SSJ Multipier: "10-fold change from what it was up to that point"

[Kaboom]

Ps: The fact the same guide where this interview came out, still published the x50 multipliers. Says how all these numbers are nothing more than interpretations and how little they care to correct it, even when the creator offers clarification.

On the flipside, I'd say that if Toriyama really was trying to pull a "word of god" move and officially declare that the Super Saiyan power boost was something other than the long-established 50x... then the fine Shueisha folks probably wouldn't have newly restated the 50x boost in literally that very same book. Much less even built upon it by revealing the boosts for Super Saiyan 2 and 3 like they did.

Like I said before, it really seems to me that Toriyama was just idly commenting on how it "felt" to him as he was writing and drawing things, and a lot of folks are reading way too much into it.

[Piramid]

Like I said before, it really seems to me that Toriyama was just idly commenting on how it "felt" to him as he was writing and drawing things, and a lot of folks are reading way too much into it.

In the same way, it seems to me that "up to that point" refers to the power Goku was using in the story when Toriyama was designing the transformation, since he is explaining how he designed it.

The 10x change is not a fixed multiplier for the transformation, but rather a comparison between two states of Goku.

The 50x increase is indeed a fixed multiplier, but Toriyama found it to be an exaggeration.

That is to say, for Toriyama, Goku multiplies his power by 10 and becomes twice as strong as Freezer at 50%. This means that Goku, before transforming, was 5 times weaker than Freezer after being injured by the Genki Dama.

Goku before transforming: 1 (injured and using Kaioken?)
Goku SSJ: 10
Injured Freezer 50%: 5
Injured Freezer 100%: 10

[Hugo Boss]

For that to be the case, Base Goku would have to be 5 times stronger than he was, even after taking a lot of damage and using almost all the energy he had left, since Freeza still managed to increase his power to 100% during their fight, despite of his injuries.

[Piramid]

By "Base Goku" do you mean the one I give the value of 1?

[LightBing]

If that was what he intended he would simply say that it was a 30-fold change from it was up from that point.

Like I said before, his logic of "until that point" has to be Kaioken x20. Which is why his wording was "tenfold" for increases. It makes no sense to be about base Goku, from how it was worded.

On the flipside, I'd say that if Toriyama really was trying to pull a "word of god" move and officially declare that the Super Saiyan power boost was something other than the long-established 50x... then the fine Shueisha folks probably wouldn't have newly restated the 50x boost in literally that very same book. Much less even built upon it by revealing the boosts for Super Saiyan 2 and 3 like they did.

Like I said before, it really seems to me that Toriyama was just idly commenting on how it "felt" to him as he was writing and drawing things, and a lot of folks are reading way too much into it.

I agree. I doubt Toriyama truly cared. They were talking about SSJ and it came to his mind this detail.

That said, at least the editor of the guide(since I assume a lot of people worked on the guide without communicating), should have some common sense. Because what's undeniable, is that Toriyama says x50 was a poor interpretation of the story and they didn't care, to remove it or ask clarification. Perhaps they didn't even check it and just ship it without any care.

The most logic and easier interpretation is to take Toriyama at this word. Saying he's forgetful or that he's using some weird logic with crazy maths; that's interpreting it sideways.

In the same way, it seems to me that "up to that point" refers to the power Goku was using in the story when Toriyama was designing the transformation, since he is explaining how he designed it.

The 10x change is not a fixed multiplier for the transformation, but rather a comparison between two states of Goku.

The 50x increase is indeed a fixed multiplier, but Toriyama found it to be an exaggeration.

That is to say, for Toriyama, Goku multiplies his power by 10 and becomes twice as strong as Freezer at 50%. This means that Goku, before transforming, was 5 times weaker than Freezer after being injured by the Genki Dama.

Goku before transforming: 1 (injured and using Kaioken?)
Goku SSJ: 10
Injured Freezer 50%: 5
Injured Freezer 100%: 10

I think battle damage plays no part in the logic of Toriyama.

Goku's purpose is to prove himself as the strongest in the universe. If there's doubts with battle damage, that all breaks down.
Goku uses the exact same logic later, when he gives Cell a senzu for example.

