La Ron S. Readus
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The Goten/Trunks Ship WORKS in the Canon Timeline! (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2021-06-09 20:01:01 +0000 UTC(We’re Boyfriends clip)
Okay, but let’s talk about it!
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Yes, Readers. I know that the clip we just saw was a comedy-aimed abridged variant of one of the last few episodes of Dragon Ball Z that takes place 10 years after the end of the Kid Buu Saga.
/Yet even when you look at the clip as it was initially intended -- both in Japanese and English dub -- it still gives off that vibe that Goten and Trunks are, in fact, boyfriends./
In comparison to other male characters with pretty heteronormative male friendships, Goten and Trunks definitely win first place for being not only the CLOSEST, but the most OPEN about it. Which, if you look at their bond through a queer lens is pretty cool for a male-focused shonen anime when the seasons premiered in Japan in 1994.
Despite that not being the intention of Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama
Now I say that because back in the day when it came to canonically queer characters in male oriented shonen anime -- especially male-identifying queer characters -- they tend to be used very...shitily.
Whereas here in America they tend to fall under the tropes of secondary characters who’s best friend is the main character and has a significant amount of sass equal to their state of flamboyance...
/Japanese Anime in the 90s tended to use the fact that they were queer as the focus of the comedy; the most common form being the male-identifying queer character making the main male character -- or ONE of the main male characters -- uncomfortable in either declaring their interest or desire in them./ (Outlaw Star “I’m not going to sleep with you.”)
And while, unfortunately, the practice is still used in SOME modern shonen anime, there have been strides in better depicting male-identifying queer characters in a better light; Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo and Akame Ga Kill being great examples.
So when certain people SAW how close Goten and Trunks were as kids, and SAW how that evolved when we got a 10-year time skip, it would make sense for some individuals to see their relationship as a uniquely romantic one.
The thing about it, however, is that those who shipped age-appropriate Goten and Trunks -- whether as teenagers in Peaceful World or adults in Dragon Ball GT -- are completely justified in doing so according to the current canonical timeline of Dragon Ball Z and Super.
Because even when Goten and Trunks were respectively 7 and 8 year old kids during the sagas of Babidi, Majin Buu, Fusion and Kid Buu, something existed within the show that was left so open-ended that it could literally be used to explain how their bond over the course of the 10+ years after the majority of seasons 8 and 9 of Dragon Ball Z could potentially grow from close friends to romantic soul mates
/I’m of course talking about the Fusion Dance./
The Fusion Dance was introduced in the Majin Buu Saga episode “Rebirth,” where a spirit-bound Goku present on Earth on borrowed time found out that Vegeta and possibly his eldest son Gohan were killed by Majin Buu.
/We find out that he was taught the technique in Out World by the Metamorans -- a race we NEVER see in the anime -- after helping Gohan destroy Cell once and for all when he was a teenager and opted to not be resurrected by the Dragon Balls, thinking that being off Earth might keep the attention of evildoers away from the planet./
The rules regarding who can fuse are fairly simple as Goku explained to Piccolo and Krillin, and then to Goten and Trunks once he began their training.
The individuals participating have to be of equal height and equal power level. Y’know, until it's time for Goku and Vegeta to form Gogeta in the canon Broly movie
And not only do they have to perform a dance in order to fuse into one brand new being that’s an amalgamation of the two that lasts for 30 minutes and requires an hour long cooldown before the form can be performed again...
/But everything has to be in sync when the dance is performed in order for it to work properly. Because if they’re off by even a little bit, an imbalanced version of the fusion form will appear to show that one of the participants is out of sync with the other, and vice versa./
Goku entertained the idea of fusing with both Vegeta and Gohan when he brought the technique up in the Majin Buu saga. But at the time, Vegeta had just sacrificed himself to try and destroy Majin Buu and Gohan’s life force was so low that Goku thought he had died.
/That was when Mr. Popo noted that Goten and Trunks were both relatively the same size and can match each other's power levels now that Vegeta and Gohan are out of the picture./
And after Goku watched them fight in the martial arts tournament before shit started to truly hit the fan, he had a feeling after being made aware that they qualified for Fusion that the form eventually known as Gotenks would be the Earth’s best line of defense while Gohan was handling things with the Z Sword, or whatever.
