i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Discussion specifically regarding the "Dragon Ball Super" TV series premiering July 2015 in Japan, including individual threads for each episode.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Vegeta_Sama » Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:21 am

JazzMazz wrote:Piccolo has his unique skills to give him an edge
Which is constantly losing and regrowing his arms
Get Fucked, C_unt

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by JazzMazz » Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:30 am

namekiansaiyan wrote:
sintzu wrote:
namekiansaiyan wrote:Power levels mean nothing as they will change at any point just to give some character a flashy moment.
They can give anyone a flashy moment without messing everything up. This lack of consistency is simply lazy writing due to the people involved not really thinking twice about their work. No one's asking for perfection as we can't all be Cell but there are some major mistakes that shouldn't slip through anyone let alone people doing this for a living.

You can give characters flashy moments but there will be less of them.

If Toriyama made a much more detailed outline then you would get much better consistency. He leaves it a bit open that Toei end up contradicting themselves because of the amount of people working on it.
I think that also due to the fact that there was no series composer on the show to organize the staffs idea's for scripts into a more coherent story-telling structure.

I think the consistency between episodes would have been greater with a series composer as they would likely written more episodes themselves.
Vegeta_Sama wrote:
JazzMazz wrote:Piccolo has his unique skills to give him an edge
Which is constantly losing and regrowing his arms
Now now, lets not forget Piccolo's greatest ability, the inconsistent use of his stretchy arms to save other people but not himself, and his one and only unique attack, which he probably should have tried to improve a little after all these years, the makankosappo(probably spelt that wrong).

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Kataphrut » Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:13 am

sintzu wrote:
Kataphrut wrote:The rare times Z deviated from that formula, such as with the change from Super Buu to Kid Buu was enough to spark debate as well.
The reason there's a debate about that is because of how close those 2 are. In Super you've got a Blue Goku who can hold his own temporarely against Jiren yet somehow so can Krillin. You've got Ssj2 and SsjG Goku putting up nearly the same fight against Kale and Caulifla while in the original there's a clear line between where each form stands from one another and who it can and can't fight. In the original you can clearly tell where everyone compares to one another, including the different forms everyone used while in Super it completely depends on who's writing the episode. One episode has Vegeta completely out of power while the next he's using his strongest form as if nothing happened. When someone in the original was out of power they were out of power, there wasn't any of this false tension Super has.
Everyone brings up the Krillin thing when that is like the worst example out there. It's blatantly obvious that Goku was holding back for training purposes, and Krillin was still being overpowered. What, do you think he was going to vaporise his friend?

Also, I don't know what episode 114 you were watching, but there was a clear difference between Goku fighting the girls in SSJ2 versus SSG. In the former, he was holding his own until Kale got her controlled form, then he started to struggle because they were fighting better as a team. After he went God, he pretty much wrecked them. Kale was holding her own somewhat, but Caulifla was trashed, necessitating fusion. And Vegeta's shenanigans using all his power WAS bad, but that had more to do with lack of writer communication than power scaling. Which is a bigger issue IMO than it not being 100% clear at all times who has the bigger number, so you won't see me defending it.

Most of the examples I see brought up usually aren't that bad or have some sort of hand-wave. The only really shocking one that springs to my mind is the incident with Kale walking through the Blue Kamehameha but later being shown to be weaker than God. And that's one of those things you just have to handwave since they were going for a homage to the first Broly movie.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by SupremeKai25 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:07 am

Yes, sometimes I have been bothered by Super's power levels.

For example, throughout the Future Trunks arc, Goku Black was always shown in a superior position. He could easily stomp his opponents, overpower them with creative and unpredictable techniques. Even when Vegeta humiliated him, Black maintained his composure and managed to expand his power beyond his own comprehension, regaining the upper-hand, as his clones were proving to be quite a threat for Goku and Vegeta to deal with (Black had them cornered and outmatched).

Then Future Zamasu was trapped in the Mafuba and no longer had the will to fight, so he urged Black to fuse into a single being, a single entity... a single God. And Black obviously realized the dire situation of his ally, so he decided to fuse. Therefore, keep in mind that Black didn't fuse with Zamasu because he was too weak to deal with Goku and Vegeta (he wasn't, he even had the advantage), but because his ally's trauma was too great to ignore. So this new fused being has the strength of a guy who has stomping Goku and Vegeta. Shortly after the birth of Fused Zamasu, Gowasu makes it clear that the new enemy is extremely powerful: when the immortal God Zamasu and the most powerful Goku Black fused, their power didn't just merge together... it expanded to no end.

