Dragon Ball/Headscratchers/Original Series

For sequences not in the original manga, see Dragon Ball.

Emperor Pilaf Saga

• Dragon Ball, chapter one. Goku has never met a girl before, and he has not been shown to wear any underwear. But he says "Doesn't that mean 'bloomers'? Haw haw!" when Bulma introduces herself. How did he know first, what bloomers were and second, that being called 'bloomers' was silly?
  • He probably learned that from Grandpa..
    • He learned "bloomers" but not "panties"?
      • "Bloomers" is "less offensive" and thus more likely to be mentioned by a grandfather. Then again... "I have a lot of friends in Heaven... most of them are brunettes."
      • Goku doesn't know much about girls, just that his Grandpa said he should treat them nicely. Presumably, his Grandpa tried to be more of a good influence than Roshi was.

• I have often heard how Dragon Ball (or at the very least the Emperor Pilaf saga) was meant to be a modern retelling of Journey to the West however I have one problem with this - how exactly? as far as I can see it's nothing more than a very poorly executed reboot. The only similarities Son Goku shares with Sun Wukong are his cloud, the power pole and the monkey like tail (laughably, the Super Saiyan 4 transformation looks far more like Sun Wukong than Goku with his little tail ever did). Goku volunteers to travel with Bulma on their adventure whereas Wukong was forced to travel with Xuan Xang. Where is Goku's mind controlling tiara? Where are Goku's shape shifting powers? Where is his immortality? Where was the heavenly revolt? The closest we have to gods in Dragon Ball are Kami, Korin and (if we're generous and include Z) the Kais, all of whom are friends not enemies. Not to mention the fact that Goku is weaker on a considerable scale; Sun Wukong has powers and magic that would surpass Vegetto. At least we have the Red Ribbon army as a parallel to the Heavenly Armies but it's not exactly on the same level of awesomeness is it?
  • Dragon Ball was less "retelling" Journey To The West and more "based on." For instance, the shape-shifting and control device were given to Oolong. The closest Goku had to a Restraining Bolt was his sensitive tail (which he Charles Atlas'd his way past). It was never meant to be a straight retelling.
    • Very, very loosely based on, and quite rapidly abandoned.
    • Goku still shapeshifts. Take a look at the moon. Hell, he does it "at the finale" of the introductory first arc.
  • It wasn't meant to be a retelling, Dragon Ball just drew inspiration from Journey to the West.
  • It was definitely based on Journey To The West (originally), but by no means was it a retelling. In fact, in the Chinese version of Dragonball, Son Goku is actually called "Son Wu Kong". Some more similarities include the flying cloud and the extending rod, 2 of the Monkey King's SIGNATURE items, not to mention super strength. Further more, lots of the story elements are borrowed from the Chinese legend, such as the story of the Ox King and the Bansho fan (not named so, but still in the legends). Rabbits living on the moon is also borrowed from a classic Chinese legend. In DBZ, they quickly changed Goku's story so that he was actually an alien, and ditched his cloud and rod, removing his connections to Chinese folklore.
  • Oolong is clearly Zhū Bājiè (pig, requiring tributes from commoners, several vices). Yamcha could be Sha Wujing, but it's less similar. What strikes more is that no one is searching to atone their vices.
  • The initial quest for the dragon balls immerses the original Journey to the West in the realm of the Dragonball universe. The later parts of the show, as well as the sequel shows, are based on the actual life of Sun Wukong. In his origin story, he was said to have showed off all of his powers to the other demon kings to which he was allied: The Bull Demon King, the Saurial Demon King (lizard king), Roc Demon King (bird king), Lion Spirit King, Macaque Spirit King, and the Marmoset Spirit King. Sun Wukong travels to heaven, makes new enemies, and continues to find foes that can equal his might. By looking at the stories in a reversed order, it is possible to realize the true extent of Journey to the West's influence on the Dragonball saga.

21st Tenkaichi Budokai

• So does Krillin have a nose or not? He didn't lose to Bacterian in the Tenkaichi Budokai because he supposedly had no nose, but then he snorted boogers at Jackie Chun right afterwards. And around vol 7 when Bulma took a diamond from her pants he sniffed it so he can obviously smell. What gives?
  • Rule of Funny?
    • Word of God from one of the backpage letters goes something like, 'Whoops, I, like, totally forgot I said that.'
  • In the King Piccolo arc, Goku clearly states that Yajirobi is like Krillin, but with hair and a nose. It is possible that Krillin can smell, but has no nose. Perhaps it is just a huge mistake.
    • To be fair, that whole scene was played for laughs. And what Goku says is that Yajirobe's voice is like that of Krillin. Yajirobe smugly comments "that Krillin must have been a handsome guy since they say that people with similar voices also have similar faces" to which Goku replies "he had no hair and no nose", causing Yajirobe to angrily retort "he was almost a monster!".

