I'm re-reading the Moro arc and there's a lot of strange issues...

[nato25]

I've just finished chapter 50 and a few things are bothering me with what I've reread (for context, I typically read the chapters on viz on release and then reread when I get around to buying the printed books)

1. Why does Moro seem to suddenly gain the power to know a dragon balls location? If he could do this why did it take 3 days to gather 3 balls.

2. In chapter 50 Goku and Vegeta go to fight Moro again and seem surprised that he begins draining their energy. Why? What's changed from last time? They didn't even try to stay in the air or something to stop that from happening.

3. I think this one is more just a personal peeve, Goku is being drained of power he reverts from SSG to SSJ3. Why would this happen? I get the order of power in gokus forms but that's not really how it works or has ever been demonstrated in the past. Seems logical he would revert to base not SSJ3.

So far it's been a fun re read but little issues like this are pretty annoying and hard to overlook.

[batistabus]

1.) I actually think that's one of the coolest moments of the arc. We know that the Dragon Balls emit a certain energy (that's how Bulma tracks them), but we've never seen anyone able to sense that power like ki. Since Moro is an extremely powerful and strange sorcerer, he is able to quickly learn to sense that energy. Because he just thought to attempt this ability, you can imagine several plausible explanations for why it took so long. Maybe Moro's ability to sense them is not that good, maybe it drains him, maybe he's too old and tired to run around, maybe the Namekians moved them around in the meantime, etc.

2.) Just reread that part. Doesn't seem that they're necessarily shocked, just that they were reacting to it happening. They had no strategy to defend against it at that point, but they had no choice but to face Moro anyway.

3.) The DBS manga has showed Goku transforming from SS3 to God multiple times. We know God ki and normal ki are fundamentally different, which is where I imagine your concern comes from. God comes after SS3 because it's stronger, and that's enough of an explanation for me.

[Grimlock]

But we have to be just a little bit more critical than that in this case.

It really doesn't make any sense to go from any regular transformation straight to Super Saiyan God or revert back from Super Saiyan God to the regular ones. Super Saiyan God only "comes after" Super Saiyan 3 in terms of power, yes, but that's it. There is no direct connection between these forms (the only connection would be combining god Ki with Super Saiyan 3... But that doesn't seem to be something they feel like doing it, for some random reason).
Super Saiyan God is a "raw" form, unlike its "successor", it isn't using a Super Saiyan as its basis, so whenever someone loses it, they should revert back to base form.

If only they explain in a decent way how regular Ki and god Ki work in a single body. Like, Goku and Vegeta can "separate" those types of Ki, and whenever they want, they can use regular forms, or tap into god Ki while in those regular forms to upgrade them into god forms. I don't know, something like that.

[Magnificent Ponta]

The Moro arc does leave a bunch of little things open-ended for reader interpretation, but I never thought of that as particularly problematic; the Moro arc, after all, has bigger issues. That said, I found the arc more enjoyable on re-read, so I hope you enjoy yours!

But in any case, to the questions at hand, as I see things:

1. Moro demonstrates a pretty wide spectrum of senses across the arc, including sensing life energy, sensing when others are sensing him, detecting the presence (or rather, absence) of Godly ki, reading latent memories, etc., so it's unsurprising that he should have some mystical sense attuning him to the presence of the Dragon Balls. The explanation as to how this arises might be increased attunement through being around them for some days, but I would say this is more likely thanks to Moro's own rejuvenation. In Chapter 44, we see Moro have a dizzy fit under the strain of detecting Goku's ki sensing and following that up with scanning for life elsewhere, and he notes that he's at his limit here. With the added power of Goku and Vegeta restoring him and him continuing to slowly drain the power of New Namek after this, it would be unsurprising that these abilities might become less taxing, more usable and increasingly subtle and responsive (like any other sense improving and so picking up extra detail, if one were able to reverse the ravages of ageing).

As for why it would still take him 3 days to gather the Dragon Balls - 3 days is not a long time to scour a whole planet to find the Dragon Balls. It took SSj Goku perhaps as long as 7 days, with a Dragon Radar, prior to the Cell Game (the manga isn't more specific than that), and Freeza was on Old Namek for something like a month before he managed to collect all 7 Dragon Balls - and that was with a squad and a set of Scouters helping him find the villages. Particularly if you're relying on vehicular transport like Moro is (and with the Namekians actively trying to thwart him by scattering with the Dragon Balls, on top of that), 3 days seems a reasonable enough pace.

