Gohan's Many Masks

[Music] so basically you don't want anyone to recognize you right yeah that's right I'm just scared my new friends will think I'm a little weird if they see me fighting criminals you think you can help me boma well now you could always [Music] the character of son gohan has always had his face hidden Goku's son is someone else's project always whether he's been stolen as a bargaining chip trained as a weapon driven by guilt to an alien world or forced into his father's shoes Gohan never had much of a chance to be himself for as long as he has existed both as a character and a marketing device he's always been emulating his father or being what he needs to be he's always been wearing a mask without knowing what's under it and this video I'll first discuss in general real world relevance to the character and then the particulars of the show itself so first I'll tell you I do not like Gohan never have I don't have any malice for the character but I just never think about him I think about Gohan how most people think about TN or Crillon but I'll go ahead and tell you this is not going to be a funny video making fun of Gohan quite the opposite well it might have funny bits in it just roll with it and bear in mind most times you see people making content about the character it's made with a great love the character that I don't really share and there's probably a good reason for that the very first thing that I ever saw all Dragon Ball was from a local TV station airing the Sabon distributed z ocean dub it was 1996 and I was 14 years old and yes that means I am a 200 year old Lich he had to talk to you about anime that scene specifically was Gohan wandering the wilderness during his training with piccolo before smashing a rock to test his strength it wasn't long until he was coming from Napa and getting a bad haircut just go home you're not going to fight you only slow us down like most other people I wouldn't see any resolution to the frieza saga until the series renewed its Ron pesco whose arrival to Namak 1999 onward but the time Gohan stem from his transformation versus cell was televised in December of 2000 I was well past the age of it resonating with me personally I was in college when I saw it over time I realized that a lot of his appeal was that he was a projection character Alex fling video game protagonists often have no voice dialogue so they're easier to project onto you can imagine what chrono is saying because of the convenience of him not saying it Gordon Freeman can offend you by exhibiting personality traits you don't like because the only trace he exhibits are the physical actions you perform in the game dead space once Isaac Clarke is a quiet controlled engineer with no dialogue which are you free of the experience of being Isaac Clarke dead space twos Isaac Clarke is an emotional idiotic potty-mouthed net panics and throws tantrums which given the scenario is in makes sense but you are watching his experience rather than having your own main characters are often generic or have no dialogue craters don't want them to be hated which is why so many of them either say nothing or have nothing to say Goku isn't a projection character he has a very distinct personality that gets on a lot of people's nerves he makes incredibly stupid decisions that have variable a don't matter due to writers convenience he can be obnoxious ignorant and childish despite being nearly 50 years old and willfully selfish about his boredom to the point that it causes the erasure of entire universes and then it's up to fans and future episodes to try to paint his warmongering as something you should be thankful for because he's the protagonist it's hard to project yourself on the Goku because he's a neutral development protagonist who acts as a foil to his villains Gohan in comparison serves as role much better he doesn't have a ton of personal agency or personality in the original story much like a video game protagonist without a dialogue he's a perfect canvas for the sort of thing the perfect kind of character to be used by the everyman viewer more importantly he was around the same age as a lot of people watching the original Toonami runs during Z's biggest jump in American popularity not many people know this but teenagers especially teenage boys often have fantasies about lashing out against bullies or teachers or adults that want to tell them what to do sometimes they dress in dark clothes and really want the world to know that they're very dangerous but they're actually not the US has a self celebrating culture embarrassed Millionaire syndrome is common and people love seeing the underdog everyman rise up to overthrow the privileged this sort of culture crates a lot of edgy teenage boys that love to imagine that they're secretly a badass let me be clear Gohan is not this Gohan's a good boy however he does make for a great projection fantasy the secretly powerful child who just so happens to be the same age as the reader who when pushed too far is forced to unleash his inner demons but remains innocent and admired for doing so he's an empowerment fantasy writers worry a lot about their main characters having universal appeal because people are incredibly self-interested projection and empathy are important the more you have in common with someone the easier it is to project onto them and the greater that projection the greater your self-interest for the characters success we love to see ourselves we love to see and create versions of ourselves and we love to see our analogues beat the analogues of people we don't like that's why straw men are so much fun humans are shallow stupid self-absorbed [ __ ] they think of themselves as the main character of the whole universe everyone else is a supporting character or a background character and the people they don't like are just two-dimensional cartoons not you and me though no no we're fully realized complex rich even our flaws only served to deepen the ultimate mystery that other people must unlock to discover more about themselves mmm me me I'm the best me but of course that's not all you see were not only obsessed with seeing ourselves but we're also obsessed with commercial products we identify with things things we happen to ascribe to ourselves over time after a lot of debating and looking for the right term I had to create a name for this Comfort branding this is the tendency for people especially young ones going through formative development you become obsessed with a corporate brand they start to see a product or a character or an intellectual property as being synonymous with themselves any attack on the IP is an attack on them which can elicit a rational completely out of proportion rage anyone who's made anime videos of any kind is keenly aware of this behavior this is especially common when we're all young when experience is foundational and the newness of that experience makes it integral to our interests in personality it's one of many kinds of nostalgia that becomes a brand of comfort branded onto you if someone gets Star Wars wrong death threats if kid learns that a shitty song they like when they were 12 was a cover of a song made in 1984 death threat if someone makes a sonic game that's too dark and edgy death threats if someone makes a sonic game that isn't too dark and edgy death threats if someone makes fun of Naruto lots of deadlifts sexualize Pokemon Universal parades all right sorry focus humans love to see themselves especially in media that's part of storytelling and this is mostly what Gohan's problem is both in terms of in universe and out Gohan is a character written to be what he thinks the world expects him to be coincidentally this is what I have empathy for when I first started the channel like many youtubers I had more of a stage personality character the character of plague a weird old farmer that complains about things this has mostly gone