When all is said and done, who was stronger: Super Perfect Cell or SSJ2 Gohan?

[LoganForkHands73]

Perfect Cell didnt even reveal his full power until after Gohan went SSJ2. To say SSJ1 Gohan was stronger than Perfect Cell is pure headcanon and it would have made SSJ2 pointless if true. It was Cell that was the one holding back until Gohan breaks his limits, not the other way around. You'd have to be a blind Gohan fanboy argue that he or anyone in the Cell Saga was stronger than Perfect Cell without SSJ2.

The "Power levels never mattered" myth is just pure headcanon and denialism. The fact is that in nearly every major DB fight the guy with the bigger power level/stronger transformation always wins unless there's some handicap shows that PLs DO matter, that raw power is the biggest factor in any DB fight and that it was never about "skill" or some theme message to the fights no matter much the anti-power level crowd denies this fact. And the Saiyan saga itself is the biggest example of this, like Goku owning Nappa simply because he had a bigger PL than him, Goku only getting an advantage on Vegeta once he uses KKx3 which boost his power above his, etc.

If Gohan lost 50% of his power then Goku wouldn't have believed that Gohan could uave beated SP Cell in his condition at all, its simple.

How and why the hell would Gohan be holding back in a life or death beam struggle against Cell when the fate of the universe is at stake? That is just extremely dumb.

YOU are the one ridiculous arguments bro. The only reason Gohan beat Cell in the beam struggle was because of Vegeta's off guard assist on Cell. This is clear in both versions of the scene.

Whether or not it was logical at the time, Gohan was holding back against Cell even during the beam struggle because he was afraid of damaging the planet, or more broadly of just his own power. Especially when you have the power to destroy the Solar System, you don't want to accidentally blow up the planet you're standing on and kill everyone you love. As soon as Goku reminds him that the Dragon Balls exist, Gohan stops holding back and nukes Cell down to the atom.

In the manga, there's no real tug-of-war going on with the beam struggle in the whole chapter that it occurs in. In the anime, there's many moments where Cell seems to start overpowering Gohan, but none of that happens in the manga - the second Gohan gets truly serious, it's all over. So maybe Anime!Cell is much stronger in comparison to Manga!Cell, but in debates like these, I prefer to keep things to the original source material unless explicitly stated otherwise. The anime adds so much stupid contradictory BS, not just in this scene but across the whole series, that it becomes a chore to even discuss it. While I can find it entertaining, I prefer not to overthink the anime in the same way.

Vegeta's distraction attack was just that, a distraction. I can't agree that Vegeta's blast was somehow the only thing that netted Gohan a win. It just gave Gohan a convenient opening to end the struggle even quicker. Not to keep overstressing the same point, but it's something that's much more clearly conveyed in the manga where Vegeta's distraction and Goku's encouragement to Gohan happen at basically the exact same time.

To address Ponta's point, there's something to be said about the power of individual attacks being higher than the characters wielding them, but I think it's telling that Cell charges his Kamehameha for much longer than Gohan and gets it up to max power, whereas Gohan charged his with one arm with barely any wind-up. Then there's the thing mentioned about Cell's other Kamehamehas being surprisingly weak due to Gero's outdated information.

Overall, I'm just not convinced. Definitively saying that Super Perfect Cell was stronger even when he lost feels like a weird hill to die on. Like how fans of any sport trip over themselves to explain their favourite player or team's defeat.

[Grimlock]

saying that Super Perfect Cell was stronger even when he lost feels like a weird hill to die on.

Is it, though? Raditz was stronger than Piccolo and Goku and he lost. Buu was stronger than base Goku and he lost. Many of the movies villains were stronger but they lost to weaker characters.

Losing to a weaker character shouldn't really "feel like a weird hill to die on" because raw power is never the only thing taken into consideration, there are always other factors to consider.

[Incarnate]

Perfect Cell didnt even reveal his full power until after Gohan went SS2.

Okay? It's still headcanon to argue Perfect Cell was definitively stronger when SS1 Gohan wasn't even fighting back, especially when SS1 Goku (who is weaker than Gohan) fought somewhat on par with Perfect Cell.