2. I think the surprise is more generally about the dislocation between their prior experience of Moro's drain and what's going on this time around. Previously, Moro's drain was so slow they barely even knew it was happening in Chapter 45, and despite noting how much quicker the drain is in Chapter 48, they still had SSjB up to this point: it's the first time the drain has been so quick that they literally fall straight out of a form in mid-combat, so their momentary surprise before catching on seems a natural enough reaction. Goku immediately tries to stop Moro, but gets fended off by Saganbo, and the pair are swamped by a legion of amped criminals from beginning to end, so that their resistance isn't as effective as they'd like also isn't very surprising.

3. I read this less as a sense of trying to push any logical connection between SSj3 and SSjG specifically - after all, Vegeta falls directly out of SSjG into Base Form, and Goku gets punched out of SSj3 directly into Base Form immediately after losing SSjG - and more a question of what is the strongest form that Goku can access and support with the ki he has on hand. This is supported by the fact that, even after the pair fall into Base Form, they're still capable of activating SSj again and using it almost until they're totally drained (SSj being exceptional as a form that is almost completely natural by this point, and usable even in extremis, as Goku showed us at the Cell Game).

Just about every transformation the main cast can attain (even a stable and relatively non-taxing one like SSjG) seems to have a kind of 'access spend' that needs to be satisfied to use and maintain a form, and this increases as the forms get more ambitious - even when the kind of ki is more important than the size of the ki (as with Goku's Divine Power transformation for Ultra Instinct), a vast amount of ki is also required to access and sustain the form. If you don't have it, or you lose it, you can't use it, and that's as true for the God forms as the normal SSj forms. Goku gets drained beyond his ability to sustain SSjG, and almost immediately blows past his 'access spend' for SSj3 (and SSj2) as well, leaving only SSj as an option. That's how I see it, anyhow.

[Mr Baggins]

In all honesty, there's nothing particularly wrong with the idea of Super Saiyan God being a direct successor to Super Saiyan 3. Several materials have made a case for it at this point, and nothing contradicts it outright.

We don't know exactly how the form is achieved outside of the ritual (the most recent V Jump transformation guide specifically implies Goku/Vegeta used another, second method to obtain it permanently after BoG... maybe they just powered up?), and a separate V Jump guide and anime guide corroborate the idea that they belong to the same line, both with arrows that indicate successive stages and their classification of Super Saiyan God being an actual Super Saiyan form.

In the manga, it's also fairly explicit. Chapter 29 includes dialogue where Goku describes Super Saiyan God as the "next level" after Super Saiyan 3 and calls it the "fourth transformation". Chapter 50, as you say, has Goku unconsciously reverting from God to 3. In several chapters, he'll start out in a lower Super Saiyan form and then skip to God directly from there. Black, at one point, flat-out calls God a stage of Super Saiyan.

The only caveat, from what I can tell, is Super Saiyan Blue; some materials variously describe it as "going Super Saiyan while in Super Saiyan God form" or "a Super Saiyan of a Saiyan with the power of Super Saiyan God". But notice that Super Saiyan 2 was described in a similarly redundant way in the Boo arc (the Super Saiyan after/of Super Saiyan) so even that bit can logically be "worked around" without having to posit SS and SSG as belonging to distinct lines.

[Koitsukai]

I assume saiyans needs to exert themselves in a similar way to activate the god or the blond forms, just like Gohan, to go Ultimate, needed to power up like if he was turning SS. But for the god forms, you need to add more energy or ki or whatever to get it, and without it you might end with the next best thing.

Like flexing in a certain way exposes a couple of muscles, but if the energy required to expose those 2, 3 or 4 muscles is taken away, then you'll only be able to expose just one muscle.

[fleahop]

Moro arc is generally poorly written imo. Has some good ideas but the execution feels sloppy. Your complaints are totally valid and it doesn't help that there's so many cooks in the kitchen that sometimes the product looks completely different depending on who's working on it.

Super Saiyan 3 in general feels like it should've been left behind years ago but here we are needing toys and vidya games. It's the only reason I can think of why it still appears.

[Jinto]

3. I think this one is more just a personal peeve, Goku is being drained of power he reverts from SSG to SSJ3. Why would this happen? I get the order of power in gokus forms but that's not really how it works or has ever been demonstrated in the past. Seems logical he would revert to base not SSJ3.

So far it's been a fun re read but little issues like this are pretty annoying and hard to overlook.

