People are missing the purpose the god forms’ design serves (Anime)

Discussion specifically regarding the "Dragon Ball Super" TV series premiering July 2015 in Japan, including individual threads for each episode.

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Master Xar
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People are missing the purpose the god forms’ design serves (Anime)

Post by Master Xar » Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:06 am

(This is a long, but informed post, please read it to the end, you will not regret it, hopefully this may change the minds of those of you that really dislike the god forms and for those that like them I hope this makes you like them more.)

Rewatching BOG and ROF I decided to look into to designs and ask the question of “What is Toriyama going for here? Why is SSJG referenced to his base form? Why is SSJB so ‘lazy’ and similar to SSJ only Blue and skinnier? Even then it looks too close to SSJ? What is the purpose here?”

Toriyama isn’t no slouch when it comes to his talent for design, stylization, and art. He’d know what is stupid and nonsensical and what isn’t, SSJG and especially SSJB. So I what is he trying to convey here?

I compared and contrasted the forms and came across an actually VERY well evidenced theory as to what Akira is going for in these designs.

He is retreading, comparing and contrasting the god forms and the Original Base-SSJ1-3 and there appearances going to how they work as transformations.

Let’s look at the contrast of the color of Base to SSJ, Black to Golden-Blond.

Now look at the god forms, SSJG serves as the base not only with it’s look, but it’s power and how transforming into it boosted his base power immensely it’s lean and muscular build of course going along with the general unassuming build many of the gods that Toriyama goes for, but in general that’s his style with guys like Freeza and Cell anyway.

Now here is where it gets very interesting.

(NOTE: you can skip this if you understand the contrasts of Namek with the ROF fight, but I would advise reading it to serve to the symbolism and narrative purpose of the designs of SSJ and SSJB as ROF was SSJB’s initial introduction)

__________________________________

To serve this theory look at the Goku vs Freeza and how Goku fought and initially beats Freeza also compare it to how he beat him on Namek. The roles are entirely flipped.

The way he beats Freeza in SSJ is that he is the superior in raw power, he is mostly on the offensive, aggressive, burn off energy and tanking his hits because he can take it, but his form is new, he has to finish the fight quickly before he burns through his ki staying power, if Goku was blinded by his rage and was more sadistic like SSJ2 Gohan, he had a far more likely chance of drawing out the fight and losing power..

Freeza is put into the role of being a survivor and is unsuccessful because his pride is hurt, he is angry and In denial of Goku being his superior in strength to think clearly and survive, his final form has plenty of ki and natural staying power as his true form, but his push to 100% tires out his physical stamina, he isn’t able to compensate with a strategy and loses to his own attack from his own hubris. Goku’s sparing of Freeza nearly costs him as Freeza goes for a cheapshot, Goku is too far away as he is retreating and leaving Freeza to his own territory, notices and fires back.

And as a bonus remember how his base gets dominated by final form freeza? And that Goku was the one to come into Freeza’s territory as if the Northern Galaxy to challenge him/achieve his goals? Hold that thought.

In ROF, the fight is completely reversed. In this fight Freeza is the usurper in the Shiny, Golden new form coming to Goku’s territoryand is the slightly stronger in raw power like SSJ Goku was to him on Namek. Goku takes Freeza’s role as the defender/survivor and must survive against Freeza’s new power. Goku’s base form is superior to Freeza’s final form in contrast to how I mentioned earlier on Namek, Goku was the on Namek in that he was the one getting beat by Freeza’s final form. The entire fight Goku has to fight smart and survive as opposed to dominating, taking hits, and being aggressive like he did in SSJ.
He works as the survivor because his pride isn’t hurt and he can handle having someone being stronger than him mentally and emotionally unlike Freeza on Namek, and is humble enough to think clearly and not go on the offensive until Freeza wastes power. Freeza is the one driven by revenge and bloodlust. His sadism and need to draw out the fight contrasts to Goku on Namek who is able to hold himself back enough to think clearly to finish the fight and not waste unnecessary ki, his strategy doesn’t backfire and is a success.
Freeza’s inability to hold proper ki control (meditation allowed him mastery of the form) in the US arc in the form similar to SSJ, Goku’s SSJB physical stamina issues don’t really come into play in the fight similar to how SSJ’s lack of proper ki control on Namek didn’t as he was fighting smart.

He spares Freeza, but this time Freeza is the one who needs to retreat as he is the one on Goku’s territory on Earth, the invader. As to this point, Goku’s role as the defender, his drop in guard comes to actually bite him this time around as where Goku was the one who needed to retreat on Namek didn’t cause his drop in guard and his mercy to backfire on him.