Goku had a lot of trouble dealing with Black. Before the fusion, Black had completely outmatched Goku with his newfound techniques. Yet, even though Fused Zamasu -- who had all of Black's strength and power -- had endless power (as Gowasu outright stated), Goku somehow managed to utterly defeat him in a beam struggle. That was absurdly illogical. You can say that Fused Zamasu was very arrogant and so held back a lot... ok, rewatch that scene, look at Zamasu's expression and listen to the exhausted tone of his voice, and come back and tell me that he was holding back. It is blatant how Vegeta and Trunks overpowered Fused Zamasu, he was clearly holding back that one time (even his facial expression was relaxed and didn't show frustration).

And don't get me started on Future Trunks' newest techinque 'The Magical Sword of Love and Friendship'. So, ok, apparently this guy, Fused Zamasu, who has endless strength and is the fusion of the most powerful Saiyan fighter and the immortal Kai, can be utterly obliterated by the power of Super Saiyan Rage Trunks (who was getting stomped by Rosé Black), 'empowered' by the overwhelming energy of 20 frightened civilians, a cat, and 2 exhausted base form Saiyans... that power, apparently, is enough to cleave Zamasu in-half and defeat him utterly. Such a silly power-up, it didn't make sense at all.

Oh, and how did Trunks learn how to gather the energy of the lifeforms around him all of a sudden?

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Lord Beerus » Tue Apr 10, 2018 10:24 am

There are certainly some episode that deserve the "red flag" treatment with regards to the "power level"v shenanigans that incur. Episodes 57, 66 and 100 being the arguably the biggest offenders. But it doesn't bother me. Besides, the usage of "power levels" are only the tips of the iceberg when it comes to having a good narrative.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by PFM18 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 10:29 am

The line from character to character is different now. we cannot clearly tell who is the strongest and that is totally fine. The idea that we don't know where one character stands compared to another is just a function of the fact that there were 70 new characters introduced and they all didn't fight each other. (that would require 10^100 fights to take place.) The idea that characters gain power boosts that are not consistent with what is shown prior is just as prevalent in DBZ just not quite to the same extent. They forgo consistency in power scaling in favor of creating a compelling story. That is just what happens. And that is a good thing. If zenkais weren't horrendously inconsistent we couldn't have gotten that cool scene where Vegeta tells Goku to avenge the Saiyan Race against Freeza, and Freeza wouldn't have been able to be seen as insurmountably powerful.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Doctor. » Tue Apr 10, 2018 10:39 am

What you mean Z introduced them? Are you talking about numerical values? If so, those aren't in Super either. If you're talking about the system of A is stronger than B and B is stronger than C, so A is stronger than C, then that has been present ever since the start of the series.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by PFM18 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 10:44 am

Doctor. wrote:What you mean Z introduced them? Are you talking about numerical values? If so, those aren't in Super either. If you're talking about the system of A is stronger than B and B is stronger than C, so A is stronger than C, then that has been present ever since the start of the series.
Yes I am aware that the series has always had a sort of "Transitive Property" when it comes to power levels. It just seemed to me that people are concerned with the idea that we aren't sure where each character stands compared to each other but i think that is just a function of the fact that there were just 70 characters introduced in the tournament and they all havent fought each other.

The other concern is that characters and their power ups are not consistent in Super but if you pay enough attention DBZ was also very inconsistent with their power ups too so this isnt anything new

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Doctor. » Tue Apr 10, 2018 10:54 am

PFM18 wrote:
Doctor. wrote:What you mean Z introduced them? Are you talking about numerical values? If so, those aren't in Super either. If you're talking about the system of A is stronger than B and B is stronger than C, so A is stronger than C, then that has been present ever since the start of the series.
Yes I am aware that the series has always had a sort of "Transitive Property" when it comes to power levels. It just seemed to me that people are concerned with the idea that we aren't sure where each character stands compared to each other but i think that is just a function of the fact that there were just 70 characters introduced in the tournament and they all havent fought each other.

