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Character Profiles

Goku
Also Known As: Gokou, Gokuh, Gokuh, Goccu
The main character, his name is based on the Chinese mythological character of the same name. Although he doesn't look like the Monkey King as described in the scripture, he looks human in almost every way. He used to have a tail, which, at the sight of a full moon, transforms him into a giant were-ape beast (ala King Kong, only meaner). He is of a race called Saiya-jins who goes around conquering planets and dealing them. Gokuu is vaguely like Superman; sent as an infant from his home planet, which was destroyed immediately afterward, he was raised by a kindly old man named Son Gohan. Even as a child he showed remarkable abilities, such as great strength and an almost instinctive fighting skill. He was sent to Earth to conquer it, and may have done so if not for a blow to the head he received as a child. While that blow is responsible for the loss of Gokuu's potentially vicious and evil Saiyajin personality, it may have done more than that; Gokuu is "good" in the truest sense of the word, but . . . well . . . outside of combat, he's not that bright. Oh, well. =) He doesn't need brains; he is the first of his kind in a thousand years to reach the legendary power-level known as Super Saiyajin, and keeps getting stronger throughout the series. He is known for the Kamehameha attack, which he learned from Kamesennin.

A note about the legend of the Super Saiyajin: The manga and the anime differ slightly in overall storyline, and the DBZ movies differ even more; it should be noted that in the manga, which is considered the "official" storyline of Dragonball, Son Gokuu is the Densetsu no Super Saiyajin (or Legendary Super Saiyajin). The legend states (or so other DB fans have translated) that an invincible super-warrior would appear in order to avenge the Saiyajin race's destruction. While the movies (DBZ movies 8, 10, and 11) have suggested that Burolli is the Super Saiyajin of legend by virtue of his incredible strength, it is clearly Gokuu who fits the criteria of the legend. He a) is invincible (he takes quite a few lickings, but he just keeps on ticking . . . or at least, he just can't seem to stay dead), and b) has avenged his people; while Mirai Trunks actually killed Freeza, Gokuu was the one who defeated his race's destroyer. Burolli, on the other hand, had absolutely no contact with Freeza, and has been defeated repeatedly. There appears to be a consensus among Dragonball fans that the storyline of the movies so contradicts the established storyline of the manga that they should not be considered part of the same universe. Instead, the DBZ movies appear to be part of an alternate, "what-if," universe.

Physical---As a child Gokuu is much younger-looking than his actual age; he is introduced as approximately age 12 but looks 6 (some fans argue that this is because Saiyajin age differently than humans). He has the typical wild black hair of his race, sticking out all over his head even when wet, and for the first part of the series has the trademark Saiyajin monkey-tail, with which he can transform into the "oozaru" (a giant rampaging fire-breathing monkey with red eyes). The tail gets cut off and grows back several times during the series, until he loses it altogether as he grows up. As an adult, Gokuu is a big, strapping man who wears an orange dogi with a blue undershirt. As a Super Saiyajin, Gokuu has the characteristic upright "blond" hair and blue/green eyes of that power level.

Son Gohan
Also Known As: Go Han
In the entire Dragon Ball universe, there are two Gohan's. The first that is mentioned in the manga is Goku's adoptive grandfather. This Gohan is the one who first found Goku and raised him for a while. The elder of Gokuu's two half-human sons, Gohan is the focus of much of the latter half of Dragonball (in anime form, DBZ). This Gohan has the blood of his mother, Chichi, and has the abilities of his father, Goku, and a little more. He doesn't like fighting and despises those who hurts his friends, family, and nature. He has a similar kind heart that his father possesses.

