The fan-favorite anime series Dragon Ball Z has since evolved into one of the most popular video game franchise in recent history and has cemented its place as a top-tier fighting game right next to the likes of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat–and in one chapter of the original manga, Gohan proves that wasn’t an accident as Dragon Ball Z was seemingly made to be a video game.

While the first few Dragon Ball video games were Legend of Zelda-style RPGs that turned into side-scrollers during boss fights, the franchise didn’t really hit its stride until DBZ entered into fighting-game territory. While the late ‘90s produced some fairly forgettable Dragon Ball fighting games–like Ultimate Battle 22 and GT: Final BoutDragon Ball Z video games arguably didn’t surge in unparalleled popularity until the Budokai series. It was at this point in Dragon Ball Z’s video game history that it was on-par with the likes of the aforementioned Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat as the games had a ton of different playable characters with awesome special moves and finishers while also having a solid campaign based perfectly on the events of the anime. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai proved that the best DBZ games were not only one-v-one fighters, but also ones that were true to the source material–though one instance within the manga shows the source material seemed to knowingly take a page from the video games' proverbial playbook.

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In Dragon Ball chapter 449 by Akira Toriyama, Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, and Supreme Kai are tracking down the villainous sorcerer, Babidi, before he can awaken Majin Buu. In that effort, they followed the villain into his underground lair, one that was stacked in levels, all of which containing increasingly powerful boss-fights for the Z-Fighters to vanquish in order to descend into the next level. After defeating the ‘boss’ villain in this chapter, Gohan drops to the lair’s next level alongside his fellow Z-Fighters and shouts, “It’s like a video game”.

Gohan’s Dragon Ball Video Game Comment was More Accurate than He Knew

Gohan proves DBZ was made to be a video game.

When Gohan called this adventure “like a video game”, he was right on the money in more ways than one. Firstly, the Z-Fighters were literally traveling to different ‘levels’ of the underground lair the same way they’d beat different ‘levels’ in a video game. Secondly, each level had its own boss-fight, and the Dragon Ball fighters took turns fighting them one-on-one–essentially establishing their own ‘character select’ before every battle. With each battle won, the ‘players’ would go to a different ‘level’ to fight an even more powerful villain before eventually arriving at the final boss–who, in this case, was Majin Buu.

Just like the best Dragon Ball Z video games in the franchise, this manga arc had a good story, awesome characters, deadly boss battles, and a final boss that put all the other villains the Z-Fighters had previously fought to shame. Why this is interesting is that the manga seemed to reflect a video game formula rather than the other way around–proving that Dragon Ball Z was made to be a video game, and Gohan was the one who pointed it out.

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