z to keep fans of the latter invested.

You tell me that an arc about the characters having to deal with the consequences of abusing the dragon balls isn't interesting in the slightest bit.

Do I love GT? No, not particularly. But I admire it for the risk that it took by trying to return the series to its roots a little.

Is it the best sequel to Z? Between GT and Super, hell yes. Super has no consequences because we know how the last few episodes of Z were. No one truly integral can have a perma-death. But GT? It killed Piccolo and didn't revive him. At all. We saw him briefly in the next arc, but after that he was gone for good.

Another point in favor of GT? It didn't completely escalate things to an insane level. Dragon Ball has aliens. Okay, that widened the potential stories. But good lord, it is not the series to have gods and multiple universes (Super gets a small defense here as the thing that started the trend was Battle of Gods). It just isn't. Kais worked well because there were only a handful of them and they weren't all-powerful. Future Trunks creating time paradoxes worked well because it was contained within itself and easily explainable and justifiable by multiverse theory.

Again, another thing going for GT? Surpassing Super Saiyan 3 isn't a pallette swap for Super Saiyan 1 calling itself extremely powerful. SSJ4 had a transformation. The Great Ape imagery from Goku turning SSJ3? It comes full circle by having him go (Golden) Great Ape when turning into SSJ4. It looks powerful. It has the Saiyan roots by way of the fur on the torso and the tails coming back.

And y'know what? It treated the characters better than Super. Super said that Goku and Chi-Chi, despite for being married for two decades at that point, never kissed. It makes Goku so stupid, when he's more naive than just plain dumb. It said he didn't know about Gohan being born (I have no qualms with it saying the same about Goten, Goku was dead and literally had no way of knowing).

GT doesn't do that. It turned Goku into a kid, but it didn't change who he was.

It honors Vegeta's speech about Goku being better than him by not having him completely obsessed with surpassing him again. It keeps Vegeta's dickishness while still keeping him to his character arc. Example? He throws Bra into their car when he's challenged by the BabyPossessed!Goten, but does it as a means of getting her out of the way of the fight and to leave. It's quick, effective, and not over-the-top dramatic while still proving that he cares about her. Another example being earlier when two men hit on Bra, Vegeta doesn't say anything to them, instead choosing to silently tear their steering wheel off and let them suffer the consequences of flirting with his daughter.

It doesn't try to force Gohan into the fighter life again. He's a scholar now. He'll fight if he needs to, but he's content with his career and GT understands that.

It doesn't ruin Future Trunks's life by erasing his happy ending that he worked damn hard for (nor does it force a creepy love interest on him).

It doesn't keep forcing "18 is materialistic" jokes on the audience (which is more against just modern Dragon Ball than Super, but it still fits). It treats her with respect and gives her one of the most emotional moments in the entire franchise when 17 kills Krillin. 18 shows the most emotion that she's ever shown; she actually cries. She's always depicted as a stoic woman who usually only has two expressions, the "I don't give a fuck" and the "you have to be kidding me" (Super gets a small point here because she actually looks happy sometimes). We see her open up little by little over the course of Z and when the Super 17 arc hits GT, we see who she is. 18 is a woman who loves her husband and daughter dearly and will not stand by when something happens to either of them.

GT had respect for the cast that didn't fluctuate on whatever mood its writer(s) had.

And just a small personal note from me, GT looks like Dragon Ball. It's not drawn digitally when the opportunity was there, instead keeping with Dragon Ball tradition, something that even all of the Z movies (before Battle of Gods) did.

And the endings can't be compared, seeing as Super (unfortunately) isn't over yet.

GT had huge shoes to fill and it really doesn't deserve the hate it gets. It has so many respectable qualities to it and it deserves a second chance from the fans. It really meant no harm. Did Toei just want to capitalize on Z? Yeah, there's no point in denying that. But someone on that team, at least one single person, put effort and love into it. It completely warrants recognition for at least what it tried to do, no matter if it failed or not, because it tried.

tl;dr: GT had interesting ideas, wanted to keep true to the original Dragon Ball, treated its characters with more respect than Super, and deserves a second chance.

[magicalgirlmascot]

Heya I don't mean to sound passive aggressive in any way, but I was just wondering why is it that you dislike Super a lot? I mean you're allowed to like and dislike whatever you want, and I'm in no way trying to change your opinion. I'm just curious as to why you seem to have a burning hatred for it?

Nah you don’t sound passive aggressive ^^ if you were you wouldn’t have acknowledged that my opinion is a valid one, you’re cool

I’ve avoided going into too much detail to avoid The Discourse, but essentially it comes down to a few main points: ships I don’t like, characters I don’t care about, pacing, terrible one-note characterization, and the fans.

