Headscratchers / Dragon Ball Z: Saiyan Saga

Hardcore music in the dub version

• Why do you think the dub replaced the original opening with metal? Because American Kirby Is Hardcore? Wasn't Hot-Blooded singing already hardcore enough? Why did they remove it for the English version?
  • If I had to guess on why they went with "Rock the Dragon", it was probably because the song was made while Saban still had rights to the show and that Shuki Levy had a hand in making/deciding what the theme song would be. I say this because
    • 1) I don't think any of Saban's shows have used the original Japanese theme when it comes to anime, or their Tokusatsu shows for that matter...
    • and 2) Shuki's belief on theme songs seems to be that they should be simple and memorable, which often boils down to "repeat yourself over and over again..." for some reason.
  • In America at least, Dragon Ball Z fans and metalheads have a lot of overlap. And personally, I prefer the dub music anyway, metal is perfect for the high speed explosive action the series is famed for.
  • Most Japanese studios charge extra for the original music. Sometimes, the dubbing studio doesn't want to pay that, and just makes their own stuff (4Kids is a perfect example).

Of Tuffles and Oozarus

• Okay, so according to King Kai, the Saiyans conquered the Tuffles by utilizing the full moon that came to Planet Vegeta once every eight years. Question: Why did the Tuffles not notice huge, stomping ape monsters every eight years until the Saiyans decided to attack them? And why did the Saiyans wait so long/didn't connect the dots until right then?
  • This was explained later: the Saiyans weren't indigenous to Planet Plant (the Tuffles' home planet), they arrived in a rocket and shared the planet with the Tuffles for several years in an on-off war with the Saiyans kept in check by the Tuffles' advanced technology. The Tuffles were slaughtered and Planet Plant was renamed after the King at the time, Vegeta. Then the Saiyans started to explore a bit more where they met a race that got them into the planet trade and shortly after that, the whole race was annexed by Frieza & his father's army completely. So to answer your questions in order: according to the timeline, ten years passed between the arrival of the Saiyans and the Tuffle extinction, so they had only seen the transformed state twice at the most and were unprepared for the onslaught, and the Saiyans were always trying to kill the Tuffles but were repelled by Tuffle tech until they transformed and had their powers increased.
  • Even without that, remember that the Oozarus are near-mindless beasts. King Vegeta was the one who discovered how to retain control in that form. It's likely that since the Oozarus rampaged without reason, the Tuffles could out-maneuver them. Only when Vegeta organized them was there no way to stop them.
  • It should also be noted that in the original Japanese version, Planet Plant only had full moons once a century, not every eight years. Why they decided to make it eight years in the dub, we can only guess. But once every hundred years makes way more sense, as assuming the Tuffle lifespan is the same as a human's, then no Tuffle would have seen an Oozaru in living memory. At most, they'd be stories your grampa tells you about his dad telling him that the Saiyans went ape one night.

Shenron's Power

• Toriyama contradicts himself about Shenron's powers in DBZ vol.2. After Kami-sama takes Goku's body, Piccolo says Kami-sama lacks the power to bring him back to life (p.11). However, when the Z fighters ask Shenron to destroy the Saiyans a few pages later, he says he was made by God and cannot grant any wish that surpasses God's powers (p.115) Waitammit, in that case, how come he can bring Goku back to life when Kami-sama can't?
  • Saiyan Arc and beyond (DBZ) contradict the previous material (DB) often. Another example is when Karin states that a rocket ship heading towards Kami's palace would simply be deflected which is later handwaved when Bulma flies up there to give everyone some battle armors.
    • That can be explained by advances in technology. We're talking about Bulma after all. Meanwhile, the OP is IN THE SAME BOOK.
    • It very well may also be that Bulma is eventually given a special exemption - she IS one of the most important supporters to the warriors after all, and has helped in saving the Earth a few times.
    • Another possible explanation is that since Kami and Piccolo had already fused at that point, there was no guardian of the Earth. If it is the guardian's power that fuels such a barrier then no guardian = no barrier = Bulma can fly to the lookout.
  • The proper limitation (as re-stated at the end of the Cell Saga) should be that Shenron cannot affect beings stronger than his creator. He can do things that surpass Kami's powers (resurrect people), but not things that surpass Kami's strength (killing the Saiyans, de-powering the Androids).
    • Alternatively, there's a very simple, bureaucratic answer: Kami may very well have the POWER to resurrect people at will, but not the AUTHORITY (he answers to Enma, who answers to Kaio-sama, etc.); the Dragon Balls are very likely an accepted way to bypass the authority route (the Elder Kai is blatantly aware of them but doesn't like them - it's likely that there was an agreement some time in the ancient past where the Kais allowed the Balls to exist and have the power to resurrect, since they're notoriously hard to gather).
  • Easy answer. Shenron cannot exceed Kami's power but he can exceed Kami's abilities. Dende obviously has a lot less power than most of the cast, but they still can't do his healing technique because they don't know how. Reviving the dead is within the scope of Kami's power but he doesn't have the ability, and Shenron does because he's basically a cosmic cheat code.

Goku's a terrible friend

• Krillin, Roshi and Bulma are Goku's closest friends. He was basically inseparable with them all his life and Krillin in particular is like a Heterosexual Life-Partner and/or brother. Why did it take him four years to let them know he has a son? Why hasn't he had contact with them in that amount of time? In general, this series has a tendency, during the time skips, to have the characters have spent the time having no contact with each other, presumably so that the characters themselves can echo the surprise the viewer is supposed to feel during big revelations like marriages and childbirth. But it doesn't make sense considering how close some of the characters are.
  • When people grow up and move away from one another, this does actually happen. There are people you grow up with, do everything together with, and then you graduate High School/College and don't see them for years. Goku grew up and got married—that's the start of a whole new life, and their world seems to be without the internet or Facebook, so you wouldn't have Krillin seeing Goku's status update saying, "Say hi to little Gohan!"
    • They may be without the Internet and Facebook, but they're not without telephones. And while, yes, people do slowly grow apart over time, that's not how this was portrayed. One day, Goku and Krillin were BFFs, the next day, Goku got married and apparently vanished off the face of the Earth for four years.
    • Let's make an objective analysis: The original Dragon Ball ended in 1989 with Dragon Ball Z ending in 1996. It's not unsurprising their world doesn't have social networking and e-mail in an era in which Toriyama was still using Windows 95. Mobile phones were also very expensive and in relative terms were limited to bulky bricks and car-phones - making the Dragon Ball universe an unintentional combination of Zeerust and Technology Marches On.
    • Even if you're just talking about the anime, the start of DBZ was in 1989. Unless Toriyama used Trunks' time machine, he wouldn't have had access to Windows 95.
    • Later on, Bulma complains about how terrible Goku is at staying in touch with the rest of the team, so it's only natural they wouldn't know what's going on with them. It's their own fault for not visiting.
    • Remember how Goku has almost 0 understanding of good social behavior as a child, Chi-Chi has met these people at most twice after the 23rd Tournament, and little baby Gohan can't even talk. If ANYTHING, I'd ask the question in the other direction: Why doesn't Bulma or Krillin visit THEM?
    • Easy: they are TERRIFIED of Chi-Chi.
    • Not sure about Dragon Ball universe or other countries, but even in the real world, telephones were not a common household objects in some countries until the 2000s. This troper didn’t have a phone till 2000 and had to use public phone booths to stay in touch with people. Losing contacts with someone meant losing that person forever. Also, Tien/Tenshinhan went off-the-grid in the Buu saga and the gang was unable to contact him, until he himself showed up in the final battle, meaning it is possible to do so.

