Did the characters become too powerful?

[RandomGuy96]

Actually, we know Buu is stronger than Freeza because he can perform a planet busting feat that displays literally hundreds of thousands of times more power than is needed to destroy the Earth, FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR beyond anything Freeza did or was stated to be capable of. In his second weakest form. And he was implied to be holding back when he did so. And he has at least six forms stronger than this one.

Freeza destroyed a planet with 10 times the gravity of Earth in his first form easily. Considering that gravity, its probable that the planet was WAY larger than Earth, maybe larger than any planet in our solar system since Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system has a gravity only about 2.53 times stronger than Earth. Not to mention that Cold even comments how tiny Earth is when he sees it and not to mention how much stronger Freeza is in his true form compared to his first form. So I don't think that really proves anything. If anything, Freeza destroying a planet with that kind of gravity in his first form seems as impressive or even more impressive than what Kid Buu did, and there's worlds of power between them.

I feel like I should point out that we never saw Freeza destroy that planet under his own power in the manga (or any planet, he was just stated to be capable of destroying an Earth sized one), and that you're acting awfully speculative and presumptuous by assuming that Vegeta has to be large even though that's never stated (you'd think it would be important to note if it was THAT massive) and Toriyama has never cared about real world physics before. Plus that would make Planet Vegeta at a minimum 7 times more massive than Earth if it's made of pure iron. Even if it was, it wouldn't be as impressive as what Pure Buu did here, where a suppressed blast had enough power to destroy 50 Jupiters. We can't even confirm that Freeza can do that once.

If you to count Freeza being stated to be capable of destroying Vegeta here (even though he could have just busted the core instead of blown up the planet), then you'd also have to count Cell being stated to be capable of blowing up the solar system, and Pure Buu being 4-5 times stronger than him... plus Anime Buuhan nearly destroying the universe.

[The Monkey King]

http://www.narutoforums.com/blog.php?b=15373

Just gonna post this again, and emphasize how ridiculously powerful this makes Pure Buu in comparison to earlier characters.

Freeza's actual feats and statements have him at the VERY best able to generate a blast eauivalent to 5,000 Earth busters (based almost entirely on his battle power compared to Vegeta's) or so at max power in his strongest form. Buu can generate a blast equivalent to over 416,000 Earth busters while suppressed and in his second weakest form. His actual power is probably like x2-x4 that Vanishing Ball in his pure form. And his strongest form is like 20 times stronger than his pure form...

And again, Anime Buuhan nearly destroyed the universe in a rage. What else do you want?

BTW that calc was updated:
http://www.narutoforums.com/blog.php?b=19074
According to it Buu's blast had enough power to take out a red dwarf star.

When you think about it, by the Cyborg arc, the characters have gotten to the point that even the tiniest blast would be WAY more powerful than that blast Piccolo used to destroy Papaya Island. I guess size of the blast doesn't necessarily have to do with its power.

Yeah they use ki control to condense their ki attacks.
But when the attack gets too amplified and too powerful such as Vegeta's Final Flash, they struggle to control it, therefore they put the Earth in danger.

[RandomGuy96]

Huh. That seems interesting... and far, far, far above the previous estimate.

[rereboy]

I feel like I should point out that we never saw Freeza destroy that planet under his own power in the manga (or any planet, he was just stated to be capable of destroying an Earth sized one), and that you're acting awfully speculative and presumptuous by assuming that Vegeta has to be large even though that's never stated (you'd think it would be important to note if it was THAT massive) and Toriyama has never cared about real world physics before. Plus that would make Planet Vegeta at a minimum 7 times more massive than Earth if it's made of pure iron. Even if it was, it wouldn't be as impressive as what Pure Buu did here, where a suppressed blast had enough power to destroy 50 Jupiters. We can't even confirm that Freeza can do that once.

If you to count Freeza being stated to be capable of destroying Vegeta here (even though he could have just busted the core instead of blown up the planet), then you'd also have to count Cell being stated to be capable of blowing up the solar system, and Pure Buu being 4-5 times stronger than him... plus Anime Buuhan nearly destroying the universe.

Freeza stated himself that he didn't have to transform to take care of Vegeta's father, and the flashback panel showing Bardock just as he appeared in the anime special implies that how Freeza destroyed Vegeta in the manga is not significantly different than from the special.

And no, I'm not being speculative at all. The article you posted tries to use real live science to determine the power of Kid Buu's blast. All I'm saying is that if you really want to go down that route you will have to also have real live science considerations when looking at the destruction of planet Vegeta, which, being a planet with 10 times our gravity, according to real live science considerations, should be incredibly massive.

