Should Toriyama have introduced SSJ?

[Captain Strawberry]

Sometimes I kinda wish Toriyama never introduce this concept because characters like Tien getting left behind. Because of the gap created, it makes the writer just focus even more on the main character thus less characters get less focus.

And other reasons but what do you think?

[Zephyr]

If Toriyama wanted to keep Tenshinhan "relevant", he would have, Super Saiyan or not.

[Grimlock]

Lots of Super Saiyan transformations shouldn't have been introduced to begin with, but that's not what could solve the problem. What could solve it is giving humans Kaio-Ken and/or Potential Unleashed and to Piccolo a Namekuseijin (unique) transformation.

[Cipher]

I like the visual iconography and what it does for Goku's character arc.

As Zephyr said, if he wanted to continue making space for all the other fighting characters in the action, he would have found a way, presence of Super Saiyan or not.

[Beek King]

I don't think it's a bad concept at all, it should have just never been a ludicrous multiplier like x50. But for that the earlier Kaio-Ken can be blamed.

[precita]

The humans remained relevant at least until the end of the Cell arc. It was really only until Buu where the humans were left out, as Krillin wasn't involved in any of the major story arcs, Yamcha "retired" from fighting, and Tienshinhan was absent for almost the entire arc.

[sintzu]

Toriyama just didn't want to use him anymore, it had nothing to do with Ssj.

The humans didn't get to do anything that major during DB where they were close to Goku's level so them being pushed aside started long before Goku reached Ssj.

[FoolsGil]

It's a shonen concept. The entire genre is about getting bigger and badder each arc, transformations are the way to do that. I mean, even One Piece pushed technique and true grit as far as possible until Luffy had to create 2nd and 3rd Gear.

so yes, Toriyama should have introduced SSJ. It could have been dealt with better, but it was the right call.

[TheGreatness25]

Super Saiyan was never the problem. There was always a way to make the humans stronger and stay on-par with the Saiyans. Back in Dragon Ball, Goku drank the Sacred and Holy waters, etc. and that didn't stop Tenshinhan nor Piccolo from still keeping up with him. The same way that there was a Super Saiyan power-up, there could have been one for humans as well. I'm not saying "Super Human," but there are Ki unlocking techniques that they could have mastered. Kind of like Kaio-ken, but more creative.

I don't think the problem is Super Saiyans; I think the problem is a lack of creativity for -- or lack of interest in -- writing for the human characters.

[Zeru14]

Lots of Super Saiyan transformations shouldn't have been introduced to begin with, but that's not what could solve the problem. What could solve it is giving humans Kaio-Ken and/or Potential Unleashed and to Piccolo a Namekuseijin (unique) transformation.

Kaioken not being learned by anyone else, has always bothered me, because Toriyama never gave an in story reason for it(Kishimoto writer of Naruto always explained why certain characters learned things while others didn't, especially if they studied under the same master). He also kinda wrote himself into a corner with the Unlock Potential used by Old Kai, as again no reason is given for why no one but Gohan went through it. Oh and the Namekians do have their own transformation, the unnamed Red-Eye form, that first appeared in Dragonball Online and brought back a few years later in Dragonball Heroes, it is best described as the Namekian version of SSJ, so Piccolo getting it in Super would've been great.

[AloversGaming]

No. I hate that Kaio-Ken and SSJ exist. It means every enemy has to be millions of times stronger than base Goku for a good fight, which puts everyone that can't go SSJ or Kaio-Ken or now, SSJ WITH Kaio-Ken in the back sitting on their asses.

Krillin giving Piccolo Jr. a good fight was awesome. You'll never see that against the main villain again.

[TheatreStyleKai]

The real problem with the Super Saiyan transformation, from a story telling POV, is that Toriyama created a sort of transformation arms race. After the Freeza saga, a character who couldn't transform was not going to play any significant role in the story. For this reason it probably would have been best if SSJ hadn't been a thing until near the end of the series, not more-or-less in the first major story arc.

Another idea I've played around with, is maybe Toriyama should have been a little more discerning with whom actually became Super Saiyans. I could imagine a series where Goku is MIA during the events of the Cell saga, and neither Trunks or Vegeta manage to progress to that level. Then instead of Gohan having to become a SSJ2 to fight Cell, he could have just unlocked regular SSJ. Then when the Boo saga came around, you could bring back Goku and have Babidi unlock Vegeta's "SSJ potential" at long last. I think it would have gone a long way in preserving the "specialness" of the form.

[successoroffate]

No SSJ Transformation means less Tien and other humans, they'd be dead by now. Can't be relevant if you're dead.

[Gyt Kaliba]

I don't lay the blame on Super Saiyan specifically, so much as I blame it on the Freeza arc as a whole. I mean, it started off slow enough in terms of power increases, just with people being stronger than Vegeta - you expect that out of villains in an arc following a previous one. But then, the levels to which things increased from there, especially once they hit Freeza himself, were just way too much. I guess it was to grind in the point of just how overwhelmingly strong Freeza is, but as soon as you introduce 'power level one million' to just his second form, and leaving another two even stronger forms after that? It just makes things have to go even more incredibly over the top from there. It's yet another reason why I'm glad power levels were dropped shortly after that (other than them being kind of a cheap way to rank things anyway) - the numbers you'd have to come up with beyond that point would only get more an more ludicrous.

