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[dbfandom]

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:

[dbfandom]

hi! Sorry if this has been asked already! But I notice with some Japanese artists on twitter, they will retweet someone's art and then comment about it in a separate tweet rather than replying directly to the post. Do you know if this is an etiquette thing? Is it obnoxious if I'm the only person commenting directly on a post? When I see art I love with no comments it makes me sad so I try to leave a comment, but I'm not sure if I should sometimes. Sorry if you've already addressed this, or if this is more of a twitter-specific thing and you're not concerned with that! Thanks for what you do!!

Ayo!!

I actually asked a few of my JPN tweet moots about this practice like, two years ago and basically it's a "I don't want to be a burden on OP" situation.

The idea is that for many of them, "commenting directly" is like, coming directly to their table and fangirl "in front of them", which means they (as the commenters) embarrass themselves in front of the author/artist and "impose" themselves on their (the OP's) space (OP might feel obligated to respond, which is a burden)

By RTing and then doing a LRT (or LRP for those who switched to "repost" instead of "retweet" because musk made it all confusing <_<), they get to "fangirl" in their own space and not embarrass themselves all while still inviting their followers to check out the original work (which was RT'd just previously).

Note that this also happens even if the OP and commenter are friends / mutuals / collab / part of the same circle (aka they published together).

60% of them told me they actually like it when people directly comment. The rest said they "don't mind" (whatever that means lol).

I generally comment 90% of my japanese TL, either in English, with some basic Japanese, or with just emojis (think of it as keysmashing lol).

What's important is be positive and kind, not use any slang or acronyms if possible, and keep sentence structure super simple (no subordinates, no relative pronouns, no possessives) so there's no room for error in the translation (esp automatic twitter translation).

Something like "the colors are really beautiful!", or "amazing" or "pretty!" (simple adjectives), "the wind effects are powerful!" translates well, but "i love how you did the colors, they bang!" might not due to the subordinates and pronouns and other pronouns that the translator might not know what it refers to (that and homonyms haha).

Don't hesitate to use the names of the characters instead of the pronouns ("Gohan's hair is very pretty!") then replace Gohan with the rice emoji (unless the OP uses the character names, in general they tend to not use character names because they don't want to be indexed...).

When in doubt, drop your comment in DeepL or google translate, copy the result, and then run it again the other away around (or through a third language you know, like Spanish, German, etc...). And beware of homonyms that can mean many things (I've made mistakes haha)

Much love to you!

[dbfandom]

The storyboard given to the animators really goes barebones with the intentions (as they should) but Vegeta's angry gremlin sketched face is KILLING ME.

Also Trunks' little ^v^ face and antennae to Vegeta's >:c scrunch... so cute

[dbfandom]

Im creating a doujinshi how do I get it popular

Tag it properly (characters, story tropes),

Publish regularly,

Think about your story and properly think about your panels and composition,

Clean the art, scan it properly, make it easy to read (typeset, etc),

and put it on ao3 :p

[dbfandom]

So I finally caught some sleep (I woke up at 4 am, 20 minutes after the announcement, and slept a bit more after my last post announcing his passing).

First of all, this is going to be my panel: "See ya later guys, when you die we'll meet again!"

The hematoma that's mentioned in the statement announced in his passing implies a head injury (so perhaps he fell, perhaps something fell on his head, and the internal wound may have not be noticed)

The last artwork he did that was published was this new Sandland one to celebrate the upcoming series. It was revealed on March 4th, so after his passing. We don't know if it's the last artwork he did (he may have drawn this earlier and it was revealed later, who knows.

I'd also like to share some other statements, in no particular order:

Toyotaro's:

Masako Nozawa (Goku's VA) statement:

「コメントできる状況にございません」 -> "I am not in a position to comment."

(aka she was too shaken)

(Mayumi Tanaka, the voice of Krillin who was requested by Tori super early on will probably say something at some point too).

