Prepare for MORE nerd rage!
Not too long ago I wrote an article about the Ten Biggest Plot Holes in Dragonball Z. I tried to sleep the night afterward but I couldn’t. My mind kept racing to inform me of plot holes I missed. So after a week of restless nights I composed myself and plunked out another ten plot holes worth noting. I already covered the top ten, so here are Ten More Big Plot Holes in DBZ. And while you’re at it, you might as well be caught up with the series, so check out my favorite season, Season 6.
Some Animals Talk, Just Not All of Them:
Facist pigs. They're all the same.
There are talking animals in the world of Dragonball Z. There just are. I can’t explain that, nor do I feel like defending it. It’s just silly, so it works. You’ve got a shape-shifting pig, a dog that’s president of the world, and all manner of creatures that speak and walk around like it’s totally normal. But then there are other animals that, for some reason, don’t speak or act like humans at all. Some cats talk, other don’t. Some pterodactyls are mindless, others are martial arts champions. What’s the distinction? Meh, whenever the plot feels better one way or another. There’s just no getting around this one without saying, “Yeah, the show is goofy. Deal with it.”
I Don’t Need Air, Do I?:
"I don't need to breath while on this asteroid, right?"
Somehow the heroes of the show have found themselves fighting a number of enemies that can breath in space. That’s right, they can BREATH in SPACE. You know, that place with no air and absolutely nothing at all? They can breath there. Okay, they’re special creatures, but then we come to Goku and Vegeta and suddenly we blur the line of who can and can’t breath what. Within a few episodes of introducing Vegeta, he is seen blowing up a planet just because he feels like it. How does he blow the planet up? He opens his space pod and stands above the planet as he fires a beam. Don’t give me any explanation that “He was still within the planet’s atmosphere” or something because when that planet exploded, an action that was instant, it was obliterated. No way Vegeta’d survive that one. So can Vegeta just breath in space? No, he needs air, as we learn since Frieza nearly drowns him and strangles him, and later Kid Buu does the same. He needs air to live. Oops. The same goes with Goku on his trip to Namek. He gets his foot glued to the outside of his spaceship during flight, yet somehow gets back inside his ship after leaving the boot glued in place. That’s impossible due to the vacuum of space. He’d be dead, I don’t care what you say. “He held his breath” can only go so far.
Garlic Jr. and His Place In The Series:
"Huh? Oh, didn't expect to see you there. Yeah, I just came for the punch."
In between the Frieza Saga and the Trunks Saga, the anime decided to add a little filler saga called the Garlic Junior Saga in which the character of Garlic Junior returns from somewhere called the Dead Zone, takes over Kami’s Lookout, and vows revenge against Goku for pushing him into the Dead Zone in the first place. Some of you might not know but the first DBZ movie is called The Dead Zone and stars Garlic Junior as the villain who kidnaps Gohan and forces Goku and Piccolo to fight. This movie is one of the few cannon movies of the series. It has to be, otherwise Garlic Junior couldn’t show back up and allow it to make sense. But in The Dead Zone, Goku, Piccolo, and Krillin all see Gohan go ballistic and mess up Garlic Junior with some crazy power he’s just got hidden. Problem with this is that the beginning of the series proper has Goku introducing Gohan to Krillin and the others, to which they’re surprised to learn that Goku is a dad. Krillin already knew who Gohan was in The Dead Zone, and Goku and Piccolo already knew that Gohan was capable of ridiculous power when pushed even before Raditz took him and pushed him too far, so how does this all fit? It’s another one of those, “Yeah, we know we said one thing already, but could you just please forget that we did and believe the new story now? Thanks.” That doesn’t mean I’m happy with it, though.
Goku’s Ship Destroyed But Still Useable:
"Behold my Plot Hole Beam!"
Here’s an interesting one to deal with, and the problem comes from the original Japanese anime creating filler, not the US dubbing the show improperly. In the timeline, Goku comes to Earth as a baby in a Saiyan space pod, Raditz comes to Earth in a Saiyan space pod, Gohan destroys Raditz’s pod, Piccolo destroys Goku’s pod, Nappa and Vegeta arrive on Earth in their pods, Vegeta escapes in his, and Nappa’s is accidentally self-destructed. That’s the whole reason Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan had to use Kami’s old Namekian space ship to travel to Namek: Because the Saiyan space pods were all gone or destroyed. Yet when Goku goes to Namek he does so in a ship that Dr. Briefs makes from Goku’s Saiyan space pod. You know, the one that Piccolo obliterated with a Special Beam Cannon because it was projecting a hologram of the moon and causing Gohan to transform into a giant ape. There is no way to explain this one away other than “Big ol’ oops” since the plotline of Goku’s space pod creating a hologram was added as filler by the anime to allow the manga time to catch up, something that was common practice. Somehow they just never found a better way to resolve that little snafu, so they just said, “Ah heck with it, we already told them Garlic Junior somehow fits in the story, so why not this?” And then they blew Goku up on Namek and retconned that a few episodes later because they needed to lie to us just a little more. What next? Giant holes in the body aren’t fatal anymore?
Holes In The Body Ain’t Nothing Till They Are:
That's gonna be tender in the morning...maybe.
Oops. One of the most dramatic scenes from early in the series is when Piccolo launches the Special Beam Cannon and drills through Goku and Raditz, leaving both with a gaping hole in their chest and a definite “You’re dead sucka” on their foreheads (this is also the last time the special Beam Cannon is effective, save for blowing up Goku’s Saiyan space pod, thus actually making the attack so powerful it can rip through whole plots in a few seconds). Later on Namek people start getting treated as pincushions just because they can be. Krillin gets a horn through the stomach and lives. Vegeta gets Krillin to blow clean through his torso with an energy blast, but is healed by Dende a little bit later. Yamhca proves he’s useless by getting a hand through the stomach as well, but also doesn’t die because someone gives him a Senzu Bean. Sure the villains start getting holes in them, but they just regenerate, so there’s no problem there. However, along comes Future Trunks to take a blast to the chest from Cell, instantly killing him. Say wha? Trunks, this super powerful guy from the future, can be killed by a blast through the stomach? Was it because they didn’t get him medical help soon enough? Or just because it was more dramatic that way? I’m going with option B, because the show never seems to deal with how fatal having your spinal cord ELIMINATED actually is unless it makes for a good plot point.
Trunks and His Wacky Time Adventures:
"I wish I were Marty McFly. He would have known what to do."
Oh hey, speaking of Trunks, where is he from anyway? Well, there’s the Trunks of the present time that’s Bulma and Vegeta’s son, and then there’s the Trunks from the future timeline where the androids have killed everyone and everything with a big killing machine called “Their Fists.” So Trunks comes to our timeline (technically in a separate timeline since whatever he does in the present doesn’t effect his future), and saves Goku from dying from a heart virus. He also decides to stay a while and train with Vegeta to become way more powerful than he ever was so that when he returns to his own timeline he’ll be strong enough to destroy the androids that live there, which he does. As confusing as it is thinking about Cell and his role in the time travel, we have to try. Trunks comes here and helps us, but Cell comes to our timeline as well but from a future where he’s killed Trunks, which means Cell must be from a third timeline somewhere or something. I don’t know; it makes my head hurt a bit too much. But all of this is confounded by the knowledge that seven years after the whole debacle with Cell, Majin Buu shows up to muck with the world. So where was he in Trunk’s timeline? He should have popped up sometime around Trunks’ eighth birthday, but in The History of Trunks we know that Trunks is happily failing to be relevant yet until he’s roughly thirteen or something. Majin Buu would have annihilated Trunks’ world, even worse than the androids, with no hope of anyone stopping him as Trunks wasn’t stronger than Goku or Vegeta and both of them lost to Majin Buu a handful of times. Assuming the timeline really did get shifted due to the time travel (as Trunks speculates), the world would still be doomed as soon as Majin Buu showed up. Bleak world to think about. Just don’t get me started on how Trunks actually got that sword.
Anatomy Is Not Their Strong Point:
"Uh...you realize babies shouldn't have those, right?"
When Goku was a boy he had a tail. This was because Saiyans as a race had tails from birth that allowed them to transform into giant apes at the sight of a full moon. In Dragonball, Goku does just that, so his tail keeps getting removed in order to prevent the problem from reoccurring (since when he turned into a giant ape he went nuts and destroyed everything). Dragonball Z comes along and so does Gohan, tail and everything. He’s able to transform after seeing the moon or even a hologram of the moon, so Piccolo removes Gohan’s tail twice with Vegeta removing it a third time during their big fight at the end of the Saiyan Saga. After that, Gohan never grows his tail back. And that never seems strange to anyone, even after he grew it back a total of three times in a single year. Vegeta loses his tail as well but it doesn’t grow back. In fact, they seem to completely forgo the whole “Saiyans Have Tails” thing after the Saiyan Saga since neither Goten nor Trunks have tails at birth. No one questions this since, you know, it’d be pretty startling to discover that the Saiyans as a species are losing one of their more valuable features. Goku’s tail was permanently removed because of a deal he made with Kami, but the others? “Just c’mon, stop asking questions when we’ve got stories to tell, alright?” Fine fine.
Geography Is Not Their Strong Point Either:
So this is the world...no wonder they're confused about distance.