The "Power levels never mattered" myth is just pure headcanon and denialism.

Whether you like it or not, power levels have never mattered. Ever since the Raditz fight (the same arc where PLs were introduced) it showed us PLs aren't to be trusted and don't matter, with Gohan shooting up from a PL of 1 to like 1,000 and injuring Raditz, and later with Piccolo/Goku, two people weaker than Raditz, killing him. Fights in Dragon Ball aren't "bigger number beats smaller number," never have been.

If Gohan lost 50% of his power then Goku wouldn't have believed that Gohan could uave beated SP Cell in his condition at all, its simple.

Complete unadulterated headcanon. Goku believed Gohan could have beat Super Perfect Cell because Gohan... was stronger than Cell. And it's a fact that Gohan lost half his chi. Gohan, the person in question, states he lost half his chi, and then Piccolo also makes note of Gohan's reduced ki. Meanwhile no one claims the contrary.

So basically everyone in the story and Toriyama are all clueless idiots because their statements and the facts don't align with your misguided headcanonical beliefs, got it.

How and why the hell would Gohan be holding back in a life or death beam struggle against Cell when the fate of the universe is at stake? That is just extremely dumb.

You should try reading the story sometime, because you're just embarrassing yourself here.

Gohan was worried for the Earth, not knowing what would happen to it if he were to put all his remaining strength into the Kamehameha.

YOU are the one ridiculous arguments bro.

"no u"
Yeah, I'm done replying to you. It's clear you don't know anything about the story, which explains how you can somehow believe Cell, who died to Gohan, was actually stronger than him. I recommend reading the story before you come up with these asinine headcanons that only make yourself look ignorant.

[Desassina]

Gohan was stronger, because he won that beam struggle, but it's not by such large margin. His energy was cut to half, but his Kamehameha could only damage the Earth, while Cell collected energy for a solar system busting one, so everything checks out, because the solar system is a bigger target than the Earth. The force that each one of them pushed their attacks with was the same though, hence why the clash remained until it was decided, so Cell was Super Saiyan 2 strong like Gohan in a battle that was not physical. Had they fought against each other without beams whose energy was different, then Gohan could have lost due to his crippled arm and lack of confidence.

[Psajdak]

Gohan is alive, and Cell is dead.

[UI Peter]

Perfect Cell didnt even reveal his full power until after Gohan went SSJ2. To say SSJ1 Gohan was stronger than Perfect Cell is pure headcanon and it would have made SSJ2 pointless if true. It was Cell that was the one holding back until Gohan breaks his limits, not the other way around. You'd have to be a blind Gohan fanboy argue that he or anyone in the Cell Saga was stronger than Perfect Cell without SSJ2.

The "Power levels never mattered" myth is just pure headcanon and denialism. The fact is that in nearly every major DB fight the guy with the bigger power level/stronger transformation always wins unless there's some handicap shows that PLs DO matter, that raw power is the biggest factor in any DB fight and that it was never about "skill" or some theme message to the fights no matter much the anti-power level crowd denies this fact. And the Saiyan saga itself is the biggest example of this, like Goku owning Nappa simply because he had a bigger PL than him, Goku only getting an advantage on Vegeta once he uses KKx3 which boost his power above his, etc.

If Gohan lost 50% of his power then Goku wouldn't have believed that Gohan could uave beated SP Cell in his condition at all, its simple.

How and why the hell would Gohan be holding back in a life or death beam struggle against Cell when the fate of the universe is at stake? That is just extremely dumb.

YOU are the one ridiculous arguments bro. The only reason Gohan beat Cell in the beam struggle was because of Vegeta's off guard assist on Cell. This is clear in both versions of the scene.

Whether or not it was logical at the time, Gohan was holding back against Cell even during the beam struggle because he was afraid of damaging the planet, or more broadly of just his own power. Especially when you have the power to destroy the Solar System, you don't want to accidentally blow up the planet you're standing on and kill everyone you love. As soon as Goku reminds him that the Dragon Balls exist, Gohan stops holding back and nukes Cell down to the atom.

