The All-Purpose "Versus" Thread

[Kaboom]

To further paraphrase myself, since I was kind of dragged into it, I also think there's a difference between "statements" and "predictions," and that there's acceptable wiggle room when it comes to the latter. Okay, direct statements, especially ones from observation, can be considered true until proven wrong. But predictions, could certainly stand to be proven true before they're considered as such.

So combine that with a suspicious lack of Goku's expectations about Gotenks ever being confirmed, along with other little things like Daizenshuu #7's bit about Gotenks "surpassing Vegeta and the others" in the Room of Spirit and Time, and how the later movies and other post-Z stuff tends to not portray Goku as many times weaker or totally useless compared to Gotenks... and I don't believe there's any problem with supposing that Gotenks was still a "work in progress" before using the Room of Spirit and Time. Still much stronger overall than anyone else, sure, but maybe not quite up to the task of defeating Boo yet. It might not be the simplest or most straightforward way to form an opinion on Gotenks' power, but if you're seeking to consider other works outside and beyond the manga (including even Battle of Gods), then it's a reasonable and understandable one to take.

I think it's only a problem when that "wiggle room" is used in attempts to support Gotenks ending up weaker than Goku even in Super Saiyan 3, though. Considering the info we have about Super Saiyan power boosts, along with Gotenks powering up greatly in the Room of Spirit and Time... for SS3 Gotenks to end up still weaker than SS3 Goku after all that, Goku's prediction would have to have been WAAAAAY off. Far more so than can be chalked up to a margin of error. We'd have to get some word of god that resembles some of the popular fan cop-outs for that. Like Super Saiyan forms granting less power for Fusions, or what have you.

[RandomGuy96]

To further paraphrase myself, since I was kind of dragged into it, I also think there's a difference between "statements" and "predictions," and that there's acceptable wiggle room when it comes to the latter. Okay, direct statements, especially ones from observation, can be considered true until proven wrong. But predictions, could certainly stand to be proven true before they're considered as such.

So combine that with a suspicious lack of Goku's expectations about Gotenks ever being confirmed, along with other little things like Daizenshuu #7's bit about Gotenks "surpassing Vegeta and the others" in the Room of Spirit and Time, and how the later movies and other post-Z stuff tends to not portray Goku as many times weaker or totally useless compared to Gotenks... and I don't believe there's any problem with supposing that Gotenks was still a "work in progress" before using the Room of Spirit and Time. Still much stronger overall than anyone else, sure, but maybe not quite up to the task of defeating Boo yet. It might not be the simplest or most straightforward way to form an opinion on Gotenks' power, but if you're seeking to consider other works outside and beyond the manga (including even Battle of Gods), then it's a reasonable and understandable one to take.

I think it's only a problem when that "wiggle room" is used in attempts to support Gotenks ending up weaker than Goku even in Super Saiyan 3, though. Considering the info we have about Super Saiyan power boosts, along with Gotenks powering up greatly in the Room of Spirit and Time... for SS3 Gotenks to end up still weaker than SS3 Goku after all that, Goku's prediction would have to have been WAAAAAY off. Far more so than can be chalked up to a margin of error. We'd have to get some word of god that resembles some of the popular fan cop-outs for that. Like Super Saiyan forms granting less power for Fusions, or what have you.

Not that I want to get into this same argument again with the same person, but I feel like I should point out that, even if Gotenks does get smaller multipliers or something, no amount of wiggle room will negate the very clear chain of Gohan > Super Buu >>> Goku = Pure Buu. Not only is it stated or shown a thousand times with nothing contradicting it, but the story makes zero sense on the most basic level if the opposite is true.

And I'm really not seeing the difference between assuming that Goku was so off that Gotenks was weaker than SS2 Goku (he expected him to be over four times stronger than that) and Goku being so off that Gotenks was weaker than SS Goku (he expected him to be over eight times stronger). Either way, it's a simply ridiculous error, and either way, Piccolo's reactions would make no sense. You'd have to assume that Toriyama was writing a cryptic and intentionally confusing story just to screw with the audience, where Piccolo and Goku were secretly conspiring together to doom the universe.

If you really, really want to fit in BOG's power implication that Gohan or Gotenks can't two shot a peak-of-his-lifetime, stronger-than-he's-ever-gonna-get SS3 Goku (but someone who can two shot Gohan is still far stronger than someone who can do the same to Goku), then I guess you can just give Gotenks tiny multipliers. This is even somewhat supported by the SS Gotenks vs Super Buu fight. Example:

SS3 Goku (Buu): 30
SS3 Goku (BOG): 40
SS3 Goku (EOZ): <40
Super Buu: 40
SS/SS3 Gotenks: 32 ---> 48
Ultimate Gohan: 66

But I really don't think that's necessary, given BOG's other contradictions, and that wasn't even supposed to be Ultimate Gohan. It's just a sloppily recolored SS Gohan.

