It's not like I don't understand the objection; in the other cases I can think of we weren't presented with a scenario similar to this one, though. Freeza couldn't train, was by all means incapacitated and could only "think": is it realistical to think he would get physically stronger? Going for the most literal explanation for the sake of it when is supposed to contradict what was established in the series and common sense? It's not even as if the explanation many people here offered about it being related to "stronger = better control" is out of this world, plainly speaking. It's an absolutely normal way to put a thing such as this in words and, again, fits without one single issue in the context of the episode.Because it just means that he can fight at full power, not that his power has increased. Nothing about that actually mentions a power increase, merely power maintenance. Goku has fought Freeza at full power before, as Freeza himself made clear during that arc, and yet he still states that Freeza's gotten stronger. I take issue with your position because it presupposes that Goku's wording isn't exact and literal like his dialogue ALWAYS IS. People rag on Goku's simplistic character in Super, but it DOES mean that he's generally to be taken quite literally when he says things.
I'm sorry and I hope it won't rub you the wrong way, but the situations are not comparable, at least to me. The pamphlet - which could be tossed aside or down the drain for many perfectly valid reasons - told us in very clear terms that "going Super Saiyan" meant becoming "Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan" for some kind of Saiyans. Some people's arguments taken to to their respective ends would bring forth stuff like "going Super Saiyan" didn't mean "going Super Saiyan". For the most part, it was just because in an attempt to shut down any train-of-thought about the dreaded two-base theory gaining some added pseudo-credibility among fans. The pamphlet was anything but reliable for Super in my opinion - it did predate even the return of the regular Super Saiyan forms - but the line of attack about "what it said" wasn't really sound.I've gotten into arguments for trying to argue that SSB is more than just "SS who is a Saiyan with the power of SSG", more than just that exact wording, including many people in this very thread. And now that I'm just going with the most literal interpretation of that line of dialogue, here I am in another argument on the other side of the coin. The irony stings.
"Stronger" on the other hand is not as unambiguous and in the context of the episode and what we've been presented in the entirity of the series. Especially when meditating doesn't realistically yield the same fruits of regular training until proven... when it makes for contrived writing in a show in which - you said it yourself - everything tries to be simple enough for children... etc. I don't think my arguments will convince you at this point, however.
Granted, I'll have to clarify that my interpretation still falls somewhere among these lines.I don't think it particularly matters either way.
If Frieza's max power didn't increase substantially per se and he instead merely learned how to retain his stamina to fight at a constant 100% without it dropping off instantly, it wouldn't have been anything unlike Complete Super Saiyan Blue vs. regular Super Saiyan Blue in the manga -- and I think most people would concur that the former is a "stronger" form.
If Frieza's max strength did increase substantially, the result is just the same. In both cases, he's fighting at a significantly higher level of power than we saw him outputting during RoF and Goku caught up with it.
I suppose the only consequence of note is whether Frieza actually gained a whole lot of power simply from mental training, which admittedly isn't easy to reconcile, but the Super anime in general is often pretty vague about this kind of stuff anyway.
I did report similar thoughts in my posts from some pages ago. We could argue Freeza showed his power very briefly in ROF, that he toyed with Goku, o that he got a very negligible amount of added power (eh, I guess I can live with it) on top of that. I'd still tentatively classify the last one purely as byproduct more than anything, since I have a hard time believing that meditation could easily act as a "perfect substitute" - in the economical sense - of the regular training after a whoppin' thirty years of aforementioned regular training being physical in nature, with meditation being occasionally implemented to refine control or similar aspects.
Matter of fact is still that Freeza will still perform much better than his counterpart from ROF in any given scenario, so I guess we can all agree with that and maybe call it a day.
