Lend me your energy!

[Rocketman]

So what's up with that? By "that", of course I mean the constant thread in Toei-Dragonball of characters lending energy to other characters (ie, ~GOKU~).

The Spirit Bomb gets overused like a bitch in the movies, and then there's the whole energy sharing versus Broly that gets brought out something like seven times in GT's short run.

Other than the power problem (three Super Saiyan 1s, Bra and Pan can charge up a Super Saiyan 4, but are useless on their own), why does this...trope, shall we say, get used so much? Is there some kind of cultural component? It looks cool? It allows minor screen time for lesser characters while still laying everything at the feet of Godku? Toei is just massively unoriginal, what?


I was going to ask if this ever occurs in Toriyama-Dragonball, but I remembered Goku giving energy to Freeza. Where there any other occurrences?

[Bussani]

It allows minor screen time for lesser characters while still laying everything at the feet of Godku?

I think you nailed it with that. It's a cheap excuse to say that everyone helped and the power of teamwork saved the day, without much thought put into just how those people can charge up that person. That saaaid...

I was going to ask if this ever occurs in Toriyama-Dragonball, but I remembered Goku giving energy to Freeza. Where there any other occurrences?

Gohan and Kuririn gave the last of their ki to Piccolo so he could kick Freeza once really hard, so there might be something to the idea of the same power being more effective in one person/one attack than if all three of them had attacked at once. I guess that makes some sense if you think about it.

[Godo]

If we have three characters with the power of 2, 5 , and 3 respectively, and an enemy of the power of 10, we can make these conclusions:

Each of them attacking on their own would give the enemy only damage equivalent of their powers, thus making no real damage at all.

But if we let the strongest of them getting the other two guy's powers, he would have a power of 9, enough to be able to defeat the enemy.

One thing that bothers me though is that if they knew it could happen, why in the Cell Games didn't anyone think of giving Goku their powers? They weren't confident in winning against Cell anyways.

If we have these powerlevels;

Perfect Cell: 20
FPSSJ Goku: 15
FPSSJ Gohan: 18
USSJ Vegeta: 12
USSJ Trunks: 11
Piccolo: 9
Kuririn:1
Tenshinhan:2
Yamcha:0,5

Giving, say, Goku would give him a max of 68,5, enough to defeat Cell. Even if they gave only a third of their power to Goku he would have a max of 33, again enough to defeat Cell.
Even if we take into consideration all the non-full Saiya-jins (who aren't complete psychos who rather risk the fate of the Earth than fighting with some help), they could have let Gohan take some power, and he would defeat Cell easily, or rather Piccolo, who would do the job without hesitation.

The three person Kamehameha works in the same way, they combine their Kamehamehas into one single one and defeat the enemy with one blow (although the only one stupid enough for it to work on is Broly).

[Bussani]

Maybe they can't just pump energy into someone way beyond their limits. In the other examples it's more like they just refill their reserves, rather than overfill them. Except maybe in Piccolo's case, since he got a pretty good hit in on final form Freeza...but even that was more of a last-ditch distraction than anything.

[caejones]

It happens in one of the Sailor Moon movies as well... Sailor Moon's all like, "Give me your energy!", and it then shows everyone going "Sailor Moo~oon!" in a terrifyingly love-struck voice.

Healing Energy is one of the things one is supposed to be able to transfer to others through cultivation in exstent practices, not that I'm convinced that plays into this transfer thing in DBZ in any way...

[Cipher]

Maybe they can't just pump energy into someone way beyond their limits.

I think it's definitely this, with one exception. They push Goku's Super Saiyan 4 form past its former limit as he's fighting Yi Xing Long. But Gohan expresses major concern that Goku would die in the process.

Anyway, Goku does it twice in GT, and both times he specifies that he has to draw power from other Saiyans. So maybe it's ... different? Bullshittier? I don't know. In the movies sometimes Piccolo would get in on the action, but here you have Uub flying around with the strength of around a Super Saiyan 3 and Goku doesn't want his help. So, whatever. I suppose Baby does it in Vegeta's body too. Kind of. We don't really know what's up with his physiology at all though.

Also, I second the thought that it's just used as the bullshittiest excuse for a teamwork moment ever.

[Deity]

I remember when I watched the first Broly movie (DBZ movie 8 ) for the first time. Broly was this incredible enemy who could literally toy with ANY of the fighters there, and I was thinking "how the hell is Goku gonna do it?". When he did it my thoughts were "wtf..." and later "why didn't they do this with cell?"
But then I found out about the whole Toei business with all the fillers, movies and whatnot and tried not to think too much about it.

[Clockwork00]

I think it's definitely this, with one exception. They push Goku's Super Saiyan 4 form past its former limit as he's fighting Yi Xing Long. But Gohan expresses major concern that Goku would die in the process.

Sounds like a good battle strategy. Everyone pump energy into the enemy until he dies.

[Kid Buu]

I think it's definitely this, with one exception. They push Goku's Super Saiyan 4 form past its former limit as he's fighting Yi Xing Long. But Gohan expresses major concern that Goku would die in the process.

Sounds like a good battle strategy. Everyone pump energy into the enemy until he dies.

Well, that did kind of happen to Yakon.

[Bussani]

Anyway, Goku does it twice in GT, and both times he specifies that he has to draw power from other Saiyans. So maybe it's ... different? Bullshittier?

Maybe they just use their ki to restore his genki/vigor, rather than to replace his expended ki directly. Kind of like simulating a meal and a nap.

[NeoKING]

All I know is that whenever Goku asks for energy from someone in GT, he's nearly dead, so yes, maybe it does restore his vigor. Like, when Yi Xing Long hit SSJ4 with a 10XKamehameha, Goku was damn-near finished, then all of his comrades helped him out and he went SSJ4 again.

[Godo]

Maybe they can't just pump energy into someone way beyond their limits. In the other examples it's more like they just refill their reserves, rather than overfill them. Except maybe in Piccolo's case, since he got a pretty good hit in on final form Freeza...but even that was more of a last-ditch distraction than anything.

In Piccolo's case, it was probably like when Trunks kicked Majin Buu away. The enemy was caught off guard, and the damage was nil. Even if you try to add the possible powerlevels together, Piccolo comes up to only a fraction of Freeza's power then.

There is one problem with your theory though: In movie 8, Goku shot a Full Power Kamehameha right in Broly's face without any effect at all. If his power was only replenished, it still wouldn't be possible for him to make such a punch in Broly's stomach, even if he concentrated it. And Goku was fast enough to rush against Broly and surprise him with his fist that was rammed into his stomach and possibly broke his goddamn spine.
Thinking of that, it points towards Goku being powered over his reserves and full power.
But how this was possible with three half-dead Saiya-jins in base and a half-dead Piccolo is a mystery.
If Goku at that time had used up, say 3/4 of his power, and everyone were about the same in power, say, 4 and Broly 8, we would get this:

Goku: 1 (his SSJ power)
Vegeta: 0.02 (divided by 50 because of that he was in base)
Piccolo: 0.5
Trunks: 0.02 (divided by 50 because of that he was in base)
Gohan: 0.02 (divided by 50 because of that he was in base)

Yeah, it doesn't add up.

I call TOEI-sausage sucking fest.

[Bussani]

one problem with your theory

movie

Movie logic messes everything up.

[Godo]

one problem with your theory

movie

Movie logic messes everything up.

I put movies and GT in the same folder though regarding consistency.