#because by him being like 'yeah but' there's an implication that he already had bulma in mind

[tenshindon]

the whole “you’ve got bulma waiting for you” scene hits VERY different depending on whether you’re watching it in english or japanese I Have Decided It

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 257

Last time, Majin Buu killed almost everyone on Earth, thereby freeing up his calendar so that he could fight the really strong guy Goku promised him.    Piccolo convinced him to wait one hour, and while Buu sits in front of a comically oversized hourglass, Piccolo plans to send Goten and Trunks into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.   One year passes inside the Chamber for every one day on the outside, so If Buu actually waits the full hour, the boys can get a decent two weeks’ of training in.

But while he explains his plan to the boys, Chi-Chi marches right up to Buu and slaps him for murdering Gohan.    Ironically, that’s the one guy Buu hasn’t killed so far, but... wait, did the hourglass get smaller?

Anyway, while we’re waiting, I wanted to make a list of all the people still alive on Earth after Majin Buu’s Human Extinction Attack.   In the dub version of the recap for this episode, the narrator stated that “fewer than twenty people” remained, and I want an exact figure.   In no particular order:

Majin Buu (he’s been on Earth for a long time, so he counts as a resident)

Piccolo

Goten

Trunks

Bulma

Chi-Chi

Ox King

Yamcha

Krillin

Puar

Android 18

Marron

Master Roshi

Oolong

Dende

Mr. Popo

Videl

Mr. Satan

Tien

Chiaotzu

Fortuneteller Baba (not on Earth presently, but still alive)

Gohan (ditto)

I don’t know if I should count Bee, since he’s a dog.   Was Buu trying to kill animals too, or just people?   Anyway, if you don’t count Buu, Gohan, and Baba, then yeah, the world population currently stands at nineteen.

Correction: Eighteen.

Buu turns Chi-Chi into an egg for slapping him....

And then he steps on it.    You bastard!

Goten’s ready to go to war right then and there, but Piccolo convinces him that the only way to avenge his mother is to train in the Chamber and fuse with Trunks.

And once they enter the Time Chamber, Goten begins immediately.   Take a good look, because this is about the only time we ever see Goten take anything this seriously.

Meanwhile, Videl asks Piccolo how Majin Buu knows Mr. Satan, and he explains that Satan befriended Buu and convinced him to stop killing people.   Things didn’t work out, but Piccolo still acknowledges Mr. Satan as a brave man, and a true champion.

Then Buu gets sick of waiting and demands his opponent immediately.     It’s only been thirty minutes, but Buu’s had enough.  

Buu wrecks some shit, and Piccolo has to save Videl sort of like how he saves Gohan in the movies...

And then Krillin gets hit by falling debris, just like how he does in the movies.  Is this supposed to be a callback or something?    I don’t think I care that much.   

So Piccolo agrees to take Buu to his opponent, and he leads him inside.   As the others follow, they realize that Piccolo must intend for the battle to take place inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.   Dende suspects that Piccolo is hedging his bets by doing this.    If the battle goes poorly, Piccolo can just destroy the door, which will trap them all inside the HTC dimension.   Buu will be forever imprisoned there, and the Earth will be safe.    Then all they’d have to do is revive the boys with the Dragon Balls. 

I was about to say that Piccolo can’t be revived, since he was wished back before, except that’s not quite right.   Piccolo was wished back to life by the Namekian Dragon Balls, so that should mean Shenron could still resurrect him, right?   Or is Shenron’s rule that he can’t resurrect people who’ve died before, regardless of how they were brought back the first time around?   I feel like I’ve asked this before.

Roshi feels up Bulma’s ass, so she smacks him in the face.   Master Roshi belongs in jail.

The other part of Piccolo’s plan is to purposely take the long way to the HTC, thereby giving Goten and Trunks more time to prepare.   It may not seem like much, but every minute he can stall is six more hours for Goten and Trunks.  And it’s not like Buu knows the layout of this place.   Besides, if he kills Piccolo, he’ll never find his way to his opponent.

Inside the chamber, Goten and Trunks have just finished a Fusion session, and they seem pretty confident.   While they rest, they discuss their plans for the battle, in light of the progress they’ve made.    According to Goten, they’ve discovered a level beyond Super Saiyan.    Actually, he says “Who knew there was anything above Super Saiyan?” 

I don’t understand that, because Goten and Trunks already know there’s levels above Super Saiyan.   They watched Vegeta fight Buu as a Super Saiyan 2, and then they watched Goku transform into a Super Saiyan 3.   The implication here is that Gotenks can no use one or both of those forms, but for some reason the script acts all coy about it. 

In any case, they can only use this new form to fight for five minutes.    After that, the fusion wears off, regardless of the thirty-minute time limit.  So Goten proposes they attack Buu at full power, since five minutes is still enough time to get the job done, but Trunks disagrees.    He figures that if they screw around for twenty-five minutes, they can still work Buu over pretty good, and then they can close out their fusion time using their maximum power.    That way, the fight will be more spectacular.   

And that’s kind of where these two have lost me, because Buu killed Vegeta and Chi-Chi, an yet they’re still treating this like some kind of game.

Then Piccolo contacts them telepathically, and explains that he’s bringing Majin Buu to them earlier than planned.   

But he figues he’s got about a minute before they reach the Time Chamber, so that gives the boys six hours to rest up for the battle.

So Piccolo takes him inside the Time Chamber...

And the boys are disappointed that Piccolo’s the only one here to watch.   Hey he’s like 5% of the world population, so that seems like a pretty good turnout.

Buu seems disappointed that the big fight he’s been waiting for is against Goten and Trunks.    But what’s he gonna do?

So he starts out by punching Trunks in the face, but then Trunks scolds him for being impatient.    He tells him to hold on a minute so they can do something cool.

Piccolo is worried when the boys do the fusion dance in base form, but he’s pleased with how flawless their execution is.   

And it’s Gotenks time, bay-bay.

Buu remembers Gotenks from Episode 251, but he’s not exactly impressed, since he beat him easily in that episode.   But Gotenks insists he’s improved since then.

And Piccolo seems encourage by Gotenk’s ki, but then he unloads on Buu, punching him over and over again...

But it does nothing.   And Buu hasn’t fought back yet because he’s still waiting for whatever big cool thing Trunks told him to wait for.  

And Piccolo’s starting to worry again...

[tigerlover16-uk]

So, what did you think of Goku in the latest DBS episode then?

Ooooooh boy.

I’m probably going to get some flak for this, but honestly… I don’t think the way he was written was as bad as everyone’s making it out to be.

Honestly, I’ve seen so many Gochi fans on and off this site flipping out about the episode, at least one without having even seen it, saying how the episode ruins Goku and it’s all of Super’s problems with the character embodied in one foul mess and that they’re done with the show now because of it. And honestly I’m just sitting here scratching my head and thinking “Um… alright, then”

Not that this episodes portrayal of Goku was very positive and I see why people are upset, but let’s break it down, shall we?

Okay, so near the start of the episode while Goku’s leaving the market place having sold his crops, he comments about how glad he is he’ll be able to go train without having to put up with Chichi’s nagging.