[Kid Buu]

General Blue Vs. The Invisible Man

[RandomGuy96]

General Blue Vs. The Invisible Man

Well, Yamcha could easily defeat the invisible man when his trick ran its course, and Krillin was stronger than Yamcha when Blue was beating him up. So I say Blue takes this, and easily too. I imagine his psychic powers would also make finding the Invisible Man easier.

[SSJ God Gogeta]

Full power ssj Tullece that just ate a fruit from the Tree of Might vs. Mecha Freeza

[Hugo Boss]

To further paraphrase myself, since I was kind of dragged into it, I also think there's a difference between "statements" and "predictions," and that there's acceptable wiggle room when it comes to the latter. Okay, direct statements, especially ones from observation, can be considered true until proven wrong. But predictions, could certainly stand to be proven true before they're considered as such.

I treat these two terms the same, but you can treat "prediction" in a more specific way. I view it more like they have to prove their words with feats, but even so it's not a 100% proven thing due to Mr. Toriyama tending to bring some gag to his story, like with Gotenks, Mr. Satan etc.

And to not drag myself in a lot of arguments, I can easily think it was established Gotenks or Gohan would end up stronger than Goku and support that idea with evidence, ok. But it is also possible to portray things in a different way, things can change and, unfortunately, even create problems concerning consistence. Also the guidebooks aren't very clear about that versus. Honestly, I still didn't completely open my mind in that kind of subject, but I'm already working in that idea.

Full power ssj Tullece that just ate a fruit from the Tree of Might vs. Mecha Freeza

I see Turles as strong as 1st form Freeza, so SS Turles would have a powerlevel surpassing 25 millions, but still weaker than final form Freeza.

[Kaboom]

Full power ssj Tullece that just ate a fruit from the Tree of Might vs. Mecha Freeza

I see Tullece as strong as 1st form Freeza, so SS Tullece would have a powerlevel surpassing 25 millions, but still weaker than final form Freeza.

Pretty much the same for me. After eating the fruit, Tullece beat up a 300,000-ish-PL Goku pretty easily, so I usually consider him around Freeza's 530k, or maybe a little higher at around 600k. Getting 50x stronger on top of that would put Tullece at "only" around 25-30 million, and pretty easy pickings against Mecha Freeza who's packing power of more than 120 million.

[RandomGuy96]

SS Goku + SS Vegeta + SS Trunks + Piccolo + 16 vs SS Gohan (Cell Games)

Can all of the heroes working together (minus the humans because they're worthless) manage something against Gohan?

I personally think they all get slaughtered. Goku was getting dominated by suppressed Cell, who himself couldn't touch Gohan, and Goku is by far the strongest one on the team here. Strong enough to (barely) take all the others at the same time, in my opinion. Gohan should have no problem handling everyone with complete ease; Goku's the only one who would even take more than one or two hits. He'll have the honor of being downed in a few more.

[Cursed Lemon]

I'm still not of the opinion that SSJ Gohan was THAT much stronger than SSJ Goku. I think Gohan is surprised at Goku's power not because he's so much stronger than his dad, but because Goku has always been MUCH stronger than he is. It's not clearly established that SSJ Gohan could beat suppressed Cell with particular ease.

And let's not forget, before Cell becomes Super Perfect, at no point do all of the Z fighters attempt to engage him at once. It's feasible that Goku, Vegeta, Trunks, Piccolo, and 16 could've beaten suppressed Cell together, and maybe even Cell at full power, let alone with Gohan's help (before the Cell Juniors arrived).

[RandomGuy96]

I'm still not of the opinion that SSJ Gohan was THAT much stronger than SSJ Goku. I think Gohan is surprised at Goku's power not because he's so much stronger than his dad, but because Goku has always been MUCH stronger than he is. It's not clearly established that SSJ Gohan could beat suppressed Cell with particular ease.

And let's not forget, before Cell becomes Super Perfect, at no point do all of the Z fighters attempt to engage him at once. It's feasible that Goku, Vegeta, Trunks, Piccolo, and 16 could've beaten suppressed Cell together, and maybe even Cell at full power, let alone with Gohan's help (before the Cell Juniors arrived).

There's no real opinions to be had on this one. Cell completely dominates Goku, even doing that "move so fast you can't see me" thing, Goku states that from fighting Cell just now he can tell Gohan can win, Gohan enters the battle and is completely untouchable to Cell until he powers up. And even then, Cell can't actually damage him at all. And remember that "full speed/suppressed power" Cell wasn't THAT much faster than Gohan, as he could still dodge and land hits.

Gohan would ragdoll his father. Feats clearly show that. The question is, can the rest of the group help at all?

[Cursed Lemon]

I don't see what "feats" Gohan accomplished against Cell.

