Am I the only Gohan fan who hates Beast?

[Jord]

]

If I recall correctly in Super episode 22 during the fight with Ginyu in Tagoma's body Gohan said he couldn't tap into his latent potential because he hadn't been training, and then he had to use his Super Saiyan form.

Considering what the Mystic form is supposed to be it shouldn't have required training, as we think of it (or perhaps what Goku thinks of as training). I'd think more meditation would be better suited because Mystic was more of a serene thing, which suits Gohan as he doesn't live to fight like his dad and only does when he has to. Beast doesn't feel necessary, it may be thought of as awakening ones more feral state, but Super Saiyan is just that, but more subtle. .

That is excellent point. Plus, it is something Piccolo could actually help him with, reaching a deeper level of meditation so to speak, since Piccolo has been meditating since his first appearance in Z.

Agreeing with you that that path could be a great alternative to Goku/Vegeta's.

[TheGreatness25]

You are not alone. I can't say that I hate Beast, but it's not my cup of tea. I think I would like it a lot more if the hair was a little reigned in. It reminds me of Super Saiyan 3, which just looks ugly to me.

I'm all for Gohan getting a new, exclusive transformation, but I think it looks ugly. Though, maybe I'd be a lot harder on it if Piccolo's transformation didn't take the heat off of it. Because, DAMN, that's way worse.

[Thanos]

All of the very legitimate and reasonable criticisms of the form aside, I hate that we’re to the point where the idea of new forms isn’t interesting anymore. Imagine in 2008 or something, being told there would be a new transformation in Dragon Ball. The internet would go apeshit. Upon the reveal of Beast, I felt nothing. I’ve kinda felt that way since Ultra Instinct. Less is definitely more.

Granted, it was very cool for Piccolo to receive a new form just because he’s a non-Saiyan main character who deserved it.

[JulieYBM]

All of the very legitimate and reasonable criticisms of the form aside, I hate that we’re to the point where the idea of new forms isn’t interesting anymore. Imagine in 2008 or something, being told there would be a new transformation in Dragon Ball. The internet would go apeshit. Upon the reveal of Beast, I felt nothing. I’ve kinda felt that way since Ultra Instinct. Less is definitely more.

Granted, it was very cool for Piccolo to receive a new form just because he’s a non-Saiyan main character who deserved it.

Beast's problem isn't that it's a new form, it's problem is that people keep writing the same stupid Gohan story over and over.

Orange Piccolo—while not introduced in the most graceful manner—comes off the heels of Piccolo having numerous charming scenes in Super Hero, as well as having more charming and cool scenes afterward.

Gohan's just the usual "I stopped having a killer instinct again, only we're not going to acknowledge any of the character arcs that I've had since the Majin Buu arc!"

[Tian]

Imagine in 2008 or something, being told there would be a new transformation in Dragon Ball. The internet would go apeshit. Upon the reveal of Beast, I felt nothing. I’ve kinda felt that way since Ultra Instinct. Less is definitely more.

Oh, 2008, the good ol' days where we had hype for a SSJ5 transformation.

Now going back to the present day, I understand what you're saying. We've have been getting too many new transformations that it's becoming exhausting.

Hell, I'd rather the guys (Goku, Vegeta and Freeza) develop new techniques and master what they already have than getting new transformations.

[Zephyr]

Pretty much all talk of Beast I've encountered has been people saying they don't like it. Has there been some turnaround recently? In any case, I'm not really a Gohan fan, and so I have no strong feelings about what the form means for Gohan's looping character arc, and I don't really have much to say about the effect the form has on the film's narrative.

But as a form itself? I love Beast's design. The hair's shape and the transformation sequence itself are shamelessly "Cell Games Super Saiyan 2" ripoffs, but I'm okay with that. In part because Gohan's hairstyle has never looked as good as it did there (I've never been a fan of his "Cell arc Yamcha" haircut, especially while wearing Goku's Cell/Boo gi). Beast takes that cool hair shape, and exaggerates the hell out of it, amping the coolness up so much that it's silly, straddling the line like Super Saiyan 3 before it (another form whose design I love). I don't know if it was Toriyama taking the piss by trying to pass something silly off as cool, or Toriyama being out of touch and thinking others would find it cool, but I find either option amusing. My only complaint with it is that we didn't also get the changes to his skin and face; could have been even funnier.

