The problem with Gohan ultimately isn't that Gohan is not suited to be the protagonist of Dragon Ball. It's that the way Dragon Ball stories are told are not suited to be the story of Gohan.
At its heart, Dragon Ball is about the journey of self-improvement. It's the story of one young boy's quest to understand martial arts, himself, and his place in the world and in the heavenly system of Buddhism. Its central mantra is about seeking to improve, to better one's self, purely for the sake of improvement and no other. It's rooted in the idea that even when you think you've made it to the top of the mountain, there is always another taller mountain just over the horizon.
For Goku, martial arts are the tool through which he improves himself. They're his passion. His drive. The center of his universe. Through martial arts, Goku builds relationships to others. Through martial arts, Goku refines himself not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. Through martial arts, Goku even achieves enlightenment.
But that's not Gohan's mountain. It's not his horizon. He's very strong. But martial arts aren't what matters to him.
This is what the start of the Buu arc seemed to grasp before it got cold feet and fell back on more familiar Goku-centric fare. To tell a story about Gohan that's true to the spirit of Dragon Ball, it would need to be about Gohan's journey into academia.
Education is, for Gohan, what martial arts are to Goku. A Gohan show wouldn't be about fighting. It'd be about learning. It'd be about Gohan discovering the world and building relationships through his pursuit of academia. Studying dinosaur biology and the Namekian ecosystem and trying to identify what ki really is from a scientific perspective. Interning at Capsule Corp to learn about shrinking tech.
And learning more about himself and his own curiosity in the process.
And it would be about romance. About learning how to have a stable and healthy relationship with another human being, despite a lack of positive role models in that area to draw from. It would be about Gohan having to surpass his flawed parents - As a boyfriend, as a husband, and ultimately as a father.
Those are Gohan's horizons. That is what his show would need to be about. But that's something that Dragon Ball, set in its ways and stubborn in its direction, simply isn't equipped to give him.
Which is a shame. Because it sounds like a very interesting story to me.
