dragonballzoku

[dragonballzoku]

Incidentally, we can't really talk about pragmatism without talking about Future Trunks.

Krillin is a devious and underhanded martial artist, but still a martial artist. Trunks is an assassin. He goes straight for the throat at every opportunity. He's not here to fight; He's here to kill.

Much like his father, Trunks is not a martial artist. Every bit Vegeta's son, he's naturally gifted and has already become a Super Saiyan by both of his first appearances - in the story, when he fights Frieza on Earth, and also chronologically in Trunks the Story: A Lone Warrior.

I can't really say he's untrained. He was trained in the basics by Gohan. But Gohan is also not a martial artist; He's had one year and six months of proper martial arts training. One year from Piccolo and six months from Krillin.

Gohan's a fighter, guided by emotion moreso than technique. So there's a limit to how much Trunks can learn from him. Even Gohan admits that he's a poor substitute for his dad.

This, I should note, is a meaningful admission from Gohan because this chapter was published at the very beginning of the Cell Games. Gohan outright saying "I wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps but the clothes aren't enough" sets up an important contrast to the Gohan of the present time who has had that time with Goku and is ready to take his place.

But his concession of inadequacy is important for how we interpret Trunks as well. Trunks knows the stuff. He can perform Bukujutsu. Throw ki blasts. Power up into a Super Saiyan. But he's not Goku or Krillin or Yamcha or Tenshinhan; Like Gohan and Vegeta, he is a fighter, not a martial artist.

His heart is in the right place, but he's reckless and foolhardy. Chomping at the bit for a piece of vengeance.

This recklessness carries into his journey to the past. He never quite learns from his brief offscreen shitstomp by the Twins. He returns to a point in history just after Goku's return from space. Historically, this was a key moment in history where Goku showed up in the nick of time to save Earth from Frieza and his father King Cold. Which should technically be Great King Cold as it's Cold-Daio but he's far from the first king to have his Greatness dropped in translation, eh Piccolo?

But when Goku's late to the party, Trunks starts to worry and decides to step in himself.

Look at him. The spitting image of his father, full of piss and vinegar.

It's here that we get to see Trunks as a fighter for the very first time. Even chronologically; In Trunks the Story, they skip most of the action; It's very brief.

I mean. It's an absolutely hilarious joke that we see Trunks flying off half-cocked to go get revenge and then he's waking up from a coma on the very next page. Amazing cutaway gag.

But we're here to talk about Trunks's DNA as a fighter, so Frieza offers us the first material we have to work with. And Trunks? He does not fuck around.

Your soldiers are dead. Who's next?

You're dead. Who's next?

Your father's dead. We done here?

Trunks gives zero shits. In the span of two chapters, he massacres Frieza, Cold, and all of their soldiers without an ounce of hesitation. He is not playing.

He was even paying attention to the part where Frieza can survive grievous amounts of harm and come back. He takes great care to thoroughly and utterly annihilate every last bit of Frieza. Taking no chances.

Trunks isn't here to fight. He's here to kill. He is not interested in a protracted martial arts bout.

This fight, incidentally, also gives us a moment to talk about Trunks's sword. Cold-Dumbass thinks Trunks's sword is the key to his power.

He's an idiot. There's a reason he only exists for like three chapters and one page of a fourth. This man doesn't even understand how weapons work in anime.

Japan and the West have very different relationships with weapons. When Westerners think of weapons, we think of guns. Even when we write medieval weapons, we treat them like guns. Guns are disposable tools that bestow killing power upon their wielder. Any average Joe with a gun suddenly becomes a lethal warrior.

But Japan has a rich history and philosophy baked into their culture surrounding weapons and their role in martial arts. In anime, a weapon does not grant power; It manifests power. The weapon is an extension of its wielder. It's a means by which the wielder expresses their own strength.

In Trunks's hands, that sword can cut through Frieza. Because Trunks is powerful, and his might outshines Frieza's.

In Cold's hands, however, that sword is harmless. Because Cold is weak and cowardly. (Uh, relative to Trunks.) He has no power to express.

But Goku is strong. Goku knows power intimately, far beyond Trunks's understanding. And so Trunk's sword, his expression of power, is useless against Goku.

This is what Trunks's sword means, to him and to the story. It's an extension of his character and his strength; The means by which he delivers his killing force. Which is precisely what makes this moment so devastating.