I know a lot of that sounds really petty but with all my Sweet Home Alabama discourse yesterday are any of you surprised

I’m going to put my more detailed reasoning under a cut because boy howdy it is long and I have some Things To Say

Ships I Don’t LikeOkay this, honestly, is incredibly petty, and it’s not even the pettiest thing on here. But I HATE Trunks/Mai. I hate it. It is the worst ship that’s had the word “canon” sneezed at it in all of DB history, and that’s coming from someone who firmly believes Yamcha/Bulma was unhealthy for both parties. One of my rules for accepting writing commissions and requests is that I will not accept ships with an “aged up” child character in a relationship with an adult. (Aged up children in relationships with other aged up children are a different story, as they’re at least at the same stage of development, but that’s an issue for another day.) Trunks/Mai has the opposite problem: it’s an “aged down” adult character in a relationship with a child. You can argue about Future Trunks’s age all you want, but that changes nothing about kid Trunks and Mai. She’s in her forties. He’s nine at most. How is this not the creepiest thing in the world what the fuck.

Even with Future Trunks and Future Mai, it still grosses me out because it’s the same thing. Assuming the Pilaf Gang did (somehow) wish to be young again in the Future timeline (which...I don’t see how they could have, that doesn’t make sense continuity-wise, but continuity has never been DB’s strong suit), that still makes her way older than him. And if they didn’t, well, that’s just worse. Also how is she still that young looking.

Honestly the only reason I can think of for Toei/Toriyama to bring that into existence was so people would stop shipping Trunks with Goten and Future Trunks with Gohan. Which. I get it, you don’t like it, they’re your characters, et cetera, but could you maybe not have done it in a somewhat less creepy way? Dude. What 40-something wants to be in a relationship with a kid? Even if said 40-something looks like a kid? It’s creepy and gross and I hate it more than any other canon ship.

Characters I Don’t Care AboutI’ve heard a lot of people refer to Super as The Goku and Vegeta Hour and...yeah. DB’s never been great at remembering their MILLIONS of side characters (humans especially once Z happened) and Super doesn’t take enough steps to change that imo. Don’t get me wrong--I like Goku, and I...tolerate Vegeta, but characters who were once considered major players are relegated to backseat viewers again, and nobody can keep up with Goku except Vegeta sometimes (when previously most of them could at least hold their own). I’ll admit, I like the looks of some of the new characters, there are some who seem like they have interesting characterizations (like Kale.....though I’ll be the first to admit I’m biased as hell towards buff women). But Zamasu/Goku Black or whatever just seemed like a couple of shitty Hot Topic teens. I went to high school with people like them and they were annoying.

There’s just too much of a focus on a few specific characters while other characters get the shaft, and the new characters and plot points they bring up just...aren’t interesting. I don’t give a shit about yet another “gotta get stronger” plot you guys. Ugh.

PacingOKAY I’LL ADMIT this is the pettiest thing on this list but like...I’ve never liked the DB anime’s pacing. Ever. Remember how I used to liveblog DBZ? I got like 10 episodes in and got fed up with how long it took to get anywhere. Stuff that took like...a couple chapters in the manga took five half-hour episodes to deal with. And you’d think they would’ve learned in 30 years, especially since they don’t have to base everything off the manga now, but no, the pacing is still awful. And it’s not just the whole “Namek takes half a season to explode” stuff (although that is really annoying, and knowing the real-world reason for it doesn’t make it less annoying), it’s that every shot lasts longer than it needs to. You could cut the running time in half just by trimming the shots slightly. It’s bad, and I’ve always stuck to the manga because of it. It’s not that I’m a Manga Purist(TM) or anything, I just...can’t watch the anime.

Terrible, One-Note CharacterizationYou all know who I mean when I say this, but it extends to more than just Yamcha.

Videl’s character was absolutely decimated in this show. 18′s the only female fighter we have left anymore because of it. I once saw an argument saying that Videl not fighting anymore makes sense because she was traumatized by being killed by Buu, which okay fine fair enough, but 1) nobody said she had to fight in life-or-deaths situations, AT LEAST LET HER BE SAIYAWOMAN AGAIN YOU COWARDS, and 2) that doesn’t mean you have to get rid of her firecracker personality and replace it with the sweet, docile housewife type. We saw it with Chi-Chi...sort of, we don’t need it with Videl, too. Once a female character gets married in DB, they stop fighting (except 18) and stop being important to the plot (except Bulma...sometimes (remember when Bulma was the main character? Pepperidge Farm remembers)). Three times is a pattern, Toriyama, I’m just saying.