I feel like the "its design is totally arbitrary and unexplained" complaints are kinda lacking in perspective, at least to an extent. I'm not sure we couldn't also be saying the same about decades-established forms, like Super Saiyan itself. Why is that a transformation at all? Why does it make the hair golden? Why is it a Saiyan-exclusive thing? Like Freeza said, "Saiyans only transform into Great Apes...what is this...?!" Like, yeah man, why do the monkey people who turn into giant monkeys suddenly turn golden? Why is it only them? Where's the rationale for that? Hell, why do they transform into Great Apes at all? Why can they "werewolf, but monkey"? They just do, and Beast just does make Gohan's hair big and grey. It's fine and on brand for some things to be completely arbitrary.

I don't really mind Toriyama's short and vague explanation of what the form is; DB is wacky mystical kung fu bullshit at the end of the day, I don't need a rigorously mapped and explained "power system" with consistent mechanics like a role-playing game (even if it's kinda cool when we do get some of that). As for it being a thing at all being unexpected, gotta once again point out that there was some (probably not intentional) "foreshadowing" of a new Gohan evolution/transformation in Super proper, which is partly why there were "Gohan Blanco" memes in the first place. So I can't say it came completely out of nowhere. Though the form's not explained in any way in the film itself, and from a storytelling perspective it lacks the explicit buildup that the Namek arc's Super Saiyan, the Cell arc's Super Saiyan forms, and Ultra Instinct had, so I understand why people dislike it in that regard.

Finally, the "they wanted an excuse to sell toys!" complaint/criticism continues to puzzle me. They do and will sell toys whether they make new forms or not. The only DB figures I even buy at this point are Tao Pai Pai. I saw some cool new 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai Goku and Piccolo statues at Barnes & noble recently, and was mighty tempted to get the Piccolo one. Sure, if they make new forms that's more designs they can make toys of. But that's going to be true when they introduce any new designs, such as new characters. Hope I see folks in the Daima threads complaining that Son Goku (Mini), Glorio, and Panzy only exist to sell new toys.

---

In short: for me, Beast is a cool/silly design wanting for a more compelling narrative and character arc.

[MisteryOne]

All of the very legitimate and reasonable criticisms of the form aside, I hate that we’re to the point where the idea of new forms isn’t interesting anymore. Imagine in 2008 or something, being told there would be a new transformation in Dragon Ball. The internet would go apeshit. Upon the reveal of Beast, I felt nothing. I’ve kinda felt that way since Ultra Instinct. Less is definitely more.

Granted, it was very cool for Piccolo to receive a new form just because he’s a non-Saiyan main character who deserved it.

I get what you are saying, but personally, I was excited about Ultra Ego despite SSGSS Evolution being one of the many things that made me initially drop the Super anime despite it being so close to ending. I think context is very important. As both you and JulieYBM pount out, there are reasons to enjoy Orange as well. I was intrigued by how Ultra Ego related to the Hakaishins power. As puzzled as I still am by the Bardock flashback, it allowed Vegeta to evolve the form by changing his mindset. That's interesting. That's unique. It's not just a power up that amounts to "another Super Saiyan, but better" like the mentioned Evolution or Beast are in my eyes. The characters need to figure out how these new forms work in order to use them better. This is specially impirtant in the Saiyans that now are so persistent in craftung their own path because they don't have unique abilities by default like Piccolo himself does, so they need to distinguish from each other in other ways.

I totally get feeling bloated by the amount of new forms Super introduces, but personally, if they give me a reason to wonder what it does, that is enough to make it exciting to me. I don't think it's entirely fair to compare to an era of barren Dragonball content when we were waiting for Heroes to give the characters new forms. But I have to agree we hsve been bombarded with too many power ups, specially in the anime, ever since RoF decided to already one up SSG despite its single short appareance.

Ultra Instict managed to break the internet despite it not really having any build up (in the anime at least) since the initial vague idea was mentioned in RoF, so while I don't believe Ego in particular would have managed the same because it's derivative of its differences with Instict, I think a hypothetical Beast that made its debut in a weekly anime that didn't just appear at the end of the final fight in a movie/arc could have had a similar effect. While I have seen some people hate Beast as a concept because Gohan had Ultimate previously, I don't think its problem is that is a new transformation by default.

[Jord]

From DB to GT we basically got 4 major power up forms with SSJ1-4, making each form mean something and have some kind of impact. That's 4 forms in 12 years.

In DBS we got 4 major forms with SSG, SSGSS, Ultra instinct and Beast. That's 4 forms in 4-5 years. They got churned out and quickly didn't feel special anymore.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

All of the very legitimate and reasonable criticisms of the form aside, I hate that we’re to the point where the idea of new forms isn’t interesting anymore. Imagine in 2008 or something, being told there would be a new transformation in Dragon Ball. The internet would go apeshit. Upon the reveal of Beast, I felt nothing. I’ve kinda felt that way since Ultra Instinct. Less is definitely more.