Why doesn't Vegeta just kill them already?

• Okay: During the Saiyan Saga, it's down to Piccolo, Gohan and Krillin, when Vegeta's scouter spots Goku approaching. He tells Nappa to kill the others because they can't take the chance of Goku teaming up with the rest. So why didn't he just blast them himself? He'd already seen the others were at least strong enough to hold Nappa off, and that Nappa doesn't know the meaning of "finish them quickly".
  • At this point, Vegeta was pretty much just a backseat driver, and not a particularly smart one at that. Plus, he could always do it himself later (or so he thought).
    • Actually, I believe it's because of his "royal" personality. The Prince of Saiyans doesn't want to waste his time/strength/energy/breath/blinks on inconsequential gutter trash from a backwards world. He's so powerful and therefore "above" these lower beings that he shouldn't have to bother when he's got Nappa to do it for him (even if the bald brute tends to "play with his food").
  • Even if Goku teamed up with them, the power level he showed on Vegeta's scouter would have mattered little to him. It was Nappa Vegeta was saying couldn't afford the team up, so there's no need for him to prevent it happening.
    • Which is still monumentally stupid. Considering one arc later, Vegeta is literally crying over the loss of his entire race, one would expect him to value you the life(lives) of the last Saiyan(s) a little more than he did. Granted, Goku most likely wouldn't have dropped everything to go help but Vegeta could have told him the score and or sent Nappa to safety when it became obvious that he was outmatched but salvageable.
    • That could be explained as Vegeta being unwilling to share with Frieza's men the story of HOW Nappa was paralyzed even if he could be healed. He was preventing unnecessary risk as he was worried about Frieza catching on and he may not have trusted Nappa to keep quiet of their objective or smart enough to make an excuse. He didn't expect to lose and he knew he could trust himself when he went for healing later on (not that he had much of a choice). Even if you take that excuse, it didn't matter as Vegeta was being monitored by Frieza's men anyways. Either way, I've always seen the deaths of Raditz and Nappa to be a terrible waste of good characters. Such wasted potential...
    • What Vegeta seems to care about most in this matter is a nebulous idea of Saiyan Warrior Pride™ which in my interpretation seems to boil down to "Saiyans are a Superior Species and Proud Warrior Race who should never lose except to stronger Saiyans and Frieza's genocide is heinous more because it made the Saiyans look like weak fools than because it made them look suspiciously like space dust". Agreed that Vegeta can be monumentally stupid.
    • Vegeta never cared about his race. He wanted to overthrow Frieza and take over, him having exterminated the Saiyans was just a footnote for him.

Piccolo not knowing he's a Namek

• How did Piccolo not realize he was an alien? When Raditz tells Piccolo that Piccolo is an alien, specifically a Namek, Piccolo practically has a Heroic BSoD. What in the world did he think he was previously? Seriously, how does he not notice that nobody else has antennae and green skin? On the flip side, he goes out in public very often. The general public has no idea about flying people, aliens or anything (which is kinda dumb since apparently anybody can learn to fly, but whatever), so why don't they freak out when they see a big green guy with antennae?
  • He grew up as the son/clone of a guy who more or less claimed to be Satan, so he probably thought he was just that: an otherworldly being of demon-ish nature. Being informed that you're an alien is bound to screw up your own self-perception.
  • The original Dragon Ball also has plenty of half-animal hybrid people wandering around. A green guy isn't too farfetched in that regard.
    • Not just the original Dragon Ball. There were plenty of half-animal hybrid people in DBZ. A specific example is one of the World Tournament Applicants during the Buu-saga; a wolf/bear man who got 102 on the punching machine. The President of the World is a dog-man too, same as in the past. But... yeah... demons exist in the world as well, apparently. Piccolo probably thought he was a demon, as one of the tropers above already mentioned.
  • As for the antenna, he keeps his head covered with a turban thing. The people in the martial arts tournament only notice who he really is after he takes it off. Before that, he just looked like a dude with green skin and some weird things in his arms.
  • Note, however, that Piccolo Daimaou was actually a demon in addition to being an alien, just like Kami-sama was a god as well as an alien. As Piccolo had all his father's memories, he probably also had Kami-sama's pre-divine memories, but was too young to know he was from another world when he arrived on Earth.
    • That's not accurate. "Kami" is the Japanese word for "God". Even though nobody ever uses it, Kami probably had a name (in fact, when they re-merge a couple of arcs later, he refers to himself as a Namek who's long since forgotten his name). Just like Piccolo wasn't also a demon, he had taken the title of basically the Devil. At this point, Dende is God of Earth and his title would be Kami. It's just by that point, everybody is on a first name basis. It's possible that at one point, all planets had Kamis just like each quadrant has a Kai.

Korin is unprepared

• During the Saiyan Saga, why was Korin/Karin (that white cat with the stick) so unprepared? He had an entire year to prepare some Senzu beans, but by the time Goku arrived, he only had two beans left? Right after the Saiyan arc, it only took him about one or two months to prepare an entire bag for Goku to take to Namek. Shouldn't he have been stockpiling them for everyone, enough for one bag per person? At least an entire bag? It would've certainly given the protagonists a distinct advantage. Yajirobe could've even delivered the beans to everyone a day or two in advance before the fight.
  • Based on what Trunks says in his alternate timeline story, the senzu beans come from a tree. So it's the trees that determine how many senzu beans there are, not Korin. A bad crop, which can happen to any tree no matter how well you care for it, means few beans, and a good crop means plenty.
  • For all you know, he could've been preparing the things shortly after learning of the Saiyans and they just weren't ready until after the Saiyans were defeated. The two he gave Goku could've just been from a previous batch that was almost used up.
  • Alternatively: when Goku first meets Karin, he has an entire jar full of beans. The most likely explanation for the future constant lack of beans is that someone was eating them all, and only Yajirobe fits the bill, since he went to live on the tower with Karin after the Piccolo Daimaou saga. So Yajirobe is indirectly responsible for always putting the universe in jeopardy.

Why Shenron can't zap Nappa and Vegeta?

• In the Saiyan Saga saga, when Nappa and Vegeta were flying toward Earth, they had gathered the Dragon Balls long before they arrived but were not wishing Goku back so he could train, right? So why didn't they just wish for Nappa and Vegeta's ships to blow up, then one year later, wish Goku back and everything is peachy-keen.
  • Oolong was the only one who ever thought of killing them with the Dragon, but he didn't know that it would be unable to affect them until he tried to kill them directly, then the others argued that they just better bring Goku back to life. Good thing too, as he wouldn't be able to come back to life again if more than a year had passed since he died, and there was only one wish.
  • Also, if Goku isn't wished back within a year, he'll be dead permanently. If Oolong's wish had been granted, it would have been a Bittersweet Ending for all.
  • Isn't the whole one-year thing only with regard to resurrecting multiple people with a single wish? Didn't Kami explain to King Kai that it was possible for Shenron to bring back multiple people at once, so long as the circumstances to their death were similar enough, and they were killed within a year at most of the wish being made?
  • No. The one year limit on the Earth’s dragon balls are for anyone and everyone. Kami was simply explaining the limitations of the dragon balls. Just because A and B were both part of the limitation, doesn’t mean A is only a limitation if B happens. The rule gets a bit of a revision in Ressurection F, though, but mostly remains same. The Dragon can’t revive anyone who has been dead for more than a year properly.

