Which Saga Had the Most Ridiculous Power Ups?

[Kendamu]

Off the top of my head, I immediately thought of the Namek/Freeza Arc. Goku ends up being somewhere in the neighborhood of 35x stronger than he was against Raditz, but by the time he went SSj he was over 4500x stronger than he was against Vegeta. I'd like to imagine, however, that a Zenkai isn't just a random power boost that comes from near-death injury. I actually imagine that there's some sort of adaption to the threats a Saiyan is facing provided he manages to survive an incident that doesn't go well.

It's not a perfect system, but the fact that it plays sort of fast and loose goes well with how power-ups work in Dragonball to begin with.

[90sDBZ]

Things got crazy on Namek with Vegeta's Zenkais starting off being consistently an increase of a few thousand and then suddenly a few hundred thousand. I found it weird how Captain Ginyu was able to withstand his blows but then shortly after that he's on par with 1st Form Frieza. I've read the theory that he hadn't had the full effect of his Recoome Zenkai until after his nap although it's still pretty ridiculous.

The Goku thing doesn't bother me as much. It's like Toriyama wrote this huge number for Freeza, and was had to get his characters strong enough to be able to fight him. That 90k just doesn't sound right to me given that he's the one who's going to defeat Freeza.

Since Goku has said "Kaio-ken" and "Kaio-ken times 2" that leads me to believe they are different.

So going by this logic I'm assuming you consider regular Kaioken to be a 1.5 increase which would put his base power at 135,000 instead of 90,000.

But if that were true he wouldn't have needed to contemplate using Kaioken against Ginyu at all. He would have broken free of his grip without it. He was clearly getting desperate.

Also his power level was still below 100,000 when he first began his Kaioken powerup.

[CordonBloo]

I always interpreted it that the power boost is proportionate to the enemy fought.

[khalildh]

The craziest power up is probably the Goku's Buu Saga power up. It is so crazy that many fans don't even acknowledge it happened.

First Goku fights evenly with Majin Boo as a Super Saiyan 3. Goku then for most of the rest of manga refuses to go Super Saiyan 3 again because he doesn't want to intervene anymore with worldly affairs. The readers then see Gohan get this weird power up that isn't enough to defeat the enemy and Gohan gets absorbed, so Goku is no longer able to defeat this Evil Boo. While this is happening he also trying to hide the fact that he has Super Saiyan 3 from Vegeta because he doesn't want Vegeta to be upset. Finally a few chapters later Goku gets this off screen off panel power up where he actually tells us that he was holding back his power and could have defeated Majin Boo previously if he wanted to.

Super Saiyan 3 Goku > Super Saiyan 3 Goku

[Saiga]

It depends on how you define 'ridiculous'. In terms of escalation, most likely the Namek arc. In terms of , then the earlier parts of Dragon Ball for all of Goku's implausibly effective training: running errands wearing weights far lighter than what he has shown lifting before, 3 days in thin air when he went to the fucking moon, fighting people way weaker than him, etc.

In terms of coming out nowhere, then I guess the Boo arc for having several illogical power ups come in like Super Saiyan 3 (mainly for contradiction Goku's actions and words beforehand), potara, and Boo's absorption (fine when it debuted, just doesn't make sense with the later backstory).

[ABED]

So going by this logic I'm assuming you consider regular Kaioken to be a 1.5 increase which would put his base power at 135,000 instead of 90,000.

But if that were true he wouldn't have needed to contemplate using Kaioken against Ginyu at all. He would have broken free of his grip without it. He was clearly getting desperate.

Also his power level was still below 100,000 when he first began his Kaioken powerup.

No, forget about the math. I wasn't assuming anything other than the power levels are ridiculous. It makes no sense for Toriyama to write "Kaio-ken" and "Kaio-ken x2" if they are the same thing. I always assumed 180k was his base since I always read that was what it was and he just used Kaio-ken to give himself a quick boost b/c he was holding his full power back. To that point it didn't look like he was using his full power.

I don't want to delve into the math, it's annoying, and pretty much arbitrary. Freeza's power goes to insane levels, but Goku's only at 90k when he arrives? It's like Toriyama didn't think it through, which in all likelihood is the case.

[Gaffer Tape]

3 days in thin air when he went to the fucking moon

When did Goku go to the moon for 3 days?

[Saiga]

3 days in thin air when he went to the fucking moon

When did Goku go to the moon for 3 days?

