User blog comment:KidVegeta/Canonicity/@comment-3097771-20150427033407

Battle of Gods: I had immense trouble deciding on this movie's canonicity because it has several canon breaks, but was also made by Toriyama himself as a continuation of the manga. I'll try to resolve the non-canon moments below, as it would be better if the author's new movie was canon:
 * Beerus says he made the dinosaurs go extinct - I think this is just a boast, albeit an incorrect one, as dinosaurs still exist on Earth in DBZ, and one is even seen in the movie. So this isn't really an inconsistency, just Beerus saying something he likely knows is incorrect simply to brag.
 * Vegeta's SS2 power up vs Beerus - This is problematic because, at first glance, it seems as if SS2 Vegeta, after he gets angry at Beerus slapping Bulma, is stronger than SS3 Goku. However, as the two fights take place at different times, I think Beerus could be charged up to a different power level in each fight (for instance, he could be weaker against Vegeta, allowing this power up to make sense). Also, Vegeta didn't really damage Beerus during his power up, so I'm not sure how much stronger he actually was (Krillin or Master Roshi said that he was stronger than Goku then, but how would they know, specifically?). It feels more like an adrenaline boost than anything else, and since humans can have adrenaline boosts that raise their powers (think mothers picking up cars to save their children), I think this is fine.
 * Mai's age - In the movie, Mai states that she is 40 (going to be 41 in March). This means she would have been 12 during the first saga of Dragon Ball when she met Goku for the first time. I don't have a huge problem with this number, as Toriyama is notoriously bad at drawing people to look their age (Kid Goku, for example, was 12-15 and looked like he was 6). The larger problem is that Mai says she will be 41 in March. This movie takes place in in the 778 Age. It would be weird for Mai to say she's turning 41 in March if, say, it was late 778 Age. If it was September or October (the absolute latest it could be, in my opinion, as the movie took place in a summertime climate), it would be strange for Mai to say she's turning 41 in March, but not impossible. While unlikely, I don't see this as a canon breach, just an example of weird dialogue from Mai.
 * Pan's age - This ties in to the above canon problem because Pan is born in the 779 Age, sometime in the year after this movie takes place. Videl is pregnant with Pan and knows it, so she's likely several months into her pregnancy. This means the movie must take place in the latter stages of the 778 Age, which is a minor problem with the summertime climate. Since West City (where the movie takes place) is near the equator, I guess it could theoretically make sense for this to be late August or September or early October (at the latest), but that would mean Pan is born very early in the 779 Age. If we assume these things, this point isn't a canon break.
 * Everyone appears either younger than they were in 774 or the same age, despite this taking place 4 years later - This is a canon break of the same level as Gohan having a tail in movie 5. It's just a stylistic choice made by the artists and doesn't really reflect reality. As mentioned before, characters often don't look their age in the Dragon Ball universe anyway, so this doesn't really matter.

Now onto the three points that are more serious issues of canonicity:
 * Shenron only granting one wish - This is an instance of non-canonicity in this movie and it's rather serious. The only way to explain it away is by assuming that Shenron is still going to grant the other two wishes eventually, but disappeared because no one else had a wish to ask at the time or he was scared of Beerus. I'm not very happy with either explanation and see this as a plot hole. Shenron only mentioned "wish" not "wishes" when being addressed, and he disappeared giving no indication that they had two morewishes to use. Also, no one said they were going to save up the remaining wishes, so Shenron leaving doesn't make sense. He would ask them what they wanted to do before disappearing. This is definitely a plot hole.
 * Pilaf's existence - This is also a major plot hole in Dragon Ball GT, since Pilaf should not have been revived by the wish to restore the world after Kid Buu destroyed it. The only explanation is that Toriyama has made a retcon (again, not in GT because Toriyama didn't make GT) that Pilaf is no longer evil - he's just an immature kid who wants to get a lot of money and isn't actually evil like he was in Dragon Ball. This can be seen in the way Pilaf and his gang are used as slapstick comedy and they aren't taken very seriously by anyone. Still, this, again, is poorly explained and would be a rather terrible idea if it was true. But it could explain why this point isn't non-canon (at least from Toriyama's perspective). While I don't like this explanation, it is theoretically possible, thus I don't think this point has to necessarily be non-canon. The way Pilaf acts in the movie hints that he's not evil - he only wants to steal the Dragon Balls for money. What I think really happened is that, despite having him do evil things (trying to kill people, holding hostages at gunpoint, etc), Toriyama never saw Pilaf as evil. Even in this movie, Mai holds Trunks at gunpoint, which is really terrible. I think this could reflect Toriyama's own warped sense of morality (he's sick in the head if he thinks Pilaf isn't evil). I personally still see this as an inconsistency in some regard. Either Pilaf is evil and he shouldn't be alive, or Toriyama randomly decided to make him not evil and never showed it. Either way, Pilaf's actions speak for themselves.
 * Bulla's age - Bulla's age is inconsistent, being stated in official sources as being in both the 778 Age and the 780 Age. If the first number is true, Bulla should be alive (or at least Bulma pregnant) and usable as the sixth Saiyan. That no one thinks of Bulla (while thinking of Tarble first) indicates that she doesn't exist yet and that the 778 Age date is false. However, having her younger than Pan would be equally as weird, since she's Vegeta's daughter, and Pan is Goku's granddaughter. She looks to be older than Pan in (the admittedly non-canon GT), and about the same age at the end of DBZ. This one is hard for me to really go into, since users and info on the Dragon Ball Wiki states that the manga and anime both state that Bulla is 1 year older than Pan (confirming the 778 Age birthdate), but after watching the anime episode and reading the manga chapter this was supposed to occur in, I can confirm that no one mentioned Bulla's birthdate. So as long as her birthdate isn't in the English Viz manga (which HZ will be checking for me soon in the future), this shouldn't be an inconsistency to have her younger than Pan by a year, though it is very strange and probably not in the flavor Toriyama originally intended. In all likelihood, Toriyama simply forgot about Bulla while making Battle of Gods.

Overall, I'd like this movie to be canon since Toriyama wrote it and it seems to be very tied-into the universe going forward. The major conflictions of Shenron only granting one wish and Pilaf being alive are likely canon errors, but they can be explained away with logic, although they are still poor points. So I'd say this movie is canon, but like the other canon movies, it is not entirely faithful to the universe it is supposed to be a part of. -KidVegeta (talk)