Unpopular DB opinions

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Super Saiyan Blue doesn't work because as said Super Saiyan of a Super Saiyan God just sounds stupid also you can't make a big deal out of Super Saiyan God needing a ritual and then be like "Here's the next stronger form no ritual required".

It needed a ritual, it had a time limit, and it was able to somehow absorb Beerus' final attack. There was so much more that could've been done with the form, but instead it got tossed aside in favor of Blue. Daima did redeem Ssj3, so maybe one day we'll see SsjG get the screen time it deserves.

[Jord]

The Super upgrades were just recolors without a decent build up. SSJG was almost immediately disregarded since SSB came afterwards, which basically just felt like SSJ but with a different color, to sell new toys. The whole show was creatively bankrupt. From stretching two movies out over 27 episodes to reusing Freeza, Vegetto, Trunks and the Ginyu gimmick for Zamasu, which has to be the creative down point of the entire show. They couldn't even write a decent ending. Nope. It's Goku pressing his good old remote button to call someone else to defeat Zamasu. Just the way fans like it.

[Majin Buu]

Daima did redeem Ssj3, so maybe one day we'll see SsjG get the screen time it deserves.

I know you mean "redeem" in terms of the form getting more screentime.

But usually when fans talk about forms like Super Saiyan 3 needing some kind of "redemption", they usually mean in the sense that it didn't score any kind of victory against the Big Bad in the series proper- a "canon win" as they say (Usually with some mention of DBZ Movie 13 being the one exception that nonetheless doesn't count since it's not "canon"). In that sense, Super Saiyan God doesn't need to be redeemed since even though Goku didn't defeat Beerus with it, it allowed him to give Beerus a good enough fight for Beerus to spare Earth from destruction. It still enabled Goku to save the day.

That being said, even in that context, I'd argue Super Saiyan 3 never needed to be redeemed either. It only needed to be redeemed in the eyes of fans who think "getting the win" is the only narrative use for a new transformation.

Among other things, Super Saiyan 3 continued the cautionary tale about going beyond Super Saiyan the Cell arc established- Namely that doing so requires a more balanced approach than just boosting one specific attribute (Making yourself bulkier to the detriment of speed in the Cell arc, reaching otherworldly levels of power without the stamina/ki mastery a living body needs to maintain it in the Buu arc). You need to know what you're doing in order to do it well and Goku establishes that 3 is still a new form for him, foreshadowing that it's not going to be the trump card it was in previous arcs because of that lack of mastery (And if Goku doesn't know about the form's limitations, then the kids sure as hell wouldn't). As a consequence, its weaknesses only ever become apparent at the worst possible time- in the middle of a high-stakes battle.

This ultimately results in the final battle against Buu requiring strategy and collaboration between various characters to achieve victory, as opposed to victory falling on the shoulders of the strongest guy and his new Super Saiyan form.

Trunks and Goten reaching it through Fusion as Gotenks is a validation of the kids' fighting potential as well as the power of Fusion. Through these two techniques, these kids become just as, if not more powerful than Goku himself- And FWIW, were just one step away from killing Buu with these new powers. Detractors like to act as if Trunks and Goten failing against Buu is some kind of slight against their characters when IMO, the fact that they got as far as they did at all- let alone came within a hair's breadth of victory, is an accomplishment in and of itself regardless of the outcome (And considering Gotenks' inability to take anything seriously, he could have performed much worse against Buu than he did).

And as others have noted, it's what prompts Vegeta to reevaluate his views on Goku and finally acknowledge with no ego that Goku is better than him, capping his Buu arc character development and series-wide character arc as a whole.

[SupremeKai25]

The Super upgrades were just recolors without a decent build up. SSJG was almost immediately disregarded since SSB came afterwards, which basically just felt like SSJ but with a different color, to sell new toys. The whole show was creatively bankrupt. From stretching two movies out over 27 episodes to reusing Freeza, Vegetto, Trunks and the Ginyu gimmick for Zamasu, which has to be the creative down point of the entire show. They couldn't even write a decent ending. Nope. It's Goku pressing his good old remote button to call someone else to defeat Zamasu. Just the way fans like it.

But you just said in other threads that Super was cancelled because apparently it wasn't popular enough for people to buy its merchandise.

Make up your mind!

