#reecome

just a side note here: I am referring the manga version of General Blue, not the anime version. I do not condone the actions of anime General Blue, it is explained better in my rant.

This part is just me ranting about how Dragonball represents LQBT characters, so skip if you want to.

Tw: pedophilia and homophobia will be mentioned

As you all know, the characters featured in the post are not confirmed to be LQBT but rather suspect to be based on how they act and how they treat other characters.

The first character to be suspected of being LGBT is General Blue. It is suspected because of his flamboyant personality, feminine way of speaking, and his lack of interest in women. This is already very stereotypical of a queer coded character, that was only the manga version of Blue. In the anime, it is confirmed that he is gay, but in the worst way possible: pedophilia. Yes, in the DB anime General Blue is not “queer coded”, he is blatantly gay but for children. Please note that this is not in the manga. This is not Toriyama wrote him, this is how Toei wrote him. In episode 56 titled “Penguin Village”, there is a scene where General Blue starts falling for Obotchaman, who is a robot that looks and sounds like a child. It is NOT subtle at all. They literally wrote General Blue staring at this kid thinking “my type.” And he was trying to ask him out, offering to “buy him cute clothes” and “take him somewhere to eat.”This was in the 80-90s, when the stereotype of queer men was that they were attracted to children. This scene might have been added to feed the stereotype. Meaning that Toei was homophobic at the time (idk if they still are now.) In the dub they changed it of course, but how it’s animated doesn’t convince otherwise. And when he got assigned to kill Goku, he made this weird face. L-like this:

Yeah, this made me very uncomfortable and Im sure it did for a lot of people. It’s really sad how Toei decided to ruin his character. In all honesty I did like how he was until that happened, he was a very entertaining villain. He was a worthy opponent to Goku at the time, and had a very unique personality that could have been memorable in good ways.

There is another character this is hinted at being queer. We skip ahead to the late 90s. In the Peaceful World Saga, there is a minor character who enters the World Tournament named Otokosaki which apparently translates to “man lover.” He is shown to be flirting with Trunks and Goten, in which they’re both uncomfortable with. One of them even calls him “not normal.” Otokosaki is dressed like a stereotypical homosexual biker with feminine eye features while being a big muscular guy. And stereotypically acting feminine as he is flirting with Trunks. Trunks being a teen at the time, but some sources say that he was 18. Either way, he looked like a teenager and it was obvious that he didn’t like how he was talking to him. Hence the reason why I didn’t include Otokosaki in the poll. He had very little screen time and it was all wasted on making a joke out of his character. This might’ve been another example of Toei being homophobic. At the time, is was considered “funny” to see a big guy act girly, basically making fun of queer men and pushing the stereotype of all of acting a certain way just because they’re queer.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading my rant. I know that I am terrible at explaining things but this is a topic that I had to talk about. Especially now that there is a lot of debate about LQBT representation in media. Like whether if it’s done correctly or if it’s necessary. General Blue and Otokosaki are the only Dragonball characters that are “confirmed” to be gay. In know in recent years, there are a variety of characters that are queer coded like the ones mentioned in the poll and that there are many if you that headcanon many characters ro be queer. I respect all of you for that. There are many people in the Dragon Ball fandom that are homophobic, and thankfully there are other fans who point out certain aspects of DBZ that do give off queer vibes. The information I know is very limited and if I missed anything please let me know.