Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[Koitsukai]

Yeah, nah. Who's to say Gohan was Ultimate when turning SS for the ritual? before and after going Ultimate his hair is the same. It remains the same when SSG Goku is fighting, too.
Beerus put him to sleep, so the most likely scenario is that he reverted back to his base form by the time the ritual took place, which was way after his fight.
But most importantly, WHY? there was no need for Gohan to summon a greater power when embryo Pan did the trick just fine. Goku wasn't at his strongest either.

If he stacked SS on top of Ultimate for the ritual and NOT against Beerus, then the movie was written by OmariMemes, he would've given Beerus a better fight than Ore No Bulma Vegeta did.
He can use SS while also having his Ultimate form but that's it, we know that from the anime and SH, but he's not blending them together, specially if he NEVER used it in a fight.

Even if it isn't so, it makes more sense for Beast Gohan to be what stacking SS on top of Ultimate form looks like(even if it contradicts what Gohan said about his own route) than stacking it on top of Ultimate for a ritual that doesn't require it, and not in any single fight, ever.

[Grimlock]

Gohan stacks Super Saiyan on top of Ultimate in Battle of Gods, so it's not like he can't do it — it just doesn't realistically increase his power (and probably consumes more energy) because Ultimate is already his strongest state, so it isn't a pragmatic thing to do. The guidebooks corroborate this. He only does it in BoG for the purposes of the ritual.

Oh, we do have guidebooks saying it's possible to use two transformations at the same time? Nice, I didn't know that. May you please post it here?

[QuakingStar]

Except Old Kai never said he couldn't go SS or that it wouldn't make a difference, the japanese text just implies that Gohan was now so strong he didn't need to go SS to beat Super Buu.

We also have Gohans explanation to Kefla in the manga

"オレはサイヤ人としてではなく、1人の人間として進化する道を選んだ / I choose to evolve as my own person." (Lit. "I choose to keep evolving as an individual, not a Saiyan.")

and in the anime to Goku
https://i.imgur.com/e9DlU6c.jpg

Pre Super Heroes, Gohans words clearly imply he can use SS and it would make a difference, but he chooses not to because he wants to find his own path and his own ultimate form. So this implies he CAN use SS on top of PU but for his own reasons he chooses not to, however..

I don't think it would be disimilar to Goku and Vegeta using God-like Saiyan, then stacking Super Saiyan on top to make Super Saiyan Blue. It's possible Gohan may have stacked Super Saiyan on top of Potential Unleashed to make Super Awakening: Beast and since he transformed out of Rage it wouldn't be something he did on purpose so he technically didn't break his own words, though it would also retcon the insinuations that he could have gone SS on top of PU of his own will before Super Heroes.

No matter what, the current thing which is Super Heroes is what should be used, as only new info can retcon old info.

[Kaboom]

Gotta remember that the Battle of Gods movie originally had Gohan only using regular Super Saiyan, and not Ultimate. As seen in the trailer footage versus the final movie, his hair and aura were obviously just recolored at some very late point in production. Which accounts for the apparent "Gohan < Vegeta < Gotenks" power chain at work in the fights against Beerus, so the movie was probably also written from the start with only SS1 Gohan in mind.

Even though they left him as a Super Saiyan for the Super Saiyan God ritual later, it was probably just for the pragmatic purpose of letting him match the other transformed Saiyans, rather than trying to suggest anything about "Super Saiyan on top of Ultimate" and the additional power it may or may not bring. He seemed to be doing that and getting something out of it in GT though, so it's not like there still isn't precedent for it. EDIT: Although in that case, GT still treated Ultimate as just Gohan's new default "base" state like the original manga did, instead of an on/off transformation like a lot of other stuff does.

[QuakingStar]

Gotta remember that the Battle of Gods movie originally had Gohan only using regular Super Saiyan, and not Ultimate. As seen in the trailer footage versus the final movie, his hair and aura were obviously just recolored at some very late point in production. Which accounts for the apparent SS Gohan < SS/2 Vegeta < SS Gotenks power chain at work in the fights against Beerus, so the movie was probably also written from the start with only SS1 Gohan in mind.

Even though they left him as a Super Saiyan for the Super Saiyan God ritual later, it was probably just for the pragmatic purpose of letting him match the other transformed Saiyans, rather than trying to suggest anything about "Super Saiyan on top of Ultimate" and the additional power it may or may not bring. He seemed to be doing that and getting something out of it in GT though, so it's not like there still isn't precedent for it.

