Can someone explain to me why Roshi vs Jiren is bad?

[Brettjr25]

Well, I don't have a problem with the point the chapter was making nor the idea, plus it's not like we haven't seen something like this in regards to a character like Trunks getting his "IT'S MY FAULT!?!?! FFFFFFFFF!!!" rage boost.

This is how I see it. There emphasizing that Roshi's decades of being a martial artist master has put him on a level where he has the idea of the peak form of the fighting art which is UI even without knowing what UI is. And when you think about it, his feat against Jiren isn't that crazy. If UI is instinctively dodging and Roshi is doing something similar...well you do know that human reflexes have like a .15 second reaction time right? And that's reacting to something, so how fast can a human react to a stimuli without having to actually react? A human capable of dodging at that speeds should still be able to avoid a speedsters attack to some degree.

[GreatSaiyaman123]

Z shoved too far on people's heads that power is all that matters in DB universe, so a character holding his own thanks to skill is bullshit for them.

[Marlowe89]

Guess the manga can do no wrong, and this will be proven again when a UI user gets hit either by Jiren or Broly and it will be defended by the same people attempting to justify this by calling UI an infallible auto-dodge.

When Whis implied it was infallible, I'm assuming he was referring to whenever it's used against non-UI users. If a mastered UI Goku is hit by Jiren or Broly and there's no explanation, I can promise you I'm not going to defend it in that context. I don't know what's giving you the impression that because some of us think certain criticisms are unfounded, we think the manga can do no wrong. I enjoy the manga overall, but I've never pulled punches when it comes to aspects of it that I don't like.

That being said, my "defense" of Roshi fighting Jiren from a power scaling standpoint doesn't solely depend on the assumption that UI is infallible. Maybe I didn't do a good job of clarifying that. It's more of a semi-related argument that I'm pushing primarily to emphasize that the technique is supposed to exist outside of typical power structures perpetuated throughout the franchise, regardless of if it can actually evade any opponent.

[JazzMazz]

My problem with fight isn't necessarily the power scaling, but more the implication that Roshi is a fighter that has had, and has always had techniques more advanced than those of Goku that allow him to close gaps in power, which to me, completely shatters any suspension of disbelief on every conceivable level.

[emperior]

My problem with fight isn't necessarily the power scaling, but more the implication that Roshi is a fighter that has had, and has always had techniques more advanced than those of Goku that allow him to close gaps in power, which to me, completely shatters any suspension of disbelief on every conceivable level.

Same for me. I would have bought it better if it was a new character doing it, someone introduced as “weak but extremely experienced and skilled” which is not the way I would describe Roshi, who has less experience than Goku and is a lot less skilled. He couldn’t even follow the battles back in DB and even in Toyotaro’s manga when base Goku fights base Frost.
That is because he never trained under Kami/Popo, and so he never learned to rely on his senses and not his eyes. Even Gohan, as a kid, learned to follow the battles with his senses and not his eyes back in the Saiyan arc.

The main issue is not even a power scaling one, which is still a issue of course, but the fact that Toyotaro decided to completely change Goku and Roshi to fit his narrative, while also changing how Dragon Ball has always worked, and retroactively retconning every single character’s capabilities, as Goku surpassed everyone in terms of fighting ability, but now it turns out Roshi was better all the time even if he spent decades doing nothing on his island, while Goku and company were training their asses off.

I don’t buy Roshi being more skilled than Vegeta, Freeza and now even Jiren. Which is what this chapter implies, that Roshi would be the best around if he had a high power level. Even though to have the high power level in the first place one has to be skilled in Dragon Ball, or else Goku wouldn’t have improved by just sitting and meditating back during his training with Popo. So it’s a contradiction.
Ultra Instinct too comes with a power boost, because it makes Goku’s attacks sharper, more accurate and faster, and his movement too becomes more accurate and thus is reaction speed is better, not to mention how his body being able to move with no time lag.
It was still shown that Goku isn’t untouchable in UI, as the zero time lag doesn’t equal to infinite power and strength, so Jiren was still able to see Goku’s punches and his movements as they were slower than Jiren.

