When you really stop to think about it, the Dragon Ball series does not make sense. Whether you look at the power scaling of the characters or even some of the backstories for them, they hardly ever truly add up. Budgets and translation errors have been a part of the series since the beginning.
Christopher Sabat, the American voice actor for Vegeta and Piccolo - as well as a myriad of other characters in the series - and producer for the voice talent in America, has stated on several occasions that secrets are kept from the crew working on the show in an effort to prevent inevitable internet leaks.
Sabat has also said that Funimation and its writers are very protective of the series. A good example of this is Goku’s speech to Frieza on planet Namek: the original English version is drastically different from the Japanese version. They did eventually fix this in Dragon Ball Z Kai after getting permission to more closely resemble the manga, the idea coming from Sean Schemmel (the voice actor for Goku), but not all mistakes can be corrected. Some just become a part of the series.
From Goku’s very awkward marriage to episodes of Dragon Ball Super that look like they were made with Microsoft Paint here are 15 Memes That Prove Dragon Ball Makes No Sense.
Goku Re-Defines Love
Goku obtained his epic Super Saiyan form by being pure of heart and awoken by rage. If Goku is pure of heart and married to Chi-Chi, why does the hero not understand what a kiss is? After all, he is half-heartedly a happy father of two boys, Gohan and Goten.
Goku is always nice to his family while he is with them, the problem is that the supposed hero is very rarely a part of the lives of his family.
Goku, in some strange twist of fate, did actually prove he is stronger than love in his fight with Ribrianne — a love-powered super warrior who fans seem to despise — in the Universal Survival Arc. In summation, Goku leaves his family all too frequently and has punched love right in the face - literally.
Spirit Bombs, Super Saiyans, and Lightbulbs
In the world of Dragon Ball, time is never a problem. Goku has had to use the Spirit Bomb technique a total of three times in Dragon Ball Z. Once against Vegeta, against Frieza, and against the embodiment of Bibidi’s magical powers - Majin Buu.
While the meme is a little exaggerated, it holds a lot of truth. When Goku used the technique the first time against Vegeta, it took two episodes to charge and fire the tiny ball of spirit energy. Perhaps the most exaggerated is the bomb used against Frieza.
Fans like to say it took five or seven episodes but the bomb was charged and fired in three episodes. Once again, it took two episodes to use, making the technique inadequate for Goku and fans alike.
Hercule’s The Best, Right?
This is one of the biggest plot holes in the show. Early on in Dragon Ball, Goku and friends fought in the World’s Martial Arts Tournament. Each time they used their explosive techniques, including the Kamehameha and Solar Flare. When Piccolo and Goku collided in the tournament, they blew up the entire ring.
This made it a bit of a shock when Goku, the former tournament champion, took on Cell and Hercule thought the blasts are just flashy light tricks. When he came face-to-face with one, his opinion definitely changed but he was still able to convince the citizens of earth that they were just tricks.
The tournament announcer knew they weren’t tricks, along with anyone watching the tournament. Yet, Hercule convinced the people of earth that he defeated Cell. But why would it matter if he had already told them it was just light tricks?
Frieza Controls Time
The Dragon Ball series may have experimented with quantum mechanics or time dilation. Whatever they did, it definitely does not make sense. After Frieza shoots his red beam of destruction at the core of Namek, he says the planet will blow up in five minutes. This is where the meme has a little bit of a factual inaccuracy: it says it blew up seven episodes later, but it took ten episodes.
Once again, fans on the internet have gotten some hard numbers to show just how much the series was able to stretch the supposed five minutes. Ten episodes, roughly three hours of video, and about 100 lines of dialogue passed before the doomed planet finally exploded, with the only person left on it being Frieza himself.
Super Saiyan For The First Time… Again
Luckily, Cooler is not a canon character, because if he was, the Dragon Ball series would have a lot to explain. Cooler is the brother of the evil Lord Frieza and son of King Cold. In his first appearance, he tracked down Goku and tried to avenge his deceased (but not really deceased) brother, in which he pushed Goku into using his Super Saiyan transformation.
Akira Toriyama has stated that it is not necessarily rage that is responsible, but S-cells - kind of like midichlorians allowing Jedi to use the force. So when Goku struggles to turn Super Saiyan again, it does not make a whole lot of sense.
In the canon storyline, he makes it back to Earth and says he’s mastered transforming thanks to his training on planet Yardrat. Which still does not make sense, since Vegeta, Gohan, Trunks, and Goten never struggle to transform after they have done it.
Legitimacy
This meme is hilarious while also pointing out a huge flaw in the show. Goku and his friends’ identities are partially protected by Hercule, who will steal the show, fame, and money any chance he gets.
There are only two instances in which the world would have seen a Super Saiyan. The first was at the Cell Games and the second was the World Martial Arts Tournament that kicked off the Majin Buu Arc.
It is possible that most of the people in the Dragon Ball universe have seen a Super Saiyan, but there is no way they would know what it is called. It’s not like Hercule ran away from the Cell Games and told everyone a Super Saiyan saved everybody, he told everyone ¨ saved them. It’s the same for the World Martial Arts Tournament; nobody has told the public what a Saiyan is, let alone a Super Saiyan.
Humble Beginnings
For some odd reason, every canon storyline of the Dragon Ball universe starts the same, with somebody falling from a waterfall or cliff. The first episode of Dragon Ball uses this as a way to turn the evil planet destroying baby Goku into the loveable warrior we all know. Dragon Ball Z has Gohan falling from a waterfall to be saved by Goku - one of the few examples of him being a parent.
