Buu's body endurance

[Kroni_Hunter]

When Gotenks blew Buu up into pieces, he and Piccolo began vaporizing the left over fragments of Buu. But even the Buu-vapor was able to regenerate into his former self. What exactly does it take to destroy a creature like that? The spirit bomb may be powerful, but i don't see how it can do more than turn Buu into vapor.

[Khalid Shahin]

You destroy the vapor. Sort of like Cell where every single cell must be destroyed... Wait, where did Cell get his ki? Couldn't Cell split into 1,000 pieces and have 1,000 Cells? Sorry for highjacking the topic.

[Sprite Satan]

When Gotenks blew Buu up into pieces, he and Piccolo began vaporizing the left over fragments of Buu. But even the Buu-vapor was able to regenerate into his former self. What exactly does it take to destroy a creature like that? The spirit bomb may be powerful, but i don't see how it can do more than turn Buu into vapor.

As a magical creature, Boo can reform from even the tiniest portion of itself. Vapour is something, with a physical tangible presence. It's made up from molecules, therefore Boo can reform from it.

Now, this is all theory, but as molecules can be deconstructed, in other words destroyed, I would say the Genki Dama tore Boo's molecules into, say, quarks.

Of course, being a magical goo demon existing entirely outside of the laws of physics, none of that may apply but that's still the basic jist. Vapour has a physical presence, therefore Boo can reform from it. The Genki Dama destroyed even that.

[Kroni_Hunter]

Yeah, the only two explanations I can come up with is (A) The genki dama was so powerful it was able to dissentigrate the particles comprising the Buu vapor or (B) The spiritual nature of the Genki dama had some kind of counter effect on Buu's evil nature.

[Casual Matt]

You destroy the vapor. Sort of like Cell where every single cell must be destroyed... Wait, where did Cell get his ki? Couldn't Cell split into 1,000 pieces and have 1,000 Cells? Sorry for highjacking the topic.

Cell can't regenerate from just any Cell. His nucleus has to remain in tact, so even if he was blown into a million pieces, the piece with the nucleus would be the one to regenerate.

And yes, Goku blowing off Cell's upper body where his nucleus is supposed to be located and yadda yadda is somewhat contradictory to this, but the whole nucleus thing is flat out stated, so you kinda have to go with it. There are lots of theories on this anyway such as shifting nucleus and whatnot.

[Gogeta 00]

You destroy the vapor. Sort of like Cell where every single cell must be destroyed... Wait, where did Cell get his ki? Couldn't Cell split into 1,000 pieces and have 1,000 Cells? Sorry for highjacking the topic.

Cell can't regenerate from just any Cell. His nucleus has to remain in tact, so even if he was blown into a million pieces, the piece with the nucleus would be the one to regenerate.

And yes, Goku blowing off Cell's upper body where his nucleus is supposed to be located and yadda yadda is somewhat contradictory to this, but the whole nucleus thing is flat out stated, so you kinda have to go with it. There are lots of theories on this anyway such as shifting nucleus and whatnot.

Is it possible that he has multiple nuclei (spelling?) ?

[Bussani]

Buu can turn into smoke/vapor at will. He was in that form when he came out of his ball, so reforming from it makes sense. Part of being a genie I guess. You'd have to destroy him in a way that leaves no smoke.

Vegetto completely annihilated part of Buu without a trace using just a kiai shout at one point.

[SSJ2bardock]

Matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

This scientific law makes this question unanswerable.

[Bussani]

Matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

Well, you can. You just need energy to create it or to get energy from destroying it. So it would be more accurate to say that you can't destroy energy/matter, only transform it into different forms.

Annihilating Buu in something similar to an anti-matter reaction wouldn't leave smoke. Don't ask how ki does that though.

[Herms]

After Boo is defeated, the narrator says that he was destroyed without a single cell remaining, so apparently that was what was needed to permanently destroy him. Just burning the pieces of his body like Piccolo and Gotenks did would leave cells.

[Kroni_Hunter]

Every cell was also destroyed when he was vaporized, too.