Okay, not a good sign, but let’s be real here. Dragon Ball Z had plenty of jokes throughout about Goku and Chichi’s relationship and how Goku was afraid of her. Master Roshi’s first guess upon hearing that Goku didn’t want to be wished back to earth after fighting Frieza was to assume he was scared of her reaction to everything, and while that probably wasn’t true there are jokes along those lines at several points in Z. And it’s established that Goku doesn’t really like working since it’s something he never had to do before Chichi started making him just after the Buu Saga (Where she also complained about his never making them any money). He just does it to please her and provide for his family, which as the start of the previous saga and even his reaction to how much money he made here shows he takes some pride in. So him snarkily commenting to himself about not having to listen to his high-strung wife nag him because he wants to spend his free time doing what he wants? Tactless, yes, but it’s not like he said he hated doing things for her and that Chichi was a pest. It was a harmless joke on his part, it’s clear throughout Super that he does love Chichi and will do what she wants even if it bothers him.

Then we have Goku sneaking out of the house with Goten when Chichi was complaining that she didn’t want Goten training to fight (I’ll make a separate post about this this evening, since I have another ask that works for this). On the one hand this does feel out of character a little, but I don’t think it’s being mean-spirited or not respecting Chichi. Goten wants to go train with his father, and Goku’s eager to spend time with his son. As far as I can tell she was going to be alright with Goku training on his own anyway. So while she’s complaining Goku basically goes “Hey son, your moms distracted, wanna sneak out and do something fun?” And they proceed to do so.

This does raise some questions, but I buy it. If Goku feels something needs to be done he is willing to argue and work things out with Chichi, like convincing her to let Gohan train to fight the androids or Cell because he thought it would be necessary. But there’s no urgency with training Goten, he just wants to do it for fun and probably just to hang out with his dad. So here I think Goku was just thinking along the lines of “Eh, I don’t really want to argue with my wife since i don’t like it very much, let’s deal with the consequences later. She’ll understand” As was emphasized by her reaction to Goku going off to train with Whis the first time, it’s clear Goku knows Chichi is reasonable about Goku going off to do his thing even if she will try to stop him beforehand if she can just because she wants some semblance of normalcy for her family already. So while his actions here were questionable, I don’t think he was going out of his way to be disrespectful. Besides, lots of fathers will do silly or stupid things to spend some quality time with their kids or just have fun with them, is this really the worst thing Goku could have done?

Then there’s the part with Goku’s reaction to pregnant Bulma. I’ve seen some people groaning about how he thought she was just fat. And feel free to be annoyed at this, but notice he also wasn’t confused about the concept of pregnancy. He was confused because she’d told him before she was expecting and he’d apparently forgot (Probably wasn’t paying attention when it happened), so he was thinking back to that. Otherwise he didn’t question it further or seem confused about where babies come from, so… is it really all that bad that he thought she’d gotten fat at first? I mean, he probably doesn’t see pregnant women all that often outside of Chichi with Gohan and there’s an implication he hasn’t been by to see her lately, so why not have that be his initial reaction? It could have been handled a lot worse is what I’m saying.

Then there’s the scene with him wanting Vegeta to come train with him and Whis and treating Bulma’s upcoming childbirth as not that big a deal, or at least not enough that he’s confused Vegeta doesn’t want to come train. Now this is definitely a poor scene and I would have liked it to have played out differently, but I think some people have took it the wrong way. I’ve heard some people point out that, especially with the line “I was dead when Goten was born”, this pretty much makes Goku out to be the deadbeat, absent father he’s often accused of and along with the previous scenes suggests he doesn’t hold his own family in high regard or that he’s just being callous here.

Okay, one, he still wanted Goten to come train with him and showed plenty of affection for him in this episode, so I don’t think that’s the case. I think Goku’s just more confused by Vegeta’s claims like “Bulma will never forgive me” if he missed Bra’s birth, and he probably thinks it’s out of character for Vegeta of all people to skip training for this. His line about not being there for Goten’s birth because he was dead was probably a spur of the moment thing, in that moment he was being selfish thinking about his own convenience having Vegeta as a sparring partner so probably wasn’t thinking too hard about Vegeta’s way of thinking.

After all, he wasn’t around for one of his sons birth, and neither Chichi or Goten show any resentment to that. So it’s likely he’s wondering what’s the big deal if Vegeta’s not there for that specific moment as long as he’s still there for Bulma and the baby most of the time, like he spends plenty of time with Goten and Chichi when he’s not training ever since coming back to life. It’s just a case that he wasn’t thinking very hard about Vegeta’s side of things given his own personal experiences and what he thinks he knows about Vegeta since in that moment he was anxious to get going to train and was pretty sure Vegeta was going to agree to come along.

None of that’s to say this scene was fully justified. His attitude was still fairly callous, I can understand Whis’s reaction to Vegeta not wanting to train and not thinking being there for his child’s birth is such a huge deal, but with Goku it is a lot more eyebrow raising. Still, given the context I can buy it to some degree and while I think it wasn’t a well written moment, I don’t think it suggests Goku’s as selfish or doesn’t care about his own family as some people seem to take it. I think he just reacted badly in that specific moment, which yeah it’s kinda annoying but not completely unbelievable. He didn’t pester Vegeta much further after he made it clear to Whis he wasn’t going. So yeah, I get people being upset with this one and feel free to be, but it’s not that big a deal?

And of course there’s a big issue with Goku going to meet the two Zen-Oh’s to get them to start the tournament despite Beerus’s warnings, which as we all know is going to result in the two Omni-kings wanting to blow up any universes that lose the tournament. Yeah, this was a stupid move and if things end up going wrong in this saga for a lot of innocent people, it’s all going to be his fault. But let’s unpack his actions in doing this shall we.

Goku knows Zen-oh can be dangerous. He saw the Future Zen-Oh blow up the Future timeline, and he’s heard from Whis and Beerus about the things present Zen-oh has done. He knows the little guys are kinda dangerous and overreact to stuff. But keep in mind, Goku is friends with present Zen-oh. He was able to pick the guy up by the arm and swing him around when they first met without consequence, he was invited to become friends with the guy soon after and the two quickly formed a liking for each other. As far as he’s actually seen, present Zen-oh seems a lot more friendly and probably reasonable than Beerus makes him out to be. Or at least, as he’s Goku’s friend, Goku probably just assumes he can reason with him and the future Zen-oh, especially after he brought them together and ended both their loneliness.

Plus, as far as Goku knew the tournament was going to happen anyway, it was Zen-Oh’s idea. And while the little guy forgot, Goku wouldn’t have known that. He just wanted to go check up on Zen-Oh and ask if he could hold the tournament sometime soon because he was bored waiting for it. Which, if he hadn’t yeah Zen-Oh might have forgot. Or he might have eventually remembered as he and his future counterpart were both clearly bored and wanting something to do, and the Grand Priest might have eventually brought it up anyway as an idea if they ever asked him for something fun they could do. So who’s to say this scenario wouldn’t have happened anyway without Goku’s involvement?