away over time and the last thing it was really in was in my anime videos and it's there mainly because it's expected of me it's funnier there are many many times during the writing of those scripts force necessary to misconstrue information feigned ignorance or dramatically overreact because that's funnier to a general audience the sir popular videos for me probably my most popular despite being a YouTube animator and writer that has nothing to do with anime anyone that makes content online is probably aware of the sort of thing it is a performance mask when warned from marketing that blurs the line between creator and products in regards to Gohan that's what I see a character that wants to be free not only of his parents his heritage his gifts but also free of his real life fans I consider making a Gohan video several times in the past but always through the filter of the plague character if you can't tell I decided not to really do that this time instead I actually decided to write the script mainly due to a couple of videos by totally not mark called rewriting the boo saga mark is a fantastic YouTube creator and wait is his name actually mark he's totally not mark so oh my god mark is a great love of this series his videos are analytical and informative and break down the series on those terms he's interesting and doesn't need to intentionally stop how people's toes to be engaging go give him sweet kisses that particular series was mark attempting to rewrite and reorganize the Buu saga to go hannes benefit as well as repairs some character relevance throughout the story one thing people eventually learn about me is that I evaluating why I like stuff could it be designed to be more profitable would I enjoy more could it be redesigned so that it had more widespread appeal if it's a system could it be more streamlined to people that are more consumption driven not analytical that comes across as complaining this where I got my name and my YouTube character so if I come across a like I'm complaining about something it's usually because I enjoy it I mentioned this because I gave some feedback to mark and I immediately got worried when I left it that I come across as complaining or disrespecting his efforts quite the contrary what I love most about his attempt was his focus on character and the emotional rhythm of the story all of his foundational thoughts and motivations in his writing were spot-on it was just clean up on details and needed attention in contrast most of the time when I hear people's ideas for Dragon Ball stories they focus on how strong the characters they like will get when new forms all chief how big the battles will be how cool the villain will look and what might are details with a setting they will bring back and combine and so on themes or character arcs aren't usually mentioned beyond the desire for a favorite to be relevant again one of those things is fine of course we all want those things but they're actually just a small part of what makes Dragon Ball Dragon Ball those are the marketable bits not the substantive ones Gohan especially gets a lot of this stuff when I see him in fan art or stories he's often totally out of what little character he has he's often a roided-out version of the arrogant fighter we see before he loses to boo if an interpretations were to be believed Gohan would have a harem of every female character on the show and walk around with a scowl at all times calling everyone he meets a [ __ ] cuck before one-shotting them basically a walking insecurity complex with a tiny penis this is Chad Hawn a toxic manifestation of all the projection fantasies that Gohan as a comfort brand' has found himself burdened with well this is mostly just a joke to most people and a funny one some take it seriously needless to say I'm not sure Gohan in Super even knows who he is yet but he's not Chad Hawn nor should he be so enough of all this hate insecurity let's about who Gohan is under that creative mask let's distance ourselves for the anger their projection the expectations for greatness and evaluate Gohan's character arc what became of it where did it go wrong and what could have been done to improve it as far as the anime goes the first time we see Gohan he's lost in crying in the woods seemingly due to getting lost exploring his love of nature in the mango we don't actually see him at all until Goku shows up at Rosie's home well I won't be covering all the differences between these two it's at least important to know what toys impression of Gohan was versus Toriyama's it is Toriyama after all who attempted to push Gohan into the spotlight and then decided against it and contrary to rumor fans had nothing to do with his decisions following his intentions is important to factor in not much is established about Gohan in his first appearance other than he's polite he is a tail goku sees potential in him and chichi his mother refuses to allow Goku to train him she's pushing him against Goku z wishes into studying Gohan himself doesn't actually say anything other than his age 4 he's abducted by Raddatz even during the fight Toriyama doesn't even draw any shots of Gohan inside the pod Gohan ahead no dialogue he's just go qu son a living MacGuffin for he wrote to chase eventually he erupts from the pod angry that reddits heard his daddy wounds reddit's and that's it for now that's go on Goku's MacGuffin and a plot device after this point he then becomes Piccolo's MacGuffin piccolo proves Gohan's potential and we see our very first glimpse of what Gohan supposedly wants Gohan claims he doesn't want to be a fighter he wants to be a scholar I'm not sure what to make of this statement he's four and we already know that's what she she wants something that doesn't come through in localization is that Chi Chi is a hick like Goku she's a country bumpkin much like her husband she doesn't really understand modern life or social standards she's been raised alone by the Ox King bandit in the woods without a mother after all she just has a vague understanding of cliches in Dragonball if you remember she was chasing Goku because in her mind they had to be married because Goku patted her on the crotch therefore they must be a husband and wife she wants Gohan to be a great scholar because that's what good children do they become doctors or lawyers or scientists or so on this all she really knows or understands of the world outside of the wilderness stereotypes she's a parody of the overbearing Japanese mother who doesn't really understand her own demands she only believes this is what a proper life should be so that's the life I'm going to force onto my family Gohan then is the target of Chi Chi's ignorant fixation on proper futures for children so when a four year old Gohan says that he doesn't want to be a fighter just a scholar the only thing I can think is that's his mother talking chichi has probably been pounding this into his head while daddy was outside of the house he hasn't been allowed to have a real childhood because his mother won't allow it meanwhile Goku is negligent and selfish so Gohan has neural context for anything he wants at this point it makes me think of children they grow up being forced to learn the piano or dancing or so on at the time a lot of them resent their overbearing parents for forcing it on them some of them continued to despise their parents well into adulthood still others may be thankful for it because it became part of their identity Goku as a child had the benefit of being taught martial arts by loving parent the relationship he had with his grandfather was defined by the master student relationship they shared afterwards he learned alongside his best friend for the purposes of self edification and fun when actual danger appeared Goku was ready because his association with martial arts was wholly positive Goku loves martial arts because that's his life it's everything Goku is and