Question for DBZ fanboys: How long is Snake Way? Don’t remember? It’s 10,000 miles. That sure does sound like an impressive number, no? Okay then, geography fanboys: What is the circumference of the Earth, in miles? Give up? That number is roughly 24,901 miles and some change. Suddenly Snake Way doesn’t seem as bad, but it’s still ridiculously long, right? RIGHT? Well yeah, but it makes no sense the amount of importance they give to said way of snake. The bigger problem at stake here is that Goku has traversed the world multiple times without much difficulty, even swimming half way around the world in a day when he was 17. Suddenly, this journey doesn’t sound so bad. This is another one of those problems that came up in the anime but was correct in the manga, where Snake Way is 1 million kilometers (621,371 miles), a slightly more intimidating pathway. Still, the US dub never corrects this, even after all the “definitive remastered editions” keep supposedly “fixing” said problems. I call shenanigans on you Funimation! Anyway, this 10,000 mile mark causes the next statement to make no sense: Only Goku and King Yemma have ever made it to the end. Ah…huh. Either there’s a lot more to Snake Way than they show, or everyone else really sucks when they die. Assuming there is nothing better to do when you die, why haven’t more people made the trip? They’ve got nowhere else to go. It’s like Goku’s the only important character in the history of ever. Oh wait, maybe because…
Goku Is The Only Important Character of The Series:
One of these people is important. Can you guess which one?
Goku is master of all the best attacks and techniques on the show. He knows the Kamehameha, the Spirit Bomb, Instant Transmission, the Kaio-Ken, the Solar Flare, and Super Saiyan 1-3. The Solar Flare was a technique he picked up from Tien, while the Kamehameha came from Master Roshi. The Super Saiyan thing was simple genetics. But even though Instant Transmission was arguably one of the most useful techniques in the show, he never bothered to teach anyone how to do it, even when he had three years to do it before the androids showed up. And the Kaio-Ken, a technique that he learned from King Kai along with the Spirit Bomb, did anyone get to learn those? It was a move that only King Kai was supposed to be able to teach, so that’d mean a character would need to train with King Kai for a long time such as when…Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu lived with King Kai and learned nothing. Ouch. It makes no sense, either, as they’re clearly strong enough to learn these abilities since they’re stronger than Vegeta was against the Ginyu Force. Say what?
Now can you figure out who's more important?
Okay, so Goku dies with a power level of roughly 400 when he travels Snake Way, trains with King Kai, and returns to Earth with the new skills and a power level over 9,000. The three in question die with power levels over 1,000 and reach King Kai, staying for a lot longer than Goku was able to as Goku had two months and these guys had four months and eight months (Tien and Chiaotzu had the latter). Goku fights the Ginyu Force on Namek with a power level at 180,000, though Vegeta couldn’t beat them with whatever power level he had. The Ginyu Force go to King Kai’s planet after they die since King Kai invited them and they all lose to Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu, meaning those guys have a power level well above Goku’s when he learned the Spirit Bomb and the Kaio Ken. So does King Kai teach them? Nope. Would they have wanted to learn? Tien was seriously into surpassing Goku someday, so you bet your sweet hinnie he’d want to know that. So why no love to the also rans? And beyond that, Krillin has the single deadliest move in the series with the Destructo Disk, a disk of energy that can slice through ANYTHING. It’s a one-hit-KO every time as long as it hits the person in the right place. Give this to someone with some real power and suddenly it’s hyper-deadly. But no, Krillin wasn’t important enough to bother with teaching this vital move. It’s not like these guys are martial arts masters or anything. Oh wait…
Epic Fights? Never Seen Those Before:
"This is SO going to be all over YouTube tomorrow!"
I don’t know how I missed this blaring plot hole in my last article since it rips the believability of the Dragonball world to shreds. In Dragonball, when Goku is a kid, he fights against Master Roshi, Tien, and Piccolo in three separate Tenkaichi Budokais (Strongest Under the Heavens Martial Arts Tournaments), each in increasingly epic battles that involve flight, explosions, hyper speed, and all manner of crazy things. But by Dragonball Z the whole world has forgotten that these guys exist and so they don’t bother to remember that it isn’t all that ridiculous to see people capable of these things when they show up again. The worst thing that happens is some guy named Hercule (originally Mr. Satan in the Japanese and uncut versions) convinces the world that everything that happens in the Cell Saga is all just an elaborate set of tricks since people aren’t capable of flight, super speed, or energy blasts. Even though the whole world has seen this happen on multiple occasions. Somehow they just believe, “Oh, yeah, that’s all just some explosives and jet packs and such.” To make matters worse, the military decides that every time a new threat shows up they should send in entire fleets to dispatch said threat. When Nappa and Vegeta show up, Nappa single-handedly wipes out all of Earth’s army, half the time just flying through the fighter jets and aircraft carriers. So when Cell shows up and manages to do the same thing, why does Earth’s military decide, “Hey yeah, I think we should go into certain death. That sounds like a good plan.” Naturally, Cell blows them all to HFIL and goes back to waiting for the important characters of the show (Goku) to come challenge him properly. Even if Hercule can convince everyone that Cell is just really good with tricks, that STILL makes him an unbelievable threat. Which would you be more afraid of? A guy that can fly around and shoot energy beams from his hands, or a guy with enough explosives to level entire cities and wipe out whole military factions? One of those is ridiculous, but the other? That’s Real World terrifying. We have people fighting a war right now because we THOUGHT that some guy had the means to pull off Cell-style tricks with explosives. After the first Tenkaichi Budokai when Goku and Master Roshi are exchanging Kamehamehas, everyone on the face of the planet would have rushed out to learn how to do this, especially the military. I guess it makes sense though. I mean, it’s not like everyone in the world is as important as Goku, right? Right.
So there you have it, another ten reasons why I have too much time on my hands. Am I still leaving some vital plot hole out? Or am I just looking for problems where there really isn’t any? Have you got an explanation for my gripes or a continuation of a gripe here? Comment time! Leave some comments and I’ll return the love. Even if you aren’t Goku.
You may also enjoy these other DBZ related articles:
-Ten Worst Instances of Filler in DBZ
-Ten Most Awesome Moments of DBZ
Oh and after you’ve commented on Goku turning super saiyan 2, there’s bunch plot holes and errors for ya that annoyed me but were funny. I commended you if you ven manage to read all of this with out taking vacations in between lol.
Plot Hole 1: Elder Kai’s awakening dead body suprises what the others already know but choose not to for some reason.
You know when people die who are good and pure like Goku they keep their bbodies, right? and this obviously occurs to Kai’s as they are important and are the overseers of the universe and have such high rank. This is shown alot as when ever Goku dies he keeps his body and then eventually the others do when they die, even Vegeta, and espeially the Kai’s keep there body when they die as when Goku broaght cell to King Kai’s planet and they both died, King Kai and Goku kept there bodies. Also, later on in the Buu Saga after the elder supreme Kai comes out from the Z sword, he eventually grants Goku’s life back by dying and then they are all destraught and sad for him sacrificing himself for Goku to get his life back but then why was everyone sad when they should know that he’s gonna pop back up again with a halo above his head because not only he’s a kai, he’s a supeme kai, and not only that, he’s an ancestor supreme kai and not only that, he just did something noble by granting Goku back to life. So much for everyone havingfaith in him in Judgement of hi life, “thanks for thinking I was a baddy jerks”. Not to much to worry about because it’s only minor but still its only just becomes a plot hole because the plot in that saga regarding ‘dying a good person meaning that you keep ya body’ is still the same as it always has been, but thats not the plot hole, the plot hole was that for no reason they all didn’t know that when dying a good person you keep your body but previousy in the plot they all seemed know infact it was natural they new as they would mention it every now and then, and don’t say the forgot because in that scene when elder supreme kai dies, Supreme kai was there and all the kais of otherworld know everthing about life and death and it terms, so why is he sad that he’s gone forever, and Goku should know he’s coming back because he’s died to often to not now what happens to ya if you die a good person.
2. Super Buu, use your head if you want to keep Majin Buu.
This gets tedious. So when Vegeta and Goku escape Buu’s body and take back Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Piccolo from inside his body(head) but also they detach Majin Buu’s chamber from within Super Buu’s head aswell but they don’t take him with them(for what reason I have yet to undertsand), so when Vegeta and Goku have done this and Buu is transforming and gaining power instead of losing it which this reason is reveiled by young supreme kai as Buu turning back to his absolute original state from when he was first created because when the supreme kai revieled to us this, he also said that there were 3 other supreme kais and a leader kai(his name escapes me) and Kid Buu absorbed them exept for this supreme kai and then when he absorbed te leader kai who was fat and happy, Buu took on these characteristics and became Majin Buu, also with every kai Buu absorbed, Buu kept getting weeker. But hang on a sec Super Buu told Vegeta not to detach Majin Buu otherwise he wont be himself anymore meaning that he will turn into Kid Buu, the original Buu, but Vegeta and Goku end up taking the others back but not Majin Buu even though they detached him so why was Super Buu able to transform into Kid Buu when he could easily mold Majin Buu’s chamber back into place so he would ramain as Super Buu as he so called Majin Buu as part of “himself”.
Plot Hole 3a: Super Buu should have never been Kid Buu…
So thats strange. heres another part of it the whole absorption and mind chamber plot process, just tell me how come when kid Buu was about to attack Mr.Satan on the supreme kai’s planet, he stopped because of the friendship they had together when Kid Buu was Fat Buu before he was Super Buu, but this would mean that Kid Buu would have the knowledge and feelings for Mr.Satan with in him because Majin Buu is within in him and it showed us exactly that, Fat Buu who has all of the supreme kais inside of him and the leader kai aswell is inside Kid Buu still in a chmaber, but how is Kid Buu able to be Kid Buu? he should be Super Buu if he has Fat Buu in him wtf!!!! because Kid Buu is the oginal Buu who has no absorbtion in him and Fat Buu with the supreme kais and the leader kai in him would make kid buu Super Buu, as so super buu says to vegeta to not detach Fat buu other wise he wont be himself!