Vegeta's a terrible boss

• In the beginning of the DBZ series, Vegeta randomly kills Nappa because he's getting his tail kicked by Goku. This was always a bit of a tactical wallbanger for me. Vegeta could have ordered Nappa to finish off the rest of Goku's friends (Krillin, etc) while he focused on Goku. If he had done this, the big battle scene would have had both him and Nappa running around as giant apes, practically a guaranteed win.
  • Vegeta really isn't the brightest bulb in the box when his pride is insulted, after all the cockiness he showed and seeing his ally getting his face stomped, he was pissed that Nappa was so weak, he was an insult to the Saiyan race, and by extension, Vegeta's pride, so he killed him. He surely could have used that energy he wasted flashily finishing off Nappa and Nappa himself to win or at least put up a much better fight, but his pride got in the way.
  • Goku's last attack to Nappa broke his back, and Nappa was unable to battle anymore in any way, that combined with the fact that he had failed so thoroughly with a low class like Goku made Vegeta decide to finish him off right there. And what would be the point in killing the others anyway? If it's not going to amuse him, then, he would have no reason to go after them because they haven't done anything to him yet.
    • Of course, Vegeta could always have simply left Nappa paralyzed on the ground. Had he done that, Nappa probably still could have provided assistance as a great ape by dragging himself along on his hands. In fact, considering that the Z-fighters only won by the skin of their teeth, Nappa probably would have sealed the evil Saiyans' victory that way.
    • The fight had moved away by then, unless Vegeta was willing to carry Nappa to the new battlefield (which he obviously wasn't) then Nappa wouldn't have been close enough to transform.
  • Actually, you're right but also wrong. Nappa was incapacitated so he was of no use anymore, someone would have killed him anyway because there was Vegeta alone and 3 opponents left. But the matter is that he was way stronger than Goku, he could have killed him, Krillin and Gohan without going full power, it's not his fault he didn't knew there was a technique at that time only known by two people that could multiply your power level (Kaioken).
    • If this trooper recalls, Vegeta told Holy he's seen techniques with a similar effect to Kaioken, so he could reasonably believe any being MIGHT know a similar ability.
  • Saiyans are proud warrior race guys. Vegeta might have thought Nappa was better off dead than paralyzed.

Piccolo forgot a power

• Why didn't Piccolo think of using the Special Beam Cannon against Nappa? Whilst it is almost certainly unlikely he could have killed him outright, it would have caused a noticeable increase in damage than any of the other techniques he was throwing. Just for reference, everything else were pre-Dragon Ball Z moves like the Demon Wave and the ability to split into copies - none of which even worked against teen Goku. We've also seen during his pre-Saiyan saga training montage that his ki level has reached the point where it no longer requires a five minute charge up time. The only reasonable explanation I can see is that Piccolo was holding an Idiot Ball.
  • Why? Because of the probability that it wouldn't work. Raditz dodged the damn thing at near-point-blank range and Nappa was much much faster.
    • Then why not trying to hit him while he was distracted like they tried to do when he attacked Tien? Even when it's down to only three, they could have done it so he probably couldn't dodge the attack.
    • Such a tactic relies on a lot of variables coming together at once, though. Nappa might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but it would be unlikely that he'd fall for a similar move again. That's not getting into how incredibly worn down the Z-fighters were getting at that point or the fact that Vegeta, however passive at that point, was still keeping an eye on things.
  • Firstly, the training montage is filler. Secondly, he uses something very similar to the Special Beam Cannon, the only difference is that he uses holds both hands out in front of him and fires a much bigger version of the Special Beam Cannon. He mentions in the battle with Raditz that he was still developing the technique and it wouldn't take as long to charge if he had both hands, so many people believe this is the final version of the Special Beam Cannon. And oh yeah, it misses Nappa.
    • Except every other instance of the Special Beam Cannon has the one-handed variety. And as Piccolo and Gohan demonstrated in the Cell Saga, a being of power stronger than the user can just deflect it. So even if Piccolo did use it, one, it would still take a while to charge, and two, Nappa could just deflect it.
    • Every other instance is from filler or movies. In the manga, Piccolo mentions that he would normally use two hands for the technique, but Raditz had blasted one of them off. The move he used against Nappa should logically be the Special Beam Cannon/Makankousappou.
    • There's also the fact that it takes a long time for Piccolo to charge his attack; five minutes at the beginning of the series. We have no idea how long it took him to get it to be near instantaneous. By the time Vegeta and Nappa got to the planet, it might still take too long to charge to be a viable option.

Raditz and Goku

• Ok, I was re-watching the beginning of DBZ, and something occurred to me. So Raditz came to Earth ostensibly to find his brother to help him, Nappa and Vegeta conquer some difficult planet. Now, barring massive amnesia-inducing head injury, there are only so many possibilities of what could have happened to Kakarot,

  • He was too weak as a child and was killed by the natives.
  • He conquered the planet but his ship was damaged and couldn't leave.
  • The ship was programmed to "call home", but since Planet Vegeta was destroyed, it couldn't do that.

  • I guess he was expecting #3, but I feel like #2 would have been a much more likely scenario, considering the moon and turning into a giant monkey. If so, how did Raditz intend to take his brother away?? He had only one one-man capsule! Was he planning on sharing??
  • He was probably planning on summoning backup from Vegeta and Nappa if and when he eventually found Kakarot. Alternatively, based on tracking, he could have realized that Kakarot's ship was still intact (which it was) and planned to use that to get him away.
  • Frieza and his troops don't generally spend a lot of time trying to help each other. If Kakarot had failed or abandoned his mission, Raditz would have to kill him. And if Raditz refused, Frieza or some henchman would kill him. And if the henchman refused, Frieza would kill him. Most likely, Raditz is just blindly following orders.
    • I don't think Raditz would have had to, or tried to kill Kakarot if he failed but TRIED. Raditz extends the offer for Kakarot to join him quite a few times, so if he failed but TRIED, he probably would have extended his time to help him finish the job.
  • He's got an apparently always-on communicator strapped to his face. "Dude, your ship's busted? Alright, take me to the mansion you made out of the bones of the children of your foes, little bro, while we wait for the ship I'm requisitioning right now from Frieza-sama to arrive. Do you get space-cable?"
    • It's the same as having a cellphone, it won't work if Goku doesn't have one, which he didn't had on and was somewhere on his ship, which as stated before could have been blown up as far as Raditz knew.
    • What? Raditz lands on the planet, talks to Goku and finds out his ship is destroyed, and requests an extra spaceship via scouter. Why would Goku himself need a scouter for any of that?
    • Almost certainly option 1. This unfortunately leads on to the inherent flaw with the Saiyan's plan of sending babies to conquer other planets... You see, Goku is an incredibly weak fighter naturally. When we first meet him, he's stronger and faster than an normal human but... Vegeta is very much correct in saying that, as a lower class warrior, Goku is very unimpressive. If Goku never turned, he would have missed out on every piece of training, piece of equipment or external augmentation he would ever recieved as a pure hearted man. For example, if Goku remained evil, Grandpa Gohan never would have trusted the power pole to him and would never have trained him in the martial arts - meaning he never could have reached Kami's Lookout for his training with Kami and Popo - assuming they (and by extention Korin) didn't kill him first. If he remained evil, he wouldn't have been trained by Roshi and developed his extreme power boost, wouldn't have gained the flying Nimbus or the Kamehameha Wave - his two most useful techniques. This all would have led up to the fact he would eventually have run into the Red Ribbon Army and without the Power Pole, Nimbus, Kamehameha, Gohan and Roshi's martial arts training, Korin's senzu beans, all the good hearted people that helped him like Android 8 and possessing absolutely no knowledge of or capability to track the Dragon Balls - Goku would have been slaughtered. His Great Ape form wouldn't have helped either: remember when Pilaf nearly killed him with a single missile? The RRA had considerably more hardware than that. It's also worth noting that eventually Goku would also have come up against Roshi (who more than likely would have eventually destroyed the moon and used the Evil Containment Wave to protect the Earth), Crane Hermit, Tien, Krillin (who would still have been trained by Roshi), Yamcha... all of whom possess the potential to kill or seriously injure him.
    • The Saiyans didn't know any of that was there, though. Those qualities are all probably pretty unique to Earth. Remove the magic, super powerful fighters, and monsters, and remember that the world's moon would've turned Kakarot into an unstoppable killing machine.
      
