DBZ-P-chan, Version 3
The following article is copyrighted by Curtis H. Hoffmann, Oct. 5, 1994.
It may be reposted as-is on other computer networks. Permission is granted
to reprint this article in fanzines as long as I get a copy of the issue it
appears in. This article may not be used in part or in whole in a
commercial or for-profit magazine without my prior approval.
A Dragon Ball Z Primer (Updated)
If you don't like Dragon Ball, don't read this.
Normally, I believe that the Dragon Ball movies are set in a separate
universe from that in the manga and TV series. However, after having gotten
my hands on a couple of the color manga, I have decided to include at least
one movie in the rest of the "canon." And, that is the story of Bardock.
This Primer isn't intended to be overly comprehensive (my manga summaries
try to take on that burden,) insightful, deep, or anything much else. I
just want to open up the universe presented to us by Akira Toriyama, in a
slightly more linear format than provided in the manga and TV series. So,
with that out of the way...
About 37 years before the present time in the manga, on a distant planet,
a group of Saiya-jin (in were-monkey form) had killed most of the people on
one planet. However, one victim lasted long enough to attack the team
leader, and to give that Saiya-jin the ability to see what nasty things the
future would hold for him. That leader's name was "Bardock."
Bardock and his group had been working for the powerful Freeza, as had
the rest of the Saiya-jin. Freeza's plan was to kill off everyone on a
number of different planets. What the Saiya-jin hadn't realized was that
the Saiya-jin home planet of Vejiita was to be the final target. At the
same time, a young Saiya-jin boy, Prince Vejiita, son of King Vejiita, was
training to become another warrior. His power was greater than Freeza's
testing minions could believe. Also, there was a young baby, Bardock's,
named Kakarot. Kakarot was being prepped to be fired off for his own first
battle assignment.
On the planet Meat, Bardock's crew has just finished off the last of the
inhabitants when Freeza's hench monster, Dodoria, and minions pop up and
kill the team. Bardock had been in a healing tank back home, and he arrives
on Meat in time to hear the dying words of one of his team. Dodoria tries to
kill Bardock, but is summoned back to Freeza's ship before ensuring that the
job is completed. Bardock tries to warn the other Saiya-jin back home of
the danger from Freeza, but they just laugh at him. He's also getting more
flashes of the future, and comes to believe them when one soldier tells him
that Kakarot has just been fired off to Earth on assignment. Bardock sees
visions of Kakarot's life on "Earth," and his own death, so he decides that
he's going to rewrite his future. He battles many minions on his way to
Freeza's ship, but dies in the final battle. Freeza also sacrifices most of
his soldiers in his own energy attack, and laughs happily at the pretty
fireworks that result when Planet Vejiita blows up.
On Earth, an old man, Son Gohan, discovers a little baby out in the
woods, and decides to name the "healthy" child "Son Gokuu." Elsewhere,
Prince Vejiita is told (probably by his mentor, Nappa) that his planet just
blew up. Vejiita isn't impressed. At this point, there are only four
surviving Saiya-jin: Gokuu, Radditz (Kakarot's older brother,) and Radditz'
friends -- Vejiita, and Nappa.
Several years later, around age 5, Gokuu turns into a were-monkey, and
kills Son Gohan by mistake, but he doesn't remember this.
Our story begins when Gokuu is age 11, and is living on his own. Buruma
discovers him, along with the first Dragon Ball. Gokuu has the comic
adventures that bring him into contact with Buruma, Kuririn, Chi Chi,
Kame-sennin, and Yamcha. After killing Demon King Piccolo, Gokuu stays at
Kami-sama's palace to train. Around age 20, he surfaces to fight Piccolo,
Jr. He also meets Chi Chi again and they get married. Time passes, and
Gohan is born (Gokuu named his son after his "grandfather.") Then,
Kakarot's older brother, Radditz, arrives on Earth. Piccolo, Jr. and Gokuu
team up to defeat Radditz, but Gokuu sacrifices himself to give Piccolo time
to prepare his attack. Gokuu spends 1 year in "the other world," training
under Kaiou-sama, while Piccolo kidnaps Gohan and trains the boy in the
desert.
