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During the Cell-games saga, Mr. Satan was supposed to be the World Martial
Arts champion and he was held in high regard by most common people.

By contrast the Z-fighters, most of whom just happened to be high profile
fighters from the 21st through the 23rd World Martial Arts tournaments, were
perceived to be nobodies by the general populace.

But they were all the top contestants of the previous Martial arts tournament,
which can't be too much more than 15 years before the Cell games.

**They were the highest profile Martial artists of the previous decade.**

If we compared this to modern boxing, it would be analogous to praising
Wladimir Klitschko, but completely dismissing Mike Tyson and Evander
Holyfiled.(although Klitschko is younger).

I can understand why they didn't recognize Goku, but Piccolo, Tien, Yamcha,
and Krillin should have been immediately recognizable.

Why were they dismissed so much?


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2013-04-09T18:42:29.033
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dragon-ball-z
Why didn't anybody recognize the Z fighters at the Cell games?


Keep in mind that the previous martial arts tournament took place in another,
or more specifically the previous, series, DragonBall. They are all grown up
or older in DBZ. Goku and Gohan appeared there as SSJ. No one recognized Gohan
when he was SSJ (when he met Videl for example). _As for Tien, Piccolo and the
others, it can only be assumed that they were simply 'nobodies' as you said,
no one would know them_.

They were major characters in DB but not as much in DBZ. Piccolo has appeared
several times after that to people and on the occasion where he was trying to
persuade the humans to give their energy to Goku, people ran from him and
called him a monster. Only a few of the more important characters recognized
them, the army general and an elderly couple recognized Goku and years later
Videl remembered Gohan. Also remember that the Cell Games were being
broadcasted for roughly about 1/5 of the entire length of the full fight as
the video camera was destroyed and also keep in mind that the camera was
mainly focused on Goku for the short period the event was being aired, it
merely skimmed over the others.

**So I will conclude by saying that there is no definitive answer to this, but
the fact that they weren't perceived generally as major _major_ characters in
the plot and as such would not be recognized by anyone in the general human
populace.**


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2013-04-09T20:11:48.603
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Common people in DBZ don't generally outright celebrate people unless they are
constantly bombarded in the mainstream media. Like Mr. Satan for example. He
was always on television and groomed to be a hero by himself and his cohorts.
He used his money from winning the tournament (no Z warriors participated) as
machinery for his hype. The Z warriors don't have such interest.


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2013-06-10T09:16:55.990
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2015-05-06T12:33:47.560
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Here are some reasons:

  * All the focus was on Cell, who was going to destroy the world, and Hercule, the world's champion. The king of the world somewhat recognized Goku as the boy who defeated King Piccolo (but did not fully make the connection because he was a SS) and the announcer knew that they defeated Cell. Relatively, only Goku was (barely) recorded fighting Cell. 

And, they were all considered crazy (Piccolo being green and Tien having a
third eye may not have helped) for showing up to fight Cell, and were not
taken as serious fighters.

  * The Z Fighters only appeared in the tournament no more than 3 times. And I can't think of a time that they were recognized by some random person.
  * When Piccolo entered the next tournament, he was worried that his name would be recognized, but was not concerned with his appearance, in fact non of them were (expect Gohan, but his reasons were different). So they didn't expect to be recognized, perhaps because too much time had past.
  * Dragon Ball Z is different from Dragon Ball. All of their tournament appearances happened in the latter. And there are a lot of other inconsistencies (like Piccolo being a demon)

So it may have been because the focus was on Hercule, the Z Fighters were not
taken seriously, too much time has past, and, more likely, that Dragon Ball Z
is just not Dragon Ball.


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2013-10-16T02:34:13.137
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The Z fighters weren't recognized during the Cell games because they had never
had extensive media coverage done on them before.

The Tenkaichi Budokai was never filmed, but I'm sure that some people who
attended might have recognized the uniforms and hairstyles (or lack thereof),
but that wasn't really a huge group of people.

It was later revealed that the announcer had barely recognized Goku and
Piccolo. At that time, Mr. Satan was the majority winner of all the Budokai(s)
thereafter. He was basically the Mayweather of the time. Totally undefeated in
the ring, the common people of the world assumed he was the strongest.

As you can see, the anime makes a lot more inconsistencies than the manga. In
the manga, Goku had never been caught on camera anywhere before the Cell
games. That whole bit of Goku being given the key to the world after defeating
Demon King Piccolo didn't happen in the manga. The King actually took off and
left Goku, a child, to fight Piccolo alone. Bulma and co. showed up later
after Goku had already left called the media, and told them that the world was
saved by the forces of good.

So the aside from the two second place fights and one first place fight at the
Budokai Tenkaichi, Goku had not been seen by the entire world before. He had
only a few martial arts fans before the tournament became as mainstream as it
eventually became. How can you recognize someone you've never really seen,
right? Vegeta had appeared on camera once during the Saiyan Saga, and the same
for some of our heroes, but only very briefly. Gohan's appearance changed
dramatically. Trunks was from the future so nobody recognized him. Krillin
should have been recognized because he didn't grow much from child to adult.

That's probably the best answer anyone can give. I saw some other posts that
gave really good answers and you shot them down. I don't see why. It's a
cartoon. I don't know what you expect.

Plus, I think it would be better to ask: **Why weren't the Z Fighters
recognized from the Cell games during the tournament prior to the Buu Saga?**

To me, that's a much better question, because they had actually been seen on
TV at that point. Plus, there were little mascot people doing shows at the
tournament, who strongly resembled all the Z Fighters. You will be made to
think that someone would have put two and two together by then. However, it's
completely understandable for anyone who holds the manga in higher regard than
the anime.


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