everything that Goku loves about being alive now here's Gohan's association with fighting his mother yelling at his father his mother hates fighting his father loves it he's abducted by his uncle his father is too weak to stop him his father is murdered his father's enemy abducts him only to abandon him in the wilderness he's rescued on to be brutalized into learning martial arts he's told that people want to murder him and his mother and now it's up to him to murder them instead he doesn't want to fight he's 5 he's made to because he has genetic gifts from his father the people tried to kill him and his friends and family are from his father's species he's not human like his mother his father is alien his master is alien both live to fight he is alien his enemies kill the innocent because of their shared blood he's told during the fight that everyone is dying because of his cowardice he's guilted into travelling to an alien world to bring the dead back to life more murders more fighting there's almost no joy or discovery in any of it the closest friend he has is his father's best friend he dies the closest thing to an ordinary childhood friend is an alien boy they rescued he dies his abusive master who lost his life saving him is wish back and seemingly dies again when Gohan's ordinarily kind-hearted father Goku undergoes a bloodline transformation in front of him Goku looks down at his son and tells Gohan that he's so angry he might just kill him to is the surprising at all that go hunt does not enjoy fighting this is surprising that he associates martial arts with death anxiety and hatred not self-improvement nothing memory of a loving parent only the burden of being born better at killing than anyone else Gohan is most praised when he loses control stops being himself and starts trying to murder people a leaguer owned this because it's so important to what Gohan becomes if his experience learning about his heritage and ability was totally positive who knows how his writing may have evolved Dragonball obviously doesn't cover this sort of thing everyone in the show should have PTSD and be a walking mess of complex as if he were taking all this seriously this is the same setting which a giant rabbit man who turns people into carrots is elevated to the moon by Goku and left there to make candy and so the moon exploded but we don't we don't mention that so maybe I'm projecting too much reading too much into the things it's the job of the writer after all to inform not the viewer but this is what I see and in terms of events that is what happens Gohan da Ali suffered in universe troubles around this time but also began to suffer out of universe troubles as well during the freezer saga Gohan gets his power unlocks he goes from a resting power weaker than Raddatz to being as strong as Vegeta was on earth Gohan didn't learn anything he didn't train he didn't go through decades of war like every other soldier in the universe had a magical plot device man just made Crillon in him good enough to continue participating the story but this jump was nothing compared to what happened later first context Frieza in this universe of veteran soldiers with power levels normally no higher than 5,000 was considered invincible in his first form then he transformed then for fun he did it again he was now tens of millions of times stronger than Gohan was when he showed up a few days prior and Gohan somehow nearly overpowers him compelling Frieza to transform one last time this five year old leapfrogs the entire history of the universe's greatest most experienced soldiers just because he got angry well I think obsessing over power levels too silly there it's still part of the setting and the entire plot in between Goku arriving and turning Super Saiyan did massive damage to the setting that it hasn't recovered from to this day Gohan just so happened to get the biggest boost for the least amount of effort this established a very dangerous trend for how the character was used most power levels were thrown out the window and power scaling went batshit crazy all the characters had to keep up all those legendary soldiers from across the universe with power levels below 10,000 became jokes characters like Crillon who would go on to stop training entirely and being dangered by bullets would technically be millions of times stronger than soldiers who were born and raised on the battlefield in fact the strongest fighters in the history of the universe all now lived on present-day earth this is despite the fact that most of them and their whole lives only ever been in combat a few times this could have been explained there could have been a new breakthrough that changed combat as a whole the same way that the discovery of key changed martial arts but that didn't happen characters that needed power to stay relevant simply got that power regardless of circumstances or logic they didn't have to be on screen or have their progress explained in fact sometimes they didn't even have to do anything Gohan is a character lurking on the fringes of being a main character got the worst of both worlds he never did much of anything we got massive unexplained power boosts as he needed them this all culminates in the end of the cell saga while a lot of people consider this transformation to be the greatest moment in all of Dragonball I've always considered it to be a narrative mess I've made my thoughts on comfort branding clear a lot of people become attached to the character for reasons I mentioned earlier so I'm already anticipating anger at this but I'll tell you this is not to discredit the moment it's a good moment remember I'm not complaining I'm just breaking this down Gohan's transformation is a marketing moment not a grand resolution to the character as I will explain I think Gohan deserves better than what he got it was a moment of spectacle and certainly carried a lot of resonance especially for Dragon Ball but this moment of marketing power failed the character the opening of the Android or cell saga is some of the best storytelling the setting ever gave us there's mystery expanded lore a reunion of old elements two new new characters nuance to some villains and inventive spins on others even the backgrounds and environments the characters move around in are more than seas more typical barren wastelands but let me take a moment to elaborate Akira Toriyama in his run of Dragonball had three editors his first and I'll mess up these names was Kazuhiko Torishima who would move on to be the head editor of b jump in 93 the second who served as editor from the end at the piccolo jr. arctor up most of Z was you Kondo the third who took over halfway through the cell saga was for Yuto Takeda this is worth at least a minor note because of how this relationship affected the writing of the series Torishima infamously despite not actually being editor at the time was the reason why Android 1718 and cell were created Toriyama's original idea for the Android saga was for 19 and 20 drove himself to be the main villains Toriyama recounts Torishima via phone call referred to the two main villains as a geezer and a fatso this resulted in 17 and 18 they were then greeted with a similar phone call limiting defi main villains couldn't be just some brats and so Toriyama designed cell so according to the Shin long times number to interview this information comes from originally was going to stay in his first forum which would suit me just fine is I always like that one the best maybe not so much to be but you know it was Kondo his actual editor at the time who said that cell was ugly and needed to transform Kondo would then lament that near-perfect cell looks like a [ __ ] doesn't he and his final form was rushed into the mix this is probably also why perfect cell has a safe design and personality from a marketing standpoint and is sometimes referred to as a budget Frieza I mention all this