Chichi's training (or lack there of)

[Tyro]

Even after all the training, Yamcha was still weaker than Raditz.

No, he proved that he was superior to an opponent stated to have the same power as Raditz.

No, he didn't.

As Kaboom said: no, he isn't.

How the hell do you expect people to take you seriously if you're going to post like this? Either contribute or don't.

[rereboy]

The Saibaimen have power that rivals Raditz, not that's exactly equal to him, and Toriyama himself has written that they're somewhat weaker than him. Yamcha has almost exactly the same power as Raditz when he pwns a Saibaiman one-on-one.

Yamcha: 1480
Raditz: 1500
Saibaimen: ~1200

I go by the manga, not guides. Toriyama himself didn't give a specific battle power for Raditz even though he said he thought he was somewhat superior to the Saibamen. And even following the guides and whatnot, they give a mere 20 units of difference between Yamcha and Raditz, and their choice to put Raditz 20 points ahead of Yamcha instead of the other way around seems rather baseless...

Yamcha wasn't hit once by the Saibaman and proved his superiority in mere seconds. For all intents and purposes, since the manga tells us that the Saibamen have the same level as Raditz, and then Yamcha, in a few seconds, without getting hit once, manages to prove his superiority, it seems to me that all points towards Yamcha having surpassed Raditz level, even if not by much. This is what the manga seems to be implying. So, exactly where are they basing the 20 units of difference in favor of Raditz instead of in favor of Yamcha? .

If the guide people want to translate what Toriyama said in terms of battle power (even though Raditz's superiority could also be interpreted simply as being a better fighter, and not exactly having any significant advantage power wise, which frankly would make much more sense) they are certainly free to do so, but it seems to me that by putting Raditz ahead of Yamcha they are going against what the manga seemed to be implying. To me, if Raditz is 1500, then Yamcha is, at least, 1520.

[Herms]

In the link for the Saibaimen I provided, it's explained. The Japanese term used there doesn't necessarily mean "equal" in a strictly mathematical sense. It more means "close to" or "on-par with."

A good example of this in action is when Sharpner describes Videl as "rivaling Mister Satan", using the same word (hitteki) which Nappa uses to compare the Saibaimen to Raditz. Sharpner of course doesn't consider Videl to be 100% as strong as Mister Satan, since everybody thinks he's the strongest in the world (in reality Videl's stronger of course, but this is a big secret and not even she realizes it). He presumably just means she's in the same league.

In general there's nothing wrong with translating hitteki as "equal to", bit it's not such a precise term that it means Raditz's BP must be exactly 1,200 and not one bit higher or lower. That's how DB fans tend to take it, but that's more a fault with them than the translation.

All this of course doesn't prove Raditz's BP is 1,500. You could say it's 1,250 or even 1,205 and still be in line with Toriyama "the Saibaimen are slightly weaker" comment. But 1,500 is the BP number given to him in...well, just about every official product that gives his BP ever. Jump issues, guidebooks, video games, even the color manga now. The only things that give his BP as 1,200 that I can think of offhand are a) DBZ Sagas (which also uses the 12/15 million figures for Freeza/SSj Goku), and b) the Game Boy game Goku's Soaring Legend...which, somewhat hilariously, has the Saibaimen themselves as 3,000 each.

[rereboy]

I don't really have a problem with Raditz being 1.500, even though a slightly lower number would be better considering how baby Gohan's blow hurt him that badly. However, I do have a problem with the baseless placement of Yamcha as inferior to Raditz's power of 1500, for the reasons I've already explained, even if its by only a little. Should be ahead of Raditz, even if its only a little.

[Saiga]

I really find it rather unlikely that the battle power numbers published in Jump during the Vegeta/Goku battle would just be flat out wrong, and that's what lists Yamcha as being 20 points inferior to Raditz. Given the timing, it'd just be bizarre if those weren't accurate and still were published.

[rereboy]

I really find it rather unlikely that the battle power numbers published in Jump during the Vegeta/Goku battle would just be flat out wrong, and that's what lists Yamcha as being 20 points inferior to Raditz. Given the timing, it'd just be bizarre if those weren't accurate and still were published.

Really? I think its pretty obvious that they aren't that accurate. They list Nappa as 4000 and Piccolo as 3500, despite the fact that Nappa was shown to be overwhelmingly more powerful than Piccolo, despite the fact that Nappa knocked out temporarily Piccolo with just an elbow blow (and this was the first hit that Piccolo received in the battle in the manga), and despite the fact that Gohan's rage boost attack after Piccolo died was nowhere near as high as 3500 (and Gohan's rage boost attacks are always listed as more powerful than Piccolo, or at least as a comparable power to Piccolo, as we see agaisnt Raditz, against Freeza's third form and agaisnt Cell, so there's no reason at all for this rage boost attack motivated by the death of his teacher to not put Gohan also above Piccolo's power or at least a comparable power to Piccolo).