      Alternatively, killing off weak babies was part of the purpose of the practice—remember, it's the weak, low class ones that are sent off in the first place. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if that's what happened with Raditz: Send the infant off to some world, observe, and if he kills everything on it, bring him back. If not, leave him to rot.
• Raditz doesn't need to think Goku's ship is busted for him to still be on the planet. Why wouldn't he just stay? Where else is he going to go? It's stated several times Earth is "the boonies" of space. Goku was, in all likelihood, an idea thought up on the spur of the moment ("Didn't you have a brother? He's on Earth, right? Go pick him up."), and Raditz was just an errand boy sent to get him.
• Why did Raditz find it odd the condition Earth was in when he got there? Goku was ordered to conquer the planet, not to destroy it. It's not mandatory to turn the area you conquered into a Conan movie evil empire, is it? Maybe Goku liked green plains and left that place as it is. It was a very wide area with mostly animals and as far as we know "one person", if Goku conquered Earth, he probably was in a capital in a more urban area. Last, it has been over 20 years, Goku could have just burned down most of the planet, become the undisputed dictator of all of Earth and things were rebuilt and such after that.
  • I believe that Goku's orders were to eliminate all life on Earth... that would include animals at least. And I'm pretty sure eliminating all life on Earth wouldn't leave the place sparkling clean...
    • Not to mention the very first thing Raditz saw when he came out of his pod (in the manga, anyway) was a farmer, so it was obvious from the start that Kakarot had failed his mission.

Enma vs. the Bad Guys

• Lord Enma said he defeated Raditz before he went to hell, so what stopped the rest of the villains from killing Enma? It was stated King Kai is stronger than Enma and that Nappa is stronger than King Kai, so why couldn't Nappa, or any villain after Nappa, kill Enma?
  • Because he is the goddamn King Emma.
  • Alternatively, the secret powers of his mahogany desk saved him.
  • Because the other villains would be a little cloud, like everyone else. Despite filler saying otherwise, villains don't keep their bodies.
  • Uh, actually that line about Enma beating Raditz was from the manga
    • Yes. And Raditz was a little puff during that time. That's what I'm saying. Remember, Goku is the one who thinks this makes Enma strong, since he didn't realize Raditz lacked a body.
    • This isn't true according to canon. Raditz still should have had a body, now perhaps normal beings are restricted in someway when they are in Otherworld but you don't lose your body until AFTER Enma judges you one way or another. This is confirmed twice, first when Goku and King Kai die, they realize Cell is still alive because he should be on Snake Way with the rest of them and he's not, then it's re-confirmed when Emna admits that he allowed Vegeta to keep his body during the Buu Saga. King Enma was either lying or really did defeat Raditz. Which makes him stronger than a Saibaman.
  • It was never stated that Raditz was stronger than King Kai, just that Nappa and Vegeta were. Keep in mind that Raditz was puny compared to them. Hell, he was killed by Piccolo, who was weaker than Goku, who was extremely weak compared to King Kai until he received his training.
    • The question is why didn't any of the later more powerful villains kill Enma. And the easiest answer seems to be a few things. It wouldn't do them a bit of good, where ever Otherworld is physically located, it seems that without Instant Transmission or the Kai's Transportation Trick that getting out of Otherworld is impossible. Killing Emna might not even accomplish anything. It's not until the Buu battle that it's established if you're already dead when you're killed that you'll cease to exist and so many crazy things were going on in that battle, not to mention Goku is the one who said it and he may have been incorrect. The anime seems to heavily suggest that Zarbon and Dodoria might be the most powerful beings to actually lose their bodies everybody seems to have told Enma to screw off. Which may be a punishment in and of itself. Mind you, in DBZ, reincarnation is confirmed. You die, you get cleansed of your sins and sent back to try again. If you're super good, you get to go to heaven. The villains holding onto their bodies and thus their sins really aren't doing themselves any favors and by contrast, Zarbon and Dodoria could have been reborn and are living happy lives as good people right now.
    • Like Krillin, the villains that died on Namek didn't go to Enma's check in no matter what the anime says. As for Frieza and King Cold, they were of sufficient notoriety that the Supreme Kai and Beerus knew about them. He may have had a welcome party ready for him when he arrived in the afterlife. Doctor Gero would probably be a normal human again upon entering the afterlife and Cell and 19 are Androids in the end. Pui Pui and Yakon may very well have given Enma trouble but shortly afterwards, Vegeta showed up and Enma kept him around with his body granted to him for the remainder. As for Nappa, it is possible he didn't give the same kind of trouble. He's older then Raditz and may have remembered Planet Vegeta better and wanted to see the other Saiyans in Hell again.
    • This is pure conjecture and if we're not counting the Anime as a whole, at least as canon Beerus/Bills certainly doesn't count. Cell is not an android, he's an artificial lifeform. There is no reason to believe he doesn't have a soul, Goku and King Kai certainly expected him to have a soul and unlike true androids, his ki, the essence of all living things, is present in Cell.

Goku's dramatic run

• Other than Rule of Drama and need to have a Big Damn Heroes moment, why did Goku had to run all the way back Snake Road to return to Earth while Yamcha and the others were revived instantaneously later?
  • Either Porunga is just that much better, or they didn't word the revive Goku thing very well, and King Kai told them how to phrase it properly later.
    • Both, actually.