GT infact did do that. They treated Potential Unleashed as simply a permanent powerered up base form and he indeed stacked SS on top.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

Still, current materials outright state and show that Super Saiyan and Ultimate are separate states that, as far as we can tell, cannot stack on top of each other. Either Gohan accesses some of his potential via Super Saiyan, or all of it (aside from Beast Mode) with Ultimate.

[EDIT]:
Also, I don't think past context supports the notion of "stacking the 2 powers" as much as some say it does. Retroactively, we know that Ultimate is something Gohan can lose access to and is strictly superior to and separate from his Super Saiyan forms, and he's never shown to be able to stack them in current canon continuity.

Whenever the 2 come up together in dialogue, it's in reference to Ultimate being better than using Super Saiyan. From my read of things, it comes across as basically saying that there's no point to turning Super Saiyan since Ultimate is the better power-up and you'd only be downgrading trying to use Super Saiyan instead.

[Mr Baggins]

Who's to say Gohan was Ultimate when turning SS for the ritual?

Battle of Gods uses the manga's semi-permanent approach to Ultimate (I say "semi" because Resurrection 'F' establishes that he'll lose it over time if he gets rusty); he's always in that state and doesn't need to "power up" into it to fight. There's even a visual cue in the fully-outlined eyes, and he goes straight to Super Saiyan from that in the film and in Super.

As Kaboom said, the purpose of "stacking" SS on top was for the ritual, which aligns with Daizenshuu 2 and 10's implication that Ultimate Gohan can use Super Saiyan if he wants. There's just no reason for him to do so because Ultimate/PU, as its name implies, is the height of his potential and power. Super Saiyan is pointless to use in a fight, wouldn't add anything to his strength and would put strain on his body, which is suggested in Daizenshuu 10.

Materials absolutely indicate that he can use both forms concurrently, even if it's totally impractical.

[Koitsukai]

Who's to say Gohan was Ultimate when turning SS for the ritual?

Battle of Gods uses the manga's semi-permanent approach to Ultimate (I say "semi" because Resurrection 'F' establishes that he'll lose it over time if he gets rusty); he's always in that state and doesn't need to "power up" into it to fight. There's even a visual cue in the fully-outlined eyes, and he goes straight to Super Saiyan from that in the film and in Super.

As Kaboom said, the purpose of "stacking" SS on top was for the ritual, which aligns with Daizenshuu 2's statement that Ultimate Gohan can use Super Saiyan if he wants. There's just no reason for him to do so because Ultimate/PU, as its name implies, is the height of his potential and power. Super Saiyan is pointless to use in a fight and wouldn't add anything to his strength.

Then he's not stacking anything, he's just using SS, just like I enter 2nd gear even though I have 3rd, 4th and 5th gear available. It's not 2nd gear on top of 5th gear, it's just 2nd gear. When it matters he uses 5th gear, and can use the lower gears for other purposes, we all agree there.

And he does power up to fight Beerus.

[Mr Baggins]

Then he's not stacking anything, he's just using SS

My man, you're not saying anything I didn't already address in the post you replied to.

Ultimate Gohan, at least in BoG, is a permanent base form. The only time we see him transforming there is Gohan powering up for the ritual, and then he goes back down into his base (which is still Ultimate) afterwards. I say "powering up" because that's what the visuals indicate, but he isn't literally getting stronger. The guidebooks also imply all of this, so it isn't some new thing exclusive to the movie.

If we're bringing Super Hero into this, it just further reinforces that there's a marked difference in the eyes between a non-Ultimate base and Ultimate itself, just like Resurrection 'F' before it... meaning that BoG Gohan was always in his Ultimate state.

He's not stacking the power (because he can't), but that doesn't mean he literally can't use the form on top of it. Why is that impossible? Ultimate Gohan is just base Gohan but with all his potential unleashed.

[Grimlock]

You're absolutely right! Maybe Gohan just like to scream and the aura is there for aesthetic purposes.

Although in that case, GT still treated Ultimate as just Gohan's new default "base" state like the original manga did, instead of an on/off transformation like a lot of other stuff does.

Assuming that's true, it would be a bit weird considering it was Toei that first started treating Ultimate as a transformation in Movie 13. Makes one wonder why they would "go back to" treat it as a permanent state just a couple of years later.

