Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by sintzu » Wed Oct 11, 2017 3:09 pm

Because the writers wanted it to be. Super doesn't bother much with lining up with previous established facts and this is no different. Hopefully the manga doesn't use it.
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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Lord Beerus » Wed Oct 11, 2017 3:24 pm

TheMikado wrote:
TheOne wrote:Lack of creativity, plot and common sense :crazy:

But most of the fans here justify why it was so powerful by coming up with all kinds of theories and reasons behind it. Essentially saying that the writers are incapable of lacking consistency and making mistakes.

If you have to dig through all kinds of reasons to justify something happening in a kids show, then you're probably wrong.
That's the point. We shouldn't have to guess. In the past we were given explicit explanations on why the one on King Kai's planet was not very powerful versus the one on Earth and even how the one on Earth lost some of its potency and how Krillin and Gohan were able to interact with it. Further we were told on Namek why it wasn't effective against Frieza, and then in the Buu saga the entire climax surrounding pulling off a Spirit Bomb with all the people of Earth.
Wait, when was the reason given for why the Genki Dama used against Vegeta in the Saiyan arc lost its potency in the story? Goku gathers the energy for the Genki Dama, Oozaru Vegeta blasts him, the energy gathered for the Genki Dama disappears and Goku states that his Genki Dama is gone. And even further states that he used all of his Ki to make that sphere (Genki Dama) and that he has nothing left (in terms of Ki). Goku then just simply states to Krillin that most of the Ki of the Genki Dama "got away".

I also don't remember any reason given as why the Genki Dama wasn't effective on Freeza. Freeza just emerged from the crater the Genki Dama created where it hit him, hit Piccolo with a death beam, and then Freeza himself states how he thought he was going die from the Genki Dama but he just... didn't. Why that was the case is never made explicit.

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by DragonBallFoodie » Wed Oct 11, 2017 4:24 pm

My theory is that it took energy from everyone around. Everyone. Not just the Z-Fighters who had advanced (Androids with their unending energy, Frieza with his super level), but all the other universes may contributed energy without knowing what it was about. So that energy, comprised of various beings of different abilities, affected Goku. It was the ultimate power fusion.
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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by TheMikado » Wed Oct 11, 2017 5:34 pm

Lord Beerus wrote:
TheMikado wrote:
TheOne wrote:Lack of creativity, plot and common sense :crazy:

But most of the fans here justify why it was so powerful by coming up with all kinds of theories and reasons behind it. Essentially saying that the writers are incapable of lacking consistency and making mistakes.

If you have to dig through all kinds of reasons to justify something happening in a kids show, then you're probably wrong.
That's the point. We shouldn't have to guess. In the past we were given explicit explanations on why the one on King Kai's planet was not very powerful versus the one on Earth and even how the one on Earth lost some of its potency and how Krillin and Gohan were able to interact with it. Further we were told on Namek why it wasn't effective against Frieza, and then in the Buu saga the entire climax surrounding pulling off a Spirit Bomb with all the people of Earth.
Wait, when was the reason given for why the Genki Dama used against Vegeta in the Saiyan arc lost its potency in the story? Goku gathers the energy for the Genki Dama, Oozaru Vegeta blasts him, the energy gathered for the Genki Dama disappears and Goku states that his Genki Dama is gone. And even further states that he used all of his Ki to make that sphere (Genki Dama) and that he has nothing left (in terms of Ki). Goku then just simply states to Krillin that most of the Ki of the Genki Dama "got away".

I also don't remember any reason given as why the Genki Dama wasn't effective on Freeza. Freeza just emerged from the crater the Genki Dama created where it hit him, hit Piccolo with a death beam, and then Freeza himself states how he thought he was going die from the Genki Dama but he just... didn't. Why that was the case is never made explicit.
Vegeta had beat the crap out of Goku and he managed to hold on to a little bit of the gather ki to give to Krillin to form the spirit bomb. Most of it was gone after Oozaru Vegeta got Goku because he couldn't hold on to it. It also makes sense that Vegeta survived it because it was so small.

For Frieza Goku knew that Namek was so destroyed he wasn't going to be able to gather enough from Namek alone so he had to gather it from outside the planet. We at least know that the amount he got from Namek definitely wasn't going to cut. Frieza does say it was powerful but not enough to kill him. So it just wasn't enough which was already a concern when he first started forming it.
DragonBallFoodie wrote:My theory is that it took energy from everyone around. Everyone. Not just the Z-Fighters who had advanced (Androids with their unending energy, Frieza with his super level), but all the other universes may contributed energy without knowing what it was about. So that energy, comprised of various beings of different abilities, affected Goku. It was the ultimate power fusion.
It doesn't work like that. You can only take the energy from inanimate/non-conscious beings. Mortals have to volunteer their energy otherwise the climax of the Buu saga wouldn't make sense.

