6. Why isn't everyone using guns?
Dragon Ball Z is all about super-powerful dudes screaming and yelling and occasionally punching each other. I get that. But it doesn't negate the fact that handguns are so much more practical than a fistfight. You don't charge up a 9mm. You don't need a scouter to tell the power level of a .357 magnum. With guns, there's no pomp or circumstance, instead you just point and pull the trigger and get an instant result.
Then again, maybe you don't need guns when you can do this:
The absence of guns in DBZ is mostly due to the fact that everyone is capable of a super-powerful energy blast. Who needs an AK-47 when the Kamehameha is basically a Hummer-sized bullet with lock-on targeting? And yeah, regular ammo would probably bounce off of almost all of the Z Fighters, but not all of the heroes are invincible fireball machines. Some of them get stuck on Dragon Ball guard duty.
So what use is a gun against someone impervious to bullets? Look at it this way:
Technology in Dragon Ball Z is so far along that Dr. Gero was able to create self-aware, super-powerful androids that could learn, fight and even have sex with Krillin. If something like interstellar space travel is the norm, why couldn't Bulma and her dad whip up a gun that could shoot mini-Destructo Disks?
Giving the weak characters guns would level the playing field, or at least afford weaker characters some form of self-defense. It sure would beat watching Bulma cower in a cave for weeks at a time, and it'd give Yamcha something to do in between being dead and/or useless. Everybody wins with guns!
5. Goku might be the dumbest person alive
Superman Vs. Goku has been the subject of a lot of fan arguments, but there's not a lot of discussion regarding just how similar they are. Like Clark Kent, Kakarot was an alien sent to earth as a child and grew up as a paragon of virtue. Like Superman, he'll never waver in his principles, to the point that he's nice to the bad guys. He always wants a level playing field, and he doesn't want to fight dirty to win.
But unlike the Man of Steel, our boy Goku is as dumb as a brick that ate paint chips as a kid. Maybe it has something to do with the time he fell into a deep crevasse and hit his head.
Not only is Goku awful when it comes to recognizing social cues and understanding basic things like how medicine makes your body done feel good better, but he's also straight-up stupid when it comes to fighting. Not when it comes to the act itself, but when it comes to winning.
Example: Dude had Frieza dead to rights after he went Super Saiyan for the first time, but he wanted a fair fight -- so he let this guy who had just murdered Krillin power up to 100%. After Frieza was cut in half by his own attack, Goku still showed mercy. And so for a hot minute, the mass-murdering psychopath floated around as a torso before betraying his savior at the first possible chance.
Goku's stupidity goes beyond a sense of duty or honor. Anyone who watches Game of Thrones knows that doing the right thing will often get you killed -- but even Ned Stark knew when to man up and execute people.
Even at his greatest moments, Goku still manages to screw people over. Like the time Cell was about to self-destruct and destroy the earth, Goku sacrificed himself and teleported the both of them away -- but he didn't teleport them somewhere devoid of life like deep space, the sun or Ryan Seacrest's dead eyes. No, Goku transmitted himself and the exploding Cell right onto King Kai's planet.
Goku excuses himself by saying "Sorry guys, this is the only place I could think to bring him." Really? The only place you could bring the living nuclear bomb is the home planetoid of the guardian of the North Galaxy? You couldn't like, move yourself down a few miles on Snake Way?
Even if that planetoid's supergravity was needed to hold in the explosion, Goku still had plenty of time to snatch everyone and teleport away again. This moron murdered a King (and a monkey!) for absolutely no reason.
4. Mr. Popo
I mean, come on.
3. Everyone should be using Solar Flare all the time
Though worthless for most of the series, Krillin has two useful moves in his arsenal. There's the Destructo Disk, a rotating pizza of doom that can cut through anything. But even more powerful is the Solar Flare, which shoots out a blast of high intensity light that blinds and stuns pretty much everyone, regardless of class. It's like Frieza-grade pepper spray.