Like Goku, we watch him grow up from an adorable tailed tot to an adult over several years. Gohan is as sweet and amiable as his father; however, his mother Chichi has tried her best to make him into a scholar. As a result, Gohan is both smarter than and not as battle-happy as his father. He doesn't like fighting, but in spite of this, he has enormous power which manifests in times of great anger throughout the series. Because he is naturally good-natured, this power comes out only rarely---until the battle against the monster called Cell, when Gohan's anger is pushed past its limits, and he becomes the first to go beyond Super Saiyajin (this level is later called Super Saiyajin level two). Later, as a teenager in high-school, he adopts a secret identity to hide his power, and calls himself the Great Saiya-Man in order to fight crime with his girlfriend/partner, Videl. As an adult, he settles down with Videl, has a daughter, and becomes a scholar as his mother hoped. He uses most of his father's attacks.

Physical---Gohan grows up throughout the series, and goes through several incarnations: a) as a tot of maybe four years old, he wears a cute little cap with a Dragonball on its top; b) as a boy of about ten, he wears casual clothes and occasionally Saiyajin battle-armor and his hair is a wild mass on his head; c) as a young teen of thirteen or so, he dresses like his mentor Piccolo and has a strange half-wild, half-trimmed hairstyle (as a Super Saiyajin at this age, his hair only sticks up a little in its blond state; as SSJ2, it sticks up completely, and he gets a little bigger); d) as a teenager, he's as tall as his father, but not as built, and his hair is short; and e) as an adult, he looks the same, but wears big square glasses.

Son Goten

Also Known As: Go Ten
In the later part of the series (from volume 36 and onward), another son is born and his name is Goten. At a first glance, he looks very much like his father in his young age. He is very naive like Goku and very innocent. Though Goku first achieved the Super Saiya-jin form at an older age,Goten at a young age of 7, achieves this form while practicing fighting techniques with Chichi. He's just as sweet and innocent as his father, and is inseparable from his friend/partner in crime, Chibi Trunks. Because he's so sweet (and not much smarter than his father), he often appears to be dominated by the more forceful personality of Trunks, but I suspect that he's simply too nice to argue with his friend's schemes. He is capable of anger, like his father; it's just that it takes a great deal to make him angry. Of the two, Trunks is a little stronger, probably because he's older. Goten uses his own version of the Kamehameha (perhaps by mistake, he calls his the Kamekameha), and can fuse with Trunks to form Gotenks.He's one of the few people good-hearted enough to ride the Kintou cloud (his brother and parents are the others).

Physical---Take Gokuu and shrink him down. Bingo. Although by the end of the series, as a teen, Goten begins to look less like his father.

Chichi

Also Known As: Chi Chi.
Goku's wife, We first meet Chichi as a cute little girl, the daughter of the massive Ox King; because Gokuu has no clue as to what marriage means, he agrees to marry her as a child. She didn't forget the promise that Goku made that he'll marry her when they're older. When she reappears, she enters the tournament and confronts him, angry that Goku didn't recognize her, she tries to beat him up. After the match and by the end of the day, they are husband and wife and alomost immediatly have kids, ie Gohan. Chichi can be as airheaded as her husband (it's a wonder that Gohan has any brains at all), although she is definitely the "practical" one in their relationship. She is also able to ride the Kintoun Cloud, and so clearly has a good heart; but she henpecks Gokuu in the rare times we see them interact, and drives Gohan to study and become a scholar.(she is much more obsessive about this in the anime than she is in the manga, however). She pushed Gohan hard on studying but when Goten is born, she didn't bother and thus Goten soon grows lazy. She is capable of quite fearsome rages, in which the nearest appliances, furniture, people, etc. are all in danger of being completely destroyed. You have to give her credit: she lives with three of the strongest people on the planet, and must watch them constantly risk their lives (and has even had to deal with their deaths at times). Understandably, she spends a lot of time having hysterics. While she rarely displays them, she has excellent martial arts skills for a human woman. Chichi has been called the strongest woman on Earth, because she completely dominates her clueless husband.

Physical---Chichi is first seen as an adorable little girl wearing a strange bikini-like outfit and a Roman-style helmet with a projectable blade-like weapon attached. Later, when she enters the tournament to find Gokuu, she is a pretty teenaged girl with her hair in a ponytail. After that, however, she begins to look more matronly as time passes, wearing her black hair in a bun.

