#Goten

[secretsofdbz]

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:

[silverwoodwork]

Android 13 has managed to gradually gain the trust of Trunks and Goten – although Gohan still believes that the older man is a bad influence on his little brother…

- DRAGON BALL Red Ribbon Special

[breezytealy]

Summoning Goten and Trunks fans

HI RIGHT so I'm trying to get ages and school years for Goten and Trunks and it's driving me bonkers (working out Blue Hal but birthdays will do), feel free to chip in and correct, I'll update the original post with strikethrough corrections if needs be.

ETA: would be too much to correct but @secretsofdbz has a really good breakdown of why we can consider Daizenshuu (and therefore most online timelines) as out in the reblogs. The post below attempts to square Daizenshuu by squinting but sounds like it's neater to just ignore it. It's too late for my fics I'm stuck with parkour, but maybe not for yours if you're particular!)

At the end of the day it doesn't matter but I like everything to line up as best as possible and headcanon what I can't.

They're born 767 and 766 respectively, Future Trunks is postulated as Nov 766 as he's stated he was born about six months before the androids arrive. We know Goten is born after late May 767's Cell games.

In the early May 774 tournament before Buu we know they give their ages as 7 and 8, but since that's impossible for Goten I like to think he rounded up and Trunks was born earlier than Future Trunks. Trunks could have also lied but we know the timestream changes and it's just funnier to me that a 6 year old would lie to be a cooler age, especially if his friend is 8.

Running with those constraints we're at:

Goten: May 767 - Dec 767

Trunks: Jan 766 - early May 766

I thinkkk Blue Hal takes place 3 months before Super Hero, which is when Pan is 3. She's born 779 (seeing references to May?) so Blue Hal at the latest is early 783 could be late 782? She's also supposed to have just started kindergarten in Blue Hal, but I don't have the Japanese scan to see if it's Japanese or American naming, and kids join nursery all the time so idk if there's strict timing help there. We also know Goten and Trunks are one school year apart.

So! Taking late 782 for arguments sake:

Trunks is 16 turning 17 sooner rather than later

Goten is 15, turning 16 later rather than sooner

In the Japanese system which runs April to April and three year high school, to keep them only a year apart Trunks needs to be born after April (so basically born in April 766), making him a first year high schooler (already turned 16), so Goten is a final year middle schooler (May 767 - Dec 767, has or will turn 15 in that apr 782-mar 783 school year).

BUT we know they go to the same school, and it's literally written as "high school" in the Japanese, and it's in West City, so they could be a freshman and sophomore.

Going further, if it's a Western High School the American system runs September to September, that means Trunks can be born Jan-early May 766 and Goten May 776-Aug 767 for the year gap, and in that case Goten is a sophomore and Trunks is a Junior, as they'll be turning 16 and 17 in their respective school year.

So I can get all my ducks in a neat little row with a very constrained pick of April 766 and July 767 for birthdays. I think?

WHEEZE

[galexibrain]

This time, they made him stand at the center of the group shot.

(Nope, not adding another character. Nope, not going to color this one. Absolutely not lmao.)

((Is Krillin being a little shit and imitating Vegeta? Yep. Is he going to get beaten up later? Probably. Was it worth it? Definitely.))

Edit: shit I forgot half Piccolo's cape. Idc I can't touch this again today lmao

[izuchant]

Saiyans ✨️🐒

[genisflyingkites]

This is me wanting to draw that Gohan and Goten reunion we never got in the buu saga. Like both were dead and one thought the other to be dead.

This started cause I was talking to a friend of Gotens character in regards to Goku at first Goku is hyped up to him this untouchable heroic hero. He sees how everyone feels about him but he feels not much for his Dad other what he was told and he’s scared to approach. Then, reality kicks in his Dad isn’t that… Gohan is “killed” and Goten and Trunks and thrusted into the role of saviors of the Earth. Goten resents him but then… he learns that Goku isn’t none of that he’s real, super approachable, and awesome. It beat the stories he was told.

Then, he realizes he never felt he was missing that love because he had a lot of it. Gohan was always there for him making sure nothing was missing for Goten. Goten realizes he is very lucky to have Gohan. Anyway not me explaining my comic in the comments

[primordyal]

ドラゴンボール

DRAGON BALL

By Akira Toriyama

RIP Akira Toriyama (1955-2024)

[tightjacketkidda]

Last dragon ball panel published before Akria’s death depicting the interaction between all the saiyans…Akira had planned to give fans 10 more years of content before a series finale.

[ksandraws57]

(Updated the colors/fixed paint and also uploaded the HQ image so you should see details better!)

AU where Goten has a twin sister and Goku comes back from the dead during cell saga :3 🥰 (also I painted the background all by myself so I'm proud) Twitter link

[texasflowers]

pretending your older sibling is the furthest from cool, yeah, i know it

[deliveryboys]

i think my favorite "raditz-gets-brought-back-somehow" au is the idea that he accidentally gets brought back when goten is a kid and while everyone else is understandably wary given the last time he was around (even if they're no longer afraid of him because EVERYONE is a million times stronger than him) goten latches onto him like a goddamn leech. constantly hanging from his hair and poking at him and following him around and whatnot. calls him "mr. radish" that eventually changes to "uncle radish" when someone finally tells him his relation to goku. raditz is NOT happy about this at ALL but he really can't do anything because goten is a fucking super saiyan and could annihilate raditz with his pinky finger. so he just has to deal with it. and eventually things sort of smooth out and raditz becomes goten's weird gruff uncle that just kind of sits there while goten crawls all over him and gets all bristly when someone accuses him of caring about another person. and i say he's goten's uncle specifically because i think if he and gohan come within 50 feet of each other gohan goes mystic and stands there radiating the world's most tangible rage until raditz fucking skedaddles. gohan's gentle heart vs. the fact that raditz was quite literally the domino that triggered the absolute horror that was his childhood FIGHT

[dailycupofcreativitea]

Drip 💦

[jorongbak]

Remember that time I made a GT au with these three, because these stupid chaotic unhinged children seriously need a series of their own, traveling around the galaxy and giving thousands and millions of people headaches with all the troubles they cause

And of course Baby Goku. Super had Goku Black, GT can have Baby Goku. Kami knows we need more of Goku being a great villain

[mightyflowerwitch]

I made a handy guide for any of my followers who aren't very familiar with Dragon Ball, in case anyone was feeling a little lost

:)

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Hope you found this helpful! ;)

[galexibrain]

Never getting over this shot.

[okanra]

no big thoughts for today, only want to take a break and draw dragon ball stuff. I don’t say it much before but i’ve always liked the untold dynamic between goten and goku.