Pan

Overview

Pan is a fictional character in the manga and anime series Dragon Ball Z, as well as Dragon Ball GT. She is a Human-Saiyajin quarter breed. In the original Japanese version, she was voiced by Yuko Minaguchi, while she is voiced by Elise Baughman in the FUNimation dub and by Caitlynne Medrek in the Blue Water Studios redubs. It should be noted that Pan's name comes from the Pan of Roman (as well as others) mythology. That means that, at first glance, she appears to have been named after her mother Videl rather than her father Gohan. However, closer inspection reveals a double-pun on behalf of author Akira Toriyama, in that Pan is also the Japanese and Spanish word for bread, continuing her father's food-based name as well as her mother's god-religion-based name. Pan is introduced in the series following the ten year interval between the defeat of Majin Buu and the end of the written Dragon Ball series. In the series, Pan is daughter of the primary character named Son Gohan, and as a result, the granddaughter of the main character named Son Goku. Pan is the only original character in the series with the most diluted Saiyajin heritage, and as a result, it was stated in the Daizenshuu that she didn't have the ability to become a Super Saiyajin. However, this is later contradicted by the Dragon Ball GT Perfect file books that stated that she could have ascended if she trained hard enough. It was also stated by Toriyama that the simple reason to Pan's inability to become a Super Saiyajin was that he could not come up with a logical design for a female Super Saiyajin; being that most of the Super Saiyajin traits are typical of males, and not females. As Pan only appears for three chapters in the manga, her later life is elaborated on in the anime-only series called Dragon Ball GT, where she is seen as a young girl who travels the galaxy with her grandfather Goku, and Trunks, the half-Saiyajin son of the characters Vegeta and Bulma. In the final episode of Dragon Ball GT, Pan is seen as an old woman, being over 100 years old. She is the grandmother to the character named Son Goku Jr., who has the ability to become a Super Saiyajin. This contridicts the Daizenshuu that stated that characters who possessed less then half-Saiyajin heritage did not have the ability to become Super Saiyajins because of diluted blood-lines.