Non-thread-worthy discussions

[Hellspawn28]

I still wish we had Mr. Satan meet Freeza. He has meet every main villain in DBZ expect for him.

[The Dark Knight]

I still wish we had Mr. Satan meet Freeza. He has meet every main villain in DBZ expect for him.

Freeza is still alive, so it can still happen. I would love a scenario where Satan is forced to work for Freeza while trying to escape in secret.

[Noah]

You know, I’ve always had this kind of crazy theory about some of the questionable decisions Toriyama made during the serialization of the original manga.

Like, why is the training of Goku and Krillin before the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai basically the only training segment that actually gets shown in detail in the manga? Or why was a fight that people probably really expected at the time, like the rematch between Goku and Vegeta during the Boo arc, mostly off-screen?

My theory is that he might have coordinated this with the animation team. Just like he would design filler characters and give ideas for filler episodes, he might have also intentionally left out certain parts of the story so the anime staff would have more freedom to expand on them, without getting too close to where the manga was at the time.

I’m probably just overthinking it, and in reality Toriyama might’ve just been burned out from drawing so much or just didn’t feel like detailing everything… but it would be cool if that had actually been part of the reason too.

I would have just have Piccolo achieve his new forms without Shen Long and written an internal conflict for him. Give us his perspective on how the others are all using God ki now. Dive into his feelings on having God ki, too, or something.

Not only I agree with this but it irks me that the anime hyped that Namekian Book of Legends for nothing at all, I mean this could be the perfect excuse for his new forms. Also I would love if he actually had those in the ToP.

[rweasp]

Every time Marron shows up I'm always completely horrified at how she looks. That face is an abomination of demonic proportions and I will never get over just how disgusting that design is. Kuririn's face + #18's hair is the most cursed combo in all of fiction. I am genuinely mortified by it.

[ZeroNeonix]

Someone built Kami's Lookout in Pokopia. Very impressive.

[Grimlock]

Well, I would like to claim the 666666th post.

[eledoremassis02]

Drawing Dragon Ball Z Characters from memory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4UJ_3_pq6E&t=12s

[Yellow Flower King]

I realized that as much as people hate Goku constantly forgiving and letting villains go and or not immediately doing everything they can to stop the enemy, the world has slowly changed for the better with each arc. Like they gain new allies and friends that slowly change the world.

Another way the world changes is by slowly having quiet developments like Videl being the first normal human in a long while to learn to control her ki and fly. I bet one day ki control will be open to everyone, regardless of power level or species and it will be thanks to Videl and Gohan.

[The Dark Knight]

I realized that as much as people hate Goku constantly forgiving and letting villains go and or not immediately doing everything they can to stop the enemy, the world has slowly changed for the better with each arc. Like they gain new allies and friends that slowly change the world.

People seem to ignore that Goku was selective with who he attempted to let go, as King Piccolo, Cell, and Buu were not offered that chance. Don't even get me started on how Goku "forgave" the villains form the old movies and GT all the way to the sun.

[Yellow Flower King]

I realized that as much as people hate Goku constantly forgiving and letting villains go and or not immediately doing everything they can to stop the enemy, the world has slowly changed for the better with each arc. Like they gain new allies and friends that slowly change the world.

People seem to ignore that Goku was selective with who he attempted to let go, as King Piccolo, Cell, and Buu were not offered that chance. Don't even get me started on how Goku "forgave" the villains form the old movies and GT all the way to the sun.

That wasnt the point of my post. I wasnt like defending him or anything, just wanted to point out the positives that came out of it. If you asked me, while everything turned out ok, this wasnt a really morally sound decision, its Moral Luck, aka a decision is deemed as good or bad because things turned out for the better without proof or knowledge that they would.

[super michael]

I realized that as much as people hate Goku constantly forgiving and letting villains go and or not immediately doing everything they can to stop the enemy, the world has slowly changed for the better with each arc. Like they gain new allies and friends that slowly change the world.

Another way the world changes is by slowly having quiet developments like Videl being the first normal human in a long while to learn to control her ki and fly. I bet one day ki control will be open to everyone, regardless of power level or species and it will be thanks to Videl and Gohan.

https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Grou ... ng_Science

This book gave an understanding of ki usage to the general public, thus opening up a worldwide interest in martial arts and fighting.