The other concern is that characters and their power ups are not consistent in Super but if you pay enough attention DBZ was also very inconsistent with their power ups too so this isnt anything new
People were complaining about Super's scaling way before the tournament.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by PFM18 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:04 am

Doctor. wrote:
PFM18 wrote:
Doctor. wrote:What you mean Z introduced them? Are you talking about numerical values? If so, those aren't in Super either. If you're talking about the system of A is stronger than B and B is stronger than C, so A is stronger than C, then that has been present ever since the start of the series.
Yes I am aware that the series has always had a sort of "Transitive Property" when it comes to power levels. It just seemed to me that people are concerned with the idea that we aren't sure where each character stands compared to each other but i think that is just a function of the fact that there were just 70 characters introduced in the tournament and they all havent fought each other.

The other concern is that characters and their power ups are not consistent in Super but if you pay enough attention DBZ was also very inconsistent with their power ups too so this isnt anything new
People were complaining about Super's scaling way before the tournament.
Yeah I know. I was more referring to strictly the idea of where people stand compared to each other. I think part of the irritation with the scaling in Super is that we dont actually know how strong most of the characters that are gettong action again are. (Piccolo, Tenshinhan, Krillin etc)

Prior to the tournament the big gripe was how some characters got so strong and the power boosts are often inconsistent. (Freeza, Trunks) But I mean that is just a result of the fact that the series prioritizes a good story over power scaling consistency and it has always been that way.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Doctor. » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:07 am

PFM18 wrote:Prior to the tournament the big gripe was how some characters got so strong and the power boosts are often inconsistent. (Freeza, Trunks) But I mean that is just a result of the fact that the series prioritizes a good story over power scaling consistency and it has always been that way.
The real Dragon Ball did both. Powerscaling is ingrained into DB's story. Disregarding consistency and telling a good story are almost mutually exclusive because a lot of character drama in this series relies on how strong character A is compared to character B.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by sintzu » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:15 am

Kataphrut wrote:Everyone brings up the Krillin thing when that is like the worst example out there. It's blatantly obvious that Goku was holding back for training purposes.
If he was holding back he wouldn't have used his strongest form. Krillin is by far weaker than Goku's base form yet not only did he transform, he transformed into his SEVENTH and strongest form. How is that "holding back" ?
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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Baggie_Saiyan » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:56 am

sintzu wrote:
Kataphrut wrote:Everyone brings up the Krillin thing when that is like the worst example out there. It's blatantly obvious that Goku was holding back for training purposes.
If he was holding back he wouldn't have used his strongest form. Krillin is by far weaker than Goku's base form yet not only did he transform, he transformed into his SEVENTH and strongest form. How is that "holding back" ?
Because Goku was testing his resolve, the whole point of it all, a form that Krillin can't sense and feel the pressure of. It was pretty obvious in the context of the episode.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Marlowe89 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:11 pm

Power levels (as in numeric representations of a character's strength) were always pretty gimmicky in concept and could potentially limit some creativity with the plot direction given the very specific, rigid mathematical manner in which they were presented. It's easy to see why Toriyama abandoned them shortly after Namek.

However, power scaling (as in which character is stronger than another) is deeply ingrained into the franchise's plot structure, internal consistency, story themes and even certain character dynamics. It's hugely important to the overall narrative and represents the catalyst for our becoming invested in the progress of the story's protagonists. This applies to Super as much as it applies to all of Dragon Ball, so it's completely unacceptable that the anime managed to drop the ball here as hard as it has.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by PFM18 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:38 pm

Doctor. wrote:
PFM18 wrote:Prior to the tournament the big gripe was how some characters got so strong and the power boosts are often inconsistent. (Freeza, Trunks) But I mean that is just a result of the fact that the series prioritizes a good story over power scaling consistency and it has always been that way.
The real Dragon Ball did both. Powerscaling is ingrained into DB's story. Disregarding consistency and telling a good story are almost mutually exclusive because a lot of character drama in this series relies on how strong character A is compared to character B.
LOL @ DBS not being "real Dragon Ball."

What I was referring to was not "A is stronger than B" because that is hardly really called into question. Could you not tell that Beerus>Goku? or Golden Freeza>Goku,Vegeta prior to being tired? Vegeat or Tagoma? Cabba or Vegeta? Magetta or Vegeta? sometimes Super has fights that involve something other than pure power unlike Z. Hit Vgeeta and Goku were all about the same power but Goku was warned about the time skip and Vegeta had no idea. So Goku was able to counter it better. Could you not tell that Super Saiyan Rose Black>SSB Goku? or Vegetto>Merged Zamasu? or Jiren>Goku? Outside of some strange squabbles in the recruitment arc it is always pretty clear where characters stand near compared to each other. Obviously, the power of one character compared to another is an integral part of the drama in the story but that isn't really a concern in Super.