[Blade]

It was always my understanding that, like with Cell, the size of the energy blast which eventually finished off Buu was so large that it engulfed every piece of living tissue which existed on him, allowing none to escape due to the mangitude of the oncoming Genkidama.

[Herms]

Every cell was also destroyed when he was vaporized, too.

Which instance are you talking about? I'm pretty sure that after getting hit with the Genki-Dama was the only time it was said all his cells had been destroyed, at least in the manga. Cells are microscopically tiny, so no matter how thoroughly Boo seemed to get destroyed before that, it's still plausible that many cells were still left behind.

[Shoryuken]

So Buu has cellular regeneration and not molecular regeneration?
How does that then explain him surving the Earth being blow to smithereens.
How does he reform in outer space!?
There is a reason, people, why comics usually doesn't lend itself very well towards science.

[SSJ2bardock]

Matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

Well, you can.

No. You can't. It's called the principle of matter.

You just need energy to create it or to get energy from destroying it. So it would be more accurate to say that you can't destroy energy/matter, only transform it into different forms.

When something is created new matter isn't just made up out of no where, the thing that was created was made up of preexisting matter that was already there, the amount of matter stays constant. When you transform something like for example burning a piece of wood and transforming it into ash the amount of matter stays the same.

This is why the concept of Buu or Cell being able to regenerate as long as some of their atomic mass is still around makes them invincible if you're looking at it scientifically.

[Bussani]

Matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

Well, you can.

No. You can't. It's called the principle of matter.

You just need energy to create it or to get energy from destroying it. So it would be more accurate to say that you can't destroy energy/matter, only transform it into different forms.

When something is created new matter isn't just made up out of no where, the thing that was created was made up of preexisting matter that was already there, the amount of matter stays constant. When you transform something like for example burning a piece of wood and transforming it into ash the amount of matter stays the same.

This is why the concept of Buu or Cell being able to regenerate as long as some of their atomic mass is still around makes them invincible if you're looking at it scientifically.

You're confusing mass and matter.

As opposed to mass conservation, the principle of matter conservation (in the sense of conservation of particles which are agreed to be "matter") may be considered as an approximate physical law, that is true only in the classical sense, without consideration of special relativity and quantum mechanics. Another difficulty with the idea of conservation of "matter," is that "matter" is not a well-defined word scientifically, and when particles which are considered to be "matter" (such as electrons and positrons) are annihilated to make photons (which are often not considered matter) then conservation of matter does not take place, even in isolated systems.

Before anyone says it, I'm not trying to bring science into a discussion about Dragon Ball. So uh, I'm more guilty of going off topic to reply to this than that.

PS: The amount of 'matter' is not the same after burning wood, since a small amount of it was lost to create the light/heat of the fire. E=mc², that energy can't come from nowhere.

On topic, I'd say I'm not sure what they meant by 'cell' when referring to Buu. Whether it's what we'd understand as a biological cell, or something completely different. Buu can naturally exist as smoke, being a genie, so his smoke must be made up of these so called 'cells', right?

[LeprikanGT]

Cell DID split himself up.

He said the Cell Jrs were just as strong as he was.

[Duo]

Cell DID split himself up.

He said the Cell Jrs were just as strong as he was.

What? No he did not.

[NightShroud_BE]

I don't know about the japanese version, but in the Funimation Dub he said "they've inherited my strength" or something like that, so I think they aren't as strong as him but strong enough to put up a fight against vegeta and trunks.
EDIT: some grammar stuff

[Kroni_Hunter]

Matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

Well, you can.

No. You can't. It's called the principle of matter.

I hate the principle of matter, its so fundamentally flawed that I don't understand why it's so universally accepted. If matter cannot be created than how does it exist?

Anyways, back on topic, even if Buu-smoke was comprised of some kind of "cells", how can a Genki-Dama deteriorate it further? At least Cell's situation was a little clearer. If you destroy his cells down to smaller particles you're done. But Buu's smoke/vapor is already the product of this breaking-down process. It's just yet another reason why I hate Buu as a character. The only in-universe conclusion that I can make is that the Genki-Dama has some kind of magical spiritual quality that was able to destroy him.