And hey, Zen-Oh gave Goku a button to either summon him or take Goku to his palace anytime he wanted, and since they were friends, what was wrong with doing that at some point from Goku’s point of view? As far as he knew in that situation, Goku wasn’t doing any harm just basically going to ask his friend to play, and Beerus was likely just overreacting. After all, it took seeing his entire multiverse infected by Zamasu’s spirit for Future Zen-Oh to decide to blow up his multiverse, and there was nothing that urgent going on right now. Goku was just too naïve to assume that Zen-oh was really so petty as to destroy any of the universes over a simple tournament. His mistake, but given what he’s actually seen of his timelines Zen-Oh at least, is it really so wrong he had a bit more faith in him to be more reasonable than that? Half the guy’s friends were villains at one point, several of whom had or wanted to destroy worlds, after all, it’s believable for him to have faith in what’s supposed to be the top God and authority of the multiverse who’s also his friend.

Plus, given one moment from the next episode preview which has Goku looking downcast, I think it’s clear Goku’s going to be pretty shocked to find out what his friend plans to do to the losing universe and is going to take it very hard. He’s probably going to be disgusted with himself and guilty for setting all this in motion with his reckless actions and will no doubt work his butt off to fix things throughout the rest of the saga. So, yeah. It was a boneheaded move, but one that’s at least believable and could lead to Goku having to grow up a bit and start acting like the hero he’s supposed to be, which is what we’ve all been wanting, right?

Let’s be honest here. While i’ll gladly fight people who think that being selfish is Goku’s defining character trait and that he’s some kind of heartless jerk, Goku IS a flawed person even when he’s written well. NOT a bad person, NOT a selfish jerk who cares more about his own interests than other people or some awful parent like a lot of dumb people want to believe, but he’s far from perfect even though he’s an overall good person. And being reckless because he wants a good fight is a long established character flaw that’s forced him to make numerous risky decisions throughout his life. Let’s count some, shall we.

During his fight with Piccolo jr after he freed Kami, Kami offered to help Goku finish Piccolo off so to keep the world safe, but Goku strongly refused to accept any help because he wanted to finish Jr himself. This despite the fact that Kami made it clear that no one else would have been capable of beating Piccolo Jr and that the Earth was in danger if he wasn’t stopped. But Goku refused to accept any help, which was explicitly stated to be down to his warriors spirit craving a great battle. He won thankfully, but if he had lost it could have been disastrous. Best case scenario is that Kami would have had Tien or somebody kill him to also finish off Piccolo, which would have meant no Dragon Balls and Goku was dead, so when Raditz showed up the world was completely screwed. Worst case, Piccolo goes on to kill the rest of the gang before that and goes on to mess things up for the earth… and then Raditz comes along and makes everything worse anyway. Goku could have accepted the help to make the fight easier, but he refused.

And that wasn’t the only occasion he made a stupid decision for the sake of having a good fight. Begging Krillin to spare Vegeta’s life. Staying on the exploding Namek because he wanted to finish fighting Frieza. Not trying to stop Dr Gero straight after Trunks warned him and the Z Warriors about the Androids because he agreed with Vegeta that it could be a fun fight. And I’m sure there’s instances I’m forgetting but this post is getting long. Point is, all of these decisions were incredibly reckless decisions at face value and could have resulted in disaster if not for a mix of good fortune and some outright miracles. Things arguably turned out better because of the decisions he made for the long run since several character got to reform or otherwise become stronger because of those experiences. But it’s important to remember that Goku wasn’t always thinking clearly in those moments.

I think between Goku Black and this current saga, Super is trying to explore the idea of what if Goku’s recklessness in his search for a great fight ultimately backfired for a change and resulted in the kind of bad outcomes you’d expect them to. His obnoxious (Though not ill intended) pestering for Zamasu to fight him helped steer him down the path of evil and resulted in the guy stealing his body in another timeline to do horrible things with it, and part of the fallout of that (And a lot of other things like Future Trunks’ originally going back in time to save Goku from the heart virus) ultimately lead to the Future Timeline being destroyed. Which puts a lot more weight on the current situation.

Let’s not beat around the bush. We know universe 7 isn’t going to be destroyed because this is set before EoZ. But the other universes could be, or at least some of them. There’s no mention of any universes other than the one we know at the end of the manga, so who’s to say at least one of them couldn’t be destroyed in all this. With the Future Timeline being erased and the current situation with the two Zen-Oh’s, anything’s possible. And if the other universes were to be destroyed along with their inhabitants, all of that blood would be on Goku’s hands.

The stakes are high. Goku is going to have to contend with the fact that his actions have put lives at risk. He didn’t mean it, he wasn’t trying to hurt anyone and he thought he was just doing something that would lead to him and a lot of other warriors having some fun, so he wasn’t being a terrible person with his actions here. But this grim situation is his fault, and he’s going to have to learn a lesson from this, grow as a character, and do whatever it takes to fix his mess in this saga so that other people don’t suffer. Because he’s the hero, and he won’t allow people to die because of him.

We can argue about whether or not Goku is truly a selfish person or not and whether he actually needs to learn to be less selfish (I don’t think he does). But he IS reckless. This sort of situation is the result of a recurring flaw with his character that he needs to finally confront and overcome if he’s going to become the wise mentor that teaches Uub to be Earth’s new guardian in the future.

And more importantly, Super really needs to find a way to re-rail his character already. I’ve said before I find Goku in this show more hit or miss than a lot of Goku fans, but that doesn’t mean I’m ignorant to the fact that Goku’s character is being flanderized throughout a lot of it. He’s often made overly stupid, particularly in the Future Trunks saga, he’s less responsible and mature than he used to be and more of a goofball than ever, and occasionally more selfish than he’s supposed to be. I’ll argue there are plenty of episodes where he’s mostly or completely in character, and i don’t really have issue with how he’s portrayed in the first two sagas or even most of the Champa saga, but the show’s writing of Goku is very inconsistent and fans have been very vocal in their displeasure of his portrayal.

So it can’t be understated. Goku NEEDS to start acting more mature, because we’re all fed up with seeing him acting like a flanderized, less Goku-ish version of himself. We don’t want him to be Superman, but we want him to be the hero we know he is, the guy that’s a bit naïve but not a complete idiot who does care about his family and friends whatever his flaws. And while I still argue that not all of Goku’s portrayals in this show have been as bad as fans make it out to be (Some points definitely were, though), he needs to grow some more as a character to get him back to the point he should be at.

So that’s why I really don’t mind that episode 77 emphasized his more selfish and negative qualities, unlike other instances where the show has done that. Because here it actually seems to have a purpose, since all signs seem to point that he’s going to have to confront his more stupid actions here and start acting like his heroic self again. So, basically, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. I hope this leads to Goku acting more mature, or at least a lot less over the top in future stories after this saga (And i still really hope this isn’t the end point for the show). As much as I’m sure we’d all like to have Goku just suddenly act like his old self again and forget all of those stupid moments from previous episodes, all of Goku’s more exaggerated and selfish, battle-crazed moments in this show still happened. It would be lazy writing to just ignore the way he’s been characterized up to this point, they need to actually work on it to get Goku back to the point he’s supposed to be at.

Sure, if this all works out like that then you could say that the end result is that the show derailed his character simply for the point of “Character development” that just resulted in him being in the same place he already was in Z, but that’s how things have worked out, so let’s just cross our fingers and hope he’s at least likeable for the rest of this story so that we can finally move on from being frustrated over his portrayal up to this point. At least for the time being.