You can't use real live science considerations to determine the power of a planetary explosion shown in a few panels of the manga and then ignore it or argue that Toriyama never cared about that when we are talking about another planetary explosion regarding a planet that should be way more massive than Earth.

If anything here is speculative its the article you posted, since, like you said, it tries to use real science to determine real amounts of energy using only visual references from the manga, when its perfectly clear that the author never gave that much of a thought to real science in DB.

I also find it funny that you mention that we can't determine just how massive Vegeta is, but you act like a interpretation of a visual reference of the explosion on a few manga panels can be safely be used to determine coherently, using real live science, the amount of energy that Kid Buu used. Yeah... I don't really think that works all that well. Freeza destroying Vegeta in his first form is just a good reference of how that coherence is impossible.

(Cell merely talked about destroying the solar system. We have no idea what exactly he meant by that (if he could do it in one blast, or one planet at a time in quick succession, or just destroy the sun which would destroy the solar system as a consequence) and he never gets the chance to try so we don't even find out. And Gohan-Buu destroying the universe is pure filler. Unlike the situation with Bardock and planet Vegeta, its not implied to have happened in the manga nor is there any indication to make us believe he could do that in the manga.)

[RandomGuy96]

None of that EVER happens in the manga. Bardock special is completely irrelevant, Toriyama himself recently knocked it out of continuity. And are you counting the anime, or aren't you? Because if you are, Freeza has been shown repeatedly destroying planets under his own power, but Pure Buu destroyed stars (at least that seemed to be heavily implied by the lights in the galaxy going out as he rampaged) and Buuhan nearly destroyed the universe.

But let's be really generous to Freeza and assume he did bust Vegeta under his own power, and it really was that big: still nothing compared to Pure Buu's feat, especially going by the above calculation which pegs suppressed Pure Buu at red dwarf level (though I'm not sure what size of red dwarf it means).

There's no more saying Cell can't bust the sun than that Freeza can't bust a planet under his own power. Again, the Bardock special doesn't matter, since it's not the manga and is now explicitly out of continuity. You can't just count it while not counting the rest of the anime.

[RocktheDragon]

I could have sworn there was another thread that asked pretty much the same question a couple of weeks ago but oh well I will just go ahead and reiterate what I said before. :p The characters did indeed become a bit too powerful and the transformations (SSJ2, SSJ3, Fusions) just got to a ridiculous level. I don't mind the humor in the Buu saga, it's actually something that makes me love that arc more than others, but none of the fights in that arc tread new ground. I have a mate who is very much into One Piece and he mentioned to me that in that series though characters do power up and improve no one is yet on the level of being a self-propelled rocket or being able to destroy entire planets (though I take him to be all knowing of all things One Piece).

This also ties into keep the battles and conflicts fresh in DB. With One Piece there seems to be a unique set up of the Devil Fruit that give various characters unique power ups and a kind of dynamic battle system seems to pop out of that, while in DB it was raw power with not much contemplation into strategy.

[rereboy]

None of that EVER happens in the manga. And and are you counting the anime, or aren't you? Because if you are, Freeza has been shown repeatedly destroying planets under his own power, but Pure Buu destroyed stars (at least that seemed to be heavily implied by the lights in the galaxy going out as he rampaged) and Buuhan nearly destroyed the universe.

But let's be really generous to Freeza and assume he did bust Vegeta under his own power, and it really was that big: still nothing compared to Pure Buu's feat, especially going by the above calculation which pegs suppressed Pure Buu at red dwarf level (though I'm not sure what size of red dwarf it means).

There's no more saying Cell can't bust the sun than that Freeza can't bust a planet under his own power.

Bardock in orbit of Vegeta about to die appears in the manga just like appears in the anime. Toriyama purposely included him in the manga just as he appeared in the anime. He is clearly an exception and the only case where this happens. The events regarding his death, or at least events very similar to the ones shown in the anime, were retconned by Toriyama himself to appear in the manga.

So, no, I'm counting exclusively the manga where Bardock and the events of his death appear and are implied to be just like in the anime.

And my point is not that this planetary explosion has to be as powerful as Kid Buu's. I'm merely saying that Kid Buu's is nowhere near as impressive as it should be even by those numbers. First form Freeza is a bug compared to 100% Freeza, let alone compared to Kid Buu. So, of course Kid Buu can do better than first form Freeza. But is that explosion a clear sign of the real difference between the two of them? Not really. The energy required to blow up Vegeta, considering its gravity, wouldn't be very far from the energy that the article claims that Kid Buu use. Even if Kid Buu used an explosion capable of destroying 700 Jupiters and first form Freeza only use enough to destroy 7 Jupiters, is Kid Buu only about 100 times stronger than first form Freeza...? How can that be if even 100% Freeza is more than 100 times stronger than first form Freeza (500.000 power level versus 120.000.000 power level)?