Goku even gets hit with shades of this. He’s not an idiot, you guys, he can read a dang grocery list. Yes, he’s selfish and simple and bad at communicating and often doesn’t realise what he’s done wrong until it’s pointed out to him, but he’s also a fast learner, a really good tactician (like. look at some of his fights in DB and early Z, those are some Good Tactics), and not a complete asswipe. We don’t get to see those good traits much in Super. He had no reason to not tell people the stakes for the tournament to get them to join. None. There was no reason to lie. Yes, his biggest flaw is his inability to communicate with his friends and teammates (COUGHS LOUDLY AND LOOKS AT THE CELL ARC) but Jesus you guys, his friends would have helped him if he told them the real stakes too? He didn’t need to lie? There was no point? I’m so angry?

The worst of it though is Yamcha. For the love of fuck, you guys, Yamcha has more characterization than just “guy who sucks at everything and has a thing for Bulma.” Like that’s some Funi dub shit there, not original canon. What happened to when he said he’d given up fighting in the Buu arc? Where did that go? You could have done so much more with that concept rather than have him still be overconfident in his abilities and slamming him at every turn. Even when he does get to do stuff, it’s obvious that it’s just a setup to make him fail so Vegeta will look good by comparison. It’s awful. The writers have such an obvious hard-on for Vegeta and they keep cutting Yamcha down. Those bits where he’s waiting for Goku to ask him to the tournament even though we all know he won’t? They’re not funny, they’re just sad. Also, on that note, why is Roshi there? Yamcha surpassed Roshi years ago, Roshi himself says so! I get that he wasn’t in the RF movie because his voice actor was busy, but they couldn’t have given a better reason than just Tien leaving him behind because he didn’t think he could keep up? At least have him sick in bed with a fever and wanting to go anyway and being forced to stay behind by a worried Tien or something guys, geez. And his VA was obviously around for that arc of Super, so what the hell.

(Yes I was salty earlier about Yamcha still fighting and shit but if you’re going to drop the “Yamcha retiring from fighting” plot point then at least DO something with it you cowards)

FansOH GOD, THE FANS. Not to say that people who dislike Super are perfect or ideologically pure (I once knew a person who bragged about trolling/picking on Super fans...we do not talk), but the people who do like the show seem to spend an awful lot of time yelling at us and telling people they’re not real fans if they like GT more than Super or don’t like either or whatever.

And of course the VegeBullies are out in full force over it, too. VegeBul gets a lot of screentime, and when fans of other ships (GoChi primarily) say “hey we’d like more content” they get shut down or yelled at. They demand more content despite already having more than anyone else at this point. Shut the fuck up and let me enjoy the fact that Tien and Yamcha stood next to each other again in peace.

But that’s getting dangerously close to ship war territory and I try to stay out of that. (It’s hard, because I’m a salty, bitter person, but I try.) I’ll also say Not All VegeBuls(TM) even though I shouldn’t have to because if I don’t I’ll get at least 10 angry anons in my inbox flipping their shit.

You know what the really sad thing is? When Super was first announced, I was mega excited. And I really liked the first couple episodes! But they veered away from making it the Martial Arts Themed Slice of Life Comedy Hour we deserved, they retold the same story the movies already did instead of just making the movies canon and continuing from there (thereby drawing it out way too much), and they just...fucked it up in general. I can’t stand Super and while I don’t expect to sway anyone’s opinion with this, you did ask me why, and I hope now you can understand.

[rinokumuraegin]

I havto disagree with a lot of this, and at least, point out the double standards here.

1. "He doesnt understand how not to neglect them" "we all know he would rather go sparring with others" first off...Goku doesnt understand a lot of social norms sure. But just because he wants to train doesnt mean he doesnt know how to give his family attention/affection. Or that he doesnt know hpw to spend time with them. He does spend time with his family, and is it so wrong for him to want to train in his down time? Or at all? Especially when its so restricted for him to do so? He even states in ep 1 of dbz that he wanted to train with gohan, but we know chichi didnt want any of that, Understandably, but it wpuld have been a great bonding experience for the two.

2. If anyone was neglectful/ didnt know how/didnt want to spend time with his family it was Vegeta. His whole thing was him only wanting to train and get stronger to surpass Goku/ caring about his own strength and being absorbed in it and it shows in the cell arc

Like look Goku had to lure vegeta in with thr time chamber so hed spend time with trunks jrwjgex

And in the buu arc:

3. That scene with bulma being pregnant and vegeta not wanting to leave: it wasnt that Goku didn’t not care he missed his son’s birth, or about births at all. He said he didn’t know why Bulma would never forgive Vegeta for not being there when she started going into labor Becuase Chi-Chi didn’t hate him for not being there (being dead) when Goten was born. Goku has a tendency to view things from his own lens of life experience; if it didn’t happen to him, he just assumes that’s how things are. he does, however, care that his friend is having a baby. Vegeta and him just kept misunderstanding eachother.