Literally the only thing he managed to do was dodge some attacks, take a few good shots without totally caving in, and kick Cell in the face ONCE.

Unless this is totally different in the manga or something.

[RandomGuy96]

I don't see what "feats" Gohan accomplished against Cell.

Literally the only thing he managed to do was dodge some attacks, take a few good shots without totally caving in, and kick Cell in the face ONCE.

Unless this is totally different in the manga or something.

Cell couldn't touch him using the same power and speed he used against Goku. He had to power up to hit him, and even then, he couldn't inflict significant damage, and Gohan was close enough to block, dodge, and kick. That's an enormous feat considering how embarrassingly outclassed Goku was against the same Cell that couldn't hit Gohan. This clearly pissed Cell off at first, as he was having fun just effortlessly batting his opponent (i.e. Goku) around previously.

So, if Goku couldn't hit Cell, and Cell couldn't hit Gohan, I'm not sure how Gohan isn't way stronger than Goku.

[Cursed Lemon]

Goku didn't walk away from the fight in crutches. In fact, aside from being winded, he seemed perfectly fine. At no point did SSJ Gohan demonstrate the clear ability to actually take it to Cell.

I'm not contending that Gohan is stronger than his father. I'm contending that he was WAAAAY stronger than his father, in SSJ form.

[RandomGuy96]

Goku didn't walk away from the fight in crutches. In fact, aside from being winded, he seemed perfectly fine. At no point did SSJ Gohan demonstrate the clear ability to actually take it to Cell.

I'm not contending that Gohan is stronger than his father. I'm contending that he was WAAAAY stronger than his father, in SSJ form.

Except, you know, being untouchable to Cell. That's a pretty crucial feat there, considering how Cell just curbstomped Goku at that same level of power. Heck, SS Gohan did better against "full speed/suppressed power" Cell than Goku did against "suppressed power/suppressed speed" Cell if you don't count his teleportation technique (and maybe even if you do, since he took a lot of hits, while Gonan took only a few and was more or less fine).

The point is, there's a very simple series of events shown here:

-Cell dominates Goku; Goku can barely touch him.
-Cell tries to fight Gohan; Gohan easily blocks or dodges everything. Cell gets pissed and powers up.
-Even though he's faster than Gohan now, and Gohan is being a wuss, Gohan still somewhat hold his own, and doesn't take damage from his attacks.

The most important parts are "Goku can't hit Cell" and "Cell can't hit Gohan".

[Cursed Lemon]

Okay, I feel like you're seguing in and out of different definitions of the word "hit".

If by "hit" you mean "make solid contact with and knock opponent off guard," then Goku hit Cell. A LOT. And Cell hit Gohan, a LOT.

If by "hit" you mean "inflict major damage on opponent (with punches or kicks)" then nobody in this conversation even arguably did that.

[RandomGuy96]

Okay, I feel like you're seguing in and out of different definitions of the word "hit".

If by "hit" you mean "make solid contact with and knock opponent off guard," then Goku hit Cell. A LOT. And Cell hit Gohan, a LOT.

If by "hit" you mean "inflict major damage on opponent (with punches or kicks)" then nobody in this conversation even arguably did that.

No, Goku only landed 2-3 hits on Cell. Plus the teleportation Kamehameha. Oh, and one of those hits was landed by using teleportation to catch Cell off guard with a kick, so that's not much of a feat. Cell, on the other hand, landed many, many hits on Goku, dodged or countered most of the ones Goku threw, tossed him around like a ragdoll, did that "I'm so much faster than you that I'll teleport around you without you noticing" thing, and just generally dominated. Yet he couldn't touch Gohan without powering up.

[Cursed Lemon]

No, Goku only landed 1-2 hits on Cell.

...I can think of four off the top of my head.

[RandomGuy96]

No, Goku only landed 1-2 hits on Cell.

...I can think of four off the top of my head.

-He punched Cell in the face while they were both exchanging blows.
-He kicked Cell after teleporting behind him.
-He blew apart Cell with the Warp Kamehameha after teleporting behind him.

I'm pretty sure that's it, unless you count blows Cell blocked as hits, but I don't see why you would. So, he was able to hit Cell exactly once without Instant Movement. The same Cell that couldn't hit Gohan. If you're really generous, you can bump it up to two, since Cell seemed to be in pain for a moment while blocking Goku's ki blast barrage (before he put the barrier up). Also:

Piccolo: “Don’t talk crazy, Goku! There’s no way he’d be able to fight! It’s true that he’s raised his abilities so much that he’s unrecognizable, but his opponent is Cell, who even you were no match for!”

[ZombieVito]

Cell in no way powered up.

No one notices it or states it. He just increased his speed.

[RandomGuy96]

Cell in no way powered up.

No one notices it or states it. He just increased his speed.

He said he was going to use his true speed. That counts as a power up. A massive one.