to give context to my assertion that Toriyama can be easily influenced he if ously didn't think about or write the story until the month he needed to draw it so the quality of the writing usually stemmed from who was giving him feedback at the time no one knows exactly but one might draw a conclusion that it was during this time during the phone calls and staff changes that the writing became especially messy in my personal opinion the writing of the saga started to go downhill around the time that 17 showed up to fight piccolo the plot became very linear at this point with characters showing up to fight so and not much else going on especially after he transformed completely Crillon falls in love with a teen despite having never had a conversation with her can't say I blame him but let's not be coy he just thought she was hot he's totally right about that but Toriyama by his own omission can't write love so he doesn't try there's also some minor exploration of trunks his relationship with his father but that's about it not much is going on this is also coincidentally around the same time that Gohan and Goku are training the room of spirit and time Gohan's career so far looks like this he has spent about a year training the wilderness prior to the Napa fight the time from Napa's attack to the destruction of Namek officially was a little under two months prior to trunks showing up Gohan had less than half a year of actual experience fighting this means the bulk of Gihon sexual training came from the three years of mostly off-screen experience he had with his father in piccolo he also had no fights with any of the androids the year of training in the chamber means Gohan had about four total years of experience of any kind prior to fighting cell contrary to what scene of the anime in the manga there's almost no depiction at all of Gohan straining inside the chamber there's one page of him standing in place screaming because this Dragonball nothing happens several chapters later riot result transforms for the final time Gohan is drawn in this same pose like he's been screaming for literally months now I guess kind of a weird visual whatever this time his hair changes color there's no context for it no emotional arc no reason to transform given it's just a visual indication that Gohan did something we see them in the chamber a couple of times afterwards but it's just for Goku to explain grade two and three there's no scene of Gohan going through an internal struggle there's no scene of Gohan telling his father that he hates fighting there's no scene of Gohan questioning why he's even in this room Gohan is just a toy he's still a living plot device and a marketing tool he's still not a person the reason why Toei added the scenes of him sparring with his father and begging Goku to attack him with killing intent is precisely because Toriyama did absolutely nothing with the character all the time that should have been spent with Gohan talking to his father was instead spent on 13 chapters of absolutely nothing but Vegeta and trunks fighting so you get the idea in Universe up until now Gohan hasn't had much of a life out of the universe Gohan isn't being treated as a person he's being treated as a writing solution his desk decision to make Gohan fight nearly comes out of nowhere that's the point of course it's meant to be shocking more importantly it's totally out of Gohan's hands Gohan didn't stop the fight and demand the chance to prove himself in fact Goku even intentionally avoided training for another year for no reason of event he'd already made up his mind on what he was going to make Gohan do without telling him about it Gohan is being treated as Goku's gun at this point as this happens there's one brief moment a panel in volume 34 chapter 7 when Goku tells Gohan to fight bring peace back to the world so he can become a scholar I've already covered this scholar nonsense and how it has no real basis with the character yet but what's especially strange is that this is coming from Goku Goku who has never been shown to talk about anything at all with his son other than fighting in fact it's so bad that the first person Gohan admits his total disdain of fighting to his cell piccolo even points out that Goku never even brought up this plant the son he's just assuming that Gohan will have the same response that he would have Gohan he's going to get his own son killed that should tell you they didn't have any off-screen discussions about the sort of thing in that year of training Goku not only did nothing to prepare Gohan for this moment he actively sabotaged it it's around now that the writing of the entire saga starts careening out of control there's never an actual fight between Gohan and cell where the fight should have been there are instead a pair of one-sided torture scenes at the beginning cell tosses him around for a while like a rag doll characters freak out declare that he's dead Goku corrects them but there's no actual fight between the two it's just establishing that the real fight hasn't even started this is followed up by Gohan explaining the plot mechanic of his secret power to sell inciting sell to start torturing the rest of the cast this is the most flagrant case of emotional manipulation and narrative bumbling in the entire arc maybe the whole series Toriyama could not figure out how to organically reach this point a fully powered Gohan watches the rest of the cast be tortured including a fully powered Vegeta and trunks who went through yet another year of training and it's all to try to create emotional tension out of nowhere because there is none yet the story has failed to great build up and so Toriyama has to resort to a nonsensical manipulative scene to perform a last-minute violent swing in tone and narrative Goku's transformation had build-up arguably too much of it Goku at his strongest wasn't even half as good as Frieza the entire series owned at this point have been about Goku's free spirit and his desire to protect his friends his journey had gone from converting his enemies to discovering ones that were beyond redemption Frieza embodied everything that could break Goku his pride as a fighter the lives of his friends and even Goku score innocence when Goku is exhausted near death and starts seeing his friends cut down one at a time after having tried every solution the setting had established as a possibility he snaps the enemies padding may have harmed this but the moment he transformed matched the pacing of the story Gohan despite deserving better doesn't get this kind of buildup it's all fairly sudden and the tone of the fight is very frivolous Goku didn't treat the training seriously before the sella games during the games there's a lot of playful comedic scenes was Satan lowering the tone even further there's only one fight so there's no build up to the stakes so himself doesn't even seem to treat it seriously there are other characters that trained additional years to prepare for this moment who are just ignored and Goku's dismissal the fight and tossing of the Zindzi being the cell because Gohan supposedly would have to easy of a time diminishes the stakes even more basically at this point there's nothing in the tone of the story that could warrant Gohan actually feeling any sort of frustration fear or fury over anything that's happening that's why we get the nonsensical cell juniors who are all stronger than Vegeta and trunks while apparently not weakening so at all to create it's also why Gohan despite having lost no energy at all up into the spot just stands there even collapses on the ground watching his friends get murdered because Toyama the writer can't figure out a way to raise the stakes or emotion of the scene he needs to create build up in the last hour of the story to a transformation that hasn't been earned there's been almost no context whatsoever given - Gohan is a character there's no