4. Goku being raised by his adopted Grandpa Gohan for more than few years. He loved his granpa and deffenitly learned and gave love because of this, even if he couldnt always fully explain it/ explains it in unconventional ways. He felt his familial love for his grandpa, enough to name his Son after him. Anytime Goku wasnt with his family especially in Z, it was cause he was dead, dying from protecting his family too. He loves his family, he sees them as their own people with their own habits and ways. He knows how to comfort and reassure them. He enjoys spending time with them.

And he does understand how meaningul love for your family is. He loves his family, and he knew deep down, despite vegetas ways, that he began to love bulma and trunks too.

In my conclusion: Goku isnt a perfect person, he is care free, and ya he can be a big dummy, but he knows how to care for his family and loves them.

And also its unfair to hold vegeta to higher standing of a parent especiallyyyy since hes done things people condemn Goku for doing, like just sayin that im general ajdskdk

shitty dbz fans: Goku is a shitty dad!! He doesnt care about Gohan, hes a dead beat father who was never there and never supported him!! He doesnt have any fatherly instincts!! Hes never done anything good as a parent!!1

DBZ:

Same shitty dbz fans:

[remotecontrolchuck]

Last minute Toonami Night Review: Explosive End to February, and the March of Beginnings.

Well last week was the last run of Toonami in February 2017, and did it end on an excellent note. As the month ended, so too did one of the big story arcs in One Piece, Thriller Bark. A story arc full of plot, character development, feels, and ominous foreshadowing.

Indeed, I have a feeling what the Straw Hat crew experienced on Thriller Bark is only a taste of what’s to come. But with the defeat of Moriah, the return of their shadows, and Brook joining their crew, they leave the ship/island full of high hopes on the road ahead. While Thriller Bark ends with last month, a few great events will begin this month.

In March, the World Tournament finally commences on DBZ Kai, with some awesome and maybe funny fights to be sure. In One Piece, the next filler arc will begin, called Spa Island. And while I won’t get into spoilers, I will say that this arc will be short but quite enjoyable. And lastly, but most importantly, this month begins the last season of Samurai Jack! Can’t wait, it’s gonna be great!

As for the other things that happened last week, we had some game promo for Horizon Dawn by TOM and SARA, as well as another great trippy music video per usual. But another thing that could be said about last week is the amount of explosions in last night’s shows, which I will go through now in the recap!

Dragon Ball Super: After a Super Saiyan Vegeta fails to defeat Beerus, the god of destruction decides to settle the fate of Earth through a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, and chooses Oolong to be his challenger. At first the pig man manages to tie against the deity twice in a row, but ultimately screws up in the end by going with scissors again, which is defeated by Beerus’s rock.

With Oolong dropping the ball and dooming humanity, Beerus prepares a massive ball of energy to blow the planet to smithereens. But before he can, Goku suddenly shows up to stop him. Asking for more time to find a Super Saiyan God with a Super Saiyan Please, Beerus eventually agrees to Goku’s request.

Now given a little more time to spare, Goku and the Z-Warriors decide to use the Dragon Balls to summon Shenron, in hopes that he will summon the Super Saiyan God before Lord Beerus. Unfortunately if the promos for the next episode is any indication, apparently Shenron is just as terrified of Beerus. So to quote Piccolo here, we’re screwed.

DBZ Kai: With Goku reunited with the gang, the tournament is about to commence! However, before it can begin all participants must qualify by hitting the punch machine to show their strength level. The Z-Warriors effortlessly punch machine to qualify, enough to surpass Mr. Satan’s score. Unfortunately, Vegeta isn’t one for hiding his true strength, and thus blows up the punch machine with... well... one punch.

So while the other participants have to wait until a new punch machine is brought in, Goku and the gang go off to watch Goten and Trunks fight in the Junior Tournament. But before even that starts, the crowd is treated to a ridiculous reenactment film about Mr. Satan defeating Cell at his... well... Cell games. A film so terrible and poorly made that even Mr. Satan think its embarrassing.

Anyway, in the locker room, A blonde bully with a horrible mullet tries to intimidate Goten and Trunks, only to be humiliated by them.

JJBA: As JoJo heads off to find Lisa Lisa, Erisidisi’s brain jumps off of him, and onto Lisa’s servant named Suzi Q. Possessing her, Erisidisi manages to get the Red Stone of Aja and have it transported off the island, where it is soon shipped by train to Switzerland.

After sending the stone off, he then makes it into Lisa’s bathroom chamber, and was about to attack while she was having a bath when JoJo breaks in to stop him. Caesar soon arrives as well, and the two soon confront Pillar Man, while also trying to come with a way to free Suzi Q.

Eventually JoJo and Caesar free Suzi Q by using a powerful blast of positive and negative Hamon, which vaporizes most of Erisidisi before the sun takes care of the rest. With Suzi Q fine and able to remember where the stone was headed, JoJo and the gang take off to catch it.