That alone should make you wonder just was their train of thought when they came up with these numbers. Even considering that the Freeza and Cell saga hadn't happened yet, it still doesn't make much sense.

Add to that that there is absolutely no basis at all to put Raditz above Yamcha, since the manga states that the Saibamen are at the same level as Raditz and Yamcha proves his superiority compared to them by beating one up in just a few seconds without taking a hit (and was only killed by a kamikaze self-destruct attack because he got over-confident and let his guard down), and you also start to wonder just why they chose to put Yamcha below Raditz.

I'm not under any sort of illusion when it comes to the guides and the people who make these guides. Most of the information isn't run by Toriyama and even if it was, he would probably just say "fine, whatever, sounds good" because that's just seems to be the kind of author that he is. And that's without even mentioning that everyone is fallible, even people who put much more thought into these kind of things than Toriyama and the people who make these guides.

So, with all this combined, I simply reach the inevitable conclusion to not put much faith in the guides when what I see in the manga seems to state or imply something other than what the guides say. Such is the case with Yamcha's power placement compared to Raditz.

[Saiga]

3,500 and 4,000 are fine. Nappa knocks out Piccolo with an elbow to the goddamn skull - and his elbow is almost as big as Piccolo's head. It's surprising he even survived that hit. Other than that, Nappa doesn't show anything that can be directly compared to Piccolo except that he's hurt by all of Piccolo's attacks.

Gohan not reaching Piccolo's level is also fine, Piccolo's comment about Gohan being stronger than him when he puts his mind to it shouldn't mean "no matter the circumstances, no matter what point in time, any time you are angry you are > me". Gohan's rage boosts exceding Piccolo at other times doesn't mean they always would, since they are completely unpredictable.

These aren't numbers from a "guide". They're an extra spread in the same issue of Jump as the Goku vs Vegeta beam struggle. I find it really hard to believe they'd go and put that in there without consulting Toriyama at all, and given that he was creating battle powers for the manga as he was writing it, I think it's likely they had actually come from him. This isn't a guide produced years later, it's nothing like that. These are numbers published during the Saiyan arc's run in the same chapters penned by Toriyama. It'd be a huge failure on the SJ editor's part to not run that by Toriyama and if they're so damn inaccurate I don't see why he'd just go "whatever" towards them.

If he produced memos for the anime which he didn't even watch regularly, including new concepts for stories and one clarifying something battle powers related, why do you think he's so disinterested in assisting the magazine that he's actually published in?

It feels more like you've reached the conclusion "I don't like it, so Toriyama wasn't involved".

It's already been pointed out how what Nappa says doesn't really put the Saibaimen in the same class of power as Raditz, and even then Nappa clearly implies inferiority to Raditz by saying "going on power alone". There's no real implication that Yamcha has surpassed Raditz, and plenty of room for him to be weaker. Heck, it'd even be possible for the thing other than power than separates Raditz from the Saibaiman is the same thing Yamcha had over them.

[DBZAOTA482]

I'm behind the idea of Chi-Chi being a Z-Warrior 100%. Not only would It actually do her relationship with Goku a lot of justice, so maybe then people would stop giving whatever stupid reason for how Chi-Chi doesn't love Goku or vice-versa but she'd be a somewhat valuable asset (both literally and figuratively) to the team. She'd be much stronger than that good-for-nothing Chaozu and on par with Yamcha.

The question is how she would get involved?

[rereboy]

It feels more like you've reached the conclusion "I don't like it, so Toriyama wasn't involved".

Not at all. All the information we have regarding the author's involvement in this stuff points to him not being very involved at all, and what I said about the author's way of being regarding this kind of stuff is evident in his work and all the information we have on him and this kind of stuff.

But, like I said, even if it wasn't the case, people aren't infallible, so, it wouldn't mean that there wouldn't be mistakes or that there wouldn't be stuff that could be more accurate or better thought of.

Its not a matter of me not liking it, its a matter of me thinking that, going by the manga, it doesn't seem to fit as well as other alternatives.

It's ok if you don't agree with me, but I would appreciate it if you actually didn't make me sound like someone who hasn't built his opinion on real information and logical reasoning. I presented good arguments for everything I said, so please don't make me look inferior to that.

Ok? Good.

It's already been pointed out how what Nappa says doesn't really put the Saibaimen in the same class of power as Raditz, and even then Nappa clearly implies inferiority to Raditz by saying "going on power alone". There's no real implication that Yamcha has surpassed Raditz, and plenty of room for him to be weaker. Heck, it'd even be possible for the thing other than power than separates Raditz from the Saibaiman is the same thing Yamcha had over them.