tension there's no stakes beyond so making a vague promise to blow up the planet if he gets bored I must really emphasize this entire writing sequence is transparent and pathetic there is nothing to respect about this race - Salvage tone it said the Buu saga was the starter Toriyama's disengagement from writing the series but you can really start to see it rear its ugly head here this is kept off with Android 16's head what is it that finally Cisco hunt off in this blatantly artificial manipulative scene with no actual story context to drive it what will be the thing that makes Gohan lose it will it be the death of his father the death of mother the realization that he hates himself in his life and his father for bringing him into a world he's never learned to love it's none of these things Gohan never met Android 16 Goku never met Android 16 they never discussed Android 16 there was never any depicted or even insinuated allusions to any knowledge by any character concerning 16's beliefs Gohan wasn't even present when 16 was discovered fought or damaged as 16 is a true Android Gohan couldn't even sense him on the lookout the first time he'd ever seen or heard 16 was during the fight so when this robots head rolls in front of him go hunts reaction may as well have been - who the hell are you there is no emotional weight to their meeting this can only mean something if anything to the viewer because we are the only ones who has spent time with the character 16 actual speech does it even mean much of anything that Gohan and Omega it's all communicated in one page - hurry and get to the transformation all he says is that fighting for the right reasons isn't a sin some enemies can be reasoned with that he wants Gohan to protect the animals he loved that's it first Gohan knew about those first two things after all compared to Frieza cell is a playful scamp as 4/16 love of animals this is the first time Gohan ever heard a thing about it and it's not exactly an established driving motivation for Gohan to protect animals now you can project whatever you want to onto the scene or make whatever assumptions you need to in order for it to have more weight but on its own merits it's a bad scene the pacing is completely off nothing that would drive the scene has been established on screen with consistent theming there's just not enough context to warrant Gohan's reaction again I chalk this up to Toriyama was writing and the editorial changes combined with a long history of Gohan having little character presence all these pacing and theming issues persist until the end fight again becomes one-sided and Gohan favor this is fine you'll say cathartic type of scene but it also has no tension for obvious reasons realizing this Toriyama writes the Goku sacrifice again noting how unsatisfying of an ending this would be so miraculously comes back from a single cell this somehow also zheng kai's him along with fully healing him despite the fact that all his other generations never did any such thing excuses and headcanon aside narrative Lee this is only to ensure he's now strong enough to pose a threat that's the only real reason why this actually happens remember though there was never a real fight Gohan this entire time has never taken any damage and so we get the Vegeta scene Gohan is more than strong and healthy enough to deflect or negate this hit but takes an intense amount of damage from what looks like a fairly basic attack again the only reason why this scene occurs is because it is a lazy writing shortcut it's done to give Gohan a bum arm and some last minute battle damage to make a final struggle look somewhat convincing I've reiterates this hastily thrown together a series of chapters are trying to emotionally manipulate you it did not reach this point organic it could not be more clear that Toriyama is in a panic and throwing excuses into every element of the fight to try to manufacture two visual set pieces and again I'm not dumping on Gohan the character the writing here is doing a disservice damn so let's stop let's stop here and imagine an alternative I feel like this is important to cover because it's easy to criticize for that solution more importantly without example of something better it's hard for many people to get behind that criticism at all how about the suck a look if Gohan had been the actual focus I'll try to make this quick no promises I don't want to be insufferable or pretentious and this is a monster of a video already here's my example let's say trunks comes back in time not to deliver heart medicine but to give Gohan information because that's who he has faith in he doesn't trust Goku because they're the ones who failed and created his future even if that isn't a fair way to look at it trunks spends a lot of scenes throughout the saga directly talking to Gohan the androids aren't introduced as jokes and it's not implied Goku could have stopped them even in trunks his future he was murdered like everyone else was he wasn't an absent Savior Goku does not met her and the first encounter with dro and 19 Goku is drained without realizing what's happening Gohan steps in noticing what's happening but realizes he doesn't have the power needed to get the job done after Vegeta shows up DRO decides he needs more information that he had amber treats at the lab Gohan sees something is off and refrains from attacking 1718 but is criticized for it when the fight with them breaks out he tries to do what he thinks his father expects of him and fails but notices Crillon approaching them peacefully with more success his instincts were right after Goku's recovery Gohan disagrees with his father about what needs to be done it's fight not understanding his son Goku tells him that he needs to do what he feels is right Gohan then is the one to go out and find the traveling androids rather than waiting for them to show up at Cammy house he approaches them like Crillon did but all he seems to his success was 16 there's no fight until piccolo engages them later either way Gohan decides words aren't enough and that he also needs strength the room of spirit and time is introduced in some capacity because of Gohan not as a retcon he proposes the idea to Popo or goes through his dad that talked to King Kai or something personally I hate that [ __ ] room for a lot of reasons but I'm band-aiding things together that I can show on screen so while the other sands are just focused on power Gohan is also planning many of the rescue scenes are his ideas Gohan has more agency this this is the goal in the original he and cell never met prior to the fight which is novel in a way but I'd have them encounter one another during the imperfect sequence to give more context to how the two parallel one another cell is a child weapon in his own way after all this might be the most major change Gohan wants to bring sixteen into the chamber with him and his father sixteen isn't a life form so it circumvents any two-person rule this version may have because I said so he's also stronger than they are and a resource to learn from concerning the Androids more importantly it allows all three to have scenes together the chamber scenes with sixteen can have multiple functions Android 16 is moving past his programming he hates the lifeless room but understands the importance of stopping his father's mad creations after his repair 16 sort of wants to kill Goku he thinks about it a lot at first mostly for comedy scenes Goku in tattered clothes sleeping in bed 216 would be like a wolf buying a glazed ham goku loves this of course big big turn-on for goku meanwhile Gohan and 16 are actually starting the bond I don't want to take away from the idea of Gohan and his dad finally having time together but I don't think 16 is going to intrude too much on that the dynamic between this Android and Gohan is different than with his father we get hints on how frustrated Gohan is about its life