Mastered Ultra Instinct [Spoiler Discussion Thread]

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Love love love it. Been hoping/expecting since August it was gonna be silver.

Looks so good.

I don't like Toriyama's design of it but I do like Yamamuro's version of it in V-Jump.

That I agree with, they kept/made the hair wild, good idea. For once I am pleased with what Yamamuro did and the figures are following Yamamuro! That's a relief too.

[Marlowe89]

While I do prefer black over white/silver in this case, the "recolor" complaints definitely ring hollow and seem somewhat disingenuous. People often forget that the original Super Saiyan form was exactly that -- Goku's hair was simply changed to a bright yellow color (the out-of-universe explanation being that Toriyama didn't feel like inking it in, if I'm not mistaken) and spiked up more to further elaborate an alteration in its design.

To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with a color change for Goku's hair as long as there are additional design adjustments to make it a distinguishable form; in fact, that would only be following the initial precedent. Transformations like Super Saiyan God and Toei's version of mastered Ultra Instinct benefit from this template precisely because they provide new, recognizable changes to the design besides a simple difference in color and without overdoing it like in GT. SSGSS (Blue/Rose) is the only form in all of Super that could truly be described as a "palette swap", which I'll admit isn't helped by Blue's rather absurd overuse in the anime, but I have zero issues with the rest.

I think the forms introduced in DBS certainly look better than most fanart where damn near everything is just an ugly variation of an ugly form like Super Saiyan 4, and ironically enough, oftentimes just recolored to yellow or something.

[Goresh]

I’m going to reserve judgment on completed Ultra Instinct until we are able to actually see it in action/battle and completely animated. But based on just the still shots that we can see in V-Jump, I have to say I’m a little bit surprised that they decided to change Goku’s appearance simply because he was able to master a form.

This kind of reminds me of when Goku first obtained the SSJ form and when he displayed the mastered version of it against Cell. Not really much of a difference in design there so based off of that precedent I would have thought that it would have been the same kind of situation here. Of course you could make the argument that since this is a completely different transformation those same rules don’t apply here, which I guess is fine.

The last point I want to make is that I would have found it to be much more satisfying if the two iterations of UI were actually reversed. This builds off of the whole idea that was introduced back when Whis was training Goku and Vegeta when he told them that their Ki was “leaking.” So by making Ultra Instinct -sign- the version with white hair, it could signify that, while still powerful, a significant amount of power was still not being harnessed. On the other hand, the Ultra Instinct -sign- form has silver eyes and black hair, which clash extremely well palette-wise and create a sense of intensity as well as portray the idea that Goku has completely integrated the form into his being.

With that being said I hope they do this form justice in the episodes to come.

[lord turbo]

While I do prefer black over white/silver in this case, the "recolor" complaints definitely ring hollow and seem somewhat disingenuous. People often forget that the original Super Saiyan form was exactly that -- Goku's hair was simply changed to a bright yellow color (the out-of-universe explanation being that Toriyama didn't feel like inking it in, if I'm not mistaken) and spiked up more to further elaborate an alteration in its design.

To be fair SS Goku is not a direct recolor, Goku's hair does significantly change shape (Gohan and Vegeta's SS forms are recolors of their base forms) which makes it distinct enough to be considered a brand new thing while staying close to home since it was the first time any kind of transformation like that happened in the series for the saiyans.

The problem with Toriyama is that he has become too complacent with his bare minimum approach that all his designs end up derivative, unimaginative, and lazy recycles of previous forms. Goku, Vegeta, Future Trunks, and teen Gohan SS2 forms compared to their SS1 forms illustrate this problem when looking back though as the signs were already there.

SS red, blue, pink, green, and now white are just lazy uncreative recolors/palette swaps of previous forms. Besides, Baby Vegeta did the white hair SS first.

https://i.imgur.com/Piyfz9O.jpg

That's fanart from the 90s, Toriyama isn't fooling anyone, his greatest contributes to recent times are jokes that was made decades earlier. After a while enough is enough.

[buutenks]

We meme'd Blanco to reality.

Nah, Toriyama wanted ssj blue to be white, but made it blue. He seems to have saved white for the end of Super.

[fadeddreams5]

They should have stopped at regular Ultra Instinct. That form looks amazing, despite how subtle it is. This white hair is too much. At the very least, make it his SSJ2 hair design.

[FortuneSSJ]

My problems with the silver hair is that we get another hair color and I loved how Ultra Instinct looked. They took something I liked it and made it worse.
Also the fact that Ultra Instinct is not something that only Saiyans have, so the mastered version giving silver hair to the character doesn't make much sense when you are looking to characters like Beerus...