Trying to calculate it in that fashion is just very silly and irremediably incoherent.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

and Buuhan nearly destroyed the universe

At what point did that happen? I also cant see any character in the series able to destroy stars and surviving. Kid Buu, Broly, SuperPerfect Cell and Beerus are the only arguable ones.

In short, they became too powerful. The way the story was told played to the strengths of that exact flaw, though.

I dont think they've gotten too strong at all considering all the planet-bust tiers are beings of alien and demon physiology which is easily explainable. Demons for example are spirit beings that are made of pure negative chi, some are the embodiment of all evil that exists in the universe and can tap into that energy like Kid Buu and Beerus. It makes sense that they can do those feats. They can conjure far more spirit than humans can. As well as the alien creatures which most of them were created with such high strengths. Also acounting the multiple universes in the series, I don't see how it seems impossible.

If all the HUMANS can do what Freeza can or if Videl ever out tiers Kid Buu then I'd say they've gotten too powerful... but then looking at the crap DC characters can do regardless of explaination, DBZ is pretty normal. Akira at least isnt trying to make then the strongest characters in fictional existance the way DC's writers are.

[goku the krump dancer]

Bardock's death is the only part from the Special that is explicitly mirrored in the manga. Freeza is shown destroying him and the planet by himself with most likely the same amount of ease.

To answer the main question though,one of the things I like about Dragon Ball is how powerful the fighters get and the implication that they can just keep getting stronger and stronger. With all the versus debates and the big screw attack death battle that transpired one thing I kind of wish happened was the the characters namely the good guys got the chance to fully cut loose with no regards for the grounds they battled on just to see how powerful they really are.

The Villains keep getting stronger yet the main thing that keeps getting threatened is the Earth for the most part, even though technically that should be nothing since Yamcha should capable of destroying the Earth by the Android arc.

So in a way I agree with Cipher in that they didnt become "powerful enough" even though they're already over powered.

The DB characters are something I like to call "perfectly over powered", We know that they're capable of more than what they show but we dont know exactly to what extent since a lot of stuff is just so vague in explanation all we know is that they just keep getting stronger.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

So in a way I agree with Cipher in that they didnt become "powerful enough" even though they're already over powered.
The DB characters are something I like to call "perfectly over powered", We know that they're capable of more than what they show but we dont know exactly to what extent since a lot of stuff is just so vague in explanation all we know is that they just keep getting stronger.

I dont think you can consider any DBZ character to be "overpowered" if the universe they live in have these tiers as a common abundance. Excluding the humans, weak aliens and saibamam, every character can do the same thing and every character can be killed by each other if they reach a parallel feat. To me DBZ is perfectly balanced because nobody is ever really the cap. As powerful as Goku and Beerus are, there are also being on a stronger plane either it be inside or outside their dimension. Where as Superman is overpowered because he physically invulnerable to most other characters and is imperveous to nearly all forms of natural feats. He is the cap of his universe for not magical or kryptonite-weilding characters. He himself often complains that hes too strong for his own habitat and has to

[Mystic Buu]

Of course.They can now probably destroy planet with less than 1% of energy.

[Vijay]

Progression from weak to omnipotent was shown in a very subtle manner in DBZ.

Kinda funny to see ridiculous "Blowing-up planet" kinda power-level arguements.

Only 2 instances shown in which Frieza (Planet Vegeta) & Kid Buu (Earth) blowing up planet.

Whats the big deal?

Frieza was built to be an emperor-kinda tyrant. Blowing-up planets shows his superior PL.

Kid Buu was maniac killing-machine. Enjoys pain, death & destructions. Final Boss of the series & was shown as psychotic as possible.

Frm Toriyama's POV, its about "get stronger, or left in dust".

By Mid-Buu Arc, almost only the Saiyans occupied the show, while Krillin left in dust.

I personally love characters that gain powers instead of left in dust.

[RandomGuy96]

At what point did that happen? I also cant see any character in the series able to destroy stars and surviving. Kid Buu, Broly, SuperPerfect Cell and Beerus are the only arguable ones.

It was in the anime version of the Buu vs Vegetto fight. He starts screaming and fucking with dimensional laws, then the two Kaioshin and Vegetto say that if he isn't stopped soon the entire universe would be crushed under its own dimensions somehow. D7 says this about the attack Buu was using for this:

*Outside Space
Category: ability
People: Majin Buu (evil)
Special Characteristics: Overwhelmed by Vegetto, Buu generated this after going into a frenzy. Distortions appeared in the space surrounding Buu. It seems that this power was also what enabled Buu to escape from the Room of Spirit and Time. This space would cover the living world and wipe out the universe.