[BernardoCairo]

Super Saiyajin God is simply the base form infused with God Ki, while Super Saiyajin Blue applies the same concept to Super Saiyan. If Goku can train with Whis and learn to use God Ki, then accessing these forms should come naturally, without needing the ritual. It's that simple.
Super Saiyajin God is not a recolor. Goku becomes younger, thinner, his eyes grow bigger and rounder, his aura changes, and of course, his hair turns red. If this is a recolor, then the first Super Saiyajin is also a recolor. I agree that the form wasn't used enough, but even with limited screen time, Goku incorporated specific techniques into it while developing a unique fighting style in the Broly movie. It's a great transformation in my opinion.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

When fans talk about forms like Super Saiyan 3 needing some kind of "redemption", they usually mean in the sense that it didn't score any kind of victory against the Big Bad in the series proper- a "canon win" as they say.

I don't think every form needs to defeat the main villain, as that would get repetitive. However, if you're going to take the time to introduce a new form, then I want it to get some good screen time. Vegeta didn't defeat Gomah using the form, but he still put up a very good fight using it. He did however defeat the Tamagami, and although he wasn't a main villain, it still showed just how effective Ssj3 can be when used against the right opponent at the right moment.

In that sense, Super Saiyan God doesn't need to be redeemed since it allowed him to give Beerus a good enough fight for Beerus to spare Earth from destruction. It still enabled Goku to save the day.

I think SsjG was brilliantly used in that movie, however, that was just one movie. There was so much more that could've been done with it, but instead they dropped it in favor of that ugly Blue form. They did "bring it back" later on, but it's only used for warm ups, it's not used seriously anymore because both Saiyans have two stronger forms than it. Setting Daima after Buu gave Toriyama the opportunity to bring Ssj3 back to the forefront by having it be Vegeta's strongest form. One way they could've done more with SsjG is by giving it to Trunks and have it be his main form, but instead they went with Rage, which was...what was that again ?

And as others have noted, it's what prompts Vegeta to reevaluate his views on Goku and finally acknowledge with no ego that Goku is better than him, capping his Buu arc character development and series-wide character arc as a whole.

This is why I believe Vegeta getting Ssj3 was the next logical step for his character arc, and the only way to truly close the door on his story.

[Zephyr]

As far as power goes, it shook the entire demon realm. That's an upgrade from Ssj3 shaking planet earth. GT's Ssj4 and Super's color box told us they were stronger than Ssj3, but they never actually demonstrated it. This is honestly the very first time I've seen a new form stronger than Ssj3.

Is it really though?

Within the story we know that Super Saiyan 3 shook the Earth and that it could be felt from the Kaioshin Realm. Based on supplementary material we know that the Kaioshin Realm is located outside of the universe itself. Putting two and two together, 3's power could be felt outside of the universe. We don't actually know how big the Demon Realm is in general, or how far away the Third Demon World is from the First, either within the story or via supplementary material. So it's unclear what sort of distance Super Saiyan 4's power is intended to be sensed from, and whether or not that's a greater distance than 3's.

As for Super Saiyan God, the clashes between it and Beerus were strong enough that they almost destroyed the universe itself. I don't think Super Saiyan 4 has demonstrated anything to suggest it is so dangerously strong, much less even more dangerously strong.

As a bonus, there's also the literal shattering of dimensions that happened in the Z anime's Boo arc and DBS: Broly, by Boo and the Gogeta Broly combo, respectively.

1- It's one of the ugliest designs in animation history.

I mean, if you find it ugly then you find it ugly. But one of the ugliest designs in animation history? That seems really hyperbolic. The bar for how ugly things can be in animation is very very high. One Piece and Baki the Grappler have been animated, for instance.

And within Dragon Ball, we've got the new Super Saiyan 4: its choice of waistband over belt makes for the worst looking waist Goku has ever had, and the wristbands clash with the bald patches on his forearms like crazy. Hell, within Super, we've got Yamamuro's general character design style, that glossy, greased up and bloated plastic look that everything has. Like, saying that Super Saiyan 1 in TV DBS looks better than SSGSS in DBS: Broly seems absolutely insane to me.

But opinions are opinions, and if colors stand out to you more than everything else combined, that's just how it is.

[Majin Buu]

This is why I believe Vegeta getting Ssj3 was the next logical step for his character arc, and the only way to truly close the door on his story.

I do agree that him having it makes sense in the context of everything he went through in the Buu arc since Daima is meant to be a follow up to that arc. It's the reason I had no issue with him not going through any kind of Daima specific character arc to get it.

[WittyUsername]

Super Saiyan God was a nice transformation that managed to be different and subversive, while still feeling like a very Toriyama thing. On the other hand, I always saw Super Saiyan Blue as a lame recolor that shows up out of nowhere, and began the trend of handing out new transformations like candy.

[Mr Baggins]

At least from a design standpoint, and at most from a narrative one, I can honestly say I've never had an issue with the oft-maligned "recolor" forms in principle; that's basically what Super Saiyan is already. But there's definitely a line where stuff can go from elegantly simple to just downright bland, and SSB actively pushes that boundary pretty hard for me.