But I may be missing guidebooks information, do we know anything about Ultimate Gohan in Dragon Ball GT? Do those "Perfect Files" state anything related to it?

[Koitsukai]

Then he's not stacking anything, he's just using SS

My man, you're not saying anything I didn't already address in the post you replied to.

Ultimate Gohan, at least in BoG, is a permanent base form. The only time we see him transforming there is Gohan powering up for the ritual, and then he goes back down into his base (which is still Ultimate) afterwards. I say "powering up" because that's what the visuals indicate, but he isn't literally getting stronger. The guidebooks also imply all of this, so it isn't some new thing exclusive to the movie.

If we're bringing Super Hero into this, it just further reinforces that there's a marked difference in the eyes between a non-Ultimate base and Ultimate itself, just like Resurrection 'F' before it.

He's not stacking the power (because he can't), but that doesn't mean he literally can't use the form. Ultimate Gohan is nothing more than base Gohan but with all his potential unleashed.

I guess we got caught up in semantics, however I don't think anybody here was saying that Gohan couldn't access SS anymore. He only gets a small percentage of his full power, as a SS, like another poster proposed, or worse, remains as strong but loses stamina, etc., literally being counterproductive.
Which is the exact opposite of what the other poster was saying: that Gohan goes Ultimate (at its fullest) and then can go SS on top of his full power(as in 700x boost or whatever his potential unlock is, and then another boost from SS).

We all know what Ultimate is for Gohan, but he still needs to "pawa appu" to get there, told by Ro Kaio Shin himself, and shown before fighting Beerus.

You're absolutely right! Maybe Gohan just like to scream and the aura is there for aesthetic purposes.

Although in that case, GT still treated Ultimate as just Gohan's new default "base" state like the original manga did, instead of an on/off transformation like a lot of other stuff does.

Assuming that's true, it would be a bit weird considering it was Toei that first started treating Ultimate as a transformation in Movie 13. Makes one wonder why they would "go back to" treat it as a permanent state just a couple of years later.

It also goes against the writers saying Gohan had lost his fighting edge, yada, yada, yada, and had become a scholar. Meaning he no longer sported that Ultimate base form, so the SS on top of Ultimate in GT sounds more like a fan desire.

https://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations ... -story-qa/

For instance, in Gohan’s case, there was apparently so much as an “Ultimate Gohan” concept in Dragon Ball Z, where he was a super-warrior with might surpassing Goku, but in GT, he’s a scholar who’s given up fighting almost entirely. But for someone who had given up fighting like that to return to the front lines, I thought that naturally there needed to be quite a bit of drama involved.

[Kaboom]

Assuming that's true, it would be a bit weird considering it was Toei that first started treating Ultimate as a transformation in Movie 13. Makes one wonder why they would "go back to" treat it as a permanent state just a couple of years later.

Taking a quick glance at the premiere dates... Movie 13 (July '95) would have been written and in production well before the last few "10 years later" chapters of the manga (May '95). So GT's treatment of Ultimate Gohan, where it's just his new normal that he now casually lives in, was probably inspired by those last few chapters where he was doing the same thing. Movie 13's production wouldn't have that to work from yet.

It also goes against the writers saying Gohan had lost his fighting edge, yada, yada, yada, and had become a scholar. Meaning he no longer sported that Ultimate base form, so the SS on top of Ultimate in GT sounds more like a fan desire.

There's also a GT-related tidbit somewhere (Perfect Files?) indicating that Gohan had actually kept up his training prior to GT, which might explain his apparent ability to go Super Saiyan on top of Ultimate and actually gain power from it now. But that doesn't necessarily mean he can't still also "lose his fighting edge" at the same time. Training simply for strength maintenance/improvement during a long stretch of peace-time without any big crises could very well do that.

[Mr Baggins]

We all know what Ultimate is for Gohan, but he still needs to "pawa appu" to get there, told by Ro Kaio Shin himself, and shown before fighting Beerus.

I've always interpreted the Beerus scene as Gohan accessing his full power, not being out of Ultimate beforehand. There's a clear visual distinction between base and Ultimate that's been upheld in all the modern films, particularly in the face/eyes.

My position has always been that Gohan can technically "stack" Super Saiyan, but that there's never been a practical reason for him to do so outside of the ritual since it's just extra strain and doesn't really boost his strength. Not counting GT, obviously. It's been suggested by various materials before. I honestly wasn't aware this was a topic of debate.

