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A character’s sacrifice is one of the key moments in any fighting shounen anime. It often triggers the development of the main character, influences plot developments, and causes fundamental changes in the general status quo.
As one of the most popular and influential shounen anime series of all time, Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Z also allowed audiences to witness the sacrifices of many characters throughout its run, including the main character. Son Goku.
However, several members of the Z Fighters died and were brought back to life multiple times throughout Dragon Ball Z, making the concept of death lose all meaning the moment it happened.
The meaning of death in Shonen anime/manga
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Typically, people who die in Shonen anime/manga stories rarely come back to life through conventional means, and the end of a fictional character’s life is often treated with the same solemnity as that of a real person. In the context of fighting series, death is an ever-present threat that the protagonist must confront.
Death can also be used to create strong character motivations, the most prominent of which is revenge or the desire for justice. In this context, death can be the catalyst that sets the protagonist on their journey or strengthens their resolve to achieve a goal.
For example, Gohan’s early display of his hidden potential after Piccolo’s death, along with Goku’s first Super Saiyan transformation after Krillin’s death are prime examples of this. Or Gohan’s Super Saiyan 2 form against Perfect Cell, after Android 16’s death is one of the best examples of how death can be used to strengthen a hero’s resolve.
Dragon balls help make death no longer scary
The world of Dragon Ball operates with a slightly different set of rules, as the wish-granting Dragon Balls are a great plot device, allowing characters to break the bonds of their mortality. Characters can make wishes to revive deceased allies after collecting all seven Dragon Balls.
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At first, there were inviolable rules that had to be followed, even when wishing for others to rise from the dead. For example, the original Dragon Ball forbade anyone from being resurrected a second time, if they had been resurrected before. This prevents overreliance on the loophole of being able to wish people back to life, so that a character’s second and supposedly final death would carry equal weight if the Dragon Balls weren’t exist.
The plot hole makes the sacrifice lose its meaning
In the Namek Saga and Frieza Saga, the Dragon Balls become an even more important plot point when Bulma, Gohan, and Krillin travel to planet Namek to revive Piccolo, Kami, Yamcha, Chiaotzu, and Tien. The act of reviving Piccolo and Kami is especially important as it will also help restore Earth’s Dragon Balls in the process.
In Namek, the deaths of Krillin and Vegeta were crucial to Goku’s first Super Saiyan transformation, but they were also resurrected at the end of the Frieza Saga.
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What’s important to note here is the wish made at the end of the Frieza Saga, wishing for all those murdered by Frieza and his subordinates to come back to life. Thereby setting the template for reversing the damage caused by the villain in every subsequent story in the series.
While such a mass revival was ultimately necessary to ensure the main cast’s relevance in the new sagas, it paved the way for future plot changes.
By the time the Majin Buu Saga begins, most of the main cast of characters have died and then been revived multiple times, including Goku himself.
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Bringing characters back to life again and again only contributes to the concept of death starting to depreciate, until it eventually becomes a minor annoyance at the climax of the Majin Buu Saga.
Even as the various versions of Majin Buu ravaged cities, finished off most of the main characters, and ultimately eliminated all life on Earth, there was still the opportunity to use the Namekian Dragon Balls to revive everyone and undo all damage.
Every disaster caused by Buu is accompanied by someone reiterating that the Dragon Balls will restore everything to normal, making the threat less real, even if the survival of All life in Universe 7 is seriously threatened.
Ultimately, all of this raises the obvious issue of how Dragon Ball Z treats the concept of death. Where there used to be a limit to how many times a dead character could be resurrected, the end of the Majin Buu Saga saw all these rules broken. This is something that has continued to happen in later installments of the series, such as Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Super. But the events of Dragon Ball Z are definitely what caused death to lose all meaning in the series.