Turns out, power levels are BS! Who knew?

[Turbotrup]

The way he scales his characters' power is driving me CRAZY! I'm not going to point out things which you already (SHOULD) know, so I'm going to go with the recent DB SUPER chapter where Vegeta is fighting Magetta - the thing that makes me pissed EVEN MORE than Piccolo having a hard time with a Zarbon-level dude in the Fukkatsu no 'F' movie or Piccolo suddenly becoming as strong as Base Goku within 3 days after said movie or Vegeta having a hard time with a Saiyan who doesn't even have muscles...
But before I tell you what happened there, let me quickly visualize you something:


Character:

Power Level:

-Kid Goku (beginning of DB)

-10 (was able to lift around 1 ton (Bulma & her car))

-Goku (Saiyan Arc)

-8000+ (it makes him over 800x stronger, which should make him be able to lift over 800 tons)

-Goku (Namek Arc)

-3 000 000 (375x stronger than in previous Arc (which took place less than a year earlier), lifting: 300 000 tons)

(the info is taken from the official data book: http://i62.tinypic.com/2w230q1.jpg)



Let's stop right here. I think everyone'd think at this point that in the next Arcs Goku can lift milions if not milliards of tons, especially with the help of SSJ, right? I mean, without even all this counting, without knowing their power levels you would realize it by yourself that they should be able to easily lift cities by now, right? C'mon, they are literally creating gigantic craters in the ground by punching EACH OTHER (yes, NOT the ground, but THEMSELVES), so they must be RIDICULOUSLY strong!
Well, sucks to be you, because ACTUALLY they CAN'T LIFT EVEN 1%(!!!!!!!!!!!!) of what you'd expect them to lift - SSJ Vegeta tried to lift Magetta but he failed! It was later revealed that he weights 1000-and-something tons!!! (http://mangafox.me/manga/dragon_ball_chou/c011/17.html and take next page)
facepalm facepalm facepalm facepalm facepalm

And before you give me that retarded argument: "punching force is different from lifting", how will you explain Vegeta catching Goku who was falling from the space? How will you explain Goku and Vegeta fighting in a costumes that literally made ground collapse because of their weight? These are things which they were capable of doing in their BASE (non-SSJ) forms BEFORE they even started training for the tournament! Ofc, it only happened in the anime, but c'mon!
This is a HUUUUGE SLAP in the face from Toriyama and I'd start on disrespecting him if I was sure that it's his fault, not Toyatoro's (the Manga's current drawer). At this point, Toei does a better job than they do. Ironic, isn't it?

And do NOT make a cheap excuses for Toriyama's bad writing skills, or rather - him not giving a crap about the rules which he freaking established by HIMSELF at the VERY beginning of DBZ! That's ironic that he was the one to judge Toei's awful animation, while he himself is an awful writer; in the very end they are very similar - they failed at their main jobs, didn't they? Ofc, in Toriyama's case, I'm not just referring to that fight with Magetta, I'm talking about what he has done for the entire series, especially SUPER.

[Dbzfan94]

Just so you know, Toriyama isn't writing / drawing the manga.

[Nejishiki]

I just want to nitpick here a bit: In what ways is Toriyama's literary skills being put into scrutiny when things such as lifting, striking, or any feat of strength is rarely elaborated on in the first place? It's hard to contradict yourself when one doesn't establish much material to do so in the first place.

In any case, it would be helpful if you could elaborate on how the author created holes in his story. Are there specific instances where one could say a character lifted millions of a unit and then did not do so in the future?

I also don't see the relation to criticizing animation and writing a story. Are those not two separate departments of art?

[TheBlackPaladin]

Power levels were never meant to be accurate. Rather, Toriyama intended them to be used as a dramatic device, in the sense that he was trying to create several "C'mon, there's no way he can win, his power level is o--w-wait....i-i-it's rising!"-esque moments of drama. The whole point of them being there was to allow for false assumptions from both the readers and the other characters.

Put another way, Vegeta in TFS said it perfectly: "Power levels are bull****." And intentionally so.

[ABED]

Toriyama's a bad writer because he's using fictional logic in a fictional story?

Power levels were never meant to be accurate. Rather, Toriyama intended them to be used as a dramatic device, in the sense that he was trying to create several "C'mon, there's no way he can win, his power level is o--w-wait....i-i-it's rising!"-esque moments of drama. The whole point of them being there was to allow for false assumptions from both the readers and the other characters.