Plot Hole 3b: …but Super Buu (and Evil Buu(you know, the grey Buu that got released by Fat Buu)) should have never existed and Fat Buu should have went straight to Kid Buu, so there is only 1 Buu not 2.(hey it rhymes lol)
You thought the last one was tedious then get a load of this. Firstly, how there became two Buus is beyond me, I mean, in the episode ‘Evil of Men’ the Evil Buu is released from Fat Buu, but Fat Buu is all pure evil by himself anyway so how did this happen if Evil Buu came from Fat Buu who is already evil. This differs from the Kami and Piccolo situation as when Kami and Piccolo were one being as they started out to be before they came to earth (but when they were together their name is never reviled so we will call him Namek). So Namek ended up on earth and went to the look out to become guardian of earth but he had to release the evil within him so he did and this evil was Piccolo (lets skip the whole king piccolo nonsense). Piccolo was Evil and came from Good who was Kami. So if a being has two complete significant, separated sides with the instability of one being good and one being evil then the evil can be released because it’s getting released from good. But in the situation of Fat Buu who is already completely evil, the question is how would that grey Buu who is known to be Evil Buu come from Fat Buu? because Fat Buu is already pure evil despite the good deeds he does but this does not make him have a good side to him because all the good deeds that Fat Buu does, he doesn’t do good deeds on his own terms, he does them because he takes on the characteristics of the Supreme Kais and Leader Kai who Kid Buu absorbed turning him into Fat Buu and the Supreme Kais and Leader Kai who are all pure hearted, the good deeds that Fat Buu does comes from the characteristics that he takes on from the Kais he absorbed when he was Kid Buu. An example for this is when Fat Buu cured a kid’s blindness and also when Mr Satan persuades him not to kill anymore. This is explained by The Supreme Kai(Shin) after Super Buu becomes Kid Buu. So you could say that the Good side of Fat Buu was the Supreme Kais and Leader Kai’s characteristics(keep this in mind) and when Evil Buu gets released what should be left behind is the Supreme Kais and Leader Ka set free, not Fat Buu because Fat Buu is merely completely part of Evil Buu, because Evil Buu + Supreme Kais and Leader Kai = Fat Buu. So how you should look at it when you look at Fat Buu, you actually look at the Supreme Kais and Leader Kai covered in Buu. And that Buu gets released as Evil separating from all the Kais, so they become free. Secondly, what still I don’t get is where Evil Buu came from because if Evil is being separated from the Kais inside Fat Buu which the Evil should be Buu altogether setting the Kais free but why was some random grey Buu released who was known to be Evil Buu, shouldn’t the Evil that was separated from the Kais be Kid Buu? Because Kid Buu is the original Majin Buu who absorbed the Kais in the first place so where did this grey Buu come from logically? So in other words they just made another Buu right in front of us which should have been Kid Buu and the Kais but instead be get Fat Buu remaining as Fat Buu and the evil that is separated from Fat Buu(who is evil anyway as I already explained so I don’t know how evil can be separated from evil in one being) being a new character created for no reason known to be an evil entity of Fat Buu who is already evil wtf lol. The only explanation I could come up for this is that Fat Buu was already pure evil and took on the characteristics of the kais at the same time doing good deeds as well as evil but when Mr Satan persuaded Buu to not kill anymore this helped the Kais within Fat Buu to take control of the Kid Buu that is merged with them, and then Fat Buu develops a friendship with Mr Satan but Mr Satan gets shot and nearly dies and just like Goku he suffered from the pain of loss and this pain is actually what the kais and Kid Buu is feeling so not just the kais and as Kid Buu and is merged with the kais making Fat Buu, and the Kid Buu side of Fat Buu cannot control this pain and develops an evil entity within Fat Buu and then Fat Buu releases the grey Buu, and he is grey because he hasn’t got Kid Buu merged with him so Evil would have been Kid Buu instead of Super Buu when merging with Fat Buu but Fat Buu has the Kais in him so if the Kais weren’t in Fat Buu the Fat Buu would have been Kid Buu but remember the evil entity was form as a part of Fat Buu who Kid Buu and the Kais developed so as another half of so then Kid Buu would have fought his evil entity which is the grey Buu and then I do not know who would win but then if they were to merge this would create and even more different Buu as Kid Buu is already evil and so evil can’t have another evil entity. I’m sorry but the whole Buu situation is so so so so so so so so so ful<ing complicated, and it is all caused by Akira Toriyama. Don’t worry I don’t expect you to understand this lol.
Plot Hole 3: Yay! Goku kill Buu now let’s all forget about the other Supreme Kais and Leader Kai even though they are still alive and will never die due to Chamber circumstances!
Huh? what that smell? uh-oh, i think it’s another plot hole. So as supreme kai(kabitokai) is telling elder kai and the veiwers about Buu's original form as Kid Buu he says that this is what Buu really is and he was fat when we first see him in the beginning of the Buu saga because he absorbed what supreme revealed to be as the OTHER SUPREME KAIS AND THEIR LEADER WHO WAS FAT AND LOOKED JUST LIKE MAJIN BUU. Up to that point we did not no that this was Buu’s actual form and we also did not know there were 3 more supreme kais and a leader kai on top of that. So obviously Kid Buu absorbed the supreme kais except this one we see in the current story and their leader kai and this makes Buu weaker and happier and looks exactly like the leader Kai. So when Majin Buu who has within him the supreme kais and the leader Kai, how come they were never released from Fat Buu even after Goku Vegeta and Majin Buu all together defeated Kid Buu, and Fat Buu became Good on his own terms because of Mr .Satan, so that’s not very nice i mean, damn, have all 3 of those supreme kais and leader kai got to spend all their time in Fat Buu and if I’m not mistaken Goku said to Vegeta after he came back from the dead about everyone and taken on their characteristics that they can't even die, so for the case of the supreme kais and leader kai, they are stuck in Majin Buu for-absolutely-ever and die, damn i man you head what Vegeta said, he said that Chamber life is no life at all, damn straight. Also in GT when Majin Buu would time to time protect Mr. Satan by absorbing him into a chamber in his head, but where were the supreme kais and leader kais in Fat Buu's head, I mean they need to be there to give Fat Buu his characteristic and appearances otherwise, you know what that means, yup, Plot Hooooooooole. So the other supreme Kai are still alive but not only are they forgotten by everyone(even the surviving supreme kai, damn you they were your fellow kais asshole!) but were forgotten by the plot.
does it actually ever say that they must get really mad in dbz, because i don’t think they ever say that, and probably not for ss2. i think this is more an observation than a fact, meaning goku can still transform without being mad. This is more likely, as Goten and Trunks both transformed when the earth was peaceful and there was not anything to provoke them really. They show that Goten is training with Chi-Chi, but i don’t think he was that mad at his mom, so i think maybe training and intense want for power can make it happen too, because that would also work for Vegeta SS1 and 2 as well as Goku all the time.
I agree Vik. I think it has to do more with power and training than some huge angry outburst for SSJ2. Plus, they pretty much break all the rules anyway.
Saiyans transfom into super siayans by either 1. building up emotion in the moment for instance when frieza provoked Goku and Cell Provoked Gohan, or 2. invisioning like when Gohan trasnform into a super siayan in time chamber, and 3. reflecting back like vegeta did to becme super saiyan, or either a mixture of some of these or all three. Howevr, for a Super Siayan to beome a Super siayan two the saiayan must b full powered and must undergo 1,2 or/and 3 but at a far reater margin of emotion and pain. Gohan did 2. and 3. to becme super siayan by invisioning what it would be like to lose his friends against cell and what would happen to the whole would which this is 2., but for 3. he reflets back on how someone has to always bail him out ina fight because of his incompetence and fear of fighting, then Gohan did 1 to become a super saya 2 from a full powere super saiyan state.
But about Part 1, you said Goku must ahve reflected back on something emotional that would transform him, but what would Goku reflect on that would be so damn emotional to him that would transform him to Super Saiyan 2, I mean one of the experiences that Goku would have to undergo would most certianly not be 1, whcih would mean some in other world would hve to hve pissed him much greater than what frieza did, but no in other world is evi lik that because they all good because that why they are in other world, also it wouldn’t be 2 which i invisoning something bad in the future that will happen because he knows everyone of earth is living in piece and he is doing nothing but doing what he loves which is training, for Goku to transform via 3, the only possible thng he could reflect on would be when he sacrifised himself to save the earth so cell wouldn’t destroy it and so his friends and fmily and everyone on eart can live so this isn’t a severely emotional thing for Gou because he is somewhat to an extent happy to sacrifice himself but then again Goku afterward was left knowing that he can’t be wished back and that Cell was the cause for this and his sacrifice was in vein because Cell was able to come back to earth even stronger which is the only possible thing Goku could reflect on but this wasn’t that emeotional for Goku because he knew that other world is a great place and that Gohan his still strong enough to kill Cell, so overall it doesn’t make sense how Goku transformed into a super saiyan 2 because 1,2 and 3 are the only ways to transform and Goku couldn’t have used any of them. So Goku ascedning to Super Saiyan 2 is an inconsistent gap in the plot. huff*
I still say, Goku could have invented a false emotional high in Other World by remembering traumatic events from the past, such as Nappa killing his friends, Frieza exploding Krillin, or Cell forcing Gohan to lose his innocence. You’re right, there really isn’t a clear explanation since the series sort of just bumped everyone up one level for sake of story, but this one at least feels plausible behind the scenes.