Oda (One Piece author) statement:

It is too early. The hole is too big. Sadness washes over me when I think that I will never see him again. I have admired him so much since I was a child, so I remember the day he called me by name for the first time. On the way home from the day you used the word "friend" for me and Kishimoto, I remember being overjoyed with Kishimoto. I also remember the last conversation we had. I was one of those who took the baton from the days when reading manga made you a fool, and he also created an era when both adults and children could enjoy reading manga. He showed us the dream that manga can go worldwide. It was like watching a hero going forward. For not only mangakas but also creators in various industries, the excitement and emotion of the time of Dragon Ball serialization must have taken root in their childhood. His existence is like a big tree. For the manga artists of our generation who stood on the same stage, Toriyama's works became more and more important to me as I got closer to the same stage. I even felt being scary. But I am just happy to see the aloof man himself again. Because we love him on a blood level. With respect and gratitude for the creative world he has left behind. I pray for his soulful rest in peace. May heaven be the joyous world he envisioned.

And Kishimoto's statement (the autho of Naruto)

To be honest, I don’t know what to write or how to write it. But right now, I want to tell Mr. Toriyama the things I always wanted to ask him and my feelings. I grew up with Mr. Toriyama’s manga, Dr. Slump in elementary school and Dragon Ball in high school. It was natural for me to have Mr. Toriyama’s manga next to me as a part of my life. Even when I was feeling down, the weekly Dragon Ball always made me forget about it. It was a salvation for me, a country boy with nothing to do. That’s how much I enjoyed Dragon Ball! When I was a college student, Dragon Ball, which had been a part of my life for so long, suddenly ended. I was overwhelmed by a tremendous sense of loss and didn’t know what to look forward to. But at the same time, it was an opportunity for me to realize from the bottom of my heart the greatness of Mr. Toriyama, who created Dragon Ball. I want to create a work like Mr. Toriyama’s! I want to be like Mr. Toriyama! As I chased after Mr. Toriyama, the sense of loss gradually disappeared. Because it was fun to create manga. By chasing after Mr. Toriyama, I was able to find new joy. Mr. Toriyama was always my compass. He was my inspiration. I may be bothering Mr. Toriyama, but I am grateful to him without permission. To me, he was a savior and a god of manga. When I first met him, I was so nervous that I couldn’t say a word. But as I met him more and more at the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize jury meeting, I was able to talk to him. I will never forget the time when I talked to him about how much fun Dragon Ball was, like a child with Oda-san, as Dragon Ball children, and how he smiled a little shyly. I just received the news of Mr. Toriyama’s death. I am overwhelmed by a tremendous sense of loss, even greater than when Dragon Ball ended… I don’t know how to deal with this hole in my heart yet. I can’t read my favorite Dragon Ball right now. I don’t even feel like I’m writing this text properly to Mr. Toriyama. Everyone in the world was still looking forward to Mr. Toriyama’s work. If one Dragon Ball wish really comes true… I’m sorry… It may be selfish, but I’m sad, Mr. Toriyama. Thank you, Mr. Akira Toriyama, for 45 years of wonderful work. And thank you very much for your hard work. To the bereaved family, I pray that you will find peace and comfort in the midst of your grief. I pray for the peaceful repose of the soul of Mr. Akira Toriyama.

And finally one of Toriyama's close friends Masakazu Katsura (Video Girl AI author) also had this to say:

