Is anyone else not a fan of the SS3 Vegeta design?

[90sDBZ]

Ever since Daima came out I've thought Vegeta's SS3 design looks goofy with the hair continuing to stand up. I much prefer the more traditional SS3 design he had in the Raging Blast games.

I know some will argue it's because Vegeta's hair always stands up regardless of form, while Goku's has always been more flexible between forms. But consider the fact that Gotenks essentially had Vegeta's hair, widows peak and all, but still had the same hair shape as Goku in SS3.

I get they were going for something different and unique with Vegeta's SS3 in Daima, but I honestly feel it looks pretty meh, while the classic SS3 design actually looks cool on both Goku and Gotenks.

[JulieYBM]

Gokuu and Gotenks have unique Super Saiyan 3 hair styles, too, so I like how there's that bit of consistency by making Vegeta's noticeably different. I'm curious Nakatsuru Katsuyoshi had to remind Toriyama of this or if Toriyama remembered on his own and designed Vegeta from there?

But yeah, the look doesn't really bother me. It can be read both on a sincere level and a wink-wink level at how goofy the additional transformations are.

[Metalwario64]

Ever since Daima came out I've thought Vegeta's SS3 design looks goofy with the hair continuing to stand up. I much prefer the more traditional SS3 design he had in the Raging Blast games.

I know some will argue it's because Vegeta's hair always stands up regardless of form, while Goku's has always been more flexible between forms. But consider the fact that Gotenks essentially had Vegeta's hair, widows peak and all, but still had the same hair shape as Goku in SS3.

I get they were going for something different and unique with Vegeta's SS3 in Daima, but I honestly feel it looks pretty meh, while the classic SS3 design actually looks cool on both Goku and Gotenks.

Yeah, I miss all those old 90s fan edits of SSJ3 Vegeta and basically that's what we got in Raging Blast. SSJ3 Vegeta in Daima just looks like Beast Gohan's hair without eyebrows and the bang.

[The Dark Knight]

I personally prefer the classic Ssj3 look, but I don't mind Vegeta's at all. I also share your thoughts about Gotenks' hair having the same design as Vegeta's; I think the more likely scenario as to why Vegeta's design is different is due to it taking so long to give him the form, so they decided to do something unique with it.

[angeldreamZ004]

I'm not a fan of SSJ3 in overall, from design to concept. I do think that all of the SSJ3 designs are well done though, this applies to Vegeta as well, I think his look in Daima is just much better to what was seen back in Raging Blast, Dragon Battlers, Dokkan etc, which pretty much exposed even more this old idea that the Goku and Gotenks SSJ3 style was the default SSJ3 design for everyone minus how much hair there will be in front of the forehead.
I like to see how different each transformation looks in different characters, and Daima treated Vegeta's SSJ3 as something of his own, with him even giving its own name, so I think Daima did a good work with it even though I don't really care about the transformation at all.

[kiarasuraru]

It's more of a "eh" or "oh, that exists, moving on".
Just too little, too late. Him having it at this point like, just doesn't matter? Adds nothing?
The porcupine hair, ironically enough, by trying to be distinct, feels lazier too. It just gets bigger. Yay? What's even the point of changing it up after decades of consistent SS3 designs? It's just like Daima SS4. Made different just for the sake of being so. And just like Daima SS4, utterly pointless narratively.
So it's "eh".

[JulieYBM]

Fandom needs to move away from how it thinks about transformations and think about story and character. I don't necessarily think every transformation needs to be an event, but tying it into a character arc gives the form meaning. Toriyama intentionally refusing to actively give meaning to his work as a form of antagonism is pretty masturbatory in that respect, turning his work into the story of his antagonism of art and audience.

It's ironic, but perfectly shows just how much meaning cannot be escaped, no matter how hard he tried.

[BernardoCairo]

I liked the design. It reminds me of the concept art Toriyama drew for Super Saiyajin 3 Goku in the Boo saga (minus the super long hair). In fact, I like it more than Beast Gohan because of the lack of eyebrows.

The previous Super Saiyajin 3 Vegeta design never worked for me. He looks ugly with Super Saiyajin 3 Goku's hairstyle. His "receding hairline" doesn't match it.