No, I meant that running around for 3 days in thin air (Karin's tower) being so effective because of the lack of oxygen is totally stupid when he was able to go to the moon just fine earlier.

[Hitiro]

No, I meant that running around for 3 days in thin air (Karin's tower) being so effective because of the lack of oxygen is totally stupid when he was able to go to the moon just fine earlier.

The moon thing was a gag though, so it is basically gag armour. We know Saiyans and humans wouldn't survive going into space. And before anybody brings up Goku fighting in space against Beerus. I would like to say that he was just in the upper atmosphere. He wasn't actually in space. You can tell this because there are no stars(As in the upper atmosphere light becomes unfocused thus it doesn't look like there are any stars). Google "high altitude balloon" and you will see what I'm talking about, those are all images taken from the upper atmosphere, not actual "space". Which is void of atmosphere.

[Gotham22]

The whole fusion thing and Gohans' new power from Old Kai was just a waste.

[BlackMagick]

Namek arc, easily. In the other arcs, the power-ups were at least fairly consistent and didn't cause too much confusion. The Namek arc power jumps just didn't make any sense, but I guess in order to enjoy the Namek arc, just fucking forget about the power levels. Goku, Vegeta, Krillin, and Gohan saw RIDICULOUS and unprecedented power boosts throughout the arc. In the Namek arc, Goku jumped from a power level of 90,000 to 3,000,000 after ONE zenkai. After two or three zenkais, Vegeta jumped from 22,000 to about 250,000. After two or three zenkais and having his potential unlocked, Gohan jumped from 1,500 to +200,000! And lets not forget Krillin. He didn't even get an explanation for his power jump. Krillin went from 1,500 to 75,000. Let's keep in mind that Krillin got his potential unlocked and it brought him to about 13,000 when he fought Recoome and since he's human, he doesn't get a zenkai. So where does 75,000 come from? In the words of TFS Vegeta, "Power levels are bullshit!"

[Tectorman]

I think the Namek Saga had the most ridiculous power-up, and the offender is actually Piccolo.

The setup: Piccolo and the dead Z Fighters have spent a little over a month running Snake Way, and take around a week training on King Kai's planet. Goku is recuperating from the Ginyu fight, and Gohan and Krillin have swiped the dragonballs to make their wishes.

Piccolo requests to be brought to Namek to fight, for he has "gained much power in the Underworld."

Really? Doing freaking what? I know we never see this power in action because he fuses with Nail before we see him fight, but what was he doing that gave him any kind of impression that he'd make a difference on Namek? Goku at least had 100x gravity and a slew of Zenkais as his excuse.

[Hitiro]

I think the Namek Saga had the most ridiculous power-up, and the offender is actually Piccolo.

The setup: Piccolo and the dead Z Fighters have spent a little over a month running Snake Way, and take around a week training on King Kai's planet. Goku is recuperating from the Ginyu fight, and Gohan and Krillin have swiped the dragonballs to make their wishes.

Piccolo requests to be brought to Namek to fight, for he has "gained much power in the Underworld."

Really? Doing freaking what? I know we never see this power in action because he fuses with Nail before we see him fight, but what was he doing that gave him any kind of impression that he'd make a difference on Namek? Goku at least had 100x gravity and a slew of Zenkais as his excuse.

I would not say Piccolo had the most ridiculous power up because we don't know how much stronger he had grown. But we can attribute Piccolo's increased strength to having sparring partners on a planet of 10x normal gravity.

I would think it took Piccolo and the rest a good couple of days to reach Kaio's planet. And then they would have been training for around a month. Or so. All doing even more difficult training than Goku and sparring with each other.

Piccolo received a massive power-up from sparring with Goku for 3 years before the Androids showed up. Allowing him to defeat an Android who would give any base Saiyan a problem. So Piccolo went from being weaker than Base Goku and Base Vegeta to being somewhere under a SSJ's level.

Goku also went from being weaker than the Androids who would have defeated a regular SSJ to being able to put up a fight against Perfect Cell. Partly because he had Gohan to spar with.

What Nail said about Piccolo implies he knew how strong he was before. I assume he put Piccolo around the same level as Gohan and Kuririn. Which isn't far wrong. So Piccolo getting 2 or 3 times stronger while training with the others on Kaio's planet would be considered as acquiring unbelievable power? But if you want to push it further than that and say he is stronger than Nail but still weaker than Freeza it would only take just over 10x Piccolo's strength for that to be the case. Don't think it is unreasonable considering he gets massive gains from sparring with Goku later on as well.