• During the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai, Roshi (as Jackie Chun) used a powerful (electric?) attack (Ban Koku Bikku Rishou) against Goku. Before that, he only used it once against Son Gohan (Goku's grandpa) and the only reason Goku was able to escape was because he transformed into his giant monkey/ape/Oozaru form. Why didn't Goku learn that technique? Even if it's hard to copy (they tend to do that a lot), Roshi could've taught it to him or any of the other fighters normally.
  • When would he? After that tournament Goku never went back to train with Roshi like Krillin, he went on his merry way to find his Dragon Ball. Also you are forgetting that Roshi didn't want to reveal that he was Jackie Chun, and it's not like Goku needed that particular technique at that point in the series, they couldn't just keep having him learn every single different technique he came across could they?
  • It's also fair to say the Electric Shock attack would have gone the same way as the Wolf Fang fist - devastating to ordinary humans but completely outclassed by anyone stronger than King Piccolo.
    • I doubt it, Wolf Fang Fist was shown to be a pretty weak that could only beat enemies weaker than the user. While we only saw that electric attack once we know Roshi and Goku were about the same strength, and the attack nearly made Goku surrender, I think from that we can gather that it was much better than the Kamehameha.
    • Many powerful moves in the series are only used once.

Red Ribbon Army/General Blue/Mercenary Tao Saga

• The dragon balls take a year to recharge. But only 8 months passed between Goku's first and second ball hunt. After the Pilaf thing, he went straight to Kame-sennin's, where he trained for 8 months and entered the Tenka'ichi Budokai. Right after finishing that he set out to look for the balls. How did they recharge so fast?
  • I was about to say that he could still look for them before they recharged, but I realized they probably wouldn't have shown up on Bulma's radar.
    • Implied Time Skip? Ass Pull?
      • Highly unlikely. Toriyama was very specific about the dates this time.

• How was Tao Pai Pai beaten by a Grenade?
  • Grenade + Face + Not expecting Goku to bat it back. Seems pretty straight forward to me. Not to mention it must've been a pretty strong bomb to do the kind of damage responsible for his look the next time we see him.
  • Remember, Mercenary Tao was just an unusually strong normal human, not one of the Immune to Bullets Z-Fighters. Throw in the above, plus the proximity of the blast, and it's much more of a surprise that he survived at all.
  • Simple math. Goku was a little bit better than Tao, which is why Tao was resorting to the trickery with the grenade. Why would Tao expect a grenade that can't even kill him to kill someone even better? So obviously he had one hell of a grenade. Plus, Tao is totally Immune to Bullets.
    • Dragon Ball tech is all over the place, with police in hover-cars equipped with energy guns who carry around apparently normal revolvers and a military that flattens a mountain using a short bombardment of artillery and hand held weapons fire. Besides, Tao has access to someone who can turn him into a super-powerful cyborg (maybe Dr. Gero, if they met before Red Ribbon had hired him?), so its quite plausible for him to know where to buy a sickeningly powerful grenade. And Goku was almost immune to bullets in his first appearance, and Tao (in addition to casually throwing pillars across continents and brainstabbing a guy who was barely scratched from crashing a jet into a mountain at full speed with his tongue) easily punked a Goku who was orders of magnitudes stronger and tanked a Kamehameha as well.
  • "When you encounter a great enemy, aim for his eyes. No one can train his eyes." -Shihoro Okada (supposedly), boxer. Perhaps the grenade to the face launched shrapnel, or even (if he was amazingly, coincidentally unlucky) just atmospheric pressure and heat through his eye sockets, killing him?