Granted, it was very cool for Piccolo to receive a new form just because he’s a non-Saiyan main character who deserved it.

Beast's problem isn't that it's a new form, it's problem is that people keep writing the same stupid Gohan story over and over.

Orange Piccolo—while not introduced in the most graceful manner—comes off the heels of Piccolo having numerous charming scenes in Super Hero, as well as having more charming and cool scenes afterward.

Gohan's just the usual "I stopped having a killer instinct again, only we're not going to acknowledge any of the character arcs that I've had since the Majin Buu arc!"

Orange Piccolo looks just like the "Giga-Chad" meme and that ruined the form for me because I kept laughing every time I saw his face on my first viewing.
I really hope that I didn't annoy the 3 other people in the cinema watching the Japanese version.

[JulieYBM]

All of the very legitimate and reasonable criticisms of the form aside, I hate that we’re to the point where the idea of new forms isn’t interesting anymore. Imagine in 2008 or something, being told there would be a new transformation in Dragon Ball. The internet would go apeshit. Upon the reveal of Beast, I felt nothing. I’ve kinda felt that way since Ultra Instinct. Less is definitely more.

Granted, it was very cool for Piccolo to receive a new form just because he’s a non-Saiyan main character who deserved it.

Beast's problem isn't that it's a new form, it's problem is that people keep writing the same stupid Gohan story over and over.

Orange Piccolo—while not introduced in the most graceful manner—comes off the heels of Piccolo having numerous charming scenes in Super Hero, as well as having more charming and cool scenes afterward.

Gohan's just the usual "I stopped having a killer instinct again, only we're not going to acknowledge any of the character arcs that I've had since the Majin Buu arc!"

Orange Piccolo looks just like the "Giga-Chad" meme and that ruined the form for me because I kept laughing every time I saw his face on my first viewing.
I really hope that I didn't annoy the 3 other people in the cinema watching the Japanese version.

All I thought when I saw the movie and Piccolo became a pumpkin was, "dang, he's hot "

[Dbzk1999]

From DB to GT we basically got 4 major power up forms with SSJ1-4, making each form mean something and have some kind of impact. That's 4 forms in 12 years.

In DBS we got 4 major forms with SSG, SSGSS, Ultra instinct and Beast. That's 4 forms in 4-5 years. They got churned out and quickly didn't feel special anymore.

Claiming that’s “4 forms in 12 years” feels a little disingenuous as a comparison, because it doesn’t take into account when SSJ actually appeared, and the time gap between it and SSJ 4 appearing (and thus the rate at which each form debuted)

The actual gap between SSJ 1-4 and when they debuted was around 5-6 years (SSJ 1 in 1991 to SSJ 4 in 1997). On top of that, I don’t know where you’re getting 4-5 years as a whole for the transformations in Super, but it’s off, and it’s more comparable to when Z/GT in that regard.

Between 2015-2022 is when those 4 major power ups that you mentioned debuted in DBS, that’s 4 forms in 7 years, technically 4 forms in 9 years if taking into account SSJG appearing for the first time in 2013.

[JulieYBM]

Transformations in Dragon Ball Super are also a lot more personalized at this point, too. God aas basically a Gokuu exclusive up until Movie #20. Blue are only forms for Gokuu and Vegets, too. Meanwhile, Ultra Instinct and Ego are basically just forms for Gokuu and Vegeta alone, while Kale, Broli, Piccolo, and Gohan eat get their own unique forms, too.

[super michael]

Transformations in Dragon Ball Super are also a lot more personalized at this point, too. God aas basically a Gokuu exclusive up until Movie #20. Blue are only forms for Gokuu and Vegets, too. Meanwhile, Ultra Instinct and Ego are basically just forms for Gokuu and Vegeta alone, while Kale, Broli, Piccolo, and Gohan eat get their own unique forms, too.

True that is the good thing about DBS, each character has their unique forms:

Goku = UI
Vegeta = UE manga or Evolved SSB anime
Gohan = Beast
Gotenks = SSJ3
Piccolo = Orange
Zamasu in Goku body = SSJ Rosé
Future Trunks = Enhanced SSJ2 manga or SSJ Sinner ( no official name) anime
Broly = Ikari + SSJ combined
Kale = LSSJ
Caulifla = SSJ2
Cabba = SSJ2
Freeza = Black manga or Golden anime

[Scientist Fu]

Not a fan of its design, could have looked much better. Other than that, I personally don't have a problem with it, even though I can see that it's there to please fans. Is it a bad thing to please fans? depends on our point of view. For me, it's like DBS: Broly, some people may love it, some people may like it, some people may feel nothing, some people may dislike it, some people may hate it. I just think that, at some point, fanservice can become too repetitive, boring and sometimes, it can be refreshing and good.