As Herms said, the expression used generally means around the same level or in the same league, so yeah, unlike what you are trying to argue right now, Nappa says just that. And I agree that Raditz should be somewhat superior to the Saibamen given what Toriyama said about him, but I think there's no basis to put Yamcha below Raditz. There's absolutely no indication for that and there's actually some indication on the contrary, since Yamcha beat his opponent up without taking a hit and in just a few seconds, the same one stated to be in the same league or class as Raditz. So, I think that it would be better to have Yamcha above Raditz, even if its just a little bit, since there's more of a basis for that than the other way around.

To me, its a clear case of an alternative fitting better with the manga than what they chose to put in the guide.

Don't agree? Fine, its all good, but, like always, I've used logical arguments for my opinion.

As for the rest of your post, I think that what I've already said is enough to support and explain my opinion and no significant further developments are necessary.

I'll just add that to me it doesn't make sense that Nappa at 4000 can trade blows with Goku who is over 8000 (including keeping up with his speed and tanking hits from him), and Piccolo at 3500, just 500 below Nappa, can be knocked out by a single elbow hit from Nappa (the first hit he received on the battle in fact). If it does to you, fine, I'll just disagree. But even if we can make sense out of it, its not hard at all to think of alternatives that fit better.

[caejones]

I seem to remember the battle power readings during the Saibamen "tournament" being used specifically to point out that the readings were unreliable (I'd say Vegeta's skepticism in the system was sealed when he crushed his scouter). So far as I can tell, Yamcha beat a Saibaman, which puts him close enough to the neighborhood of Raditz that Toriyama only knows what would happen if the two long-haired first-kills went head to head. (But I'd be tempted to give it to Yamcha, just because of Raditz's reliance on his scouter, unless he managed to somehow get over that by the time of their hypothetical fight.)

(Side comment: I don't think they believed Chaozu would be useless on the grounds of his strength. His telekinesis and telepathy seem like they would be nice assets, and they never really had a powerhouse like Nappa to test the limits against. I imagine the plan was to have Chaozu paralyze Nappa while T'en pounded on him, but that just plain failed.)

[Kid Buu]

Is it ever stated Chichi stopped training?

[FoolsGil]

Is it ever stated Chichi stopped training?

Nope. In the anime at least, it was even stated that she was the one who taught Goten how the fight.

[Tyro]

Is it ever stated Chichi stopped training?

Nope. In the anime at least, it was even stated that she was the one who taught Goten how the fight.

It's the same with the manga.

[Rocketman]

Given that we know MOUNTAIN TRAINING is incredibly effective no matter what, and ChiChi has been training for 20-30 years straight, obviously ChiChi>SS4 Goku.

[MediaFanGirl93]

I hate how she stopped fighting in DBZ in favor of being a housewife/school mom. I would have loved to see more action from her.

[soulnova]

You know, I think it'd be pretty cool to see the Son family fight Vegeta together. The Mother, Father, son trio vs the Prince of all Saiyans.

lol
For that matter, wasn't Chi-Chi kind of a "princess" too? Making Goku also a Prince...?

In any case, yes, I would have liked her to keep a more active role on the fights. I'm not saying she would have beaten anyone but at least give basic training to Gohan. We know she managed to get Goten almost up to par with Trunks before Gohan took over his training, so that's something...?

[dbzfan7]

Given that we know MOUNTAIN TRAINING is incredibly effective no matter what, and ChiChi has been training for 20-30 years straight, obviously ChiChi>SS4 Goku.

Yamcha then OHKO's her as he did before.

[Kid Buu]

Given that we know MOUNTAIN TRAINING is incredibly effective no matter what, and ChiChi has been training for 20-30 years straight, obviously ChiChi>SS4 Goku.

Yamcha then OHKO's her as he did before.

Without Chichi no one makes dinner for Goku and he becomes hungry, then hungry Goku jobs to Yamcha too.

[Zantetsuken]

The Saibaimen have power that rivals Raditz, not that's exactly equal to him, and Toriyama himself has written that they're somewhat weaker than him. Yamcha has almost exactly the same power as Raditz when he pwns a Saibaiman one-on-one.

Yamcha: 1480
Raditz: 1500
Saibaimen: ~1200

Between him and Kaikashi, I don't know why you guys even bother responding.

[Draken]

I have no problem with Yamcha being slightly weaker than Raditz but still able to beat the Saibaman effortlessly. It comes down to superior skill and training to me, and Raditz, as we all know, had pretty much 0 training while Yamcha, despite being the Yamcha he is, actually has pretty good martial arts training and skill.