• What happened to Arale and company before the Saiyans arrived? When she first meets Goku she's stronger than him, and I'm sure she's been training since then. Surely she'd put up some kind of a fight.
  • Arale's a robot. Unless someone gives her an upgrade, she's as strong as she's ever going to be. Which means means she's toast against any of the DBZ cast this side of Chi Chi.
    • You don't know anything about Arale do you?
    • Would Arale be able to last for more than a few minutes against Piccolo Jr-era Goku? Or Piccolo Jr himself? Standing by the original answer: without a specific upgrade from Senbei or Turbo, she's somewhere around Yajirobe's level. Not to mention Power =/= Skill.
    • Different troper here, but I've gotta agree that she'd be outclassed by most DBZ villains. She might be able to survive Raditz, but that's about it. She's ridiculously strong, yeah, but not planet-buster strength, which everyone after Vegeta is. If I had to estimate her power level, I'd guess somewhere in the mid-hundreds. Over 300, less than 900. Low thousands, tops. As compared to Goku, who is generally estimated to have been between 100 and 200 when he met her.
      • We have to take into account that Arale's strength is based on Rule of Funny, so depending on the mood of the fight, she would be able to win against Frieza, Buu and Cell. At the same time.
        • Eh, the DB version of Penguin Village was very watered down compared to the Dr. Slump version and that entire bit seemed like a final farewell to the cast, what with the Fourth Wall breaking and all. I Face Palmed when I saw Senbei (who used toon physics to build devices Bulma couldn't even begin to dream of) gawping over the Dragon Radar, and Arale herself often does crap like casually splitting the planet or popping the moon with a thrown rock, using nothing more than brute strength.
          • I think it's fair to say that the Dragon Ball Penguin Village is an alternate universe. As previously stated, in the Dr Slump Prime Universe, Arale has the physical strength of Buu and Senbei is smarter than a Timelord. Whereas in the Dragon Ball universe, Arale is no stronger than 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament Goku and Senbei is easily confused by a hand held radar. If you think of it this way, Arale being both weak and apparently never upgraded in any way is perfectly explained when you consider that Dragon Ball Senbei has a pretty pathetic level of intelligence.

• During the Red Ribbon Army Saga, when Krillin and Bulma were cornered by General Blue, Krillin and Bulma referred to Blue as being gay, apparently solely due to the fact that he was either ignoring Bulma's advances or telling her off for advancing on him. However, Goku and even Yamcha acted in a very similar manner towards Bulma, and yet weren't considered as such. Krillin and Bulma also didn't even have any other reason to deduce him as such due to the fact that they never even saw how Blue held the phonepiece or how he loved roses.
  • I don't remember how it was on the anime, but in the manga Blue basically goes "Aah! A woman! A woman! How disgusting! I don't want to be touched by you!", which is kind of telling if you ask me. By contrast, Goku was "What's a woman?" and Yamcha was "I'm too shy to talk to her, but I wanna get married!" (Until he got over his shyness).
    • I'm pretty sure Goku mentioned something about not wanting to touch "[Bulma's] dirty butt" or something like that; at least, that's what I heard. Plus, has it ever occurred to Bulma that he may just be born asexual? Heck, I'm straight, yet the concept of people seducing another is somewhat revolting due to my religious beliefs about abstaining from sex until marriage. Maybe if General Blue's immediate first action had him hitting on Krillin and trying to molest him, I could understand the part about their belief that he is gay, since he is at least trying to hit on a guy.
    • ...Now you are just thinking waaaay too deeply about it. Blue is flamboyant, Goku is a kid and Yamcha had his own issues, it's not unreasonable to jump to conclusions, specially if its just for the sake of a quick joke. Deal with it.
      • Goku is explicitly presented as a pre-pubescent kid at that age while Blue is a grown man. You're comparing oranges and apples.
    • Funny how nobody bothered pointing out to the guy that calling him asexual makes no sense since he specifically called Bulma out for being female and touching him. Why would an asexual have a problem with one gender making physical contact with him, but not the other? Also, as noted, Goku is a kid who'd never seen a girl before (or any guys aside from Gohan) and Yamcha was shy. Plus, unlike Blue, Yamcha wasn't stereotypically gay/feminine.
      • Doesn't blue scream "THEN I'LL KILL YOU" when she tells him that's she's a guy? Or was that only in the localization i read?
    • In the manga Bulma says "What if I said I was really a guy?", Blue goes "You're a freak!" and promises to kill her later.

• When wishing Upa's father, Bora, back to life, Goku asks Shenlong if it is possible. Shenlong replies "There is no wish Shenlong cannot grant"... yet we later find out there's quite a lot of wishes Shenlong can't grant.
  • Yes. Shenlong was engaging in a bit of self-flattery there.
  • Alternatively, Toriyama retconned the Dragon's power when he realized just how story breaking it's power could be. Not allowing Shenlong to kill, resurrect more than once or not allowing him to effect any creature beyond the level of Kami was a stroke of genius given how you could effectively use it to end every saga in the most boring way possible.
    • Not the first time something has turned out to be less powerful that it was made out to be. Remember the "Water of the Gods?" The one that was supposed to draw out "any and all potential" from a fighter? Despite which Goku went on to become waaaaaay stronger than his post-drinking self?
      • The "Water of the Gods" draws out dormant power, not potential. That's why those who have dormant power drawn out ca continue to get stronger.
      • No, I'm pretty sure it said "potential", at least in the manga.