Aha! I didn’t relise you had another page, if you don’t remember me Chris i’m the guy who told you about the Hyperbolic Time Chamber Plot Hole.
Anyway here’s some for ya, why was Goku suddenly able to fly when he just got on snakeway? Proir to this and the fight with Raditz he kept using the Nimbus cload.
And how did Gohan learn how to fly?
Then again they Saiyan are an adaptible, fast learning race, because after the fight on earth Vegeta larned how to sense power levels, approaches and signals. So maybe Goku and Gohan develop it from others around him who could fly i.e. Piccolo, Tien and Chiatzu who always new how two fly. So as you can see, I pretty much answered my own question lol.
Here’s another one which is kinda like ‘hay wait a minute, huhD’. On Dragonball wiki(and this is a rediculously precise website about all aspects of the universe of the whole Dragonball, even the games) it says that to be a Super Saiyan 2 a Saiyan must have ascended from a regular Super Saiyan to a Full Power Super Saiyan because this is the highest level of a Super Saiyan 1 stage and then after the Saiyan has achieved this the Saiyan be transformed into a Super Saiyan(which will be full powered as the Saiyan has trained in this state to become Full Pwered) and must undergo a huge uprise and explotion of emotion that is more severe than what it takes to become a Super Saiyan 1. This is all correct because when frieza killed krillin this causedGoku to undergo a bad case of rage and emotion for the anebitablity of the death of his best friend this was serious amount of emotion but what is also correct about the super saiyan 2 is that it says that the saiyan must have trained his super saiyan ability and ascend it to a full powered super saiyan level which is the highest level for a super saiyan 1 and the transform into a full powered super saiyan and undergo a huge uprise and explotion of emotion that is more severe than what it takes to become a Super Saiyan 1. this is correct as when Gohan witnesses hs friends and father Goku being tortured by the Cell Jrs and then witnessing Android 16 death when shwing to Gohan that he is a person of piece Gohan transforms into a Super saiyan 2 from a Full powered super saiyan by an uprise of energy and emotion that is far greater than what is needed to transform into a super siayan 1. Well this is it realy, Goku died as a Full Powered super siayan so and returned in the Buu saga for one day and reveiled to us against Vegeta for the first time that he is a Super Saiyan 2 and so does Vegeta. But what I have always wondered is how did Goku Ascend from a full powered super saiyan to a Super Saiyan 2, why i’m wondering is because he has spent his whole time before he returned to earth and transformed into super sayain 2 in Other World were he is living in piece and happiness due to the amount of training and training methods so this is a dream come true for Goku, but in other world is obviously the place where Goku achieved Super saiyan because he sure hell did not achieve it againt Majin Vegeta because even though Vegeta did kill inocent people bu that did not piss Goku off that much. So in order to become super saiyan2 from a full powered super saiyan is undergo a huge uprise and explotion of emotion that is more severe than what it takes to become a Super Saiyan 1, but why would Gku undergo such emotion and rage in Other World? he is happy and having fun and everthing doesn’t make any sense. I can understand how vegeta became super saiyan 2 although I wasn’t quite sure how he got it, it was either he trained for seven years straight like he said to gohan and achived full power super saiyan as the cell saga finished with him only achieving Ultra super saiyan, and then when vegeta was controlled by badidi because there was a small amount of eveil in his heart still lerking behind the pureness of his heart so badidi was ableto controll vegeta, then Vegeta aid he was able to fight against badidi controlling him when badidi was first attepting to but then vegeta says he let badidi do so, so that badid would increase his power level and in this Vegeta is undergoing severe unstability and emotion possibly casuing him to ascend to a super saiyan 2 unnaturally and then he reveal his super saiyan 2 form against Goku righ after Goku does and then it shows that Vegeta robbed badid for power convincing badidi in a sneaky way that Vegeta will be controlled but he doesn’t because he is so damn strong. So this is how Vegeta become super siayan 2 or either he trained in the 7 year period to full powere super saiyan and then had remembered/relived his memeories of the entire Cell saga of how he was so easily beaten, surpass in power and brush a side, and failed nd discraced hi entire race and acestors for instance when vegeta first turn super siayan he kill 19 then got toyed with by 18 which damage his pride which his sole motivtion and life force, and when he was tricked by cell into letting him absorb 18 and then at the end when Cell was finnished Vegeta was lft to look back on himself of how he is descraced with himself and how damaged his pride and then icing the cake was he is forced by himself go against his pride and individuality byt stopping cell like piccolo, yamcha, tien and krillin were doing so that Gohan could kill him in the kamehameha stand off, so vegeta did stop cell alowing Gohan to finish him and also another factor which could lead to Vegeta reflecting back to the Android/Cell saga in order to build emotion up to transform into a super saiyan 2 is that he was always easily suprassed and then he was surpassed by a child, gohan, and then gohan surpassed him further which damaged his pride severely. Vegeta reflects on all this and build up a huge amount of emotion and transforms. so yeah either this way or other, but anyway talkign about Vegeta turning super siayan 2 I was explaning any sort of plot hole but the hole goku turning super siayan 2 is beyond me and i thinkthis is a plot hole but please tell me what i have missed cheers.
Well, as for Goku turning SSJ2, here’s my explanation in two parts, the first being the technical one and these second being the one I feel is more likely.
Part 1: Goku trained Gohan in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber (boy we love that little room, don’t we?) to ascend to a Super Saiyan via a simulated crisis i.e. Goku forced Gohan to remember an emotionally painful moment in his life while also introducing the real physical threat of death, generating the combination of emotion and need. This goes to show that the Super Saiyan forms, whatever level they may be, can be accessed through simulated instances, similar to how an actor can generate real tears by remembering a real-life past event, even if the current situation is fake. It is entirely plausible that Goku trained in Other World using this tactic of simulating danger and emotion in order to ascend to SSJ2 and beyond.
Part 2: Having Goku be a SSJ2 by the Buu Saga was easier for everyone and made him look cooler.
It’s called a cartoon. (anime) of course it’s gonna have plot holes, it doesn’t really matter. You got so worked up over it
Trust me, if you’ve been reading the comments, I’m nowhere near worked up.
o well actually apparently he goes 4 years before androids appear so he probably just knows how to use the time machine
o and im not sure about this, but i think Trunks explains why cell goes farther back than Trunks himself logically would have. i think he’s thinking about it and comes to the conclusion that he must not have changed the time at all from before or it being preset or something because it being a preset would make sense, as initially the goal of the time machine was to just give Goku his heart medicine, so bulma probably just put that time as the preset destination.
@will
1- tails, yea quite possible, but i said this above as well, im sure by trunks and goten everyone knew about giant apes (even goku figures it out when he fights vegeta) so they would just remove them
2 – that was a filler episode, mentioned by chris, so he doesnt necisarily have to have that attack
3 – cuz that would make too much sense! All of the saiyans could just hurt themselves and then heal themselves, making their power grow tremendously many times. I believe korin says something about it being hard to grow them, but when goku goes to namek, korin grows him i think 6 beans that all had to be grown since the fight with vegeta, which was like 1-1.5 months before. Doesnt make sense
4 – king kai is weaker than nappa…. but i think they should have wished him back to pay him back for the help he gives them
5 – cuz i think only garlic and garlic jr knew how… so there is no one to teach them
6 – again, that would make too much sense. basically because chi-chi wanted him to study and not train…didnt care about goten tho
7 – too much sense!!!! well actually its seems like dr gero might have been better with androids than briefs or bulma was but also they probably didnt want to because 17 and 18 disobeyed gero so ther is no garuntee that other androids would listen.
8 – basically same as 7, could be evil/disobeying creator and could just be a new threat
9 – you can only train in the hyperbolic time chamber twice, and apparenty it puts strain on your body or somthing and you can only stay for a day / year *cough*cough*
10 – wen they didnt need them? after freeza they basically only use them to revive people, and send the nameks to a new planet, but yea they didnt need them, although they could probably wish that the villains just wern’t evil, which would make sense.
10.5 – gt?
liked your comment 2
ps. TOTALLY
actually when kai started i was impatient and watched all of DBZ again 
and i have never heard about Robotech, sorry lol.
P.S. Any of you guys reliving the memories through DB Kai? Alittle wishful thinking, but any of you guys as into Robotech (sorry, but I had to ask)
Just for Thought:
1)wouldn’t it be feasible that some Saiyans would be born without tails, since they were actually half Saiyan (born to Saiyan fathers and Earth Mothers) and may have received some recessive genes.
2)If Vegetta destroyed a PLANET, how come he never used this attack again?
3) How come nobody was pocketing/growing Senzu Beans, and why not just keep popping them to power up?
4)How come they never wished King Kai back to kick some major butt.
5)How come no one else learned to send people to the Dead Zone?
6)Goku repeatedly stated how powerful Gohan was. Why didn’t he teach him every trick in the book, especially after the first dozen alien attackers.