Because Toyo wanted to show that Moro passively drained enough energy to make Goku lose that amount of energy, if he reverted to base that would be too much.
But I understand your concern since god ki and normal ki should be different. What would have been better is if Goku reverted to base then transform to SSJ3.

[Cipher]

1. I love that moment. Just took it as more of Moro's magical capabilities returning to him as he absorbs energy and gets used to being out and about, which is how it's presented.

2. I'd have to go back to those pages, but aren't they anticipating being able to immediately go all out and stop him in Blue, only to be interrupted by the released prisoners and find themselves being drained again? Moro's draining abilities also become faster as he rejuvenates.

3. I could take either approach. Certainly wouldn't have any questions were he to drop down to base, but can also accept reverting to three, if you assume the physical/mental process of maintaining a transformation for him is the same across all of them. If that's the case, having his reserves forcibly dropped down while he's still trying to maintain it could just result in producing the next-strongest form he has.

As others have pointed out, it's also convenient visual shorthand to show that Goku is being drained, but isn't yet so weak he can't use anything but his base form. Having him revert to base, power up to three, then make some comment about not being able to go beyond would accomplish the same result, but with far more page space for ... no reason but satisfying a fixed and pedantic perspective on transformation lore, really.

[nato25]

Thank you everyone, I feel better now haha.

The Moro thing just happened without any comment from himself. I think what's happened is I'm so used to the manga babying us that actual smart writing like that seems strange.

It is true the prisoners come to distract them, but I guess it annoys me goku and vegeta aren't in more of a hurry given they know what's going to happen. They are also only in super saiyan blue for 5 pages before they revert. I guess the way Moro drains energy you can't really tell it's happening.

And I still don't like the revert to ssj3 thing but I guess I can see the reasoning behind it even if I think it's non sensical.

[Mr Baggins]

I assume saiyans needs to exert themselves in a similar way to activate the god or the blond forms, just like Gohan, to go Ultimate, needed to power up like if he was turning SS. But for the god forms, you need to add more energy or ki or whatever to get it, and without it you might end with the next best thing.

This, too, is a good way of looking at it. I suppose the hang-up some people are having is that God uses "god ki", but... nothing (in any version of Super) suggests that regular ki and god ki operate on different reserves. That's rather something a lot of fans seem to have concluded for no reason, and the Moro arc's climax distinctly implies the opposite.

But going back to Goku and Vegeta being able to use Super Saiyan God "on their own", without a ritual; what do they do? They just power up to a level beyond their next-best form, like any successive transformation. That added exertion is what allows them to trigger it. It makes more sense to me that the reverse principle would apply when having their power drained, as opposed to Goku falling directly to his base form.

[GreatSaiyaman123]

As for why it would still take him 3 days to gather the Dragon Balls - 3 days is not a long time to scour a whole planet to find the Dragon Balls. It took SSj Goku perhaps as long as 7 days, with a Dragon Radar, prior to the Cell Game (the manga isn't more specific than that), and Freeza was on Old Namek for something like a month before he managed to collect all 7 Dragon Balls - and that was with a squad and a set of Scouters helping him find the villages. Particularly if you're relying on vehicular transport like Moro is (and with the Namekians actively trying to thwart him by scattering with the Dragon Balls, on top of that), 3 days seems a reasonable enough pace.

I’d think Goku collected all 7 in a day or two since he actually has Shunkan Ido. The anime supports that.

As for Freeza, his goons suggest Freeza had arrived the same week as Vegeta and the Z Fighters, and he already had four Dragon Balls. Moro should’ve gotten those three Dragon Balls within the same day.

Spoiler:

[Magnificent Ponta]

I’d think Goku collected all 7 in a day or two since he actually has Shunkan Ido.

Shunkan Idou requires locking onto a familiar ki signature to work, so this wouldn't necessarily help Goku obtain the Dragon Balls, and like I said, the manga isn't more specific than it happening within 7 days (he definitely scraps his '3 days rest, 3 days training, 3 days rest' plan to chase them, though, as he tells Gohan he doesn't actually need to train and leaves him with Dende for the duration - so, one would expect it takes more than 3 days, though it isn't totally certain). I don't doubt Goku proceeded in a leisurely enough fashion, but he also wasn't chasing people actively trying to stop him.

As for Freeza, his goons suggest Freeza had arrived the same week as Vegeta and the Z Fighters, and he already had four Dragon Balls.

