Do you prefer SSJB or SSJ4?

[Kaboom]

Like others have said, it's Super Saiyan 4 for me and it's not even close. It has so much more obvious creativity in its design, and far more meaning behind it in regard to both Goku himself and the general lore.

Super Saiyan Blue could have been something special like Super Saiyan God before it, had it actually taken more after its predecessor. But it didn't. All it's become is a lazily recolored and ambiguously stronger version of Super Saiyan. All potential for visual impressiveness disappears along with its fancy aura that only shows up maybe half the time, and Super utterly abandoned any notion of explaining or expanding upon the form's power source, godly ki, leaving it with just the dull, baseline assumption of "oh it's just naturally stronger."

In visual and conceptual terms, Super Saiyan 4 completely and overwhelmingly blows Blue out of the water. The former is a diamond in the rough that really shines whenever it appears, while the latter is a big, bland, color-swapped bundle of wasted potential.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Super Saiya-jin Four.

#1) Because the design is superior.

• SS4 has that saiya-jin visual trait that the series was lacking, that thing that made clear they are alien.

• SSB, most lazy transformation design ever, is just SS, but in blue.

No one defended that when it was done in the DBAF fan art, but once is copied by Toriyama, "oh, I like the simplicity".

Simplicity is SS2, SSB is just being lazy.

#2) It makes sense.

SS4 is acquired by fusin the 2 natural transformations of the Saiya-jin, SS & Ōzaru, SSB is acquired by fully controlling SSG and turning SS.

How one acquires SSG again?

Ah, right, by holding hands with pure hearts, lol.

Another ridiculous thing fans wouldn't support if it wasn't done by Toriyama himself.

Statements like these are what is ridiculous. People liking the form has nothing to do with Toriyama they like it because they like it. Not to mention that people have been heavily critical of Toriyama's recent works (DBMinus, ResF etc) so to say people have only accepted it because of Toriyama is a very silly conclusion to come up with, finally SS3 was done by Toriyama yet SSGSS blows that form out the water in terms of popularity. Explain that one then?

[BlueBasilisk]

I like blue more for the simplicity of it, but 4 is pretty cool and video games and whatnot where it can really show off and isn't muddied down by GT's awful color palette.

[Lord Frieza]

Lots of excess body hair and red eyeliner or a jell and blue dye job, the agony of choice...


Both forms have their plus's, SS4 has a very primal look to it while SSGSS has an otherworldly one especially with it's aura. I like both but I'll go with Blue as I prefer the colour, I've always proffered the less is more approach (while I like SS4, it just has that 90's trying to hard vibe that was rampant in western comics at the time), that bitchin aura and I become a god when I turn it on.

[Shaddy]

4 is ridiculously overdesigned and the fact that it's meant to be the logical next step in the line of SSJ transformations makes it stick out like a sore thumb when compared to every previous version of Super Saiyan. The hair gets shorter, turns black, the eyebrows come back, red eyeliner and fur on everything but the chest happens, Goku regrows his tail, and his eyes turn yellow. It just doesn't make sense in terms of visual continuity the way all the other designs did. Everything previous built upon the transformation before it, 4 just reeks of "we thought this would look cool". Nevermind GT's garish color scheme always makes it look terribly oversaturated, lest I mention Goku's horrible mustard yellow pants in that show.

Blue is also pretty lame, but for different reasons, and less baffling ones that make me hate it less. It is basically a recolor of regular Super Saiyan (sans the one bang) but that at least makes sense given that it is regular Super Saiyan, infused with god ki. It's kinda like cutting off to the side and going into a new line instead of just pushing SSJ further. It's far more reserved in this and doesn't make me question why it looks the way it does the way 4 does, and it's the face of a better show to boot. Personally, I'd just like to see Goku get over it and stick with Ultra Instinct (which is visually and practically more interesting than both of these) and let Vegeta keep pushing his Super forms like with Blue Evolution, but it doesn't seem like we're quite there yet.

[ankokudaishogun]

the fact that it's meant to be the logical next step in the line of SSJ transformations makes it stick out like a sore thumb when compared to every previous version of Super Saiyan

It doesn't, not really
I mean, yeah, with that name it's marketed as that, but it's obvious it's not.

[Melkaniator]

Statements like these are what is ridiculous. People liking the form has nothing to do with Toriyama they like it because they like it.