With that said, I've always liked how it looked on Vegeta.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

With that said, I've always liked how it looked on Vegeta.

I'm the complete opposite; I absolutely hate it on him. It wasn't too terrible with his RF outfit, but his classic one is just too blue to work with the blue hair.

[Scsigs]

"Ugliest design in animation history"? Are you on crack? SS1 with blue hair instead of blonde. HOW is that ugly?

The shade of blue looks cheap, and there's zero color balance when combined with Goku and Vegeta's old outfits. It's even worse with Vegeta's evolved form.

Goku's main gi has his blue under shirt, wristguards, belt, & boots. His Res F one doesn't have the under shirt, but DOES have everything else. Vegeta's main variant of his battle armor is blue. In Res F, it was black, but he's not in that one for very long. Maybe it's the 2 shades of blue, but I don't think the color balance is bad there. Regular Super Saiyan is yellow & is kinda just there, mainly since it stems from Toriyama wanting to give his colorists a bit of a break when writing the manga so they wouldn't have to color Goku's hair black as much. I actually like the fact that it doesn't have dumb design decisions like the overly long hair or thick eyebrow lines like SS3. If you wanna argue that the form is maybe over-used or isn't as great as it could've been, that's fine, but the color balance? I feel like you're stretching to find reasons to hate it.

Literally rewatch the RF movie & Super. The full name literally describes it.

A Ssj with the power of a SsjG. That makes no sense. You're either a Ssj or you're a SsjG. Imagine if we got a Super Saiyan 4 Super Saiyan? Why not just call the damn thing SsjG2 ?

It makes perfect sense when you actually stop to think about it. A Super Saiyan God is like when someone's normal, just more sleek & with red hair, plus a huge power boost. However, the form isn't that sustainable. Thus, you have a form that's somewhere in between regular Super Saiyan & God that IS. There's drawbacks to both forms (God & Blue), but these are what seem to be the design philosophies between them.

SS God was literally used for the fight with Beerus because he was told of it coming around by the oracle fish & wanted to fight it. However, it has its limits. SSGSS/blue is literally a more tactical version of it, allowing them to access the God ki in a more controllable form.

Wouldn't it make sense to train SsjG to eliminate those limits, like how Goku trained his Ssj1 before the Cell games? I don't see why they needed a whole new form just to be more tactical, when SsjG could've easily filled that role. In BOG, SsjG couldn't be reached without the need of 5 other Saiyans and it had a very short time limit. Why not use the next movie to explore those drawbacks and show Goku and Vegeta overcoming them ? There's no need for a new form so soon. Heck, I feel that SsjG and GT's Ssj4 were introduced too soon considering Ssj3 wasn't fully utilized yet. It wasn't until Daima that I feel comfortable moving away from Ssj3, as it finally got some well deserved screen time.

I think you just answered your own question, my guy. We don't know the specifics, but SS Blue is the result of them training to be able to access the God ki & use it in battle longer in a more controllable form. They found a way to do so by training with Whis, like what?
Super Saiyan 3 is probably the dumbest form we've gotten for Super Saiyans, ngl. It served very little story purpose, brings up a huge logic hole of why Goku didn't use it against Vegeta when they fought to end the fight quicker & prevent Majin Buu from being revived, depleted Goku's energy reserves rapidly when they fought Kid Buu, depleted Gotenks' energy rapidly when he fought Super Buu, etc. I'm not surprised that, outside of its usage in GT before it was replaced with SS4 & a quick cameo in Battle of Gods (also any time Gotenks barely uses it), we never saw it again until Daima. It also just has dumb design elements to it. I get that it has its fans & I don't outright hate the form, but it's not as great as you're sucking it off like you are. Toriyama even points that out in the manga. It's great for raw power, but you burn through your energy reserves & stamina so fast with it.
Thanks for mentioning the training Goku & Gohan did to master SS1. If you remember back to that part of the Android Arc, Goku had them do that so they didn't waste time or energy going into the form so they could maintain the form indefinitely like it was their normal states for the upcoming fight with Cell. Goku also didn't know that there were forms beyond it that were more tactical for battle. The only thing Goku was aware of was that you could use the raw power to bulk yourself up, but that wears down your speed substantially, which is the roadblock Trunks ran into because he didn't see that shortcoming until he fought Cell. Goku's always been about tactics with his fights going into them. It's why he fights Cell the way he does, then gives up to let Gohan fight him. He got ahead of himself because he didn't realize Gohan doesn't love fighting as much as he does, but his mind was on how to beat Cell & he put Gohan up to do that. He fought Cell the way he did to let Gohan observe Cell. That was kind of the whole point of the thing. So, Goku training & obtaining SSGSS to access the God ki in a more controllable form is completely within character for him.
SS God was set up to only really be usable after the ritual & was really hard to maintain for Goku. Thus, the reasoning to develop a similar form to use the type of power God exudes is completely logically sound & within reason considering Goku & Vegeta have done that type of training before on their own & Whis being there to help them hone a power they barely understand makes sense. They barely ever used SS God as well (going by the anime since the manga has a few times where they used it & the anime took inspiration from it during the Tournament of Power, then it got an appearance from Vegeta in Super: Broly). This offers a sound reason as to why they can't just readily use it without the ritual.