I liked how in episode 71 of Super Goku was so concentrated he could even feel three coackroaches behind the fridge. That’s what Goku is able to do thanks to what Popo taught him, and it makes no sense for him to have forgotten all those teachings.

[omaro34]

Because this is the same guy who died fighting King Piccolo and lost to Tien in the 22nd world tournament. He doesn't fight at all during the entire DBZ, then he fights Freeza soldiers in RoF. Does this history warrant him lasting even a few seconds against Jiren? Of course they must have forgotten right? Blocking and dodging Jiren's attacks even for a few seconds is ludicrous.

[wolflonnie]

Because Roshi wasn't able to see at all BASE Goku and Frost not a while ago (U6 ark). And Jiren is, by any logic, so much faster than them it's impossible to understand.
You can't auto-dodge what you CAN'T see or at least perceive. A fly can't dodge a thunderbolt. Weak analogy but should get the point.
It's a question of speed, rather than technique.

[Kataphrut]

Z shoved too far on people's heads that power is all that matters in DB universe, so a character holding his own thanks to skill is bullshit for them.

I've been saying for a while now that modern Dragon Ball has relaxed that attitude a bit, altered certain rules (eg strong characters can be hurt by weaker ones if they're not guarding, see Goku and Sorbet in Res F). I think that move has been for the best, since it means fights aren't over before they start.

Even under the new 'rules' however, Roshi v Jiren still breaks all semblance of logic. Not just in terms of power-scaling but storytelling and internal consistency, even within it's own universe. As people have said, Roshi couldn't see Goku v Frost from a distance but can dodge hits from Jiren up close.

[JazzMazz]

In story, it doesn't make sense that Roshi, a fighter that had taken a back seat to things years ago, and had officially retired, somehow busts out movement that impresses even the gods of destruction, even though Roshi never demonstrated physical techniques that would have made Kami bat an eye lid.

Also, Roshi's training doesn't even really have anything to do with reducing movements, or reading your opponents ki, fighting an opponent you couldn't see, or even minimizing ones own movements. Those were all things taught by later, greater masters, and things as far as I'm aware(with the exception of Korin), Roshi never learned any of those skills, or is even implied to have learned any of those skills. He just apparently is able to demostrate them, for no apparent reason.

[Marlowe89]

My problem with fight isn't necessarily the power scaling, but more the implication that Roshi is a fighter that has had, and has always had techniques more advanced than those of Goku that allow him to close gaps in power, which to me, completely shatters any suspension of disbelief on every conceivable level.

Hey, that's totally fine. I don't fully agree, and I think it's likely that he developed it off-screen at some point, but I can absolutely understand why people have an issue with it on that level. It would be foolish of me not to acknowledge that this was a bold, controversial move on Toyotaro's part.

I actually have my own problems with it that I'll eventually get to in the manga discussion thread when I have time.

[TajinRice]

If youve watched DB from the start. If you need explaining on why this is bad then you have bigger things to worry about and should probably seek help.

[supersaiyanZero]

Where was the outrage when Roshi was tackling Frieza soldiers left and right? Lmao this fanbase

[Lionel]

Not to excuse what I also feel is inane regarding Roshi's ability to hold any kind of ground against Jiren but I think the lion's share of new training plateaus after Kami had to do primarily with the acquisition of raw power. Some outlying technicals were grasped like the Kaioken and Spirit Bomb, but no one ever personally benefited from those techniques besides Goku. It's only recently with Whis' introduction onto the scene that areas of conduct were given any emphasis rather than just bulking your power level up. Ironically, Roshi first described the components of his own Kame style as having to do with pure strength and the pursuit of cultivating it rather than learning any particular style of combat.

