Was Super Saiyan a mistake?

[theherodjl]

The mistake was establishing more & more opponents that kept shitting all over SSJ. The narrative purpose of SSJ was great in that it propelled a Saiyan to being the strongest or at least treading among the strongest fighter in the universe. Unfortunately, as soon as Androids/Artificial Humans were introduced then SSJ quickly became an irrelevant power-up and that simply being "super" was not enough for Saiyans to keep up with the best that even a single planet had to offer.
What should have happened was what Goku is now experiencing with UI, SSJ should have been an elusive power-up that Saiyans couldn't activate at will let alone master as easily as it was. It also would've been great if Goku's heart virus(a totally stupid execution in the actual story) would have been triggered by him turning SSJ on Namek with his body not being used to the form's overflowing power and being 'poisoned' by the rapid surge in Ki.
In some other universe, Akira Toriyama is a master writer that we'll never know of so we just have to settle for the Michael Bay-approach of flashy-style-over-substance storytelling that we are stuck with.

[emperior]

People always say that Super Saiyan was a mistake because it was the end for the likes of Tenshinan, Krillin and Yamcha to ever be relevant in the future, but I would say the end of those characters actually begun in the Saiyan arc (especially for Ten and Yamcha) and continued with Namek when Saiyan genes already put Goku, Gohan and Vegeta on a higher genetical level than the Earthlings.
By killing off Tenshinan and Yamcha, I think that Toriyama already decided to leave them out of the following stories for good. Freeza having a power level that high only reinforced the idea. If Toriyama intended to keep the Earthlings relevant, he wouldn’t have had such a massively powerful villain like Freeza next. He may very well have given him a power level of 100’000 in his 1st form and 1 million in his final one, while keeping the others lower of course and by capping Goku’s power with Kaioken at around 600’000 (by either nerfing his base power or by capping Kaioken at a 5x-10x limit or making it a technique to only be used at bursts, instead of making it basically permanent when Goku was using it at 10x against Freeza). Super Saiyan could have also been a weaker power boost than a 50x.

So I would say that maybe the mistake was making Super Saiyan too strong compared to everything else, and that mistake begun when Goku could amp up his Kaioken to a 10x boost against Ginyu. Which means that the absurd inflation of power levels which happened on Namek was the real mistake, with Super Saiyan only being the culmination of it and the thing that gets all the blame for how Saiyan-centric the story became after Namek.

[mikezilla2]

lets not forget the android and Cell Saga

- sonic flash. ......

[Cursed Lemon]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the formula of having strong mooks for the supporting characters to have interesting battles with. The movies did this just fine. Why the main series INSISTED on supporting characters fighting futile battles against the primary bad guys all the time is something I'll never understand. Super saiyan and power scaling was never the problem, it was the unwillingness to accommodate the new situation that screwed everything up.

[Lionel]

When I think of how to make the humans viable once again, I tend to think of ideas that have to do with exploring the limitations of the human body and then somehow putting the person in a state where they're able to overcome them if only temporarily -- think Guts's Berserker Armour, Amagi Kouga's cybernetic suit combined with the "bug" that removed the inhibitors on his body, or Enishi's Nerves of Insanity. In concept, the idea isn't unheard of even in real life. People in moments of overwhelming distress proving themselves by performing feats like lifting over ten times their body weight do exist. It's admittedly anecdotal, though.

If you were to combine such an idea with the Kaioken then it may not be unreasonable to claim that the human in question might rival or even surpass a Super Saiyan, if only temporarily. Of course the damage afterwards would be so severe that coming out in a condition similar to Goku at the end of the Saiyan arc would probably be deemed mild. It would only be maintainable long enough for a single burst of power, similar to Goku's Kaioken x20 on Namek. Question then is how you make such a self-destructive method into a workable fighting style. If you can't defeat the opponent in one burst then that's it. You would have to get healed up before attempting it again. Good luck doing that in the midst of a life-or-death battle. Although maybe they could get Karin to cultivate twenty Sensu beans for each human and have them put into their molars. When in need of a bean, they just manoeuvre one of them with their tongue so that they consume it. Instead of one single burst, they get twenty each before going down.

[DragonBallFoodie]

No, but maybe adding different levels to it was IMO.

[superfan2024]

No, but maybe adding different levels to it was IMO.

This.

[superfan2024]

The mistake was establishing more & more opponents that kept shitting all over SSJ. The narrative purpose of SSJ was great in that it propelled a Saiyan to being the strongest or at least treading among the strongest fighter in the universe. Unfortunately, as soon as Androids/Artificial Humans were introduced then SSJ quickly became an irrelevant power-up and that simply being "super" was not enough for Saiyans to keep up with the best that even a single planet had to offer.
What should have happened was what Goku is now experiencing with UI, SSJ should have been an elusive power-up that Saiyans couldn't activate at will let alone master as easily as it was. It also would've been great if Goku's heart virus(a totally stupid execution in the actual story) would have been triggered by him turning SSJ on Namek with his body not being used to the form's overflowing power and being 'poisoned' by the rapid surge in Ki.
In some other universe, Akira Toriyama is a master writer that we'll never know of so we just have to settle for the Michael Bay-approach of flashy-style-over-substance storytelling that we are stuck with.