These things aren't hard to piece together if you just watch the damn movies & absorb what Toriyama wrote in them.

No one said they were hard to piece together, they're just bad writing. Just because Toriyama wrote it doesn't mean we can't call it out.

You're right that we can call out what we perceive as bad writing & I'll be the first to call out Toriyama's dumbass writing decisions. Res F as a movie is 1 of his biggest flubs in the franchise, I just called out SS3's bad writing, & I hate how the Buu Arc was written & executed in a lot of places due to its bad pacing, poor character decisions with Goku, cool moments that don't mean shit in the longrun & just pad out the story, etc, but Goku obtaining SSGSS isn't bad writing & I pointed out why. You just don't like it. This is a subjective take, not objective, & you're using the old "Toriyama wasn't a perfect writer" crap I've heard too much in these discussions when people think others are being unfair to their arguments because they're not open to a new perspective to look at things with even if they still don't agree with it.

Super Saiyan Blue doesn't work because as said Super Saiyan of a Super Saiyan God just sounds stupid also you can't make a big deal out of Super Saiyan God needing a ritual and then be like "Here's the next stronger form no ritual required". Even if we accept you only need the ritual once to access Super Saiyan God whenever willy nilly how the hell did Vegeta even gain the form?

1. The name needed to be workshopped a bit (& even the Super anime had a joke about that with Whis renaming it Blue), but is it any stupider than putting numbers, or a grade system to denote the various forms of regular Super Saiyan? Come on now. This is a universe of fucking humanoids that turn into giant apes when they see a full moon, or a substitute, random motherfuckers can transform into higher-powered forms of themselves that look vastly different from their previous ones, the same humanoids that transform into apes can go blonde when made angry enough that can then be honed to access different sub forms, etc. Is it REALLY that much of a stretch here?
2. Hence why I like the Super anime's take on it where Goku didn't bust it out during the U6 tournament & stuck to SS1 & I think Vegeta used Blue, iirc. It makes Goku busting it out in the Tournament of Power a bigger deal & Vegeta busting it out against Broly much more special.
3. Literally the only way Vegeta would've been able to access God was through the ritual as well. I know Toriyama left that deliberately vague by just not showing it, but that's the only logical answer there. Vegeta would've had to swallow his pride to do it. He's done that before, so I could believe it.
4. It's said by Whis & Beerus at the end of Battle of Gods that Goku still had the feeling of having God ki, so it's entirely plausible that Goku & Vegeta only needed the ritual once to access the God ki, then be able to learn to tap into it & develop a more usable form for it. The pieces are all there, what matters is if you like it or not. These are the rules Toriyama himself established for his own universe & he, thankfully, stuck to these ones without deviations like others he's guilty of doing that with before.

Super Saiyan 3 had a purposeful function of explaining how Goku went from evenly matched with Majin Vegeta to being able to fight the significantly stronger Majin Boo. Super Saiyan Blue's purpose was uh new toy to sell. We already know Freeza was weaker than Beerus and Whis would it have really made a difference if Goku fought Freeza as a Super Saiyan God? Nope

I don't mind the design just being a color swap but it is a nonsense addition.

Really need to stop hitting the space bar twice randomly when you type, god damn.

And Super Saiyan 3 was a complete asspull that didn't do shit in the story. It was there because Toriyama thought it up, put it in the story, had it burn up most of Goku's remaining time on Earth, had Gotenks learn how to do it, then burn up all of Goku's remaining ki & stamina when fighting Kid Buu & not mean shit in the entire rest of the story. SS1 had an impact on the story when it was introduced & it's carried all the way to the end of the fight it's introduced for. SS2 surved its purpose to show Gohan's vast reserves of power underneath the surface that we got glimpses of previously. SS3 got introduced, left a stalemate with Buu, & never amounted to anything substantial ever again. Even when re-introduced in GT, it didn't do jackshit because Goku's child body couldn't maintain the form for long, even with his tail. A cool fight with Gotenks VS Super Buu, but even then, nothing much after that. Hell, Vegetto left more of an impact & he had significantly less screentime & was relegated to a cool fight before being tactical & letting himself be absorbed into Buu's body to save his kids & Piccolo. At least that advanced the plot. Goku going SS3 to distract Majin Buu kinda did by having Goku plant seeds of doubt into Buu's head about serving Babidi & distracting him so Goten & Trunks could train in Fusion to fight him, but that could've been done without SS3. It sure as fuck wasn't so Trunks could get the Dragon Radar from Capsule Corp. Goku could've easily teleported him there in 2 seconds, 1 of the most confusing plot points in the arc for me that Goku does.