Put another way, Vegeta in TFS said it perfectly: "Power levels are bull****." And intentionally so.

You had to go and quote TFS? Anyway, unless Toriyama flat out says his intention for PL's was to create false assumptions, I don't agree. That's one way to use them, but the idea of power levels is a sound idea. It's an easy way to give the audience a measurement and a dramatic device.

[ShaneisMC]

In particular I think the whole power levels are bull is more of a misunderstanding. Its not so much that the numbers were bull, but rather two other things. The concept that effectively trying to judge a book by its cover isn't always the best idea, and that as far as in universe material goes, in particular during the time period that numbers were prevalent, our protagonists had developed efficient ways of fighting by raising their strength drastically in small bursts on top of also being able to mask their power. Things like Kaioken and general special techniques or attacks enabled significant potential advantages in combat and most certainly caused issues with technological devices trying to track and keep pace with such drastically changing power readings. Had their technology been better or the characters strength simply stayed stagnant I'm sure a proper number could be assigned.

[Kamiccolo9]

We also have Vegeta saying, pretty clearly, that "Power like ours cannot be calculated."

Of course, everyone ignores that line in lieu of overanalyzing every single other line in the series.

[coola]

In Polish manga translation, Vegeta said something like "Saiyans cannot be analysed with numbers"

[jjgp1112]

Power levels stop mattering in anything beyond its most basic means the second Raditz realized that somebody can augment their strength by concentrating it into an Energy Blast.

[floofychan333]

Well I think he didn't care much about the consistency of the series, for example, forgetting characters and blowing up the moon multiple times, but I wouldn't call him an awful writer.

[Zephyr]

Kid Goku was not given the battle power of 10 when the manga was first written. Battle Powers weren't a thing. It's being retroactively applied. The scene of Goku lifting Bulma's truck was not written and drawn with "hmm, well he has a battle power of 10, and so he can do this much" in mind. Consequently, Goku flaring his ki before fighting Nappa was not written and drawn with "hmm, well since he's X times more powerful than when he was a kid, he should be able to perform physical feats about X times proportional in scale to that one feat" in mind. Nor when he was on Namek. Why would we expect Toriyama to then pay attention to a scaling system that he has no idea exists?

Toriyama's only one person creating official information and material for the franchise. I'd say blame the editors and supervisors of the franchise for not paying enough attention to keep their entire brand's worth of in-universe information wholly internally consistent before marketing it all. In-manga information by Toriyama, data book information, interview tidbits, anime-exclusive information, stuff from different OVAs, and stuff that Toyotaro are all seemingly allowed to do their own thing, without some editorial force coming down and say "oh, but remember Toyotaro (and you Toriyama-sensei; how dare you not catch this yourself!), according to this scattered and patched together conglomerate of obscure factoids and calculations published over the course of 20 years by a variety of different authors, Vegeta needs to be able to life X more pounds; make sure that you write a heavier weight for the Metal Men to be!"

And hell, even if there was, the story wouldn't have changed at all. Vegeta still wouldn't have been able to lift Magetta, he would have been hit on the head, and he would have eventually won the fight. Wooo~

[MajinMan]

So Toriyama is a bad writer because of power levels? This fan obsession with these* type of power level debates never made sense to me. The whole point of introducing that concept was to show how unreliable it is. Sure, a guy with a max PL of 2000 will almost always beat one with a max of 1000 (barring things like the kaioken and the genki dama), but that was never how it was meant to be seen in the story. Almost every single instance that power levels were stated, they were immediately contradicted because of our heroes holding back or using a technique. There's a reason Toriyama scrapped that whole schtick after the Freeza Arc.

*By these I meant the whole calculated, mathematical part of the debates.*

[Turbotrup]

I just want to nitpick here a bit: In what ways is Toriyama's literary skills being put into scrutiny when things such as lifting, striking, or any feat of strength is rarely elaborated on in the first place? It's hard to contradict yourself when one doesn't establish much material to do so in the first place.

In any case, it would be helpful if you could elaborate on how the author created holes in his story. Are there specific instances where one could say a character lifted millions of a unit and then did not do so in the future?