7)Why didn’t Dr B reverse engineer an army of Androids
8)Why not make a “new” Cell to fight Cell. Better yet, why not make a “CELL” in a BUU or Baby Timeline period.
9)Why didn’t everyone start training in a Hyper Bolic Chamber on a regular bases (even Michael Jackson had one).
10)At what point did everyone just stop looking for Dragon Balls?
10.5) Who else wants to see a SUPER SAIYAN GOLDEN APE????
And lastly, this was a little light heartedness, but I love all the post, I read every last one of them, and I commend all of you for your dedication and commitment to the series we all KNOW and LOVE!!!!
With the comment on the spirit bomb, King Kai said specifically that the user must be absolutely pure of heart, so apparently the other characters weren’t pure enough.
Oooooh, that’s a GOOD argument! I hadn’t thought about that! Well played.
However, that still doesn’t explain the Kaio Ken Club of Goku and Goku.
yea the whole goku’s space pod thing is explained properly in the japanese version… i think. i recall hearing them say that the ship was broken, but the vital parts were still there… thats all dr briefs needs
Where am I getting my facts? You idiot, I just said the Daizenshuu 7. Those are guide books with facts straight from Akira Toriyama.
It’s stated in the daizenshuu that saiyan hair
changes after birth depending genes, just like humans.
That means the genes where tails regrew depend on certain
factors and genes, this is backed up in the movie 3 and GT. Even
though both aren’t canon. Not to mention that this isn’t a plot hole
it’s simpley something you don’t understand. A plot hole is an impossible
event.
Snake Way is 1 million kilometers regardless of what you think, that’s
over 600,000 miles. If you want to be a simpleton and go by dub errors
then by all means do so, not to mention in Z Kai that they screwed up
again and said 1,000,000 miles. That’s what the author intended it
to be, 1 million kilometers.
Well look at the first volume of Dragon Ball, Goku takes
Monster Carrot to the moon. This is something that’s common
for saiayans. Bardock was fine in space, it’s most likely
something to do with saiyans. However, you could tell
that astroid had an atmosphere (You probably won’t find one
in real life, just like you won’t find land sharks like
Frieza trying to wipe out your race and sell your planet).
Tien learns a similar technique to the kaioken that he used against
the Ginyu Force on North Kaio’s planet. It boosted his strength
and allowed him to easily out class the Ginyu Force.
Why didn’t Goku teach them? After they saw him go SSJ, it’s
pretty obvious that they wouldn’t catch up to him.
Tien states during the Cell Games: “Surpassing Goku has been
my goal ever since I became a martial artist, without him there’s
no way I would have come this far.” Goku was more of motivation
for him to keep going, regardless of how strong he got.
Asking for help would be completely out of character.
Again, Cell’s beam hit near Trunk’s heart, so that was almost an instant
kill. He hung on for a few moments and died. Krillin was hit in the side
his lower torso, that’s obviously not as life threatening.
Goku had a huge hole in him, of course he’ll be hanging on for a few minutes,
there’s no way he’d survive any longer than that. This is pretty much
common sense.
You really don’t understand this do you?
Let’s go back to when Trunks first came.
We’ll call the main timeline, A.
So Trunks is from B.
Goku-A
Trunks-B
Cell-C
Why did Cell come to A? No, it’s not the default setting.
There are a few reasons why this may be.
Trunks wasn’t finished setting the destination.
Trunks messed up the settings.
Trunks was going to go to A, so he could help
another time line defeat the androids, hence
it was the same Trunks from B, but since Trunks
B time traveled at all it caused a paradox.
So there would have been two Future Trunks, though
that wouldn’t have been a big deal, it’d be pretty neat.
Personally things like that have been done in the simpsons,
Futurama and various other cartoons.
You didn’t watch the episodes where Trunks arrived did you?
Goku states that he saw Frieza rushing for Earth and that
he wouldn’t make it in time. If he absolutely had to do so,
he would use his instant transmission. Trunks however wasn’t
aware of this, so he beat Frieza on his own.
In his time line Goku beat Frieza, but Frieza came before Goku
did meaning there was a bit of trouble caused before Goku arrived
on Earth in that time line, meaning he didn’t have the instant
transmission technique there. It makes plenty of sense.
Well, how would Goku know his ships undamged if he hasn’t
seen it since he was a baby? And probably can’t remember anything
about it? There was still enough of it left for Dr.Briefs to
make the trip to Namek faster. Filler explained, simple as that.
Rational thinking does come into play a lot, you highly underestimate
Toriyama. It’s incredibly ignorant to say it’s written in black and
white. The world army is cocky, they’ve been convinced that Cell is
a fake by their hero. The one they trust the most. Did the army attack
after Cell blew them into pieces? No, in fact they gave into Majin Buu
pretty fast. The past came into play at the world martial arts tournament
when Gohan went SSJ2, “I remember golden boy there from the figt with Cell!”
Videl also beleives her father that Cell was a fake as well a lot of other people,
until they saw those things up close. Not to mention Master Roshi all
those years ago was world famous, and almost a legend, they’d expect that
much from him. But wait, he was under Jacki Chung right? It’s pretty obvious he
made it clear that he was wither Roshi or studied under him based on his
techniques. Plus Kami brought the moon back, so that’s nothing short of “the moons back eh?”
If we go back to King Piccolo, he’s beleived to be a demon so they’re
aware he can do things like that. And that’s because they think he’s a demon.
While Cell is a fake, a guy who plants bombs. It was all explained in
the Cell Games movie played at the world martial arts tournament 7 years later.
Why do you think Piccolo changed his name? The world knows about him.
The president of the world knew he was when he saw him at the Cell Games.
It’s pretty simple.
Saiyan genes also vary, that’s why Nappa went bald. That’s why tails are gene sensitive the specific user.
Snake Way was 1 million kilometers, otherwise known as 621,371 miles. So there’s your flawed logic.
Certain animals in DB/Z can talk because they actually have the necessary vocal cords and whatnot. That’s extremely simple, certain animals having the ability to talk is completely normal.
The meteor Vegeta was on actually had an atmosphere, couldn’t you tell? It’s very obvious, if it didn’t the ship would have said so.
Goku isn’t the only important character, Yamcha and Tien both picked up a few techniques of their own. They were also trained mentally and physically far beyond anything before.
Their training put them to be above the Ginyu Force.
Again you’ve forgotten what a plot hole is. Not to mention Krillin’s destructo disk did nothing to Gohan. And they even made a filler with Cell to show how it doesn’t effect him whatsoever.
And this one is rather obvious. Krillin’s attack from Frieza was in his side. Piccolo’s attack damaged Raditz and Goku’s vital organs. Cell shot a beam that was almost an instant kill since it his chest, he was alive for a little while coughing up blood, but he died moments later.
Dragon Ball/Z uses the Multiverse theory in physics, that’s all that needs to be said. Everything you need to know about time travel with Trunks is explained in that theory.
Garlic Jr.’s existence can be considered a plot hole, or it could be there was an altercation of the movie that actually took place in the canon stages of DBZ. Since the majority of movies are what ifs that take place in different time lines.
Goku’s ship, it’s likely it wasn’t fully destroyed in the wreckage. You highly underestimate Dr.Briefs.
Your last plot hole is incredibly ignorant.
The fight with Piccolo and Goku wasn’t televised, obviously.
The island was evacuated. And yes the people of Earth remember a lot of things from DB, don’t you recall Piccolo entering under an alternative name? Why? Gee I don’t know, the events of King Piccolo ring a bell? Why did the army go after Cell?
They don’t fully understand the situation, as far as they’re concerned, weapons of mass destruction could do some damage.
There’s also a difference between Cell and Nappa.
Nappa was considered an alien by the people of Earth, and were soon forgotten about thinking the nameless “Earth’s special forces” took care of them. Or they left. It was a big thing for awhile. Cell however, was just a monster. Mr.Satan won the hearts of millions, it was their trust they believed Cell was a fake. Not everything in DBZ is black and white, it isn’t all fighting, you actually have to think to understand certain things.
Okay, let’s think Saiyan genes, shall we? Three things seem standard for Saiyan genes: First, they grow stronger exponentially when fighting. Secondly, they all seem capable of transforming into Super Saiyans. Third, they’re all born with tails. The simple fact is, Gohan’s tail regrew three times in under one year. Three. Times. And then it just doesn’t grow back. That doesn’t make sense. And neither Goten nor Trunks had a tail when they were born, meaning something that really doesn’t make sense. Gohan was born with a tail, but Goten wasn’t. That isn’t simple genetics, that means something got lost from the species. Simple lines can fix that but weren’t written in.
Snake Way is 1 million kilometers as mentioned in the manga, but the English dub of the anime screwed it up. I don’t care what one source says, I’m going off the anime in my articles, so it’s a plothole. accountability is critical for a long running show.
Fine, certain animals talk, it’s weird but who cares, it’s a cartoon. You win that round.
Even if Vegeta landed on an asteroid that had an atmosphere (also, where do you find asteroids like that?), that still doesn’t explain him and Nappa standing outside their space pods at Arlia. I don’t care how much Oxygen those pods may be able to generate, there’s no way they can compensate for the amount lost by the vacuum of space.
My plothole is that no one else learns all important moves like the Kaio Ken, Instant Transmission, or the Spirit Bomb. Goku had plenty of time to teach these things to everyone for any eventuality, and he didn’t. King Kai had the chance to teach two of those to Yamcha and Tien but he apparently didn’t. Tien especially would have wanted to know those techniques since his only goal in the series has been to someday surpass Goku in a match again. Just because Vegeta shows up and has the same goal doesn’t mean Tien would stop trying.