Now, this is all just what I think this is all about and speculation based on everything I’ve gather from following the show and everything going on around it. I could be wrong, if Goku ends up being poorly written throughout this saga and these problems aren’t addressed, then alright, episode 77 did just write him terribly and I’ll be angry along with everyone else over how Goku is being treated. But I’m an optimist, I like to believe the best in people, including the show’s writers and Akira Toriyama, who I’m sure mean well and aren’t trying to do an injustice to Goku despite what some detractors might want to think. I’ve been looking forward to this saga very much, so I’m not going to let one episode with some questionable moments for Goku ruin that for me.

So, to sum it up, yeah Goku wasn’t written all that great in this episode. but I think that’s part of the point and I don’t think any of it’s as bad as people are making it out to be. So until we’ve seen at least a few more episodes of this saga and get a good idea about where this story is going and how Goku is going to act throughout, I don’t think we need to be slamming the panic button just yet. I get that some people are just fed up and if that’s the case, okay then. I can’t tell people how to feel and their frustrations are valid, but in all honestly i think we should try to keep calm for now and see where things go with this saga and with Goku’s character.

If anyone cares to read up to this point, I thought the episode itself was fine by the way. i liked the scenes with the two Zen-Oh’s. The colour palette was a bit odd compared to previous episodes, but I guess I didn’t mind it too much and the actual animation seemed fine (Or at least nothing bothered me, I could actually feel a sense of speed and impact with some of the action). I liked Goten in this episode. I thought the scenes with Bulma and Trunks were cute, and Vegeta’s reactions were spot on. Thankfully, I was a bit worried they were going to make him really over the top panicky expectant father here. I chuckled at a few scenes, and overall it set up the story competently.

It wasn’t a great episode, and I did have my issues with a few scenes like Goku and Vegeta’s conversation, but overall it was okay. I wasn’t expecting this episode to be anything special, it just needed to set up the saga, and it did so fine. The good stuff will come later, next episode I’m more excited for because we’ll meet the other Gods of Destruction and see how Goku takes the news of the losing universes (Possibly, they might not in the end) being destroyed, so that should give us a better idea of where this saga is going.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z Movie 3: Tree of Might

Movie time again.    This time around it’s “Tree of Might”, which premiered on July 7, 1990, between Episodes 54 and 55 of the anime.

I feel like this is one of the more popular movies of the lot, but it’s never been high on my list.   There is a lot to appreciate here, but there’s some things that bug me, and I guess they don’t bug anyone else quite as much.    It’s definitely way better than “World’s Strongest”, so I don’t want to overstate my case here.  

The movie opens with a space probe heading for Planet Earth.    Pretty sure someone making this movie had just watched “The Empire Strikes Back.”

On Earth, Bulma, Krillin, Oolong, and Gohan are on a camping trip.   Okay, so I guess there was at least one other meeting between Gohan and Oolong after Movie 2, and this was it.  I’m curious to see if they ever interact in any later films, or the TV series.  

Honestly, I’m not really sure why Oolong would be involved here.    In the last movie, it made sense, because he was the only one who would drag Gohan out on a Dragon Ball hunt, which drove the whole plot.   Here’s he’s just chilling out with the trio who went to Namek.   He feels like an odd man out. 

I feel like this movie is angling at being an epilogue to the Namek Saga, since it depicts everyone safe and sound on Earth.  It doesn’t fit well with continuity, but the Namek Saga was still in progress when this movie came out, so I can’t blame the writers there.   In any case, the implication is that Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan all got back to Earth, and the first thing they wanted to do together was spend some quality time with Oolong.  

Anyway, Gohan’s mom made him pack a ton of stuff he probably wouldn’t need for a camping trip.

Nearby, that probe lands in the forest and the heat of the impact starts a fire!  Ruh-roh!

Krillin wakes up to the smell of burning everything, and we see all the animals fleeing in terror, including this little dragon.

Krillin tells Gohan to use his ki to put out the flames.   

While they do that, Gohan notices the dragon trapped under a... log?    It looks more like a really long piece of rock, but I don’t know what you’d even call that.    Gohan lifts it up and the dragon moves to safety.

Later, the fire’s out, but the forest is still ruined, and the gang feels sorry for all the homeless animals.   I don’t know, maybe I’m jaded, but I always found it a little cloying how all the animals just stand around at the edge of the forest, looking all sad, like they’re neighbors or whatever.    I don’t know what real deer do in a real forest fire.   Maybe they just die, but I’m pretty sure the ones who don’t just keep running until they find somewhere else to live.   

Then Krillin has a great idea...

Dragon Ball Z!   Wow, this is a great idea, Krillin.   This show kicks ass, but unfortunately they already made it, so it’s not really your idea, you know?

But seriously, Krilln plans to track down the Dragon Balls just so they can wish to have the forest restored.     In lieu of the usual opening credits, we get this montage of the gang collecting the Dragon Balls.    Here’s Gohan flying an aircraft.    I’d ask why they thought this made sense, but they had Gohan fly an aircraft in the last movie, so whoever made Tree of Might can just claim that the precedent was already set.  

Just a thought, but maybe the reason Gohan does all this zany stuff is because Chi-Chi makes him study too much.   By that I mean, she wants him to become a scholar, but for some reason she made him read an entire pilot manual, just in case it ever came up in some entrance exam.    We’ve seen how well Gohan absorbs information, so naturally  he’d finish the book and want to try it out for himself.    Chi-Chi probably made him read a book about lion taming, and then she wonders why Gohan ran off to join the circus.

Here’s a variation on the OP, only with a dinosaur chasing Gohan instead of Bulma.    Gohan ought to be strong enough to kick that dinosaur’s ass, though.

For some reason, Tien and Chiaotzu happen to be jogging by while they’re at it.    Small world, I guess.

And then Gohan shows up with the last ball.  Good thing, too.   The theme song was almost over.

And finally we get the title card.   Granted, these trees in the background don’t look very mighty, but bear with us, we’re getting to that.

DRAGON DRAGON!   ROCK THE DRAGON!   DRAGON!   BALL! Z!

DRAGON DRAGON!   ROCK THE DRAGON!   COME!  COME GET ME!

The sight of Shenron panics that little dragon Gohan saved, and it tries to attack him?   That seems like an unusual response.   Gohan calls him “Haiya Dragon”, so I guess he named him off-screen?   

In the English dub, the dragon was named “Icarus”, which I frankly prefer, because what kind of name is “Haiya Dragon” , anyway?   That’d be like naming your son “Hello Human.”

Shenron flails his tail around, and maybe he was getting ready to slap some sense into Icarus, or maybe he didn’t even notice the guy.   Anyway, Gohan holds Icarus back and makes their wish.

And the forest is saved!   I assume the gang finished their camping trip and went home.    All the animals return to their burrows and trees and bushes or whatever, and the probe robot crawls out of its crater.   Wait, that can’t be good.

The probe sends signals back to a group of aliens.   They confirm the presence of life signs on Earth, although no one can believe it, because they know the Saiyan Kakarot was sent to Earth, and he should have wiped out all of its life a long time ago.  

Okay, but why did they bother sending the probe if they didn’t think there would be anything there worth finding?    Well, anyway, the probe reports that Earthis a suitable environment for the Shinseijuu Tree, which is Japanese for “Divine Essence Tree” Tree.    Um, I think the subtitles goofed a little.   I’m just gonna call it the Tree of Might.   

