Gohan A Young Warrior
Gohan is introduced as the four-year-old son of the series’ main protagonist, Son Goku. Described as well-mannered and reserved, Gohan’s story begins following his abduction by the Saiyan named Raditz, Goku’s older brother. Later, while Goku is pinned to the ground, Gohan’s extreme distress exploded with the release of his dormant power, which allowed him to injure Raditz. Piccolo, startled by this, then takes Gohan away following the fight and Goku’s death, and trains him for upcoming battle against two other Saiyans, Vegeta and Nappa.Fraught at first with inhibitions about his untapped abilities and aspiring instead to become a scholar, Gohan does not immediately recognize his own strength. Gohan is also shown to be unaccustomed to the rigorous training lifestyle, and he worries about what to eat and where to sleep. His tutelage under Piccolo, however, forms a deep bond between the two characters, with Piccolo sacrificing himself to save Gohan during their fight with Nappa.
As a result of defeating the antagonist Cell during a later portion of the manga, Gohan succeeded Goku as the world’s greatest defender for a time. The consequent peace that followed allowed him to continue his studies, and later, a sixteen-year-old Gohan is shown enrolling at Orange Star High School in Satan City. After participating in the 25th Tenkaichi Budokai, Gohan is depicted as weaker than his younger self, which the Daizenshuu World Guide book explains as possibly due to a lack of training or anger in transforming. Following the defeat of Majin Buu and a ten year gap at the end of Dragon Ball, Gohan is depicted with a wife, Videl, and a daughter, Pan.
Due to his mixed heritage, Gohan’s character exhibits unusual abilities, possessing power that surpasses that of regular Saiyan’s. As a child, Gohan is depicted with a seemingly limitless dormant power, which at first only revealed itself when he experienced fierce rage. When Raditz initially scouts his battle power, a statistical measurement of strength, the reading comes up as 710, and, following Gohan’s eruption from the space pod, increases to 1307. (Goku, meanwhile, who has demonstrated superhero-level feats up until Gohan’s introduction, has his stated to be 416, and rises only as high as 924 when using the Kamehameha. On Namek, Saichoro helped unlock a portion of his untapped potential, unable to bring out the fullest of his tremendous latent abilities.
Like pure Saiyans, Gohan was born with a monkey tail, which allowed him to transform into the Oozaru. However, during his fight with Vegeta, Gohan’s tail is removed permanently, and he therefore loses this transformation. Gohan can also freely manipulate his ki for the use of abilities such as the bukujutsu (舞空術? lit. “lighter than air skill” or “sky dancing skill”), or control it to create offensive technqiues such as the Masenko (魔閃光 Masenkō?, lit. “demon flash”).
In later chapters, Gohan’s training expanded his use to a larger portion of this power, ultimately giving him access to the legendary Saiyan-state called the Super Saiyan, as well as becoming the first to achieve the ascended state, Super Saiyan 2. During the final story arc of the series, the Rou Dai Kaioshin helped bring out Gohan’s potential, enabling him to utilize power beyond his natural limits and rendering him more powerful than Buu. The second Daizenshuu book labels him in this state as Ultimate Gohan (最強の悟飯 saikyô no gohan?).
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