In Dragon Ball, death is easily reversible through wishes, magic old ladies or cyber implants.
If all else fails, there are also time shenanigans.
It all points to Toriyama being allergic to consequences.
With no consequences, can there truly be stakes?
Death is very cheap in Dragon Ball. Every single fighter in Goku’s gang has died at least once, and there are only a handful of mortals who managed to survive through the entire story. It doesn’t even mean much for villains — as long as they are powerful enough, they might come back the other day (like Frieza did, multiple times). And this phenomenon is, if we’re being honest, a symptom of a larger, more serious issue.
So many ways to cheat death
This series’ namesakes are seven balls that, once gathered in one place, can be used to summon a giant, wish-granting dragon Shenron. He has very few limits, and is perfectly capable of resurrecting people, as demonstrated multiple times even through the original, pre-Z storyline.
Speaking of pre-Z, it also introduced us to Fortuneteller Baba — an old lady who’s able to pull dead people from the afterlife, albeit for a limited time. As a bonus, these temporarily revived people have unlimited stamina — something Goku himself abused during the Buu saga to power his otherwise impractical Super Saiyan 3.
Though back to Dragon Balls — they can be rendered inert, either by killing Shenron (which was done by King Piccolo), or by killing Kami. In the first case, Kami can resurrect the wish dragon. The second case happened in Z, kickstarting the Namek saga, with the gang reviving Kami through Namekian set of Dragon Balls. Because there can be more. And there are more.
Both GT and Super have introduced us to even more powerful wishing artifacts. Black Star Dragon Balls in GT can grant any wish, but with a side effect of dooming the planet on which the wish was granted if they are not returned there within a year. Super Dragon Balls in Super are the size of a planet each, and have no limitations to what can be achieved with them.
And that’s to say nothing of cloning and cyborgification and time shenanigans that have been explored in Dragon Ball ad nauseum. Basically, you have to try VERY hard to be unrevivable in DB.
Stakes? What stakes?
Every new villain in Dragon Ball is more powerful than the last, and capable of causing even more damage. Except — why should we care? There are so many ways to restore the world and revive everyone that the collateral stops mattering at all — our heroes could just wish all the booboos away!
At the end of Super, multiple universes fought in a giant battle royale to determine which one will NOT be erased by the all powerful watermelon child Zeno. And the losers WERE erased — except, at the very end of the tournament, its sole survivor, Android 17, made a wish to Super Dragon Balls to restore all erased universes!
Despite writing stories with constantly increasing stakes, Akira Toriyama is allergic to the sheer concept of consequences. There’s no atrocity that couldn’t be reversed, no loss that is permanent, and no way to retire Goku (which should’ve been done a long time ago). The series has long since stopped caring about anything but showing off cool fight animations — so why should we care either?
Dragon Balls can’t fix themselves.
Summary:
In Dragon Ball, death is easily reversible through wishes, magic old ladies or cyber implants.
If all else fails, there are also time shenanigans.
It all points to Toriyama being allergic to consequences.
With no consequences, can there truly be stakes?
Death is very cheap in Dragon Ball. Every single fighter in Goku’s gang has died at least once, and there are only a handful of mortals who managed to survive through the entire story. It doesn’t even mean much for villains — as long as they are powerful enough, they might come back the other day (like Frieza did, multiple times). And this phenomenon is, if we’re being honest, a symptom of a larger, more serious issue.
So many ways to cheat death
This series’ namesakes are seven balls that, once gathered in one place, can be used to summon a giant, wish-granting dragon Shenron. He has very few limits, and is perfectly capable of resurrecting people, as demonstrated multiple times even through the original, pre-Z storyline.
Speaking of pre-Z, it also introduced us to Fortuneteller Baba — an old lady who’s able to pull dead people from the afterlife, albeit for a limited time. As a bonus, these temporarily revived people have unlimited stamina — something Goku himself abused during the Buu saga to power his otherwise impractical Super Saiyan 3.
Though back to Dragon Balls — they can be rendered inert, either by killing Shenron (which was done by King Piccolo), or by killing Kami. In the first case, Kami can resurrect the wish dragon. The second case happened in Z, kickstarting the Namek saga, with the gang reviving Kami through Namekian set of Dragon Balls. Because there can be more. And there are more.
Both GT and Super have introduced us to even more powerful wishing artifacts. Black Star Dragon Balls in GT can grant any wish, but with a side effect of dooming the planet on which the wish was granted if they are not returned there within a year. Super Dragon Balls in Super are the size of a planet each, and have no limitations to what can be achieved with them.
And that’s to say nothing of cloning and cyborgification and time shenanigans that have been explored in Dragon Ball ad nauseum. Basically, you have to try VERY hard to be unrevivable in DB.
Stakes? What stakes?
Every new villain in Dragon Ball is more powerful than the last, and capable of causing even more damage. Except — why should we care? There are so many ways to restore the world and revive everyone that the collateral stops mattering at all — our heroes could just wish all the booboos away!
At the end of Super, multiple universes fought in a giant battle royale to determine which one will NOT be erased by the all powerful watermelon child Zeno. And the losers WERE erased — except, at the very end of the tournament, its sole survivor, Android 17, made a wish to Super Dragon Balls to restore all erased universes!
Despite writing stories with constantly increasing stakes, Akira Toriyama is allergic to the sheer concept of consequences. There’s no atrocity that couldn’t be reversed, no loss that is permanent, and no way to retire Goku (which should’ve been done a long time ago). The series has long since stopped caring about anything but showing off cool fight animations — so why should we care either?
_16374.webp)