That's an interesting datum I hadn't considered, thanks (I'd mostly been working off the slightly wonky travel times given from Planet Freeza 79 to Namek dotted throughout the arc - Freeza thinks it should take the Ginyus 5 days from Planet Freeza, Goku tells us Freeza's ship is faster than those ships, Freeza left before 18 days had passed from Vegeta's departure from Earth - so, a week into the Earthling departure for Namek - and it seems to take Vegeta and the Earthlings a further 27 days to get to Namek from that point, which would make Freeza's presence seem more like 20+ days).

Even if we assumed that Freeza's ship is only travelling as fast as the other ships and cut his time advantage to just a week, however, that still makes something like 13 days before Freeza gets all 7 balls. Even accounting it as 7 days for 4 balls (before Freeza gets actively thwarted) as opposed to 3 days for all 7, Moro still seems to come out of this pretty favourably by comparison.

[BWri]

I've just finished chapter 50 and a few things are bothering me with what I've reread (for context, I typically read the chapters on viz on release and then reread when I get around to buying the printed books)

1. Why does Moro seem to suddenly gain the power to know a dragon balls location? If he could do this why did it take 3 days to gather 3 balls.

This was a big complaint for me too at the time. It's like he only got active again when Goku and Vegeta woke up and got active. So I think it comes off as lazy on the writer's part. I still wonder why Toyotaro would put them to sleep for 3 days just to have nothing happen while they were asleep.

[Magnificent Ponta]

I've just finished chapter 50 and a few things are bothering me with what I've reread (for context, I typically read the chapters on viz on release and then reread when I get around to buying the printed books)

1. Why does Moro seem to suddenly gain the power to know a dragon balls location? If he could do this why did it take 3 days to gather 3 balls.

This was a big complaint for me too at the time. It's like he only got active again when Goku and Vegeta woke up and got active. So I think it comes off as lazy on the writer's part. I still wonder why Toyotaro would put them to sleep for 3 days just to have nothing happen while they were asleep.

Moro gathered 3 of the Dragon Balls while Goku and Vegeta were convalescing (he had none when he defeated them, as he'd literally only just landed when they challenged him), and attacked another village for the fourth immediately as they regained consciousness - and this was before he became able to detect the Dragon Balls himself (gathering the final 3 the same day - as an aside, thinking about it, that's a point that probably hasn't been made firmly enough so far in this topic: once Moro's sense for the Dragon Balls comes to him, he actually does acquire the remaining ones more-or-less immediately despite the Namekian attempts to scatter with/hide them).

Sure, he's not shown gathering them while Goku and Vegeta sleep, but that really isn't necessary, as it's all explained clearly enough for us. I wouldn't call getting halfway to your key goal being 'inactive'.

[nato25]

The wierd thing is, sure he couldn't sense the dragon balls directly until he could, but the writing makes it seem like he basically can do that by tracking down the villages where the namekian congregate.

So then the only hard part is finding the actual ball within the village, and the villages seem very small. Doesn't seem like Moro helps though, makes cranberry do all the work. I guess it can understand it taking so long if he has to thoroughly scour each building and the namekian weren't helping.

[BWri]

The wierd thing is, sure he couldn't sense the dragon balls directly until he could, but the writing makes it seem like he basically can do that by tracking down the villages where the namekian congregate.

This is pretty much how I saw it.

So then the only hard part is finding the actual ball within the village, and the villages seem very small. Doesn't seem like Moro helps though, makes cranberry do all the work. I guess it can understand it taking so long if he has to thoroughly scour each building and the namekian weren't helping.

I never saw it that way but this makes more sense. I was thinking that Moro was actually looking and assumed that he'd be much faster than Frieza's soldiers because he's, you know, god tier. But him being lazy and forcing Cranberry into doing all the work fits with what we've seen of him.

Sure, he's not shown gathering them while Goku and Vegeta sleep, but that really isn't necessary, as it's all explained clearly enough for us. I wouldn't call getting halfway to your key goal being 'inactive'.

That's fair. But someone with Moro's power, a being who can get to any destination on the planet within seconds, sacking 1 village a day might as well be called inactive. For him to move at such a glacial pace without explanation can only be attributed to the plotting. Nothing was ever said about the Namekians moving or hiding Dragon Balls, only that they failed to protect them (though we do see 1 Namekian running away with a DB). So all Moro has to do is fly to each village and interrogate the Namekians just like Frieza's crew, only he's almost infinitely more powerful.

[Magnificent Ponta]

For him to move at such a glacial pace without explanation can only be attributed to the plotting.