Why do you even bother bringing up SPC and Broly? Those two are complete trash to Pure Buu and SS3 Goku, who are complete trash to Super Buu, Gotenks, and Gohan.

Bardock in orbit of Vegeta about to die appears in the manga just like appears in the anime. Toriyama purposely included him in the manga just as he appeared in the anime. He is clearly an exception and the only case where this happens. The events regarding his death, or at least events very similar to the ones shown in the anime, were retconned by Toriyama himself to appear in the manga.

So, no, I'm counting exclusively the manga where Bardock and the events of his death appear and are implied to be just like in the anime.

And my point is not that this planetary explosion has to be as powerful as Kid Buu's. I'm merely saying that Kid Buu's is nowhere near as impressive as it should be even by those numbers. First form Freeza is a bug compared to 100% Freeza, let alone compared to Kid Buu. So, of course Kid Buu can do better than first form Freeza. But is that explosion a clear sign of the real difference between the two of them? Not really. The energy required to blow up Vegeta, considering its gravity, wouldn't be very far from the energy that the article claims that Kid Buu use. Even if Kid Buu used an explosion capable of destroying 700 Jupiters and first form Freeza only use enough to destroy 7 Jupiters, is Kid Buu only about 100 times stronger than first form Freeza...? How can that be if even 100% Freeza is more than 100 times stronger than first form Freeza (500.000 power level versus 120.000.000 power level)?

Trying to calculate it in that fashion is just very silly and irremediably incoherent.

Yeah, no, that's complete BS. Either restrict everyone to manga feats or let them have their anime ones as well. You can't just pick and choose certain feats for certain characters while ignoring ones for others.

Don't give a shit what was "implied" to happen. The point is it didn't happen, not in the manga. Freeza was never shown busting Vegeta under his own power. So it doesn't matter, not even a little bit. Unless, of course, you count anime feats for everyone, which would mean Pure Buu to Super Buu level characters can destroy stars casually, and Buuhan-level characters can cause chain reactions that destroy the whole universe.

Actually, yeah, it is, especially with the updated calc. The power to destroy a red dwarf is absurdly more impressive than busting Vegeta, even if it is as massive as you think it is. Even not counting that, if we go purely by feats rather than cryptic statements (which seems fair, since you're not giving Pure Buu Cell's "I can destroy the solar system" statement)... Freeza, in his strongest form, destroyed an Earth-sized planet... by causing a chain reaction, not with his own power. Pure Buu, by contrast, casually unleashed enough power to bust the Earth hundreds of thousands of times over while suppressed. I think that shows a pretty clear difference between them.

Uh, yeah it would. Vegeta is not equivalent to 50 Jupiters/416,666 Earths or, in the more recent article, a freaking red dwarf.

But it's not 7 vs 700. The gap is far larger than that. If you cut all the speculation, the only things we know for sure are that final form Freeza can easily bust an Earth sized (Namek is stated to be Earth-sized, Earth is obvious, Vegeta has no official size) planet (and that requires statements to back it up, not actual feats) while Pure Buu, the second weakest main form of Buu, can at a fraction of his power casually bust over 416,000 times that amount. That it's if you give Freeza statements and restrict Pure Buu purely to feats to boot. If you give HIM statements too, both in and out of universe ones, then this second weakest form of Buu can casually bust stars (which he was shown to do in the anime).

[Kendamu]

In short, they became too powerful. The way the story was told played to the strengths of that exact flaw, though.

I dont think they've gotten too strong at all considering all the planet-bust tiers are beings of alien and demon physiology which is easily explainable. Demons for example are spirit beings that are made of pure negative chi, some are the embodiment of all evil that exists in the universe and can tap into that energy like Kid Buu and Beerus. It makes sense that they can do those feats. They can conjure far more spirit than humans can. As well as the alien creatures which most of them were created with such high strengths. Also acounting the multiple universes in the series, I don't see how it seems impossible.

If all the HUMANS can do what Freeza can or if Videl ever out tiers Kid Buu then I'd say they've gotten too powerful... but then looking at the crap DC characters can do regardless of explaination, DBZ is pretty normal. Akira at least isnt trying to make then the strongest characters in fictional existance the way DC's writers are.

I'm looking at it more from a Toriyama storytelling meta perspective and less of an "in-universe explanation" perspective. I think it did get ridiculous, but an example of how Toriyama handled it well with how Kaioshin reacted to their nonchalant attitude on Babidi's ship. Because of how it was handled, the ridiculousness was pretty fun. Going beyond the end of the manga, the JSAT and Battle of Gods also handled both pretty well.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Funny, judging by some of the comments I've heard people make, they get upset that they think they are not powerful enough. Which never made sense to me.