This trump card gets you out of any hairy situation and can be played at any time by anyone of any power level, but we don't see it that often -- and when Solar Flare is used, it's almost exclusively as a defensive maneuver. It's a decent escape tool, yeah, but the offensive capabilities are pretty nuts. Why wouldn't you just pop Solar Flare and then toss in a quick Destructo Disk and call it good for like every enemy ever?
If you go back to the Z-less Dragon Ball, it was revealed that wearing sunglasses protects you from Solar Flare. But that's still not much of a problem -- if the bad guys get wise and start rocking Raybans, there's only one extra step: zap the shitty shades off of their face and THEN pop Solar Flare and toss in a Destructo Disk. Series over.
2. Goku might be the worst parent alive
It's weird to think that the silly kid from Dragon Ball eventually grew up into a man and reproduced with someone. Despite his somewhat pervy past, the Goku of DBZ seems almost asexual in his childlike naivete. Imagining Goku desiring someone enough to get it on is almost as weird as considering the fact that
Goofy had sex. But hey, we needed him to have Gohan for story reasons, so now Goku is a parent. The most terrible parent ever.
By raising his Gohan as a fighter, Goku puts his child in incredible danger on a daily basis. Before Gohan can learn long division, he's pitted against grown adults way out of his league. The kid isn't even seven years old when his dad encourages him to fight against Vegeta (or rather, get his kindergarten shit kicked in).
There's no question: This is physical abuse. Punching your kid is a terrible, heinous act, but Goku didn't do it himself -- instead he sent Gohan to get hit in the face by someone even stronger than Goku. This happens repeatedly throughout the series, and it only gets more grave every time.
Take the Cell Games, for instance. When Gohan is pitted against a weakened Cell, Goku hands their mortal enemy a restorative Senzu Bean so it'll be a fair fight.
At this point, DBZ addresses the recklessness of Goku's parenting style; Piccolo starts yelling at Goku about endangering his child, explaining that Gohan has never really had the same fighting spirit as his father. Deep down, Goku knows it's true -- the weird green alien man with a frog graveyard in his throat knows more about Gohan than his actual father.
In the end we're supposed to believe Goku did it all for the greater good and ends up being right all along. Yeah, Gohan eventually blows up and defeats Cell, but did Goku really have to risk the fate of the planet, the lives of billions just to teach his kid a lesson?
Maybe his worst parental transgression comes at the very end of Dragon Ball Z. At a new tournament, Goku fights a reincarnated Majin Buu (called Uub), and decides that he should leave everyone to train this kid he just met.
Goku explains to his family -- you know, his flesh and blood that he has known for decades -- that he's going to go help Uub train in his village for a few years. I repeat, Goku abandons his wife, his two sons and his granddaughter in order to help a stranger.
And it's needless -- it's not like he couldn't just use instant transmission to teleport back to his family every day. It sounds like Goku just hates his kin so much he needs to escape them. Poor Uub doesn't know what he's getting into.
1. Just give Krillin immortality already
Krillin has died the most out of anyone in the Dragon Ball series, at a total of four times (five if you want to count alternate futures). He's always used as a tool for drama, usually as motivation for Goku to rise to the occasion. And there's a lot of drama in Dragon Ball Z.
In the end, Krillin is always revived by the Dragon Balls. But man, imagine if instead of collecting the Dragon Balls and wishing him back to life, everyone used those wishes to make him immortal? While we're at it, let's give it to Yamcha, Tien, Piccolo and the rest of the death-prone.
Think about it -- with untimely deaths out of the way, those wishes can be used for anything. The Z fighters could end world hunger, stop all war or build an invincible shield around the Earth to protect it from the constant invaders that always seem to pop up.
Wishing people back to life is so small-time; why not remake reality into a universe that has no villains? Why not go back in time and fix everything that went wrong, retroactively freeing up past wishes for other stuff? The Dragon Balls are a plot device so powerful that the show is named after them and the heroes never use them to their full potential.
What I'm really saying is: Dragon Ball Z is the laziest, dumbest, most inconsistent series that I want to marathon right now.