I would say Goku is skilled for however much it's worth in a series like Dragon Ball, but what gives him the advantage in that department are exclusive rights to specific methodologies of training like learning how to sense ki or your body being inherently composed enough to fight efficiently without the need for conscious neuro-electrical stimulation. Goku hasn't completely mastered one of those skills yet but he's well on his way. It's shame for the old hermit that he's not young enough to take advantage of the health and vivacity of a person's physical prime. If he were a 20 something year old man once again being allowed to partake in these training regimens, who's to say how far he could go; maybe not with respect to raw power so much as broadening the horizons of his combat applications. Maybe a hypothetical Roshi in his prime could learn Ultra Instinct in quicker fashion than Goku. After all, it's about bodily harmonisation with external stimuli rather than attaining some new pinnacle of brutish strength.

[HeroR]

Here is the big problem.

We know that Jiren can control his power since he didn't kill base form Goku after he lost Omen. Meaning that at the very last second of impact, Jiren curved his power to keep from smashing Goku's face in, unless you're going to argued that Omen in the manga is comparable to base form Goku. So using this example, Jiren can control his power at a moments noticed to keep from killing someone.

Point 2, Frost who is far less disciplined than Jiren was able to fight Roshi and all the humans without killing them, and none of them were able to dodge his attacks. Goku had to come over and saved Roshi from Frost. Going even farther back in the manga, when Goku fought Frost in the Champa Saga, they were moving so fast that Roshi couldn't see. So, how slow was Jiren moving for Roshi to even perceived his movements?

Taking the above points all together, why the heck did Jiren need several dozen attacks to adjust his speed and power to knockout Roshi? And where were these moves when Frost was handling him? He could have used those sweet dodges to danced around Frost and ring him out. Maybe it would have least saved Tien. This came out of nowhere, which brings up another problem.

Where did Roshi learned this? Unlike the anime, the manga never suggested Roshi did 'secret training'. So when did Roshi get bootleg UI? It was certainly after Dragon Ball and I can't imagine he had it in Z since he should have been able to dodged Buu when he was eating everyone.

And another nitpicked, Whis said that Roshi's dodges used the same principle as UI, but it's 'far from that technique'. Cool, so how exactly is Roshi's dodges difference from UI. Whis never told us, only that 'it's different'. Like, if you're going to do this, at least give a full explanation as to how Roshi's technique is different than UI. Not helped that Omen Goku didn't do anything before he lost the form, so we can't make a comparison.

I see what Toyo was trying to do, but like a lot of fanfic writers, his idea was half-baked.

Where was the outrage when Roshi was tackling Frieza soldiers left and right? Lmao this fanbase

There was a lot of outrage about that. Where have you been? All you have to do is go to the old Resurrection 'F' movie forum and see the complaints about Roshi fighting Freeza's solders.

Even then, Freeza called those solders second-rate fodder. It's doubtful those soldiers were even as strong as Raditz.

[Kokonoe]

The fact that someone of Roshi's level, regardless that he is an experienced martial artist, can even for a second hang with someone like Jiren is absurd.

Keep in mind, that this Jiren is on a level that transends time.

So the premise that because Roshi is calm of mind that he is able to comprehend Jirens movements or even move faster than Jiren is absurd.

They literally are in the middle of introducing the most powerful character that Dragon ball has witnessed (Jiren) and they have Roshi step up to the plate. How is that even ok? Pro-tip: It isn't ok.
I did appreciate how they at least attempted to give SOME sort of explanation with No17's dialogue and the other parts. But just because there is some in-universe dialog doesn't justify the YEARS of logic the show has built up.

Why didn't Roshi show this level of resolve and ability during any arc in Dragonball Z? vs Raditz would have been a great time. Or are we to understand that Roshi has been training all this time and though power-level wise is weak, is able to accomplish something that even maxed Goku (TOP) has been unable to achieve?