Anyway, the big thing is we know:
1) A small Spirit Bomb isn't powerful enough to take out a badly beaten Vegeta.
2) A large Spirit Bomb, even from other planets, isn't enough to take out Frieza.
3) Mortal, Human ki seems to exponentially increase the effectiveness. The spirit bomb from Goku's friends wasn't even Namek size, however the collective power of the earth and other mortals made an incredibly powerful Spirit bomb.
4)The Spirit Bomb used by Goku in Super would need to utilize just the power from human ki. There are no ambient environments to draw energy from. Further it would need to be more powerful than SSBx20 to concern Jiren at all. Going by this and Vegeta not contributing you only have 2-3 people who would even be close to contributing at SSB level at all and people like Tien and Roshi who can't be contributing much more than they already did in the Buu saga.

All this isn't really that important, but there were plenty of places they could have done some lore building just by giving it 10 secs of thought.
They could have easily said that the "void" is a godly realm full of ambient God ki and that Goku due to SSG experience was able to draw the God ki from the atmosphere and make the first ever God ki Spirit Bomb, which would have actually have been awesome. I would have just liked to have seen a bit more creativity used when they did this. It's bad writing but certainly not the worse and relatively tolerable. It just could have been better executed..oh well.

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Arugela » Wed Oct 11, 2017 9:17 pm

If you take it like raw power then I guess you could assume there was a lot available. If you look at earth and if everyone averages a power of 1 then you can get 7 billion(By real earth numbers). If people only give a fraction of their power then that is not a lot. Unless you count smaller organisms. It still might not be as much as you think as those will likely have a lot less than a human. Don't most people assume the power of the guys in DBS are a lot higher. Technically it could be near the same as an earth wide spirit bomb or more depending on the power taken.
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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Polyphase Avatron » Wed Oct 11, 2017 9:57 pm

Because it had Freeza's energy in it.
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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by TekTheNinja » Wed Oct 11, 2017 11:59 pm

DragonBallFoodie wrote:My theory is that it took energy from everyone around. Everyone. Not just the Z-Fighters who had advanced (Androids with their unending energy, Frieza with his super level), but all the other universes may contributed energy without knowing what it was about. So that energy, comprised of various beings of different abilities, affected Goku. It was the ultimate power fusion.
It doesn't work like that though. It's explicitly stated throughout Z how people need to consensually give their energy. Convincing people to give their energy was even a major plot point at the end of the Buu arc.

About the cyborgs, I always figured they only had limitless battle energy and such. Genki is different. Of course there isn't much to back this up, but there's nothing to go against it either, which is kinda annoying. I hate how Super never wants to explain things such as this entire genki dama idea.

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Miracles » Thu Oct 12, 2017 12:03 am

Didn't the Genki dama against Kid Buu take the entire universe to eradicate him?

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Polyphase Avatron » Thu Oct 12, 2017 12:22 am

Miracles wrote:Didn't the Genki dama against Kid Buu take the entire universe to eradicate him?
IIRC he just took energy from everyone on Earth, but a lot more than usual (enough to leave them exhausted).

EDIT: You might be confusing it with the ending of GT
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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Kataphrut » Thu Oct 12, 2017 12:25 am

This feels like a bit of Occam's Razor situation to me. Either the power of the Spirit Bomb increases with the power of the people who gave energy, increases with Goku's own power or both. I think that makes the most sense, since it would explain why the Spirit Bomb remains relevant as a trump card even though Goku has long since eclipsed the strength of the people around him.

Rewatching the Buu saga, when Goku first starts making the Spirit Bomb, it became huge quite quickly when it was just the power of the Z Warriors. The ones fighting in the tournament are all way stronger than they were back then, plus they've got Freeza who's even stronger. Vegeta didn't contribute to either of them, so he's a non-factor. That would explain why it became so good. I do wish some warriors from the other universes had contributed as well, or even just universe 6 since that would've been cool, but then we wouldn't get to call it "Universe 7's Spirit Bomb".