But Piccolo does have the best gains of any character in this story. But then the Saiyan's are lucky in that respect because with smaller gains they can surpass more powerful enemies purely because of their transformations. So perhaps Namekian warriors just have good genes which give them impressive gains to make up for the fact that other warrior races have advantages in different ways. Like the Saiyan's Zenkai's or their SSJ transformations.

[RandomGuy96]

I agree with Saiga. It has to be the Freeza arc. The previous power jumps from arc to arc were very big, but absolutely NOTHING compared to the jumps in the Freeza arc. Let's review, shall we?

RRA arc: the strongest villain (Tao Paipai) is maybe twice as strong as the strongest antagonist in the last arc (Chun)

22nd Budokai arc: Tenshinhan is at most a few times (x2-x4) stronger than Tao Paipai.

Piccolo Daimao arc: Piccolo Daimao is is about 50% stronger than Tenshinhan at his strongest.

23rd Budokai arc: Piccolo Jr is about 50% stronger than Piccolo Daimao (or anywhere between x2 and x3 stronger, depending on your view).

Saiyan arc: Vegeta is about x45 stronger than 23rd Budokai Piccolo (or x18-x19, depending on your view; this part gets kind of cryptic).

Freeza arc: Freeza is fucking 6,666 times stronger than Saiyan arc Vegeta.

It wouldn't even have been so bad if Freeza was just as strong as he was when he was introduced (530,000). That still would have been an extremely large gap, the largest jump from villain to villain in the series up to that point if you go with the half of the manga that implies Piccolo was around a thousand at the beginning of Z, but at least somewhat grounded. But no, he has to power up way, way higher than that. Herms sums it up nicely.

The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly. At least in the Boo arc Toriyama seems to know the kind of story he's telling.

Aside from the Freeza arc, the Cell arc deserves a special mention. The power jumps aren't anywhere near as huge as the Freeza arc ones, but as a result of Toriyama's friend continually being displeased, we get a lot of them. This results in most of the arc consisting of stat comparisons rather than fights. I'm going to rip-off the style of one of Herms' old posts for this one:

(1) Freeza comes back about as strong as he was on Namek, with the ability to get even stronger thanks to his cybernetic upgrades, but (2) Trunks comes in and kills Freeza in one hit, only to reveal that he's much weaker than (3) Goku, who has been training on Yardrat and proceeds to train three more years only to be surpassed during that period by (4) Vegeta, but he is outmatched when (5) 18 effortlessly beats him and one-shots Trunks, but she's a bit weaker than (6) 17 and Kamiccolo, who nonetheless get ragolled by (7) Cell, who is equal to 16, until (8) Cell transforms and one-shots 16, but then (9) Vegeta trains some MORE, comes back, and beats the crap out of Semi-Cell, who then (10) transforms into his perfect form and three-shots Vegeta, and to add insult to injury, half of the power of a newly trained Goku is also superior to Vegeta, so (11) Vegeta trains some more to become stronger than Perfect Cell and Goku, only for them both to reveal that they're not using their full powers, by way of (12) Cell powering up and easily beating the crap out of full power Goku, who barely gets in any offense; things look bad until (13) Gohan powers up and reveals that he's way stronger than Goku and Cell, and starts handily outclassing Cell, but then (14) Cell reveals that he's STILL not using his true power, and turns up his speed to start beating up Gohan (his power remains the same), only to (15) do ANOTHER power-up (for reals, this time) to fight SS2 Gohan, and later (16) blows himself up only to be revived even stronger, before finally being destroyed by (17) Super Saiyan 2 Gohan.

There were only three struggles in this arc that could really be called "fights", and one of those was rather short. The whole arc is about raising your power higher and higher, so you can use your enormous power level to overwhelm the last strongest guy. Granted, most of Dragon Ball can be described like that, but the Cell arc takes it to another level. In the end, the final struggle between good and evil again comes down to a stat comparison, where rather than having a fight with Cell, Gohan simply raises his power level higher and obliterates him in a beam clash.

[Tectorman]

I would not say Piccolo had the most ridiculous power up because we don't know how much stronger he had grown. But we can attribute Piccolo's increased strength to having sparring partners on a planet of 10x normal gravity.

I would think it took Piccolo and the rest a good couple of days to reach Kaio's planet. And then they would have been training for around a month. Or so. All doing even more difficult training than Goku and sparring with each other.