Apparently DBZ wounds are just something I’ll never agree with. I know what they’re doing with dramatic effect, so maybe I’m just jaded to stuff that doesn’t tend to follow any semblance of logic.
DBZ’s multiverse theory is still skewed heavily. Timeline A where the series takes place is one thing, but Trunks comes from Timeline B where Goku died. He mentions that if he went further back that he would end up in a different timeline, let’s call it Timeline D. But then Cell comes from a future where he’s killed Trunks, so he’s from Timeline C. Why is he able to travel to Timeline A as well? Is Timeline A just the default setting? And furhtermore, if Trunks appeared hoping only to speak with Goku and knew Goku wouldn’t arrive until after Frieza was dead, why did he step in and fight Frieza? That implies that in his timeline he was the one that killed Frieza as well. That is a plothole because IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.
Yes, I do highly underestimate Dr. Briefs, only because Goku’s ship was obliterated. The fact of the matter is, anime Goku says the ship’s completely undamaged and we know that’s incorrect. If it was really undamaged, the hologram projector would still work. Piccolo blew up the ship so it’s destroyed. End of story. Filler plot caused a plothole, simple as that.
My last plothole is not incredibly ignorant and it all comes down to how much the world goes nuts for the World Martial Arts Tournament. It doesn’t matter if no one say the final parts of Goku and Piccolo’s fight, they still saw both the fight between Goku and Tien where Tien was flying all around, and the fight between Goku and Jackie Chun where the moon got blown up. The MOON got BLOWN UP. Seriously, they were aware of big blasts and people capable of crazy unexplainable crap. It doesn’t matter that Nappa was an alien but Cell was just considered a monster, it doesn’t make sense to believe the world’s army is dumb enough to attack head-on against a foe that’s already destroyed wave after wave of attackers. None of that makes sense unless you sustain the disbelief that Earth is full, not just have a few, but is FULL of idiots that have no concept of a past.
I have thought this through and I know it’s not all about fighting, but the show is written in black and white. Otherwise rational thinking would come into play a whole lot more.
Most of these are common sense and aren’t plot holes.
Plot holes are events that are impossible.
Unless you take literally every word of everything said, it’s not a plot hole. Character base things on their own ignorance, why? Because they try to explain things they don’t fully understand.
Daizenshuu 7 states powerlevels:
Goku against Frieza: 3,000,000
Frieza at 50%: 60,000,000
Goku with the kaio-kenx20: 60,000,000
Goku as SSJ, SSJ boosts by 50 times according to the Daizenshuu: 150,000,000
Frieza at 100%: 120,000,000
Seriously guys the worst you really have for plot holes in DBZ are filler inconsistencies, and a few artwork errors.
Some people are really just too stupid to do some research.
Where the heck are you getting those facts? The show states power levels multiple times, but I’ve never heard those, especially since they make no sense whatsoever. Frieza has a power level of over 1 million, but 120 million? That’s just ridiculous. If you’re getting your facts from some source other than the show, then you’re getting mislead. My only rule as a writer is: “If it’s not in the writing, it didn’t happen.”
if majin buu was that powerful, and he had been released on the universe before, like it was said that he was, then how come frieza had never heard of him? im sure the most powerful being in the universe (frieza) would have heard of at least stories of a creature (buu) that was more powerful then the legendary super saiyan who pales in comparison to majin buu… right? also if the kai’s knew about majin buu, y does king kai seem so surprised at every new level of power that comes along as if its soo unbelievable? i mean, hasnt he heard of buu?
Come on none of them where as bad as when Comander Red and Black appear randomly as directors in what I will always refer to as the angst sarga.
another plot hole, what happened to some of the other characters that were introduced in DB/DBZ and then disappeared never to be heard from or mentioned of again. Some examples are Launch, Eighter, Marron(Krillin’s Ex-Girlfriend), Gohan and Videl’s 2 high school friends(they were important enough to be in the opening group shot from seasons 7-9), Crane Hermit, Icarus (gohan’s pet dragon), and pretty much anyone that was friends with Goku in Dragonball. You would think someone ask about what happened to some of these characters.
Ah, never mind, you have kinda already mentioned that
Not sure if this has been mentioned in the comments before, but why did Krillin not come back to life when Kaio/Kami/Mr Popo brought everyone killed by Frieza and his men back to life? All the random Namekians came back, Dende came back, Vegeta came back.. Why not Krillin? Makes no sense.
I am not sure if this was mentioned in the Dragon Ball manga (the last time I read it all was a couple of years ago) but when Krillin died someone mentioned (don’t remember who exactly but I think it was Master Roshi) that the bodies had to be kept in tact for Shenron to bring them back. That’s why the bodies were preserved in those coffin refrigerators. Now they also mentioned that you would be brought back to life in the shape you were in too I think i.e. if you lost an arm you would be brought back that way.
Why is it then that Tien who lost an arm magically grew his arm again when he was revived back again (this can be said for Trunk’s who had a hole in his chest and others).
Furthermore, when Shenron was summoned after the Cell games were over to revive Trunks etc. they showed Mr. Satan having a parade, and it was light out (yes this is an anime filler and being extremely picky) when Shenron had been summoned. Isn’t the whole sky around the world supposed to be dark when he is summoned.
I have to agree 100% with you about saying that Goku was always so IMPORTANT! I am a fan of Vegeta and hated Goku in the later part of DBZ (I love him Dragon Ball and probably up until the end of the Frieza saga). He made Vegeta seem useless and it drove me nuts which is probably why I don’t like the Buu Saga much.
It gets mangled pretty badly in some English dubs, but the importance of keeping bodies intact is stated constantly in the Japanese dubs and the manga, specifically when dealing with Krillin’s death on Namek. The US dub states the problem with wishing him back is that he died on Namek so wishing him back would just place him in the empty void of space where Namek once was, but in the original dialogue they explain the problem as his body being exploded into pieces, hence the extra wish to find all those pieces and then wish him back. None of that seemed to matter when they really just needed bodies wished back though, for instance when Buu kills everyone by eating them or exploding the planet. Wishing everyone back didn’t even need the body explanation required since they were way past bothering with that little note. The same deal happened when Goku was blown up by Cell. His body would definitely be in pieces, but they had stopped worrying about that technicality last saga.
Maybe this doesn’t count since it came from the Dragon Ball Z movie “The World’s Strongest”. But anyway… so Oolong and Gohan are searching for the Dragon Balls so Oolong can wish for something. Gohan asks Oolong what he wants to wish for and we see the image of women’s underwear. The exact same underwear Oolong wished for in Dragon Ball to stop Emperor Pilaf from making his wish (I don’t remember what it was). So if we know that the Earth dragon can’t grant the same wish twice, wouldn’t that mean that Oolong wouldn’t be able to wish for underwear again? Maybe Oolong didn’t know. But he should’ve. Just something for everyone to think about.
Yeah, that’d definitely be a problem with character consistency, which is more damaging to a story than big plotholes a lot of the time. We see that again and again in various places in both the movies and the series itself, such as Vegeta becoming a coward only when it serves the plot (against Frieza as well as Broly), or Tien not really doing anything after a certain point.
yea..they rock, nappa is complete jokes lol on the bug planet where he rips on the weakness of raditz… “He must have been made of something weak like paper mache, or Radtz”… lol
o and who watches tfs abridged? If you don’t you should its an amazing parody of DBZ : http://www.teamfourstar.com/
and im not just advertising, this stuff is actually hilarious, Mr Popo FTW!!!! speaking of Mr. Popo, (although this was filler episodes not from manga) he fights Goku during Goku’s training on the lookout and blocks everything easily, meaning he was probably stronger than King Piccolo… and this happens again with Goten and Trunks which means he was at least Ginyu Force level, maybe Freiza level (although in that 1 episode thing from a couple years ago with Vegeta’s brother, Tarble, the guy is supposed to be Freiza level and Goten and Trunks Have trouble with him, but i think he goes through some kind of tranformation as wel…). O ya Tarble lol but that doesn’t count does it?
I am definitely well aware of Team Fourstar. They nail the jokes perfectly. I think my favorite may be the energy blast struggle between Goku and Vegeta. “Kyle Ken…” “Noooo…” “Times…” “No no no no….” Priceless.
LOLZ!!! btw Buu probably couldn’t be resurrected because Babidi would need people to get energy from and everyone was pretty much dead, except like Trunks (Bulma doesn’t have enough energy by herself to get Buu back anyway). Also maybe Babidi was killed by the androids and then Buu is lost forever. I think Babidi being killed by the androids would probably be very likely.
p.s. thanks for the great lists lol.
This might have already been said but I think the reason why they didn’t have goku fight Frieza again is because they wanted to show how powerful trunks really was. The fact that he defeated frieza in two seconds showed that he was super powerful, even for a super saiyan
Just remember that anything happening in any of the movies or the TV specials is not official, and not related to the manga. The TV specials could be upheld, at best, as the untold stories, but if they conflict with the facts of the manga, then those aspects of them *have* to be ignored for the sake of continuity and common sense. Also, the Ginyu force never went to Kaio-sama’s place, that is completely filler.