Based on supplementary material we know that the Kaioshin Realm is located outside of the universe itself. Putting two and two together, 3's power could be felt outside of the universe.

I always thought it was on the same dimensional plane as the afterlife in DB, just very far away from it, considering dead people can go there & hang out indefinitely. With how alternate universes, dimensions, & timelines work in DB, I think that's the best explanation for it.

With that said, I've always liked how it looked on Vegeta.

I'm the complete opposite; I absolutely hate it on him. It wasn't too terrible with his RF outfit, but his classic one is just too blue to work with the blue hair.

You earlier: "It's ugly & the color balance is off," despite Goku's outfit having a mix of primarily orange & blue.
You now: "I think Vegeta's normal blue suit means there's TOO MUCH blue with it."
Make up your mind, man.

Super Saiyan God was a nice transformation that managed to be different and subversive, while still feeling like a very Toriyama thing. On the other hand, I always saw Super Saiyan Blue as a lame recolor that shows up out of nowhere, and began the trend of handing out new transformations like candy.

I argue against it showing up out of nowhere. Considering Freeza has his Golden form after training for several months to get it, not to mention Goku & Vegeta being established as having trained with Whis for however long after BOG ended, it's not hard to assume they have something we just haven't seen up until the point Goku busts it out in the movie. Especially since the entire point of Whis' training was to hone their powers & get passed their limitations as fighters.
Really? We have Goten & Trunks in the Buu Arc getting Super Saiyan out of nowhere (Goten just literally tripping when sparring with Chichi & somehow unlocking it) to the point where Vegeta's initially flabbergasted when Trunks busts it out when they're in the gravity room, the form that took Goku seeing Krillin being killed by Freeza before his very eyes, Gohan envisioning Freeza killing his loved ones & Trunks seeing his timeline's Gohan dead in the rain to attain, not to mention Gohan being powered up by the Old Kai to bring him up to speed to fight Buu & THAT'S where transformations started to be "handed out like candy"? Come on now.
I'll admit that it's kind of ridiculous that all of the U6 Saiyans we see just all have Super Saiyan or SS2 in the Tournament of Power, but that's mainly just because we haven't checked in with them in a while, meanwhile in-universe it's been like a year or 2 since the U6 Tournament.

Also, this is just a side tangent, but I hate when people say that some of the transformations had no set-up prior to their reveals. The U6 Saiyans having access to Super Saiyan makes sense because Cabba was shown how to do it, even if the timescale is weird & the power scaling is odd, Orange Piccolo was foreshadowed at the beginning of Super Hero even if how Piccolo was able to access it in the first place is a bit underwhelming, & Gohan Beast is fine, even if the form's a bit weird-looking.

At least from a design standpoint, and at most from a narrative one, I can honestly say I've never had an issue with the oft-maligned "recolor" forms in principle; that's basically what Super Saiyan is already. But there's definitely a line where stuff can go from elegantly simple to just downright bland, and SSB actively pushes that boundary pretty hard for me.

With that said, I've always liked how it looked on Vegeta.

I personally don't mind it. I actually kinda like how it keeps things simpler. People easily forget the slight differences when it comes to Goku's SS2 hair VS SS1 & there's NO visible difference for Vegeta or adult Gohan due to their hair not changing much if at all between forms. The color swapping helps make the forms distinct from each other. Maybe more could be done with the color of Blue since God gives the user a red hue all about their body & clothes to go with their hair & eyes, but I can't think of what else they could've done for it.

If it makes anyone feel any better, I agree that Super Saiyan God's the better design of the 2. There's multiple visual differences in Goku & Vegeta's character designs with it & it has more weight & gravitas than Blue did. I just don't agree that the form is ugly or forced into the story. Underwhelming & overused? Sure, but not the other things.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

If you wanna argue that the form is maybe over-used or isn't as great as it could've been, that's fine, but the color balance? I feel like you're stretching to find reasons to hate it.

Does this look balanced to you ?

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/drago ... 1220102818

I think you just answered your own question, my guy. We don't know the specifics, but SS Blue is the result of them training to be able to access the God ki & use it in battle longer in a more controllable form. They found a way to do so by training with Whis, like what?