After a long car ride, they finally make it, but soon find that the Germans have gotten their hands on it. But their commander seems to know JoJo, and tells him to meet him at a cabin up ahead. That evening Kars attacks and kills the officer’s soldiers, except the officer himself as he couldn’t sense him. It’s then revealed that the officer is Major Von Stroheim, having somehow survived and become a cyborg.

Gundam Unicorn: After returning to the Nahel Argama, Banagher wakes up to Mihiro arguing with the ships doctor, telling to put Merida into a straitjacket due to being a cyber newtype. The boy tries to speak up for Merida, saying that she is a POW and should treated fairly, but Mihiro wouldn’t listen. The communications officer believed Merida to be more of a terrorist than that of an enemy officer, and was still sore about how the latter had killed 7 of her fellow soldiers earlier.

After Mihiro leaves, Banagher has a brief chat with the doctor about the philosophy of newtypes, and then checks on Merida. The two newtypes discuss about their battle earlier, as well as the effects of the Unicorn’s NT-D. After Merida tells Banagher to be strong and not to lose himself by the device before then convulsing, causing the doctor to restrain her and keep her stable.

Banagher leaves the room and soon catches up with his friends. Meanwhile, Riddhe and Mineva arrive on Earth, Full Frontal continues plotting, and Alberto has to deal with a bitch of aunt named Martha Vist Carbine, who has plans of her own to acquire Laplace’s Box. Back on the Argama, Banagher and Daguza have another conversation about responsibility as the ship arrives at the remains of the Laplace space station. Later on, Banagher takes off in the Gundam again, unaware that the Sleeves are nearby and ready to ambush him.

Hunter X Hunter: Kurapika and the other hunters make it out of the mansion alive after having taken care of the two moles in their group, and head off to complete their assignments. Meanwhile, Gon and Killua receive the URL they need for the hunter-only website from Milluki’s eagle, which was just in time as they are about to arrive in Yorknew City.

Naruto Shippuden: After a brief skirmish between Team 7 and the ANBU from the Hidden Mist Village, the captains of both teams to a stop to it and begin resolving the matter. The two soon make a deal regarding Utakata, and Tsurugi leaves with his ANBU team after talking to Utakata. As Team 7 heads back to the mountain fortress, Naruto and Hotaru are talking when suddenly the latter collapses.

Realizing she’s hurt, Naruto takes off to get medicinal herbs, while Utakata attends to Hotaru’s wounds. After getting the herbs, Naruto returns but is shocked by the kunoichi’s bare back, specifically the scarred seal on it. Utakata reveals that it is the Tsuchigumo clan’s forbidden jutsu, and begins raging about those who would use others as vessels or tools without any regard for their welfare.

One Piece: Brooks joins the Straw Hats, a grave is made for the Rumbar Pirates, and Nami gets a special paper that will help guide them to their next destination. We are also given an ominous foreshadow in regards to Ace’s fate, but Luffy believes Ace will be just fine on his own. The Straw Hats soon take off and leave the Floridian Triangle, which may or may not be still haunted.

GitS: SAC: Togusa investigates the murder of a fellow colleague, and uncovers evidence of illegal surveillance done by the police on those investigating the Laughing Man Case via interceptors. Later on, the Police Commissioner holds a press conference to discuss the scandal, but it’s soon crashed when the Laughing Man hacks into one of his colleague’s cyberbrain. Disgusted by the Police trying to cover up the truth, the Laughing Man vows to challenge them again, and delivers a death threat to the comissioner before leaving.

That’s it for last weeks recap, and just in time too for tonight’s Toonami run. This is going to be good!

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 230

Last time, Vegeta blasted big chunks out of the tournament stadium, killing hundreds in the process.    Goku agreed to fight him, provided Babidi would teleport them to some place where no one would be in harm’s way.   

Which leaves everyone at the stadium to wonder what the hell just happened.   The World Tournament Announcer discusses the post-tournament ceremony with the winner, Mr. Satan.    Under the circumstances, handing out the prize money doesn’t seem like a good idea, so it’s probably best if everyone just goes home.    This scene seems very weird to me.   I’m pretty sure it’s filler, but either way, this conversation seems a little too “funny-awkward” when it needs to be “hundreds-of-people-just-died-awkward.”   

For example, if you look closely, you can see Android 18 and Marron standing in the background, between Satan and WTA.   She’s been there since the last episode, before Vegeta showed up and killed all those people.   The gag is that Mr. Satan can’t celebrate his victory too much because he keeps noticing 18 glaring at him, waiting for him to pay her the 20 million zeni he promised to her so she would throw the fight.   