The only other surviving Saiya-jin (according to the manga) are Prince
Vejiita and Nappa. Those two have arrived on Earth to kill Gokuu and wreak
havok everywhere. Nappa is killed, and Vejiita goes back to a safe planet
to recover from his wounds. Earth's Dragon Balls have been deactivated, so
Buruma, Kuririn, and Gohan go to the planet Namek to get the Namek Dragon
Balls to wish the dead back to life, and again run afoul of Vejiita.
(Kami-sama/Piccolo was originally from Namek.) While at the same time,
Freeza has learned of the Namek Dragon Balls, and wants to find them to wish
for immortality. After a very long fight, in which most of the Namek are
killed, and the planet is destroyed, Freeza (and his minions, Dodoria and
Zarbon) finally die.
But, it looks like Gokuu has perished on the exploding planet as well.
One year passes, and the Namek Dragon Balls are used to resurrect some of
the dead Z Fighters and most of the Namek. Vejiita shacks up with Buruma,
and the group prepares to fight Freeza's father, and the resurrected Freeza.
At the same time, a strange teenager from the future arrives. He kills
Freeza for the final time, and tells the group that Gokuu will be arriving
by spaceship very soon. It turns out that Gokuu had been able to find a
small Saiya-jin spaceship and crawl into it before the Namek planet
exploded. He'd spent time on planet Yardrat, where he learned to teleport,
but also received a virus that will cause him to die of heart failure in a
few years.
The teenager is Trunks, son of Vejiita and Buruma. He'd come from the
future, in a time machine created by Buruma, to warn the fighters of two
androids (#17 and #18) that would wake up in 3 years to kill nearly everyone
on the planet. But, instead of killing the inventor -- Dr. Gero -- in
advance, the group decides to wait, and then have fun fighting the androids.
Trunks gives some heart medicine to Gokuu, and returns to his future. A few
more years pass, and Trunks shows up in the past again. However, instead of
facing #17 and #18, the heroes are confronted by an android version of Dr.
Gero himself, and the android #20. Turns out that Trunks keeps changing the
timeline when he travels to the past. #17 and #18 appear, kill Dr. Gero,
and wake up #16. There is a lot of fighting, before the next real villian
shows on the scene. Gero had been working on a biological android in one of
the alternate timelines, and that android killed one of the alternate
timeline Trunks to take one of the time machines back to fight it out with
Gokuu and #17 and #18. The bio-android, named Cell, has genetic data built
into him from most of the heroes, and only needs to consume #17 and #18 to
attain prefection. In complete form, he can destroy all of Earth.
Cell does become complete, and he kills Gokuu and Trunks before being
wasted by Gohan (with the help of Vejiita.) The Dragon Balls are used to
resurrect nearly everyone but Gokuu (Gokuu decides to stay dead because he
believes that he attracts trouble. Instead, he trains under Kaiou-sama in
the Other World.) #18 had a self-destruct device built-in by Dr. Gero, and
Kuririn requests Shen-lon to remove the device via the Dragon Balls. Time
passes again.
Gohan is now 16, and he's entering school in Satan City. Trunks returned
to his future, where he kills his versions of #17, #18, and Cell. Baby
Trunks grows up, and Chi Chi has another son, Goten. Kuririn and #18 live
together on Kamesennin's island and have a baby girl.
Satan is a professional wrestler who had earlier tried to challenge Cell.
And, because no one else claimed victory after the battle, he decided to con
the world into thinking that he'd saved everyone from the menace of Cell.
So, he's now rich, and well-respected.
Gohan is in the same class as Satan's daughter, Beederu. Gohan passes
his idle time by catching criminals as the costumed Great Saiya-man. Beederu
sees through his disguise, and blackmails Gohan into joining the next
Tenkai-ichi Budoukai (contest to determine the best fighter on Earth.) Satan
"won" the Cell game, and Gokuu had been the Budoukai champion three years
before that. So, the daughter of Satan wants to fight the son of Gokuu.
Gokuu is given 24 hours on Earth (by Kame-sennin's fortunetelling older
sister) to enter. Which means that Vejiita has to sign up, as well. #18
and Kuririn join to go for the prize money.