The more "legitimate" complaints as far as DBS goes is that characters are established to be at a certain level and then gain enormous power boosts that seem inconsistent to what power boosts are possible in the series. This is where DBS, to some extent, shows how it sacrifices power consistency in favor of a compelling story. But in DBZ the power ups were often inconsistent in the series but people love to turn a blind eye to it. Although the equivalent "asspull" scaling inconsistencies are not to the same extent in terms of the power up, that is simply a function of the fact that DBS is on a larger scale and the power ups are just larger in general.The whole plot>scaling idea by Toei and Toriyama has always been prevalent and DBS is no exception. (Even though these scaling inconsistencies are not nearly as egregious as people who don't pay attention seem to think)

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Doctor. » Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:56 pm

PFM18 wrote:LOL @ DBS not being "real Dragon Ball."
Well, I personally don't consider it such. Just as I don't consider GT, or the movies, or the videogames.
PFM18 wrote:Could you not tell that Beerus>Goku? or Golden Freeza>Goku,Vegeta prior to being tired? Vegeat or Tagoma? Cabba or Vegeta? Magetta or Vegeta? sometimes Super has fights that involve something other than pure power unlike Z. Hit Vgeeta and Goku were all about the same power but Goku was warned about the time skip and Vegeta had no idea. So Goku was able to counter it better. Could you not tell that Super Saiyan Rose Black>SSB Goku? or Vegetto>Merged Zamasu? or Jiren>Goku? Outside of some strange squabbles in the recruitment arc it is always pretty clear where characters stand near compared to each other. Obviously, the power of one character compared to another is an integral part of the drama in the story but that isn't really a concern in Super.
How strong is Beerus in comparison to Goku? 2x stronger? 10x? 100x? We thought Goku and Beerus should have been pretty close by the BoG and RoF arcs because Beerus said he used 10% of his power against SS2 Vegeta. But, in the Champa arc, Goku uses Kaioken x10 and he's still weaker than Beerus. This is a problem why? Because there's no sense of progression. Beerus will just be arbitrarily stronger than Goku no matter how strong the latter gets.

And can you really say Rosé is stronger than Blue Goku? When Blue Goku's Kamehameha managed to fuck up Merged Zamasu? After no training, I should say. One episode, Goku gets fucked by Rosé Black, the next he's beating up Merged Zamasu in a beam struggle. This is an example of characters getting stronger arbitrarily to serve the plot.

Look, it's always somewhat clear where Goku and Vegeta stand, I'm with you on that. The problem is how everyone around them stand in comparison.
PFM18 wrote:But in DBZ the power ups were often inconsistent in the series but people love to turn a blind eye to it.
Who are you arguing against? I've told you before that I think Z doing it is bad too, and I've seen plenty of people here and in other threads saying two wrongs don't make a right. Z having shit writing at point doesn't excuse Super having shit writing too.
PFM18 wrote:(Even though these scaling inconsistencies are not nearly as egregious as people who don't pay attention seem to think)
Marlowe89 hit the nail on the head. Everything in this series - from the plot, to the themes, to the drama - revolves around one thing and one thing only: strength. If strength can be arbitrarily changed with no logical reason, then that affects the audience's engagement in the story. You can't make the argument that Super sacrifices scaling for plot when the two things are intertwined. Sure, sometimes you can have some interesting stuff using something other than strength (like Majin Vegeta's inner conflict in the Boo arc, which focused on Vegeta's denial about his change, or Goku and Kuririn's moment at the end of GT, which had Goku try to lay Kuririn's doubts about being old to rest), but most of the time strength is what drives the plot and the characters forward.

Why should I care for someone like, say, Trunks, about his trauma over his inability to defeat Black, when I know he can just get arbitrarily stronger for no reason and go toe-to-toe with him a few episodes later?