and the toxic framing he has for fighting for 16 he communicates some information on Jareau the dead son he was modeled after how Goku affected both of their lives as well as how little 16 really knows about the world he wants to go back to nature and a love of discovering a world neither has ever had much of a chance to explore is what 16in Gohan bond the most over 16 in many ways is light Gohan a son living in imitation of a life he has no control over but still holding a love of the life they both can have if they have the power to seize it that's what's important to cover let's also say during the training itself Gohan does transform but it feels empty somehow almost like the manga version it's almost incidental and meaningless it just happens the anchor his father had on ammok isn't there it's just a physical change because the transformation comes easily for him due to his biology and Gohan can feel it he doesn't understand why but he knows it's just another case of him being made into a weapon the great for training begins but only 16 really understands why this is even a problem and this version goku takes the training seriously there's no lowering of stakes he prepares as much as he can there are also no all games held in the middle of nowhere instead sales proposed contest is to release imperfect versions of himself onto earth cities they'll grow stronger as they absorb human life as a result all the cast has to be involved in the fighting in different locations Satan can still be there defending his own city from cell although focusing too much on him would only do a disservice to the story Goku does not forfeit but simply can't continue fighting against the regenerating body of SIL I know the idea of him giving up is novel but I'm definitely willing to let that go it would play out somewhat like the moment Goku destroys cells head by all rights goku wins because cells recovery should be impossible piccolo can't do that after all it's a shocking improvement on the original it makes sense that Goku despite being weaker would win by outmaneuvering cell but be cheated out of a victory Gohan has been fighting alongside sixteen since as his development and has to return on his own so full of glee over his victory by technical knockout parades the city on a murderous death march killing anything he sees soon due to cell and his sons the whole world is emptied on fire and chaos and he's enjoying his victory a lot of the world now looks a lot like trunks his future Gohan arrives an actual fight begins but he can't do much so does remark that it's unusual that Gohan is taking so much abuse but either way Gohan has neither the real strength nor the required experience meanwhile the various juniors have been accumulating power and have beaten most of the cast apart from Vegeta and trunks Seoul decides to recall them and prepare to leave the planet behind his last game is to make Gohan tried to prevent his father's death knowing he cans Goku is totally incapacitated if silicon reach and kill him as the world watches this final broadcast he wins this go Han doesn't just sit in the dirt lamenting this though he tries as hard as he ever has and actually manages to press the already exhausted cell sixteen arrives and tries to escape with Goku glazed ham or not but while Gohan can defend himself he still doesn't really have the ability to stop cell either Gohan outsmart cell though and again removes his head before Gohan can start destroying all of cells remaining pieces some of the imperfect juniors interfere cell is pissed he took another major injury the same injury so absorbed some of his own children because these imperfect have absorbed so many humans he recovers a great deal Gohan sustained some major injuries along with everyone else he can't prevent cell from finding his father Android 16 despite overcoming all of his programming is nearly destroyed trying to stop him Goku has a last minute trick or two but their futile efforts so lines up a final shot in a scene that mirrors Krillin Stethem Namek goku dies having absolute faith in his son's power his final word is go hunts name they should send Gohan over the edge but it doesn't in fact Gohan doesn't even know what he's feeling realizing this he loses his transformation and gets weaker this is where the 16 scene comes into play he tries a desperate attack fails and he's reduced to a head that rolls to Gohan's feet this time 16s final words are incredibly personal after all at this point 16 knows everything Gohan has been thinking they mirror one another after all both our children fixing your father's mistakes both are like machines with no spirit fighting because they have to both want it to end so they can discover the person they want to be come here 16 isn't manipulating Gohan he's giving him his final words because they're the word 16 also needs to hear it's okay to feel resentment towards your father it's okay to hate being born what you are it's okay to realize that you don't even know who you are it's okay to acknowledge that all of this is true because you can take it own it and use it as a source of righteous anger even if you die doing so the beauty of being truly alive is what both of them always wanted when 16 is telling Gohan this it's from potentially two years of private conversations it feels more like Gohan is admitting it to himself his final words are that all life can be restored but only if you're willing to make that life your own so crushes the Android as before commenting that he was built to be nothing more than a weapon there's nothing there there's no life to wish you back now we have context this Android parallels Gohan Gohan cares about 16 because he also cares about himself he also realizes that 16 really can't be wish back cells comment that he was just a weapon in that there's no life worth recovering is exactly what Gohan has hated about his life until now this self-loathing about his own nature about cell being that nature telling him he has no choice that he's destined to be a soulless puppet born to be destroyed is what breaks him that makes Gohan snap that warrants a transformation we build the character to a breaking point until a culmination of events causes a moment of change and both the character and the story that is what Gohan deserved that's who Gohan should be at this point someone who doesn't know exactly who he is but knows what he loves and he's going to protect it example over I could sit down and rewrite everything but we need to move on I'll just say that the arc should have concluded by making it clear the entire story was about fathers and sons Gohan and Goku trunks of Vegeta 16 Jareau the entire cast and cell and even cells treatment of his own creations maybe he uses them to form that evil genki-dama he always promised who knows that transformation is the most important moment for Gohan spark as a person it should have been the point where he takes control of his own life unfortunately it was the beginning of the end that was his peak and it was his peak because he just never was developed into anything more than Goku's MacGuffin and two of the viewers projection fantasy and since that was never rectified as the Buu saga began that's the only framework we had for go character our ability to satisfy ourselves through Gohan's victories in the original canon he still doesn't have much character he's just a walking memory of one visual set piece Toriyama was probably sick a Dragonball at this point they use Gohan to try to subversively change the series into something else and even he didn't like the results Buu Gohan is a real disappointment in universe and out he give up training acts like an idiot doesn't have much of a personality beyond being sheepish isn't particularly helpful throughout the story receives a bogus powerup he didn't earn at all is outsmarted by an enemy he calls her [ __ ] and ultimately doesn't play a