Honestly, I think Toriyama still cares for Tenshinhan, even if it's just a tiny tiny bit. Unlike Yamucha, Tenshinhan had an encounter with Cell, and Boo, the main antagonists of each of their respective arcs. Unlike Yamucha, Ten participated in the battle against Freeza's army, and unlike Yamucha, Ten was actually in the Tournament of Power. If Toriyama wanted to, he could've made the ToP only be nine members per team, but nope, he added Tenshinhan.

[emperior]

Realistically speaking a true martial artist like Tenshinan (who should have already tried to learn Kaioken but whatever) should be inspired by the incredible technique that is Ultra Instinct, which he saw with his own eyes during the Tournament of Power, and strive to achieve it or something similar to it (even more so in the manga, where even Roshi had something similar).

But of course Tenshinan will keep spending his days “training” as a martial artists while doing fuck all and barely improving at all, because there’s the excuse that Earthlings have limits even though such limitations don’t even make much sense, as it seems like they are there to parallel the DB world Earthlings to the real world ones, even though we’re clearly different in that we can’t use Ki and, even if we could, nothing suggests there would actually be limits to it.
Admittedly these “limits” were basically introduced in the Saiyan arc, once it was established that Goku is an alien and different from everyone else. Before, everyone was always improving and aiming for greater heights as true martial artists would do.

It’s also boring that only Saiyans (and a few other lucky individuals) seem to have bottomless potential, as it sort of devalues Goku as a martial artist as he wouldn’t be where he is if it wasn’t for his genetics.
If I had to write a comeback of Tenshinan to relevance, I would first have him address how his stupid belief that his race is limited lead him to believe that he had no more room for improvement and thus made him lazy in his training.

[JulieYBM]

I definitely think that Kaiou-ken was a mistake but Super Saiyan is innocuous enough. The cool thing about the form and how other shounen comics and cartoons have adapted it is that it provides a narrative point to a battle. After using his base form to fight cautiously and study his foe Son Gokuu can unleash his transformation as a trump card. This is why I am all for how Super Saiyan Blue was Gokuu's only transformation in Fukkatsu no F. Multiple transformations muddy a fight too much by becoming a repetitive step. This is why I feel like the transformations should be something of a risk and not have clear cut power multipliers (I depicted such in my own little "what if" take on Super). In the case of Migatte no Goku'i it works because this is the first time that Gokuu is using a new transformation from the point that he learns to use it at will he should have his base form become as strong as his Super Saiyan Blue form. As cool as Freeza's transformations are they really did amount to nothing and just prolonged the story with no finesse.

[Saiga]

Realistically speaking a true martial artist like Tenshinan (who should have already tried to learn Kaioken but whatever) should be inspired by the incredible technique that is Ultra Instinct, which he saw with his own eyes during the Tournament of Power, and strive to achieve it or something similar to it (even more so in the manga, where even Roshi had something similar).

But of course Tenshinan will keep spending his days “training” as a martial artists while doing fuck all and barely improving at all, because there’s the excuse that Earthlings have limits even though such limitations don’t even make much sense, as it seems like they are there to parallel the DB world Earthlings to the real world ones, even though we’re clearly different in that we can’t use Ki and, even if we could, nothing suggests there would actually be limits to it.
Admittedly these “limits” were basically introduced in the Saiyan arc, once it was established that Goku is an alien and different from everyone else. Before, everyone was always improving and aiming for greater heights as true martial artists would do.

It’s also boring that only Saiyans (and a few other lucky individuals) seem to have bottomless potential, as it sort of devalues Goku as a martial artist as he wouldn’t be where he is if it wasn’t for his genetics.
If I had to write a comeback of Tenshinan to relevance, I would first have him address how his stupid belief that his race is limited lead him to believe that he had no more room for improvement and thus made him lazy in his training.

I mean... people in real life have limits, it's definitely not an absurd concept. Even in a setting with superpowers, I'd expect people to simply have much higher limits than no limits at all. Otherwise you'd expect the strongest people to be the oldest ones, constantly improving with no-one able to catch up to their experience. Given that beings in the Dragon Ball world have live for millions of years, you'd expect them to be impossibly far ahead of any mortal characters as they just continue to become stronger for all time.

[miguelnuva1]

All super saiyan forms were fine, Toriyama's writing was the problem.

For example with 19 and 20. Write that only the ssjs and Piccolo can face them one on one and win but the 3 humans and Gohan working together can give the Androids a run for their money.

Dragonball's problem was after Frieza's 2nd form ganging up on people no longer worked.

Another thing is why not have the humans learn fusion. Tien and Yamacha and Kuririn and Piccolo could have fused and then fight alongside Gotenks till Gotenks goes ssj3.

[Zeru14]

No, the Super Saiyan transformation and its later variants weren't a mistake, the mistake was Toriyama giving power ups/enhancements to only the Saiyans and he just kept modding them with new genetic specific abilities or having them only use new training methods.