There are three ways to take False Super Saiyan as a means of "legitimizing it" beyond it just being a rejected Super Saiyan or a Big Lipped Alligator Moment:
1) Super Saiyan Omen. Like Ultra Instinct, this form heralds the true Super Saiyan form. That's why it looks so much like it, even including some of the form's power. Hell, it even has the slightly tinted hair of Super Saiyan. That said, that slight tint was due to the coloring of the movie, and we even saw that same coloring in an actual episode of DBZ with Vegeta. No, not when Vegeta IV used his Saiyan Soul power up and had that yellow aura around him...
THIS Vegeta
In a flashback. Maybe it was an animation error, but it's curious that the same colors are used; it tells me that "False Super Saiyan" probably would look just like having a regular Super Saiyan aura in any normal lighting conditions.
Another curious thing is that, for a single frame, Goku's hair isn't standing upwards. Considering that the effect they were going for was that the power of the form was disrupting the air all around him, I wonder if the form was originally envisioned as being like Kaioken but with certain differences that made it unlike Kaioken (hence why Kaio-sama had no knowledge of what was going on at first)
2) Failed Super Saiyan. The classic explanation, but I tend to find it pretty boring. Though it does seem fitting. I also love how the color scheme is reversed between the two since Toriyama hadn't decided that golden hair would be a more obvious indication of a power up— instead Son Goku's SKIN is gold! That's a fairly obvious change, but the glowing skin/black hair combo looks weird. It's the empty eyes that conveys the most power, but we've already seen that before (though its most famous user had yet to come).
The issue about Son Goku not being angry enough to go full Super Saiyan is completely laughable now, too. Maybe at the time it held up, but we've seen several Saiyans go Super with far, far less motivation. Hell, Caulifla didn't even feel any particular emotion; she just willed herself into becoming one. And Goten? I don't think we EVER found out why he transformed other than "he just did." Basically any emotional trigger could've thrown Goku over the edge in retrospect, even if it was just Slug saying he was going to kill Gohan or Krillin. If not, then why did Cabba transform when Vegeta (a guy he had no reason to think was evil) just THREATENED to destroy Sadala, having no real evident motivation to do so? This is the ultimate testament to the False Super Saiyan form being just a prototype, and the "not angry enough" explanation falls apart like Dragon Ball's power scaling consistency.
3) Previously unknown Feral Saiyan/precursor to Ikari. This is my favorite explanation nowadays— the idea that there's actually some unknown branch of power in the Saiyan bloodline that causes one to look a lot like a Super Saiyan but not actually be a Super Saiyan. You know, ahem... a FALSE Super Saiyan
It doesn't help that the Ikari form looks so much like it.
I'd love it if the False Super Saiyan form was retconned into being the Ikari form, or if it was an entirely separate branch of power that basically allowed all of a Saiyan's latent potential to come to the forefront (making them stronger than even their strongest form at the time) at the cost of their reason or ability to gauge friend or foe. If that were the case, we'd actually have a reason to see it again— Son Goku using the "False Super Saiyan" form would actually make him stronger than he is in Ultra Instinct, but he'd have absolutely no control over himself and would be completely berserk until someone snapped him out of it (and thus out of the form). But it's so insignificant that we'll never see anything done with it.
Grimlock wrote: Tue Jul 14, 2020 3:55 am
Figured it was time to give some love/attention to one of the most (if not the most) underrated concept and transformation of this franchise (and to bring back these kind of threads that were a thing years ago). No doubt better than any over-the-top transformations and ugly recolors we see out there these days, False Super Saiyan perfectly embodies the feeling of brutal power yet retaining a rather simplistic but stylish design, as things should be.
Funny as hell, Super Saiyan God appears to have actually been something like False Super Saiyan
Still with red hair, but otherwise a very FSS-looking color scheme, aura, and general design. Almost like a False-False Super Saiyan.
I distinctly remember when this leak first happened way back in 2013, and I was one of the first people to mention it on the DBZF.co.uk forums. I very distinctly remember saying "Uh oh" out loud because you have to remember: people at the time thought Super Saiyan God was going to be this over-the-type Dragon Ball AF-esque Golden Super Saiyan 4, and for years afterwards were angry that it WASN'T. I mean, up until the form actually debuted, every single video on YouTube, every single piece of fanart, everything to do with Super Saiyan God portrayed it as a Golden SS4, so seeing the actual form just made me go "Uh oh."
Not because I thought it was bad, of course. I loved the idea of FSS getting some love and was actually disappointed by it looking more like Kaioken + a badly done fire aura; to this day, I don't get why it needs a literal flaming aura, especially when the best Toei can do is this crappy CGI fire. But I was just as happy it wasn't Golden SS4; that would've been dire in the long run.
Tangent, has this forum ever discussed the culture of Western fans and our general obsession with making DBZ out to be far more hypermasculine and "badass" than it is? I mean, that seems like a silly question with the likes of VegettoEX and Kunzait_83 around to constantly remind people about what the series really is, but I wanna know if there's any good threads to see any breakdowns and discussions about it.
As a black guy myself around many other DB-obsessed black guys growing up, they are almost all EXACTLY who you'd imagine a dubbie to be,
taking this macro to heart and being outright offended by any suggestion DB isn't that.
This mention of Super Saiyan God once being a "Golden Super Saiyan 4" in the fandom's mind just brought that to mind.
