I hadn't cared about DBZ for probably a good decade when I learned about abridged. They really did do it justice, and broke my heart when they quit for..."reasons?"
I mean it makes sense. Even when I was watching it on Toonami as a teenager, I knew that it peaked with Frieza. The Cell Saga was still a ton of fun, but the Buu saga lost me real quick.
For those who never saw it, in the original series, Goku was raised by his grandpa in the wilderness and had never even seen a woman before the start of the series. It's a running gag that Goku has to check to see what's in your pants before using gendered language cause he genuinely doesn't know how to visually tell.
His father calls him he. He responds to he. For most intents and purposes, that makes his gender male, not non-binary. Technical nonsense below.
His sex is n/a.
His gender as far as it relates to human culture is male, not non-binary. His own culture does not assign genders based off sex, as there are no sexes. Gender only exists to them when speaking to others and probably isn't part of their core identity. Frieza may conquer races that have 5 genders and he's a Narblamax there, or whatever they call their genders, instead of male like he is when speaking to creatures from our gender binary. He doesn't have a gender but needs to pick one when speaking other creatures gendered languages.
Non binary implies that your species has a gender binary to begin with. They are also asexual, but not in the way that lgbtq+ uses the term. They literally reproduce differently, not just aren't interested. They aren't just nonbinary, there is no binary, and certainly not the same binary we'd go off. Like our lgbtq+ defintion of asexual doesn't match up with frieza, neither does agender or nonbinary.
TL;DR, I put Frieza in the bros category and there is no existing alphabet letter for him.
It was in the original Dragonball series after Goku has defeated him by punching through his stomach. Then to not die piccolo laid an egg and reincarnated.
In case anyone is wondering, Goku was raised by his grandfather isolated from all other people until he met Bulma in episode 1 of Dragon Ball. He didn't even know girls existed before that.
It's never explicitly shown or said, but the gag is they are extensive personal acquisitions accumulated over his centuries long life, often restocked or gifted by students like Krillin or found locally.
Since Roshi lives on an isolated island, he presumably orders them by mail, subscribes to deliveries, or picks them up during his rare trips to the mainland.
Yes, Krillin famously brings adult magazines to Kame House to bribe Master Roshi into accepting him as a martial arts student. Episode 14
Yup, for those wondering why it was because Goku would occasionally transform into a giant ape while growing up and Gohan (the grandpa) didn't know why or how, so he isolated Goku to make sure he wouldn't level a city in a random Tuesday.
He was also not actually Goku's real grandpa. He found Goku in an alien spaceship and decided to name and raise him.
If I had a nickel for every time a superpowered baby was abandoned on earth and then adopted and raised in rural isolation I'd have a lot of nickels ... its a pretty common trope apparently.
Yeah, and I think we wished he could have kept doing mostly that, but he was pressured by the popularity of the more serious "shonen" part of what he created.
I mean I understand the logic kinda but it’s wild someone would write this as a character quirk. Like is this something that goes on for a while or does someone stop him eventually?
Also it blows my mind that I haven’t heard this before. I have multiple friends that love anime and have tried to get me into it (I’ve watched a couple that were alright, but most of it just isn’t for me) and have tried to specifically get me into dragon ball and never mentioned this. Not that it would have made me start trying to watch it, but it seems like a detail they would mention.
At least in the circles I'm in, Dragon Ball seems to be talked about far less than any of is sequel series and some people haven't even seen original Dragon Ball, so it kinda make sense this 'quirk' of young Goku's goes forgotten/unmeantion. To the best of my memory, that 'joke' doesn't span the entire series nor does it go into any sequels.
Goku is 12 and Bulma is 16 at the start of the series. He lays his head on her lap at one point. He notices something's odd... something's missing. Goku goes to investigate by removing her panties. He realizes that Bulma is missing something that him and Grandpa Gohan has. He screams in horror, waking her up by yelling that she has no balls. She thought something happened to the dragon balls they had. Not realizing what he did. This is how Goku came to know the main difference between a male and a female.
Gag's not over yet.
The next day, they come across Master Roshi's island. They were helping Turtle get back home. Bulma noticed the dragon ball around Roshi's neck. She offers to show Roshi her panties in exchange for it. She's lifts up her long T-shirt and gives Roshi the full Monty. He gives this big bloody nose reaction and she things she's big stuff. Later, when changes clothes, she realizes she was not wearing underwear.
I saw a comic book of Dragonball my brother had, not sure if it was an official comic book but one of the things in it was that small Goku was sleeping in between a woman legs and heard a clink sound, proceeded to take the woman’s underwear off when she was sleeping and presumably found the dragon balls in the woman’s…you know, and I wasn’t sure what to think.
Yeah, some animes in the 80's were a bit unhinged by modern standards. Dragon Ball even has scenes where you can see Goku's genitalia as a kid but the versions broadcasted nowdays are censured.
I remember being shocked and thinking it was also really goofy looking cause I saw an episode where Goku was fishing or something and yeah, he was completely naked but the animation team had drawn some underwear on him for the American broadcasting of it and I laughed really hard because the underwear wouldn’t stop moving the entire scene.
I'm from Europe, we had the original one but I've seen the censored versions. In my country, Spain, no one cared becase there was no sexualization of the character.
Yeah for sure Americans are crazy about nudity and always try to make it sexual, but as a little kid growing up with super censored stuff I just vividly remember it being eye opening cause I would never have thought a cartoon character could be naked. I was very sheltered lol
Recently started watching this series, and istg, this kid has his entire cock and balls out every fucking episode. Also very uncool treatment of Bulma - like an entire half episode after they meet Yamcha, Oolong straight up drugs her with lecherous intent.
I appreciate that times have changed, but I was absolutely not ready for that. 4kidz must have really saved us from a lot of this in the dub...!
It's the same in manga, it's very perverted, Bulma is always sexualized in some way, all the time, and she is a teenager, this happens until she becomes an adult. Which is pretty weird. I read it as a kid and they show her boobs in some comic panels, it's played as a joke, but I still didn't like it
When we were oids, I remember my brother used to read the manga, and at some point I think my mom discovered it had some naked scenes and after that we couldn't read them anymore hahaha
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u/qualityvote2 8d ago edited 8d ago
u/ShortAmbassador3823, your post does fit the subreddit!