Old Man Logan ~~~ Meet Old Man Goku!

I actually have been wishing for a DB Movie with a plot like Logan. I usually don't care about DC/Marvel movies, but the premise of that one spiked my interest. I really liked it.

[Marlowe89]

To be fair SS Goku is not a direct recolor, Goku's hair does significantly change shape (Gohan and Vegeta's SS forms are recolors of their base forms) which makes it distinct enough to be considered a brand new thing

I mean, that was kind of my whole point -- recolors are fine as long as there are additional changes to the design that would justify a brand new aesthetic for a brand new form. SSG meets this requirement because it added pupils, a more youthful appearance and a slimmer body frame alongside more defined hair tufts, even if they weren't standing up per se. It was minimalistic, but it was also something different. Toei's UI (whether white or black) also meets this requirement because it imbues a sort of weird "naturally halfway standing up" hairstyle that we've never really seen on Goku before. When those alterations are combined with the changed hair colors, I think it results in a nice subtle-but-different approach that goes along perfectly with the ongoing theme of Saiyan transformations in general.

A literal palette swap would be something more along the lines of Super Saiyan Blue, where it's just a previous Super Saiyan form but with a different hair color. I can understand the criticism that form gets, and to be quite frank, I agree with it myself. If Toriyama had his way with Ultra Instinct, we'd have the same issue with that form too since it would've been a recolored Super Saiyan God. I think it really just depends on the specific transformation and what they do with it.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Uninspired design. Underwhelming. If he easily beats Jiren with this it will be even worse. I remember when people complained about Golden Freeza being too generic but it's the height of creativity compared to this which looks like it was taken straight out of Dragon Ball AF fanfiction.

[HeroR]

Uninspired design. Underwhelming. If he easily beats Jiren with this it will be even worse. I remember when people complained about Golden Freeza being too generic but it's the height of creativity compared to this which looks like it was taken straight out of Dragon Ball AF fanfiction.

Everything looks like AF since they used every design in the book.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

To be fair SS Goku is not a direct recolor, Goku's hair does significantly change shape (Gohan and Vegeta's SS forms are recolors of their base forms) which makes it distinct enough to be considered a brand new thing

I mean, that was kind of my whole point -- recolors are fine as long as there are additional changes to the design that would justify a brand new aesthetic for a brand new form. SSG meets this requirement because it added pupils, a more youthful appearance and a slimmer body frame alongside more defined hair tufts, even if they weren't standing up per se. It was minimalistic, but it was also something different. Toei's UI (whether white or black) also meets this requirement because it imbues a sort of weird "naturally halfway standing up" hairstyle that we've never really seen on Goku before. When those alterations are combined with the changed hair colors, I think it results in a nice subtle-but-different approach that goes along perfectly with the ongoing theme of Saiyan transformations in general.

A literal palette swap would be something more along the lines of Super Saiyan Blue, where it's just a previous Super Saiyan form but with a different hair color. I can understand the criticism that form gets, and to be quite frank, I agree with it myself. If Toriyama had his way with Ultra Instinct, we'd have the same issue with that form too since it would've been a recolored Super Saiyan God. I think it really just depends on the specific transformation and what they do with it.

As per design sheets Goku does/supposed have an protruding extra bang in SSGSS (though sometimes animators do forget but for the most part SSGSS is always drawn with the bang and has always been merch'd with the bang) and Goku Black has a hair strand sticking out in Rosé. Whether it's distinction enough for someone is another question.

[Lord Frieza]

Trash. Trash. Trash.

Seriously, even SSJ Blue and Rose look good compared to this joke.

Not to mention Baby Vegeta had white hair 20 years before DBS.

Fused Zamasu also had white hair, he was the villain of the last arc.

It is interesting how Goku's hair has turned white, the iconic color of the Gods. All Shinjin and Angels have white hair. As usual, mortals constantly imitate the beauty of the Gods.

Well its a little different. Befor Zamasu, every other fusion had been between saiyan and done in base or as super saiyan. Merged Zamasu's is technically in a Super Saiyan Rose state, his hair being pure white likely being due to well one of the fusee's hair colour being white, the fact Kaioshin seem to take dominance over fusions they are part of and the fact that Black is Zamasu.

This haircolour is silver, based on how UI Goku's eyes have been descrived and the reason for the colour is likely.....just because, same with all the other different hair colours. It makes it look different.

While I like both, Zamasu's hair colour is actually a pretty interesting subject with more potential depth behind it.