part in stopping the villains if anything he just makes the situation way worse I'm not going to rewrite all that I just want to clarify trying the force Gohan to be the main character is a mistake even if I could rewrite it all I think Goku should stay in the driver's seat what fans usually are getting at is that the character is a great market option that they just didn't use correctly Gohan quite frankly doesn't develop into a fun character he does his cent I bet but that's about it I understand why people like that bit I get it even if I think it's stupid but that's all he had and it wasn't enough in fights he's very boring very serious like all the other secondary characters Gohan's adult personality from Z into super is pretty bland I don't mind him just being a dad quite frankly for the story we got it's more fitting that Gohan would give up fighting entirely the only reason why he keeps coming back is because of that market drawl he still has almost all because of one scene in the cell arc he's still being used as a projection fantasy he still wears the mask in general I think adult Gohan should be portrayed as someone who since the SIL fight has embraced fighting but in a totally different way rather than abandon it he instead realizes that he's fascinated by it he wants to study it in the same way that he studied nature he also realizes that the world can't keep relying on individual people to save everyone usually in Dragon Ball games said in the future Gohan has written a book detailing the secrets of ki and his understanding of it this intern disseminates knowledge on how to use it to the rest of the world I would place the start of that idea right here I would also have him admit that he never really had a dream to be a scholar whatever that is especially in super this has no real payoff he has a job reading books or something he does big learns because he wears glasses and does a study big money hat because big learn history pay up biology what's he do what the hell is his job to read books and wear glasses anyway that was his mother he can still have his job learning books for science men or whatever he does but his study of ki should be up front and center so while he recognizes now that his mother didn't really understand what she was trying to get him into he still thankful for being instilled with a love of learning Gohan like his dad should be someone who's fun to watch because of his excitement Goku loves to challenge himself to fail and Gohan should love to challenge himself to figure out how his opponent works when he's in a fight instead of angry faced number lad he should be really excited the more bizarre the opponent the greater the fascination same thing outside of a fight new ice cream flavors discovering a new book watching someone learn to fly it's important to get him away from being a stereotype of a nerd and into being someone who's just really excited about new discoveries the more visible excitement and energy he has for just being alive and experiencing the world will make him more likable when Gohan has to fight now it's just work he puts on a mask pushes a strand of hair in front of his eyes and that's it he hates fighting it's just a burden he has to deal with so he can go back to being himself that needs to change it's a wonder that the Gohan we see in Z and super would ever write a book telling other people how they learned the fight feels like the last thing he do and improve Gohan obviously should not like hurting other people but the most important thing in his life should helping other people to find the best versions of themselves what is it about his own body that allows him to have natural gifts compared to humans or even his father he's going to figure it out considering his upbringing seeing normal people unlock abilities that were considered exclusive to him would be one of the greatest moments of his life adult Gohan should be defined by the joy he's found in just existing and discovering what sixteen wanted him to discover that's the one thing I like most about Gohan and super except there it's exclusive to his family his greatest source of happiness is seeing his daughter happy so then a Gohan in the Buu saga would have found Buu to be absolutely fascinating how he works why he works where he came from I can see a lot of comedic scenes of Gohan annoying poverty and delighting Buu with infectious interest in energy he's not angry he's determined he's not scowling and calling Buu a [ __ ] he's smiling and promising to find the good in him by the end of the saga Gohan while maybe not landing the finishing blow should be the one that figures out the right way to weaken and ultimately destroy Buu all the while preserving what goodness he can find in the role I see for Gohan is of a proactive dorky but high energy protagonist that discovers a similar joy in fighting as his father but for totally different reasons a family man who never gave up on training but instead decided that focusing entirely on latent gifts was self-defeating that's where he gets the idea to abandon Super Saiyan instead focus on learning how to channels keyless destructively maybe that's why he's supposedly weakened compared to Vegeta and Goku he's given up on their path and his exploring things neither them ever would when he achieves the so-called ultimate form it's not the result of a HIGHlarious scene of an old man dancing around him for several chapters it's because he eventually realizes how to do it and through specific training of his own design manages to realize it and maybe more importantly through his gifts he helps other people achieve the same thing not through anger or emotion but through a love of learning self edification and self-discovery he becomes a master as I said I don't like Gohan one of my favorite scenes involving him is his green tracksuits scene where he's utterly humiliated and it's not because I hate the character it's because I hate what they did with him that's exactly where that character should end up because that's what it deserves I'll let go on as a father because that's the only time he's been successful as a character they just need to translate that Gohan into the market in Super he's still wearing a mask they may be giving him his numbers and intensity back but that thing walking around is not going on it's just an action figure is a vessel for our projections I want to let go Han he's he's a good kid he deserved better at the end of Gohan's arc with the sulphide as its middle whatever happens to him from now on I won't go Han to be a character that I love that can happen and it will happen when the love Gohan has for his family translates into a love he can have from martial arts a genuine love not a burden on his shoulders or a necessary evil actual realized ambition and a love for what he was born as and what he can be when the mess comes off I want Gohan to be loved because he loves himself all right hope you guys like watching that anime videos always result in takedowns and copyright strikes so do what you like with it in addition to mostly dropping the persona this time around I also got grey mind to edit this one together celebrate his mighty works because making hour-long anime videos is something I'm willing to write and record but not edit together but I won't do another one for a long time if ever not exactly safe relaxing content to make on YouTube anymore the people that do anime stuff on YouTube for living are resilient creatures like the affirmation totally not mark whose name is actually mark if you want videos vaguely similar to this one but you know like consistently good check them out if you want to drop a dollar of I share it links to my patreon and shark robot or down there somewhere probably more importantly I hope whether you agreed or not it at least entertained and got those brain juices flow take care of one another and yourselves so long