King Kai doesn't call in on Goku until he's on the ship heading to Namek. Which doesn't happen until after they get the distress call from Bulma on Namek. And it is only after the conversation with Goku that King Kai offers them training in exchange for a joke. So while they may have sparred with each other on the way, or between whatever time they arrive on King Kai's world and when King Kai talks to Goku, it's not implied that this comprises Piccolo's training in the afterlife.

Indeed, in the conversation with Goku, Piccolo says he will soon (as in, it hasn't happened yet) become more powerful than even Goku. And less than a week later, Porunga is summoned and Piccolo tells Gohan to bring him back to Namek.

And we're given no idea of the process. If there'd been a comment to the effect of something like his latent demonic powers (originally, his victims would not find peace in the afterlife, though this changed by the time he killed Raditz) exhausting themselves by interacting with the Underworld and granting a power-up, then I wouldn't have a problem.

And yes, characters can gain significant power sparring but we've never seen anything like the improvement Piccolo claimed to have gotten in so short a time. It's the "no explanation whatsoever" part that gets me.

[Hitiro]

King Kai doesn't call in on Goku until he's on the ship heading to Namek. Which doesn't happen until after they get the distress call from Bulma on Namek. And it is only after the conversation with Goku that King Kai offers them training in exchange for a joke. So while they may have sparred with each other on the way, or between whatever time they arrive on King Kai's world and when King Kai talks to Goku, it's not implied that this comprises Piccolo's training in the afterlife.

Indeed, in the conversation with Goku, Piccolo says he will soon (as in, it hasn't happened yet) become more powerful than even Goku. And less than a week later, Porunga is summoned and Piccolo tells Gohan to bring him back to Namek.

And we're given no idea of the process. If there'd been a comment to the effect of something like his latent demonic powers (originally, his victims would not find peace in the afterlife, though this changed by the time he killed Raditz) exhausting themselves by interacting with the Underworld and granting a power-up, then I wouldn't have a problem.

And yes, characters can gain significant power sparring but we've never seen anything like the improvement Piccolo claimed to have gotten in so short a time. It's the "no explanation whatsoever" part that gets me.

In the manga the joke thing never happens. So we don't know whether they just got there or they have been there for a while.

If you use the anime then yes, Piccolo and the rest didn't get to Kaio's planet until Kaio speaks to Goku. If you take the manga they could have arrived anywhere during the month that has passed. Furthermore. Piccolo never says that he will surpass Goku in the manga. In fact, the only person to talk to Goku through Kaio is Yamcha. Piccolo only says that he is too proud to let the three of them(Yamcha, Tien and Chaotzu) to become more powerful than him to Yamcha.

And we don't know how much stronger Piccolo had gotten during that time. So his improvement can still be under Goku's for all we know. He may have only improved around 10x in the month of training if he had a month of training.

[dbzfan7]

Gohan's SSJ2. Because of that BS hidden-power gimmick, he trains for a year - gets SSJ. Fine. Gets mad at seeing his friends attacked (nothing new) then SSJ2 surpasses Cell incomprehensibly.That must mean SSJ Gohan was stronger than C.17 - 18. Somehow.

Of course SSJ Gohan is stronger than 17 & 18. If he weren't he'd be a useless training partner to Goku, and absolutely useless to the Cell games in general. Not only is SSJ Gohan stronger than 17 and 18, he's stronger than Goku himself as stated by Goku and everyone around him.

[RandomGuy96]

Yeah, not sure where that one came from. SS Gohan can one-shot his dad at the Cell Games, or at the very least move so fast Goku can't touch him (Goku couldn't hit suppressed Cell, suppressed Cell couldn't hit Gohan).

[Gaffer Tape]

In the manga the joke thing never happens. So we don't know whether they just got there or they have been there for a while.

Actually, it does. Or at least the lead-in to it does. Kaio does offer to train them, and he does say they'll have to make him laugh first, and then the scene cuts away with the narration saying that Tenshinhan and Piccolo would have a hard time with this. So, yes, the manga does make it obvious that no training had occurred prior to that scene.

[Hitiro]

In the manga the joke thing never happens. So we don't know whether they just got there or they have been there for a while.

Actually, it does. Or at least the lead-in to it does. Kaio does offer to train them, and he does say they'll have to make him laugh first, and then the scene cuts away with the narration saying that Tenshinhan and Piccolo would have a hard time with this. So, yes, the manga does make it obvious that no training had occurred prior to that scene.

What chapter is this? I can't recall it.