Below is a compact, episode-anchored tour of continuity and logic bumps that arise within each show itself (Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Super). I’m not cross-comparing shows; each note stays self-contained to its series. Where helpful, I flag when later episodes appear to contradict earlier ones or when on-screen timing/physics wobble.
Dragon Ball (1986–1989)
- Monster Carrot on the Moon… then the Moon is destroyed (with no follow-up)
- Goku deposits Monster Carrot and his Rabbit Mob on the Moon at the end of the “Boss Rabbit” episode (“Boss Rabbit’s Magic Touch,” Episode 9).
- Less than twenty episodes later, Jackie Chun (Roshi) obliterates the Moon during the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai to stop Ōzaru Goku (“Number One Under the Moon?,” Episode 27 → “The Final Blow,” Episode 28). The narrative never revisits the fate of those banished to the lunar surface, a dangling thread within Dragon Ball itself.
- Goku’s tail disappears… then is back with no on-screen explanation (pre-Kami era)
- Puar cuts off Goku’s tail to end his first Ōzaru rampage (“The Legend of Goku,” Episode 13), and the episode explicitly plays this as a decisive solution.
- By the time of his Budokai rematch with Jackie Chun, Goku again has a tail (he transforms after seeing the Moon in Episode 27), with no prior scene showing its regrowth in the anime, a small but noticeable continuity gap inside the show.
Note: Later arcs (Kami/Korin) add broader lore about tails, but the on-screen jump between Episodes 13 → 27 in Dragon Ball leaves the tail’s return unshown.
Dragon Ball Z (1989–1996)
- DBZ destroys the Moon—then shows it again
- Early in DBZ training, Piccolo destroys the Moon to halt Gohan’s first Ōzaru transformation (“Gohan Goes Bananas!,” Episode 8).
- Much later, during Frieza’s Counterattack (arrival on Earth), the Moon is clearly visible in an establishing sky shot (“Frieza’s Counterattack,” Episode 118), despite no on-screen restoration during Z before that point—an internal visual continuity slip in DBZ.
- “Five minutes until Namek explodes”… for ~nine–ten episodes
- Frieza pierces Namek’s core and declares imminent planetary destruction (“Namek’s Destruction,” Episode 97). The anime then stretches this “~5 minutes” into a long run of episodes (roughly through the “Namek’s Explosion… Goku’s End?” endpoint), a classic DBZ time-dilation inconsistency between dialogue and screen time.
Dragon Ball GT (1996–1997)
- Black Star Dragon Balls: the one-year clock vs. the “two weeks left” crunch
- GT establishes that using the Black Star Dragon Balls starts a one-year destruction timer on the planet of summoning (stated at the start of the series; see the season/arc overview and early GT episodes).
- After Goku/Pan/Trunks return the Balls, Baby secretly uses them again before the original year elapses, and then, near the end of the Baby arc, characters calculate “two weeks left” until Earth’s detonation (e.g., “Baby Put to Rest,” Episode 39, and the follow-up Episode 40 evacuation). The abrupt two-weeks verdict after months of off-world adventure reads as timing whiplash in-series—even though the dialogue provides a justification (Baby’s interim wish).
The show does supply a fix (Baby’s extra wish resets where the countdown sits), but the late reveal compresses timeline logic for viewers inside GT.
Dragon Ball Super (2015–2018)
- Tournament of Power: 48 minutes that span ~35 episodes
- The Tournament of Power begins with an explicit 48-minute time limit (“Survive! The Tournament of Power Begins at Last!!,” Episode 97).
- The tournament concludes at “The Miraculous Conclusion! Farewell, Goku! Until We Meet Again!!” (Episode 131). On screen, those 48 minutes unfold across dozens of episodes—a self-contained Super counterpart to Z’s Namek timer stretch.
- Future Trunks’ “Spirit Sword” power-up appears without prior scaffolding
- In “The Climactic Battle! The Miraculous Power of a Relentless Warrior!” (Episode 66), Future Trunks gathers energy from survivors and manifests a Genki-infused blade to slice Fused Zamasu—an impressive but abrupt rules expansion that the anime introduces on the spot, with little prior mechanical grounding within Super.
- Frog Ginyu’s dirt-written “Change!”
- In “Change! An Unexpected Return! His Name Is Ginyu!!” (Episode 22), Ginyu (as a frog) writes “Change” on the ground (in alien script) to trick Tagoma into reading it aloud, re-enabling Body Change. Given the series’ earlier presentation of frog-Ginyu’s communicative limits, it plays as a convenient logic leap inside Super, not merely a callback to Z.
Why these happen (and how the shows sometimes paper them over)
- Production realities (anime pacing ahead of manga, episode padding) explain the timer stretches in DBZ/DBS, but they’re still on-screen inconsistencies between stated time and runtime.
- One-off gags and early-series looseness in Dragon Ball (e.g., the Moon business) later collide with more codified world rules; the series occasionally offers retroactive fixes (e.g., later mentions that the Moon had been restored in the franchise, though DBZ itself shows it before saying how).
- GT sometimes delivers explanations late (the two-week reveal during the Baby wrap-up), which keeps it technically consistent in dialogue but bumpy in viewing.
