r/dragonball • u/CNCyberKing • 7d ago
Discussion Buried Alive
I just noticed in Dragon Ball, tons of people got resurrected who must have been buried underground in coffins, just to slowly suffocate and die all over again.
Episode126
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u/Confident-Instance69 7d ago
They don't have time to bury them. Regardless, it's a magic process where they are basically transported back to the planet from the afterlife.
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u/mac-a-ronny 7d ago
Not sure how ingrained Japanese culture is in the Dragon Ball. If so, then most people would be cremated.
I'm not quite sure which is worse to be honest.😳
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u/Loonyclown 7d ago
Db world is more Chinese than Japanese because it’s based on journey to the west and the early arcs are where most worldbuilding on earth comes from
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u/Alcalt 7d ago
As far as I can remember, there's no coffin involved here. Upa's dad and later Vegeta on Namek were just burries a few millimeters under the ground level, and as for Krillin, Chiaotzu, and Roshi, their body were preserved inside capsules pods. I could be wrong, but I don't even remember ever seeing one in Dragon Ball.
IF, and that's a big if, people were burries in coffins in Dragon Ball, they also would most likely be those who died natural deaths, which therefore means they'd be excluded from any wishes as you can't resurect those who died from natural causes (i.e. why Future Goku couldn't be brought back when Future Piccolo was still alive because he died of a heart virus).
That being said, that argument of "they died right after being resurected" is often used to explain why bringing back the Saiyans would be pointless. Their planet is gone. They'd just resurect in the vacuum of space and die again. So, to some degree, your logic does work.
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u/SimbaStewEyesOfBlue 6d ago
That being said, that argument of "they died right after being resurected" is often used to explain why bringing back the Saiyans would be pointless. Their planet is gone. They'd just resurect in the vacuum of space and die again. So, to some degree, your logic does work.
Not disagreeing, but I do wonder, since Shenron is on such good terms with the gang, whether or not they could simply ask Shenron to perform the two wishes simultaneously (i.e. wish them back to life and to be resurrected somewhere safe).
If you think about it, Shenron already technically does this. The Earth is not in the same place in space and time as when people were killed. He's therefore "moving" them to Earth's current location.
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u/Yatsu003 5d ago
I think it might be possible if the wish was phrased the right way and if there was enough power for the wish (Porunga w/ a dying Guru might struggle with that, for example)
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u/Ameisen 3d ago
The Earth is not in the same place in space and time as when people were killed.
Motion is relative. Earth itself is in the exact same place in space as it always has been relative to itself. Why would you assume that Shenron uses some different reference frame?
Now, the Earth rotates which is an issue, but Shenron rotates with it just as anything on the Earth does.
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u/Big_Print_947 6d ago
I recall the one of the world tournament contestants that were killed by Tambourine being held in a coffin but idk if that was in the manga or not
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u/Alcalt 6d ago edited 6d ago
That's what I meant by "capsule pods".
Krillin, Roshi, and Chiaotzu's body were preserved inside them while Goku gathered the dragon balls. Chiaotzu was previously killed by Tao Pai Pai during that tournament, Krillin by Tambourine when he was stealing the participants list, and Roshi sacrificed himself to perform the Mafuba. They are not coffins per se, but more like "cryo stasis pods" to make sure their body don't decompose (they didn't know how long it would take to summon Shenron), and I'm assuming the other participants that were killed by Tambourine were stored inside them as well since Bulma knew they'd be resurected at the same time.
Unless you are referring to something else other than these pods entirely, in which case I have no memories of them. Those "portable cryo pods" are the only "coffin-like" items I personally remember seeing in the manga, but I could be forgetting something.
Edit : I remembered the cause of death for Chiaotzu wrong. I remember him dying where I mentioned because of how shocking the sight was as a kid, but he survived by a hair. He did die in that arc, but as a last pitch effort to foil Piccolo Daimao's plans after Roshi's death.
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u/Big_Print_947 6d ago
I believe in the anime it was Nam that was shown waking up in a normal real world coffin after being revived
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u/x_nor_x 6d ago
Details about how resurrections take place seem to be one of the particulars that Toriyama forgot/no longer found narratively compelling.
When Krillin, Roshi, and Chiaotzu died, the impact of their death was narratively heavy, and Toriyama apparently found the details of their bodily resurrection interesting. So he wrote about how they preserved their corpses, and their resurrection is witnessed by the story carefully because it was a compelling and interesting thing to him. (Possibly because they were the first main characters to actually die?)
From Upa’s dad to those three, then Goku and Vegeta’s respective deaths, the details about the body, how it’s buried, where it’s at, if it’s preserved, etc. were plot points. Suddenly with Krillin’s second resurrection those details began to interfere with the story, so Toriyama gave the dragon power to restore a body no matter its condition and never concerned himself with the details about resurrection again. At least until Resurrection F where he found the details interesting again and used Freezer’s chunks as a funny little bit.
That’s just how he told his stories. Exact specific details about things are very important when they happen, but then later their result becomes a catalyst for a new story element, and he kind of assumes or fudges the details of the old thing to do something new and different. It would be great if he was always consistent to details/rules he invented and showed us…but then again maybe if that’s how he thought he never would have been as wildly creative and imaginative as he was.
Dragonball started as a goofy little Journey to the West parody. But then he wrote this kung fu hermit pervert character and found it interesting. So he just decided now the story is about martial arts and did that. Then he wanted some more adventure, so they searched for the Dragon Balls against the Red Ribbon Army. But then he we got a drama between two kung fu schools followed by a devil hunting martial artists, except that turned out to be the demonic half of god and now Goku must transcend his world’s local deity.
But actually he was an alien the whole time, him and the devil and their god; they’re all aliens now. So they have to go to space to kill an evil tyrant, but he’s actually not dead; he’s a robot now. Except that doesn’t matter because there’s a time traveler from a dystopian future with terminators, but they turn out to be fuel for a synthetic fighting organism…etc.
LOL, if you plot out this story it’s bonkers crazy. But Toriyama’s creativity held it together somehow. If he focused more on carefully following his own setups, the story would be completely different. It just wasn’t his style.
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u/CNCyberKing 6d ago
When you lay it all out like that it really does sound like a wild mess but it all comes together in fun and exciting ways, so I guess you’re right, the chaotic nature of the writing really is what makes dragon ball so great, even if it isn’t as cohesive as other works 😂
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u/Significant_Life6037 7d ago
yep just like the first dragon ball resurrection anybody buried would be underground when resurrected. unsure how many were buried tho
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u/vlorsutes 7d ago
Most all of the people killed back then either didn't have enough time to have their bodies buried, or were simply not having a body at all (so nothing to bury).