I also don't see the relation to criticizing animation and writing a story. Are those not two separate departments of art?

Because, like I said, you don't really have to know numbers to know that they should be much stronger than that.
I pretty much just said about the super heavy clothes that were collapsing the ground while Magetta, even though while still kinda crushing it, was not falling underground. Sure, we should remember about the fact that he is big, so the center of gravity was much more balanced, but c'mon - Vegeta was in the SSJ form. It's really pathetic.
When you watch action anime - you want a good animation. When you read the manga - you want to have 'a good read'. That's what I meant by 'main jobs', anime - animation, manga - writing.

[Turbotrup]

Once again, I'm saying this to everyone - this is OBVIOUS that they should be able to lift more than that. See? You're trying to make weak excuses while ignoring the fact that they had no problem fighting in super heavy costumes which I mentioned in the same comment! And considering how many times more powerful Goku has become (just look at RoF, no one could touch Freeza's 1st form there and yet Goku was beating his final form), current Goku is clearly tens of times stronger than he was in the Buu Arc, so are you saying that Goku wouldn't be able to lift 100 tons as a SSJ back then? This is just a common sense, Toriyama clearly lacks it.

[TheMikado]

This is what I have been saying for a VERY VERY VERY long time and it has become most evident in Super.
Toriyama's strength, in my mind has been his ability to create novel and interesting characters and enemies with interesting development and motivation. Then creating situations of tension and occasionally some comedy. The power level scaling has actually ALWAYS been a detriment to the series and especially as it focused on it, however his core cast and arcs were so compelling, interesting and innovative at it was largely able to be ignored. When your main protagonist needs to become 37500% stronger over the course of one year just to compete with your main antagonist then everything in your narrative after is going to be F'ed Remarkably he was able to continue due to the interesting combination of subvillains and suspense building with multiple areas of foreshadowing with false / red herrings. Aspects of his writing were genuinely good while others were completely terrible.

Battle of the Gods was a poor attempt at the same mix of ridiculous power increasesthat have plagued DBZ but instead of realizing that DBZ was good DESPITE the power scaling Super seems to be written as if DBZ was good BECAUSE of the power scaling which isn't the case. We've lost a ton of the foreshadowing and plot twists and red herring me that were interesting in DBZ. The character development, interesting characters, etc. Even in just 3 arcs of Super we have only 3/4 interesting new characters friend or enemy. Jack, Beerus, Whis, and Hit. And that's even assuming you like them which I'm personally not a fan of Beerus. From Nameck to Boo we got Nail, Ginyu, Jeice, Recoom, Frieza, Trunks, Android 16,18, Dr Gero, Cell, Dabura, Kaioshin, multiple Boos, Videl. Plus we see character development from Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, Bulma, Tien, even freaking Mr. Satan!!! The storylines had both weaknesses and strengths and it was in its structure, lore, and character development. One great asset of DBZ intentional or not was the foreshadowing of many of these elements long before the review. In Super this is absent and we just shown with out the buildup which was arguably the best aspects. So no Toriyama generally was not a good writer but the structure of is stories and character development prior to the Super era were literally and still are some the greatest in the genre. Even the original Dragonball contained many of these elements that feel so absent in general. But like you pointed out, his weakest writing was actually far overshadowing but the superior structure of his stories and that's why it was still enjoyable and tolerated even now.

[Zephyr]

this is OBVIOUS that they should be able to lift more than that. See? You're trying to make weak excuses while ignoring the fact that they had no problem fighting in super heavy costumes which I mentioned in the same comment!

What's obvious to one person is not necessarily obvious to anyone else. When something is obvious to you and not to someone else, and you want them to understand, you have to make an effort to clearly illustrate the validity of your complaint.

Do both the anime and the manga give concrete weights to the suits? Does the anime where the suits sink give Magetta a weight? Does the manga where Magetta is given a weight feature sinking suits? If not, then the complaint should be more that the highest up editorial powers are not maintaining brand-wide in-universe factoid-consistency.

[TheMikado]

this is OBVIOUS that they should be able to lift more than that. See? You're trying to make weak excuses while ignoring the fact that they had no problem fighting in super heavy costumes which I mentioned in the same comment!

What's obvious to one person is not necessarily obvious to anyone else. When something is obvious to you and not to someone else, and you want them to understand, you have to make an effort to clearly illustrate the validity of your complaint.