I feel drained and unmotivated. I don’t want to write a comment like this. But I’ll write something. Once I start writing, I’ll have so much to say that it will probably turn into a long text, but I’ll try to keep it as short as possible. I apologize for the rambling, as my thoughts are still not in order. Looking back, all I have are fond memories of the times we spent together – whether it was visiting your house, having you stay over at mine, or going out on trips. Every time we talked on the phone, we would laugh so hard that we would get tired. You were a funny person. You were perverted, cute, sharp-tongued, and humble. We collaborated on some manga projects, which were also a lot of fun. But 99% of the time, we never talked about manga. As a manga artist, the gap between the way we saw things and our level of skill was too great, and I never really felt your greatness. I know it now. But when I was with you, I never felt it at all. That’s just the kind of person you were. That’s why I still can’t think of you as anything other than a friend, even though you were a great manga artist. Last summer, before I had surgery, you heard about it somewhere and sent me an email. It was really rare for you to send an email, and it was so full of concern for my health. We’ve been friends for 40 years, but that might have been the first time I felt such kindness from you. I thought it was going to snow. You know, you usually only talk about jokes or nonsense. What the hell, you shouldn’t be worried about other people, right? I called you a little before that, and I was feeling sick all over, so I said, “I’ll probably go first, so have a farewell party for me, Toriyama! And make sure you give a speech, because it’ll make me look good!” But you didn’t keep your promise. I really regret not calling you after you emailed me. I just can’t believe that I can’t talk to you on the phone for hours anymore. There are so many things I want to talk to you about. There are so many things I want to say. Even if you don’t care about what I have to say, you can just zone out like you always do. I just want to talk to you again. The last thing you said to me was “OK” in response to my email asking you to contact me again. That’s just not good enough. I’m so sad.

And the Dragon Quest LEGEND, Yuji Horii, too...

I am still filled with disbelief at the sudden news of Mr. Toriyama’s passing. I have known Mr. Toriyama since I was a writer for Weekly Shonen Jump. At the recommendation of my editor, Torishima-san, I decided to ask him to draw the illustrations for the game Dragon Quest when we were launching it. For over 37 years since then, he has drawn countless charming characters, including character designs and monster designs. The history of Dragon Quest is one that has been intertwined with Mr. Toriyama’s character designs. Mr. Toriyama and the late Mr. Sugiyama were longtime collaborators on Dragon Quest. I can’t believe they’re gone… I can’t find the words to express my sorrow. This is truly, truly a tragedy.

Torishima, his "evil editor" (the one the Mashirito from Dr Slump is inspired by), also put out a statement:

"The last time we worked together was on the book we published last year, 'Dr. Mashirito's Strongest Manga Technique.' In that book, 'Torishima and Toriyama Back Then' was the last manga we made together. 45 years, thank you very much. Mr. Toriyama, you were the best manga artist I have ever known."

(this is what he's talking about)

Feel free to reblog with your favorite manga panels, interviews, trivias, and let's pay a hommage to his life and work, alright??

[dbfandom]

So Shueisha just announced that Toriyama passed away last week on March 1st from a subdural hematoma (head injury)

The site has crashed, but it's from both official DB twitter accounts

[dbfandom]

An update (or an announcement, not sure but whichever is fine) while i’m working on THE UNSPOKEN webcomic offline:

So i’m currently writing and working on the groundworks for the pilot comic volume that I hope can be released with limited numbers soon. It’s good news because it means that I’m dedicated to it, but the reality is it’s a lot of work for a one man team, plus my life schedule that gets busier every year, I won’t be able to be online much like 2 or 3 years ago, and will have to focus my drawings on my career more (I do draw for a living). So whenever I can draw here, it’ll be about this webcomic aka my favorite personal project and what I can and want to share with you guys.

The real announcement is, while working on the groundworks for the webcomic, I realize that since this comic with a Dragon Ball semi-adapted script draws from life more than from fantasy, it’s better to make it something more “real” that people can relate to. And that also means I’ll be visiting China next month, specifically the Zhangjiajie area, or better known as James Cameron’s Avatar moutains, for a short research trip and take real references since it’s also my main inspiration for THE UNSPOKEN’s Son Goten (or Sun Wu Tian - 孫悟天 in Chinese dialect)’s hometown.

If you like this series and want to support it, that’ll be great since this work runs mostly by the supports from its loving fans.

Maybe the next time I post here will be the old groundwork stuff I posted on twitter/X in 2021.

[dbfandom]

Old Man Goku and Old Man Vegeta (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5?)

