Dragon Ball 5 Characters Who Were Criminally Underused (And 5 Who Overstayed Their Welcome)

Dragon Ball has a huge cast of characters. While some should be used more often, others have hung around too long.

The cast of characters throughout the Dragon Ball series is seemingly endless. After each major saga, it seems like a new handful of characters are brought into the Z-family for good; it's one of the things that keeps the series so effortlessly charming as it grows and grows.

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing though, and Dragon Ball is no stranger to misfiring with some of its characters and dragging others along for so long that they seem purposeless. Many of Dragon Ball's most intriguing characters are left without proper resolution or are relegated to background players, while several continue to stay at the forefront and overstay their welcome.

10 UNDERUSED: Jaco

We can only imagine that we'll be seeing more of Jaco whenever Dragon Ball Super returns to television screens, as the universe seems to be opening up more and more for our Z heroes. Jaco's a member of the Galactic Patrol, an elite group of space cops, with a surprising amount of competence, biting wit, and just enough panic to make him a lovable addition to the ever-growing cast. Jaco's presence insinuates an entire galaxy of opportunity for stories set beyond Earth for the Z fighters, but we never get quite enough of Jaco's world in Dragon Ball Super. As the next arc of the Super manga is set in a Galactic Patrol prison, expect to see a lot more of Jaco going forward.

9 OVERSTAYED: The Pilaf Gang

The Pilaf Gang appears on this list for one particular reason: the weird relationship between Mai and Trunks. See, the thing is, they're a great legacy addition to the Dragon Ball story, but the problem is that Pilaf, Shu and Mai are drastically de-aged versions of themselves, which gets weird when you start shipping Mai, who is legitimately close to 40+ years old and Trunks, who can't be much older than ten. Even if her body is young, Mai is still way too mature on the inside to be having a flirtatious relationship with a child. Yes, they're compelling together in the future, but that doesn't excuse the icky feeling this side story gives us.

8 UNDERUSED: Launch

Where did Launch go? The bipolar badass completely up and disappeared after the events of Dragon Ball and has rarely been seen since. She was one of the major players of the original series, and with so many of those characters carrying over to not only Dragon Ball Z, but Super as well, it's totally puzzling why she was dropped from the cast.

The back and forth between her bubbly Dr. Jekyll and insane Mr. Hyde was an absolute blast to watch, and we can't help but think a show filled with as much machismo as the Dragon Ball series could definitely use another fiery, capable female warrior.

7 OVERSTAYED: Mr. Satan

This one hurts to type. It really, really does. But no character has more meaningless screen time after their initial usefulness than the champ himself, Mr. Satan. He's essential to Majin Buu's redemption during that saga, but only serves as Buu's glorified babysitter throughout Super. He's fantastic comic relief, a bumbling buffoon that steals almost every scene he's in, but in a show notorious for its filler and long detours away from the action, we spend way too much time on the adventures of Mr. Satan. I mean, come on, he's even at the exhibition matches that lead up to the Tournament of Power! Honestly, Mr. Satan deserves his own spin-off more than he deserves any more significant screen time in Super.

6 UNDERUSED: Chi-Chi

Chi-Chi went from fierce and cunning warrior, Princess of Fire Mountain, daughter of the Ox King, to... constantly angry housewife. Luckily, unlike a Z-lady later on in this list, Chi-Chi never loses her fiery personality, and is constantly on her husband's and children's cases about her expectations. She's the first to defend her family, knows what's best for her kids, understands her husband's needs as a person even if she has to bring him down to earth every once in awhile. Personality wise, she's a fully fleshed out character most of the time, but has been relegated to the back seat and used for gags. Wouldn't it be something to see Chi-Chi fight again alongside her husband instead of staying at home?

5 OVERSTAYED: Ribrianne and Universe 2

Oh man, the fight that would never end! The Tournament of Power arc of Dragon Ball Super featured hundreds of fighters from across the multiverse fighting for survival. Dozens of creative, powerful, and hilarious characters filled our screens for 50-plus episodes, some for much longer than we would have liked...

While Ribrianne and her lovely compatriots of Universe 2 were a great gag through their initial appearances, they lasted much longer and were much more integral to the advancement of the Tournament than many fans would have liked. As Goku and team seemed primed and ready for their inevitable showdown with Jiren and Universe 11, no fighters halted the momentum of the arc quite like Ribrianne and her team.

4 UNDERUSED: Videl

The Dragon Ball series has a bevy of strong female characters, and has consistently introduced them over the years as forces to be reckoned with. However, many of them eventually fade away into obscurity and fall into the background. No female fighter took this harder than Videl, the ferocious and skilled daughter of our favorite lovable phony, Mr. Satan. The Videl we first meet is feisty, cunning stubborn, hot-headed and a tenacious fighter. Unfortunately, she's eventually relegated to "Gohan's timid wife" in Super, and loses all sense of personality she once had. What could have been, we wonder, if she kept on fighting?

3 OVERSTAYED: Gotenks

Don't get us wrong, Gotenks was a force to be reckoned with during the Buu Saga of Dragon Ball Z, and stars in some of the most memorable fights of the series. He's the only other Saiyan to reach Super Saiyan 3, has a memorable move set, and gives Super Buu fits during their fights. Unfortunately, Super de-aged both Trunks and Goten, scaling back whatever potential for growth they had following their debut in Z. Gotenks is mostly used as a gag character in Super, consistently knocked down a peg by stronger foes, or in one case, Bulma. Every appearance of Gotenks just screams of wasted potential and dropped character development by Toriyama and team, choosing to focus on the same characters as always rather than passing down the legacy.

2 UNDERUSED: Uub

WHERE IS UUB?? Dragon Ball Z left off on a major cliffhanger, as Goku and the reincarnation of Kid Buu, Uub, leave the World Martial Arts Tournament to train. It was an interesting idea, to have Goku re-train the most powerful foe he had faced up until that point, and it seemed like a great launching point for future iterations of the series.

However, through the 131 episodes of Dragon Ball Super, the canon sequel to Z, Uub is only mentioned in passing a handful of times. It would be hard to see how the series could come back down to Earth and involve Uub going forward, now that the Z fighters are dealing with multiversal and godlike threats, but it's a dangling plot thread we wish would be explored.

1 OVERSTAYED: Majin Buu

Don't get us wrong, we love that classic Dragon Ball trope of incorporating old villains into the Z family. Usually, however, they either fade into the background as a support character or become integral to the plot going forward. The team behind Dragon Ball Super doesn't seem like they know exactly what they want to do with Majin Buu. He's mostly stayed in the background, providing occasional comic relief and expressions of massive power, but every time it seemed like they were ready to put Buu back in the spotlight, they stopped themselves. At this point, having Buu as a tease has gotten out of hand, and we'd rather they just leave Buu alone if they're going to play this "will they/won't they" game.