[90sDBZ]

It's more of a "eh" or "oh, that exists, moving on".
Just too little, too late. Him having it at this point like, just doesn't matter? Adds nothing?
The porcupine hair, ironically enough, by trying to be distinct, feels lazier too. It just gets bigger. Yay? What's even the point of changing it up after decades of consistent SS3 designs? It's just like Daima SS4. Made different just for the sake of being so. And just like Daima SS4, utterly pointless narratively.
So it's "eh".

I think stuff like toy sales and game DLC was probably another reason they changed SS4 specifically. I still prefer GT's design for sure, although I do kind of like Daima's version too.

SS3 Vegeta kind of resembles the hair of his old Grade 2 form, but looks off because it doesn't have the bigger muscles to balance out the hair.

I think it works well enough from a story perspective. Vegeta watched Goku go SS3 against Buu, so it makes sense for his character that he'd train to reach it himself (he also reached SS2 during training after seeing Gohan do it first, and reached SS1 after seeing Goku and Trunks).

The problem is the design just looks kind of lame.

[kiarasuraru]

It's more of a "eh" or "oh, that exists, moving on".
Just too little, too late. Him having it at this point like, just doesn't matter? Adds nothing?
The porcupine hair, ironically enough, by trying to be distinct, feels lazier too. It just gets bigger. Yay? What's even the point of changing it up after decades of consistent SS3 designs? It's just like Daima SS4. Made different just for the sake of being so. And just like Daima SS4, utterly pointless narratively.
So it's "eh".

I think stuff like toy sales and game DLC was probably another reason they changed SS4 specifically.

Pinpon~
Idle random thought, but thinking about it now, I'm surprised they also didn't try to give Piccolo a whatever new transformation too so they could have two extra sources of merch to go.

[angeldreamZ004]

Fandom needs to move away from how it thinks about transformations and think about story and character. I don't necessarily think every transformation needs to be an event, but tying it into a character arc gives the form meaning.

The fandom can decide if they move away from that or not, but I do completely agree with what you said here. SSJ3 is the responsible for the oversimplification of transformations prior to Super imo, we can see this with how the fanbase reacted (at least the western part, I don't know much the japanese side) where especially after SSJ4, a lot of fans think that new transformations in the series should be about getting physically stronger and stronger and stronger and even wackier designs. These people dismiss what exactly made the transformations interesting back in the Freeza and Cell arcs, where they weren't about a crazy design and characters just getting stronger. They were actually linked to character growth just like you said, that's why people associate SSJ Grade 2 with Vegeta or SSJ2 with Cell Games Gohan for example (originally SSJ Grade 5 if I'm not mistaken). Goku recognizing that the muscular power ups weren't efficient and deciding to master the regular SSJ1 instead, are very interesting ideas.
Boo Saga just goes against that, with SSJ3 having little to no development and it comes like nothing for both Goku and Gotenks, how you achieved this form? "I trained" that's all. That's why it's my personal letdown with that arc, and brings in this idea that at least every new arc should introduce at least one new form, which is something GT didn't try to do since it kept SSJ4 until the end as opposed to introducing SSJ5 or 6, which was a good decision imo.

I love how Toriyama decided to go completely against the fans expectations in Battle of Gods / Super and introduced new forms that are simple in design, which I already prefer over drastic changes, and made them actually very interesting in concept, connecting them to the characters' personal enhancement. Ultra Instinct even has some religious ideas behind it and even after its introdution in the ToP, it was still developed thoughout two more arcs, which I loved and made me like it even more than the classic ones.
And this decision also resulted in pretty much everyone in the main cast achiving their own personal forms, which was the best decision imo, even though you can say that Orange Piccolo and Gohan Beast are underdeveloped when compared to Goku and Vegeta's new forms, it's at least what I think, but I think it's already a lot better than just giving everyone SSJ4 or 5 for example (Which as far as I know, is what everyone tried to do in the many versions of AF)

I think Vegeta's development to reach SSJ3 in Daima was much better than what was done with both SSJ3s in the Boo Saga, but I still think it can't compare to him achieving the God Forms and Ultra Ego.

[The Dark Knight]

I'm surprised they also didn't try to give Piccolo a whatever new transformation too so they could have two extra sources of merch to go.

Toriyama wrote Daima and Superhero around the same time, so he probably thought it wasn't necessary to give Piccolo another form after giving him two in the movie.