Dragon Ball Super Must Not Bring Back Raditz

Dragon Ball is a funny franchise at its core. Stemming from series creator Akira Toriyama’s experience with gag manga Dr Slump, Dragon Ball has always kept around that feeling of humor even with the most serious fights and battles across the franchise’s later years. One of the major ways the franchise has always been a bit funny is the fact that death is not a true consequence to its events, unless Toriyama wants it to be. Characters die, come back to life, and even fully change their allegiances as bigger and more ridiculous threats begin to reveal themselves.  

This has been an issue creeping into both the manga and anime releases. Dragon Ball Super‘s newest chapters have officially brought Bardock into the fold, and although it doesn’t really bring him back to life (yet, as of this writing anyway), it’s now made him one of the most important characters in the current chapters in retrospect. There have been small allusions from both Bardock and Goku to another member of their family, Raditz, and with an upcoming movie and more chapters to explore…the series seems dangerously close to bringing back this Saiyan into the series canon. Please don’t. 

Dragon Ball has brought back Raditz into the fold already, immediately, with appearances in Dragon Ball Heroes (and even giving him a Super Saiyan 3 form) and the Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie. So it’s not like the character’s return hasn’t been toyed with before, and thus his full comeback to the series could likely work in the grand scheme of things as the manga continues to follow its current thread of exploring more of the Saiyan past. But at the same time, the series really shouldn’t do that. Raditz is more a symbol than a character, after all. 

Raditz’s introduction to the series served as the focal point to introduce space to the mystical martial arts franchise, and with it brought Vegeta. Therefore, Raditz’s ultimate purpose was served upon his death and there’s no real need to dig that up anymore. But as mentioned before, Dragon Ball‘s a funny series. With Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero bringing the Red Ribbon Army back into the fold despite Earth’s fighters long outgrowing the threat poised by them, it’s sort of along the same lines to somehow bring Raditz back with it. 

Think about it. An outdated, obscure, and weak villain who’s only real point of interest was his connection to Goku brought back as the secret main villain of the movie! Imagine he’d be powered up with super android gear kind of like how Frieza was during his initial comeback, and although fans would complain, this kind of quick catch up in power is something the franchise does all the time (remember Kale and Caulifla?). It would be the wildest kind of ridiculous swerve that, together with all of the renewed Saiyan interest in the manga, would make a ton of sense in that funny, Dragon Ball way. 

Just don’t do it. But what do you think? Would you want to see Raditz again in the Dragon Ball canon? What would be the right way to bring him back into the fold? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!