It is all semantics, admittedly.

[QuakingStar]

Now you all are just going back and forth while ignoring the full wall of text others are literally responding to you with.

Nowhere was it shown or stated that going SS on top of PU would not make it any stronger, and nowhere was it implied using it with PU would give the "x50" boost either.

Back to what I was saying, AGAIN, Super Heroes shows Gohan having to re-awaken his PU state, becoming Ultimate Gohan again. He gets too low on energy and is stuck using SS, he gets a Senzu bean and bam he can transform back to PU again. This shows that from Super Heroes and going forward until shown otherwise PU for Gohan IS a transformation. This does not apply to before Super Heroes, whereas Gohan didn't want to use SS on top of PU BECAUSE he wanted to evolved as his own person in the manga, and because he wanted to find an Ultimate form of his own by taking a different path than his father in the anime. He never said, nor insinuated, nor was it ever stated that using SS to boost his power while already using PU would not make him stronger, in fact in GT that's what he does and GT was written as s sequel to the Dragon Ball Z anime. This also means that PU is considered a transformation for Piccolo too.

But yet again I must stress, that new info CAN retcon old info and old info CANNOT retcon new info. This means currently as of Super Heroes Potential Unleashed is treated as a transformation that is above the SS forms considering it gives a larger boost than SS3 could even dream of.

[Mr Baggins]

Nowhere was it shown or stated that going SS on top of PU would not make it any stronger

Two things:

1. The Daizenshuu specifically frames the Super Saiyan forms as inferior and strenuous compared to Gohan's Ultimate form. Now, this is just the Daizenshuu, and it doesn't follow what GT does, but neither does Super.
2. The notion that Gohan wasn't using his full power against Beerus and incidentally used a stronger form for Goku's Super Saiyan God ritual is absolutely silly. There's no way they weren't going all-out when the whole planet was at stake.

I don't think anyone disagrees with the idea that Ultimate is currently a transformation as of Super Hero, or at least is treated like one.

[QuakingStar]

Nowhere was it shown or stated that going SS on top of PU would not make it any stronger

Two things:

1. The Daizenshuu specifically frames the Super Saiyan forms as inferior and strenuous compared to Gohan's Ultimate state. Now, this is just the Daizenshuu, and it doesn't follow what GT does, but neither does Super.
2. The notion that Gohan wasn't using his full power against Beerus and incidentally used a stronger form for Goku's Super Saiyan God ritual is absolutely silly. There's no way they weren't going all-out when the whole planet was at stake.

I don't think anyone disagrees with the idea that Ultimate is currently a transformation as of Super Hero, or at least is treated like one.

Gohan-type
This type is also called Ultimate Gohan. While his appearance hasn’t change very much from his normal state, his power surpasses even Super Saiya-jin 2. He’s a Saiya-jin who has achieved a super transformation different from Super Saiya-jin, which puts a large strain on one’s body.

Though it calls it a transformation here, it makes it clear it is a different transformation from Super Saiyan which I bolded.

Same way Super Saiyan God is a different transformation from Super Saiyan which is why they can stack SS on it to become SSB.

For the ritual they had to be pure hearted Saiyans, and they went SS for it also sending the SS power into Goku making it work. Otherwise they didn't have to transform at all and them going SS would have been pointless. We later see Goku in the Galactic Prisoner/Moro arc losing energy while he is Super Saiyan Blue due to Moro taking energy from him, and as he does he goes from Blue, to God, to SS3 and so forth showing that although SSGod is separate from SS it is still connected to the transformation pretty much the same way Potential Unleashed is. We also see Goku always either going straight to SSGod, or going either SS or SS2 first then powering up into SSGod.

[Koitsukai]

There's also a GT-related tidbit somewhere (Perfect Files?) indicating that Gohan had actually kept up his training prior to GT, which might explain his apparent ability to go Super Saiyan on top of Ultimate and actually gain power from it now. But that doesn't necessarily mean he can't still also "lose his fighting edge" at the same time. Training simply for strength maintenance/improvement during a long stretch of peace-time without any big crises could very well do that.

That's certainly a valid interpretation, but I'll side with the writer over guidebooks and take it at face value: rusty scholar raising a family, wears a suit and has only access to SS2(he's only seen fighting with black hair against Rildo and shooting a KHH to Super 17, anyway), eventually amounts to nothing. So, if it was barely doing a thing, and nobody ever talked about it, I'd rather not consider it as a thing.