Bulma

Also Known As: Bloomer, Buruma, Buluma, Bluma, and many others.
Bulma is the second character we meet in Dragonball, who also grows up during the series from a teenaged girl to a matronly mother-type (still pretty, though). Bulma has been called bossy, flirtatious, airheaded, and a genius---she is all of the above. She started the Dragonball saga; if not for her, Gokuu might still be running around the woods fishing with his tail, the little barbarian. As the daughter of the scientist Dr. Briefs, the owner of the Capsule Corporation, she is filthy rich and a technological genius in her own right, strong-willed and adventurous. However, she is also a typical teenager when we first meet her; after building a device to find the mystical Dragonballs, convincing Gokuu to join her quest, and generally going through hell to find them, she wants to wish for---of all things---a boyfriend. After a tumultuous relationship with Yamucha, she ends up married to Vejiita, the arrogant Prince of the Saiyajin, in what may be one of the strangest relationships in all of anime. Somehow, it works, however---she has two children with him by the end of the series.

Physical---Bulma is considered one of the most attractive women in the Dragonball universe, and must always be on guard against dirty old men (Kamesennin, the old Kaiou-shin) and pervert-types (Oolong, the pig). She has green/teal hair (lavender in the manga) and blue eyes, and goes through enough hairstyle changes throughout the course of the series to have a page devoted to her hair in one of the Shuiesha DB hardcovers. She tends to wear really short skirts, which may be why so many perverts are after her.

Vegeta

Also Known As: Vegeta, Vejita, Bejita, Begeta, Vegita, and many others
Introduced later in the series, Vejiita is the Prince of the warrior race known as the Saiyajin, of which Gokuu is also a member. Even though his world is destroyed and his entire race reduced to two members (not counting the various half-breeds and quarter-breeds that he and Gokuu spawn over the years), Vejiita is still a prince by attitude alone. He is a "bad guy" when first introduced, a mercenary who wanders the galaxy destroying planets (along with his fellow Saiyajin and lackey Nappa), but all of that changes when he comes to Earth and is defeated by Gokuu. Vejiita's pride is legendary; he decides to remain on earth, striving to get strong enough to defeat his rival Gokuu, and in the process winds up settling down with Bulma to make a family. (There is some debate as to whether he really is a bad guy by the end of the series. The jury is still out, but by the time Gokuu flies off into the sunset, the Dragonballs themselves acknowledge him as good; he prefers being evil, however.) His pride is so great that he is obsessed with becoming better than Gokuu, to the point that little else matters to him; he has in the past risked his family and even the world to achieve that goal. He is enormously powerful (the second to reach Super Saiyajin), although by the end of the series he reluctantly admits that Gokuu is the better fighter. In spite of (or perhaps because of) his noble origins, Vejiita has a notoriously sullen temperament and major attitude; when he deigns to speak to someone, it's usually an insult or a curse. He mellows over the years, but not by much. Vejiita uses several major techniques, including the Big Bang Attack. Note: all of his special attacks have English names.

Physical---Almost a head shorter than Gokuu, Vejiita's size in no way stunts his power. He has a crown of spiky black Saiyajin hair that sticks straight up in the air, marked by a distinctive widow's peak and a receding hairline. When not clad in Saiyajin armor and bodysuit, he most often wears a black tank-top and pants. In Super Saiyajin form, his hair is shaped the same way, only "blond." He rarely smiles, except when he's a) ridiculing someone, or b) getting ready to kill them.