When 18 breaks Trunks's sword, she breaks Trunks. The damage to his blade is honestly not that severe. It could probably be reforged. But the damage to Trunks's self-image, to his psyche, is unshakable.

Trunks never uses his sword again. He leaves it on the plane here.

And then we never see it again. Instead, Trunks decides to pursue greater martial arts training alongside his father, following in Vegeta's footsteps.

But he never quite loses his assassin streak. Though he begins to develop his abilities as a fighter from this point forward, Trunks is goal-oriented. He wants to kill the Twins. He doesn't care how that happens.

In the original version of these events, before Cell further altered the timeline, those blueprints were the key to Trunks's victory against the Twins of his timeline.

Though Cell has no idea how Trunks pulled off this victory despite being too weak to defend himself from Cell himself, the discovery of Gero's lab offers us a possible explanation.

The Twins have shutdown switches built into their systems. Though 17 destroyed the remote Gero built, Bulma is able to use these blueprints to build a new one.

So there's a solid implication that the weaker Trunks of Cell's timeline took Bulma's remote home with him and disabled the Twins that way. Again: He's not here to fight. He's here to kill. It doesn't matter how he does it.

...well, I guess it does matter 'cause that Trunks got wasted by Cell five minutes later.

Point is, Trunks wears his goal-oriented ruthlessness on his sleeve. He's not driven by pride of by love of the art. He has a job he's here to do.

However that single-minded focus, that determination to get it done, also holds him back. Trunks has never had proper martial training. He's been taught by Future Gohan, who is not a martial artist. And he's... taught himself near Vegeta. His developed his abilities and increased his strength, but he doesn't know fighting the way Goku or Krillin or Yamcha or Ten do. Nor does he have Vegeta's natural brilliance and general understanding.

Trunks, for all his strength and all his determination and all his killing instinct, is an amateur. We all know what happened to him in the last fight he ever fought here in the present.

Vegeta breaks the limits of the Super Saiyan and realizes that this power is good but comes at a cost, so he should only do it sparingly.

Goku breaks the limits of the Super Saiyan and realizes this form sucks and is stupid, and decides to go a different route entirely.

But Trunks breaks the limits of the Super Saiyan and goes "AWWW YEAH THIS IS THE SHIT GIMME THAT POWER" because he doesn't know. He has a killer's instinct, not a martial artist's. He's never been trained in technique.

We see, over the course of this series, both Trunks's strengths and his weaknesses as a fighter. In every altercation, he goes straight for the throat. Which is brutally effective when he has the power to back it up but Trunks, more than anyone, is vulnerable to a crushing defeat if he doesn't have the Power Level to back it up. He has nothing else.

Still, he gets to go out on a high note. His final chapter sees him return to the future, not with the remote but with the great strength he gained in the Room of Spirit and Time. And he gets to clean house his way - slaughtering the Twins efficiently and thoroughly, in true Trunks fashion.

And also getting Cell for good measure.

Godspeed, killer. You were the best your world had left to offer but you rose to the occasion, and that's the most that could be asked of anyone.

#dragon ball #future trunks

[dragonballzoku]

How old is Gohan (or DB fans can't read and Toriyama can't (couldn't) count)

It’s common knowledge people disagree with how old Gohan was during the Cell Games and during the Buu arc. His usual name for those two sections of the story, Teen Gohan and Adult Gohan, don’t seem to make any sense. 

Let’s start counting. (TLDR at the end with a ref chart)

When Gohan is first introduced, Bulma asks his age and he states he is four years old. 

The training period between Raditz’s death and Vegeta and Nappa’s arrival is shortened because the two Saiyans arrive one full month earlier than anticipated (making the training period 11 months long and not a year long). 

Kaio-Sama knew the Saiyans would arrive the next day, but forgot to factor in how long Goku would take to travel back from Snake Way. Oops.

That makes Saiyan invasion Gohan probably five years old. 

Bulma, Gohan and Krillin land on Namek about forty days later (2 days at the Hospital, five days to repair the Namekian ship, one month to travel to Namek and the entire stay is about a week). 

It'll take 5 days to repair

Let's meet in 10 days (repair + learn Namekian + Gohan and Krillin need to be released form the hospital)

It’s been 7 days since we left, we still have 20 days to arrive to Namek.