Raditz is weak

• Why wasn't Raditz much, much stronger? He'd spent the last several years of his life wearing himself ragged on the front-line against a variety of alien civilizations, just like his father (alongside two elites at that). Just the boost of Zenkai alone should've made him far more dangerous than he was, not to mention his using weighted armor longer than Goku or Piccolo (the Zenkai boost was pushing Bardock near 10'000 near the end of his life, and he was lower-class too). Kami's training, as incredible as it is, doesn't seem like it would be great enough to let half a dozen humans surpass a Saiyan in just a year (that same training for 3 years allowed Goku to just match Piccolo).
  • Raditz may just not have ever gotten near enough to death to get enough boosts. There's no indication he used weighted armour, the Saiyan armor is actually quite light and flexible.
  • It's never said explicitly that Raditz was working with Vegeta and Nappa in the sense of a team (e.g. like Bardock captained his own squadron of Saiyan warriors). The way he's treated seems to indicate that he was more a hanger-on that Vegeta and Nappa only cared anything about and communicated with directly because of the fact that he (before Goku/Kakarot was confirmed to exist) was the only other Saiyan left. Unless you count Turles, Broly, Paragus, and Tarble. In any case, he very likely didn't get into battles where his life was threatened that much. Keep in mind that, even at a Power Level of 1200, most life forms not already under Frieza's employ wouldn't come close to standing up to his power. Never mind that, as a baby low-class Saiyan, he was likely sent off to be a Tyke-Bomb on a far-reaching planet somewhere, only returning to Frieza after he came enough of age to have stomped out the local populace. He probably didn't have the benefit of Elite-type training like Nappa and Vegeta. So, maybe he did have more power inside him somewhere - but he just didn't know how to draw it out.
  • When Gohan went berserk and headbutted Raditz hard enough to crack his armor, Raditz was shocked and actually thought to himself that the puny brat was the first opponent who had ever caused him any real damage on the battlefield. So yeah, Raditz wasn't some hardened warrior who regularly put his life on the line conquering powerful civilizations, he was a loser who only ever fought opponents who were completely helpless to resist him. He probably never even experienced a Zenkai boost in his life. Vegeta and Nappa's lack of respect for him wasn't just because he was weak, it was also because he was a coward who had the gall to act all arrogant like he was a real warrior just because he probably wiped out some pathetic frontier planet in his ape form when he was a baby.
    • This is probably the answer. We see Raditz begging for his life twice, instead of trying to fight until the bitter end (while Vegeta never begs anyone, and Nappa at least keeps trying to fight Goku even after he obviously shows himself stronger than him). It's very likely that Raditz had never had a "close call" in his life before, and that every time he found himself in any danger of being outmatched, he would run and hide, and maybe call Vegeta and/or Nappa to do the job for him while he hanged back gloating about the power of the Saiyan.
    • Part of this is caused by the simple fact that that power levels are bullshit and Raditz was power level-wise much lower than really made sense. However, the above is likely false-ish. It's easy to forget that Raditz (stupid Saibamen aside) is fantastically powerful by any regular standards. Come the end of Dragon Ball Z, everybody more powerful than Raditz has a name, we're talking about twelve or so Frieza soldiers, a half-dozen androids, and the Majins. Raditz would be a threat to most planets based on everything we've seen. As is mentioned on another page, a planet of Raditz level fighters would require the Ginyu Force to quell. So he was likely sent to regular planets with regular populations just like most of Frieza's army.

Vegeta can't stop his own attacks

• Why didn't Vegeta simply end his blitz wave technique when Gohan went Giant Ape?
  • It wasn't something that he was consciously keeping up at that point, and when he first uses it, Goku says that it's draining his energy. He probably didn't have direct control over it by then and didn't have the power to brute-force it off.
  • He more or less says that he couldn't control it. Once he sees Gohan's tail, he frets that the false moon will continue to shine for another hour, and he doesn't seem to have any way of stopping it earlier.

Just cut the tail, Goku!

• After Goku blinds Vegeta with the Solar Flare, why did it never occur to him to just cut off Vegeta's tail and bring him down to size while blinded?
  • There's no indication that Goku even knew at the time that cutting off Vegeta's tail would return him to normal. I mean, Goku only transforms 3 times as far as we're shown, and only once does his tail get cut off to return him to normal, and he doesn't even know that he was turned at that point, much less what happened to his tail. Also, since Goku doesn't even know about the fact that he turns into a Great Ape until the fight with Vegeta, obviously nobody told him that cutting off the tail would help.
    • Makes even less sense in Kai, where Vegeta actually tells Goku that the Great Ape transformation is triggered by glands in the tail. I know Goku's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but to have him not think of cutting off Vegeta's tail after that doesn't make sense.
    • Does Goku even have a technique that cuts? Most of them are ki blasts and such, but I don't think he's ever used a kienzan.
  • He uses a kienzan against Buu at one point. But while Goku seems very good at learning other people's techniques (and Vegeta also uses a kienzan after seeing it once, so it was probably easy to replicate), Krillin first used it specifically in the Saiyan arc and Goku couldn't have learned it yet since he wasn't there to see it. So at that point, he probably didn't know any cutting techniques.
  • In The Tree of Might, he does, but the movies are considered non-canon, so...

Vegeta is bad at math

• Vegeta's claim that he'll destroy the Earth while his power level is around 30,000 doesn't make logical sense. It took Frieza a huge amount of charging in his final form at 50% of his power (around 60,000,000) and yet he didn't give it enough oomph to blow up Namek. Kid Buu's blast to destroy the Earth needed a shot from Super Saiyan Vegeta to deflect it into orbit.
  • Although Buu eventually succeeded... Frieza actually comments on the toughness of the planet (he references Namek being "a tough cookie" or something like that in the dub), and it's possible he was holding back because he wanted to give himself just time to escape into orbit before the planet blew. Probably, Frieza just miscalculated. Clearly, because usually when he's destroyed or attempted to destroy a planet, the energy ball has been slow moving and the size of a small moon. That time, he charged a smaller, faster-moving ball of energy and tried to fire it right into the core, presumably so Goku wouldn't have time to dodge it. But it didn't do the trick instantaneously (although Namek did eventually blow up.)
  • As for Vegeta, he probably miscalculated as well. He already destroyed Arlia on the way, and presumably wasn't at full power while he did so.
  • The different characters' ability to destroy planets is very inconsistent. Even if we ignore Arlia (which was added for the TV show), Piccolo and even Master Roshi were able to destroy the moon. Master Roshi's power level was 139 when Bulma used the scouter on him—even if we assume that he had let himself go since his World Tournament days; even if we assume that in his muscled-up form his power-level was multiplied by ten; even then that means a guy with a power level of just over 1000 can destroy the earth's moon in an instant. The earth's mass is 80 times that of the moon—I don't know exactly how large Namek was supposed to be, but with Frieza's power level in the millions, he should have been able to destroy it in a split second without breaking a sweat.
    • That's assuming Frieza was trying to destroy it in an instant. One of the above tropers points out that Namek was abnormally tough, possibly made out of harder minerals than most planets, Frieza was quite possibly holding back either to fight Goku or simply because actually being on a planet when it explodes is extremely unpleasant and Frieza wanted to give himself time to escape into orbit prior to that happening. However you're not wrong. Power Levels are bullshit.
  • Frieza might have needed to power up his final form to destroy Namek but he destroyed planet Vegeta in his weakest form after with a nearly instant charge. Piccolo and Master Roshi both destroyed the moon. It was also filler but Vegeta in the anime had already blown up one planet that we're aware of. In short, in DBZ, it's not at all uncommon for a planet to be less durable than the beings fighting on them.
  • With regard to Vegeta above claiming he'll destroy the Earth. Even if he wasn't strong enough, perhaps he was just telling Goku this so he wouldn't try and dodge the attack, because he seriously wanted him dead, or to simply prove that he was stronger?
  • "Destroy the Earth" can have more than one meaning. Turning a green, life-filled planet into a volcanic wasteland (a Class 5 apocalypse) only requires wrecking a few miles of crust, and Vegeta could probably handle it at 30,000. A Class X apocalypse, turning 5.972 sextillion tons of rock into scattered dust and debris? That requires Frieza-level power.
  • Frieza probably dragged the process out to inflict more psychological torment and terror on the heroes.