In the Budoukai, some newcomers disrupt the procedings. Two villians,
Supopo-Bitchi and Yamuu, steal Gohan's energy to help regenerate a magical
being. Two "good guys" Kibit and Kaiou-shin (god of the Kai-ou's (or, world
kings,) are using Gohan as bait to follow Supopo and Yamu back to their
hidden base.) Kibit heals Gohan, and the heroes race off. This leaves #18,
Trunks and Goten, (disguised to sneak into the adult's round of competition)
and Satan to square off in the Budoukai. #18 unmasks the two boys, but then
extorts twice the first place prize money from Satan to pretend to lose.
Satan saves face, and #18 gets rich very quick.
The two villians go to a buried rocket and give the container holding
Gohan's energy to a magic-user from an alternate universe where everyone is
either a demon or a wizard. The magic-user, Babi-di, wishes to reactivate a
monster created by his father (Bibi-di.) Aided by his world's greatest
fighter, Darbura, Babi is getting enough energy to bring Buu back to power
before Kaiou-shin can stop him (Kaiou-shin and others of his race had fought
Bibi-di and Buu several hundred years before.)
Buu is brought back, and promptly turns Darbura into a cookie and eats
him. Babi has the ability to control people through the evil in their
hearts: Vejiita takes advantage of this ability to have all the "weak
Earthly emotions" stripped from him so that he can defeat Gokuu once and for
all. However, when he realizes that Buu has killed Gohan, and threatens to
erase Trunks and Buruma, Vejiita sacrifices himself to destroy Buu. Vejiita
fails, Gokuu tries to figure out a way to do "Fusion" with another Saiya-jin
to create a super super Saiya-jin, and Buruma and Yamcha use the Dragon
Balls to resurrect the people killed on this day.
Gokuu learned about Fusion in the Other World, and it has the ability to
turn two fighters of equal strength into one very powerful fighter, for only
30 minutes. Trunks and Goten are trained by Piccolo to use Fusion, as
Gokuu's time on Earth runs out. Gokuu did try to fight Buu for a bit, but
was no match for the monster. Babi-di lets his guard down at the wrong
time, and Buu kills him. Kibit is brought back by the Dragon Balls, and he
rescues the near-dead Kaiou-shin. Kaiou-shin locates the near-dead Gohan,
and takes the boy to the Kaiou-shin planet in Heaven, where they meet up
with Gokuu. Trapped in a sword a long time ago is an old Kaiou-shin, and he
is released when Gohan accidently breaks the sword. The old coot claims to
have the ability to make Gohan stronger, but this seems to be a lie -- the
coot either pretends to be not sleeping, or not reading manga. When Gohan
gets impatient and starts yelling at the old coot, the boy suddenly
discovers that he has a lot more power than before. So, he lets more time
pass to let the old coot complete the spell.
On Earth, Mr Satan befriends Buu, and the monster decides to stop turning
people into food and eating them. Unfortunately, two thrillseekers are
running around loose, shooting people before Buu kills everyone. They make
the mistake of shooting the puppy that Buu befriends, and also shooting Mr.
Satan. In anger, Buu creates an evil version of Itself -- this version
destroys the thrillseekers before battling with Buu itself. Buu accidently
turns Itself into a chocolate bar, and the evil one eats It. This creates a
Super-powerful Buu, who locates Piccolo atop Dende's tower. Buu kills Chi
Chi, and Goten and Trunks enter the Room of Spirit and Mind to train a bit
more. Buu also enters the Room, and the boys use Fusion to become the
powerful fighter Gotenks. Buu is strong enough to escape from the Room, and
takes the time to turn Buruma, Beederu, Kuririn, #18, and everyone else at
the Palace into chocolate and eats them. In the resulting fight between
Gotenks and Buu, Kami-sama's floating palace is completely destroyed.
Buu tricks Gotenks and Gohan into challenging It one-on-one, and absorbs
them, as well as Piccolo, which gives It their powers. Dai Kaiou-shin has
the ability to make Gokuu human again, and Uranai Baba gives Vejiita his 24
hours on Earth. The Kaiou-shin's earrings can permanently Fuse two people
together; Kaiou-shin is fused with Kibit (creating "Kaiou-bit"), and Gokuu
fuses with Vejiita. Buu absorbs "Vejit", which counter-acts the earrings.