Why not do all this with SsjG ? Why bother introducing a new form when the previous one was barely used ? I would have no issue with Blue being introduced during the Zamasu arc, but RF was just way too fast

Super Saiyan 3 served very little story purpose...

Yes it did. It showed the kids who were constantly looking down at Goku exactly why he was viewed so highly by everyone around them. It was the form that finally got Vegeta to admit that Goku was better than him,and that he needed to change his ways in order to keep up. It was also the form that showed how beneficial dying was for Goku, as it's not something he would've discovered had he not been trained by those Kais in the afterlife.

Thanks for mentioning the training Goku & Gohan did to master SS1. SS God was set up to only really be usable after the ritual & was really hard to maintain for Goku. Thus, the reasoning to develop a similar form to use the type of power God exudes is completely logically sound & within reason considering Goku & Vegeta have done that type of training before on their own & Whis being there to help them hone a power they barely understand makes sense.

Exactly, they mastered Ssj1 before 2 was introduced. Why not do the same thing with SsjG ? As in, Goku and Vegeta would work on mastering it instead of getting a new form.

Goku obtaining SSGSS isn't bad writing & I pointed out why.

I'm not saying a new form should never have been introduced, just that it was introduced too fast. I wouldn't like Blue regardless due to its design, but I wouldn't say it was rushed if it was introduced during the Zamasu arc or even the U6 tournament. I don't like Gohan's Beast form, but you'll never see me say that it was introduced too fast after the Buu arc.

You earlier: "It's ugly & the color balance is off," despite Goku's outfit having a mix of primarily orange & blue.
You now: "I think Vegeta's normal blue suit means there's TOO MUCH blue with it."
Make up your mind, man.

I think the form in general is ugly, but Goku and especially Vegeta using it with their old outfits makes it look worse.

[MasenkoHA]

1. The name needed to be workshopped a bit (& even the Super anime had a joke about that with Whis renaming it Blue), but is it any stupider than putting numbers, or a grade system to denote the various forms of regular Super Saiyan? Come on now. This is a universe of fucking humanoids that turn into giant apes when they see a full moon, or a substitute, random motherfuckers can transform into higher-powered forms of themselves that look vastly different from their previous ones, the same humanoids that transform into apes can go blonde when made angry enough that can then be honed to access different sub forms, etc. Is it REALLY that much of a stretch here?

Uh yes actually. Super Saiyan 2, 3 and 4 aren't very creative but they denote its a higher level of Super Saiyan than the previous. Super Saiyan of a Super Saiyan God is such nonsense that fans will dead ass try to argue Super Saiyan God isn't an actual Super Saiyan form when it's in the goddamn name. Super Saiyan God Mode 2 or Super Saiyan God Ascended would have been fine.

I've also always argued Super Saiyan Blue should have been a pragmatic medium form between regular Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan God. Not as strong as the latter but more practical to access.

Also its a fantasy world where human aliens can turn into giant apes is pretty irrelevant to how stupid Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan sounds. That's not the sound argument you think it is.

3. Literally the only way Vegeta would've been able to access God was through the ritual as well. I know Toriyama left that deliberately vague by just not showing it, but that's the only logical answer there. Vegeta would've had to swallow his pride to do it. He's done that before, so I could believe it.

When did he have TIME to do that? Were he and Goku not training with Whis away from earth the entire time between BoG and RF?

And even if they had time...why? They did it for Goku because Beerus was going to destroy the earth. Goku told Vegeta he would get it next time but nothing happened between Beerus and Golden Freeza. They just got together and did it one Sunday afternoon for shits and giggles? Sure, why not.

And Super Saiyan 3 was a complete asspull that didn't do shit in the story. It was there because Toriyama thought it up, put it in the story, had it burn up most of Goku's remaining time on Earth, had Gotenks learn how to do it, then burn up all of Goku's remaining ki & stamina when fighting Kid Buu & not mean shit in the entire rest of the story. SS1 had an impact on the story when it was introduced & it's carried all the way to the end of the fight it's introduced for. SS2 surved its purpose to show Gohan's vast reserves of power underneath the surface that we got glimpses of previously. SS3 got introduced, left a stalemate with Buu, & never amounted to anything substantial ever again. Even when re-introduced in GT, it didn't do jackshit because Goku's child body couldn't maintain the form for long, even with his tail. A cool fight with Gotenks VS Super Buu, but even then, nothing much after that. Hell, Vegetto left more of an impact & he had significantly less screentime & was relegated to a cool fight before being tactical & letting himself be absorbed into Buu's body to save his kids & Piccolo. At least that advanced the plot. Goku going SS3 to distract Majin Buu kinda did by having Goku plant seeds of doubt into Buu's head about serving Babidi & distracting him so Goten & Trunks could train in Fusion to fight him, but that could've been done without SS3. It sure as fuck wasn't so Trunks could get the Dragon Radar from Capsule Corp. Goku could've easily teleported him there in 2 seconds, 1 of the most confusing plot points in the arc for me that Goku does.