• In the Red Ribbon Army saga, Colonel Silver destroys Goku's Nimbus cloud. A bit later when Goku is about to leave Snow's village the villagers tell him Nimbus clouds cannot be destroyed, and Goku calls it back. Yet when Tambourine destroys it, it's gone for good. So what happened to the can't be destroyed rule?
  • They probably meant "can't be destroyed by anything that we know of". They didn't even imagine that someone as powerful as Tambourine would come along and vaporize the cloud.

Tenshinhan/Tien Shinhan Saga

• Why does Tien, a human, have a third eye? and has it ever been shown to grant him any extra abilities?
  • IIRC it was stated in the Daizenshuu that he's an alien.
    • Almost. He's descended from an alien race.
• Why didn't Jackie Chun/Roshi use any of the moves he used on Goku during the previous tournament against Tien?
  • Because he realized Ten Shin Han, as well as Goku and Co., had already surpassed him. That's the reason he gave up the fight, to make room for the "new generation" of martial artists.

King Piccolo Saga

• Kami was very very careless with the jar Mutaito sealed King Piccolo into. Right up until the point Goku killed him, King Piccolo was the strongest and most evil creature on the planet barring himself. Not only this, Kami's very lifeforce was spiritually linked together in a way that meant his survival instinct had to evolve to include them both. So... imagine you're Kami in this situation, would you A) Keep this jar in a safe next to your bed, on your unreachable palace in the sky (remember, at this point in the series only the Power Pole could reach unaided - it was higher than the Nimbus or any aircraft of the day) or B) Keep it far out of your reach hundreds of miles away, apparantly unguarded. He was just begging for Pilaf to come and steal it.
  • He probably thought it was safe down there, or couldn't retrieve it without the Dragon balls or something, hell he was right for a few hundred of years, don't exaggerate.
    • Kami's gross negligence on behalf of Piccolo's jar is by no means an exaggeration. True, it did remain undiscovered for hundreds of years but that had far more to do with blind luck than anything on Kami's part. Remember who recovered this jar... Emperor Pilaf. His only power is that he's rich - and that's it. His empire consists of two fairly incompetant people, a modest amount of military hardware and a palace. If a guy this small and unimportant could recover the jar with such minimum effort then there is no way he had hidden it effectively. Now, it is arguable that the rise of technology rendered the original hiding place obsolete. In which case, he's guilty of not only keeping a watchful enough eye over it and/or not keeping updated with the current affairs of the Earth. A few years previously the Red Ribbon Army had risen to become a global threat - if at any point they had got wind of this jar, it would have taken them days to find the damn thing.
  • Actually it was Master Roshi who hid Piccolo's jar (actually an electric rice cooker) by burying it within the ocean floor.