That reminds me, the actual title of this movie is Chikyū Marugoto Chōkessen, which means “A Super-decisive Battle for Earth.”   It’s also been called “Super Battle In the World”, which sounds pretty dumb.   For some reason, most of the movies have Japanese titles that absolutely refuse to indicate what they’re about.     Literally every DBZ movie could have been called “A Super-decisive Battle for Earth.”    Well, I guess Movie 6 was a battle for New Namek, but Meta-Cooler would have attacked Earth eventually.

Later, we find Goku and Gohan chillaxing in the oil drum they bathe in.    Chi-Chi’s tending the fire that keeps the water hot.    Does Chi-Chi bathe in this thing?  She’d have to, right?    I’m surprised that erotic DBZ  fan artists haven’t jumped all over that concept.    “Oh, now that the fire’s going and I’ve taken off my clothes, I can climb into this oil drum and take a bath!    It’s a good think I live in the middle of nowhere, so no one can see my boobs!”  

But then Icarus shows up and frightens Chi-Chi until Gohan explains who he is.   Chi-Chi immediately takes a dislike to the creature, and I’m with her on this one.   Icarus is a stand-up dude and all, but he looks kind of creepy.   He’s supposed to be cute, but he ends up looking like one of those Precious Moments figurines.

Chi-Chi tells Gohan to take the dragon back where he came from.   Goku tries to stick up for him, but she won’t hear of it.   

Gohan shoves Icarus away, but let’s be real here, he could carry Icarus all the way back to his forest if he really wanted to.

Then Goku leads them both to this cave he fixed up as a hideout for Icarus.   This seems pretty dumb.   Goku tells him not to let Chi-Chi know about this, but how did Chi-Chi find out about Icarus in the first place?   He followed Gohan to the house where she could see him.   

But Icarus is grateful, and he licks Goku.   See, Goku looks way, way cuter than Icarus.    They really tried to hard with Icarus’ design.  

Meanwhile, Yamcha’s cruising around in a car he bought with a 15-year loan, when suddenly he gets blasted out of the sky by...

... one of these assholes, I guess.    If I understand correctly, they blasted a big crater in the ground so they could plant their Tree of Might seed, but I don’t really understand why they couldn’t just use a gardening spade.    

Tell you what, let’s go over these guys names right now.   The big red one in the center is Amond.     The guy on the left is Daiz.   He wears pink leg warmers.  

The alien in the silver armor is Cacao.   I think he’s a cyborg, but who cares?  And the two little purple guys are Rasin and Lakasei.   They’re all wearing Frieza Soldier gear, so does that mean they work for Frieza?   Well, we’ll get to that.

The seed starts growing almost as soon as it hits the soil.   

Meanwhile, the aliens’ mysterious leader notes that this was all made possible by Goku’s failure to destroy the planet’s population as he was supposed to do.

The Tree of Might is huge, to the point where its roots erupt underneath a whole city, which I’m pretty sure is miles away from the forest where it was planted.

In the forest, Icarus watches this enormous tree finish growing, and he knows things are looking bad.

Meanwhile, most of the major Dragon Ball characters have gotten together at Goku’s house.   I’m not sure why.    Also, they didn’t invite Launch, which is kind of bullshit.   

Bulma gives Yamcha shit for buying such an expensive car, and accuses him of trying to impress girls.   So yeah, about the continuity of this movie.     These characters won’t be reunited on Planet Earth until Episode 120 of the TV series.   By the time that happens, Gohan’s a few years older, and Goku’s learned to turn into a Super Saiyan, so this whole movie just doesn’t fit.    Nevertheless, it seems to depict a possible scenario where the good guys managed to return safely from Namek and wish all their dead friends back to life.    In other words, this is the first time Bulma and Yamcha are seen together again since his death in the Saiyans Saga, and what is she doing?    Yeah.

Same, Tien, same.    Chiaotzu’s not gonna let this stop him from enjoying free refreshments though.

Then Icarus shows up at the window, and Goku and Gohan get caught trying to keep him, but they miss the fact that Icarus came back to warn them about the Tree of Might.   Too bad he can’t talk.

Fortunately, King Kai can talk, and he can communicate with Goku telepathically, and he warns him about the Tree of Might.    Well, “warn” might not be the right word.    According to King Kai, the Earth was doomed the moment the tree took root.    It’s basically a parasite on a planetary scale.    As it grows, it sucks the nutrients and life force from the host planet, reducing the whole world to a lifeless desert.

So where does something like the Tree of Might come from?   King Kai says it was originally grown so that the gods could eat its fruit.    That sounds halfway plausible, until you consider that a lot of the “gods” in this franchise aren’t nearly as awe-striking as the Tree of Might.    It’s hard to imagine someone like Kami planting a tree like this, destroying a whole planet just to eat its fruit.    King Kai literally cooks his own meals, and he seems to eat the same stuff as everyone else.     King Yama has a tree in hell that bears fruit reserved specially for him, but it’s not nearly as big as this one.   I could imagine Beerus snacking on fruit from a tree that kills whole planets, but he’ll settle for cup ramen.    More importantly, Beerus and his ilk wouldn’t be introduced to the franchise for another 23 years.

I’m not sure what King Kai is trying to tell Goku.    If it’s too late, why bother telling him about this at all?   Is he trying to suggest that Goku should evacuate the planet? 

Well, King Kai should know better, because Goku stone cold does not give a shit.    As soon as he hears about this crisis, he immediately makes plans to go beat up a tree.   His plan: Let’s all go shoot it with our best hand lasers.   Diagnosis: Awesome.

Then they all put their hands together in a show of solidarity.     It’s time to show that tree who’s boss!    Look at Chiaotzu.    He’s literally lying on top of the table just to reach the others.

Then Gohan tries to join in, because hell yeah.   Gohan can help.   He fires some really good hand lasers, especially for his age.

But his mommy said no, so he’s gotta stay home.    Better luck next time, kid.

Krillin notes that his wish to restore the forest was a total waste, since this stupid Tree of Might wrecked it all over again.     I think the whole point of that forest fire was just to give the characters a reason to use the Dragon Balls early, so that way they wouldn’t be able to wish their way out of this situation.    I’m not sure Shenron could remove a tree this huge, but it’s a moot point now.   The Dragon Balls won’t work again for another year.

So they shoot their finest energy blasts at the base of the tree, and it does nothing.   Krillin suggests another try, but Yamcha points out that if they use too much power they could destroy the Earth instead.

Then these jerks show up.   Okay, so this is one thing that’s always bugged me about this movie.   From here on, much of the action takes place on the Tree of Might itself, so you end up with a lot of indistinct backgrounds which are probably meant to be super-giant tree bark.   It just makes it hard to tell where anyone is in relation to anything else.   What exactly are they sitting on here?   Why does the Tree of Might have all these convenient ledges and horizontal surfaces for people to stand on? 

Yamcha demands vengeance for his dearly departed car.   Uh, yeah...   Whatever gets you in the zone, buddy.

