While every other battle shonen has a teenage boy trying to save the world for a main character, Dragon Ball has Goku. He is the only battle shonen main character where his journey involves him being a kid, a teenager, a man, a father and a grandfather. Where you see his journey take up decades of his life, through his teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s. And you go through it with him.
It kinda bothers me that it's been 40 years since Dragon Ball but no other battle shonen has done this yet. In other battle shonens they introduce villains that trained for 30 years to achieve their power. And then they are beaten by a 16 years old lol. Or they introduce war arcs that are basically 1 battle. A war that is either a day or a week. But in the lore the previous wars took generation. It's just annoying. It makes the show harder to digest.
This I think is the main reason why an old crusty show like Dragon Ball still has a solid fannase even today. I mean Dragon Ball is the founding father of battle shonen. I mean dozens of newer popular big hits shonens were released since the 90s. But every time they make the character a teenager from start to end. With only one 2 years timeskip or whatever. Non of them did it like Goku and this sucks. I understand that the target audience is teenagers but can't we have at least 1 shonen with a story that takes decades of the main character's life to tell. Like just put him through a lot to be the world's strongest, savior or or whatever. And instead of having the main character get married and have kids in the ending of the story. Let him do that in the middle of the story. And devolpe his families characters and the relations between them.
also this usually helps give the ending and finale episode more weight. Seeing Goku deliberately go to kame house to cheer up a 60 years old Krillin, and spar with him/letting him land a punch all before Roshi's eyes was very sweet. Same thing with Goku visiting Piccolo in hell and telling him that he has put him through a lot of trouble and apologizing for not being able to do anything. it's such a great ending.
and having scenes from the beginning of the story to the end were on screen while Dan Dan Kokoro was playing in the background was just the best
True and based. To this day Dragon Ball is the only manga that did time progression right. >Naruto tried but failed miserably with Boruto >One Piece had one horrible time skip and that's it >Bleach kind of did it right but it became bad for other reasons Dragon Ball will still reign as the king of Shonens in the future because is the only one that keeps evolving at the same rate the audience does.
the Naruto to Buroto timeskip doesn't count. Because Naruto's story is over and the main character now is Buroto, a young teenager. And with the current direction of the story, it seems like Buroto is going to save the world instead of the adults that trained all their lives (Naruto / Sasuke / Kakashi / etc..)
and having scenes from the beginning of the story to the end being* on screen while Dan Dan Kokoro was playing in the background was just the best youtube.com/watch?v=HjRUTosLEmc
trips confirm
Michael Watson
In my personaly opinion, I feel like people only see Dragon Ball as doing time progression right because it was a lot of people's first exposure to it (heck most countries started with Z, not Dragon Ball)
If Dragon Ball was a little more up ahead in time, I feel like people may not have liked timeskip events as much
Owen Ortiz
Well you also see Naruto as a kid, teenager and adult
Isaac Stewart
Honestly at this point GT is fucking canon, fuck super
Hudson Nguyen
The problem with DB's time progression is that its all off screen. Like we go from Kid Goku to a roughly teenage Goku off screen. We go from that Goku to a Young Adult one off screen. And then we go from that Young Adult Goku to a comfortably adult Goku off screen too.
We don't really see Goku change from one to the other, we just see the before and after of it and are then shown or sometimes told that he's different. Its better that series that run for a long time and don't ever show the characters changing. But it wasn't done particularly greatly.
Anthony Howard
>Better ending than OG DB, Z and Super How the HECK did GT do it?
Lincoln Clark
Reminder that there is not one (1) chance in hell that Goku could even come close to beating Saitama, and that's a fact.
Sebastian Mitchell
GT ending was terrible, Z’s was better
Lincoln Long
No it’s not, Goku was universal with SSG, he is now far stronger, he would literally one shot Saitama
I agree with kid Naruto and teenage Naruto. But Adult Naruto is just a side character
Jaxon Edwards
Dragón ball GT was mostly garbage but the ending was perfect, I I would argue even better than the original manga ending.
Jonathan Ward
This.
Ian Williams
>its all of screen Its that way so we can skip the boring stuff and jump into the next arc. Nothing interesting happens - > Time skip - > Next arc begins Also the skips aren't even really that big to be bothersome, you can get an idea of what happened in those times of peace without asking too many questions.
Connor Murphy
I'm OP but you make a good point. I didn't think about it. Dragon Ball does timeskip in patches. We get a lot of 3 years time skips between arcs / sagas. And sometimes we get a year to three years worth of timeskip just for training within the same arc/saga. And I just remembered that they once did a 7 years timeskip lol. That's a lot now that I think about it.
But my point stands. A lot of newer shonens improved things that Dragon Ball did. So why can't we have at least one shonen that improves this aspect :/
Brayden Bennett
Maybe in the anime but in the manga he appears as much as Boruto, and actually fights the big guys unlike Boruto
Austin Garcia
By supposedly being the endgame of Goku's life.
Ayden Hernandez
What's the secret behind Goku's everlasting popularity? The guy went from a kid to a teenager to a father and then a grandpa but never got stale. What makes him more entertaining than other shounen protags?
Bentley Peterson
marketing
Joshua Williams
non meme answer here It might be the way DBZ and Goku are written. There is always someone out there that's stronger and there is always room for improvement and breaking one's limits. So Goku doesn't have an over arching goal like Naruto and One Piece (becoming hokage / pirate king). And his character doesn't revolve around wanting to protect his friends like Ichigo or Natsu. So while One Piece is one really long story about finding the One Piece and Naruto's story is over when he becomes the Hokage, Dragon Ball can tell a collection of various stories. From stories about martial arts and assassins to stories about alien empires and gods. And this makes it easier for people to brush of a saga they don't like because they loved another saga. And in a market with oversaturated main charectars that cry about friendship 24/7 Goku can be an escape from that. So I guess Dragon Ball is much more casual compared to other shonens in that regard. You don't have a lot of episodes dedicated to flashbacks about tragic stories or whatever. And you're not forced to hear about Nakama power a lot.
Not to mention that Goku has a flat character arc. He doesn't change. He doesn't become worse or better. But he instead changes other characters (Piccolo, Gohan, Vageta, etc...) and he drives the story forward. The world reacts to him and he reacts to the world (e.g. saiyan saga, cell saga). So he is still a central character. So Goku is written to be more causal and is thus easier to like and able to become very popular. Specially compared to other shonen OCs.
Add to that the fact that dbz isn't static and things keep on changing. I mean compare that to popular 80s anime like Fist of the North Star. THe story and world of dbz keep changing and progressing a lot more than any show of it is time. So you see Goku in a lot fresh settings. This when done right, can grab peoples attention and make them keep up with the story and the character
Can you make GT fit into the canon without changing too much or is it impossible?
Christopher Mitchell
dbz already has the different timelines thing going on. So you can consider GT canon in an alternative timeline. Or You can consider only the content that relates to the original manga the core canon. While all the movies, filler and sequels canon in alternative timelines. This is how I like to approach the "filler" of dbz
Dylan Peterson
I didn't read your blog but if you're saying original DB is great then I agree.
Dominic Bennett
I would have liked the boring stuff. They could have just done some king of queens shit. They did SOL stuff with Gohan.
