Dragon Ball has been going on for such a long time that it’s had a few ideas that have gone by the wayside, and the franchise has definitely dropped the ball with one of its coolest ideas of having a true successor for Goku. Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball franchise recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, and it was the perfect time to look back on how far Goku and the others have come since it first began. But there’s been one intriguing element through the course of the story that seems to tease that Goku would give way to an eventual successor.
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Dragon Ball has introduced a couple of characters throughout the years who could stand in place as the defender of the Earth after Goku’s fighting days were done, and even fewer that have been trained by Goku himself. But as the series continued, one of the worst aspects of its success is the fact that Goku never could truly retire and back away from the fight. He’s just become too powerful, and ultimately too important, to actually stop fighting within the Dragon Ball world. It just feels like an idea that had a lot of potential.
Gohan Never Got to Take Over for His Father
The idea of a potential successor for Goku first came naturally during Dragon Ball Z. This era of the franchise introduced fans to Goku’s son Gohan, and it was revealed that his son had a huge potential for power. Goku realized how strong his son could be, and the Android Saga was focused around that idea. Goku knew he wouldn’t be around forever (after dying and coming back to life), and wanted to put the Earth’s fate in his son’s hands. Taking this even further was the fact that Goku even believed his son was much stronger for himself.
Goku’s sacrifice at the end of the Cell Saga also was a way for him to literally pass on the torch to his son. Gohan was able to take this in a whole other direction when he unlocked the power necessary to do so. He was the first one to reach the Super Saiyan 2 transformation in the franchise, and it almost was a full circle moment for Goku’s family and future. But as fans realized as Dragon Ball Z continued, Gohan immediately took a back seat from everything that happened as he stopped training.
Losing the majority of the power fans saw in action before, Gohan was never truly the same. Goku and Vegeta took the main spotlight in those fights to come, and Gohan just never made it to that same level. It got even worse in Dragon Ball Super as the gap between father and son widened to a whole new degree, and Goku reaches godly levels of power while Gohan was ridiculed throughout its majority. It’s just something that fell apart as the franchise couldn’t help but have Goku back in its battles once more.
It Was Even a Worse Case for Uub
It was even worse for Uub, who was introduced at the end of Dragon Ball Z as the reincarnated form of the defeated Kid Buu. Goku had wished for the villain to come back to life so he could fight him again, and was so excited to so that he immediately decided to train him moving forward. But for Uub, the worst part of his being a successor was the timing. Because it was originally the end of the series, there was just no time to explore such an awesome idea of a former villain being trained by Goku and becoming a new heroic fighter.
Dragon Ball GT tried its best to fill in that gap with some success, but the timing of Uub’s introduction means the franchise can never truly crown him as Goku’s successor without expanding on Toriyama’s original ending. While those behind it all are willing to expand on the timeline before that ending with projects like Dragon Ball Super (which has relegated Uub to a single cameo) and Dragon Ball Daima, they are likely never going to try and take Dragon Ball beyond this multi-year flash forward ending. Which means this idea really isn’t going to go anywhere.
The idea of Goku having a successor is certainly a fun one to imagine for Dragon Ball’s future, but that’s just never going to happen as long as Dragon Ball continues to release new stories. Goku is just too big of an icon to miss out on a new story, and it’s sort of impossible to imagine a new Dragon Ball anime, manga or movie release without Goku in the center of it in some way. He’s just a money maker at this point, and no one is going to be able to take that place in strength or drawing power.
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