Plus, at least with Freeza, it does magically heal at least once. I don't remember with which transformation on the top of my head but there's a line when someone says Freeza healed after transforming.

So the best assumption is that both healed. Goku when he went SSJ, which makes sense since he could barely stand after the genki dama and that Freeza healed when he reach 100% since it happened once before.

[miguelnuva1]

He pulls the x50, says it's exaggerated. The timeline therefore is set, "up until that point" is x20 Kaioken because that was the know multiplier before SSJ.
The tenfold is also logically to reach x30 because at the time, Goku's power variation were in x10 multipliers: Base to x10 Kaioken to x20 Kaioken.

If that was what he intended he would simply say that it was a 30-fold change from it was up from that point.

Does Toriyama perhaps think 50x the Kkx20 was too large and he imagined 10x stronger than the Kkx20.

I could see Toriyama mixing up what he thought was being multiplied when he was writing the stroy?

That would be something even incredibly larger than a 50-fold change.

I must say I’m not getting why people suggest Toriyama is factoring Kaio-Ken in that comment. He straight up misremembered how he made Freeza stronger than Goku by a lot more than 10 times.

It's only larger if you do 10x the 20x kaioken in power levels.

If Toriyama wrote the manga and just said Goku was 10x stronger than what ever he had put out against Frieza at that point with no power levels in mind it makes more sense than imagining he's now 50x stronger than what he had been putting out.

The up to then and no power levels being used could very easily change the context of what is going on in the scene power wise.

If I said the symbiote made Spiderman 10x stronger it would be looked at in the same context as me saying Spiderman got 10x stronger and his power level was already 150 for example.

[Adamant]

That said, at least the editor of the guide(since I assume a lot of people worked on the guide without communicating), should have some common sense. Because what's undeniable, is that Toriyama says x50 was a poor interpretation of the story and they didn't care, to remove it or ask clarification. Perhaps they didn't even check it and just ship it without any care.

I think you're vastly overestimating how closely the team that put together a guidebook mostly consisting of reprints from other guidebooks were reading the pages they put in it. Whoever included that comment in the book probably didn't even realize the statements Toriyama was commenting on could be found elsewhere in the same book.

Toriyama was thinking about Shueisha comments like "Super Saiyan multiplies your power by 50" or "Battle powers at the time of the Freeza battle: Goku - 3 million; Super Saiyan Goku - 150 million" and commenting on how they didn't feel quite right, he wasn't paging through the relevant chapters in the manga and looking at what he actually wrote so he could see where Shueisha got these tidbits from. He wrote that battle ages ago, and the Kaioken isn't really that particularly memorable a part of it.

The various power increases in that entire arc DO look extremely silly if you're actually jotting down what the numbers have to be instead of just reading the dialogue with its various mentions of "twice as powerful" or "half strength". Nobody in the story ever actually SAY ridiculous stuff like how Goku got more than 30 times more powerful from the battle against Ginyu, and the way the story is written doesn't actually make it feel like he did either until you start doing the math off the various statements given.

[DanielSSJ]

I agree. I doubt Toriyama truly cared. They were talking about SSJ and it came to his mind this detail.

That said, at least the editor of the guide(since I assume a lot of people worked on the guide without communicating), should have some common sense. Because what's undeniable, is that Toriyama says x50 was a poor interpretation of the story and they didn't care, to remove it or ask clarification. Perhaps they didn't even check it and just ship it without any care.

The most logic and easier interpretation is to take Toriyama at this word. Saying he's forgetful or that he's using some weird logic with crazy maths; that's interpreting it sideways.

No offense, but I really don't think you have much room to be commenting on "weird logic" and "crazy maths". To me, saying that a 30x boost is a tenfold increase of a 20x boost is a pretty big stretch of what a "tenfold change" means. I think a 30x Super Saiyan boost is an interesting idea for a power level list, but I can't sincerely believe that's what Toriyama meant when he made this statement.

Adamant's perspective seems the most likely. Toriyama isn't making Word of God statements while cross-referencing that section of the Freeza arc with the Daizenshuu 7 Battle Power guide with a calculator in hand. He's speaking from 18 year old memory about how it felt drawing the manga back in the day.