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by PFM18 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 3:23 pm

Doctor. wrote:
PFM18 wrote:LOL @ DBS not being "real Dragon Ball."
Well, I personally don't consider it such. Just as I don't consider GT, or the movies, or the videogames.
PFM18 wrote:Could you not tell that Beerus>Goku? or Golden Freeza>Goku,Vegeta prior to being tired? Vegeat or Tagoma? Cabba or Vegeta? Magetta or Vegeta? sometimes Super has fights that involve something other than pure power unlike Z. Hit Vgeeta and Goku were all about the same power but Goku was warned about the time skip and Vegeta had no idea. So Goku was able to counter it better. Could you not tell that Super Saiyan Rose Black>SSB Goku? or Vegetto>Merged Zamasu? or Jiren>Goku? Outside of some strange squabbles in the recruitment arc it is always pretty clear where characters stand near compared to each other. Obviously, the power of one character compared to another is an integral part of the drama in the story but that isn't really a concern in Super.
How strong is Beerus in comparison to Goku? 2x stronger? 10x? 100x? We thought Goku and Beerus should have been pretty close by the BoG and RoF arcs because Beerus said he used 10% of his power against SS2 Vegeta. But, in the Champa arc, Goku uses Kaioken x10 and he's still weaker than Beerus. This is a problem why? Because there's no sense of progression. Beerus will just be arbitrarily stronger than Goku no matter how strong the latter gets.

And can you really say Rosé is stronger than Blue Goku? When Blue Goku's Kamehameha managed to fuck up Merged Zamasu? After no training, I should say. One episode, Goku gets fucked by Rosé Black, the next he's beating up Merged Zamasu in a beam struggle. This is an example of characters getting stronger arbitrarily to serve the plot.

Look, it's always somewhat clear where Goku and Vegeta stand, I'm with you on that. The problem is how everyone around them stand in comparison.
PFM18 wrote:But in DBZ the power ups were often inconsistent in the series but people love to turn a blind eye to it.
Who are you arguing against? I've told you before that I think Z doing it is bad too, and I've seen plenty of people here and in other threads saying two wrongs don't make a right. Z having shit writing at point doesn't excuse Super having shit writing too.
PFM18 wrote:(Even though these scaling inconsistencies are not nearly as egregious as people who don't pay attention seem to think)
Marlowe89 hit the nail on the head. Everything in this series - from the plot, to the themes, to the drama - revolves around one thing and one thing only: strength. If strength can be arbitrarily changed with no logical reason, then that affects the audience's engagement in the story. You can't make the argument that Super sacrifices scaling for plot when the two things are intertwined. Sure, sometimes you can have some interesting stuff using something other than strength (like Majin Vegeta's inner conflict in the Boo arc, which focused on Vegeta's denial about his change, or Goku and Kuririn's moment at the end of GT, which had Goku try to lay Kuririn's doubts about being old to rest), but most of the time strength is what drives the plot and the characters forward.

Why should I care for someone like, say, Trunks, about his trauma over his inability to defeat Black, when I know he can just get arbitrarily stronger for no reason and go toe-to-toe with him a few episodes later?
How strong Beerus is in comparison to Goku is left ambiguous. And that is fine because he is a deity and it should not be easy to surpass him. Why should it be quantified and how would that possibly be integrated into the story in a seamless way? So what would you prefer if Beerus said "Wow Goku now I am only 20x stronger than you." "Man you may have gotten stronger but good thing I am still 28.32x stronger than you." It was never quantified before outside of the Namek/Saiyan arcs so why should it be explicitly quanitified now. There is a sense of progression because Goku progressively got stronger and ultimately surpassed Beerus upon attaining true Ultra Instinct.

Yeah you can say Goku Black Rose is stronger than Blue Goku because he defeated him. Simple as that. As for Merged Zamasu and that sheananigans, I agree that was pretty dumb and it was poor writing. But that is an outlier of sorts. I know that you say that you don't excuse DBZ's faults but you still call it "Real Dragon Ball" because DBZ and DB supposedly don't have these aspects within them. I see the Merged Zamasu thing no different than Tien being able to damage/constrain Semi-Perfect Cell or Gohan and Krillin being able to do something similar to Dodoria despite both cases having enormous power gaps. If Tien could damage Semi Cell then why didn't he just use the same attack to kill all the Androids during that confrontation.