You know being an asspull and having a narrative purpose aren't mutually exclusive concepts right? Literally nobody argued Super Saiyan 3 was planned in advance. But it DID have a reason to exist. I.E give a believable reason for why Goku could be even with Vegeta in their fight and then be on par with Majin Boo. Super Saiyan Blue is both an asspull and pointless because nothing required a stronger form of Super Saiyan God to fight Golden Freeza.

Super Saiyan 3 continued the already established concept of there being more powerful forms of Super Saiyan. It's only an asspull because it makes Goku look like a stupid reckless selfish asshole for not pulling it out to stop Vegeta and preventing Majin Boo from being freed.

As far as him not just teleporting Trunks to get the Dragon Radar 1. They didn't know the exact location just that it was somewhere at Capsule Corp 2. Goku clearly wanted to fight Majin Boo and gauge his strength...that's kind of his whole thing 3. Goku wanted to talk Majin Boo into killing Bobbodi

[Zephyr]

"Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan" sounding dumb is funny. Dragon Ball is funny.

Based on supplementary material we know that the Kaioshin Realm is located outside of the universe itself. Putting two and two together, 3's power could be felt outside of the universe.

I always thought it was on the same dimensional plane as the afterlife in DB, just very far away from it, considering dead people can go there & hang out indefinitely. With how alternate universes, dimensions, & timelines work in DB, I think that's the best explanation for it.

Yes and no? The Kaioshin Realm orbits everything else like a moon:


Everything in the top half is "the afterlife". Everything in the bottom half is "space" (ie: the 'universe' in the conventional real-world sense). The Kaioshin Realm that orbits the 'macrocosm' is arguably within the same 'dimensional plane' as the rest of the afterlife, whatever that means. Which is why, as many speculate, Old Kaioshin didn't go anywhere after he gave his life to Goku, he simply sat up with a halo above his head a moment later.

Either way, it's extremely unclear if the distance between the First Demon World and the Third Demon World is meant to be greater than the distance between the Kaioshin's planet inside of the purple sphere and Earth inside the bottom half of the larger sphere. That distance would need to be greater in order for Super Saiyan 4 in the First Demon World being sensed by the Tamagami in the Third Demon World to be more impressive than Super Saiyan 3 on Earth being sensed by Gohan in the Kaioshin Realm. Which is what was being postulated, but I really never got the sense from anything in the show that the Demon Realm in general is bigger than the entire universe.

It's possible they'll drop some lore in future supplementary material that explains and shows this to be the case, but until then we can't say that Super Saiyan 4 has actually demonstrated that it is stronger than Super Saiyan 3.

[TheMikado]

Regarding "Toriyama with editors vs. Toriyama without editors", it's a lot more complicated than "good when editors, bad when not". Apparently his last editor during the comic's original run, Fuyuto Takeda, who held the position roughly from Cell becoming Perfect through the end of the story, was incredibly hands off. So, unless you're including the Cell Games and the Boo arc in the "see what happens when Toriyama isn't reigned in?" argument, then some re-evaluation of the argument is in order.

On the other hand, the Cell arc prior to the Cell Games, under Kondo (apparently much more hands-on than Takeda), was especially messy. You'd need to argue that, actually, Trunks' future somehow being so bleak (despite all kinds of things that could have been done), Trunks' frequently changing reasons for traveling to the past in the first place, Cell's random mystery-dispelling exposition-dump, and more, are actually examples of terrific writing. Without doing that, some re-evaluation of the argument is in order.

Finally, there is a difference between merely coming up with ideas for others to execute and having to actually execute ideas yourself. We don't know how bad we might find ideas from the original run if they were executed through someone else's hands. We don't know how good we might find ideas from the revival era if they were executed through Toriyama's hand. Maybe we'd still have the same opinions about both sets of ideas, but we shouldn't pretend that we can know what we would think, and use that to support a judgment call on Toriyama with vs. without oversight.

Not to mention that the revival era, much like the original run, has a collaborative aspect to it. If Toriyama's ideas were executed the way he'd envisioned, then the Black arc, for example, would have played out very differently. But they weren't! So the notion that the revival era is an example of "Toriyama being left to his own devices" isn't even a true premise to be reasoning from.