The boys square up for a fight.    You know, I remember watching parts of this movie on Toonami back in 1999, and scenes like this, and Yamcha’s appearancs in the Frieza Saga, were really my first introduction to the character.   What really stood out for me was that he looked almost exactly like Goku.    Kind of like how Flash Thompson was a big fan of Spider-Man, and one time he dressed up as Spidey for a Halloween party, and the real Spider-Man had to trick Green Goblin into thinking that Flash was the real thing.    It just really looks like Yamcha is this jock who decided to dress up like Goku because he loves Goku so much.

Anyway, these two guys do some dumb shit.   I really hate Rasin and Lakasei.    Just... everything about them sucks.   They sound terrible in every dub, they look like inflamed hemorrhoids, and they do absolutely nothing to move the story forward.   

Tien blinds them with the Solar Flare, and that’s about the only effective offense the Z-Figthers manage in this whole movie.

It’s really a shame, because this is one of the few movies that actually bothers to use Yamcha, Tien, an Chiaotzu, and they get jobbed out.   Would it have been so bad to have Yamcha use his Spirit Ball on Cacao and actually hurt him?  Krillin’s Kienzan is one of the more serious techniques in the series, so I might have been cool to actualy see him kill somebody with it.     I’m pretty sure Chiaotzu has never won a fight in Dragon Ball up to this point.    Would it have been so bad to just let him kill Rasin?     But no.  

I always wondered why they included Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu in this particular movie, but now that I’m watching them in sequence with the anime, it makes some sense.    Around this time, the TV series had just revealed that they were training with King Kai in the afterlife, and one could certainly speculate that they would get resurrected later on, and play a role in the final battle with Frieza and/or Vegeta.   I think “Tree of Might” was trying to play along with that idea, except it never actually pays it off.    

Chiaotzu is in trouble for a while, until Gohan suddenly shows up to help.  Turns out Icarus managed to bring him to the forest where the battle was going on, so now he’s here to turn the tide.    Or something.

This attracts the attention of the boss alien, who recognizes Gohan as a Saiyan.

So he goes out to meet the kid, and realizes that he must be Kakarot’s son.   He introduces himself as Turles and...

Yeah, he looks like Goku.  That’s the big twist.  

Only it’s not much of a twist at all.   Turles explains that it’s not even that big a deal that he and Goku look alike, since they’re both “disposable, lower-class warriors.”   According to Turles, low-class Saiyans “only come in a few types.”  

I’ve seen this line interpreted in many different ways.    Some fans have suggested that the Saiyans cloned their low-class warriors.   I think a lot of fans prefer the idea that Turles an Goku might be related somehow.  Bardock and Goten’s close resemblance to Goku seems to support this.    Hell, Gohan looks a lot like Goku if you don’t take the hair into account.  

I think there’s always been a desire to make something more out of Turles than what the movie offers.    The fact that he looks like an evil Goku is easily the most intriguing thing about the character, and this movie does absolutely nothing with it.   Turles himself acts like it doesn’t matter, and Gohan is the only character who even seems to notice.   So why did they bother making him look like Goku in the first place?

I feel like part of the idea here was to explore the idea of what Goku might have been like if he hadn’t hit his head and turned good.  Turles could be a glimpse into what Kakarot might have done as a villain, although he’s so different from the real Goku that it doesn’t seem all that convincing.   They could have made him look like another Saiyan, and it wouldn’t really affect anything.  

Turles’ main personality trait is that he seems to want to recruit Gohan and Goku to his cause, saying that Saiyans should stick together.    I’m not sure if he truly believes that, or if he just thinks that his gang could use a couple more Saiyan lackeys.   He talks up the space pirate life as an endless romp around the universe, taking whatever he wants and enjoying food and drink as he pleases.  Again, I don’t know if that’s a genuine sentiment, or if it’s just his recruitment pitch.

Piccolo shows up and tries to save Gohan, but Turles makes short work of him, and goes back to tormenting the kid.

Turns out he can make one of those fake moon things just like Vegeta.

He forces Gohan to look at it, and then he destroys it as soon as Gohan turns into a giant ape.

He says it’s because he doesn’t want to turn into a giant ape himself, but why wouldn’t he?    Why did he turn Gohan into a giant ape?    He doesn’t need any help to beat the Z-Fighters.   Is he trying to prove a point?  Gohan won’t even remember anything he did in ape form.   Also, shouldn’t the transformation wear off once the fake moon is gone?   Turles accounts for this by saying it’ll stick for a little while, even after the power ball is gone, but that doesn’t sound right.    When Piccolo blew up the moon, Gohan changed back immediately.

For that matter, what good is the fake moon technique if it can be dispersed so easily?    Krillin could have attacked it during the Goku/Vegeta fight instead of trying to cut off Vegeta’s tail.

So now Goku has to fight his own son in giant ape form.    To the movie’s credit, this is a big highlight, because it’s the only DBZ movie to feature a giant ape transformation.    And that’s all well and good, but it seems kind of empty to me because I have no idea why Turles set this up.   Does he want Gohan to kill Goku?   Is that supposed to make Gohan more eager to join him?

The fight ends up in a cavern, which I think turns out to be the same cave Goku used as a home for Icarus.   That, or Icarus just happened to be here.   Either way, just seeing Icarus calms Gohan down.

This is cute and all, but it seems odd that Oozaru Gohan would react so strongly to Icarus when he didn’t even recognize his own father.

Irritated, Turles tries to attack Icarus, which turns Gohan against him.    Turles tries to kill Gohan with a laser donut...

But Goku cuts off Gohan’s tail before it can hit him, and he shrinks back to little kid size just in time to fall through the donut.   I guess it’s lucky that Turles relies on donut-shaped attacks.

Turles then offers to spare Goku if he pledges to join him, but Goku refuses.   He came her to whip a tree’s ass, and if Turles is pro-tree, then he can get wrecked along with it.   

Then all of these creeps show up to fight Goku first.    See, this is dumb.    They not only made a clean sweep of Goku’s teammates, they didn’t even defeat them on screen!   

Here’s a shot of Tien passing out from the hypothetical beating he took from Amond or some other guy.   

Well, at least this sets up a cool scene where Goku has to fight them all by himself, right?   Not really, Goku squashes them all in  matter of seconds.

Meanwhile, Piccolo tries to take on Turles, but he’s just no match for him.

Boom, roasted.

I mean, why couldn’t Yamcha take this guy out?  What was the point of having Yamcha in the movie if Goku was going to beat all the bad guys by himself?

With the rabble cleared away, Goku finally gets down to business.   Turles panics when he sees how strong Goku is, so he runs away...

...and picks a piece of fruit from the Tree of Might.    Why does he stick his tongue out to eat it?   That just looks kind of weird.  

Basically, the fruit of the Tree of Might ramps up a person’s battle power, which allows Turles to overpower Goku with ease.    This is the core concept with Turles, I think.    The challenge with this movie was to invent a new villain who could challenge Goku in the same manner as Vegeta and Frieza.   Well, that’s a tall order, because Frieza was hyped as the strongest guy in the whole universe.    A Saiyan villain would have made sense, except Vegeta was the strongest Saiyan, and the only one left.     To introduce a new Saiyan, you’d have to explain why he’d be strong enough to rival Vegeta or Frieza.