Popo making doll clones of Z-fighters

• Why didn't Popo create dolls of the Z-Fighters? Granted, they're short-lived, but the dolls would have fought as well if not better than the originals; they would have bought enough time for Goku to arrive, saving at least a few of the character's lives.
  • Mr. Popo does not make decisions for himself, as his main task is to provide the maintenance of the Lookout and assisting Kami. His first order of business is that there must be a Kami and the Kami must be preserved. His training of the Z Warriors is done out of Kami's orders.
    • Plus, there's the whole thing where Shenron can't grant wishes beyond Kami's power. The same should be true for all creation techniques. Popo can't make dolls stronger than he is and the Z Fighters had already surpassed him. On top of that, we can't even be sure if the dolls can go to the lower plane.

Out of Senzus

• Why couldn't Goku and Gohan use Senzu Beans after their fight with Vegeta instead of having to go to the hospital?
  • Goku gave Krillin and Gohan the only Senzu beans he had shortly after he left Korin.

King Emma practices acrobatics on Snake Way

• It was said that King Enma was the only other person to get to the end of Snake Way. Considering how big he is, and that Snake Way is just wide enough for a regular-sized person, how did he manage it? Did he have to tightrope-walk his way across?
  • Probably flight. If Dabura can fly then there's no reason to see why Enma couldn't.
  • It was said that Enma first crossed Snake Way many centuries ago. He could have been a lot smaller back then. Given that planet Kaio is tiny, that would back up my claim.

Why King Kai couldn't teleport Goku?

• If King Kai knew the Instant Transmission technique, why didn't he transport Goku to the Other World Checkpoint during the Saiyan Saga?
  • Toriyama didn't think of it at the time. Besides, it would've killed the drama if King Kai simply buzzed Goku over to the Other World Checkpoint, rather than Goku running as fast as he could to the other side while his friends were struggling with Nappa and Vegeta.
    • Can King Kai even go to the physical plane? I mean, yeah he was born there, but he has a job to do. Is he allowed to interfere directly like that? Although he may have been able to transport him to King Emma, but we don't even know how much energy it takes to transport a person. King Kai may just be unable to bring a passenger. On top of that, King Kai may have learned the technique as a result of the guilt of not knowing it when Goku needed it. He was trolling Goku with it as a joke because Goku had interrupted his concentration earlier. There's no indication that the ability wasn't a new addition to his arsenal.
  • Wait, King Kai can use Instant Transmission?

Why don't Senzu recover tails?

• Senzu beans seem to recover from any damage up to and including broken bones, internal bleeding and in Yamcha's case in the Android Saga, "an entire gaping hole in the chest". Gohan is fed one after the Nappa fight and does not recover his tail until halfway through the fight with Vegeta. Shouldn't it have popped back when he ate the bean? The question carries over to later in the show. How does Vegeta not regrow his on Namek after the Ginyu fight?
• They don't seem to be able to heal "permanent" damage. Yamcha keeps his scars, Saiyans don't regrow tails and while "all the Z Fighters" may actually have meant "everybody", the androids have no way of finding Korin's Tower nor a reason to travel there, Senzu beans didn't bring back Gohan's arm. I don't believe Gohan gets a Senzu bean until the battle with the Ginyu force by which point it was considered permanent by his body.
  • Actually, you're wrong. The Saiyans' tails have been shown to regrow several times throughout the series. Even if you only go by the manga, this is canon. It just seems that the tails stop regrowing at some point, and really, it's just as inconsistent as power levels are bullshit.
    • The official explanation is that the tails don't grow back once a Saiyan has reached a certain level of power (I think this is after they can go Super Saiyan) as the extra strength from it becomes negligible at that point.

Where's Frieza?

• The reason Vegeta and Nappa come to Earth is because scouters are always on and that's how they discovered the Dragon Balls. The same always-on Scouters presumably lead Frieza to planet Namek shortly afterwards. Forgetting how completely fucked the heroes would have been if even Dodoria had shown up but it seems clear that Frieza was smart enough to know that if Vegeta gathered the Dragon Balls, he wasn't going to bring them back, he was going to make his wish. He should have known because the scouters are always on! If not, how did Frieza find out and head to Namek, for that matter, how did Vegeta? If they'd known all along because Namekians=Dragon Balls, that's still sub-optimal planning since the average Namekian seems to be roughly on par with Master Roshi while the average Earthling is on par with... well, the average Frieza soldier but without the quality tech to make up for being pathetic.
  • The scouters may always be on but there are probably different frequencies that they use. If the entire Planet Trade Organization was on one frequency, there'd be so much radio chatter that the scanners would be useless. Raditz, Vegeta and Nappa are on one frequency and Frieza's men didn't have any reason to listen in until Vegeta decided to go to Earth himself. After they arrived, Vegeta probably left his scouter on since he assumed he'd get his wish for immortality or die trying so it didn't matter if Frieza found out: he'd either be immortal and thus in a position to take on Frieza or dead.

What does Frieza want with money?

• Frieza used the Saiyans to conquer planets so he can sell them to the highest bidders, right? My question is, why the heck does he need money? If he wants something, he can easily snap their necks and take it. He was the most feared warrior in the universe at the time. Seriously, would you say no to Frieza if he wants an item from you?
  • First, even in GT, nothing like an intergalactic currency is mentioned and may not exist. So Frieza likely wasn't actually after money so much as resources. Resources build stuff and may or may not include the massive army that Frieza fields. Frieza is also loathe to get up off his own ass and it's never made clear (mostly because it stops mattering immediately) what the average strength is of aliens nor what the frequency of freaks powers is. What is made clear is that Kakarot was sent to a planet with very low power levels over all. Frieza's army however is made up mostly of people who'd probably lose to Tao. In fact, everybody that wouldn't have a name. A planet filled with even Raditz level fighters would require fielding Vegeta and Nappa and a planet filled with Zarbon level fighters would probably require the Ginyus so it may simply be Frieza would rather do things the easy way with his very few very powerful pieces.
  • And a planet that had a single fighter on par with Captain Ginyu would probably require Frieza's personal attention. As we see when Goku arrives, one Ginyu level fighter is capable of thrashing three Ginyu force members without breaking a sweat and it's probable that Guldo wouldn't have made a difference. Those, however, were Frieza's elite soldiers. Even if Frieza wasn't so hesitant to do things himself, space is still incredibly vast and having to personally go to each planet personally to knock heads probably isn't as efficient as coming to a peaceful solution.

Are Saiyans capable of falling in love?

