Bardock’s surprising desire for the Dragon Balls of Monaito in the Dragon Ball Super manga may have ruined the entire series.
Shenlong himself may not be able to undo the damage that chapter 83 of the Dragon Ball Super manga just did to the beloved franchise. As the conflict with the Heeters continued, a flashback revealed that Goku’s father, Bardock himself, had a confrontation with Gas 40 years ago. While Bardock was receiving a beating, Monaito offered to use the power of the Spheres to bring the Saiyan to safety. Although Bardock refused his chance to escape, the wish he passed on to Monaito would be an irreparable and unforgivable mistake that negates the entire series, from Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z to Dragon Ball Super.
Desire spam reached an all-time high in the Granola arc of the Dragon Ball Super manga. Monaito, Granola’s surrogate father, has his own pair of Dragon Balls that summon a dragon that grants wishes, and after the wish is fulfilled they don’t spread out after use and have no waiting time, meaning they can be used incessantly. Granola and Gas have already used them to wish to be the strongest warrior in the universe. During the flashback to Bardock’s fight with Gas, Monaito offered to wish Bardock back to Planet Vegeta, but the Saiyan refused. When Monaito asked what wish he could make for Bardock, Goku’s father replied, “I wish my children would end up thriving.”
Upon hearing the wish, Monaito commented that it is much better to make a wish that helps someone else, but the manga does not confirm whether Monaito actually made Bardock’s wish. However, if he did, Dragon Ball as a whole is basically ruined. Goku is already a problematic protagonist because he usually doesn’t grow as a person and acts selfishly as often as he acts for the good of others. The only thing that changes in Goku is his level of power, and Bardock’s desire would mean that Goku’s literal decades of blood, sweat, and screams were not the cause of his prodigious power, but rather emerged as a wish in the Dragon Balls.
To be fair, almost every story is forced to organize itself (sometimes conveniently) in a way that benefits the main character and his journey. While Goku thrives on the events of the plot more than any other, the idea that his power is a magical wish is the worst possible thing Dragon Ball Super could have done. After all, Bardock’s battle with Gas took place before the destruction of Planet Vegeta, while Goku was still a baby named Kakarotto and was in an incubator in the care of Gine his mother. This would mean that Goku’s entire journey, from the original Dragon Ball to the present, has been fundamentally altered in an extremely negative way.
The only saving grace of this development is that the manga does not explicitly show Monaito asking for Bardock’s wish, allowing the hope that Monaito would assume that Bardock was just being jocular or just thinking out loud, and that he chose not to wish for anything. That might even be the most likely scenario, since Bardock said he would want his children (plural) to prosper, and what happened to Raditz in Dragon Ball Z was the exact opposite of thriving since he was killed. If a wish-granting magical dragon used his power for Raditz to thrive, he probably wouldn’t have been hurt by a child and subsequently lost his life never to be mentioned again.
However, if everything Goku has ever done was the result of a Dragon Balls wish, this series is officially dead. Fans are willing to suspend disbelief of convenient plot developments “because he’s the main character,” but Goku having a plot tie in the universe is a step too far. Thankfully, fans can assume that Monaito didn’t fulfill Bardock’s wish, and as long as Raditz remains dead and unmentioned, audiences can pretend it never happened. If Raditz emerges from Hell as a Super Saiyan 5 or something else so crazy, Dragon Ball Super will have officially jumped the shark, and gotten lost wildly.
Source: Atualinerd.com.br