[Grimlock]

It also goes against the writers saying Gohan had lost his fighting edge, yada, yada, yada, and had become a scholar. Meaning he no longer sported that Ultimate base form, so the SS on top of Ultimate in GT sounds more like a fan desire.

https://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations ... -story-qa/

For instance, in Gohan’s case, there was apparently so much as an “Ultimate Gohan” concept in Dragon Ball Z, where he was a super-warrior with might surpassing Goku, but in GT, he’s a scholar who’s given up fighting almost entirely. But for someone who had given up fighting like that to return to the front lines, I thought that naturally there needed to be quite a bit of drama involved.

There's also a GT-related tidbit somewhere (Perfect Files?) indicating that Gohan had actually kept up his training prior to GT, which might explain his apparent ability to go Super Saiyan on top of Ultimate and actually gain power from it now. But that doesn't necessarily mean he can't still also "lose his fighting edge" at the same time. Training simply for strength maintenance/improvement during a long stretch of peace-time without any big crises could very well do that.

So we have contradictory statements? It feels like what Koitsukai posted fits the narrative better. I never got the vibe that Gohan kept training while watching Dragon Ball GT. Then why he can transform into Super Saiyan? Because from all the times we saw Gohan slacking off, he never struggled to transform into Super Saiyan. There's him saying "I can transform into Super Saiyan, I think", but then the movie already throws that out of the window by showing he can do it just fine. It's just Ultimate we actually saw him struggling with. I think here you can make a point that there's no reason for me to apply a Dragon Ball Super logic into Dragon Ball GT, but the seven-year gap between Cell saga and Majin Buu saga is still there, and it's there where we learn that if Gohan slacks off, he gets weaker. So my answer would be that it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think Gohan actually lost Ultimate by the time Dragon Ball GT begins.

In fact, I'm gonna add the detail that Dragon Ball GT takes place fifteen years after Majin Buu saga. If what is said in that interview is the one to be taken into consideration, then we are talking about a Gohan that didn't do anything for a decade and a half. To completely lose Ultimate makes sense even without Dragon Ball Super's logic.

Then again, this would only be the case if Ultimate is still a transformation. If it's a permanent state because Toei didn't know about the last manga chapters, then never mind what I'm saying.

[Kaboom]

So we have contradictory statements?

Not necessarily. Like I said, training just for strength and losing your knack for real fights aren't mutually exclusive. We've seen characters before who are VERY strong but are lacking in actual battle skills.

Like Zarbon and Dodoria, for example. In strength terms they outranked all the other Freeza lackeys except for the Ginyu Force, but they spent most of their time picking on weaklings and being Freeza's lap-dogs. As a result they both got their asses kicked by front-line-fighter Vegeta, even though his power advantage over either of them was pretty small.

It could easily be much the same for GT Gohan. Maybe he learned a lesson during the Boo arc, and kept training at least casually during the next 15 years until GT, managing to gain extra power that he could pull out with Super Saiyan on top of his new-normal Ultimate state. But because those 15 years were peaceful (in the original continuity anyway), he could very well have lost some of his practical "fighting edge" by the time the poop started hitting the paddles during GT's story.

[QuakingStar]

So we have contradictory statements?

Not necessarily. Like I said, training just for strength and losing your knack for real fights aren't mutually exclusive. We've seen characters before who are VERY strong but are lacking in actual battle skills.

Like Zarbon and Dodoria, for example. In strength terms they outranked all the other Freeza lackeys except for the Ginyu Force, but they spent most of their time picking on weaklings and being Freeza's lap-dogs. As a result they both got their asses kicked by front-line-fighter Vegeta, even though his power advantage over either of them was pretty small.

It could easily be much the same for GT Gohan. Maybe he learned a lesson during the Boo arc, and kept training at least casually during the next 15 years until GT, managing to gain extra power that he could pull out with Super Saiyan on top of his new-normal Ultimate state. But because those 15 years were peaceful (in the original continuity anyway), he could very well have lost some of his practical "fighting edge" by the time the poop started hitting the paddles during GT's story.

His battle sense did get diminished. He knew Rildo could turn things to metal, he witnessed it and still got hit by it and fought like an absolute amateur. In fact power wise Gohan might have been in an entirely new dimension of power in GT, but compared to his Buu Saga self his battle sense was laughable.