Saturnine wrote:Then they could have had Goku or Vegeta use the traditional SSj form in the RoF portion of the anime to better indicate their intentions. Instead, they went with SBG, which was - just like in the movie - intended to be equivalent to SSjG in power, followed only by SSj Blue. When the U6 tournament came later and regular SSj for Goku and Vegeta returned, people were genuinely puzzled.
The distinction was made clear when Goku was sensed in Base, and then when he went SSB, everybody commented that he could no longer be sensed because he has God Ki. Neither of these scenes/pieces of dialogue happen in the anime. I'd say that makes a pretty clear distinction and display of their intentions, if you completely change two scenes that didn't exist in the movie and clearly contradict what happened in the movie. And, in the anime, we get absolutely no indication that his "SBG" was equivalent to SSG, so that shouldn't really confuse anyone either. The only reason people came to that conclusion, and then were confused in the U6 arc, was because of their preconceived notions and not because of any implications within the series itself.
But it was explicitly shown, by both Goku and Gohan not only vastly outperforming Grade 2, but also Grade 3 after a similar amount of training. It stands to reason that this state let them access more power, and I don't need handholding in the form of statements in order to see that. Some people rationalize this by saying unproven and speculative things like "once you master SSj, your base power rises a huge deal automatically just so the multi can stay 50x", which is quite honestly much less sensible.
I don't see how a statement verifying it would constitute "handholding", there. The focus of the form and all of the dialogue surrounding the form has absolutely nothing to do with increasing their power but rather reducing the strain on their body. The downfall of Trunks/Vegeta was focusing on
just power, and so Goku achieving a form that just blatantly yields more power wouldn't kind of hold up narratively, given he wasn't at all focusing on power itself. I think it's a natural assumption to conclude that they are stronger than Grade 2 simply because of their increased Base forms.
Either way, what separates this, and what we see in Super, is that one is supported by multiple explicit statements AND what is explicitly shown in their performance.
FTFY. In your view we are given no reason to believe this has changed, in the view of many others we aren't. In that battle indeed, it held true, but afterwards it's really quite muddy in the anime. Your entire line of argumentation also hinges on your fixation on the belief that SSj makes such a huge difference here - which in and of itself cannot be accepted as absolute just like that. We later find out that to multiply a godly base by any factor, SSj has to be Blue. Therefore, how can you be so sure that the godly power-up is not for example a flat increase, which regular SSj doesn't even affect? SSj God was supposed to be a realm of power beyond imagination, remember? What if regular SSj only multiplies Goku's own pre-godly Ki, while the godly component remains the same? For instance, SSj Goku could be 1, base Goku could be 0,02, but the absorbed god ki could be 999, making base Goku 999,002, and SSj Goku 1000. I'm not saying it's necessarily like that, but you can't dismiss it's possible. Suggesting that Goku's base form absorbed only 1/50th of his SSj God power seems afwully arbitrary to me too, not to mention it directly casts into doubt the very point of SSj Blue's existence, which is "a Saiyan who has absorbed the power of SSj God and transforms himself into SSj". You're trying to attribute the very same description to regular SSj, while also conveniently lowering the actual amount of power absorbed by 50x to match your preconception.
There's no precedent for a flat increase, nor are we given a reason to believe the mechanics of their transformations and the associated multipliers were changed. Especially given that Vegeta achieved the same amount of power without absorbing SSG, and his forms still functioned the same way as Goku. This would hold more water if Vegeta didn't just get the same power without doing the same thing, but since he did, and both of Goku/Vegeta's forms function the same way as each other, we are left to assume that Goku's "absorption" literally just functioned as a power boost and didn't do anything else; his normal forms still work the same, but he's just way stronger.
It isn't a matter of Goku "absorbing only 1/50th of his SSG power." He is as strong as SSG as a SSJ, and that is true because he had
adapted to that level of a power, as a SSJ. As a SSJ, he retains
all of that power, and there's nothing arbitrary about that. Trying to standardize this absorption quantity to Goku's Base form is more arbitrary, if anything. The way that SSB was described, it still fits the description, the only reason things appear differently is because Goku can't use God Ki in Base in Super. Both of them especially describe it as God Ki+SSJ, so we should conclude SSG is a pre-requisite to SSB, and he is accessing both, and that's how he uses SSB. (Corroborated by Vegeta using SSG in the movie and the original name of the form being "Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan." Normal SSJ does not fit the same description, and that isn't what I conveniently conclude to fit my preconceptions, considering that isn't what I concluded at all.