Trunks

Also Known As: None. As you can see, his name is basically an English word.
Trunks, Future (also referred to as Mirai Trunks, as in "Seinen no Betsu no Mirai," or "Young Man from the Alternate Future")
The son of Vegeta and Bulma, this version of Trunks grew up in an alternate (or maybe the original; who knows?) timeline in which Gokuu died of heart disease and all of the other DB-senshi (except Gohan) were killed by a pair of cyborgs (Jinzouningen Nos. 17 and 18) shortly after his birth. He grew up in a bleak, post-apocalyptic future-world in which most of the earth's population had been killed off by the cyborgs, and spent his childhood training with Gohan. Although he became a Super Saiyajin at a relatively early age, he was unable to defeat the cyborgs for some time. When he was 17, his mother built a time machine, which he used to come back in time 20 years to the present in which most of DB takes place, so that he could give Son Gokuu medicine that would cure his heart disease (and perhaps prevent the grim future he grew up in). He returned to the past once more to stay for a while and assist the other fighters in their battles against the Jinzouningen. Very serious, quiet, a bit shy, and usually polite, he is very different from his father---except in combat, in which his ruthlessness sometimes matches Vejiita's. He is the second Super Saiyajin that we meet in DB (although Vejiita was actually the second to achieve that level in this timeline), when he appears mysteriously to kill Freeza when he comes back with his father. While his relationship with Vejiita is frequently tense and occasionally even antagonistic, the father and son develop a mutual respect for each other over time. He uses a sword the first few times we see him, and the Burning Attack, in which he whips his hands around before firing a "ki" blast. He also uses most of his father's attacks. After he returns to his future, we never see this version of Trunks again in DB.

Trunks, Present (also called Chibi ["Little"] Trunks and just plain Trunks)

This Trunks is born after the future one visited.
Although really the same person as Mirai Trunks, this version of the son of Vejiita is very different in personality from his other incarnation. This is largely because of the differences in the two Trunks' environments: this version of Trunks had a father present for most of his life, and grew up in a much happier and safer world than his counterpart. Trunks had no need to develop his "twin's" quiet, driven persona; the influences of a happier world and his father's presence combined instead to create the world's greatest brat. He's inherited some aspects of his father's personality in a benign form; but while he can be just as arrogant and devious as Vejiita (and occasionally as bossy as Bulma), Trunks' wickedness more often manifests as (usually) harmless mischief. He's very smart, and very much a smart-ass. He's also very powerful, and able to reach Super Saiyajin at a ridiculously early age. Trunks has mastered several of the DB-senshi's attacks, and can perform the Fusion technique with Goten to form Gotenks. It is this version of Trunks that we see in Dragonball GT (at age 28).

Physical---Both versions of Trunks look the same; a young man with lavender hair (his hair has no Saiyajin spikiness except when in Super Saiyajin form) and blue eyes. Mirai Trunks' hair grows from a short bowl-cut to shoulder-length at several points during his brief appearance in DBZ. Mirai Trunks usually wears a short Capsule Corporation jacket over a black tank top and pants, or Saiyajin combat gear; Present Trunks (more often seen as a child) wears a variety of clothing. Mirai Trunks carries a sword in a sheath strapped to his back for the first few episodes that we see him; Present Trunks only posesses a sword in DBZ Movie 13 and DBGT, never in the manga or DBZ anime. Both versions of Trunks have inherited a combination of Vejiita's and Bulma's features: Bulma's hair and eyes, Vejiita's face and body type.

Trunks, it should be noted (both versions), is one of the main reasons for DBZ's high popularity with female anime fans.

Kami-sama
Kami-sama is known as God on Earth. He controls the Dragon Balls as wells as makes them. He is also Piccolo's spiritual opposite, for when he takes the role of being Kami-sama, he has clensed himself of all evil within his own body, thus forming Piccolo-Daimo. It is soon found out that both Piccolo and Kami-sama comes from a planet whose inhabitants have unique powers. This being is actually only half of a single person. As such, he is immensely powerful, serene, and very wise; it was this old man who created the original Dragonballs that could grant a single wish. He eventually re-merges with Piccolo Jr. Also a Namekkuseijin, he resembles an old and wizened Piccolo who carries a staff.

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Page Updated Thu Mar 15, 2001 12:15pm EST