Furthermore, why the hell did Jiren have to block? Even if Roshi is able to have some ability that is LIKE ultra-instinct, his physical ability to inflict harm on the likes of the Goliath known as Jiren, should be impossible. To write that into the manga is an insult to the fans ability to reason. It WAS shown that Jiren got to a point and decided to end the fight, but the fact that he had to get serious on ANY level vs someone like Roshi is wrong.


AND end rant!

1) Jiren only transcends time in the garbage anime.
2) we see that Roshi is unable to overpower stronger opponents regardless so no plothole there. In fact it would help to explain in universe why he seems to always comically avoid more powerful enemy attacks and lethal blows. This is actually very different than say bring the demon containment wave back which could have been used since Raditz and every enemy after not to mention them actually having the time to perfect it.
3) As for the technique it’s essentially what every single one of Gokus mentors have emphasized. It’s a martial arts technique in general. It’s not unique and it’s actually properly established as a technique in the manga that anyone can use and not something exclusive to the gods or granting magic powers. It took DB back to one of its fundamentals which is martial arts.

4) I’ve said this multiple times about the anime. Nothing in the dialogue of the anime actually stated that Goku was more powerful in raw strength in ultra instinct, it was just written that way because that’s how they do DBZ forms, the characters get stronger... it’s lazy and half assed. Roshi dodging attacks using a variant of ultra instinct and then getting knocked out in a single blow after doing zero damage makes perfect sense. It’s consistent with the mastery of martial arts rather than this stupid general “stronger” theme we got going.

Very well written and pretty much conclusive.

[emperior]

It's shame for the old hermit that he's not young enough to take advantage of the health and vivacity of a person's physical prime. If he were a 20 something year old man once again being allowed to partake in these training regimens, who's to say how far he could go; maybe not with respect to raw power so much as broadening the horizons of his combat applications. Maybe a hypothetical Roshi in his prime could learn Ultra Instinct in quicker fashion than Goku. After all, it's about bodily harmonisation with external stimuli rather than attaining some new pinnacle of brutish strength.

Nope. Sorry, what you wrote there makes no sense. Roshi was never a more talented martial artist than Goku, which is why it took him 3 years to adapt to Korin’s movements and get the water from him, while it took Goku just 3 days.
Roshi is way less talented than the likes of Krillin, Tenshinan, Yamcha, Chaozu. He should never be able to become a better martial artist than those, not even if he was younger. Even if you take Toyo’s Roshi in account, it’s implied he is that way because of his wisdom and experience. There’s no way he should be able to achieve Ultra Instinct faster than Beerus either.

See, this is why I absolutely despise this latest chapter. It makes Roshi into something he never was, ignoring everything his character was in the original manga, just for the sake of having him look cool. Because, frankly, if Goku had to “learn” Ultra Instinct during the tournament, he would have been able to do it alone and to realize alone that what he needed to beat Jiren was the same thing Beerus used in the Zen Exhibition match, which Goku saw with his own eyes. I would have preferred to see Goku slowly getting UI going through some phases, from a version more imperfect than Beerus’ (the one Roshi was gifted with) to a version similar to Beerus’, to Omen and then to the mastered one.
He didn’t need another teaching from a man who claimed multiple times he had no more to teach.

I still stand by how Goku casually achieving UI as he did in the anime was the best way to introduce the form. It also explains how Goku, at the end of the ToP, still isn’t able to use UI at will, as he achieved it for pure luck and in the perfect situation and condition, by breaking his limits.

[Polyphase Avatron]

It's like in comic books when they have Batman fighting Superman. Makes no sense that he could do as well as he does, but he's popular so they can't just have him be completely useless.

[Simere]

It's shame for the old hermit that he's not young enough to take advantage of the health and vivacity of a person's physical prime. If he were a 20 something year old man once again being allowed to partake in these training regimens, who's to say how far he could go; maybe not with respect to raw power so much as broadening the horizons of his combat applications. Maybe a hypothetical Roshi in his prime could learn Ultra Instinct in quicker fashion than Goku. After all, it's about bodily harmonisation with external stimuli rather than attaining some new pinnacle of brutish strength.