In the manga, there's no real tug-of-war going on with the beam struggle in the whole chapter that it occurs in. In the anime, there's many moments where Cell seems to start overpowering Gohan, but none of that happens in the manga - the second Gohan gets truly serious, it's all over. So maybe Anime!Cell is much stronger in comparison to Manga!Cell, but in debates like these, I prefer to keep things to the original source material unless explicitly stated otherwise. The anime adds so much stupid contradictory BS, not just in this scene but across the whole series, that it becomes a chore to even discuss it. While I can find it entertaining, I prefer not to overthink the anime in the same way.

Vegeta's distraction attack was just that, a distraction. I can't agree that Vegeta's blast was somehow the only thing that netted Gohan a win. It just gave Gohan a convenient opening to end the struggle even quicker. Not to keep overstressing the same point, but it's something that's much more clearly conveyed in the manga where Vegeta's distraction and Goku's encouragement to Gohan happen at basically the exact same time.

To address Ponta's point, there's something to be said about the power of individual attacks being higher than the characters wielding them, but I think it's telling that Cell charges his Kamehameha for much longer than Gohan and gets it up to max power, whereas Gohan charged his with one arm with barely any wind-up. Then there's the thing mentioned about Cell's other Kamehamehas being surprisingly weak due to Gero's outdated information.

Overall, I'm just not convinced. Definitively saying that Super Perfect Cell was stronger even when he lost feels like a weird hill to die on. Like how fans of any sport trip over themselves to explain their favourite player or team's defeat.

Literally everything you just posted was baseless headcanon. If Gohan really lost 50% of his power, then he would have been only as strong as his SSJ1 self during the beam struggle, and there's no way in hell SSJ1 was stronger than even a suppressed Perfect Cell (let alone SP Cell), since he was clearly shown to be only around SSJ1 Goku level in the time chamber (and he couldn't beat a suppressed Perfect Cell either).

[UI Peter]

Perfect Cell didnt even reveal his full power until after Gohan went SS2.

Okay? It's still headcanon to argue Perfect Cell was definitively stronger when SS1 Gohan wasn't even fighting back, especially when SS1 Goku (who is weaker than Gohan) fought somewhat on par with Perfect Cell.

"he didnt fight back" is a weak argument. Also, SSJ1 Gohan was shown to be at best slightly stronger if not equal than SSJ1 Goku in the Time Chamber episodes, the same SSJ1 Goku who couldn't beat a suppressed Perfect Cell

The "Power levels never mattered" myth is just pure headcanon and denialism.

Whether you like it or not, power levels have never mattered. Ever since the Raditz fight (the same arc where PLs were introduced) it showed us PLs aren't to be trusted and don't matter, with Gohan shooting up from a PL of 1 to like 1,000 and injuring Raditz, and later with Piccolo/Goku, two people weaker than Raditz, killing him. Fights in Dragon Ball aren't "bigger number beats smaller number," never have been.

None of what you posted is evidence of PLs not mattering (they actually prove the opposite logically), thats just you being in denial. You ignored the simple fact that the guy with the bigger PL always wins (unless theirs a handicap or some other outside factor), the fact the PL readings by scouters are never proven wrong in the series, the fact that even Toriyama references PLs in later interviews to explain the power of the characters, the fact that raw power had ALWAYS been the biggest factor in who wins a fight in DB, etc.

And just because PLs rapidly change doesn't mean they don't exist, that's like saying just because characters can boost their strength rapidly by powering up means that strength doesn't exist. Its a stupid argument

If Gohan lost 50% of his power then Goku wouldn't have believed that Gohan could uave beated SP Cell in his condition at all, its simple.

Complete unadulterated headcanon. Goku believed Gohan could have beat Super Perfect Cell because Gohan... was stronger than Cell. And it's a fact that Gohan lost half his chi. Gohan, the person in question, states he lost half his chi, and then Piccolo also makes note of Gohan's reduced ki. Meanwhile no one claims the contrary.