I think what’s happening here is that Toei decided to recycle the gag from the last episode, which is a common filler tactic on this show.    Think of all the times we’ve seen Goku running down Snake Way, or training on his way to Namek, or suffering from the heart virus.   But it really doesn’t work here because the atmosphere in the stadium has drastically shifted, or at least it should have.  I know it’s a popular joke that death has no meaning in Dragon Ball because everyone can just be wished back to life, but most of the people here don’t know that.   18 does, but you’d think she’d be more disturbed by what Vegeta just did.   She’s a cool customer, sure, but you’d think she’d want to get her daughter to safety at the very least.

At least Bulma seems to be on track with the story.     “Vegeta... What’s Wrong With You?” could be the title of her autobiography though.

The answer, of course, is that he’s allowed himself to be mind-controlled by a space wizard so that he can finally fight Goku.   No more teases, no more buildup, no more false starts.    This fight is happening, and it’s going to keep happening for a few more episodes.  

So this fight.    What do I say about it?   When I was a kid, I grew up with the lore established after Return of the Jedi came out.    One way or another, I heard that the reason Darth Vader wears his life-supporting armor is because he once challenged Obi-Wan Kenobi to a duel, and suffered severe injuries from it.    I don’t remember where I heard this, but the story was that it was right after he turned evil, and they fought over a live volcano, and he fell in some lava.  

Of course, for younger readers, it’s all a matter of record.    You can just watch “Revenge of the Sith” and see exactly what happened.   But between 1983 and 2005, we only had this one-sentence legend.    I might have come up with the volcano part myself, since I heard “molten lava” and figured there had to be a volcano involved.    For my generation, “Revenge of the Sith” was the payoff to that decades-long speculation.  

The problem with moments like that is that you have to compete with fans’ imagination.   I remember after the movie came out, and I was at a comic book store and heard some guy complain that there should have been more lost-limbs in that battle.    Anakin lost an arm and both legs at the end, but I guess this guy’s bloodlust wasn’t sated.   Maybe he wanted Kenobi to lose limbs too?    Except he won, so I guess his dream scenario was for both of them to chop each other’s hands off and continue fighting one-handed.  

For my part, I was satisfied with what I got, although when you get down to it, it’s never going to hold up quite as well as I pictured it, because I had 22 years to picture it, and I could imagine it from every possible angle, with every possible scenario.   And when you imagine something, you can mix your emotions into the visuals.     Watching Darth Vader fighting Obi-Wan Kenobi on the screen, well, it looks a lot like all the other lightsaber battles in Star Wars, only it’s longer and more intense.    The movie is depending on you to fill in the emotional gaps.   The actors can act in between the swordfighting, but it’s up to you to remember those performances when the blades start swinging.  

What I’m driving at here is that a lot of Goku-Vegeta II is a dead heat.   In particular, you see scenes like this one where neither guy can overpower the other, and they’re stuck holding each other’s hands and blocking knee strikes with their thighs.    It reminds me a lot of the gifs of the Anakin/Obi-Wan fight, which just show them swinging their sabers around.    Stripped of context, it looks downright silly.   DBZ is counting on you to remember this:

This is why they’re fighting.    I don’t just mean the original Goku/Vegeta fight as a whole, or even the outcome of that battle.    I’m talking about this specific part of the fight, Episode 31 of DBZ, where Goku reluctantly used the Kaio-ken X3 and overpowered Vegeta, however briefly.   This was really where Vegeta started taking Goku personally.    After this, he tried to destroy the entire Earth just to kill Goku, and Goku used Kaio-ken X4 to overpower him yet again.   From that point on, Goku spent the rest of the battle on the defensive, relying on Gohan, Krillin, and Yajirobe to finish what he’d started.  

I’m not going to sit here and tell you the rematch is better than the original.   Goku-Vegeta I is one of the crown jewels of this whole franchise.   I still think I like this one better, though, because of the anticipation I had for it.  It fufills a long deferred dream that Goku, Vegeta, and the audience have shared since Episode 36.   One day, they’ll fight again, and settle this. 

So maybe this battle doesn’t have the same underdog factor going for it, and the psychology and choreography isn’t as intuitive.    It’s not as self-contained as the original battle, becaue this one depends so heavily on the viewer being familiar with Goku and Vegeta’s history.   But dammit, I am familiar with all of that, and that’s why I like it.   

There’s not a lot of stalling or desperate tactics here.   Both guys powered up to their maximum at the start.   This is just two guys trying to beat the hell out of each other, but they’re so evenly matched that it’s easy to lose sight of how hard they’re hitting, or how much of themselves they’re putting into every blow.   Like here, Vegeta just got slammed into a cliffside, and he’s disintegrating the rock instead of just moving slightly away from it.    Remember, it’s all about this:

Each of these guys want to pulverize the other this way.    Goku wants to do it to prove that he can sustain this level of offense instead of barely holding out for a minute.   Vegeta wants to do it because he’s still sore that any Saiyan managed to do this to him and live to tell about it.   