Nope. Sorry, what you wrote there makes no sense. Roshi was never a more talented martial artist than Goku, which is why it took him 3 years to adapt to Korin’s movements and get the water from him, while it took Goku just 3 days.
Roshi is way less talented than the likes of Krillin, Tenshinan, Yamcha, Chaozu. He should never be able to become a better martial artist than those, not even if he was younger. Even if you take Toyo’s Roshi in account, it’s implied he is that way because of his wisdom and experience. There’s no way he should be able to achieve Ultra Instinct faster than Beerus either.

Yes. Goku and Tenshinhan were complete package marital artists, they didn't just surpass Roshi because they had more power. That's why I don't care about the "Jiren was holding back his power" argument. It's not about power. Obviously he was holding back. But Jiren shouldn't be outdone in skill by Roshi, because he wasn't outdone in skill by Goku. By having Roshi fight better than them you 1) ignore that he was surpassed in both power and technique long ago, and 2) make Jiren, Goku and everyone else seem like amateurs doing nothing but throwing power around. The takeaway is that if only Roshi had their power he'd win, because these guys are just ungas.

[Lionel]

It's shame for the old hermit that he's not young enough to take advantage of the health and vivacity of a person's physical prime. If he were a 20 something year old man once again being allowed to partake in these training regimens, who's to say how far he could go; maybe not with respect to raw power so much as broadening the horizons of his combat applications. Maybe a hypothetical Roshi in his prime could learn Ultra Instinct in quicker fashion than Goku. After all, it's about bodily harmonisation with external stimuli rather than attaining some new pinnacle of brutish strength.

Nope. Sorry, what you wrote there makes no sense. Roshi was never a more talented martial artist than Goku, which is why it took him 3 years to adapt to Korin’s movements and get the water from him, while it took Goku just 3 days.
Roshi is way less talented than the likes of Krillin, Tenshinan, Yamcha, Chaozu. He should never be able to become a better martial artist than those, not even if he was younger. Even if you take Toyo’s Roshi in account, it’s implied he is that way because of his wisdom and experience. There’s no way he should be able to achieve Ultra Instinct faster than Beerus either.

See, this is why I absolutely despise this latest chapter. It makes Roshi into something he never was, ignoring everything his character was in the original manga, just for the sake of having him look cool. Because, frankly, if Goku had to “learn” Ultra Instinct during the tournament, he would have been able to do it alone and to realize alone that what he needed to beat Jiren was the same thing Beerus used in the Zen Exhibition match, which Goku saw with his own eyes. I would have preferred to see Goku slowly getting UI going through some phases, from a version more imperfect than Beerus’ (the one Roshi was gifted with) to a version similar to Beerus’, to Omen and then to the mastered one.
He didn’t need another teaching from a man who claimed multiple times he had no more to teach.

I still stand by how Goku casually achieving UI as he did in the anime was the best way to introduce the form. It also explains how Goku, at the end of the ToP, still isn’t able to use UI at will, as he achieved it for pure luck and in the perfect situation and condition, by breaking his limits.

Goku was already an extensional benefactor of Roshi's toils and efforts during his own personal climb to martial acclaim when he followed the hands-on example of his mentor throughout their time together labouring on the island prior to the 21st tournament. Just about every specific notable ability Goku has acquired, to my immediate knowledge at least, has been gleaned from or was inspired by the tutelage of others that had already laid the foundation down for them to cultivate upwards from there. It's like comparing Roshi's 50 years of tinkering with ki manipulation to conceive the Kamehameha with Goku witnessing the completed version once and then generating an imitation of it back in the first arc of the series. But even then, I wouldn't limit the scope of potential aptitude to just a person's ability to copy other techniques to whatever degree they're capable of mimicking them by.

