Yeah any of these guys can be considered outliers, and I was about to bring out the Freeza Saga examples too. Makes sense to see the later examples as Toriyama retconing/"updating" how strong he thinks these characters are.RandomGuy96 wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2023 8:05 pmNappa's kind of an enormous outlier, enhanced by the fact that this event is depicted completely differently in the anime. Later in that same fight, and even as late as the Freeza fight, we have fighters being awed by the power of... making a big hole in the ground. Not like a city-sized one or anything.
Sounds more like Piccolo destroyed everything but the castle and it's immediate surrounding. I don't expect Toriyama to bother drawing an entire city in-scale, so unless Dragon Ball cities are meant to be much smaller than in real life, the King's statement is to clarify Piccolo indeed blew up a whole city.I mean no, he didn't? Like not even close? The King says the city was destroyed but from what we can see, he only destroyed like five buildings, part of a continuous urban agglomeration. There's a whole bunch of city untouched behind the impact site. Also unharmed rocks and trees within what appear to be mere dozens of meters of said site.
Nowhere near a nuke. We've been dropping conventional bombs that take out entire city blocks since the 1930s.Spoiler:
The Daizenshuu 7 bit says Piccolo is "easily capable of blowing away a city". That sounds like a reference to the casual handwave rather than his strainful strongest attack that cost his stamina.
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Well no, it clearly couldn't, as demonstrated by the fact that he gassed himself out launching a super charged attack and some of the city was still there afterwards. The cities as drawn are pretty small too, which is probably where this bit in Daizenshuu 7 came from:
"He has become even more powerful now that he has his youth restored. Easily capable of blowing away a city, his power rivals that of a small nuclear bomb."[/quote]
That's not how Ki blasts work though. There's attacks several magnitudes higher than this that do much less damage.
Piccolo is just as tired after killing Raditz too, winded and sweating bullets for the rest of the chapter. I don't think the Makkankosappo being stronger than that blast should be controversial since it is Piccolo's strongest attack. Interestingly, on top of his comment about Gohan's "destructive power" (which could at least be interpreted as Ki sensing), he's just as afraid of Nappa making a bottomless hole in the ground.It wasn't "mild effort." He was huffing and puffing afterwards, indicating he used up a significant fraction of his total energy reserves (which is very distinct from power, by the way, so there's no guarantee a more powerful character could even do the same thing). Maybe even most of them. This didn't happen when he fired that big blast that he thought would kill Nappa. It didn't happen when he fired the blast that killed Raditz.Spoiler:
Also the moon thing is... weird. The Kakarot game retconned it as an illusion and, while we don't know this, I'd bet anything that was one of the bits that came from Toriyama. It seems like something he would write and it's more consistent with what happens in the scene. Namely, Piccolo deciding to blow up the moon is in direct response to him shitting himself at the "enormous destructive power" of Oozaru Gohan blowing up some small mountains.
That tidbit about Kakarot is interesting, but I'm not sure how it fits. While it takes away a plot point I really liked (Piccolo prevented Vegeta from becoming an Oozaru), it's more consistent with the powerscaling of the scene and how the moon comes back in later years (I think? It's just a background thing, and sometimes it's just for gag with Boss Rabbit). But it could also be Toriyama forgetting the moon was destroyed in the first place, as he tends to do. Or maybe not his idea at all (It probably was, but who knows?).Chapter: 217 (DBZ 23), P10.2
Context: talking about Nappa’s blast and the hole it creates
Piccolo: “I ca…can’t see the hole’s bottom…What a tremendous energy wave…!”
Goku does say in the Budokai that he separates his power in Battle level and Match level. So what if what Kuririn and Yamcha saw at Uranai Baba's place was just Goku's old match level? Grandpa Gohan did say he was no match for Goku despite the fairly even fight. They already some very vague power-gauging abilities, so I don't think their confidence (or Chappa's hype) was empty talk. They never knew how strong Goku was back then, and he's even stronger now.RandomGuy96 wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 11:28 pm Random ass question:
Is there any indication that anyone in the 22nd Budokai arc besides the two finalists and Roshi have surpassed Tao Paipai? Knowing that Tao was about on par with (but slightly inferior to) end-of-arc RRA Goku. I'd think Crane Hermit (power level of 120 given in Weekly Jump) and 22nd Budokai Roshi (power level of 139 given in Daizenshuu 7) are both supposed to be stronger than him, because the former's his older brother and the latter easily beats the former, but there's no confirmation. Previously I'd thought that Krillin and Yamcha thinking they might have a chance against Goku indicated they were at least as strong as Tao Paipai themselves, if not stronger, and by extension that Chappa was too (since they thought he'd be a tough fight for Goku)... but thinking about it, they've literally never met, fought, or sensed Tao Paipai. So how would they know how strong he was?