The solution is the Tree of Might.    I can’t find the line now, but there’s a part of the movie where Turles or one of his crew mention that the Tree of Might will make Turles strong enough to defeat Frieza.   It’s pretty clear, then, that he’s a renegade from Frieza’s organization.     They have their old uniforms, but instead of working for Frieza, they just roam the universe looking for places to plant their Tree of Might seeds.    They grow a new tree, eat the fruit, get stronger, and then repeat the process.   Turles started out as a weakling like Goku once was, but he found a way to cheat the system, and now he’s on his way to becoming the strongest in the universe.  

Turles leaves Goku when he refuses to surrender, and then Goku’s friends speak to him telepathically.   I’m not sure when they learned to do that, but whatever.   They beg Goku to get up and try a Spirit Bomb, and Goku finally musters the strength to try it.

While he does that, the Z-Fighters assemble for one last stand against Turles.   I guess this is supposed to buy time for Goku, but I’m not sure he needs it.   Turles isn’t actually doing anything at the moment.  

But it doesn’t work.   The Spirit Bomb relies on borrowng life energy from everything on the planet, and that’s been drained away by the Tree of Might, so Turles thwarts Goku’s attack with ease.    Oh, he also clobbered the Z-Fighters, so they’re down too.  Triumphantly, Turles looks at his fruit crop.    Where exactly is this that he’s standing right now?   

But Goku isn’t beaten yet.    He drags himself back into the fight, and confronts Turles one more time.

See, this time, Goku has a way to make the Spirit Bomb work.   If all of the Earth’s energy is in the Tree of Might...

... then he’ll just draw the energy from the fruit instead of the planet, and make a Spirit Bomb from that.

There’s this tense standoff, and then they both attack each other in a single instant, and Goku’s Spirit Bomb wins out.    I always have trouble remembering how this movie ends, and I think it’s because the climactic moment is so quick.    I’m pretty sure they tried to imitate a gunfight from a western. 

Turles gets consumed by the Spirit Bomb, and it drives him up through the trunk of the Tree of Might.   Really, this makes a lot of sense as a finale.   Turles’ trump card was to eat one piece of fruit from the tree, but Goku drew power from all of the fruit, so naturally his Spirit Bomb would be stronger than anything Turles could handle.   And it’s an elegant solution to the problem posed by the tree.   It was completely invulnerable to Goku’s own power, so he ended up using the Tree of Might’s own energy against itself.

All of this causes the Tree to glow yellow and disintigrate into sparkles of light, which rejuvenate all life on Earth.

So this dying deer is okay again, and presumably so is everything else.

Later, everyone celebrates with another camping trip.    Launch got snubbed again.

Oolong tries to praise Icarus for his role in the battle, but Icarus nearly bites him.

And Piccolo sort of chills out by a waterfall somewhere, and that’s the end of the movie.   

So it’s a pretty decent entry in the movie series, but I find it to be a mixed bag.   The highlights are things that don’t quite get developed enough.   Yeah, you have Turles, Great Ape Gohan, Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu, but for my money, merely having those things in the movie isn’t enough.    It’s what you do with them that counts.    I find it particularly frustrating that the Dragon Ball Wiki has all this lore on Turles’ gang, but none of it ever made it into the movie itself, which is their only appearance.    What’s the point in having a backstory for Daiz if it never comes up anywhere?     His entire character arc was blowing up Yamcha’s car, and then getting decked by Goku. 

Still, if you like Spirit Bombs, this is one of the best Spirit Bomb finishes ever.    And the Tree of Might is a pretty cool idea.   And the visuals are a big step up from World’s Strongest.   

[tigerlover16-uk]

If you’re open. For one, japanese polls show fans wanted Yamcha for the tournament. Super had filler mocking Yamcha as a loser who Gohan & Co try to prevent from learning of the tournament. The latest Herms translation on a Q&A for the Anime on why Yamcha wasn’t at the tournament, gave Goku's reason as he(Goku) thought little of Yamcha. I'd call that a dig, personally. If I was writing Super's I wouldn't do stuff things like that as they further divide, anger, or alienate the fandom for Super.

Hmm, okay I see your points there, and it’s understandable that Yamcha fans are upset.

Okay, for one thing though… how do you know the stuff with Yamcha in the saga isn’t Toriyama’s idea? The whole thing with him just expecting to be recruited and going home to wait seems more like an excuse to keep him out of the plot than a dig at the fans. And while I get taking issue with that idea… let’s think about it from a creative standpoint.

The tournament only has ten spots available. Extending the rosters to include more members would put a lot more work on Toriyama, Toyotaro and any other character designers at Toei to come up with that many more characters from other universes, of which this saga basically has close to a hundred new ones.

Each character is there for a reason. Goku and Vegeta can’t not be on the roster. Gohan’s been set up for his comeback for a while, and Piccolo can’t be passed up. Krillin is Goku’s best friend and the strongest earthling, so he has to be there. Android 18 is the only high tier action girl in the Z fighters, and Android 17 was brought back because he’s underdeveloped and hasn’t been seen since his cameo at the end of the Buu saga. So this was the perfect opportunity to use him, since this whole tournament setting benefits from teamwork between the warriors. Majin Buu was initially chosen to fill out a spot because he’s the most powerful non-saiyan. Master Roshi is on the roster because a running theme of this saga seems to involve experience and skill at fighting being often more valuable than raw power, and master Roshi is the wise old master character. He fits with that better than anyone else.

Tien is really the only one without a clearly definited role or reason for being here other than that he’s strong and fans love him. His role from what we’ve seen and the synopsis for the next episode seems to mainly be about supporting the other characters. A role Yamcha could have easily filled too, but then you’d have Tien fans angry that he was being excluded to service Yamcha, so either character gets the short end of the stick however that played out.

Frieza taking up Majin Buu’s spot seems to be a major plot point for the saga, because Toriyama wouldn’t bring him back again unless he has a good reason. But of course, Toei needed an excuse for why any other character couldn’t have been brought up by the Z fighters when Majin Buu started hibernating, because seriously, that’s a huge risk that’s not worth taking if there’s a better option.

Goten and Trunks were explained away because they’re too young, inexperienced and uncoordinated for this kind of tournament. Not unfounded, given how they handled fighting Majin Buu as Gotenks.

Yamcha though, he was an obvious back up choice for if one of the other characters couldn’t compete, and obviously viewers were going to notice that. And even if he wasn’t written as wanting to get back into fighting, he would never refuse such an offer knowing the universe was at stake.

So an excuse had to be made, since Toriyama wanted Frieza for some yet to be reached plot reason (Notice that character’s like Jaco weren’t even acknowledged and they skipped out on the chance to canonize Pikkon aswell, like some fans wanted).

And there was a way around it. Yamcha had already retired from fighting back at the Cell saga, Goku knows this by now and so wouldn’t expect Yamcha to still be in fighting shape by this time. Keep in mind, back in the Champa saga he initially turned down Vegeta’s suggestion to recruit Gohan, not because he thought he was a bad choice, but because he knew Gohan was rusty and not really a fighter anymore, and they needed someone who could already fight at their best for the tournament. As soon as Goku learned that Gohan had been training with Piccolo and he asked Goku if he could compete, Goku was more than okay with it until the conference thing came up.