Treevax has allowed me to translate this small silly comic based off the old-ku design from Toriyama. Here are the first few pages!

Please don't repost as your own, and check the twitter thread if you're there too ^^

[dbfandom]

Old Man Goku and Old Man Vegeta (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5?)

Treevax has allowed me to translate this small silly comic based off the old-ku design from Toriyama. Here are the first few pages!

Please don't repost as your own, and check the twitter thread if you're there too ^^

[dbfandom]

Old Man Goku and Old Man Vegeta (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5?)

Treevax has allowed me to translate this small silly comic based off the old-ku design from Toriyama. Here are the first few pages!

Please don't repost as your own, and check the twitter thread if you're there too ^^

[dbfandom]

New profile pic and banner :)

[dbfandom]

Excited to learn who our 12th artist is? It's none other than:

😚@whirlydoodle😚

But what #DBcharacter will they cover in hotness🔥?!

⬇️Time to speculate ⬇️

[dbfandom]

Oh btw, blanket permission to open an IM with me, don't feel self conscious and just go for it if you want to tell me or ask me anything or just ramble, I'm happy to chat whenever I'm around. It's not too bold or rude or anything, don't hesitate! ^^

[dbfandom]

After Goten and Trunks and after Pan, the first Hybrid Saiyan that Piccolo adopted also watches a scary movie with him!

Click here.

And you can read them all on Pixiv as well!

I translated this tiny one too 🥰

Please click the link to see more!

Click here

[dbfandom]

yo how do you find those super old doujinshi in the first place lol? (also are there any sites you recommend for DB doujinshi? old or new).

Yo! In general, I buy them on second hand Japanese websites such as yahoo auctions, mercari, rakuten (japan), mandarake and the occasional random site (vpn + keywords + Japanese address + credit card that's accepted on some stores cuz not all do)

I also use booth.pm (direct from seller) where you can find some oldies there (some saiyan monthly specials are there for instance) and toranoana (they're specialized in doujin stuff by being a middleman between authors and buyers, but their fees are eeeh)

Sometimes you can find decent stuff on ebay, vinted (europe) and some other random places. (btw I'm selling some, I should put them somewhere with less fees than ebay, any recs?)

Finally, plenty of authors end up putting their entire doujins in digital format online! On pixiv (search for the dragon ball tag, in the manga section) or twitter (this is the hard part: finding their usernames...). Finding them is a PITA, sadly, and some of them tend to purge their content sometimes.

Beware though, shipping and taxes are abysmal; for a doujin you pay 800yen, it'll end up costing you like 25 bucks for it to arrive to you! It's worth it if you buy a lot of them, bulk, and create one sole package, but it's not easy....

[dbfandom]

Remember the tiny one pager I translated about Future Trunks dying because Goten is just too cute, by Citrton?

Well I translated the entire first quarter (preview, SFW) of that doujinshi! It's a Future Trunks X Goten doujin (one of the very few!).

I have the full (NSFW) thing and oof it's a thing.

Because of how important the honorifics are in this particular doujin (due to Goten addressing Trunks as Trunks-san, but the other Trunks as Trunks-kun...), I decided to keep them.

You can read the whole thing on Poipiku.

And feel free to give love to the author on the tweet post, to let them know you appreciate the availability in English! It really helps me out too when I go and ask people "hey can I translate this?"

(and in the tweet thread you can actually purchase the physical version, even if you aren't in Japan, Buyee will show you how; beware international shipping added on top of the cost)

If you like my work and want to support my buying habits for old doujins for preservation purposes, please consider buying me a ko-fi

One ko-fi = one Doujin I can add to the pile ^^

[dbfandom]

Here's another one I translated! It's a one-pager from Furusawa Jun'ya, which can be found in one of his anthologies (Hero).

Enjoy some terrible gag manga humor!!

If you like my work and want to support my buying habits for old doujins for preservation purposes, please consider buying me a ko-fi

(this one was far more expensive than one ko-fi though haha Furusawa my beloved is expensive :'( )