• Even the female Saiyans in flashbacks seem like ruthless killers. I just can't picture a Saiyan couple pushing a baby carriage in the park while discussing dinner. Anyone believe the women and men were mating pals and nothing more? I get the feeling there was no queen and Vegeta's mother was King Vegeta's loyal servant he impregnated.
  • Probably. All things said Bardock and Vegeta aren't really that bad, douchy yes, but capable of love of their comrades? Pretty much. As disappointed as he was, Raditz did travel what must have been at least two years (it's implied that he was traveling with Vegeta and Nappa prior to breaking off) through space to pick up a brother who all signs (never came back, never called in) point to being dead and "tried" to bring him back. Considering the amount of pride they take in strength, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that Saiyans take great pride in their mates. (As Vegeta seems to in the Buu Saga and the Battle of the Gods movie). The strongest males mating with the strongest females creating Elite Soldiers.
  • Additionally, we don't know very much about true Saiyan Culture at all. If the backstory is accurate as told (some fans theorize that some of the dates have been fudged rather significantly), the Saiyans landed on Planet Vegeta only a few decades ago (enough that they've only transformed on planet Vegeta twice. Once eight years before they defeated the Tuffles and when they defeated the Tuffles). After that, every flashback is after they signed on with the Arcosians and the PTO. They are all wearing PTO armor (which is called Saiyan Armor despite them being tribal and wearing animal skins shortly prior) and probably aping (heh) Arcosian or at least Frieza's power structure and social norms.
    • Saiyans typically don't form that kind of bond, according to Toriyama. Bardock and Gine were the exception to the general rule, and the Vegeta bloodline is also an exception due to royal blood having a different set of instincts. Camaraderie is certainly possible among Saiyans, but romance is something that just doesn't occur to them for the most part. Goku is the prime example, where he doesn't consider Chichi a soulmate, more like a really close companion.

The Spirit Bomb

• The power of the Spirit Bomb has little if anything to do with the strength of the user because it draws on the energy of every living thing within a certain radius. Which raises two questions, the first being why not teach the Spirit Bomb to someone else like Krillin who's otherwise useless but having him off to the side charging and attack that can be handed off to a friend would be several stages of brilliant. The second and more pressing is why wasn't the Spirit Bomb thrown at Vegeta much stronger? It was positively tiny compared to the one he threw at Frieza and he makes a point of complaining that Namek has hardly any life so he has to draw from the surrounding planets, Earth doesn't have that problem. It should have been roughly on par with the one he made vs Buu (prior to Hercule asking everybody to put their hands up) which would have been enough to turn Vegeta into paste.
  • You mean the one that had Mystic Gohan, Trunks, Goten, and post-fusion Piccolo contributing to it? All the energy Goku was able to raise without Hercule's help was coming from people who were either dead, didn't exist, or were over 99% weaker when he was facing Vegeta.
    • It still doesn't add up. There are three Spirit Bombs thrown in the series proper. One for Vegeta is roughly the size of a beach ball but is performed on Earth, on Namek, Goku throws one the size of a small moon. On a planet that is so specifically devoid of life that he has to draw from neighboring planets. Then the one with Buu where he had vastly more powerful people to draw from. The last two appear to be similar in size even if the one thrown at Buu is clearly much more powerful. Why is the one thrown at Vegeta so vastly different from the other two that if we didn't know better it could easily be assumed to be a different attack all together?
    • Goku might've perfected the technique after using it once. Alternately, it might be because the fight against Vegeta was in a wasteland and Goku didn't have time to gather energy from a wider area or didn't know if it was safe to put that much into one bomb since it was his first time using it in battle.
    • Wasn't it established that he dropped more than half the Spirit Bomb when Vegeta hit him while he was prepping to throw it? So it really should have been significantly larger and stronger.
    • The size difference is due to a few things- The first one is small because the energy was only passively (nobody consciously giving energy) collected from Earth and Goku lost a lot of its power from being hit by Vegeta. The second had power taken from many planets around Namek and so had a lot more energy than the one only from Earth even if Namek itself didn't contribute huge amounts. The third used energy from the whole universe and had extra power from people actively giving energy and some of those people being very powerful like Gohan, Goten and Trunks.

Was Goku selfish when he spared Vegeta?

• In the American dub, they make Goku seem all noble when he told Krillin not to kill Vegeta, but in the Japanese version, Goku spared Vegeta because he needed a "sparring partner". I know he is a Saiyan and all, but isn't that a bit selfish? He allowed a ruthless killer (at the time) to run free and commit more murders. Heck, Piccolo Jr. in Dragon Ball could have slaughtered his family and friends immediately after giving him the Senzu bean.
  • It is pretty selfish on his part, but he admits that. Krillin calls him out as well, but he still agrees because Goku had just saved the planet and so deserved to be humored.

Was Raditz the black sheep of the family?

• In both versions of the Bardock story, Bardock makes no mention of Raditz as if he's chop liver. Notice he and his older son don't share a panel together in the new manga, the same one that introduces Goku's mom, Gine. It's odd Gine and Bardock will go all the way to save baby Goku from Frieza, but not Raditz. I'm aware Raditz was on a mission with Vegeta at the time, but his parents could have saved him before he was sent away.
  • That's saving him by default. He's away from the planet, and there was no way to get in contact with him in time. Furthermore, Bardock and Gine mention they plan on telling Raditz how to get him. It's not like they had unlimited time.

Is Princess Snake a crazy lady?

• If Princess Snake's minions are part of her illusion, then why does she continue to talk to them? She speaks to them even when Goku is asleep. They're not real.
  • Method Acting?
  • Talking to Themself?

Why did Raditz lie?

• Why didn't Raditz tell Goku the truth? First, he claims Planet Vegeta was destroyed by an accident three years ago instead of destroyed by Frieza twenty years ago. Then he doesn't tell Goku the score with Frieza. Hey little brother, let's avenge our parents against the monster who destroyed them and our whole race would have worked a lot better on that famous Saiyan Pride. There doesn't seem to be an upside to the lie.
  • Vegeta didn't know about Frieza's involvement in planet Vegeta's destruction until Dodoria told him. It stands to reason that Raditz didn't know either.
    • It's heavily implied in that scene that Vegeta already knew. Dodoria thought it was a secret. In addition, flashbacks reveal that it wasn't a secret at all and Vegeta only remained loyal because going against Frieza would be suicide.

Goku struggling with the gravity on King Kai's planet.

• When Goku first arrives on King Kai's planet, he has trouble getting used to the planet being 10 Gs. The problem with that is when Goku and Gohan enter the Hyperbolic Time Chamber during the Cell Saga, Goku says that he trained in the Time Chamber as a kid, when he was learning under Kami. Since the Time Chamber has 10 Gs as well, shouldn't he have been used to it when he trained with King Kai?
  • There's at least a decade, probably closer to 20 years, between those two instances. Are you still "used to" things you did 20 years ago and haven't since?
  • It wasn't just the gravity itself that gave Goku so much trouble, it was also his weighted clothing which became so much heavier. There's nothing indicating that Goku was wearing weighted clothing inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber the first time he went in.

"Sorry for the tidal waves and earthquakes, Peoples of the Earth! I have to stop an alien invasion!"