[SelfTrainedNamekian]

you are not the only one. i hate it too. and i hate how piccolo got his orange form. to think a proud warior like this would ask for favors from shenlong. terrible idea all together. it started in BOG where character dont need to train anymore. powerups from shenron. siliy rituals etc etc. to be honest it was like this with mystic gohan as well. but that was one exception. now its it happens regulary.

yeah the buu saga is full of those stuff i know. but back in the cell saga training actually matterd. piccolo is meditating for years. he should be very powerful even without the new form.

[LightBing]

Besides apparently keeping the thematic of branching transformations for the cast, there's nothing worthwhile at all.

No information, no build up and using nostalgia as the plot to the point it's basically plagiarism. Even the visual is uninspired and like OP said it clashes with Ultra Instinct to make it worse.

When the Elder Kai pulled his power in the Boo arc, it felt like this aspect had been closed. To me this feels like character regression.

Plus it's arbitrary. Gohan had wo rage boosts in the movie, three if you count getting angry at his house. Why didn't he just go Beast in the first one?

Gohan being a rage piñata has diminishing returns. All the candy falling out is sour now.

[Gaffer Tape]

You're definitely not the only one. Super Hero has become one of my favorite DB movies, but that's because my brain basically skips over everything having to do with Cell Max, and I forget it even exists. Orange Piccolo and Beast Gohan are two of the ugliest designs I've ever seen in this franchise. But I also freely admit I have long since passed the point where transformations do anything for me in this franchise. It's all so boring, so rote, so routine, so obligatory. Like The Monkey King said earlier in the thread, there's rarely any thematic connection to these forms, anything tying them to a story. Because of that, all they have going for them is the idea that they're cool in and of themselves. And they're just not. Maybe it's because I'm not 12 anymore. Or maybe it's because it feels like we've had 100 of these things by now. But a Dragon Ball transformation now just makes me groan, "Ugh, another one of these?" It ultimately doesn't really hamper my enjoyment of the movie as a whole simply because I've accepted that this is the inevitable price of admission. It's going to be there, no matter how I feel, so I might as well just ignore it and hope it's not too intrusive so I can actually enjoy the good stuff.

[TechExpert2021]

Am I the only one who sees the Son Gohan Beast transformation as an asspull? Because it was never explained in the film how he got the Beast form.

[super michael]

you are not the only one. i hate it too. and i hate how piccolo got his orange form. to think a proud warior like this would ask for favors from shenlong. terrible idea all together. it started in BOG where character dont need to train anymore. powerups from shenron. siliy rituals etc etc. to be honest it was like this with mystic gohan as well. but that was one exception. now its it happens regulary.

yeah the buu saga is full of those stuff i know. but back in the cell saga training actually matterd. piccolo is meditating for years. he should be very powerful even without the new form.

- Goku potential got unlocked by the Ultra Divine Water.
- Gohan got his potential unlocked by Elder Guru and Elder Kaioshin.
- Vegeta got his potential unlocked by Babidi.
- Kuririn got his potential unlocked by Elder Guru.
- Piccolo got his potential unlocked by Shenron.

They still need to train, even if they get their potential unlocked, to reach new level of powers. If they stop training, they get weaker.

Getting their potential unlocked by magic is still better than Freeza beating Tagoma a weakling or Kuririn getting a huge power up from a normal gym.

[tonysoprano300]

I would say the best written transformation in the series is by far SSJ2 in the Cell Arc, breaking the SSJ wall was introduced early on and we got to see the various characters attempt to ascend it but fail. So it was slowly being built up as this next evolution that required more than simply raising your Ki, it was about mastery over the SSJ state. Which I felt recontextualized the story to be more in line with the emphasis martial arts mastery we saw in earlier works.

Beast is certainly the worst part of Super Hero, but I guess at this point its nothing new. I think it hurts for me more because its just another example of characters being portrayed in ways that is just not in line with what the series has established about them. Rage boosts just never worked like this for Gohan, his anger was more so a way for him to drop his restraints and unleash his true power. Its not supposed to be a cheat code that lets him do what he wants. Its similar to the "My Bulma" scene, Goku's rage boost against Black or Rage Trunks.

Its also just boring, we've seen this way too many times for it to actually be meaningful now