After the departure of his father, Gohan reflects on the power he wields and so devotes himself to scholarly research on the source of that strength, ki. Gohan begins researching the martial arts of the past, organizing them in his book Groundbreaking Science in Age 804. The book quietly gains popularity and one of the articles, "Katchin Can Be Cut!", has an immense influence on the birth of the Swordsman class, as it leads to the creation of Trunks and Goten's Kikoukenjutsu Sword School in the year following the book's release. It also leads to Krillin and Tien Shinhan starting up their own training schools in Age 821, the New Turtle School and the New Crane School, respectively. As a result, by Age 1000, many Earthlings has taken up advanced martial arts and understand ki control.

If they use that story outside DBO, then Gohan book will help the general public understand ki usage.

[Mr Baggins]

I realized that as much as people hate Goku constantly forgiving and letting villains go and or not immediately doing everything they can to stop the enemy, the world has slowly changed for the better with each arc. Like they gain new allies and friends that slowly change the world.

That's also part of the why the climax of the Buu arc feels so impactful – in addition to 'humanity' being a driving motif of the arc itself from the beginning, really.

[The Dark Knight]

I'm glad the classic era of Dragon Ball ended before being produced...like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAoyRyOLTF8

[Doctor Seaweed Roll]

anybody able to provide context as to this guy i found cosplaying Goku on the Kinto Un (a.k.a. Flying Nimbus)

Not trying to stalk the guy I just wanna see if he cosplayed as any other characters

[Doctor Seaweed Roll]

I found an old website talking about GT when GT was still airing in Japan & thought it was worth sharing this gem of web 1.0
https://web.archive.org/web/19970723133 ... /dbgt.html

[Yuji]

How do you guys rank these characters based on their natural potential? As in, strip them down to a PL of 5, have them train non-stop in a ROSAT for a year, what's the order of strength?

Majin Boo
Freeza
Cell
Broly
Gohan
Goten
Trunks
Goku
Vegeta
Tenshinhan
Kuririn
Piccolo
Jiren
Zamasu
Goku Black
Dabura
Android 17
Moro
Raditz
Nappa

[angeldreamZ004]

Happy Goku Day to everyone. Rest in Peace Toriyama and I wish the best for his family and Toyotaro.

I found an old website talking about GT when GT was still airing in Japan & thought it was worth sharing this gem of web 1.0
https://web.archive.org/web/19970723133 ... /dbgt.html

Great find! Thank you for sharing

[Doctor Seaweed Roll]

Happy Goku Day to everyone. Rest in Peace Toriyama and I wish the best for his family and Toyotaro.

I found an old website talking about GT when GT was still airing in Japan & thought it was worth sharing this gem of web 1.0
https://web.archive.org/web/19970723133 ... /dbgt.html

Great find! Thank you for sharing

I discovered it when browsing rec.arts.anime which had an old usenet forum post about DBGT

[LoganForkHands73]

How do you guys rank these characters based on their natural potential? As in, strip them down to a PL of 5, have them train non-stop in a ROSAT for a year, what's the order of strength?

Majin Boo
Freeza
Cell
Broly
Gohan
Goten
Trunks
Goku
Vegeta
Tenshinhan
Kuririn
Piccolo
Jiren
Zamasu
Goku Black
Dabura
Android 17
Moro
Raditz
Nappa

Gone super deep into this because I need to distract myself from work, lol. I should clarify I’m talking in a more abstract sense than your Time Chamber scenario.

The top 3 is a really hard call. Currently, Freeza is at the peak of his game, but it’s hard to forget how terrifyingly fast Broly caught up to two Super Saiyan Blues and Super Saiyan Gogeta over the course of a half hour fight. Gohan will always be known as the Great Potential Man, but a part of me thinks that he might have finally capped out at Beast. Still, that’s obviously nothing to scoff at.

We know that Jiren started off as a weakling and just trained his fucking arse off to get to the level he is now, without cutting any corners or any god power-ups. That indicates that he always had that dawg in him.

Trunks and Goten were once hyped up as having even more potential than Gohan, but I reckon they simply got their gains earlier in life and then plateaued at a slightly lower level. There hasn’t been any solid indication since the Buu arc that they’re really that special.