I think Tao would still be a huge deal in this arc. Not enough to seriously trouble Goku, Tenshinhan, or Roshi of course, but probably stronger than everyone else in the ring and enough to make them fight at their actual strength rather than "match level." Crane Hermit has this to say when watching Goku easily hand Krillin his ass. Specifically, this is right after Goku does a rush attack so quick that Krillin can't even see Goku dancing around him, before he knocks Krillin out of the ring with one hit:
Chapter: 127, P13.1-2
Tsuru-sennin: “H-he’s outrageous…He just might be good enough to have defeated Tao Pai Pai…”
Kame-sennin: “Goku gets bigger and bigger each time I see him…I get the feeling that my position’s already vanished…”
If "stomps out Krillin like he's trash" is still only "maybe he can defeat Tao" territory, that's a pretty direct indication that Tao is stronger than Krillin. Who himself is stronger than Yamcha and Chaozu. This goes double if the Crane Hermit was accounting for the fact that Goku had more power in reserve than he was showing here, which I think would be a reasonable assumption for him to make considering how visibly easy Goku was taking it on Krillin (even doing a silly face to taunt him right before knocking him out).
On that note, the next arc. Except for Goku and Piccolo, none of the characters in the Piccolo Daimao arc change in power at all. Goku and Piccolo are clearly in a different dimension than anything that came before. Old Piccolo is "can easily face-tank Goku's strongest attack while outputting less than half his power, then becomes many times more powerful, then powers up to an unspecified degree after that" tier, and post-water Goku is his equal.
Chapter: 143, P14.2-5
Context: said when Goku hits him with the Kamehameha
Goku: “Heheh! He took that head-on!”
*Piccolo is unharmed*
Piccolo: “Did you do something just now?”
Chapter: 143, P12.3
Context: Piccolo continues to outclass Goku
Piccolo: “Hohhohhoh…You have no chance of winning, no matter how you struggle, and you can’t run away either. It seems all that’s left for you is the road to death. I’m still not even putting out half of my power. Too bad for you…so then, what will you do?”
Chapter: 144, P9.2-3
Pilaf: “Um, hey…So if he regains his youth, he’ll be even more amazing…?”
Piano: “Naturally. So much so that there’ll be no comparison [to how he is now].”
Chapter: 156, P11.1-6
Piccolo: “Oh, I’m impressed that you noticed. But then, you would. My life span shortens when I fight at full power…I didn’t want to use it if at all possible, but…it seems I have no choice…”
Drum is "moderately above 22nd Budokai Goku/Tenshinhan" tier. He beats Ten in a fistfight but Ten can still tag him and draw blood when he lands a hit. But of course Drum is nothing compared to his dad or Goku as a holding-back basically explodes his head with one kick.
Chapter: 155, P2.2
Context: said after he kills Drum
Tenshinhan: “One hit…just one hit…What’s happened?...He’s not the same Son he was before…! He shouldn’t have had such stupendous destructive power…!”
So, where does that leave Tambourine? Is there any indication that he's stronger than Tao? He beats up Goku but that's explicitly attributed to Goku being low on energy after his long fight with Tenshinhan, and after Goku has a rest and a meal he disintegrates Tambourine effortlessly. As far as I can tell Tambourine's best feat is just killing Krillin, right? Then killing a bunch of 21st/22nd Budokai contestants who should be weaker than Krillin. But Crane Hermit indicates that Tao could've done the same thing. And of course Cymbal's way weaker than Tambourine, but can still put up a fight against Yajirobe...
Chapter: 135, P4.1
Context: after Goku runs off to fight Tambourine
Kame-sennin: “That idiot! This is someone good enough to defeat Kuririn…Goku’s used up all his power in the tournament; he shouldn’t have any chance of winning…!”
Chapter: 140, P10.6
Piccolo: “Immediately go and take care of whoever killed Cymbal! You’re many times stronger than Cymbal, but don’t get caught off guard. We don’t know the nature of this enemy…”
Chapter: 140, P10.6
Piccolo: “Immediately go and take care of whoever killed Cymbal! You’re many times stronger than Cymbal, but don’t get caught off guard. We don’t know the nature of this enemy…”
EDIT: also when Goku claims to have beaten Tao Paipai, Tenshinhan is in utterly disbelief. He only comes around to thinking of it as plausible after the aforementioned match against Krillin (he says Goku must be lying or that he got lucky). Note that this is after Ten's tossed Yamcha aside like trash, so he has a pretty good idea of the "level" Roshi's students should be on before he hears this, and still considers Tao well above that. If Roshi has any idea how strong Tao is, his shocked reaction to Goku's statement would also indicate that Tao was way above the competition at this point (like Yamcha and Chappa)... and, taken with the above statement of "I get the feeling that my position’s already vanished", could imply that Roshi doesn't believe himself capable of the same feat.
Chapter: 120, P11.1-2
Context: Goku revealed that he defeated Taopaipai. Tenshinhan did not believe it.
Jackie Chun: “Did you really…take down Taopaipai…?”
Goku: “Huh? You too, gramps? I did so! It wasn’t easy, though…him being so strong and all.”
Jackie Chun: “Taopaipai…said to be the world’s Number One assassin…and this lad…he…he…”
I'm not sure if Roshi ever met Tao or how long ago, so that part ends up a big can of worms.
Tsuru vs Tao is a very interesting fight. I think one of the old DB movies answers it somehow (A fight or a statement somewhere), non-canon answer but still. I think it's the one with Chaozu being king of somewhere.