I assume that no matter how much training they got, Yamcha, Krilin and Tenshinhan, being human, reached their limit eventually. I also don’t believe that once you discard the filler Ginyu thing, they were ever anywhere near as strong as Vejiita on Namek. Krilin seems to have slightly more potential than the others, but even so, he is a human and has a limit. Nonetheless, give credit where credit is due. Compared to most tournament participants, especially the tournament in the Majin Buu arc, these humans are still more powerful than most other martial artists by a long shot.
Actually, these plot holes are not really large. There are much bigger plot holes in the series than this. Firstly, dealing with this, many of your plot holes deal with the issue of filler vs canon. The filler was inserted in order to keep the anime from going ahead of the manga, since, well it hadn’t been drawn yet and they were developed in unison. So, I think we should discard the plot holes that come up as a result of the filler since it was really rushed material and not part of the actual plot. So, that gets rid of the goku’s spaceship plot hole, since that whole hologram thing was filler.
The body hole thing also isn’t much of a plot hole. Firstly, Raditz and goku. Well, people who have been split in half have lived for a minute or so after the incident before passing out from blood loss and dying. So that’s our bench mark. Raditz and Goku lived for only a couple mins which is to be expected. The hole from frieza to krillin isn’t suspicious because frieza’s horn only pierced his side…not an immediately life threatening wound. The trunks wound also is not suspicious, cell’s blast was right through his heart, an almost instantly fatal wound.
Here’s a really big plot hole: the power levels frieza/vegeta etc. others give are way off. For example, Jeice remarks that vegetas power level rises to about 30,000 when he starts to fight nappa. Ok, fair enough. Vegeta gets the snot kicked out of him, senzu beaned and zenkaied to a new power plateau. Fair enough. Ok, when freeza battles nail he reveals his power level is 530,000…so how did vegeta’s power level jump from 30000 to aroung 500,000? Because he was only beaten by someone who’s power level was only around 40,000 so his zenkai shouldn’t have resulted in such a jump. Especially considering he got way more damage on earth and his power barely increased a couple thousand when kui read it first on namek. How did his power increase so much? That’s a major plot hole.
Another power level related plot hole. Frieza says he’s using 1% of his power. Ok, cool. so he charges up to 50% of his power. Ok. Goku and Frieza were about even at Frieza’s 1% power. But goku uses a kaiouken x20 and is nearly equal to frieza in power. As we all know a x20 kaiouken would only give a 21x increase in power; Frieza recieved a 50x increase in power (50% = 50×1%) So how is it possible that Goku could even touch Frieza let alone get a solid punch in and even cause Frieza to admit he was hurt by the Kamehameha?
Regarding the Capsule Corp. spaceship made for Goku’s trip to Namek, I would just rationalize it as meaning Dr. Briefs only loosely meant he used Goku’s space pod, and that he actually reversed engineered the technology from the remaining pieces of Goku and Raditz’s space pods. Obviously the ship couldn’t have just been a repaired space pod since it was much larger, so I would just assume Dr. Briefs figured out the major systems like propulsion. I’d find this explanation believable because of Dr. Briefs invention of the gravity machine. It seems clear Capsule Corp. can make some high-tech stuff, since no other space faring races seen seems to have made their own gravity rooms for training, so reverse engineering from the debris of the space pods isn’t that far fetched.
About Trunk’s Timeline not having to face Babidi and Majin Buu, I would just say that Trunk’s and Cell’s intrusion into the main timeline from their own alternative timelines created distortions that affected the entire universe. Not big changes, but just small changes everywhere. So perhaps a different decision Babidi makes allows him to come to Earth sooner in the main timeline. In the show it’s said they checked out Earth a few hundred years earlier already and they seem to think that’s a relatively short amount of time. So a decade or two difference is not a big deal, whatever delayed them for all those years from hatching Buu may have delayed them for longer in Trunk’s timeline.
As for tails growing back, that could be explained by lack of blutz rays, and puberty. Tails can grow back as long as there are blutz rays and the Saiyan isn’t an adult. That would fit for Gohan, his tail grew back because of the hologram, and then again with Vegeta’s powerball. Without the moon, he then couldn’t regrow his tail. Vegeta was already an adult, so his tail wouldn’t grow back, or else I would assume he would use a powerball to regrow his tail if it was possible (of course GT would screw up my puberty restriction). For Trunks and Goten, it was just genetic chance that they didn’t receive the genes for a tail. I can’t see either having to cut their tails off if their was no danger of a full moon.
I agree that it’s ridiculous that so many of Goku’s moves aren’t taught to others. Gohan especially should’ve learnt them, if not during the three years of training for the androids, then inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. I can’t see how Gohan learns the kamehameha but not anything else.
The rest of the world’s acceptance that all these powers are tricks can be explained simply by denial. It’s easier to believe they are tricks than to accept the truth and live in fear with the thought that people and aliens possess the power to wipe them out in a single shot. Ignorance is bliss, and everyone just believes what they want to believe.
First of this is a interesting article i did enjoy reading it but i will help answer some of your plot holes , first off never compare the movies 2 series they are never linked , what happens in movies totally causes conflict with the series so much could be asked how come there were more androids the garlic junior thing , the way the dbz universe works is the movies are like u can say happening in like alternate universe u can say there never linked 2 the series so what ever they say in a film wont matter if they say something else in the series there not linked
And also bout the trunks adventures u have not considered many points in trunks time the androids are destroyed most of that world trunks is the only z fighter left , whos pure energy was babidi gonna use 2 open majin bu out of that ball he was in , maybe trunks got stronger we dnt know , and he destroyed babidi and dabura before they could do anything , we will never know but trunks never came back so i guess he dealt with whatever happened fine , and all the time travel he did might have changed his time , also say if majin buu was unleashed maybe he destroyed that world before trunks could go back into time we dont know , but there are many possibilities
and also when you talk bout the ginyu force coming 2 king kais and the powers u got it wrong again , u fail to understand dat gokus power level was 2 much for all the ginyu force members that died goku made it look easy vegeta was not as strong but after eating the sensu bean his powers dramatically increased , and he was stronger, tien yamcha all them equal powers with the ginyu force and they lost the first fight but there dead they got plenty of time to get it right there in a place with 10 times gravity and were able 2 get stronger not 180,000 but gokus power level was way higher then any ginyu member , ginyu force and the z fighters at king kais were even but the ginyu force got beat mentally the second time around i guess after the first round tien and all of them learned from there mistakes , and when u talk bout goku knows all the moves , why did tien and all them wanted 2 learn them moves , because it didnt matter , they were not gonna make a difference in the namek battle and were not gonna get wished back anytime soon , goku was sent to train at king kais for the sayains that were coming to earth , he had to learn them moves he was preparing , tien yamcha and all of them was more of a goof off type sessions instead there story at that time was used to create comedy especially when piccolo catches bubbles dat was funny there scenes were used for humour not
seriousness, to mellow the frieza saga that was so intense and serious , and also goku is the main character all the other characters hide behind goku apart from piccolo and vegeta , the main character will always be the focul point of a manga and as time goes by the fact is humans have limits they cant get stronger and stronger , like sayains who have various transformations , its as simple as they became less important and even nameks have limits and sayains become most of the focul point from cell saga to the end , and look goku is the most powerful good guy its only fair they give the best moves , and krillins disc was great weopan until frieza saga where it couldnt penetrate through friezas skin no matter how it hits and even cell who lets his disk hit is neck it becomes a weak attack , and also the tails of the sayians had to go because it would have been a hassle i mean every moon what would each sayain have to transform and besides they never show it but we can always assume there keeping there tails cut themselves ,and also once removed it wont come back unless it pulled out , so i mean dats not really a big deal being an ape doesnt change anything the greatest sayain move was used 2 destroy planets it is a strong move , but it was a evil move there was no need for it until gt where the ss4 transformation needs 2 go ozuru before super sayain4 ,
And here comes my rebuttal:
I mention the movies very sparingly, to my knowledge only twice. I am aware that Cooler is not technically canon within the series, but Garlic Junior is due to the addition of him and his backstory from The Dead Zone being inserted into the actual series. Both Bardock and The History of Trunks are part of the series rather than movies since they are referenced directly in the series.
With Trunks, yes, there is a lot of room to futz about with the timeline. He mentioned himself that the main series’ timeline was slightly skewed compared to his own, but there were no major differences. Goku still caught a heart virus, the Androids appeared in the form that Trunks remembered eventually, and Cell shows up when his stasis period ends. You’re right that Babidi would probably not have had the chance to find one big fighter to gather pure energy from except for Trunks, but if he showed up, an event that would happen eventually, I don’t see why he wouldn’t at least try to suck up every little bit he could find. Trunks wouldn’t have been able to defeat Dabura, actually no one would, assuming Dabura was as strong as he was in the main timeline. I do realize this plothole comes as a result of Akira Toriyama being forced to extend the series yet again, but it’s still a plothole as far as I’m concerned.
Okay, the whole business with the Ginyu Force on King Kai’s planet is getting fuzzy now and I realize it’s entirely because it was one of those side plots meant for filler, i.e. no real thought was put into how it relates to anything else. The simple fact of the matter is that Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu straight up beat the Ginyu Force after only a simple warm-up round. Didn’t just win, beat them up and fired them from the planet. This means that they would need to be stronger than Vegeta was while fighting before he ate that Senzu Bean, and while I can’t judge that power directly, I know that it’s greater than 26,000 and less than 180,000. Apparently, King Kai could train Goku to use his ultimate moves because Goku was strong enough when he arrived at King Kai’s planet, a requirement to just reach the needed qualifications.