But, Gokuu and Vejiita free Piccolo, Goten, Trunks, Gohan, and the Fat Buu.
In actuality, the Fat Buu was created when Buu absorbed two of the
Kaiou-shins in the war 300+ years ago. With Fat Buu disconnected, the True
Buu (a sullen little boy) destroys Earth, killing Tenshinhan, Piccolo,
Goten, Trunks, and Gohan. Kaiou-bit rescues Vejiita, Gokuu, Dende, Satan,
and the puppy, and takes them to the Kaiou-shin Planet.
True Buu teleports after them. Vejiita destroys his earring, and Gokuu
fights Buu one-on-one. Kibit teleports to a new planet in Heaven with Dai
Kaiou-shin and Dende, leaving Satan behind by accident. True Buu spits out
Fat Buu. Satan thinks that all of this is a dream, but still runs away in
fear when threatened. When True Buu tries to kill Satan, Fat Buu recovers
and the two Buus fight. Vejiita has a change of heart, and telepaths to
Dende to use the Namek Dragon Balls to: 1) restore Earth; 2) Revive everyone
killed since the beginning of the Budoukai (which will bring back the ones
that he killed, too) excluding evil people. The Namek Dragon has been
upgraded to allow resurrecting many people, and he does this, which also
returns Dai Kaiou-shin and Vejiita to life. Vejiita then uses Kaiou-sama to
telepath to the people of Earth to raise their hands and give their energy
to Gokuu so that Gokuu can create a BIG Genki Dama. Most Earthlings refuse,
thinking that this is a trick by Babi-di's minions, until Satan gets his act
together and orders everyone to do what Vejiita asks. Dende uses the third
Dragon Ball wish to heal Gokuu back to normal.
The resulting energy allows Gokuu to make a super Genki Dama, and he
destroys True Buu with it. Kaiou-bit heals Fat Buu (against Vejiita's
wishes) and takes everyone home. Satan again claims to have saved the
universe.
6 months later, Earth's Dragon Balls are used to make everyone forget
that Fat Buu was their enemy. 10 more years pass. It is time for the next
Tenkai-ichi Budoukai. Gokuu is going to enter it, because when he killed
Buu, he'd wished that Buu could be reincarnated as someone good. This has
happened, and young Uubu has travelled from his poor village to enter the
Budoukai and win the prize money for his starving peoples.
Gohan has become a scholar, Trunks and Goten have become rebellious
teenagers, Beederu has married Gohan and given him a daughter named Pan,
Buruma and Vejiita had another baby -- a girl named Bra, and Buu has moved
in with Mister Satan. Buu is expected to fight in the lower rounds of the
Budoukai, and then when It faces Satan in the final match, It will take a
dive. But, with Gokuu, Vejiita, Goten, Trunks, and Pan entering the
tournament, Gokuu has to promise Satan that whoever wins, they'll let Satan
beat them to save face.
Gokuu has Buu use Its magic to change the numbers around when people are
paired up for the final rounds. 4 year-old Pan easily beats her huge
opponent. Then, Gokuu and Uubu face each other. But, Uubu has stage
fright, and has to be insulted to get started. Uubu is really strong, but
he can't levitate. So, Gokuu asks the boy if he'd like to receive special
training to become a good fighter. Uubu agrees, and Gokuu promises to have
Satan donate cash to the village (rather than sticking around long enough
for Uubu to try for the prize money). Then, Gokuu says goodbye to his
family for a few years, and he and Uubu fly off. Piccolo says that it's
been a long time since Gokuu has looked this happy.
On the last two pages, the entire cast says "Thank you! Goodbye." and,
Toriyama thanks everyone for sticking with him for the last 10 years.
This brings the story up to the final volume of the collected manga.
===== NOTES =====
In the movies, we get to see King Vejiita, and Prince Vejiita as a boy.
Vejiita lives with Buruma, and has one son: Trunks (later, they have a
daughter: Bra).
Bardock's two sons are Radditz and Kakarot (Gokuu).
Gokuu and Piccolo kill Radditz.