The thing about the Metamoran Fusion Dance however, is that outside of what Goku taught Goten and Trunks about how to make sure they’re in sync with each other in order to perform it, as well as ACTUALLY performing it, that’s pretty much all we -- and Goku -- know about the technique.
/The only expanded knowledge we know about how Fusion works is what Piccolo is able to bring to the table when he recalls the Namekian fusion he had to do with Nail during the Frieza saga, and that’s only about the concept of two individuals becoming one being in one body./
All we -- the audience -- know about the Fusion Dance is what it takes to perform one, how long it lasts, and -- thanks to the combined power levels of Goten and Trunks being able to allow Gotenks to surpass Super Saiyan 2 immediately into Super Saiyan 3, how long the fusion time is cut by whenever more energy is expelled while in the form.
So what about side-effects? What about what happens to the participants during and after the process, and how it affects them when they become one?
Is it just power levels, precise mirror reflection-worthy performances of the technique and unison of the body that need to be in sync with each other, or something more?
And more importantly, what happens when the learning process regarding the Metamoran Fusion Dance is not only rushed to be taught, but rushed to be learned by individuals who may not yet have the mental development to handle being united as one?
/Individuals like 7 and 8 year old half human children...?/
Yes, it's true. By the time Seasons 7 through 9 of Dragon Ball Z happen, young Goten and Trunks are the youngest individuals of Saiyan heritage from Earth to reach Super Saiyan level 1.
/And this is possibly due to Goku and Vegeta respectively contributing to their fatherly duties in conceiving them after they themselves reached Super Saiyan./
So in regards to having a combined power level strong enough to face Majin and Super Buu based on that alone, young Goten and Trunks were the best bet for Earth on paper.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Goten and Trunks are only 7 and 8 respectively by the time they were forced to develop the technique.
Not to mention they were forced to learn the technique in 2 days when it took Goku -- a dead, yet at the time 34 year old adult that had a full 25 years to properly develop his brain -- a full week to properly learn it from the Metamorans in Out World.
The only thing outside of their innate power was their bond as friends that they developed as little kids.
/Yes, there’s a sense of mischief and impatience when it comes to dealing with elders to show their level of rambunctiousness in the anime, but there’s definitely a level of mutual respect, admiration and protection regarding what bond is already there that their dads couldn’t even DREAM of achieving back then./
Goten has an innocence about him that he non-embarrassingly displays over the course of the season.
/He unashamedly cries and doesn’t hold back his emotions when he feels hurt or when people he cares for are hurt, as opposed to Trunks who always tries to hold it together in the same situations. And while he may be shy about it sometimes, he almost always gives in to his need for intimacy with those he develops strong bonds for./
And it's all of these things about Goten that Trunks notices about him over the course of their friendship as children...
/That despite sometimes talking down to him a bit -- y’know, to show that he is, in fact, Vegeta’s son -- Trunks develops a sense of protection over in some ways./
While some understandably translate his relationship with Goten as more of a protective big brother, some also understandably translate it as that one Brooklyn 99 meme; if anything happens to Goten, Trunks will kill everyone in this room and then himself.
On the flip-side, Goten looks at Trunks with a strong sense of admiration to the point of wanting to constantly impress and gain his respect.
/When Trunks tells him it's rude to talk with his mouth full, Goten listens. When Trunks complains about having to lower his power level to match Goten’s in order for them to successfully fuse, Goten apologizes. And his sense of admiration of Trunks even succeeds that of Trunks’ own father Vegeta, who immediately started crying and yelling at him demanding why Vegeta knocked him out before his bout with Majin Buu, before ALSO knocking out Goten./
So while some may see the bond Goten and Trunks share as a sometimes harsh yet still loving big brother figure protecting his younger and more emotionally innocent friend...
Others who are used to seeing this play out in the form of the Childhood Romance trope -- those who see themselves as just friends at first before either puberty hits or a long separation from each other to allow them to realize these were precursors for having romantic feelings for each other -- also saw how strong their relationship was as children and how it could possibly bloom into a relationship when they became of age.
So if we factor in that these 7 and 8 year olds with this already pretty strong bond were not only forced to learn a technique that involved their very beings to combine into a physical amalgamation of the two, by an individual who only knows the base requirements for it in order to obtain the final results and nothing else...
But were also RUSHED into learning it with minds that needed at least 17 and 18 more years to properly develop in order to learn it in the timeframe it was initially intended to be taught according to the race that created it...