There are clear contrasts, and ROF was essentially a Role Shift/Reversal situation of Namek in Goku, Vegeta, and Freeza. And their current personalities and flaws servicing the different roles.

____________________________

(NOTE: now back to the comparison outside of ROF and Namek)

SSJB is basically SSJ, but recolored and that is exactly what he planned and is trying to say about the form itself? it is different than the SSJ form, but at the same time is not too different.

You remember in the Champa arc where Goku says that the SSJB form suffers from stamina problems? It is able to use Kaioken on top due to the proper ki control regular SSJ could not have provided. Let’s look at it like this.

SSJB with god ki provides proper ki control, but at the cost of physical stamina and potential power the form, it is in a sense too stiff and strained. SSJ is completely loose on it’s ki control at (least before mastery of it), has no room for Kaioken as Goku himself describes, but has immense physical stamina, but burns through it’s ki way too quickly.

SSJB’s goal is to gain true control of the user’s power to last way longer in the fight, to not expunge too much ki, but burns stamina doing it. Messing up it’s goal retroactively

SSJ goal is to let power go out of control and increase, to let rage and anger flow out in a rush and finish the fight quickly

They both serve as having too much the opposite of the other (as far as pre-mastery SSJ goes).

SSJB: not out of control enough to gain the ability to be truly in control.

SSJ: not in control enough to gain the ability to be truly out of control.

They are two sides of the same coin and suffer basically the same overall problems that causes the forms to not last long in fights. SSJB being a recolor serves the narrative of how the forms work at least concurrent to their respective progressions.

Right now we’re at basically the Mid-Android arc concurrence in the progression. SSJBE is the equivalent of Super Vegeta along the god forms’ progression. Vegeta is superior in concurrent to the Cell arc where he was superior to Goku during that time as well.

My guess from this point on (as far as the anime is concerned and Toyotaro is taking a different rout with the manga) is either the USSJ equivalent comes up next in the line of the forms, or SSJB finally reaches it’s mastery phase in Goku. My guess is that it’ll look like a far more balance rendition of SSJG-SSJ ratio as it’ll come into it’s own with the mastery of the form. It’ll likely. look more visually different to contrast how SSJ and MSSJ don’t look different.



Thank you for reading!
Last edited by Master Xar on Sat Jul 07, 2018 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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supersaiyanZero
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Re: People are missing the purpose the god forms’ design serves (Anime)

Post by supersaiyanZero » Sat Jul 07, 2018 4:53 pm

This is a lot of head canon just to justify some of the designs in the post Z era. I sincerely doubt this was the amount of thought that went into designing any of these forms.

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Miracles
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Re: People are missing the purpose the god forms’ design serves (Anime)

Post by Miracles » Sat Jul 07, 2018 5:15 pm

There is a reason why DB's franchise is known for it's "flashiness."

Master Xar
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Re: People are missing the purpose the god forms’ design serves (Anime)

Post by Master Xar » Sat Jul 07, 2018 5:37 pm

supersaiyanZero wrote:This is a lot of head canon just to justify some of the designs in the post Z era. I sincerely doubt this was the amount of thought that went into designing any of these forms.
Well yeah, I said this in the beginning, this is just a theory and observation given the evidence the show and movie gives us, ROF has very clear contrasts you can see in the fight, one of the big ones being that Freeza’s form is indeed Golden like SSJ and he is the one coming for revenge. Not Goku. Toriyama has a bit of a lazy streak in him, but he isn’t an idiot, especially when it comes to design.

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Lord Frieza
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Re: People are missing the purpose the god forms’ design serves (Anime)

Post by Lord Frieza » Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:07 pm

I don't think they miss the point.

A lot of people get the logic behind them, they just don't like the designs or how their implemented. Plenty of people felt the same about SS4 and other saiyan forms in Z. But thats pefectly normal.

Master Xar
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Re: People are missing the purpose the god forms’ design serves (Anime)

Post by Master Xar » Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:24 pm

Lord Frieza wrote:I don't think they miss the point.

A lot of people get the logic behind them, they just don't like the designs or how their implemented. Plenty of people felt the same about SS4 and other saiyan forms in Z. But thats pefectly normal.
I mean you would think, but almost no one talks about them, plenty of people just go on about how SSJB loses a lot and isn’t as dominant as SSJ was in Z, when that clearly isn’t the purpose of the form. You see almost no one talking about the symbolism or purpose of the form overall.

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