Gokuu marries Chi Chi and has two boys: Gohan and Goten.
Gohan marries Beederu had has a daughter: Pan.
There are no other Saiya-jin, according to the manga. Trunks, Goten, and
Gohan are half-breeds, making them actually stronger than their
fathers. Saiya-jin are described as being inherently evil (taking
great joy at fighting,) but Gokuu supposedly got bumped on the head as
a child, and became "good." Vejiita prides himself on being evil.
The original Piccolo had come to Earth from the planet Namek, a long time
ago. To take on the role of Kami-sama (the God of Earth) all of the
evil was stripped from him, and he became two people: the "good"
Kami-sama, and the "evil" Demon King Piccolo. About 300 years ago,
Kamesennin trained under a man named Mutaito, and it was Mutaito who
sacrificed himself to imprison Demon Piccolo. Later, to regain his
full power, Piccolo Jr. recombines with Kami-sama.
A young Namek, Dende, has taken over as the new Kami-sama.
Kuririn and #18 have a young daughter, who is named "Marron" in the final
chapter.
One of the recurrent themes in the manga is that although a Saiya-jin
character has reached a new level of power, there is always a way to
get one step stronger. At first, this meant becoming so angry that
you went from Saiya-jin, to Super Saiya-jin. Later, with additional
training from Kaiou-sama, Gokuu becomes Super Saiya-jin 2. When
facing Buu, Gokuu steps up to Super Saiya-jin 3. Now, Goten and Trunks
have learned to do Fusion, but keep making mistakes that screw them
up, and Gohan received the spell from Dai Kaiou-shin that gives the
boy the power of a god. Finally, Dai Kaiou-shin's earrings can
perform the same function as Fusion, but on a permanent basis.
Kamesennin is the old pervert who lives at Kame House, and walks around
with a turtle shell on his back. (kame == turtle.)
Originally, when all seven Dragon Balls were brought together, they would
summon the great Dragon, Shen-lon. Shen-lon could grant one wish,
before the Balls separated and flew off in opposite directions. The
first time we saw Shen-lon, the pervert Oolong wished for a pair of
panties (this was done to spoil the would-be tyrant Pilaf's attempt to
gain world domination.) After Kami-sama dies, the heroes visit Namek,
and witness the power of the original Namek Dragon Balls. Dende takes
over as the new Kami-sama, and the version of Shen-lon that he creates
with the Dragon Balls can grant three wishes. However, it still takes
4 months per wish before the Balls can be used again; people brought
back to life by the Balls can only be brought back once; and people
dead for more than 1 year can not be resurrected again.
Kamesennin has an older sister -- the fortune teller Urunai Baba. When we
first met her, Baba would answer any question for a huge sum of
money. If you didn't have that much cash, you could try to defeat her
"champions." Each champion was a monster, with the last one being a
ghost -- The ghost of Gokuu's dead grandfather, Son Gohan. Because
Baba has the ability to grant one day back on Earth to someone who is
dead, Son Gohan had asked this favor of her so that he could talk to
Gokuu again. Much later, Gokuu asks Baba to grant him this favor so
that he can join the boy Gohan in the Budoukai. However, Baba can
only grant the favor once to each person, so after 24 hours, Gokuu has
to return to the "Other World" permanently. The favor is also granted
to Vejiita, to let the Saiya-jin Prince fight Majin Buu.
Vejiita's pride is so great, he can not allow anyone to defeat him. For
this reason, the Saiya-jin Prince trains relentlessly in an attempt to
get stronger than Gokuu. But, Gokuu always remains a little bit more
powerful. This is why Vejiita enters the final Budoukai, and why he
is so upset at the idea that Gokuu may return to the Other World
before they have the chance to battle again. After he defeats Gokuu,
Vejiita plans on destroying Earth, and returning to his prior life as
a mercenary. (But, ultimately, he shows that he has a nice side to
him, and this labels him as a good guy, according to the Namek
Dragon.)
=======================================================================
The information concerning Bardock is taken from the color anime comic:
Tatta Hitori no Saishu Keisen == The Only Fighter's Last Battle
[Jump Comics Selection, ISBN4-8342-1183-5, 690 yen, 1993]
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