There’s also something deeply tragic about this fight, which appeals to me in a way the original can’t tough.    Before, they were two Saiyans.    The last two, perhaps, but Saiyans nonetheless.    Now, they’re Super Saiyans.    The legend said there was only one every thousand years, but now, in spite of everything, there’s two.    They’ve even managed to surpass the Super Saiyan and become something greater, but instead of saving the universe like they might have done before, they’re just beating the shit out of each other while the world burns.   Z stands for the end.

Because every time Goku takes a hit...

The energy lost from the damage he sustains is magically transferred to Majin Buu’s ball.    When enough has been aborbed, the seal can be broken, and Majin Buu will be resurrected.   

Meanwhile, Dabura and Gohan have moved deeper in to Babidi’s ship to try and stop him while the Goku/Vegeta fight is in progress.    This is Stage 4 of his spaceship, and in theory it’s no different from Stages 1-3.    Babidi would normally send a warrior to fight the intruders, and any damgage they take would feed Buu.    Only Babidi’s fresh out of good fighters, so he just sends ten of his low-tier henchmen to hold the line instead. 

For some reason, everyone on board Babidi’s ship looks like these guys, except for Puipui, Yakon, and Dabura.    I never paid much attention to it before, but when you think about it, it’s kind of weird how Babidi only “recruits” the best evil warriors he can find, but his crew all look like they came from the same planet.    I’m guessing these guys were some sort of pirate band or something, and Babidi forced them all to come work for him and run his ship for him, or maybe this ship used to be theirs before Babidi hijacked it.  

Anyway, Gohan takes them all out with a simple ki attack, and they can proceed.    Not sure why these guys had Roman numberals on their uniforms.     It implied that they were somewhat important, but I guess not.  

Anyway, back to this fight.    So yeah, like I said, these two are just going all out.   

They’re using big flashy moves that might be climactic finishers in past battles, but here it’s just standard issue.   

Take this beam struggle, for example.    This was the height of the first Goku/Vegeta battle, but it’s just an appetizer here. 

Like, they can’t even just have a beam struggle, they have to charge towards each other while they do it.   Are they going to punch each other with their free hands while they do this?   

Meanwhile, Trunks and Goten take a piss break on their way to the action.    Some pervy dinosaur peeks on them while they go.   

Okay, so this is my favorite part.   Right here.  Somehow, Vegeta managed to get the better of Goku, so he hauls him up, and it looks like he’s got Goku at his mercy.

Then he slams him into a rock and fires ki blasts that basically at like big staples, to hold Goku in place by his wrists, ankles and neck.   

Then he reminds Goku that he claimed that he would finish this “quickly”.  I think Goku knows better now, but let’s face it, he took Vegeta too lightly.    He was sure that he could turn Super Saiyan 2 and blow him out of the water without a whole lot of trouble, because he’s spent most of their rivalry in the lead.   

Then he slaps him in the face, and Goku can’t do shit.  This part right here is the receipt for all the times Goku looked past Vegeta or failed to take him seriously.    You can argue that he spared Vegeta all those years ago as an act of compassion or sportsmanship, but another way to interpret it is as an insult.  To put it another way, Goku let Vegeta live because he didn’t think he was dangerous enough to kill.    I think that’s how Vegeta’s always seen it, and now he’s out to prove otherwise.   

So he’s just teeing off on the guy now.    The message here is: If Goku doesn’t like this sort of thing, he should have killed Vegeta when he had the chance, because he’ll never get it again.

Then Vegeta has an extended flashback.  The dub has him narrate this, which is one of my favorite monologues in this series, but the Japanese version just plays the footage, letting it speak for itself.    I guess there’s a case to be made for either approach, but Chris Sabat killed this scene.  

The bottom line is that Goku humilitated him in their first encounter by standing up to him and beating him up, and then he saved his life.    Vegeta plans to avenge himself by tearing him to pieces.    He means to kill Goku, which I don’t really understand, seeing as he’s already dead.   

And this is where I think Babidi’s mind control may be somewhat underrated in this battle.    I think it’s pretty easy to assume that this is how Vegeta would normally behave, but is it, though?    Was he planning to face Goku in the world tournament and chop off his arms while their families looked on in horror?   I’m pretty sure he wasn’t this hardcore about it going in.    Before, he had resigned himself to never seeing Goku again, and then he was coming back for the tournament, and Vegeta was excited to face him under any terms, even while governed by the tournament rules, and Gohan’s “no-transforming” request.    He wanted to beat Goku clean, sure, but he wasn’t nearly this bitter about it. 

Now, this fucker wants to vivisect Goku.    I’m pretty sure that’s Babidi’s handiwork, amplifying old grievances that Vegeta had probably moved past a long time ago.   

Except...

Goku’s not done yet.