The forty-ish days are confirmed when Bulma says there are 20 days left until they arrive on Namek, and at the same time, Vegeta arrives to Freeza Planet 79 “18 days after his departure from Earth.” (chapter 246). If Gohan hadn’t turned five during his 11 months of training with Piccolo, now it’s been 12 months so for sure he’s five.

Same chapter, Vegeta arrives to his destination 18 days after leaving Earth.

When everyone is transported back to Earth from Namek about a week later (6 days for Goku to arrive + a little rest time after the Ginyu fight), Gohan is still five years old. 

When they are transported to Earth from Porunga’s last wish and Guru dies, transferring his power to Moori, the Namekian Dragon Balls are inactive, so they need to wait one Namekian year to use them again. A Namekian year is 130 days.

Everyone waits at Capsule Corp. They wait for 130 days (one Namekian year), summon Porunga and make three wishes: bring Krillin’s soul to Earth, resurrect him, and resurrect Yamcha.

(Notice Gohan's hair, as well as Bulma's hair has grown quite a bit in these 130 days)

They wait another 130 days, resurrect Tenshinhan and Chaozu, and the third wish is used to transport the Namekians to a new planet Namek. This means the Namekians stayed 260 days, or about eight months and a half at Capsule Corp.

Then, the panel says “about a year later”, when everyone senses Freeza. If we add that to the 8 months and change from before, we can round it to about 20 months (that’s almost two years!).

How old is Gohan then? He was quite a bit over five years old before, we can safely assume that if he’s not seven years old, he’s really close to it (his hair has also grown!)

Considering Capsule Corp is having a Barbecue and Krillin and Gohan complain about being "hot" (Trunks pops out a fridge with cold drinks), it's safe to assume the Meca Frieza thing happens during the summer.

The next timeskip is “about three years, on May 12th”, but let’s keep some elements in mind from that section. We need to take note of some elements we know from 17yo Trunks and what we see in the Android Saga: 

For the first trip to the past, Trunks comes from “roughly twenty years in the future”.

Trunks will be born “two and a half years from now” (= he's 17 years old). 

The cyborgs/androids appear “in roughly three years, on May 12th.”

We don’t officially know Gohan's birthday from the manga, but we do know it from the Anime as being May 18th (he celebrates it during the 9 days between the announcement on TV and the Cell Games). Due to the “about three years” skip, Gohan is about to turn 10 years old at the start of the Android Saga. 

His stay in the Room of Spirit and Time lasts under a year. Give or take a few weeks to his biological age, during the Cell Games, Gohan’s biological age is almost 11 years old, while his calendar age is 10. Hardly a “teen”!

Now onto the 7 year timeskip. 

This is where things get complex, and we need to state some key elements: the school year starts in April in Japan, and the Tenkaichi Budokai always happens on May 7th, which means the Saiyaman Arc happens during the month between the first day of class and the Tournament. 

However… The manga does not say it’s been seven years. It says “years have passed” and “Gohan turned 16”. 

Here’s the big question: Is Gohan about to celebrate his 17th calendar birthday, or his biological one? Or is he actually about to turn 16 and the panel just anticipates his upcoming birthday?

We don’t know. This means we have no idea how long has passed from this information alone. This is why we need to find other clues.

Thankfully, we took note of some dates and other elements prior, and to solve the mystery, we will use Trunks. 

Trunks is stated to be 8 years old, and Goten is stated to be 7 years old during the tournament. 

Trunks was born “in about two and a half years” after the Meca Frieza situation, and the Androids attacked “in about three years”, making baby Trunks between infant and ten-ish months old by the time the Cell Games rolled around (both main timeline Trunks and Future Trunks have different birthdays actually, but they’re both in the second half of the year so here it does not matter). 

As such, Trunks’ birthday has to be after the Cell Games (he holds his head but can't walk, he grabs but can't talk, making him younger than a year old). This means his birthday has to be after the Tenkaichi Budokai (which is always on May 7th). That means Trunks will be turning nine years old during that calendar year (otherwise the Announcer would say "he's about to turn 8" or something like that).

If you believe Trunks may have been a year old already by the time the Cell Games rolled around, that’s fine! Let’s use Goten then. 

Goten was born after the Cell Games, which is after the Tenkaichi. However, during the Buu Tournament, he is clearly stated to be seven years old. This means the Saiyman and Buu saga cannot be “a little under seven years after the Cell Games (which was at the end of May)”. 