I'd say a better line of thinking is, who does Toriyama work best with? We know that Torishima, the man who discovered Toriyama and was his editor through the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, rejected a ton of his stuff. He's told Toriyama that we wouldn't have had the messy time travel stuff if he was still the editor. We also know that Toriyama was thinking of some of the Freeza stuff during the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, leading me to believe that at least some of the Namek storyline was devised through collaboration with Torishima. Obviously it was executed under Kondo's tenure, but putting two and two together leads to the conclusion that Torishima's hands were in it somewhere during the early planning stages. Further, it's worth acknowledging just how popular the Namek arc was, and just how widespread the belief is that Dragon Ball peaked in quality there. In other words, Dragon Ball was at its strongest when Toriyama and Torishima were collaborating. Which is very different from "Toriyama and somebody, anybody, collaborating".

To put another way: clearly there were a lot more yes-men in the revival era than there were during, say, the Piccolo Daimao arc. But there were more yes-man in the Cell and Boo arcs than in the Daimao arc as well!

For me, the main issue with them is that they didn’t wish for more power, they wished to be the strongest. This sets a bad precedent where anyone could make the same wish and become unbeatable. But I guess the point was that, unlike Piccolo’s, their wish was shallow and selfish, which ultimately led to their defeat and, in Gas’s case, his demise.

That's fair. The main caveat that keeps it from bothering me that much is the Monkey's Paw element to it, where they're drastically shortening their lifespan as a result of it. There's also the "except for gods" caveat that keeps them from getting stronger than, say, Zeno, with a mere wish; but that has a built-in workaround, insofar as a non-god could become stronger than Zeno through other means, so it's not completely foolproof.

The Boo arc is the least liked arc by a majority of fans so I feel like that entirely proves the point.

[Zephyr]

The Boo arc is the least liked arc by a majority of fans so I feel like that entirely proves the point.

Not when the writing in the Cell arc, with a more strict editor, was also very sloppily written and consequently extremely divisive.

There are plenty of fans who effectively only really like DB as it was under Kondo's oversight, from Raditz to Cell. The people in this camp who dislike Boo also don't really care about "OG Dragon Ball", and that's entirely unrelated to the degree of editorial oversight Toriyama had. In other words, to the extent that your made-up statistic is true, there's also a lot of "I prefer serious DB to silly DB" informing it that your point does not account for.

[BernardoCairo]

Super Saiyajin Blue's design isn't bad. While its introduction in Fukkatsu no F felt abrupt and lame (I would have preferred more focus on Super Saiyajin God), the design itself isn't a problem. I see Blue as an extension of the original Super Saiyajin, much like the previous grade forms. Essentially, it's a Super Saiyajin powered by God Ki, which is why I think it makes sense for it to retain a similar design.
It's what I would have expected from a Super Saiyajin Grade 6 (or 7 if you consider Super Saiyajin 3 as being Grade 6)

[PhantomSaiyan]

My unpopular opinion is that GT's ending is very overrated. You often hear people say "GT sucked but it has a good ending and ssj4"

I don't think GT's ending is appropriate for Dragon Ball's tone at all. It feels like the ending to a different show altogether. Goku deciding to fuck off with the dragon abandoning everyone makes no sense and it always rubbed me the wrong way. Him going off with uub in end of z is not comparable at all because he can still teleport back to his family whenever he wants, and it's implied that he won't be gone forever. Besides, we have that neko majin panel with uub living in the Son family house, so you know he didn't just cut everyone out of his life. And his motivation makes sense with his character, training a strong ally not only is in line with his fight junkie mentality, but it also allows him to complete his character arc from martial arts student to martial arts master.

In GT however he decides for no reason at all that he'd rather abandon his friends and family FOREVER and in favor of what exactly? Who fucking knows, chilling with the dragon I guess. It feels like a very artificial choice, like they wanted to write something dramatic for the sake of it but they failed in coming up with any kind of logical reasoning as to why would goku do that in the first place.
Him being in the tournament where goku jr and vegeta jr fought is even more puzzling. So he can walk around in the world and interact with people... So why exactly did he wait until his granddaughter was an old woman to do that?

The goofy and carefree attitude of end of z is exactly the type of finale a show like dragonball needs, you can tell toriyama wrote it because he would never write a gt-style ending.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

The goofy and carefree attitude of end of z is exactly the type of finale a show like dragonball needs, you can tell toriyama wrote it because he would never write a gt-style ending.

I think another issue people have with Z's ending besides Goku leaving is how abrupt it is; we go from Buu dying directly to 10 years ahead. I think Z's ending works better if there are a couple of stories (Battle of Gods and Daima) between it and the Buu arc to make things flow better.