On Gohan: Excerpt from the Dragon Ball Tenka’ichi Densetsu
I was reading Dragon Ball Z interviews with Akira Toriyama and the various Japanese voice actors and came across this gem on Gohan:
Nozawa: I’ve often heard from fans that the disconnect of studious Gohan going and becoming Great Saiyaman also had a certain charm.
Toriyama: I like Great Saiyaman too, though. Gohan is really dorky, so it ends up feeling that way. (laughs)
Nozawa: Gohan and Goten both have Goku’s blood, and have that sort of cuteness somewhere in them. Especially how Gohan-kun hates fighting, yet respects his father.
Toriyama: But Gohan must have it rough, in that he wants to be a scholar, but instead he has to fight. While drawing, I was always thinking, “He’s different from his father; he must truly hate fighting.”
Koyama: Gohan met with a lot of misfortune. He was a crybaby, but he was trained by Piccolo.
Nozawa: He gets a big bump on his head, and yet he doesn’t hate Piccolo. Now that you mention it, during young Gohan’s training, it seemed like Piccolo was picking on Gohan, didn’t it? At that time, all the performers were really into their roles, so Jōji Yanami-san (Narration / Kaiō-sama) got angry at Piccolo’s voice actor, Toshio Furukawa-san, and shouted, “Hey, knock it off. He’s just a child!” (laughs) Furukawa-san was perplexed, and said, “I’m just voicing the character…” (laughs) The link: https://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/tenkaichi-densetsu-toriyama-koyama-nozawa/