So basically everyone in the story and Toriyama are all clueless idiots because their statements and the facts don't align with your misguided headcanonical beliefs, got it.

The only one with misguided headcanon is you. And if SSJ2 Gohan lost half of his power, then that would mean he would be only as strong as his SSJ1 form, and theres no way in hell that SSJ1 unfused anyone in Z was stronger than Super Perfect Cell when even Perfect Cell was too much for any of the SSJ1s at the time

How and why the hell would Gohan be holding back in a life or death beam struggle against Cell when the fate of the universe is at stake? That is just extremely dumb.

You should try reading the story sometime, because you're just embarrassing yourself here.

Gohan was worried for the Earth, not knowing what would happen to it if he were to put all his remaining strength into the Kamehameha.

Pure headcanon again lol

YOU are the one ridiculous arguments bro.

"no u"
Yeah, I'm done replying to you. It's clear you don't know anything about the story, which explains how you can somehow believe Cell, who died to Gohan, was actually stronger than him. I recommend reading the story before you come up with these asinine headcanons that only make yourself look ignorant.

YOU are the one that looks ignorant with this last comment.

"Yeah, I'm done replying to you"
Because you can't admit to being wrong

You're projecting hard. Raditz was stronger than Goku & Piccolo in the start of Z, yet lost. Kid Buu was stronger than Base Goku yet lost, a bunch of movie villains lost despite being stronger than any of the heroes, etc. So the "Gohan won so he's stronger" argument is dumb

[UI Peter]

Gohan is alive, and Cell is dead.

Doesn't prove a thing. Piccolo in the beginning of Z was much weaker than Raditz, yet he survived and Raditz died.

[Jack Bz]

I legit didn't even know that Super Perfect Cell being stronger than SS2 Gohan was an opinion anyone had.

Goku plainly states that Gohan is holding back because he's scared of destroying the earth, and to not worry about it because the dragon balls can fix whatever happens. You know who wasn't holding back at that point, and who had just said he's going to stop messing around and destroy the solar system? Cell.

So injured Gohan who is stated to be holding back vs a Cell trying as hard as he can to destroy the solar system? And then...Cell still loses anyway? And people say Cell was stronger? That's wild.

[Jack Bz]

Gohan is alive, and Cell is dead.

Doesn't prove a thing. Piccolo in the beginning of Z was much weaker than Raditz, yet he survived and Raditz died.

Raditz didn't lose to a beam struggle against Piccolo.

[UI Peter]

Gohan is alive, and Cell is dead.

Doesn't prove a thing. Piccolo in the beginning of Z was much weaker than Raditz, yet he survived and Raditz died.

Raditz didn't lose to a beam struggle against Piccolo.

Cell only lost because of Vegeta. He showed no signs of losing the beam struggle before Vegeta's assist.

[UI Peter]

I legit didn't even know that Super Perfect Cell being stronger than SS2 Gohan was an opinion anyone had.

Goku plainly states that Gohan is holding back because he's scared of destroying the earth, and to not worry about it because the dragon balls can fix whatever happens. You know who wasn't holding back at that point, and who had just said he's going to stop messing around and destroy the solar system? Cell.

So injured Gohan who is stated to be holding back vs a Cell trying as hard as he can to destroy the solar system? And then...Cell still loses anyway? And people say Cell was stronger? That's wild.

Do you believe SSJ1 Gohan is stronger than Super Perfect Cell? Because that's the logical consequence of believing that SSJ2 Gohan with only 50% power & holding back was still stronger than him. It makes zero sense.

[Jack Bz]

Doesn't prove a thing. Piccolo in the beginning of Z was much weaker than Raditz, yet he survived and Raditz died.

Raditz didn't lose to a beam struggle against Piccolo.

Cell only lost because of Vegeta. He showed no signs of losing the beam struggle before Vegeta's assist.

That's just not the story that was trying to be conveyed. The ending isn't meant to be some commentary on team work. The whole point of that section of the story is Gohan having deeply innate potential, and the barriers he's had to overcome in realising it. From not wanting to fight Cell and getting over his pacifism, to becoming a super saiyan 2, to having his confidence knocked by Cell's return.