And this idea that these srots of things being "shit writing" I vehemently disagree with. Again, the "Real Dragon Ball" does this but in ways that do further the plot. Let's say for a second that Vegeta has a consistent zenkai boost on Namek, the one after Recoome garnered a roughly 10x increase, (going from less to Recoome to even with 1st form Freeza) so let's say when Krillin blows a hole through his chest that he gets healed and gains another 10x boost. Vegeta at this point would be at 5 million and stronger than Goku, so the entire scene where Goku shows up with Vegeta dying and Goku showing his immense strength compared to everyone else wouldn't happen because Vegeta would already be stronger than Goku's 3 million. Vegeta couldn't have given his speech about Goku avenging the Saiyan Race. It was clearly a powerlevel inconsistency but was it bad writing? Absolutely not. It gave a great moment that preceded the Freeza vs Goku fight. Otherwise Vegeta would have been fighting Freeza better than Goku did when he showed up and Vegeta could be unscathed and just say "hey Kakarot nice of you to join us." What if Freeza never gets a huge power up? then He couldn't have played an integral part of the ToP. 17? He wouldn't have been able to have all those great moments and win the Tournament. Sometimes having power inconsistencies are great for making a compelling story. There's tons of examples of this within Dragon Ball.

To say that "strength can be arbitrarily changed for no apparent reason" is a gross exaggeration. The protagonists have an amount of power that is made clear when compared to the antagonists. Even the more questionable power ups make sense to some extent. Freeza being god level in 4 months? He's never trained and was insanely powerful so now he did and he gained prominence by gaining a new form. 17? He trained for 13 years so assuming he has 1/39th of Freeza's potential then this makes sense. Future Trunks? Again we hadn't seen him in over a decade and in that time he became immensely powerful. (Even with Goku in SSJ2) The only one that is completely ridiculous is Gohan and his boost to being god level. But that is nothing new because in Z an old guy danced around him and he gained an enormous power boost from it.

Ultimately there appears to be a sort of double standard when comparing DBS to "Real Dragon Ball"

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Doctor. » Tue Apr 10, 2018 3:39 pm

I call it the "real Dragon Ball" because it's the original, uninterrupted 520 chapters of Dragon Ball as written by Toriyama back in the 80s and 90s for Weekly Shounen Jump. I'm not sure why you're getting so offended at that.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by PFM18 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 3:44 pm

Doctor. wrote:I call it the "real Dragon Ball" because it's the original, uninterrupted 520 chapters of Dragon Ball as written by Toriyama back in the 80s and 90s for Weekly Shounen Jump. I'm not sure why you're getting so offended at that.
I am not sure why you think I am getting offended by that. This is a discussion nobody should be offended

So you are not saying ""Real Dragon Ball" as an implication that it is better? because it sure sounds like it. You referred to it when discussing the powerlevels in Super as though the "Real Dragon Ball" didn't have these problems. And now you are saying that you are only calling it that because it is the original? Sounds like backtracking to me
Marlowe89 wrote:Power levels (as in numeric representations of a character's strength) were always pretty gimmicky in concept and could potentially limit some creativity with the plot direction given the very specific, rigid mathematical manner in which they were presented. It's easy to see why Toriyama abandoned them shortly after Namek.

However, power scaling (as in which character is stronger than another) is deeply ingrained into the franchise's plot structure, internal consistency, story themes and even certain character dynamics. It's hugely important to the overall narrative and represents the catalyst for our becoming invested in the progress of the story's protagonists. This applies to Super as much as it applies to all of Dragon Ball, so it's completely unacceptable that the anime managed to drop the ball here as hard as it has.
Drop the ball? care to explain? these things are not specific to DBS and not even close to absent in DBZ.
Last edited by PFM18 on Tue Apr 10, 2018 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: i'm not pissed about super's powerlevels

Post by Doctor. » Tue Apr 10, 2018 3:45 pm

PFM18 wrote:
Doctor. wrote:I call it the "real Dragon Ball" because it's the original, uninterrupted 520 chapters of Dragon Ball as written by Toriyama back in the 80s and 90s for Weekly Shounen Jump. I'm not sure why you're getting so offended at that.
I am not sure why you think I am getting offended by that. This is a discussion nobody should be offended

So you are not saying ""Real Dragon Ball" as an implication that it is better? because it sure sounds like it. You referred to it when discussing the powerlevels in Super as though the "Real Dragon Ball" didn't have these problems. And now you are saying that you are only calling it that because it is the original? Sounds like backtracking to me
It's the original and it's better :wink:

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