Do both the anime and the manga give concrete weights to the suits? Does the anime where the suits sink give Magetta a weight? Does the manga where Magetta is given a weight feature sinking suits? If not, then the complaint should be more that the highest up editorial powers are not maintaining brand-wide in-universe factoid-consistency.

The point he is making is that according to the narrative they are at universe breaking levels with single punches strength wise. Logically using know physics which are never said to be any different, Goku and Vegeta should be able to lift the moon with like a single finger if just the vibrations from their punches could destroy all the mass in the universe and reality. And remember they have even surpassed that level now. If just the poor power escalation that's always been in Dragonball coming to head now. It was bound to happen but instead of reeling it in it was jacked to 11 with no logical way to make things make sense anymore.

[Kamiccolo9]

this is OBVIOUS that they should be able to lift more than that. See? You're trying to make weak excuses while ignoring the fact that they had no problem fighting in super heavy costumes which I mentioned in the same comment!

What's obvious to one person is not necessarily obvious to anyone else. When something is obvious to you and not to someone else, and you want them to understand, you have to make an effort to clearly illustrate the validity of your complaint.

Do both the anime and the manga give concrete weights to the suits? Does the anime where the suits sink give Magetta a weight? Does the manga where Magetta is given a weight feature sinking suits? If not, then the complaint should be more that the highest up editorial powers are not maintaining brand-wide in-universe factoid-consistency.

The point he is making is that according to the narrative they are at universe breaking levels with single punches strength wise. Logically using know physics which are never said to be any different, Goku and Vegeta should be able to lift the moon with like a single finger if just the vibrations from their punches could destroy all the mass in the universe and reality. And remember they have even surpassed that level now. If just the poor power escalation that's always been in Dragonball coming to head now. It was bound to happen but instead of reeling it in it was jacked to 11 with no logical way to make things make sense anymore.

Logically, using known physics, you couldn't lift the moon with your finger no matter how strong you are, because it wouldn't be able to support it's own weight when lifted.

So you're gonna have to be ignoring some physics either way. Everybody picks and chooses.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Power levels were never meant to be accurate. Rather, Toriyama intended them to be used as a dramatic device, in the sense that he was trying to create several "C'mon, there's no way he can win, his power level is o--w-wait....i-i-it's rising!"-esque moments of drama. The whole point of them being there was to allow for false assumptions from both the readers and the other characters.

Put another way, Vegeta in TFS said it perfectly: "Power levels are bull****." And intentionally so.

You had to go and quote TFS?

I'd say quoting from TFS is perfectly fine in this regard, since the line isn't just a 'funny' - it's an accurate observation of the way power levels are in the series, and why I personally have always found it so ludicrous that a large sect of the fandom has become this obsessed with them.

I mean, I'm sure there had to be a certain time in my past as a fan, when I was first absorbing all the information that I could, that I must have been interested in power levels. I know I read a fair few power level charts made by people way back when. But even then, I can't honestly remember really caring that much about them in the long run either. It's just like TheBlackPaladin said, power levels were never meant to be taken at all seriously any further than the exact moment of context they were brought up...and not even then were they set in stone, given how often a reading was 'wrong' for one reason or another. Even in their entire introductory arc, the series is constantly trying to show that putting numbers to these things is not the way to go.

So in relation to the main topic at hand, Toriyama's 'lack of writing skills' in comparison to fluctuating levels of strength...I still don't get what the big deal is. *shrug* If people really read stories with only 'who's stronger and why they have to be stronger here and everywhere' in mind, then more power to them of course, but I just plain don't get it. I enjoy the fight scenes as much as anyone, but much more from a narrative point of view - is the fight entertaining? Does it further the plot, and if it doesn't is it at least enjoyable enough to make up for that fact? These are the things that I'm concerned with, again, personally.

That's not to say I'm trying to say Toriyama is a great writer, or anything. He's a perfectly fine one, especially with the amount of whimsy he manages to throw in, but he definitely has his weaknesses. Romance, for example. The fact that the closest thing to a well written couple we got in the franchise itself without delving into fan speculation is Gohan and Videl, and even the bulk of that relationship build-up was filler in the anime...

[Cure Dragon 255]

I dont think so. Its not a line actually said in the series, so it doesnt really count at all.