Of course, that's why they dislike it before when it was done by DBAF fan art.

to say people have only accepted it because of Toriyama is a very silly conclusion to come up with, finally SS3 was done by Toriyama yet SSGSS blows that form out the water in terms of popularity. Explain that one then?

Easy to explain, that's the new one, that's what's "in".

[lancerman]

Blue, the color scheme just works and the aura really adds a lot to it. I've always hated SSJ4. It's too busy and tries to hard. It doesn't feel like something that would have been designed if Toriyama was still in the drivers seat. It just feels like glorified fanfiction that some kid would do if they were writing Dragon Ball on the internet. When I see Super Saiyan Blue I instantly know it's Dragon Ball. If you watched all of Dragon Ball Z and someone showed you a picture of SSJ4, you might think it's some other anime.

[DanielSSJ]

While I think Super Saiyan 4 is a bit over designed, I'll take that over the creative vacuum that is Super Saiyan Blue any day of the week.

Super Saiyan Blue is easily the most bland, boring, creatively bankrupt transformation in the franchise's history (alongside Rosé). Aesthetically, it's just a blue haired Super Saiyan with an obtrusive CG aura. Mechanically, the only distinction between it and literally every other Super Saiyan form before it is that it can be stacked with Kaioken, which only amounts to being another run of the mill power-up. Woo. Narratively, it's basically interchangeable with the original, aesthetically superior Super Saiyan God form. And I am in 100% agreement with Kaboom, that the main gimmick of both forms (god ki) is a horribly undefined and underutilized concept.

Comparatively, the idea behind Super Saiyan 4 is a lot more fully realized, and frankly, the idea that the ultimate Saiyan form is an amalgamation of both Great Ape and Super Saiyan is a stroke of genius. I'd personally overall the design a bit to make it look a little less garish, but you can't argue that it's not distinctive.

[Kokonoe]

Super Saiyan 4 any day of the week. SSB is just Powerade drenched Super Saiyan as far as I'm concerned.

[Polyphase Avatron]

SSJB, I never liked SSJ4 TBH.

[Cipher]

Four. It's over-the-top, but within GT's tone, and for a series on its way out, it makes sense. Something about seeing happy-go-lucky Goku's final battle appearances be that stern, no-nonsense Saiyan-monkey mash-up just works, for the ways in which it provides contrast and the ways in which it doesn't take that contrast too far. Even seeing him in some of the screenshots from the new Heroes anime, I'm like, "Man, that just feels right." It doesn't feel like Toriyama, but for a certain, non-Toriyama kind of ending, it feels right.

Blue was a lot more fun when it was positioned as replacing previous Super Saiyan forms wholesale and acting as a kind of streamlined new direction.

[sunsetshimmer]

I think the popularity and success of SSGSS & UI show that simple is sometimes better.

SSJ Blue is successful? It's among the least liked forms in community. I think only DBS fans like that form and even among them there are many who don't.
SSJ4 is liked by most of community. Even people who hate GT tend to say that they love SSJ4.

With UI, we will see in near future since it's new so it's always a bit overhyped. Also, people mostly seem to like this form because of how it works not how it looks. What made this form unique is that it isn't SSJ form and that it isn't just a power boost (even though it will probably turn into one like always).

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

I think the popularity and success of SSGSS & UI show that simple is sometimes better.

SSJ Blue is successful? It's among the least liked forms in community. I think only DBS fans like that form and even among them there are many who don't.
SSJ4 is liked by most of community. Even people who hate GT tend to say that they love SSJ4.

With UI, we will see in near future since it's new so it's always a bit overhyped. Also, people mostly seem to like this form because of how it works not how it looks. What made this form unique is that it isn't SSJ form and that it isn't just a power boost (even though it will probably turn into one like always).

Well, plenty of folks around here at least seemed to like how it looks, even after it went all silver on us.

The Omen version was GREAT because it was only slightly different from Goku's base form, but these differences went a long way in establishing a unique aesthetic with the form and helped sell the idea that this wasn't just a pure boost in power but instead an entirely different change in fighting for Goku.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I think the popularity and success of SSGSS & UI show that simple is sometimes better.

SSJ Blue is successful? It's among the least liked forms in community. I think only DBS fans like that form and even among them there are many who don't.
SSJ4 is liked by most of community. Even people who hate GT tend to say that they love SSJ4.