[Marlowe89]

As per design sheets Goku does/supposed have an protruding extra bang in SSGSS (though sometimes animators do forget but for the most part SSGSS is always drawn with the bang and has always been merch'd with the bang) and Goku Black has a hair strand sticking out in Rosé. Whether it's distinction enough for someone is another question.

I'm aware of that one, and to Blue's credit, we could viably see that as a distinguishing feature. It's a bit confusing though because there are some instances/shots where even the plain old yellow Super Saiyan form has an extra protruding bang, which is something Toriyama's modern artwork complicates even further by (at least occasionally) giving both SS1 and SSB the bang as well. I'm not extremely familiar with the merchandising, so I do wonder how consistent that might be with differentiating these two forms.

I also noticed the extra strand of hair exclusive to Super Saiyan Rose, which is definitely neat, albeit very understated.

[FrostByte]

Meeeeeh. Ultra Instinct doesn't even last 5 episodes and we're already on a new form

Huh? This is still Ultra Instinct,but the mastered look of it.Read the title of the thread before commenting.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

As per design sheets Goku does/supposed have an protruding extra bang in SSGSS (though sometimes animators do forget but for the most part SSGSS is always drawn with the bang and has always been merch'd with the bang) and Goku Black has a hair strand sticking out in Rosé. Whether it's distinction enough for someone is another question.

I'm aware of that one, and to Blue's credit, we could viably see that as a distinguishing feature. It's a bit confusing though because there are some instances/shots where even the plain old yellow Super Saiyan form has an extra protruding bang, which is something Toriyama's modern artwork complicates even further by (at least occasionally) giving both SS1 and SSB the bang as well. I'm not extremely familiar with the merchandising, so I do wonder how consistent it might be with differentiating these two forms.

I also noticed the extra strand of hair exclusive to Super Saiyan Rose, which is definitely neat, albeit very understated.

For the most SSGSS merch has been very consistent with the bang whereas SS specific merch doesn't have it, there are instances where the merch company get too greedy/lazy and recolour SSGSS to SS and thus SS will have the bang (these usually happen with small gashapon's SS won't be part of the original reveal and last minute they'll just add it). The FES line Stage 1 best showcases the difference with specific SSGSS and SS, as you can see one has the bang the other doesn't:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[The gr]

Don't worry the form will look much better in animation,can't wait to see the aura.

[TheSaiyanGod]

As per design sheets Goku does/supposed have an protruding extra bang in SSGSS (though sometimes animators do forget but for the most part SSGSS is always drawn with the bang and has always been merch'd with the bang) and Goku Black has a hair strand sticking out in Rosé. Whether it's distinction enough for someone is another question.

I'm aware of that one, and to Blue's credit, we could viably see that as a distinguishing feature. It's a bit confusing though because there are some instances/shots where even the plain old yellow Super Saiyan form has an extra protruding bang, which is something Toriyama's modern artwork complicates even further by (at least occasionally) giving both SS1 and SSB the bang as well. I'm not extremely familiar with the merchandising, so I do wonder how consistent that might be with differentiating these two forms.

I also noticed the extra strand of hair exclusive to Super Saiyan Rose, which is definitely neat, albeit very understated.

Yes, actually SSB and SSJ Rosé have a different hair style in relation ordinary SSJ.

Look at these pictures

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

The problem is that sometimes some animators forget this, but in most scenes with SSB and SSJ Rosé, there is this difference in relation to the SSJ.

Not to mention that the SSB originally (according to Toriyama) is leaner, as is the SSG (which is also a difference in relation to the SSJ).

The auras of SSB and SSJ Rosé are also very different from all other auras, and with several unique details

[lord turbo]

To be fair SS Goku is not a direct recolor, Goku's hair does significantly change shape (Gohan and Vegeta's SS forms are recolors of their base forms) which makes it distinct enough to be considered a brand new thing

I mean, that was kind of my whole point -- recolors are fine as long as there are additional changes to the design that would justify a brand new aesthetic for a brand new form.

I kind of disagree, ss was different and unique on just first glance, ssg, ui, and ssb are recolors/palette swaps on first glance that do just that, retread old grounds that were already done/explored design-wise.

[ChiefWamsutta]

This is so interesting how the hair styles are different!!

I'm not sure if one would consider Toriyama's hair style to be the official one, or if Toei's approach will be. Would this mean regular Ultra Instinct would have had SSGod hair that is black with white streaks in the hair?

I am going to call regular UI -- Ultra Instinct, and call Mastered UI -- Perfect Instinct. I think the name is better.

[Draconic]

Well, from the little we see of the form in the preview, it already looks better than what we got so far. Proper shading does a ton for those new transformations.