Every time Majin Vegeta gets surprised, I get a little more excited.    This was what you wanted, wasn’t it?   You self-important prick.    You killed all those people just to get this guy mad enough to fight you.   

WELL GUESS WHAT, JACKASS?

YOU GOT HIM.

ALL OF HIM.

I get chills every time I watch this part.   Majin Vegeta is played up to be this horrible thing.    The awesome power of Vegeta with none of the restraint, and if Goku even tries to stop him, he’ll just be playng into Babidi’s hands.    Critics can say that this is a no-win scenario, or that Goku’s holding back during this fight, or that he’s not as into this as Vegeta is.  

But this sequence here tells the story.    Goku doesn’t have a long flashback to explain his motivation here.   We’ve already seen it.    This blue-pajamas-wearing idiot came to his planet to start shit.  Goku was fighting to protect his home and everything he holds dear, and he barely managed to save the day, and that makes him the bad guy here?   Vegeta broke Goku’s legs in that battle, but for some reason Vegeta wants revenge for that day.    Vegeta beat the shit out of Goku’s son.   Several times.    Then he let Cell become perfect, and Goku and Gohan had to clean up his mess.     Goku’s dead because of Vegeta’s arrogance, but Vegeta wants revenge?

There’s a part here where Vegeta tries to full-nelson Goku and impale him on a stalactite, and Goku just powers out of it.   Goku’s not saying a lot in this fight, but he’s pissed, make no mistake.    He’s just focused enough and gentle enough not to say anything.  

He’s not shooting a Kamehameha inside a cave because he’s detached.    

Vegeta fires back and the whole thing explodes.

So let’s be clear about this.   There’s a relentless, wild animal in this battle, who won’t stop fighting no matter what.   Also, Vegeta is here, and he has a goofy tattoo on his forehead.

Meanwhile, Gohan and the Supreme Kai have arrived at the chamber where Buu’s ball is kept, and Babidi and Dabura are there to greet them.   Babidi isn’t worried at all, since he figures Dabura will be enough to hold them off until Majin Buu is ready.   On the other hand, the Kai thinks he can kill Babidi wile Gohan holds off Dabura, and that should put an end to all of this.  

But he’d better act fast, because Buu’s ball is glowing hot pink, and getting hotter and pinker by the second.   

[dbzebra]

I want to know more about your latest project! I’m especially interested in knowing which MarTen fic ideas you have coming for the future 👀

hey Maiika! :D

thanks for sending this! I’m gonna @ediblenonsense because these 2 are basically the same answer!

Anyway, my main WIP I’m working on/most excited to work on is the End of Z canon divergent fic, Surpassing the Strongest. Basically ignores everything DBS, movies, just the original manga/anime for this. Only difference being is (besides MarTen lol) s that Goten and Trunks started training again around ~2 years prior to the Tournament, unlocked SSJ2 and pretty much mastered it. 

Goten’s main goal is to get SSJ3 and finally surpass his dad. Trunks is more or less the same, but he cares more about the former rather than the later. He struggles with not feeling strong enough//unable to live up to his dad’s legacy despite wanting to be the one to protect Marron and his family if someone ever showed up again. 

Goku is more than happy to hear that he’s entering, between him and Uub, since I’m trying to continue the character arc he had in Cell/Buu Saga, about him wanting the next generation to take over since he wont be around forever. So the Tournament itself is a bit different than canon as well. Not going to spoil much, but Goku doesnt leave with Uub. the whole thing plays out! Plus we have guys like Tien and Chiaotzu, plus Piccolo fighting too so its in some ways a big reunion of the past.

Also, I’m planning to rectify a problem i had with Buu Saga is that nobody remembered the Z Fighters despite everything that hapeend with the old Tournaments, DKP, and the Saiyans. Like nobody even acknowledges Piccolo as the same Demon King from years ago,and thats not something people should forget lol. Gotta bend things a liiiitle bit to not cotnradict too much, but yeah people wont be like “lol whos the green guy”

I’m thinking it’ll be around 10-12 chapters? Depends how the fights go. they cant be too long cause its for fun + tournament ring only, but DB managed to make them super exciting either way so I hope to keep that up lol

As for other ideas, there’s the twins time travel AU, where they got back in time for the lols and meet kid Goten, and then shenanigans ensue (total gag fic lol)

I also want to do a Baby Saga marten oneshot where, im not sure how I’d do it, but after Baby vs Goten in GT and he gets possessed//infected she like instantly knows thats not him and all that. idk more drama than anything else ive really done, but i cant get rid of the idea lol

Lastly, I want to do a confession+first date fic (prolly combine it into one big oneshot or a two shot) plus Not Just A Fling part 2 where they tell Gochi and K18 about getting engaged lol

sorry i kinda got carried away with all this but again thanks for this!!