What Makes You a Man
September 3, 2024
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We were already talking about Killugon, so I figured why not talk about an anime relationship I've been obsessed with almost my whole life! Gohan and Trunks from Dragon Ball Z! (Warning: Lots of muscles in the images below!)
Why Boxer & Rice? The name play on words for their names in the show follow that, Trunks is Bulma Brief's son, Bulma's name herself being a play on the word "Bloomers" and of course Briefs, Trunks Briefs = Boxers. Basically. And the word Gohan is Japanese for a rice dinner. So the community that was very serious about this pairing called themselves Boxer & Rice.
Growing up with DBZ, I feel like my friends liked the show because it had lots of fighting and action, and for the most part the story was easy to follow. Fighting people get stronger and fight even stronger people.
For me though the show was all about Gohan. He was so different from the rest of the cast especially when he was younger.
He never enjoyed fighting like his father, but he was always willing to fight like hell to protect anyone he cared about. Combine that with how smart he is and I always felt like he was by far the most in depth character with the most potential in the entire series. What makes me sad is that I feel like his character never got the development he deserved and a lot of the time he got made fun of for being a "nerd" by fans simply because he lacked relatability within the show. Unlike Goten and Younger Trunks who had each other to bounce off of, Gohan was basically alone in his experiences (Piccolo might have been his mentor, but Krillin was really his only "Friend" when he was a kid even though Krillin is older than his dad) until Mirai (Future) Trunks entered the picture.
Trunks had been raised and trained by an older future Gohan and had suffered the heaviest sense of loss out of any character in the series, especially after the death of his future Gohan.
Though the actual series showed very little of their interaction, it was always great to imagine that Trunks would have seen the younger Gohan as a chance to reconnect with someone who was very dear to him and be especially involved in his life.
Though Trunks isn't in it, I've been working on a fanfic story for a long time about how things in DBZ could have been different for Gohan if he just had a few friends his own age. No pressure at all, but if anyone is a fan of DBZ and interested in it I'll post a link here:
Hi, my name is Niklas. I’m the one to the left with the blond hair and those goofy freckles. I’ll tell you in some cartoons and stories what happened after I told my best friends the truth. You should know, I love my friends, really! And guess what some of them, like Fabian and Jason, love me too! I always thought they’d say I’m weird, well, maybe we’re all weird.