Summary
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zerohasn’t fixed a long-running mistake with its inclusion of Buu Saga Gohan, as it still wrongly refers to him as an “adult”.
Although a lot of fans have expressed disappointment with Gohan’s character arc throughoutDragon Ball Zdue to him getting weaker and focusing more on studying than fighting (despite that making perfect sense and being exactly what he wanted all along), he’s still undoubtedly one of the most popular characters in DBZ. That made his absence from Sparking Zero’s trailers all the more noticeable.
Ever since the fourth Budokai Tenkaichi game was first revealed,we’ve all been wondering where exactly Gohan was, as he took a shockingly long time to be confirmed as playable. Sure, we all knew he’d make it in since he’s so important, but it was still strange that it took so long to be shown off. That all changed a few days agowhen his Kid and “Adult” forms were shown off in a new gameplay trailer.
No, Buu Saga Gohan Isn’t An Adult
Following the release of the excellentMaster vs. Apprentice gameplay trailer(I’m still not over how perfect Future Trunks looks), the official Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero website was updated to include all of the characters who were confirmed as part of the roster, including the three different versions of Gohan.
Kid Gohan and Future Gohan are all fine and dandy, but the Buu Saga version of Gohan unsurprisingly carries on a long-running mistake with how Dragon Ball games refer to the character.As you may see from his inclusion on the website, Sparking Zero will once again refer to this arc’s version of Gohan as an “adult”, just like nearly every Dragon Ball Z game over the past few decades.
That might notseemlike a mistake since it’s been done for so many Dragon Ball games, but it actually is.Canonically, Gohan is 16 years old (and approaching 17) during the Buu saga of Dragon Ball Z, meaning that he’s still a teenager or at least a “young adult”. Yet, despite this, the Buu Saga version of Gohan is always referred to as an “adult” and the nine-year-old iteration of the character from the Cell Saga is always called “Teen Gohan”,when pre-teen would be much more fitting.
The misconception with Gohan’s aging canmostly be attributed to Funimation saying he was 11 during the events of the Cell Saga, which would make him 18 during the Buu Saga and make the claim that he’s an “adult” more understandable.
The strange naming conventions behind Gohan in Dragon Ball Z have been common knowledge for quite some time, so some fans hoped that “Adult” Gohan would be no more in Sparking Zero, but it looks like it’s still going to be a thing. Of course, it makes sense for the sake of simplicity since Kid Gohan and Teen Gohan are still a thing, but it surely would have been easier to go with “Early”, “Mid”, and “End” like the games do with Goku and Vegeta.
