Saiya-jin's Armor??!!

[Thanos6]

Which exact lines?

[ChaotixXero]

Those, the ones from the Viz translated manga.

[Mr.Piccolo]

I think Tyro quoted that from.. volume nine correct? Vegeta gives the heroes a nice little explanation on armor and such. I was kind of weirded out when Vegeta was watching them change..
-Rick

[Cold Cobra]

Thanks for the armor education, I've only seen the Saiyan-Freeza Sagas in Pioneer/FUNi dub (The reason why I'm so excited to get the Season sets as it's the only period of the three shows that I haven't seen in Japanese).

The Manga I'm only up to the first DBZ book, so again, cheers.

[Duo]

I'll reference Animorphs

That alone makes me love you. I often wonder how many other people in this world obsessively read all of those books 10 years ago.

[gohanku]

So older one's eh? Anyway, the strechable area in the inside is better, if the outside was strechable, the amour would be pretty soft and weak. So the strechable inside and hard outside works. They work as great PJ too, seeing how soft and strechable they are in the inside...

[JAPPO]

I remember that Yajirobe slashed Vegeta's armor... and he isn't exactly strong.

So, maybe the armor doesn't mean anything and it was just so Akira Toriyama didn't have to draw Vegeta naked (like someone else said).

[Rocketman]

I'll reference Animorphs

That alone makes me love you. I often wonder how many other people in this world obsessively read all of those books 10 years ago.

Yo. At least until I lost track of when the new ones started coming out.

[Tyro]

I think Tyro quoted that from.. volume nine correct?

Correct.

[mister yummy]

I agree with the different stress strength coming from different directions. I believe the armor is strong and rigid from the outside, but strechy from the inside. That way, it would strech to almost any size, but still defend the wearer against attacks. Vegita's Armor probably saved him on earth, and again against Zarbon. After that, though, it doesn't seem to do much good.

[KinoFourpaws]

Vegeta: "Now for the battle jackets. Luckily there were some miniature ones...made for the people of planet Lilliput."

Dunno if that was in the original manga or the Viz translators tossed that in there, but either way, it's a great line.

Yes, the allusion to Gulliver's Travels amuses me. I wonder why I didn't catch it when I read it before... must have been before Senior year English... o-o;

And yes! Animorphs! I'm glad there are other people who've actually read that series... :3 But, in which book was it mentioned that they finally figured out how to morph in loose clothing? Was it in one of the last ones? I never got to read those...

Now, as for something actually on-topic... The stretchable-one-way, rigid-the-other explanation does seem reasonable, but... how would the armor actually grow to such great proportions like when a Saiyan changes into his Oozaru form? The way I'm imagining it, the armor itself is made up of several different parts connected together... unless it's all made of one very malleable/moldable material, I don't see how all the different parts (the golden/brown/etc. rib section being an example) could expand together with the rest of the armor. It's sort of like when you paint a balloon with something, then when you inflate it, the dry paint gets pulled apart and/or falls off... actually, I think even the regular color on a balloon tends to do that... o_o; You know?

Other than that, though (or maybe even with it)... that sounds like some pretty badass armor. Lotsa protection with great maneuverability; the best of both worlds. It's certainly better than trying to move around in those tin cans of armor ye knights of olde had to wear...

"Alright, alright, step lively... hnn! Oneeeee... HNF!... Hnn... two! OOF! Hnn... !"

[Rocketman]

Now, as for something actually on-topic... The stretchable-one-way, rigid-the-other explanation does seem reasonable, but... how would the armor actually grow to such great proportions like when a Saiyan changes into his Oozaru form? The way I'm imagining it, the armor itself is made up of several different parts connected together... unless it's all made of one very malleable/moldable material, I don't see how all the different parts (the golden/brown/etc. rib section being an example) could expand together with the rest of the armor. It's sort of like when you paint a balloon with something, then when you inflate it, the dry paint gets pulled apart and/or falls off... actually, I think even the regular color on a balloon tends to do that... o_o; You know?

Like I said, it has to be able to convert energy to mass. Some stretching is possible, but stretching to fit Great Ape Vegeta would require getting more matter. Otherwise, the armor would be stretched too thin and tear.

[KinoFourpaws]

Like I said, it has to be able to convert energy to mass. Some stretching is possible, but stretching to fit Great Ape Vegeta would require getting more matter. Otherwise, the armor would be stretched too thin and tear.

Hmm... in that case... it's like Freeza's army enlists the aid of FMA-style alchemists or something to make their armor. I'm not sure it's physically possible to convert energy into mass otherwise... D:

[Rocketman]

Hmm... in that case... it's like Freeza's army enlists the aid of FMA-style alchemists or something to make their armor. I'm not sure it's physically possible to convert energy into mass otherwise... D:

It is physically possible to convert energy to matter. They're just two forms of the same thing, after all.

Actually, Saiyans have to do the same thing, since they gain weight when they become Great Apes. If they kept the same mass, they'd keep the same weight, but have much lower density.

[Pieter]

Trying to understand the mechanism of saiyan armor is the same as trying to figure out how a scouter works. It's alien technoligy folks.

[MisterFlashdude]

Trying to understand the mechanism of saiyan armor is the same as trying to figure out how a scouter works. It's alien technoligy folks.

More importantly, it's fictional (Read: Non-existant) technology that came directly from the imagination of Mr.Toriyama. I have a feel he didn't put quite that much thought into the physics of the matter when he left Vegeta's armor intact.

Bear in mind, if it was like Goku's and Gohan's uniform... when Vegeta changed back, he'd have been naked. We know how Mr.Toriyama handles male nudity... could we take Vegeta seriously if his little penis was flapping about as he shouted at everyone?

The dressing scene later on may well have just been a joke, poking fun at the fact that Vegeta's uniform didn't tear... He does occasionally poke fun at himself in the story.