Anyway, ever since about the Saiyan saga all the way to the end of the manga (and including stuff like BoG and GT), the fact that they keep getting so much more powerful is mostly an informed attribute, that is, the fights and their effects pretty much look the same, so someone without any extra knowledge could watch the first Goku vs. Vegeta fight and then Goku vs. Cell, Buu, Beerus, or some GT fight with Omega Shenron and not easily be able to tell that the latter were between much stronger fighters.

[goku the krump dancer]

So in a way I agree with Cipher in that they didnt become "powerful enough" even though they're already over powered.
The DB characters are something I like to call "perfectly over powered", We know that they're capable of more than what they show but we dont know exactly to what extent since a lot of stuff is just so vague in explanation all we know is that they just keep getting stronger.

I dont think you can consider any DBZ character to be "overpowered" if the universe they live in have these tiers as a common abundance. Excluding the humans, weak aliens and saibamam, every character can do the same thing and every character can be killed by each other if they reach a parallel feat. To me DBZ is perfectly balanced because nobody is ever really the cap. As powerful as Goku and Beerus are, there are also being on a stronger plane either it be inside or outside their dimension. Where as Superman is overpowered because he physically invulnerable to most other characters and is imperveous to nearly all forms of natural feats. He is the cap of his universe for not magical or kryptonite-weilding characters. He himself often complains that hes too strong for his own habitat and has to

Hmm, interesting point. Most people use the term over powered when discussing characters who can destroy a planet with little to absolutely no effort, so thats why I used it. It was more of a "lack of a better term" type of thing.

[DonZ]

The power scale was good post Freeza arc. it just became too much by the time Cell arc began. not like it's a negativity or something.

[ABED]

Funny, judging by some of the comments I've heard people make, they get upset that they think they are not powerful enough. Which never made sense to me.

Anyway, ever since about the Saiyan saga all the way to the end of the manga (and including stuff like BoG and GT), the fact that they keep getting so much more powerful is mostly an informed attribute, that is, the fights and their effects pretty much look the same, so someone without any extra knowledge could watch the first Goku vs. Vegeta fight and then Goku vs. Cell, Buu, Beerus, or some GT fight with Omega Shenron and not easily be able to tell that the latter were between much stronger fighters.

This, pretty much.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

In short, they became too powerful. The way the story was told played to the strengths of that exact flaw, though.

I'm looking at it more from a Toriyama storytelling meta perspective and less of an "in-universe explanation" perspective. I think it did get ridiculous, but an example of how Toriyama handled it well with how Kaioshin reacted to their nonchalant attitude on Babidi's ship. Because of how it was handled, the ridiculousness was pretty fun. Going beyond the end of the manga, the JSAT and Battle of Gods also handled both pretty well.

Well if you're referring to how their power reflects the plot, I say no. Destroying the planet the fight on is only the worst threat possible for the Z-senhi as a villain with that strength is considered more dangerous than your everyday bank robber, the more people that can be killed at once is what ups the threat of each villain. When Freeza was introduced no other character could destroy civilizations in the mass genicide that Freeza could at will. (Sure Vegeta claimed he could blow up the Earth but I never say the evidence surrounding that boast) thus why Freeza was so feared. Freeza and the Legendary SSJ used to be the caps of the Dragon World. However you'd have to consider that DBZ has no caps or boundries, just obsticles. The universal moral of DBZ was supposed to be about surpassing your limits, that you alone would be able to achieve anything if you never say die. Basically Goku and Sometimes Vegeta.

[Duo]

I do, but I felt that Toriyama was poking fun at how powerful they had gotten when he wrote the Buu Arc. The story itself, once the tournament was interrupted, was serious, but the outsider perspective of the author and the readers looking in on Dragon World was gag-like. Sometimes it wasn't so subtle, but other times it was. Because of the gag feel, though, I had a. Lot of fun with how ridiculous it got. Especially as Goku was only able to kill Buu because Mr. Satan helped him out. It was very much a full-circle "Oolong wishes for panties" sort of moment to end the last big villain fight in the series.

In short, they became too powerful. The way the story was told played to the strengths of that exact flaw, though.

I'm on board with this. I also felt Battle of Gods played into it nicely because, while two characters are fighting that could feasibly destroy the universe or something like that, they end up damaging almost nothing at all.

I used to be bothered by the nonsense power scaling in the story, but it's just a fun manga at the end of the day. Why worry about it?