Also not dbz (probably also dbz) but pigsy from monkey magic was fucking groooss
I liked the themes of transcending boundaries, even if I can't punch holes through time
While dragon ball does have quite a bit of racist imagery, it really does end at the imagery. Mr. Popo looks like drawing him should get you thrown in a re-education camp, but he's a mild-mannered wise genie who is nothing but helpful to the main characters. Early in the series there are slightly (only slightly) less racist native Americans and a clearly Indian guy, and they're all heroes without any real negative traits.
I guess what I mean is it's not as bad as it looks, though it looks really bad.
As for gross characters, yeah, there are not one but two
(cw: blunt use of SA related terminology)
rapists
in the main cast. (Roshi and Oolong) so that more than makes up for the surprisingly low levels of racism
I mean technically in Journey to the West that really early Dragonball was based on Sun Wukong (goku) was based off a character that was a caricature of a "hairy northerner" combined with the myth of some giant monkey. This is all half remembered from a documentary I saw as a kid though.