Channel: PlagueOfGripes

Views: 456,318

Rating: 4.8957214 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 1kja1c6jlOs

Length: 58min 15sec (3495 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Heliock]

Finally. My favorite Dragon Ball channel finally uploads a new video.

[u/Bardofkeys]

I feel like every incredibly popular Shonen jump series is gonna have a hand full of "Those" editor stories.

[u/The_White_Rice]

I think the best bits of this video were definitely the end where Plauge mentions Gohan as a teacher, writing a book about how ki works. The stuff with him teaching Videl were probably where as a character Gohan was the most interesting/felt like a real person as opposed to just "he's so strong!"

[u/ryumaruborike]

That potential Gohan alternative just highlights how much better a story is when you plan ahead and build up to a planned climax rather than just plow ahead until you get there.

[u/Coypop]

Dragon Ball truly is Japanese Star Wars: written by the seat of the author's(?) pants with no thought for the morrow, usually terrible, but forever collecting interest on a few well executed beats and an endlessly appealing aesthetic.

[u/Psykoknight65]

I don't know if he covers it but one of the things I hate about the cell Saga is it feels like Gohan pacifism came out of nowhere. There were multiple times where he had no issue fighting like when he fought recoome, was near death, and got back up yelling "I am the son of Goku, I will not let you beat me."

[u/[deleted]]

The thing I find fundamentally bizarre about Gohan is the whole 'he hates violence' thing. It's flat-out not an aspect of his character until the Cell Games and selectively applies and doesn't apply as the plot requires it. I don't even understand why he hates fighting, especially since he's so amazing at it. Even now, after YEARS of never training, it only takes him what feels like a few three-day weekends to get back to a level where he can go toe-to-toe with SSB Goku. Hating what you're naturally amazing at is an interesting concept for a character, but only if you go more into detail about why you hate it.

[u/Huaun]

Chadham makes me want to blow up the fanbase that I've been in for most if my life.

[u/EbolaDP]

Plague you fucker you better make this good cuz now i am gonna hear everything you say in the video parroted everywhere.