Goku talks to Gohan from beyond the grave without any worry whatsoever. He knows how strong Gohan is, more than anyone after spending a year training with him. He sees straight away that Gohan is holding back. He says, in an unambiguously straight forward fashion, that Gohan was holding back.

"Cell only lost because of Vegeta" what do you actually think had a bigger impact on who won? What was the chapter focussing on? Goku getting Gohan to not hold back, and generally raising his confidence again, or base Vegeta's assist? What do you think Toriyama intended to have the bigger impact? Do you read the chapter, read Goku telling Gohan to stop holding back and to "show me the power we made together", and think "Goku is wrong, Gohan doesn't have the power to beat Cell"? That absolutely is not the intention of the beam struggle at all, clearly.

[Incarnate]

I legit didn't even know that Super Perfect Cell being stronger than SS2 Gohan was an opinion anyone had.

From the looks of it, it's just trolling. Some people are just desperate for attention, and the easiest way to get it is by saying something ridiculous everybody knows is incorrect.

[Grimlock]

You already got yourself a free warning and you said that you would tone down, but despite that, you continue to belittle other people's opinions as if yours were a fact (it is not). This is not how things work here, if you don't think this thread/subject is worth of your attention, ignore it. You do not have to contribute at all.

Admittedly, those who think Gohan is stronger have presented relatively well arguments, but that does not mean those who think Cell is stronger and those who don't know which one is stronger are wrong. Opinions are opinions and as long as we continue on that realm, treat your point of view as such without having to come off as a rude person and saying that "they're trolling" and "desperate for attention".

[Incarnate]

You already got yourself a free warning and you said that you would tone down, but despite that, you continue to belittle other people's opinions

Read the posts before you jump to conclusions.

[wolflonnie]

There is, of course, the whole reason behind Gohan's injury to begin with: him getting hit with an attack that Cell himself described as 'casual' a few pages later, which wounded him so badly it cut his power to less than half its former glory.

The common counter-argument that he was off-guard is unfounded. He could have braced against it better than he did, yea, but he wasn't off-guard:

* He was using his full-power at the time, and flying towards Vegeta at full speed

* He had his aura up, coated with its lightning

* He was looking straight at the beam's trajectory before getting hit

Taking all that into account, it's pretty easy to deduce his energy/ki defenses were up. The attack was simply too powerful for him to resist, as he himself states shortly after the impact.

I second this. Gohan perceived Cell's new power, but still underestimated it enough to not brace himself properly against a casual ki blast.
Implying that Gohan was confident to initially take on SPC, but later discovered he was much tougher than expected, so much so a random ki blast can do a number on him.
Either they're dead even to the point one well timed attack can cause serious damage, or SPC is actually stronger since Gohan saw the attack coming but underestimated it.

Imagine the same scenario with different characters of which one is superior to the other, like Saiyan Saga KK Goku vs Vegeta. Can you actually see Vegeta being injured the same way Gohan was?

[Magnificent Ponta]

While I see the most heated exchange here has been terminated, I must say the flinging (and counter-flinging) of accusations of "headcanon" puzzled me. I thought headcanon was the supplying of invented detail to a work, but here it seems a shorthand to blithely dismiss what seem like nothing more like contrary interpretations of evidence - am I wrong in thinking this tendency to have conversations that aim to dismiss interpretative counterpoints out-of-hand to be quite bizarre?

To address Ponta's point, there's something to be said about the power of individual attacks being higher than the characters wielding them, but I think it's telling that Cell charges his Kamehameha for much longer than Gohan and gets it up to max power, whereas Gohan charged his with one arm with barely any wind-up. Then there's the thing mentioned about Cell's other Kamehamehas being surprisingly weak due to Gero's outdated information.

Thanks for taking the time - while what you're saying has a certain 'common sense' appeal to it, do we actually have another instance to refer to where a longer charge time as such benefits the technique user? Most of the instances of beam clashes I can think of (Cell's first Kamehameha vs. SSj2 Gohan, Vegeta vs. Kaio-Ken x3 Goku) don't seem to take charge time as a factor on which beam is better. At least, it doesn't seem to affect the outcome.