[Hugo Boss]

Like I said before, his logic of "until that point" has to be Kaioken x20. Which is why his wording was "tenfold" for increases. It makes no sense to be about base Goku, from how it was worded.

It doesn’t make sense one way or the other. If he is talking about adding a 10-fold boost on top of a 20-fold boost, that’s not 30-fold, it’s 200-fold. And that’s far greater than the 50-fold boost he implied to be too high. If the calc base is Kaio-Ken x20, then he would have said it was about a x2/x3 change from what it was up to that point. x10 would become too overwhelming for Freeza and Goku’s advantage wasn’t that much.

The most logic and easier interpretation is to take Toriyama at this word. Saying he's forgetful or that he's using some weird logic with crazy maths; that's interpreting it sideways.

If we take his word for granted then Kaio-Ken x10/x20 has nothing to do with what he’s talking about. Simply erase Kaio-Ken x10/x20 from existence and you have Freeza about 8 times as strong as Base Goku doing the math in reverse. Anything else would be speculation.

For instance, a logical assumption from that perspective is that Goku could have been using Kaio-Ken x2 or x3 and that would still be lower than Freeza at 50%. Then, he gambles on Kaio-Ken x4 or x5 and manages to fight back, but is still not enough. Then, Super Saiyan becomes the “Kaio-Ken x10”. Sounds good?

It's only larger if you do 10x the 20x kaioken in power levels.

If Toriyama wrote the manga and just said Goku was 10x stronger than what ever he had put out against Frieza at that point with no power levels in mind it makes more sense than imagining he's now 50x stronger than what he had been putting out.

The up to then and no power levels being used could very easily change the context of what is going on in the scene power wise.

Then what exactly is the calc base of the x10/x50 increases Toriyama is talking about? The user I replied above thinks it’s Kaio-Ken x20.

For me, it’s quite baffling that we would consider anything other than the regular Base Saiyan form, considering Goku is the only Saiyan that uses Kaio-Ken and the data is not exclusive to him. It’s about the Super Saiyan transformation in general.

[LightBing]

Perhaps I didn't explain myself correctly before.

The tenfold isn't literal. You don't multiply it, you add it. Before it was x20 add the tenfold it turns to x30. Toriyama said tenfold instead of x30 or add ten because the logic at the time was in 10 increments. Base to Kaiokenx10 to Kaiokenx20.

For reference I looked up the context of the whole situation(the whole Freeza fight), I'm not looking at the quote in isolation.

Even if I didn't, one thing is undeniable. Toriyama said x50 was too much, therefore the multiplier of SSJ falls between x21 and x49. I think it's x30.
What's everyone's else?

I think you're vastly overestimating how closely the team that put together a guidebook mostly consisting of reprints from other guidebooks were reading the pages they put in it. Whoever included that comment in the book probably didn't even realize the statements Toriyama was commenting on could be found elsewhere in the same book.

Toriyama was thinking about Shueisha comments like "Super Saiyan multiplies your power by 50" or "Battle powers at the time of the Freeza battle: Goku - 3 million; Super Saiyan Goku - 150 million" and commenting on how they didn't feel quite right, he wasn't paging through the relevant chapters in the manga and looking at what he actually wrote so he could see where Shueisha got these tidbits from. He wrote that battle ages ago, and the Kaioken isn't really that particularly memorable a part of it.

The various power increases in that entire arc DO look extremely silly if you're actually jotting down what the numbers have to be instead of just reading the dialogue with its various mentions of "twice as powerful" or "half strength". Nobody in the story ever actually SAY ridiculous stuff like how Goku got more than 30 times more powerful from the battle against Ginyu, and the way the story is written doesn't actually make it feel like he did either until you start doing the math off the various statements given.

My minimal assumption is that there was an editor that looked at all the content together and gave the go-ahead for publication.
Probably easier to publish as is than have any work for a small correction.

I wrote in a post before.
Toriyama always had a logical to his fights, that's what I think he meant when he said" while I was drawing it".
Toriyama does say x character got exactly x times stronger. That's the whole gimmick of the the Kaioken! Power levels are equally as specific and he wrote that.
This narrative, wasn't put into numbers before Raditz and after Freeza(bar exceptions) but it's still the same. Toriyama might not have been putting the numbers forward in the paper but in his head he was.
Obviously ,he wasn't think Cell was whatever 60 million or whatever, instead a number easy to digest.