• Why weren't King Piccolo's spawns regular Namekians?
  • Because King Piccolo was pure evil? I mean literally, he was all of the original Namek's evil tendencies split off into one being, with Kami being the manifestation of his more peaceful ones, prolly affected anything he spawned making them twisted mockeries of what they could have been
    • Wrong. At the time that King Piccolo was introduced there was no such thing as Namek. In other words, Akira Toriyama just didn't think of it. Furthermore, Piccolo was the incarnation of Kami's evil side, not the evil side of all of Namek.
      • But it worked out so well in the end! If it wasn't planned it might as well have been.
  • Namekian powers generally have an aura of mystery. Since I've seen Kami Sama create Dragon Balls and appear in human form, and seen Guru doing God knows what, I'm fine with Demon King Piccolo creating non-Namekian spawn.
  • It was mentioned that Kami+ Piccolo is very gifted, so his abilities may not be typical to Nameks. Also, Kami Sama didn't take human form, he possessed some random middle-aged guy to prove his point that no one is to be judged on appearance.
    • The current generation of Namekians are all the offspring of the Elder, and they come in different shapes and sizes, so it's not that strange that King Piccolo could have weird kinds of offspring.
    • Plus, it's implied by Guru that Piccolo has some kind of special lineage.
    • From the Dragon Clan, if I recall correctly. Same as Guru, or Guru wouldn't have been able to make the Namekian Dragon Balls. Guru mentions that only the Dragon Clan could make Dragon Balls at one point, if I recall correctly.
  • I got the impression that Drum, Tambourine, etc. weren't truly independent creatures like Piccolo Jr. was, but more extensions of Piccolo Daimaou's will. They weren't true offspring because unlike Piccolo Jr, they weren't supposed to be fully-powered Namekians, but merely cronies strong enough to assist Piccolo but weak enough to not pose a threat to him.
    • I got the same idea. Anyway, he's Demon King Piccolo. Having winged, fanged, clawed minions would be much scarier to the populace than a bunch of green-and-pink guys that mostly look like humans (except for the coloration, the pointy ears, and the antennae, anyway).
  • According to the Dragon Ball Online MMO, Namekians have the ability to choose the physical appearance of their offspring to a degree. The events of that game are more or less canon in Toriyama's eyes, so...
    • Uhh, just so you know, Toriyama has a tendency to just say "Yeah, sure, throw it in" to anything the anime makers/game makers say. He really doesn't care about Dragon Ball any more, and hasn't in a while.
      • Not really. The fact that he explicitly declared that Dragon Ball GT is NOT canon while Dragon Ball Online IS pretty much shows that he not only still cares, he's starting to grow a backbone and stand up for his franchise.
  • Piccolo Daimaou was explicitly a Demon in addition to being a Namek (like how Kami-sama/Dende are Gods in addition to being Nameks), so that's probably the reason behind it. Another demonic trait was that the souls of his victims (and his children's, IIRC) were forced to wander the Earth instead of going to the next world, and the fact that Radditsu's soul showed up before Enma was shown as proof that Piccolo Jr was not an actual Demon.
  • It should also be pointed out that neither King Piccolo or Kami are true Namekians in a real sense - they're copies of the original Namek that crash landed on Earth. The story goes that the Nameless Namek approached the Guardian of Earth (along with Garlic Junior's dad) to try and become his successor, however the Guardian decided they were both too impure for the job and turned them both away. The Nameless Namek decided to split himself into a Demon and Pure of Heart side which became King Piccolo and Kami - thus its not inconceivable that they both would have developed powers that fit along this theme. Piccolo gained the ability to pervert his reproductive organs to the extent he could create monsters and Kami gained the ability to transfer his mind into the body of another. Note also that Piccolo Junior isn't a true Namekian either; he is the reincarnation of King Piccolo. (You have to wonder if Piccolo Junior could actually concieve a normal child seeing as he appears to have absolutely no desire to reproduce despite being a healthy adult.) When the Nameless Namek was reborn during the Cell Saga, no mention is ever made of these incredibly useful abilities ever again - implying that he lost them. I admit its a bit of a WMG, but it does fit the available facts.

• Why did King Piccolo explode when Goku impaled him?
  • Because Stuff Blowing Up is cool?

• At his introduction, Yajirobe was using a Dragon Ball as a pendant, with a string passing right through it. After the ball is taken by King Piccolo, however, the hole disappears. Did the Ball repair itself? And how?
  • Dragon Balls can (apparently) repair themselves, just part of the magic in them.

Piccolo Jr. Saga

• How come Piccolo grew so fast? Other Namekians like Dende are shown aging normally, but Piccolo went from an egg to young adulthood in THREE years. A Wizard Did It?
  • It probably has to do with the fact that he has both his father's aged soul-half and his father's memories.
    • Namekians have Genetics?
  • Perhaps it's because Piccolo is not a regular Namekian. After all, the original Piccolo was created once the Nameless Namekian expelled all the evil from his body. Maybe he is a hybrid of fiend and Namekian, which would explain why his biology is different from the average Namekian's.

• This is annoying to think about. As we learn later on, if Kami or Piccolo gets killed, the other one dies. So why did Goku meet Kami after killing Demon King Piccolo? Is this an epic Plot Hole or what? Or am I just looking into it waaay too much?
  • King Piccolo put his soul into Piccolo Jr.
  • Remember that the egg containing Piccolo Jr. was spit out right before Piccolo Senior died. Since, as the above reply said, he put his soul into Jr, that also saved Kami. I reiterate: It happened while he was still alive, thus Kami never had a chance to die, as his next soul-link came along before the old one died.

• In volume 14, Taopaipai says "I had to spend every cent I'd ever earned to have myself brought back to life as a cyborg." (p.195) Wait, "brought back to life"? Meaning he was dead? How can a dead person spend money?
  • I always got the idea he was speaking figuratively.
    • Literally, perhaps the best answer is "on his deathbed."