Vegeta may claim to have more natural talent, but the proof’s in the pudding: they train roughly the same amount, but that clown Kakarot is always one step ahead, even though he’s had help along the way. Goku Black inherits some of Goku’s potential but is limited by being an edgy bootleg. Moro’s power is very dependent on planets he’s eaten, but Goku saw potential in him to grow stronger with training. I personally doubt he’d ever have gotten as far as he did without absorbing Seven-Three and Merus’s power though, so I’m putting him below Black.

Cell’s potential is pretty much all theoretical. He has great genes, but does that alone determine potential? I always got the feeling, ever since that “weak” Kamehameha he used against Piccolo, that Cell can never escape his status as an artificial facsimile of all the people that made him. He doesn’t have the same potential to grow as a Saiyan, much less a Saiyan-human hybrid. I personally imagine that even if he put his ego aside and really tried, he wouldn’t naturally get much stronger than his Super Perfect form — much less so without the Androids absorbed. I’ve ranked #17 higher simply because he has that “human” aspect, which in the wishy-washy-wushu world of shonen battle manga means that he had more room for growth, clearly demonstrated in Super.

I think Buu also suffers from a similar arbitrary growth cap to Cell that can only be unlocked by absorbing people. He hasn’t been able to reach god levels, even with a small amount of training in the Super anime. EDIT: Forgot about the god chi retcon in the manga. Hrrm… probably put Buu a bit higher then.

Dabura is really strong by Demon Realm standards, but DAIMA implies that his kind have almost no understanding of chi, and without items like the Third Eye, magic only seems to get one so far. It’s possible that Super Perfect Cell level was as strong as he was ever gonna get, who can say. Zamasu was said to have a lot of potential for a Glind, but even with possibly hundreds of years of training, he couldn’t hope to match Goku without Super Dragon Ball hax.

The Super Hero movie basically confirms that Piccolo’s natural potential is amazing by Namekian standards but still has a hard cap at the piss-yellow form. He needed Shenron’s bonus to compete. The Earthlings ain’t shit, forget all I said about human potential now lol, but we have to face facts that Tien has trained hard all his life and is still somehow below Krillin, whose training consists of eating doughnuts and letting his hot robot wife do all his laundry. Nappa and Raditz are only marginally above them by virtue of being Saiyans — their evil hearts likely stopped them from getting loads of S-Cells or whatever the fuck.

1. Broly
2. Gohan
3. Freeza
4. Jiren
5. Trunks
6. Goten
7. Goku
8. Vegeta
9. Goku Black
10. Moro
11. Majin Buu
12. Android 17
13. Cell
14. Piccolo
15. Zamasu
16. Dabura
17. Nappa
18. Raditz
19. Krillin
20. Tenshinhan

[Yuji]

Thank you for your input. I think I generally agree, but I'd push back on just a few placements.

Jiren: the reason I made up the scenario was to remove mindset from the equation, since obviously that's what holds people like Gohan back. Jiren is portrayed as a weakling who got strong due to his determination and drive, and his understanding of how Ki works. I don't think his genetics played a big part. I'd wager if everyone else had his mentality, they'd probably rank higher. I'd probably rank him just a bit above Goku but toward the lower end of the list.

Goku vs Vegeta: I disagree, because they don't train the same. Goku benefited from various masters, magical potential unlocks, otherworldly training methods, deeper understanding of Ki, and still was half Vegeta's strength when they met. Then Goku kept training with others while Vegeta isolated himself, Goku varied his training methods whereas Vegeta stuck to conventional gravity training, Goku knew how to rest, whereas Vegeta overtrained. By the time they both share the same conditions, Vegeta achieved SSG without the need for the ritual, and is now arguably stronger than Goku in their base forms. I think the series definitely supports the reading Goku has lower potential but keeps up by being smarter and more humble.

Boo: He went from SS2 tier to SSB tier in the Moro arc just by unlocking his memories, or "latent power." Who knows how strong he can get from training on top of it. Plus Oob definitely has the highest potential in the series since his energy was enough to power MUI back to full strength and dwarfed all the dragon team's Ki put together. Boo and Oob's potential should be relative at least, so he's definitely top 5.