He applied the logic perfectly in a BoG interview when asked about Beerus strength.

[Piramid]

Toriyama isn’t really saying that the x50 originally came solely from the Daizenshuu editors. He never says that he didn’t participate in that decision. He just says that it was "a bit of an exaggeration". Maybe he means that it was an appropriate figure for the battle against Frieza, but later on, it seemed too much, and in subsequent fights, he preferred to write the manga with the idea that SSJ multiplied by much less. That's why he says, "Only, at the time".

That’s why we have possible inconsistencies regarding the x50, in moments like Gero wanting to absorb energy from humans to surpass SSJ Vegeta, or Goku and Yakon’s 3000/800 Kiri.

The tenfold isn't literal. You don't multiply it, you add it. Before it was x20 add the tenfold it turns to x30. Toriyama said tenfold instead of x30 or add ten because the logic at the time was in 10 increments. Base to Kaiokenx10 to Kaiokenx20.

The problem is that he doesn’t say it’s an exact 10-fold increase like Kaio Ken x10 and x20. In the case of SSJ, he says it’s "about a 10-fold change". If it were as you say, he wouldn’t have used 'about.'

[LightBing]

The problem is that he doesn’t say it’s an exact 10-fold increase like Kaio Ken x10 and x20. In the case of SSJ, he says it’s "about a 10-fold change". If it were as you say, he wouldn’t have used 'about.'

I get what you mean, it's all a bit nebulous.
Still, x30 still seems to me like the most plausible answer, particularly when I went back to re-read the fight. If we had this discussion years ago, I would have answered differently since x30 seemed impossible to me at the time. We're always learning.

Glad I got inspired to re-read the manga and make a new power list.

[Hugo Boss]

The tenfold isn't literal. You don't multiply it, you add it. Before it was x20 add the tenfold it turns to x30. Toriyama said tenfold instead of x30 or add ten because the logic at the time was in 10 increments. Base to Kaiokenx10 to Kaiokenx20.

For reference I looked up the context of the whole situation(the whole Freeza fight), I'm not looking at the quote in isolation.

Even if I didn't, one thing is undeniable. Toriyama said x50 was too much, therefore the multiplier of SSJ falls between x21 and x49. I think it's x30.
What's everyone's else?

If he wanted to suggest Super Saiyan evolves a new separate block of 10-fold + Kaio-Ken x20, then it would be a x1.5 change. The problem with this reasoning is that it ignores that every Saiyan transforms from the black-haired state. Kaio-Ken is not in any way referenced in the context of what they’re talking about. Toriyama would have to defy simple math logic to people understand he was thinking about a 30-fold change from Base, instead of, well, the generic 10-fold he outlines in his response.

He applied the logic perfectly in a BoG interview when asked about Beerus strength.

That’s a very good example of how he views battle power as a situational tool to write his stories. Following up from there, Goku has at least 3 stages stronger than Super Saiyan God and they are still not enough to beat Beerus.

That’s why we have possible inconsistencies regarding the x50, in moments like Gero wanting to absorb energy from humans to surpass SSJ Vegeta, or Goku and Yakon’s 3000/800 Kiri.

I agree about Yakon vs. Goku. It certainly didn’t look like Goku was increasing his power more than x10 there. He was doing just fine without Super Saiyan before the room went dark and Gohan thought they could both handle Yakon in the dark room. So, they would be likely stronger than 800 kiri in Base if they fought together.

[DanielSSJ]

One thing I want to bring up is that Toriyama might not be talking about the Freeza arc specifically. I watched a YouTube video (Uchiha Tobito's "Is Super Saiyan really a 50x Increase?") a while back about how in the Cell arc and especially the Boo arc, there's a lot of evidence that implies that Super Saiyan really isn't that big of an upgrade from base anymore (the scene of Goten throwing rocks at Super Saiyan Gohan, base Future Gohan sparing with Super Saiyan Trunks, Goku's and Yakon's Kiri power levels, ect.). While there are ways to make all of this make sense with the 50-fold boost, it does kinda seem like Toriyama might've had a less extreme Super Saiyan boost in mind at the time.