Using the first Cell-Gohan Kamehameha as an example (probably the best, most precise comparison we have): Cell charges the blast and calls it a Kamehameha at full power, whereas Gohan almost waits until Cell's blast has 'touched ground' before even taking a stance. So the 'wind-up' doesn't seem to make much difference in and of itself. Or, at least, it's easy to overcome a superior wind-up with an overwhelming power differential, whether intrinsic to oneself (as here) or to one's technique (as, I suppose, would've been shown between Chaozu's Dodon-pa and Kuririn's unpractised Kamehameha).

All of which, I guess, goes towards my original point that trying to infer original and specific power relationships from ki-concentrated beam clashes is a bit of a non-starter. I think the evidence it presents is too problematic to be clearly useful, and should probably be disregarded. That said, I think other, more persuasive evidence does still exist to favour SSj2 Gohan in any case.

[Koitsukai]

It does baffle me that people think Cell, while supposedly being stronger, had to deal with much more than what Gohan was already enduring, and that's why he died.
I mean, it's saying that base Vegeta dealt more damage to Cell(although not even injuring him) than Cell did to Gohan when he ruined his arm.

If Cell was stronger, how come he couldn't get over that little blast from a weakling, and Gohan did get over a makkankosappo from the stronger Cell and killed him?

[LoganForkHands73]

Whether or not it was logical at the time, Gohan was holding back against Cell even during the beam struggle because he was afraid of damaging the planet, or more broadly of just his own power. Especially when you have the power to destroy the Solar System, you don't want to accidentally blow up the planet you're standing on and kill everyone you love. As soon as Goku reminds him that the Dragon Balls exist, Gohan stops holding back and nukes Cell down to the atom.

In the manga, there's no real tug-of-war going on with the beam struggle in the whole chapter that it occurs in. In the anime, there's many moments where Cell seems to start overpowering Gohan, but none of that happens in the manga - the second Gohan gets truly serious, it's all over. So maybe Anime!Cell is much stronger in comparison to Manga!Cell, but in debates like these, I prefer to keep things to the original source material unless explicitly stated otherwise. The anime adds so much stupid contradictory BS, not just in this scene but across the whole series, that it becomes a chore to even discuss it. While I can find it entertaining, I prefer not to overthink the anime in the same way.

Vegeta's distraction attack was just that, a distraction. I can't agree that Vegeta's blast was somehow the only thing that netted Gohan a win. It just gave Gohan a convenient opening to end the struggle even quicker. Not to keep overstressing the same point, but it's something that's much more clearly conveyed in the manga where Vegeta's distraction and Goku's encouragement to Gohan happen at basically the exact same time.

To address Ponta's point, there's something to be said about the power of individual attacks being higher than the characters wielding them, but I think it's telling that Cell charges his Kamehameha for much longer than Gohan and gets it up to max power, whereas Gohan charged his with one arm with barely any wind-up. Then there's the thing mentioned about Cell's other Kamehamehas being surprisingly weak due to Gero's outdated information.

Overall, I'm just not convinced. Definitively saying that Super Perfect Cell was stronger even when he lost feels like a weird hill to die on. Like how fans of any sport trip over themselves to explain their favourite player or team's defeat.

Literally everything you just posted was baseless headcanon. If Gohan really lost 50% of his power, then he would have been only as strong as his SSJ1 self during the beam struggle, and there's no way in hell SSJ1 was stronger than even a suppressed Perfect Cell (let alone SP Cell), since he was clearly shown to be only around SSJ1 Goku level in the time chamber (and he couldn't beat a suppressed Perfect Cell either).

Wow. My arguments, destroyed... My baseless headcanons, shattered...

I didn't even bring up the 50% ki thing in that comment you quoted, so I don't know why you're getting uppity at me for literally just describing exactly what happens in the scene, based on the words and pictures on the pages. So which of my points are the "baseless headcanon"? All of them, I take it?

I think I'm done with this whole thread, it's taken too much out of me.