The Savage Way That Dragon Ball Fans Ridicule Vegeta's Fighting Moves
"Dragon Ball Z" is widely known as one of the most popular and influential anime ever created. The sequel series to "Dragon Ball" and prequel to "Dragon Ball GT" and "Dragon Ball Super," "Dragon Ball Z" is perhaps the best-known entity of the entire franchise.
Created by Akira Toriyama, "Dragon Ball Z" follows Goku (Masako Nozawa/Sean Schemmel) as he tries to settle down and live a normal adult life after years of traveling and training in martial arts. However, his experiment in domesticated life is cut short when three aliens, called Saiyans, show up to destroy Earth. While the first two, Raditz (Shigeru Chiba/Christopher Sabat) and Nappa (Shozo Iizuka/Phil Parsons), are destroyed relatively early on, the third, Vegeta (Ryo Horikawa/Christopher Sabat), becomes a series regular.
Though the Saiyan antihero eventually becomes an ally of the heroes against a more significant threat to the universe, he never loses his edge, and that has led to Vegeta becoming a fan favorite (via Comic Book). However, some fans are less than impressed with Vegeta's skills when it comes to combat.
Fans think Vegeta is just an energy source for Goku
On the r/dbz subreddit, u/carmardoll posted a popular thread where they speculated that Vegeta is essentially a convenient plot device for Goku on several occasions throughout the series. "You ever find it annoying that Goku has never given his energy to help Vegeta?" they asked. "Like Vegeta is basically a walking extra Ki battery for Goku to charge on when near the end of the fights."
Ki is the mythical power source that most of the fighters draw their power from in "Dragon Ball Z." It's essentially a way of taking your life force and turning it into a form of energy that you can use to attack your opponent. Though the rules surrounding it grow increasingly complicated as the series goes on, it's possible for one Ki user to share this energy with another or even for two characters to combine their strength in dire situations.
The problem is that generally speaking, Goku wins most of the fights in the series, meaning other characters are often there to simply speak expository dialogue or help Goku in some way when things get tense. In the top comment, u/Mr-Personality imagined a fight where Goku bequeathed his energy to the arrogant Saiyan prince. "Goku: 'I'm giving you the last of my energy! Finish the fight!' Vegeta wastes it all on a bunch of rapid ki blasts. Vegeta: 'I did it!' The bad guy walks through smoke and kicks Vegeta in the head." Other Redditors were similarly unimpressed with Vegeta as a fighter. "Vegeta's Technique™️," joked u/MarioBoy77. "My friends and I used to call that pulling a Vegeta," said u/BlaqkJak.
While fans undoubtedly love Vegeta as a character, it seems they're not above making fun of him in terms of how he's written into the plot of each fight.