Determinator / Dragon Ball

• Son Goku. Before the Cell Saga, he didn't know the meaning of the word surrender! And even when he did then, it was because he knew what he was doing. However, the greatest example was fighting Kid Buu at Super Saiyan 3, which consumes a hell of a lot of energy. As intense as the fight was, Goku was losing energy...and fast. He finally collapses from exhaustion, leaving Vegeta, to take his place in the fight instead. It was for five minutes, or less and Vegeta found himself nearly killed only for Goku to save him and transform into Super Saiyan 3 again, and battle him.
  • Another good example would be his fight against Piccolo - he's not going to let something simple like having a hole blasted through his shoulder and losing the use of all of his limbs prevent him from winning. And without help either, because that would be against the tournament rules!
  • Goku's Determinator nature actually got him in trouble when he was fighting Android 19. Despite knowing he was getting sick, he kept trying to fight and push through the pain he was in. Not only was he knocked down and nearly died from having his energy sucked, he put his friends in danger when they rush to try to save him. It would have been better for Goku to either step aside or ask for help.
  • This is of course shown in the movies, but especially Dragon Ball Z Movie 8, the first movie with Broly where the latter loves to pummel Goku. Goku keeps going on, standing up and trying to fight while his friends and son are down for the count, until he receives his friends' energy to defeat Broly.
  • Indeed, Goku's spirit and unwillingness to quit and push himself to new heights is what Vegeta himself cites at the end of the Buu Saga as part of why he's number one he will find a way to overcome whatever obstacle is in his path and push himself beyond. Along with his Blood Knight nature, Goku simply will not give up when it comes to pushing himself to new heights and that trait inspires those around him to do so as well. Whether Tien, Yamcha, Krillin, Vegeta, Piccolo, or Hit and Jiren those who meet Goku and his drive find themselves pushing new personal levels in response to his presence and many come to respect him as a result.
  • Whether fighting King Piccolo and his son while near-crippled and bleeding or finding new levels of power and skill, Goku will never give up. When fighting Beerus and after his SSG powers seemingly faded Goku found the strength to go on and pushed himself to keep fighting to protect his world, gaining the godly strength once more in doing so. The Future Trunks arc aptly shows this, Fused Zamasu got a taste of this himself, when Goku by himself in Super Saiyan Blue succeeded when Vegeta and Trunks failed and pushed himself so hard in a beam struggle against the kai that not only did he piece his attack and melt the god's face, but Goku even broke his own arms doing so. Then what he did afterwards takes the cake, despite his arms being useless he immediately and without hesitation still keeps fighting the furious God with only his legs, breaking his halo and arm in the process.
  • But perhaps Goku's biggest example in Super comes in the Tournament of Power when Jiren pushes back his own spirit bomb with ease despite his use of SSB Kaio-ken x20 and seemingly killing Goku. The Saiyan emerges from the rubble bathed in angelic light, as it turns out that Goku's stubbornness to survive and refusal to give up pushed him to a new level of power and skill entirely, the legendary Ultra Instinct technique.
• Vegeta is a bit of Determinator himself, perhaps even more than Goku. Part of why he's such a badass is the insane amount of punishment it takes to bring him down. Seriously, he gets his arm snapped in half, but when Trunks tries to jump in and help he's all like "NO STAY BACK I GOT THIS."
  • His saga as a villain proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. No matter what any of the Z-Fighters throw at him, he simply refuses to stay down. He gets knocked around by Goku's Kaio-ken, knocked into the sky with the Kamehameha — overwhelming his own attack — and the most powerful move in the series, the Spirit Bomb. He had his tail cut off, reverting himself from his Oozaru form, while also exhausted from creating a miniature moon that triggered said form. Despite this, he had enough energy to launch a huge ki blast around him. And then he fought Gohan in HIS Oozaru form and defeated him, but what finally did Vegeta in was getting crushed by Gohan's unconscious body. Even after all that, he had just enough stamina in him to crawl back to his space pod to flee so he could heal up and fight another day.
