Kaio-Ken Questions

[vegetaslegacy15]

Why didn't Goku ever teach the Kaioken to Gohan or Piccolo or anyone? I know he had no use for it after the fight with Freeza but Gohan, Piccolo, and the Humans could have used it and been a great help.

Also does the Kaioken have any connection to the Genki Dama? Besides the fact that there both techniques Goku learnt from King Kai.

[Pokewhiz7]

Well, I'd assume by the time Goku was training with Gohan, Gohan could go Super Saiyan.

[vegetaslegacy15]

I mean when they were training for the androids not the ROSAT training.

[dbgtFO]

Well, I'd assume by the time Goku was training with Gohan, Gohan could go Super Saiyan.

Eh, that's some ridiculous fanon right there if you're saying what I think you're saying.
Goku trained Gohan in the 3 years before facing the androids and it was a plot point that Gohan wasn't a Super Saiyan until transforming into one in the RoSaT.

[Pokewhiz7]

Well, shows what I know then.

[Luke Groundwalker]

It was probably forgotten by Toriyama.

Or else the human characters might've been useful.

[dbgtFO]

It was probably forgotten by Toriyama.

Or else the human characters might've been useful.

I don't think it was forgotten by Toriyama as much as it was deliberatly ignored like Battle Powers and Near Death Power-ups(until Cell at least).

[songohan619]

Maybe Kaio-Sama is the only one who teach others the "Kaio-Ken".
But, then, why didnt he teach it to Piccolo, Ten-shin-han, Yamchu and Chaotzu when they were dead?

[Kaboom]

Kaio-Ken is such a difficult technique to get the hang of that not even Kaio himself, its creator, could ever get the knack of it. Goku learned it because he's the main character and a flippin' prodigy. From such a literary perspective, Goku is the only one who could learn it from Kaio.

Now if Goku himself is a good enough teacher, he might actually be able to teach it to someone else who's a direct student of his. Like... Gohan or Oob or Pan.

[hleV]

A good theory would be that after Kaio saw how Goku went to Kaio-ken x3 to x4 and experienced serious injuries and that that wasn't enough to win a fight, he may just have neglected the idea of teaching anyone else the Kaio-ken technique. For their own safety.

[Dorexx]

I believe that all the training and techniques from Kaio have something to do with being pure of heart, and that's pretty much why Goku is the only one who can master it, and the others simply don't qualify. Just like the Genkidama.

[Kaiser Gogeta]

It was probably forgotten by Toriyama.

Or else the human characters might've been useful.

I don't think it was forgotten by Toriyama as much as it was deliberatly ignored like Battle Powers and Near Death Power-ups(until Cell at least).

On that note, can Cell use the Kaio-Ken?

[dbgtFO]

It was probably forgotten by Toriyama.

Or else the human characters might've been useful.

I don't think it was forgotten by Toriyama as much as it was deliberatly ignored like Battle Powers and Near Death Power-ups(until Cell at least).

On that note, can Cell use the Kaio-Ken?

He doesn't list it as one of his abilities and logically, if he could it would be a good idea to do it, when he was getting his ass kicked by Gohan.

This is the kind of stuff I want to see Toriyama talk about: plot elements written out of the story and the reason for doing it. I believe nobody has ever asked him in an official interview about Battle Powers either, so that would be another thing, I would like to hear his thoughts on.
A new guidebook with 500 pages minimum would just be awesome IMO. Though that's more of a fanboy dream than anything remotely realistic.

[Rocketman]

Maybe Kaio-Sama is the only one who teach others the "Kaio-Ken".
But, then, why didnt he teach it to Piccolo, Ten-shin-han, Yamchu and Chaotzu when they were dead?

Piccolo was only there for six days, and Kaioken would be completely useless for the other three.

[Kaboom]

Don't forget the whole thing with, "the Kaio-Ken is too difficult a technique for even its creator to fully get the hang of and only Goku the prodigy ever really mastered it."

[Fox666]

This is the kind of stuff I want to see Toriyama talk about: plot elements written out of the story and the reason for doing it. I believe nobody has ever asked him in an official interview about Battle Powers either, so that would be another thing, I would like to hear his thoughts on.
A new guidebook with 500 pages minimum would just be awesome IMO. Though that's more of a fanboy dream than anything remotely realistic.

Whenever someone aks about strength in an interview, Toriyama seems to avoid such subject.

I don't believe Toriyama really had any real planning over techniques and such while drawing in the manga. So it would be just impossible to have any detailed guidebook. On truth, if we could read Toriyama's mind about why nobody else uses the Kaio-ken while he was writing the Freeza or Cell sagas it would go like this "Piccolo doesn't looks good with the color red" or something like that.

[Kendamu]

Maybe Kaio-Sama is the only one who teach others the "Kaio-Ken".
But, then, why didnt he teach it to Piccolo, Ten-shin-han, Yamchu and Chaotzu when they were dead?

Piccolo was only there for six days, and Kaioken would be completely useless for the other three.

That is something that's sort of hard to remember, even in the manga or Kai where everything's at such a faster pace. While I never really wondered much about why other characters didn't know Kaiouken, I never really realized how short the period of time was between Piccolo's arrival at Kaiou's and his fight with Freeza.

[Piccolo Daimao]

Kaio-Ken is such a difficult technique to get the hang of that not even Kaio himself, its creator, could ever get the knack of it. Goku learned it because he's the main character and a flippin' prodigy. From such a literary perspective, Goku is the only one who could learn it from Kaio.

Now if Goku himself is a good enough teacher, he might actually be able to teach it to someone else who's a direct student of his. Like... Gohan or Oob or Pan.

Agreed. Goku's a Saiyan and a prodigy. The Genki-Dama's probably the same thing, and I would assume that the reason Piccolo never knew about it was because he only spent six days on Kaio's planet, meaning Kaio probably told Tenshinhan, Yamcha and Chaozu afterwards. And I don't believe that Kaio would tell Tenshinhan and co. about the Genki-Dama and not teach it to them, so it's likely that they trained to master it and failed.

[Fox666]

I like this theory posted a while ago:

When fighting No.20, Piccolo does talk about how he can make his energy explode when he fights, so that the energy 20 stole from Piccolo when he was just standing around is insignificant. I wonder if maybe that was an ability he gained from training with Kaio. Like it was either some proto-Kaio-ken that was the best Piccolo could manage to learn, or just the opposite, that he actually mastered the Kaio-ken so much that it's become simply a natural part of how he fights rather than a separate technique. I also tend to think that guys like Kaioshin or Boo did something similar to the latter, where they didn't know the Kaio-ken per say but instinctively mastered its basic principles, so that formally learning the Kaio-ken wouldn't really do them any good. But that's mostly because I don't like to think that Dabra could learn the Kaio-ken and beat up Super Saiyan 3 Goku, or something like that.

Perhaps you could also think that Toriyama wouldn't care about drawing an Kaio-ken stylized aura for every single character.

[Piccolo Daimao]

All that means is that Piccolo was suppressing his energy and then wasn't when he was fighting #20. There's nothing that suggests he was using some kind of "proto-Kaio-Ken".