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by dbzfan7 » Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:08 am

I mean if it was 1 to 1 donation for energy, then why doesn't everyone just power up to maximum power before sending their energy? Clearly it ain't simply just one to one. Nor can it be sending something like maximum power as why even transform if it's all accessed in their base states.
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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Arugela » Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:04 am

I think the original spirit bomb was smaller. But after sending it it clearly got a lot larger from them pushing it around. Maybe he thought of this ahead of time. Or he was purposely testing if jiren was evil with it. That or, again, he got more energy than you think because the people donating it were strong enough to make a good one.

The whole time they were hinting at aggressiveness as the meaning of evil. Calm vs aggressive being equal to good vs evil. So, if that is true his normal method is to fight till he's exhausted and make the enemy as aggressive as possible then send the spirit bomb to have maximum effect. If he was following this formula he was hoping he got jiren worked up enough for it to effect him. and he may have been uncalm enough but was strong enough to push it back at goku. And goku having to take on his more aggressive form(enough so he coudn't make the spirit bomb in his calmer SSB+KK. The KK being even more aggressive potentially.) it may have been enough to make it partially damage him. Enough so to cause the events seen in the two episodes. Maybe he was partly hurt and the rest he was calm enough from the training to absorb it in some manner.

Goku getting himself beat half to death and being on deaths door might be part of his strategy so if he's loosing the enemy is overworked up and overpowers him at a likely highly or relatively high aggressive state. Then when he's beaten and in base form he's calm because he can't be otherwise. Then he uses his last ditch effort. The spirit bomb. Aggressiveness is the reason a city would be destroyed or anything else. It logical to use this as the basis of evil as that is the only way stuff is destroyed and needs to be defended.

You'll notice goku tries to piss his enemy off as much as possible before getting his ass handed to him. This could be on purpose to use the spirit bomb(It also fits the monkey king attitude.). He's also as cocky as possible no matter if he's winning or loosing. This could have always been the meaning of good vs evil in dragon ball. Aggressive vs calm. Goku using this to be able to use the spirit bomb and testing his enemy if they would be hurt by it. Most of them being really obvious like vegeta and freeza. And level of aggression might be what makes it more effective. But in jirens case he probably worked him up as much as he could and just tried it.
Last edited by Arugela on Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:18 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Timetraveller » Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:09 am

Bad writing. Goku formed a giant spirit bomb with the energy of a few fighters in about 10 seconds. There's really no need for any more forms. Any time a new villain shows up just spirit bomb them or do a Trunks and make a sword out of it. It only takes a few seconds

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:25 am

I assumed he drew energy from all of universe 7 and they just didn't show it, he called it universe 7's genki dama.

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Arugela » Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:46 am

The final spirit bomb was definitely added to by goku and jiren fighting at max capacity forms. that is why it turned into that little black hole thing. The original was probably just what he got from those who gave it. I don't think he got anything from anyone they didn't show.
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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by TheMikado » Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:49 am

UpFromTheSkies wrote:I assumed he drew energy from all of universe 7 and they just didn't show it, he called it universe 7's genki dama.
That's not how it works.

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by Kepiaschkz » Thu Oct 12, 2017 9:05 am

It isn't necessary to have people raising their hands or being, even in the slightest, willing to give their energy to form a Genkidama. Hey, it isn't even necessary to have people being conscious that a Genkidama is about to be formed. It was the case against Vegeta , and it was the case against Freeza.

The Boo's case isn't an exception since Goku needed people to give near 100 % of their energy. Hence, the need to have them to actively help by raising their hands.

So there are 2 kinds of Genkidama making :
- one where living being are PASSIVE and only a SMALL FRACTION of their energy is taken ( for exemple 1 %)
- one where living being are ACTIVE and give NEAR ALL their energy.

So, if we transpose theses facts to the ToP Genkidama, everything makes sense :
While the universes 7 team is giving actively his enegy, a small fraction from all the other people here is taken as well. Among them there are : 2 Zenos, the Grand Priest
, 12 angels and 10 God of Destructions and Jiren itself.
Isn't it sufficient?

Let's admit then following PL as true :
Jiren at 1 :
10 GoD : 10 ( 1 each)
12 angels : 18 ( 1.5 each)
Grand Priest : 100
2 zenos : 2000 ( 1000 each)
TOTAL : 2129

0,1% of 2129 is 2,129

More than 2 times the power necessary to takes down Jiren. In fact the power of one Zeno alone is enough.
And even then, we don't know if Zeno isn't actually a million or a trillion times more powerful than Jiren.
We don't know either if the withdrawal rate of the Genkidama on passive people Ki is actually 0,1% of far smaller/higher. Anything is possible.

So nothing prevent us to accept what we were shown since it doesn't contradict anything from previously established fact.