That said though, while the form and the arc it came out of did end up making other characters lag behind way too much, I'd agree that it didn't have to be that way. He could have easily made other characters have similar forms, or just gave them different ways to keep up without transformations. When creating an entirely original story, the sky is the limit to what you can do with it. Sadly, we have what we have though. I'd love to see Super shake things up again, but outside of maybe Gohan and Piccolo, I don't have much hope in regards to the human characters unless we really do get to Oob later on.

Another idea I've played around with, is maybe Toriyama should have been a little more discerning with whom actually became Super Saiyans. I could imagine a series where Goku is MIA during the events of the Cell saga, and neither Trunks or Vegeta manage to progress to that level. Then instead of Gohan having to become a SSJ2 to fight Cell, he could have just unlocked regular SSJ. Then when the Boo saga came around, you could bring back Goku and have Babidi unlock Vegeta's "SSJ potential" at long last. I think it would have gone a long way in preserving the "specialness" of the form.

That definitely could have been an interesting way to do things. I'd love to see a more fully fleshed out idea of how the story would have played out under these conditions.

[TheZFighter]

I have no issue with the "Super Saiyan" concept but it has got a bit out of control. I'm embarrassed to say the names of the forms out loud.

[Kunzait_83]

It's a shonen concept. The entire genre is about getting bigger and badder each arc, transformations are the way to do that. I mean, even One Piece pushed technique and true grit as far as possible until Luffy had to create 2nd and 3rd Gear.

Shonen is not a genre. Its simply any manga/anime that's marketed at children. City Hunter, Silent Mobius, Area 88, Devilman, and Venus Wars are also all Shonen, and all have about jack shit in common or to do with stuff like DB or OP. For that matter, DB and OP have very little to do with one another either, aside from the latter's author being a raging fanboy of the former.

Shonen is just a target demographic, one that has numerous, countless genres and styles within it that span a vast array of variance (or at least used to anyway at one time long ago).

[Cipher]

The real problem with the Super Saiyan transformation, from a story telling POV, is that Toriyama created a sort of transformation arms race. After the Freeza saga, a character who couldn't transform was not going to play any significant role in the story. For this reason it probably would have been best if SSJ hadn't been a thing until near the end of the series, not more-or-less in the first major story arc.

Super Saiyan arrives well past the halfway point in terms of the series as a whole. The diminishment of non-Saiyan characters isn't really complete until halfway through the Cell arc. And in the Boo arc, Toriyama brings in new techniques to place weaker characters like Goten, Trunks, and eventually Gohan at the fore of the action. There's no reason something similar couldn't have been done for the human characters, but evidently they weren't the ones Toriyama was interested in telling stories about.

Again, I don't think it's the advent of transformations for certain characters that locked the rest of the cast out. The fighters of Dragon Ball had always bridged gaps as needed up to that point (don't look too hard at Piccolo's absurd increase after a week at Kaio's, for example). Toriyama's interests simply shifted, and I don't think he was ever interested in juggling an enormous cast of active fighters, especially when it came to having to write, and draw, each of them into the action. There are only ever about five or so foregrounded fighters per arc; often fewer. That goes back to the first half of the manga, where neither Tenshinhan nor Yamcha see any real action in the Piccolo Daimao arc. It took the structure of a tournament to give each of them a fight.

[Lord Beerus]

Super Saiyan was never really the major problem to begin with. I'd say introducing Freeza with a BP of over half a million in his first form was what really screwed the pooch. Toriyama still could have found interesting ways in keeping the human cast of characters, such a Tien, relevant to the story beyond being fodder, but chose not to because... well...he just wasn't interested in him anymore.

[TheKingOfKamehamehas]

Another idea I've played around with, is maybe Toriyama should have been a little more discerning with whom actually became Super Saiyans. I could imagine a series where Goku is MIA during the events of the Cell saga, and neither Trunks or Vegeta manage to progress to that level. Then instead of Gohan having to become a SSJ2 to fight Cell, he could have just unlocked regular SSJ. Then when the Boo saga came around, you could bring back Goku and have Babidi unlock Vegeta's "SSJ potential" at long last. I think it would have gone a long way in preserving the "specialness" of the form.

This. This is what should have happened in my opinion. The problem is with Goten and Trunks turning Super Saiyan in canon without any big event happening and fitting into this. In my dream, they would never easily attain it. I guess a situation in which Goten could turn into an SSJ is when he finds out that Super Buu killed Chi Chi, but I don't know about Trunks turning Super Saiyan.

[Vijay]

While DB is undeniably impressive show (for its age) SSJ concept is what skyrocketed its popularity & fandom imo

Without SSJ, I get that most DB casts wouldve had larger role to play, but that"ll just be like Bleach (over 2000 main, side, gag hell even one shot characters) or One Piece, Fairy Tail, HXH etc

SSJ while DID cause Human characters to be "useless as f $##" it provided some of the greatest moments to ever grace cartoon/anime industry

In short, NO SSJ means NO FRIEZA, NO CELL & NO BUU SAGA

In short, we wouldnt have had the chance to witness some of the darkest story arcs of DB apart frm Red Ribbon Army & Piccolo Daimou Arc