Pops Culture

By: Papa Minnow

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is the latest Dragon Ball movie that focuses on Piccolo and Gohan as the heroes of Earth tasked with saving the world from danger. This time, that danger consists of the resurrection of the Red Ribbon Army, an old foe from the original Dragon Ball days. 

The plot of the film is that the Red Ribbon Army wants to take over the world again, but they require the help of a great scientist to create their plans. The scientist they recruit happens to be Dr. Gero’s grandson who is insanely smart and can help the R.R. Army with their plans so long as he’s given the resources. 

They agree, and brief the scientist on how they’re actually the “good guys” but they need superhero androids to defeat the “villainous” Z-fighters. As a result, androids Gamma 1 & 2 are created along with a secret weapon by the name of Cell Max. 

With Goku and Vegeta occupied with their training on Beerus’ planet, Gohan and Piccolo answer the call but as they currently stand they are no match for these foes. Both Piccolo and Gohan gain power boosts in order to save the day and it’s in how Gohan gets his power boost that my controversy lies. 

Piccolo acquires all seven Dragon Balls from Bulma and wishes for new power. Shenron grants his wish and bestows upon him something extra which we later find out to be a new form called Orange Piccolo. 

Gohan on the other hand, who already has an ultimate form that was deemed to be his final transformation that he would ever need, attains a new transformation called Beast Gohan after Cell Max is unleashed and appears to kill Piccolo despite his new power. 

This sends him into an uncontrollable rage that leads him to snap and evolve into a immensely spiky, white haired, red eyed transformation. With this new power that he has full control over, he easily overcomes the beating that Cell Max delivered to the other fighters, and wastes no time in beating him up before blasting him to smithereens. 

The problem with this power boost is that the whole first half of the movie is spent showing the viewers that Gohan no longer cares much for his training and is focused on his scientific studies. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

However, Piccolo makes mention of this several times and even demonstrates how Gohan’s training has slipped off so much to the point that he can’t recognize Piccolo’s ki, but yet his three year old daughter Pan, who has been training, can. 

When we first meet Gohan at the start of Dragon Ball Z, he’s a shy young boy. Too scared to even walk out on his own and clinging to his father’s leg at every moment. 

However, in his first fight with Raditz, we’re shown his latent ability as an introduction to what he’s capable of. His emotions allowed him to surpass Goku’s power for a brief moment and deliver a stunning blow to an overpowered villain.

He does so again when new Saiyans come to visit. Against Nappa, he witnessed the death of his mentor Piccolo, and his power level rose to over 3000 allowing him to deliver a high powered Masenko. 

On Namek he had his power unleashed and eventually beat up Frieza in a fit of rage, forcing him to transform into his final form. Against Cell he famously surpassed SSJ1 and became the first SSJ2 in history allowing him to defeat the strongest villain to date. 

And once again in the Buu saga he unlocked a new form. This time he trained with the Elder Kai and unlocked his Ultimate transformation, a form deemed to be all the power he would ever need.

What do all these things have in common? Gohan tapped into his hidden potential and pushed past his limits to surpass his challenge. But aside from his introduction where he was too young to start fighting, Gohan always managed to reach new levels by marrying his background of training with his latent power when his emotions erupted.

The problem with Beast Gohan is that there was no training involved this time around. Gohan has been so caught up in his work that he hasn’t made time to keep up with his training. Yet, we’re supposed to believe that his sheer latent power was able to give him enough of a boost that he acquired a whole new transformation that puts him above both Goku and Vegeta, who are well on their way to challenging Beerus and Whis, naturally?

If there was some level of dedicated training in his life, a hyperbolic time chamber session, or even sparring sessions with Piccolo once a week, Beast Gohan would have been more acceptable to mentally digest. 

The reason Beast Gohan exists is so that Toriyama could sell more merchandise and give Gohan fans something to be happy about after being neglected for so long. It’s lazy writing designed to incorporate nostalgic tropes from the series as a way to build an emotional connection with older fans and draw in newer fans at the same time. 

But rather than build up a meaningful background story or means for acquisition the form’s inspirations are vapid and dull and quite frankly insults the mental capacity of Dragon Ball fans. 

Featured Image via: https://wall.alphacoders.com/tag/gohan-beast-wallpapers