Who’s to say that Goten and Trunks learning the Metamoran Fusion Dance under the circumstances that they did couldn’t have played a drastically more significant role in how the two develop their relationship?
And it’s not like it's out of the realm of possibility thanks to Dragon Ball Super and the constant debate of GT’s place in the canon, either. Only a few things would need to develop regarding Goten and Trunks’s development in order for this to happen.
First, we have to establish that because the two were forced to learn the Fusion Dance as young as they did and as quickly as they did during the state of their bond as children, that thanks to their lack of mental development to keep certain things in their proper place when fusing and defusing, certain aspects about Goten would drift to Trunks and certain aspects about Trunks would drift to Goten, and a little bit more and more of this would happen with every Fusion Dance until their minds have spent 25 physical years to fully develop.
This would cause Goten and Trunks to develop the first side-effect of learning the Fusion Dance under the conditions they initially did, which is a more empathic connection with each other.
One that -- thanks to the constant amount of times they did the Fusion Dance in the end of Dragon Ball Z, the movies before Super and even Dragon Ball Super itself -- manifests in a way that reflects the urban myth of twin sense.
Because of the conditions that their bond was in when they were children by the time they learned to fuse, those aspects that connected them to each other are actually IN each other.
/It would cause Goten to sense when Trunks is struggling to express his emotions similar to when he was 8, or Trunks to immediately sense when Goten is suffering or struggling emotionally similar to back when he was 7.
From there, we can explore how they would handle a lot of the aspects the appreciated with each other now that they’re adults and things like puberty had time to play a factor.
How strong would have Trunks’s original urge to protect Goten grown? Would he want to be there ALL the time for him?
And if that’s the case, would the amplification of Trunks’ desire to want to protect and be there for Goten from every mild to severe expression of emotion he has thanks to this side-effect of the Fusion Dance enhance that already present desire to want to impress him and gain his respect?
How will Goten translate Trunks potentially being there for him almost every time he’s hurting? Will he react the same way whenever Trunks is in pain? Will the two allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to allow these feelings to grow into something more now that their very empathetic structures are soul-linked with each other? Find out next time on the Doki-Doki-enducing episode of Dragon Ball Z-
Another side-effect would ALSO be immediately related to Goten having traces of Trunks within him, and Trunks having traces of Goten within him.
Because neither of them are completely whole and have fragments of the other to replace what’s within them, there’ll always be a constant yearn to have that missing part of themselves close by, similar to that of separation anxiety.
It wouldn’t happen immediately after the two are separated, mind you. But -- once again, thanks to how strong their initial bond was when they first learned how to fuse -- over time, something similar to the protest, despair, and detachment stages of separation anxiety would begin to play out HELLA hard for Goten and Trunks.
So hard that depending on how far they are away from each other, one might attempt to find other ways to, albeit unsuccessfully, fill the void, other than each other.
That way, if Dragon Ball GT as it currently exists DOES end up being established as canon and not have aspects of it repurposed for Super, the albeit limited presence of Goten’s girlfriend Valese as a way of Goten trying to deal with the fact that he couldn’t be with Trunks on Goku and Pan’s mission to space makes more sense.
By just giving the Metamoran Fusion Dance this much more exposition and expansion on the drastic decisions made by Goku regarding Goten and Trunks as children, so much more potential for storytelling would be available to two characters that haven't really been utilized to the same amount of potential they initially showed since the concept of the Fusion Dance was introduced in the first place. Not even in Dragon Ball Super.
Not only does this allow a better reasoning for why Goten and Trunks are as intimate as they are after the 10 year time skip of the Peaceful World arc, regardless if it's romantic or platonic...
Yes, platonic intimacy in male oriented relationships is possible no matter the sexuality spectrum. Grow the fuck up and give your bro a cuddle; they probably really need it
But it also gives those who already ship the two of them as late teenagers and young adults more of an established footing within the very lore of Dragon Ball.
Thank you for coming to my Toriyama Talk. Because I promise you; this shit will NEVER happen again.
But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below how YOU’D adjust Dragon Ball lore to make the Goten Trunks ship work in the main canonical timeline.
Or if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, an anime or show containing a slash ship you think would benefit if it were made canon in the show the characters originated from.
Whichever question you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.