With UI, we will see in near future since it's new so it's always a bit overhyped. Also, people mostly seem to like this form because of how it works not how it looks. What made this form unique is that it isn't SSJ form and that it isn't just a power boost (even though it will probably turn into one like always).

There is a reason why SSGSS appeared a lot in DBS and a reason why the likes of SS3 hardly appeared. SSGSS had been the main marketing visual for 4 arcs of DBS (Freeza, Champa, Trunks & U.S arcs) it has had ridiculous amounts of merchandising since 2015 way more than anything SS4 has had and that form debuted in the 90's! (Probably even more than anything SS3&4 combined!) But this fall is the perfect example, Banpresto starting a new line of DBH figures not DBS but DBH and the first two figures? SSGSS Goku & Vegeta!
SSGSS was also on the 30th anniv logo and Bandai Namco keep using early access of unlocking SSGSS as a way to get people to pre order the game.

Bandai's sold their August allocation of Plex's Gigantic Series UI Goku retailing at 11,880yen and scheduled a second shipment immediately for September, you really think people are spending that much money on a form because of how it works rather than how it looks? Don't think so.

[sunsetshimmer]

SSJ Blue appears a lot in DBS because it's form from DBS. Of course they prefer to use new forms in series. Goku didn't go SSJ against any of Shadow Dragons as well. He was fighting either in base or SSJ4. And SSJ3 was always useless form. It was the same in GT. There is no reason to use SSJ3 when both SSJ4 and SSJ Blue are stronger and MUCH more stable.
They obviously try to push SSJB because it's new. There would be no point in making new form if they didn't sell toys and other stuff. People will buy it anyway.

But in community itself, this form isn't liked as much as SSJ4. Not even close.

[Lord Beerus]

SSJ4 is my preferred choice.

I love the throwback to animalistic traits of the Saiyan -- with the application fur ala Oozaru -- as well as the general mythos behind the introduction of the form. I have to say that, for the next logical step in Super Saiyan form, when comparing SSJ3 to SSJ4, the difference aesthetically between the two forms is quite jarring. But, ironically, that in my opinion, is what gives SSJ4 more of a distinctive charm to the form. You can really tell a lot of effort when into designing SSJ4.

I appreciate the minimalist approach of SSJB. And it does very much fit in very consistently with the mechanics of how the form is attained. I mean, it is basically Super Saiyan infused with the power of Super Saiyan God (God ki), so naturally, the original design of the first Super Saiyan would take some natural prominence. While I do believe that less can more, I still think a bit more could have done with the form to make it stand out more and avoid the basic criticism of it being basically Super Saiyan with blue hair dye.

SSJ Blue appears a lot in DBS because it's form from DBS.

Super Saiyan Blue was created for the 2015 DBZ movie Resurrection F.

[Marlowe89]

I'd have to go with Blue, but only by a slight margin. Out of the new forms in Super, it's my least favorite, but it does have a certain simplistic charm to its design that I think 4 completely lacks altogether. The latter is so ugly and overdesigned to me that I never cared much for the Oozaru connection, but the fact that it does have a clearer background/explanation than Blue is a nice touch.

I can't fault anyone for preferring either of these forms over the other, because frankly, both of them leave something to be desired in some way.

[PFM18]

I love both forms so I am not really sure.

The idea of combining divine power with the legendary Super Saiyan transformation is really interesting to me so I like SSB

The idea of using the primal "Ape" like aspects of a Saiyan to reach further in the Super Saiyan evolution is also really interesting so I like that too.

In terms of the concept of each form, I think SSB has a slight edge.

In terms of aesthetics, I think SSJ4 has a slight edge. SSB has a really cool aura and what not but I think SSJ4 looks slightly better.

I guess my answer is I prefer each in different ways? I don't know. SSJ4 is the only good thing to come out of GT and fan fictions do a lot of cool stuff with it.

[Robo4900]

Super Saiyan 4 is an interesting design that ties into established lore of the show, and is really damn cool.

Super Saiyan Blue is one of the laziest designs in the whole franchise, it was pulled out of their asses for Resurrection F to replace the actually really neat Super Saiyan God form with no coherent explanation, and it's just kind of meh...

There's really no contest here IMO.