I'm not going to justify Roshi's performance in this chapter. My argument is that he may have the potential to grasp it in a timely manner just like with others, possibly sooner if his centuries worth of living as a career martial artist bears any merit in a situation like this.

[emperior]

It's shame for the old hermit that he's not young enough to take advantage of the health and vivacity of a person's physical prime. If he were a 20 something year old man once again being allowed to partake in these training regimens, who's to say how far he could go; maybe not with respect to raw power so much as broadening the horizons of his combat applications. Maybe a hypothetical Roshi in his prime could learn Ultra Instinct in quicker fashion than Goku. After all, it's about bodily harmonisation with external stimuli rather than attaining some new pinnacle of brutish strength.

Nope. Sorry, what you wrote there makes no sense. Roshi was never a more talented martial artist than Goku, which is why it took him 3 years to adapt to Korin’s movements and get the water from him, while it took Goku just 3 days.
Roshi is way less talented than the likes of Krillin, Tenshinan, Yamcha, Chaozu. He should never be able to become a better martial artist than those, not even if he was younger. Even if you take Toyo’s Roshi in account, it’s implied he is that way because of his wisdom and experience. There’s no way he should be able to achieve Ultra Instinct faster than Beerus either.

See, this is why I absolutely despise this latest chapter. It makes Roshi into something he never was, ignoring everything his character was in the original manga, just for the sake of having him look cool. Because, frankly, if Goku had to “learn” Ultra Instinct during the tournament, he would have been able to do it alone and to realize alone that what he needed to beat Jiren was the same thing Beerus used in the Zen Exhibition match, which Goku saw with his own eyes. I would have preferred to see Goku slowly getting UI going through some phases, from a version more imperfect than Beerus’ (the one Roshi was gifted with) to a version similar to Beerus’, to Omen and then to the mastered one.
He didn’t need another teaching from a man who claimed multiple times he had no more to teach.

I still stand by how Goku casually achieving UI as he did in the anime was the best way to introduce the form. It also explains how Goku, at the end of the ToP, still isn’t able to use UI at will, as he achieved it for pure luck and in the perfect situation and condition, by breaking his limits.

Goku was already an extensional benefactor of Roshi's toils and efforts during his own personal climb to martial acclaim when he followed the hands-on example of his mentor throughout their time together labouring on the island prior to the 21st tournament. Just about every specific notable ability Goku has acquired, to my immediate knowledge at least, has been gleaned from or was inspired by the tutelage of others that had already laid the foundation down for them to cultivate upwards from there. It's like comparing Roshi's 50 years of tinkering with ki manipulation to conceive the Kamehameha with Goku witnessing the completed version once and then generating an imitation of it back in the first arc of the series. But even then, I wouldn't limit the scope of potential aptitude to just a person's ability to copy other techniques to whatever degree they're capable of mimicking them by.

I'm not going to justify Roshi's performance in this chapter. My argument is that he may have the potential to grasp it in a timely manner just like with others, possibly sooner if his centuries worth of living as a career martial artist bears any merit in a situation like this.

Of course Goku benefitted from Roshi’s teachings, it is the reason why he is still wearing the orange gi in his honor and respect. This doesn’t change the fact that, compared to Goku, Roshi is nothing talent wise. It’s the reason why he happily retired, as he felt that finally a new extremely capable generation of martial artists had emerged.

You have all the rights to believe that Roshi could learn the full Ultra Instinct if we go by the latest chapter of the manga. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really have sense if you think about what the original manga established regarding Roshi’s character, and there’s no way I would ever buy Roshi being able to learn Ultra Instinct faster than Goku, Vegeta and even Beerus.

We don’t know much of Beerus, but I was always under the assumption that Beerus is also very talented which is why he was able to reach the level he is at. We know he has been training to learn Ultra Instinct for million of years so if he still couldn’t grasp the full thing, then Roshi has no hope of doing it in a relatively short time.