Goten takes a fall off of a cliff in a tractor for Dragon Ball Super, which once again Goku saves him and tells him to be careful. It is not made clear what exactly he was saving in this scene. It may have been Goten, but that wouldn’t make sense since Goten is already a Super Saiyan and has mastered flying. The only other thing to save was the tractor. Was he saving Goten or the tractor?
Yamcha is a Joke
Yamcha may have had a point in Dragon Ball where he was relevant, but ever since being defeated by the likes of a Saibaman, he’s been rather unimportant. Yamcha still being in the show doesn’t really make sense since he’s pretty much useless against the current generations of threats. The only way to make sense of this is that he is a character to be abused, which happens often.
Bulma left him for Vegeta, he stopped practicing martial arts to become a baseball player, and the only character who actually acknowledges him is Puar.
When it comes time to revive people to help with the fight on Namek, the Z fighters choose Piccolo. When picking fighters for the Universal Survival Arc, Goku picks old man Master Roshi over Yamcha. His most relevant appearance to date was to almost perish in a friendly game of baseball between universes 6 and 7.
The Chosen One
By this point, it is widely known that Goku is the biological father of Gohan, but Piccolo is Goku’s true dad. At the end of Dragon Ball, Goku defeated the evil Piccolo, but one of the first things to happen in Dragon Ball Z doesn’t make any sense. It is implied that Goku and Piccolo had not seen each other in a long time, and needed to team up to defeat Raditz.
With his final breaths, Goku asks his old nemesis to take Gohan and train him for the fight with Vegeta and Nappa. He blindly handed off his 4-year-old son to basically an 8-year-old who, in a previous life, went by the name “Demon King Piccolo.”
Luckily, Piccolo took to Gohan, going well beyond just training him. He taught him, fed him, and protected him in battle far more than his biological father.
Krillin Dies
Krillin has passed away a total of 5 times if you include all of the Dragon Ball series. He has perished at the hands of Tambourine, Frieza, Majin Buu, Super Android 17, and the androids in Future Trunks’ timeline.
Needless to say, he doesn’t have the best track record of being alive until the end of a fight.
Somehow, Goku thought it would be a good idea to recruit the bald-headed monk in a tournament of survival. Goku is not known for his intelligence, so when he hands the title of team leader to Gohan it’s surprising the scholar in the show does not see the problem. Tambourine was one of Piccolo’s minions in Dragon Ball, so he knows Krillin doesn’t have the best survival rate, and still said nothing to Gohan about the matter.
What is even more confusing is how Krillin lived through the tournament of survival.
On The Next Episode of Dragon Ball Z
This one isn’t so much a hole in the story, it’s more of a hole in storytelling. If you have seen the series you know the episodes typically end on a cliffhanger. It’s meant to make you wonder what will happen next and get you to watch the next episode. Sure, there are some episodes that don’t end on a cliffhanger but those are usually filler episodes.
What does not make sense is they clearly make an effort to leave you mystified and then the announcer’s big boomy voice says, “Next time on Dragon Ball Z!” Why create a mystery if some guy is going announce what is going to happen next? On top of that, usually what he tells you is going to happen next is usually not actually the next thing that happens.
Mr. Popo
For the uninitiated, Mr. Popo was Kami’s trusty companion throughout Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z until Dende took on the mantle of the guardian of earth. Typically, he’s seen letting people into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber (which is confusing in itself).
He has one interesting possession: the magic carpet.
He proves himself to be a trusty companion to the Namekians but doesn’t help out anybody else, at least during the Saiyan Saga. After Goku came back to life, he made two stops: one to Kami’s lookout and the second to get senzu beans from Korin.
Since it took Goku some time to get to the battle, Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, and Piccolo perished. Had Mr. Popo lent Goku the magic carpet he could have been there instantaneously.
More of Goku’s Bad Parenting
Goku is definitely proud of his son, Gohan - possibly a little too proud. Before the Z fighters even go in to fight Cell in his final form, most of the characters show some concern for his relaxed attitude. He had planned the whole time to have Gohan step in and fight Cell after he had already shaved a year off of Gohan’s life by bringing him into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.
This point in the story is not only out of the ordinary for the show, it also kind of defeats the purpose.
Dragon Ball is mostly about Goku breaking through his physical limits and becoming stronger, so it is strange that the hero of the show would give up before the fight ever happened. What is even worse is the fact that before he sent his son into the potentially deadly fight, he gave Cell a senzu bean.
MS Paint
Every show has its ups and downs, but when fans saw some of the animations from Dragon Ball Super, the show received some major criticism. Fans made comparisons to the older animations and art from the 1990s and showed just how bad the problem had become.
With how bad some of the animations were, it is no surprise fans wondered how this had happened. They speculated that there was a low budget, or that the responsibility had been shifted to someone else - but that was not the case.
Toei Animation blamed the fact that all of their experienced animators were busy working on other projects, leaving only inexperienced animators to do the job. The animations in Dragon Ball Z were far from perfection but in today’s world of technology, they probably should have waited for experienced animators to work on the legendary series.
Yelling Out What You Are Going To Do
This is possibly the biggest flaw that permeates throughout every Dragon Ball series and even the movies. They always tell their nemesis what they are going to do next. Whether it’s a Kamehameha wave, a Final Flash, or just standing there wide open charging a Spirit Bomb, the enemy will always know what is coming next.
Imagine, if you will, a UFC fight where, every time a fighter goes for a superman jab or a takedown, they yell it out so their opponent can hear it. Unfortunately, this meme pictures Vegeta, who is possibly one of the least guilty characters of this. He did use a self-destruct without yelling it at Majin Buu and he also tends to just yell and shoot as rapidly as he can, but that has to be better than yelling out what he is going to do.
What else does make sense about Dragon Ball? Share your favorite memes!