• Why exactly did Piccolo decide that BLOWING UP EARTH'S MOON wouldn't end in complete disaster? Also, why weren't there any dire consequences for said act?
  • First, I don't think Piccolo actually gave a crap about anyone other than Gohan at the time. He still could've been planning to conquer the world after the Saiyans were defeated and he and Goku had the inevitable rematch. Second, I think there were consequences. Wasn't there an earthquake a few episodes later? Also, there was that village with the children that lost their homes and family in a tidal wave. I think the bigger question is, why didn't anyone notice or even care that the moon was no longer in orbit?

It took a year

• So how did Raditz get to Earth so quickly (1-2 months, according to [1]) when it took Vegeta and Nappa a year to get to Earth so quickly from wherever they were when Nappa got to earth?
  • Maybe Vegeta and Nappa took a few detours.
  • Maybe Raditz wasn't Rollin with Vegeta and Nappa at the time and he just happened to be closer to the milky way and thought, "hey my brother supposed to be on whatchamacallit plant should see how that is going." And took a 1-2 month trip.
  • Also, to quote the late Douglas Adams: "Space is big, really big..."

Chiaotzu and Nappa

• Why, oh why, didn't Chiaotzu try using the Dodon Ray on Nappa? Considering he had the exact same training as Tenshinhan and he was already brought back with the Dragon Balls, why was latching onto the large muscular Saiyan, and blowing himself up literally the first thing he tried?
  • Chiaotzu had already tried his paralysis technique on Nappa to no effect. Likely the little warrior concluded it was time for an all-or nothing strategy.

Saiyan mothers

• Dragon Ball Z introduces viewers to the fathers of several main characters, including Bardock and King Vegeta, but viewers never see their mothers. Who gave birth to them? Where are the mothers?
  • Dead. We see Goku’s mother in the new Broly movie, and she’s dead by the time of the main series.

Killing Nappa

• I get that Vegeta saw Nappa as weak, but why kill him if he, Nappa, and Goku are the only saiyans left in the universe? Heck, he doesn't seem too upset that Raditz got killed. How can you be the Prince of Saiyans if there are no saiyans left to rule? Was he interested in ruling over non-saiyans?
  • With no Saiyan women left, it doesn't really matter how many are alive; the race is doomed either way.
  • Vegeta made it very clear that a Saiyan who got killed by what he thinks is low-level trash is useless.

Others

• So why did Roshi, Bulma, and Krillin hesitate and try to avoid telling the Ox-King and Chi-Chi about the news of Goku being dead and Gohan kidnapped? I mean, Chi-Chi was going to find out either way, so why keep this type of information from Chi-Chi and her dad?
  • Because Chi-Chi and the Ox-King were their friends. Would you find it easy to go to your friend and say, "Sorry, your husband has died, and your kid was kidnapped by his #1 enemy"? Even if you knew you'd be able to bring him back within a year, that's still not something you can just say out of the blue like it's casual.
• Was King Kai originally meant to be the god of the DBZ universe before the later sagas introduced higher up Kais like grand and supreme? The series wasn't planned from the start and many sagas were written on the spot, so when the Saiyan saga was newly written was king kai meant to be the highest authority in the cosmos even though he was weaker than Nappa?
  • King Kai's strength is irrelevant, his an immortal who has developed some extremely powerful techniques. It's also worth noting that as "weak" as King Kai is by the standards DBZ likes to throw around he's not weak by any sane standard. Most of Frieza's soldiers carry guns and fly around in vehicles because they are too weak to do what even Roshi can do. If the World Tournaments are anything to go buy and we have no reason to believe that Hercule wasn't winning legit while the Z Fighters were away the number of martial artist capable of threatening King Kai is pretty low. Just the nature of an action show means we run into each and every person stronger than him.
    • the question was about King Kai's role in the universe, when the series was to be finished by the Saiyan or Frieza sagas, that would have left no one revealed to be higher up than king kai, so the universe is in the care of someone who couldn't stop the likes of Frieza or any of the other universal threats there are? Kami is meant to guard earth and thus was more powerful than anyone there until recent years, so the likes of Yemma and kai should be strong enough to keep order, once the grand and supreme kais were written in it made sense that Frieza or Vegeta etc. would never be a true threat but what was king kai meant to do when he was written as the top god despite being so weak?
    • Later seasons seem to pretty strongly imply that Kais don't normally fight threats directly, they train heroes to do it.
  • Warriors are expendable; trainers aren't. You don't risk them on the front lines, you keep them protected so they can replace the warriors you lose in combat. This isn't even taking into account that gods no doubt have other responsibilities; we find out in Super that the gods are supposed to be nurturing and creating mortal life, and the ones in our Universe 7 have been slacking off ... possibly because they've been spending time training and fighting instead of doing their actual jobs.
• Why did the dubbers go through the effort of changing the color of Master Roshi's beer and calling it water when they could have kept it the same color and called it root beer?
  • Beer in real life comes in a variety of colors. Animated beer is always amber in color vs root beer's dark brown nearly black color. Also the point of censoring things especially depending on the era is to erase the original reference entirely not just make it slightly better.
• Why do Saiyans tie their tails around their waist, like they were a useless appendage? We know from seeing Kid Goku that their tails are basically third arms. They can also be used for combat purposes, by grabbing the opponent, as shown by Goku, Frieza and other characters. Granted, the Saiyans' tails are their weak points, but as Kid Goku showed, they can overcome that weakness by training their tails.
  • Trained and all, their tails were still kind of a weak point, in that losing them would prevent them from going Oozaru. Vegeta in particular rated the ability to go Oozaru (he was the only Saiyan who knew a technique to create an artificial full moon, and actually used it as a power boost to willingly go Oozaru whenever he needed it) much higher than using his tail as a third arm. Yes, yes, I know this goes into the continuity woe that is the Saiyan tail and the Oozaru transformation but that's another story. Also I know Raditz and Nappa could not go Oozaru the way Vegeta did, but maybe they just copied what Vegeta did with his own tail out of habit. In either case, it would seem to me that if you already are a Flying Brick and can do devastating ki attacks, then the use of a tail as a third arm becomes... irrelevant in the bigger picture.
  • In Namek, Frieza briefly does use his tail in combat against Goku at one point, but it was more out of sadism/torture purposes (he tried to strangle Goku with it) than out of practical attack (and his tail "attack" backfires spectacularly on him when Goku just bites his tail causing Frieza to just let go of Goku's neck). Similarly, Piccolo's abilities to extend his arms or become a giant are already useless by the time the Saiyans show up — being a Flying Brick pretty high in the power scale is already efficient enough, combat wise. Hell, even the ability of ''triplication'' (which should be infinitely more useful and practical than just having a tail as an extra limb) was already useless, as Nappa alone had no problem fighting three Piccolos and three Krillins (six opponents in total) all at once and beating them all up without breaking a sweat.
• Just HOW did Goku manage to produce children? Multiple children, even. It is well-established that Goku is basically a man-child, so innocent that in DB Super it's revealed he doesn't even know what a kiss is. And, you know, making children takes far more than just kisses? So how? Was Goku acting on pure instinct all three times? Did Chichi unknowingly...commit rape? Or do Saiyans enter some weird variant of Super mode to do the do and Goku wasn't being himself? No matter how you look at it, it's problematic.
  • Honestly, Goku being confused about kissing was point blank stupid. They were idiots to include that in Super. They could have written him to have some odd aversion to it but, as you said, he's fathered children. Maybe that is it actually, he just doesn't like kissing much and his wording was just off.

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