‘Dragon Ball GT’ Almost Had One Truly Epic Gohan Moment

Love it or hate it, Dragon Ball GT is a thing that exists. Fans continue to debate the show’s canonical status even after all these years, but most can admit the anime had its ups and downs. However, it looks like Dragon Ball GT snipped out one Gohan-centric moment that would have made fans very happy.

Recently, Kazenshuu posted a new translation for Dragon Ball GT fans to pour over. The site posted an interview which writer Atsushi Maekawa did with Dragon Book for a DVD box set. It was there the Dragon Ball GT writer was asked what concepts were scrapped from the anime, and Maekawa said one idea centering around Gohan was scrubbed before it could be animated.

“I was given quite a bit of freedom working on GT, so aside from whether they were animated or not, the ideas were limitless. For each character, plenty of subplots existed that never made it to the screen,” the writer said.

“Around the Super 17 arc in the animation, he came back as a super-warrior all of a sudden, but actually, I personally wanted to put in a heroic episode telling the reason he started fighting again. For instance, people he loved, like Videl, had been hurt, and when in the depths of anguish, he happened to open up his wardrobe, inside was his dōgi from fondly-remembered times. Together with the line, “To think there’d come a day I’d wear this again…”, he brushes off Chi-Chi, who in tears is trying to stop him, and makes a shocking, lightning entrance on the battlefield. Considering the status of the character, I wanted to spend one or two episodes showing that level of resolve, and I recall having even written the plot for it. But it’s a subplot that diverges from the main story, I guess you could say, so due to various circumstances, it never came to fruition, and it ended up stopping at the level of, he takes off his glasses, and takes on the eyes of a warrior.”

As fans will remember, Dragon Ball GT introduced the world to a very different version of Gohan. The fighter had traded in his dangerous life to become a researcher at Bulma’s company, but he was forced back into during the ‘Baby’ saga. The Z-Fighter was forced to fight his brother Goten after the younger was taken over by Baby, and the shift was a rather abrupt one. Fans would have loved to see Gohan explore his unwilling transformation back into a fighter after so many years but – like most things concerning Dragon Ball GT – their hopes were cut short.

Dragon Ball Super‘s “Universal Survival” saga is part of the recent simulcast agreement that sites like Crunchyroll and Funimation have scored. Dragon Ball Super airs on Crunchyroll Saturdays at 7:15 p.m. CST. Toonami airs the English dub on Adult Swim Saturdays at 11:30 p.m.