Why does Cell have wings?

[Logan]

At no point does Cell make use of his wings, instead relying on bukujutsu to get around. My only guess is that the computer designed him that way so he could be airborne without consuming or revealing his ki via bukujutsu. But then his imperfect form is without wings, so it kind of throws that theory out the window.

Any answers given from the guides?

[Captain Sauza]

Red Bull was probably one of the ingredients of the liquid that Cell was floating in during development.

[Marco Polo]

Interviewer: Toriyama-san, all of Cell's forms have wings except the second one. Why?

AT: It doesn't?? I actually forgot to draw them. (laughs)


^I totally just made that up but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the truth.

[ZazamPow]

There's no great, overarching answer to this question. It's just a design Toriyama thought was cool.

[Herms]

Any answers given from the guides?

No.

I suppose it's theoretically possible that having those wings really does somehow help him fly better, even if he's presumably just using his ki to fly around like all the wingless characters do. Bukujutsu is supposed to work by expelling ki from your body to lift you up and zip you around (basically a more controlled version of Goku's early series trick of using the Kamehameha to propel himself around when need be)...so maybe having those big wings gives his body more surface area, thereby allowing him to expel more ki than he otherwise would be able to, making him fly faster. I guess? Like you said, since he lacks his wings entirely in his second form it's hard to imagine that they do anything very essential, but maybe they're enough to provide a little extra boost at least. At any rate, the fact that Cell has wings in his first and final form but not in his second form looks pretty odd from a developmental point of view no matter how you shake it. If they do something useful, then why should second form Cell have to manage without them? To build character? And if they're useless, then why does Perfect Cell have them at all? We even see him bother to regenerate his wings when he gets damaged.

[NitroEX]

Purely an aesthetic choice. Cell loses his tail in his final form and If you take away both the wings and tail he just looks far less pleasing to the eye and there's not much left to make him stand out aside from his head design.

While it doesn't look like there's an in universe explanation I always liked to think it somehow made his body more aerodynamic and allowed for greater control when flying. I'm sure that doesn't make sense in real world logic but this is Dragonball afterall.

[singsing]

Purely an aesthetic choice. Cell loses his tail in his final form and If you take away both the wings and tail he just looks far less pleasing to the eye and there's not much left to make him stand out aside from his head design.

While it doesn't look like there's an in universe explanation I always liked to think it somehow made his body more aerodynamic and allowed for greater control when flying. I'm sure that doesn't make sense in real world logic but this is Dragonball afterall.

I feel fairly certain that Cell still has a tail in his Perfect Form. Just that it's extendable.

[Xeogran]

Spoiler:

There is always this

[NitroEX]

In his perfect form the tail has retracted to the point where it's no longer a prominent part of his design (it barely qualifies as a tail anymore). If you just had a blacked out silhouette of all three forms you'd see my point.

Perfect Cell having an extendable tail was a GT invention if I'm not mistaken.

[dbzfan7]

Because it looks cool, and fits the bug theme he has going on.

[Kamiccolo9]

Purely an aesthetic choice. Cell loses his tail in his final form and If you take away both the wings and tail he just looks far less pleasing to the eye and there's not much left to make him stand out aside from his head design.

While it doesn't look like there's an in universe explanation I always liked to think it somehow made his body more aerodynamic and allowed for greater control when flying. I'm sure that doesn't make sense in real world logic but this is Dragonball afterall.

Could the aesthetic choice not be an in-universe explanation? Cell's vain, and it looks better with the wings. Or Gero thought that the "Perfect" being would look better with wings.

Seems as good a reason as any.

[Lord Beerus]

Spoiler:

There is always this

You gotta love Super Dragon Ball Z. Ironically, Super Dragon Ball Z is the only Dragon Ball Z game I know of that Perfect Cell uses his tail to drain enemies. In every other game where Perfect Cell has the option of draining his enemies energy as an attack he uses his hand to drain the energy, ala Android 19 and 20.

I digress. I always say Cell having wings as merely a aesthetic feature to make him look more bug-like and creepy.

[Cetra]

Perfect Cell having an extendable tail was a GT invention if I'm not mistaken.

And in my opinion the worst, even as a GT lover.

I think as Herms said that the wings really can help him. Of course they cannot help him in his second form since he doesn't have wings but they still could help him in the fors in which he has wings.

Lets just say Gero was a human and imagined something godly, perfect to be angelic. And normally angels have wings. And in Cell's case it are those kind of wings.

And of course that was made up.

[Hitiro]

Logically he did a much better job with the wings than without. By that I mean he received a thorough beat-down in his semi-perfect form compared to his imperfect form. Perhaps when he "evolved" his genes removed his wings as an attribute that was thought to be useless. But then he got beaten badly so in his next evolution it brought back the wings because his original form faired well with them.

There are plenty of insects and animal's that have evolved due to harsh conditions to try and negate them. Could just be something like that.

[Dayspring]

Cell's wings look damn sturdy. It's also possible they act as a protective shell for his spine and tail.

[rereboy]

Cell has bug DNA in his mix, and the bug wings are a physical trait that ended up imposing itself in his look and traits.

[Sandubadear]

When Imperfect Cell flies, don't we hear a buzzy sound of wings?

[Darkprince410]

When Imperfect Cell flies, don't we hear a buzzy sound of wings?

In both his first and Perfect forms, whenever he'd fly, you'd occasionally hear a sound resembling a buzz saw. Coincidentally or not, Tolbie, a beetle-like member of South Kaiou's fighters from the Anoyo-Ichi Budoukai, had a design very reminiscent of Cell's perfect form, and had that same buzz saw sound when he flew.

[Sandubadear]

In both his first and Perfect forms, whenever he'd fly, you'd occasionally hear a sound resembling a buzz saw. Coincidentally or not, Tolbie, a beetle-like member of South Kaiou's fighters from the Anoyo-Ichi Budoukai, had a design very reminiscent of Cell's perfect form, and had that same buzz saw sound when he flew.

So that's it, Cell uses the wings to fly.

[Marco Polo]

The real question is why does Cell 2nd form doesn't have wings...