Possibly - on the 'plotting' side, there does need to be a credible amount of time for Merus and Irico to get from Galactic Patrol HQ to New Namek - but then again, I don't recall there being a statement prior to Goku and Vegeta teleporting to Namek that would indicate the length of time, so unless it's there and I missed it, I guess that would just be a choice unconnected to anything much else.

But I'd also suggest that it's likely that Moro's initial movements, like much else, are meant to crib from those of his key character inspiration, Piccolo Daimao: they both get driven around in a vehicle (the airship/the spacecraft) owned and piloted by a pathetic villain stooge making another appearance from earlier in the series (Pilaf/Cranberry), proceeding at a fairly leisurely pace even though they have technology that lets them know pretty well where they ought to be going (Pilaf's Radar/Cranberry's Scouter) and power enough to capitalise on it if they really wanted to - I think Piccolo Daimao acquires only about one Dragon Ball a day, too (2 in 2 days before Roshi contrives to hand him the other 5). Though I'm not suggesting the specific rate of acquisition is meant to line up between Piccolo/Moro, I think in a general sense the approach Moro takes is meant to evoke the approach Piccolo Daimao takes (immediately before his Dragon Ball hunt really gets going, he also does the very Piccolo Daimao-like thing of leaving the main hero for dead after inflicting a crushing defeat, and he demonstrates his Piccolo-eqsue-ness lots more times after this).

It makes Moro's progress a bit more leisurely than perhaps it strictly should be, but since he's totally self-assured that no-one can really stop him from attaining his goals (again, like Piccolo), I don't find it too jarring that he isn't exactly speed-running it, and it gives us as readers a little extra about him in turn, not least because it lets us see his approach to shaking down the fourth village for their ball and laboriously torturing them all one after the other in an (unsuccessful) attempt to overcome their collective stubbornness and get them to reveal its location. Presumably he did something similar for the other three (who were no doubt all similarly stubborn).

[Xeogran]

My issue with Moro arc is at the very end when Planet Moro starts absorbing energy of everyone who is on the ground, but a few pages later Toyotaro forgets it and never explains it. Characters like Goten, Trunks and Uub were unaffected despite not flying.

[BWri]

For him to move at such a glacial pace without explanation can only be attributed to the plotting.

Possibly - on the 'plotting' side, there does need to be a credible amount of time for Merus and Irico to get from Galactic Patrol HQ to New Namek - but then again, I don't recall there being a statement prior to Goku and Vegeta teleporting to Namek that would indicate the length of time, so unless it's there and I missed it, I guess that would just be a choice unconnected to anything much else.

But I'd also suggest that it's likely that Moro's initial movements, like much else, are meant to crib from those of his key character inspiration, Piccolo Daimao: they both get driven around in a vehicle (the airship/the spacecraft) owned and piloted by a pathetic villain stooge making another appearance from earlier in the series (Pilaf/Cranberry), proceeding at a fairly leisurely pace even though they have technology that lets them know pretty well where they ought to be going (Pilaf's Radar/Cranberry's Scouter) and power enough to capitalise on it if they really wanted to - I think Piccolo Daimao acquires only about one Dragon Ball a day, too (2 in 2 days before Roshi contrives to hand him the other 5). Though I'm not suggesting the specific rate of acquisition is meant to line up between Piccolo/Moro, I think in a general sense the approach Moro takes is meant to evoke the approach Piccolo Daimao takes (immediately before his Dragon Ball hunt really gets going, he also does the very Piccolo Daimao-like thing of leaving the main hero for dead after inflicting a crushing defeat, and he demonstrates his Piccolo-eqsue-ness lots more times after this).

It makes Moro's progress a bit more leisurely than perhaps it strictly should be, but since he's totally self-assured that no-one can really stop him from attaining his goals (again, like Piccolo), I don't find it too jarring that he isn't exactly speed-running it, and it gives us as readers a little extra about him in turn, not least because it lets us see his approach to shaking down the fourth village for their ball and laboriously torturing them all one after the other in an (unsuccessful) attempt to overcome their collective stubbornness and get them to reveal its location. Presumably he did something similar for the other three (who were no doubt all similarly stubborn).

Nice comparison. I think my main issue is the timing of it. It's all a little too convenient for the plot. As one of my main gripes was the seeming contridictory nature of keeping Goku and Vegeta sleep for 3 days then having Moro get super productive (by acquiring Dragon Radar sense) as soon as they wake up. I hadn't considered that Toyotaro might have been setting up for the appearance of the Galactic Patrol. The explanations that you and others have given does make me see this scenario as more credible ... well, I see it as less egregious than I did previously.