  • Vegeta then one-ups this in the next saga by wasting all his energy in an attack on Freeza, taking a subsequent beating from Freeza, and then after coming within an inch of his life, mocking Freeza after Goku's arrival, which prompts Freeza to blow a hole directly through his heart, and then wills himself to live long enough to explain to Goku about what Freeza did to their home planet, prompting Freeza to Lampshade the fact that he's still talking even though he's been blasted through the heart in both the dub and original, and making everyone realize that he isn't quite the monstrous bastard they originally thought he was after crying and begging Goku to finish off Freeza so that he will never turn anyone else into someone like himself.
  • Vegeta outdoes himself again in the final saga (twice), fighting Fat Buu by himself. Buu does not kill him. Instead it took Vegeta HIMSELF to kill him. He fights Kid Buu later on, this time only to buy time for Goku to "charge up." Cue the most brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown in the entire series. But Vegeta just kept getting back up, taunting Buu as he did so.
  • And then Vegeta outdoes himself again in the Tournament of Power in Dragon Ball Super, when he takes on God of Destruction Toppo by using the same attack that literally turned him to dust against Fat Buu... And not only this time he wins, he survives and goes on fighting Jiren.
• Son Gohan inherited the Determinator trait from his father — most famously, defeating Cell with only one good arm.
• Every last Z-Fighter during the Kamehameha struggle between Gohan and Cell, in the anime. By this point, even Piccolo is completely outclassed in terms of power, but he and the by-this-point-barely-relevant human warriors just keep blasting Cell from the sidelines, not caring what happens to them if they can do something to help Gohan.
  Cell: Why can't you people JUST STAY DOWN?!
• Let's not forgot Fat Buu once he made his Heel–Face Turn. He gets beaten into pudding by his evil half Kid Buu, but he just kept going despite being so badly outmatched. When Vegeta was being held down by Kid Buu, Fat Buu used his remaining strength to tackle him so Mr. Satan could save Vegeta, allowing Goku to throw his Spirit Bomb.
• Freeza pretty much exemplifies this trope. Let's see, he engaged in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown with Goku after he went and killed his best friend, prompting Goku to turn SSJ, and then he was in a losing battle with Goku, so he decided to blow up the planet they were on to win. At this point, he's out of energy and badly injured. So, he decides to play a deadly version of double-kienzan Frisbee with his opponent...which backfired spectacularly. On the verge of death from being vivisected, he finally breaks down & starts begging. Goku of course gives him his own energy out of spite mercy. Guess what he does with it? Promptly tries to shoot Goku in the back. This finally provokes Goku to blast him into oblivion... or so we're led to think. About a year later in canon, we not only find that he's managed to survive planet Namek EXPLODING, he got stronger, and he's come back for more. Understandably, everyone was quite shocked that he had survived, considering that about two thirds of his organic body was destroyed, even some parts of his head. The anime also shows that he was still talking in space, despite being unconscious and near death, before he was found by his father.
  • This gets even more when he is revived for the second time. Despite Toppo and Jiren using him as a personal punching bag, he still has enough grit to mock them, and even personally rings out Jiren himself, alongside help of Goku.
• Tenshinhan deserves special mention for coming out of freaking nowhere with a long string of Kikohos — just to keep Cell on the ground temporarily. (The Kikoho saps huge amounts of energy, to the point that it's quite possible to die from exhaustion when using it — Tenshinhan keeps it up for several minutes before he passes out.)
• Krillin has shades of this, too — the little guy gets flattened on a regular basis, but is just as regularly seen dragging his bleeding self off the ground to keep fighting, even when he knows that the best he can do is buy time.
• Videl. When she wants to do something, she does not give up. Ever. Even when it's clear that she has no chance of accomplishing the task at hand. Her fight with Spopovich at the World Martial Arts Tournament is the best example of this one could give. After it became clear that she wasn't going to win, people kept telling her to give up. It took Spopovich's partner telling him to stop torturing her because they had more important things to do, to finally end the match by him kicking her out of the ring. After a certain point, he was just torturing her and she wasn't moving on her own anymore, but, given the opportunity to stand up again, she would've surely continued attacking the guy.
• Gloriously subverted with Android 19. He seems like this at first, but...
• Cell will stop at nothing to achieve his goal of absorbing Androids 17 and 18. Even the fact that they were destroyed in his timeline is just a minor speedbump to him.

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