Dragon Ball & LGBTIQ+

I’ve been a Dragon Ball Z fan for most of my life, so it’s no secret that the franchise has contributed to ridiculing and even stigmatizing homosexuality, including associating it with pedophilia. But I think there are other forms of exclusion worth discussing.

The usual argument is that the franchise doesn’t focus on romantic relationships or sexuality. But this isn’t only about who you sleep with; it’s also about identity and representation. In countries where sexual diversity is not criminalized, LGBTQ+ people represent roughly 9–15% of the population, and among Gen Z, some surveys have found figures as high as 28%. That means that, statistically, in a cast of 20 recurring heroes, it would not be unreasonable to expect at least a couple of queer characters.

Now, in countries such as Russia, people openly talk about “gay propaganda” as the supposed phenomenon of confusing people about their sexuality simply by showing that sexual diversity exists. So what do we call its denial? “Denialist propaganda”? “Hate propaganda”? Because after ridiculing us, stigmatizing us, and irrationally excluding us from representation in one of the most important anime franchises in history, I think we deserved at least some recognition — if our existence in the real world is really so troubling that we had to be excluded from its fictional one.