I blame just Toeï for not showing explicitly some Ki exiting Zenos bodies toward the Genkidama as they used to in Saiyan, Freeza and Black sagas. Thus leading people to confusion.

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by TheMikado » Thu Oct 12, 2017 10:05 am

Kepiaschkz wrote:It isn't necessary to have people raising their hands or being, even in the slightest, willing to give their energy to form a Genkidama. Hey, it isn't even necessary to have people being conscious that a Genkidama is about to be formed. It was the case against Vegeta , and it was the case against Freeza.

The Boo's case isn't an exception since Goku needed people to give near 100 % of their energy. Hence, the need to have them to actively help by raising their hands.

So there are 2 kinds of Genkidama making :
- one where living being are PASSIVE and only a SMALL FRACTION of their energy is taken ( for exemple 1 %)
- one where living being are ACTIVE and give NEAR ALL their energy.

So, if we transpose theses facts to the ToP Genkidama, everything makes sense :
While the universes 7 team is giving actively his enegy, a small fraction from all the other people here is taken as well. Among them there are : 2 Zenos, the Grand Priest
, 12 angels and 10 God of Destructions and Jiren itself.
Isn't it sufficient?

Let's admit then following PL as true :
Jiren at 1 :
10 GoD : 10 ( 1 each)
12 angels : 18 ( 1.5 each)
Grand Priest : 100
2 zenos : 2000 ( 1000 each)
TOTAL : 2129

0,1% of 2129 is 2,129

More than 2 times the power necessary to takes down Jiren. In fact the power of one Zeno alone is enough.
And even then, we don't know if Zeno isn't actually a million or a trillion times more powerful than Jiren.
We don't know either if the withdrawal rate of the Genkidama on passive people Ki is actually 0,1% of far smaller/higher. Anything is possible.

So nothing prevent us to accept what we were shown since it doesn't contradict anything from previously established fact.

I blame just Toeï for not showing explicitly some Ki exiting Zenos bodies toward the Genkidama as they used to in Saiyan, Freeza and Black sagas. Thus leading people to confusion.
Your entire premise is built on the Zeno's having 1000 times the ki that Jiren has??? What if its only 100x, what if it's 10?? That would blow your entire head canon theory out of the water just with your own assumptions. I think the point people are making is that given what we know of the spirit bomb, it has the ability to pull tiny amounts on latent energy from a large number of entities unless energy is specifically given. As such at least a tiny effort should have been made to explain why a Spirit Bomb in a void of nothing would be stronger than SSBxKKx20 when none of the gods are visibly contributing if Goku can collect God ki at all for the Spirit Bomb. It's not a huge deal its just not explained and we are resorting to head canon. That's kind of the issue.
As I said they could have made us BS that the void is a God realm and Goku was able to pull the ambient god ki into the spirit bomb making a God ki Spirit Bomb.

Again the problem isn't that it can't be explained in some way, its that the writers didn't take the ten seconds of thought and creativity to produce a completely made up and BS answer. The problem is they didn't care and didn't even try. Something happened and it just did, no effort was made to explain it. Its almost as if the writers read a plot point that says "everyone on the team gives energy for a spirit bomb" and then literally left it at that ignoring the finer nuances of crafting a consistent and coherent narrative and story.

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:45 pm

TheMikado wrote:
UpFromTheSkies wrote:I assumed he drew energy from all of universe 7 and they just didn't show it, he called it universe 7's genki dama.
That's not how it works.
It might be.

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Re: Why was the Spirit Bomb so powerful?

Post by MaskedRider » Fri Oct 13, 2017 11:53 am

Just a quick comment but after re-reading the manga before they arrive on Namek I noticed Goku mention the atmosphere and I know that OP mentioned that there shouldn't be any of that due to the name of the world implying there is nothing, but it was also mentioned that gravity has been adjusted for each fighter to be that of their home planet.

I'm no scientist so a filthy commoner like me went to wikipedia and it had to say this for atmosphere.

"An atmosphere (from Greek ἀτμός (atmos), meaning 'vapor', and σφαῖρα (sphaira), meaning 'sphere'[1][2]) is a layer of gases surrounding a planet or other material body, that is held in place by the gravity of that body."

So what I'm trying to say is that if there is gravity, it could be implied that there gases therefore could also be implied there is also atmosphere. With how vast the environment is, I'm sure there is a whole lot of atmosphere.

Edit: Actually I just thought, just because there is gravity doesn't mean there should be gases but I don't know why there shouldn't be if the contestants can inhale and exhale...what is that sun / moon thing in the background? What are the clouds in the background? Ah, I don't know.

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