Yeah, and just like that I could say that you don't like the idea of base Cabba or Future Trunks being much weaker than SSj3 Gotenks, unlike your suggested god-absorbed base level for Goku and Vegeta, whom they are shown to match in the anime. Not to mention your refusal to look out of universe, like the manga for example, where it's made quite clear that base is base, and only SSjG starts touching the god tier. Why do you think Toyotaro brought SSjG back so quickly, unlike the anime? Because he wrote those arcs after they aired in the anime - so he was able to see the confusing mess the writers forced themselves into, by trying to incorporate RoF into a serialized narrative while backing out of the godly base -> SSj Blue simplified transformation scheme established there. Thus he avoided their mistakes and attempted to keep things consistent. Insisting that manga continuity and anime continuity Vegeta and Goku differ so much in power between each other is nothing more than trying to rationalize and legitimize the writers' poor handling of power scaling - even though we've got good reasons to believe the characters' powers are intended to be roughly equal in both media. I certainly don't think Toriyama's like "I'll write anime Goku being 500x stronger than manga goku just for the hell of it", lol
I guess that's fair, because you could hypothetically conclude the same about my beliefs being related to what I
want to be true. I mean, you don't know that for certain, but neither do I know for certain about you or anyone else.
Why would I look out of Universe or to the manga? Our evidence should be limited to what is in the anime continuity, when talking about the anime continuity, and not speculating about their intentions or trying to reconcile any differences between them as being an error on the one of their parts. If it stays consistent, with it's portrayal of their super strong Base forms, I don't see why I should be calling it "poor handling" or "their mistakes." Why should I assume that Goku/Vegeta's Base power being so different between the anime and manga is a problem? RoF Base Goku vs Freeza, Base Goku vs Monaka suit Beerus, Base Vegeta vs SSJ3 Gotenks, and Base Goku vs Buu(post-training) are ALL exempt from the manga, all scenes where their Base form seems extremely powerful. I don't think that is a very convenient coincidence.
Also, keeping the SBG concept (or "godly ki-absorbed base in any form) while also having the SSjG form accessible creates the problem of perpetual absorptions. I know Goku's first achievement of this form was via a ritual, but Vegeta has it too, so if both of them got their base power increased by absorbing the form, and yet can still use it, then couldn't they theoretically keep absorbing the SSjG power into base indefinitely, and then just transforming again and repeating the process? Even if it's 1/50 in base like you suggest, if SSjG is a multiplier, this could theoretically go on indefinitely. We know it can't and it hasn't, and it's reasonable to assume that the writers noticed this pitfall too - so whenever SSjG is present, SBG is conveniently forgotten. And that's really the best thing the writers could have done - albeit still sloppy and poor damage control at best - because what could they have done otherwise? Statements like "we used to access SSj God power without transforming, but we don't really do that much anymore"? That would be just awkward.
That is fair, but the circumstances of Goku's original absorption were never replicated, though. Goku never had the ritual, reached a power he never thought possible, and then adapted to it. He just learned how to access it on his own without the ritual, and Vegeta explicitly did NOT have the ritual at any point. So while this was never explicitly stated it's a fair assumption to say it only happens during a ritual-achieved SSG. But yes, I can definitely see how people could see perpetual absorptions as a problem.
As best as we know, in the anime we have godly base Goku and Vegeta, with the full power of SSj God, in the following instances: SBG, Potaufeu arc, Goku vs Beerus as Monaka, arguably base Goku vs Hit. All other appearances seem as though Goku and Vegeta are only stronger than their Buu arc selves by a logical amount that would stem from their trainings, which could be up to several times perhaps - the godly realm is reserved for the SSj God form again, which matches the manga.
But the anime gives us no reason to believe their Base form in those scenes is somehow different from their normal Base form. And what are these "all other appearances" you are even referring to? When are they even portrayed as being not that strong? MAYBE against Basil, but that's the only example and a weak one at that. The anime has no obligation to match the manga in this respect.
Here you're seeming awfully self-contradicting for someone who needs explicit statements to feel safe about believing in something. What happened to actually seeing what happens and inferring stuff from that?
That was exactly my point. I see actually see what happens very clearly, and so I don't need an explicit statement. We don't need dialogue to just confirm something that we already know. I DO need an explicit statement, to conclude a huge, over-arching concept change about the entirety of the power scaling structure in the series that is indicated by very little if anything else.
f base Cabba = base Vegeta > SSj3 Gotenks, then Goku/Vegeta fought Freeza equally in base back in RoF, but Cabba required SSj2 to only slightly pressure Freeza in the ToP. Freeza was supposed to have become stronger in hell indeed, but do you think it was several tens of times just from meditating?
and Freeza still needs his Golden form to beat Cabba. It isn't as though Freeza beat him in his Final Form. And Final Form Freeza getting dozens of times stronger is already indicated by the fact that he caught up to Goku who got 10x stronger shown from his performance against hit, and the fact that it was stated that ToP Final Form Freeza>Frost, when we know that Final Form Freeza was even with Base Goku in RoF but Frost forced Goku to use SSJ and seemed even with Base Goku if not stronger, without even using his Final Form yet.