Saying that their time on King Kai’s planet was “goof time” is entirely inaccurate. Tien is the character that proves the rule that Goku is more important than anyone. Tien spends the entire series training himself for…who knows? His goal during the Android Saga is to be useful in some way and he does actually succeed in that by stalling Cell for a time, but then he continues training for…who knows? The point is, he is actively trying to get stronger, presumably to be a match for Goku at some point in time (this is his original motivation in the series altogether). Tien even tells Yamcha to be wished back first since he’d rather train some more with King Kai. King Kai is THE martial arts master of the North Quadrant, so just getting the chance to train with him isn’t something that gets handed out like candy at Christmas. It means something.
Furthermore, it would be unreasonable for the other characters, especially Tien, to believe Goku and the Saiyans’ powers to be unattainable before they had seen a Super Saiyan. Part of the reason Goku was able to fight both the Ginyu Force and Frieza for so long was due to the use of the Kaioken. His 180,000 reading was actually from a Kaioken by the way, something that gets brushed under the rug in the US dubs. It’s the whole reason Ginyu couldn’t tap into Goku’s full strength. Tien would have realized the importance of the Kaioken and really wanted to learn it, assuming his character motivation was consistent. If it isn’t, then my beef isn’t with the plothole of no one being treated like Goku, it’s the plothole of no one sticking with their character motivations.
Lastly, Krillin’s Destructo Disc does have it’s limits, yes, but only in relation to the power of the enemies. It could slice Nappa’s face, it DID slice Frieza’s tail off, and the only reason it couldn’t harm Cell was because Cell was way above Krillin’s league. Hand that attack to Goku and you’d see a lot faster K.O.s in the series. Just think of all the times the Kamehameha failed to explode someone even when used at full power. Now imagine that was a Destructo Disc. End of story, characters would have wanted to use that.
Oh, and Saiyan tails: Goku’s tail is cut in Dragonball yet grows back, then removed by Kami. Gohan’s tail is plucked twice and cut once. Vegeta’s tail is cut once. The concept of cutting the tail to permanently remove it works if you disregard Dragonball, but I don’t see that as being an option.
That’s kind of weird, Goku’s space ship was totally destroyed by Picollo before the Saiyans even came, and when Gohan broke through the ship there were many parts still there, check it out, it’s at about the 18:50 mark.
http://www.dbzremastered.com/Dragonballz036.php
I do suppose it’s possible that Dr. Briefs used the parts from Raditz’s spaceship to build a new ship for Goku to use, though there’s still the problem of Goku saying in the US dub that the ship was built from the Saiyan space pod he came to Earth in as a baby, which Piccolo blew up during the year of training before the Saiyans arrived.
You can check out episode 46 at roughly the 8:00 mark where Goku says, “So, I remembered the ship I came here in as a baby was never destroyed. At worst it could be just a little rusty from sitting out there all these years.” Problem is, we know this isn’t true. Episode 18 shows Piccolo destroying what is definitely Goku’s Saiyan space pod (It keeps saying “Wake up Kakarot. Destroy all lifeforms.”). The money shot is at the 12:22 mark.
Raditz: I don’t know if it was in this article or the other, but you asked something like how did they make a spaceship to go to Namek with the help of the saiyan space ship if Vegeta took his away and Nappa’s self destructed. Remember Gohan only broke through Raditz spaceship, he didn’t destroy it, so I’m guessing that’s where they got it from.
No they definitely totaled Raditz’s ship. Goku even mentions this when he’s explaining how the new ship was made from Goku’s Saiyan space pod. The inclusion of explaining away Raditz’s ship could have just been English dubbing though.
Your a retard. DBZ is a REALLY long series. It’s going to have plot holes. And most of the stuff your mentioning was kept just to make the show more full of action. Stop ripping on a great show.
Oh good lord…
Look, if you’re going to take a shot at me, do two things:
First, take a look at my article about the Top 10 Most Awesome Moments from DBZ. You’ll see that I do in fact love the show and anything I say regarding plotholes is done so because of that fact, not because I’m just looking for things to rip on.
Secondly, if you’re going to attack me, you had damn well better make sure you know the difference between “your” (possessive) and “you’re” (you are), otherwise you come off sounding like a combative moron. So congrats you combative moron, you’ve proven why anonymity on the Internet is still a bad thing.
I think that GT was kind of decent, it was a mixture between Dragonball and Z. If the fights had been stretched, Goku not being a child for so long, and Vegeta always makes series more awesome.
I think the series of Buu and Freiza should have been reversed. I would have loved for Freiza to be the last villian in Z, he should have been since he was the one who destroyed most of their race.
I could just never get into GT for the reasons you mentioned. I didn’t mind it mixing Dragonball and Dragonball Z together, but the fights felt lacking, the character designs weren’t as interesting, and Goku as a kid was just a step back I didn’t care for.
Yeah and why didn’t he use instant transmission to get to Earth, it’s weird. One more question, Vegeta’s hair, in Z and GT it’s very different, I thought a pure blood saiyans hair stays the same always.
It does but Vegeta cuts his hair in GT for some reason. I never quite understood why they’d be foolish enough to change an iconic character’s image like that, but whatever, they did it with goku so they must have felt the need to do it with Vegeta as well. It’s no wonder people didn’t like GT.
Good argument, there’s nothing I can say lol. But I can mention some other plot holes, I always found it so weird how Trunks could defeat Freiza so easily and it took Goku forever to defeat him. When Goku showed up on Earth both he and trunks seemed to be the same strength. Also, why didn’t King Cold transform, maybe he just doesn’t have any transformations.
I know this has nothing to do with the plot holes but I just thought it was briliiant how they made the same similarities between Trunks future and present Earth!
I can see how Trunks could take down Frieza without much trouble since Trunks was a lot stronger than anyone else in the series yet. Goku showed up after I think a year of training in space and where ever, so that could account for his massive jump in power. I’d still really like to see how Goku would have fought Frieza again though. Kind of got cheated out of that fight.
Also why is Bardock able to breathe in space and not Goku.
“Goku fights the Ginyu Force on Namek with a power level at 180,000, though Vegeta couldn’t beat them with whatever power level he had. The Ginyu Force go to King Kai’s planet after they die since King Kai invited them and they all lose to Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu, meaning those guys have a power level well above Goku’s when he learned the Spirit Bomb and the Kaio Ken.”
When the Ginyu force came to the Kai planet, the climate affected their mobility to fight. Even King Kai said they had limited powers. I’m sure the climate and change in gravity also affected Goku on his way to King Kai’s on Snake Way.
Bulma was asked why Trunks didn’t have a tail during android saga, although she didn’t any anything, the expression on her face was enough to tell that she cut it off, probably the same with Chi Chi. Vegeta who now had a family probably decided to snatch his own tail off every time it grew just to keep his family safe.
Trunks: Dragonball Z was supposed to be ended after Cell was defeated, that being said Buu didn’t even exist during that time period that he came to the present Earth to warn the others.
Energy Blasts: I think it depends on where the person is hit.
Hope this helps.
I could argue a bit there, especially with the Ginyu Force on King Kai’s planet. The planet only had 10 times Earth’s normal gravity, an amount that was roughly insignificant at that point in the series. Plus, we’re told that Planet Vegeta has the same sort of gravity, so this means that there are certainly other planets in the universe with more gravity than Earth’s and Namek’s. The Ginyu Force have traveled everyone, so they’re used to these fluctuations. They even make sure to test their powers in King Kai’s planet and confirm that their powers are working just fine.
I had never caught the little references of Bulma possibly cutting Trunks’ tail off from time to time, though I don’t doubt that could be there. However, I doubt Vegeta would cut his own tail off since it poses no threat to his family. Actually, no Saiyan tails pose a threat anymore as the moon is gone and the only way Vegeta transformed on Earth anyway was due to the technique he used to simulate the moon’s energies. Besides that, Vegeta could fully control his Oozaru form, making the need for him to cut his own tail off a moot point. It is possible that Super Saiyans can only come from Saiyans lacking a tail though, or at least that’s what the characters theorize.
It seems that the series was meant to end quite a lot but never did. I can understand the problem of no Buu in Future Trunks’ timeline due to that little bit, same as Goku’s two ends on Namek was a result of the series not ending after Frieza.
You are probably right about energy blasts though, however it becomes tough to think about when a Special Beam Cannon through the chest definitely kills, but Krillin’s gory blast through Vegeta’s chest doesn’t. Trunks gets hit in the same spot by Cell and spazzes until death. Sure, I’m getting picky, but it’s just what I see.
Something else worth mentioning: have any of you guys ever noticed when the Zfighters fly around the world to one place to another their seems to be no timezones? Unless they are only flyinng latitude wise (north and south) there is no reason why there seems to be time zone changes in the DB/DBZ verse. That’s just another thing that makes the DB verse seem even less realistic lol.
That is also very true. They can fly from one part of the world to the other and it’ll still be daytime. Come to think of it, I don’t remember a single battle occurring at night. Even Goku and Master Roshi’s final match in the Tenkaichi Budokai in Dragonball didn’t go to a full nighttime scene, despite the moon coming out. No wonder they just decided to give Namek three suns.
good article.dbz is still the best show ever.
I was searching google for an explanation about why Goku was fighting to stay up with 60 times gravity and Yamcha could still walk under 300 times gravity.
But after reading your article I think I kinda underestimated the plot hole beam. :S
It does tend to be a very powerful attack when used correctly.