Even if Chichi gave birth to him the day after the Cell Games, it’s not possible for him to be already seven years old on May 7th during the Tenkaichi.

(and in this house we do not doubt the Announcer’s ability to give accurate info)

If we want the boys’ ages to make sense, we need to think they’ll be turning 8 and 9 respectively. 

And the Tenkaichi Budokai is traditionally held every three years so the Buu saga needs to happen “just a little under 9 years” after the Cell Games.

The problem is that if that’s the case, no matter how you add it up, May 7th, “a little under 9 years after the Cell games’, makes Gohan’ calendar age 17 (almost 18 since his birthday is coming up soon), but his biological age is almost 19. This means unless the Saiyaman arc takes place over a year and they train for that long for the tournament, his age doesn’t work. 

Though that does mean “adult Gohan” for Buu Gohan actually works…

There is no way to make both these elements work… unless we question Gohan’s initial age.

He is holding three fingers up, not four!!

Indeed, Toriyama changed his age in the following chapter. His 3 years old situation was corrected in the volumes, but the artwork was NOT corrected. This is how you show 3 and 4 with your fingers in Japan!

If Gohan starts at 3 years old, then everything falls into place just fine.

And this is why many of us say Gohan was 10 when he killed Cell.

TLDR:

Recap chart n°1

Recap chart n°2 with Gohan being 3 when Raditz lands:

#dragon ball #son gohan

[dragonballzoku]

#dragon ball

[dragonballzoku]

[dragonballzoku]

for oomfie !!

#dragon ball #android 18

[dragonballzoku]

[dragonballzoku]

Someone said "Are you really so stupid to think that Africa has the same technological advances as us? If they did they would probably have clean water and not live in houses made of sticks and mud. Get over yourself and stop being so ignorant."..... Below is a tiny collection of images of the Africa they refuse to show you..

ches

I’m sorry you’ve been made to believe that the whole of Africa is poor, I really am..

[dragonballzoku]

Hey everyone! I made a "fun" "game" to torture my friends with! Which is weird because surely everyone knows what Goku looks like? Should be pretty simple?

Reviews:

"got i think one question in and went Ah fuck. SHIT"

"what do you mean one of them is actually called gohanks i thought that was a joke"

"THIS IS NOT OKAY"

#some of these trick questions are bullshit #but i got a passing grade #goku #dragon ball

[dragonballzoku]

Meeting your hero’s hero is probably really intimidating! 

(In other words: awkward meets shy 😳)

[dragonballzoku]

oh brother...!

#dragon ball #vegeta #tarble

[dragonballzoku]

Of course it's the pink shirt that saves the day

and Gohan your father spent a whole full solid 3 years- 1096 days with that man in a room with literally nothing but a bedroom, kitchen, and a bathroom in it

#*WHEEZE* #the faces #i'm dyin here #🤣🤣🤣🤣 #dragon ball

[dragonballzoku]

There should be one night a year like the purge except it’s Superman coming to Gotham and clearing out as many criminals as he can. He only gets the 1 day a year. 24 hours to do everything he can. Bruce hates it.

[dragonballzoku]

I guess I was not the only one worried he would never grow up

Vegeta must be so happy Trunks didn't inherit his height

#dragon ball

[dragonballzoku]

(Z) Retribution…(Part 2) 

Didn’t make it to actual Father’s Day but it’s in spirit.

Part 3 is still a (maybe)

#dragon ball #vegeta

[dragonballzoku]

Retribution…(Part 1) Happy (early) Father’s Day. Half-baked fanfiction no one asked for. Interacting with the deceased relative if given the chance.

Part 2 comin’.

#dragon ball #vegeta

[dragonballzoku]

listening to phil collins

#dragon ball z #dbz #vegeta

[dragonballzoku]

It's been officially 2 years since the hiatus on Dragon Ball Zoku was announced! How's that looking today?

mmm... Readers probably aren't going to like it, but not great.

There's been a lot of life getting in the way, and there's a lot more to come.

I'm also still slow at the art. I'm going to skip over the Namek and Android sagas since not much changes from canon, but I've still got to wrangle the Buu arc into a proper narrative. And find a way to give Super real narrative stakes.

It's rare, but you'll get comic updates and bits of art through my dedicated side blog @dragonballzoku