Same thing probably would apply to Yamcha in this tournament. Goku didn’t even know who he wanted for the tenth member until Oolong told him Roshi was with Tien. He had no real reason to assume Yamcha would have wanted to join the roster, since he’d been out of fighting so long. And the only chance he would have got to recruit Yamcha was at Bulma’s place, and as soon as the tournament came up Yamcha was all like “Hey, I wanna join too!! But wait, maybe I should wait for them to ask me? Yeah, that’s it, I’ll go home and wait, then turn em down, and then make a grand entrance at the last minute”

It was silly and a bit weird since Yamcha’s not one for showboating usually (Though not necessarily above doing silly things), but it got him out of the way long enough for Goku to recruit a full team and then Frieza. It’s not clear if this whole situation was Toriyama’s or Toei’s idea, but Toriyama was definitely the one to decide the roster and who was going to do what in this saga. So he would have been responsible for Yamcha not competing anyway, so I wouldn’t put the situation above him. Heck, it feels like something he probably thought up on the spot while he was writing the outline, wrote it down real quick and didn’t too hard about it before handing it off to Toei and Toyotaro, who were stuck with it at that point. We’ll know for sure what exactly the situation is when the manga’s a bit further ahead and we see what Toyotaro’s excuse is. If it’s more or less exactly the same, then we can safely say it was Toriyama’s idea and thus not filler by Toei.

Also, where did Gohan or anyone try to hide that the tournament was happening from Yamcha or demean him over it. Goku and co mentioned the tournament was happening right in front of him, that’s what caused him to suddenly run off the way he did. No one ever said he couldn’t be in the tournament, nor did they mock him over it. They just didn’t think to ask him, because again, Goku and the others knew he was supposedly retired and thus didn’t immediately think of him as a candidate any more than they did Videl. Everyone acted pretty normally around him, the only exception being Vegeta showing annoyance when Bulla started crying, but the same thing had just happened when Mr Satan tried to make her laugh so that wasn’t anything against Yamcha. Just a throw away gag.

Oolong is the only character who tried to dance around the subject, and that was when Yamcha directly asked him if the others might recruit him after the roster had already been filled, and Oolong didn’t want to disappoint him. Otherwise, there’s no implication anybody would have turned him down or derided his fighting ability if he had just openly asked about the tournament when he had the chance. They didn’t think twice about having Yamcha play baseball with them, because they all knew he was great at that and he would have been the most useful person to help out.

It’s sad that Yamcha ended up screwing himself out of a place on the team, but that was more due to his own ego, not because any of the other characters thought badly about him. Nothing about his scenes really paints him as pathetic or a loser, just that he had gotten ahead of himself and made a silly mistake.

I don’t think this running gag was meant to deride or attack the character. Otherwise the writers would have had the characters openly mock him a lot more, turn him down when he asked, and have him end up feeling dejected. But he wasn’t especially upset at all when the others left to fight in the tournament. He was sheepish and embarrassed with himself when Puar expressed sympathy for him being left out, and he looked rightfully suspicious about Frieza, but he ultimately laughed it off as one of those things, and when everybody did leave he got serious for a moment and wished them luck, saying that they had to win. Which goes to show that Yamcha has his priorities straight and that the fate of the universe matters more than him getting a chance to strut his stuff.

This entire situation could have definitely been handled better and wasn’t a funny joke, but honestly I don’t get the feeling that Yamcha was being intentionally derided or mocked by the writers. If anything, the joke seems to be that he could have probably avoided the situation he made for himself and got what he wanted if he stopped being silly and just asked Goku directly if he could be on the team. Which, again, dumb joke. Not necessarily an attack at the character, or his fans.

The thing with the Q & A sounds suspicious, I agree, and I can’t really say too much without knowing the full context. It could be just the one person doing the interview giving it his own two cents and not really talking for Toriyama or the writing staff, in which case shame on him. Or maybe the intention was lost, and he’s just meaning that in the sense that Goku didn’t think of Yamcha because he’s been out of the game so long that he’s probably very out of shape, similar to his reasoning with Gohan for the U6 tournament. Which, that’s not too bad, though not exactly fair on Yamcha either. I dunno, feel free to be annoyed with that one.

I get being upset with how Yamcha’s been treated. I’m not really happy with it either, I’d love to see more done with Yamcha because I do love his character, I’m just not offended or angry because I don’t think there’s any intentional disrespect towards him. Just that the writers aren’t sure what to do with his character, since Toriyama clearly isn’t giving them anything for him to do in the main stories. Which, yeah that’s not a good excuse, but it’s one I can live with, and it’s what feels like the case rather than them having it out for the guy.

It’s good to hear that Japanese fans wanted more of Yamcha. Maybe that’ll encourage Toei to push Toriyama to do something with him in the future, or maybe give him his own story’s or character arc in a breather episode or two after this saga wraps up. Maybe finally give him a girlfriend that doesn’t treat him like Bulma did. For all we know, Toei and Toriyama might just not have considered that he had so much support while planning the saga.

Although, a lot of Western fans wanted Cell on the roster instead of Frieza, and that wouldn’t necessarily have been for the better in terms of the story. Sometimes what fans want isn’t always going to be in the best interests of the story. We already had two characters, Krillin and Gohan, who’s had to have character arcs developed about them wanting to pick up martial arts again and get stronger leading into and during the current saga, three if you count Master Roshi given his interaction with Ganos in today’s episode and the “secret training” he’s apparently been doing for a while for years now to be able to fight fairly in the tournament of power.

Having the last remaining character besides Videl who had given up being a martial artist and more active member of the Z fighters, and that might start feeling redundant or pushing things too far, having so many characters suddenly getting stronger again so soon to the level that they can seriously compete with the warriors from the other universes. I mean, look around at how many people are outright angry for some reason that Krillin was able to put up any kind of fight against people at all.

And none of this is to say that leaving Yamcha out and have him play so little a role in Super so far is justified or that you can’t be disappointed and annoyed over it as a fan of the character, or how it’s been handled. Feel free to do so. And you have a point being concerned that this might make the divides in the fandom even worse, though that’s more down to the idiots in the fandom being stupid and fueling their own confirmation biases than anything. Same reason I don’t truly hate TFS for the problems they’ve caused, because at least several members like Kaiserneko acknowledge their bad influence and they never meant to create such levels of toxicity in the fandom. Careless fans who can’t understand that something is a parody are responsible for that.

you have a right to be mad. But personally, I don’t think any of these things are intentionally digs at fans so much as they are ignorance on Toei’s part. Who knows, maybe Toriyama actually has a plan and this thing with Yamcha this saga is actually leading to something down the line, won’t know until we’re a lot further into Super. Things could improve, but it is frustrating the way things are going so far and I don’t blame you for being in a bad mood.

I don’t think the situation’s as bad as you do, but then again maybe I’m just not as passionate about Yamcha as you are and I see things from a different perspective. This is all I can really say on the subject, I’m sure I can’t really do much to change your mind and you do have some good points and reasons to feel the way you do.

Let’s both just hope that things start looking up for Yamcha in the future, and that Toyotaro doesn’t actually have the characters directly insult Yamcha for wanting to compete or something like that when he gets further ahead in the manga. Because honestly with his writing, I wouldn’t put it past him to do exactly what you think the anime is doing.