Unpopular DB opinions

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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Saiga » Sun Apr 07, 2013 9:46 pm

I never found anything about Freeza's character appealing at all. And I really hate much he breaks the power scale. He's 1,000 times stronger than his strongest minion and their really isn't any need for it. From 530,000 to 120,000,000 was just an absurd and unnecessary range, especially when he does most of his fighting in the lower millions. And his forms were also completely unnecessary, he only really fought in his second and final forms, and the idea of them being created to control his ki was pointless when he showed much finer ki suppression in his final form (going from around 3,000,000 to 120,000,000 when his earlier forms were from 530,000 to under 3,000,000). It just feels like everything before his final form is completely pointless, and he only had those forms so nobody but Goku could scuff the "real" Freeza.

Apart from that his attitude and demeanour are just irritating.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by ABED » Sun Apr 07, 2013 9:53 pm

I think the point is simply to have cool looking forms. It needs no other justification. So what if he is that much stronger than his minions?
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Saiga » Sun Apr 07, 2013 10:04 pm

ABED wrote:I think the point is simply to have cool looking forms. It needs no other justification. So what if he is that much stronger than his minions?
Having forms for the sake of havings forms isn't enough for me if they don't really serve any purpose in the story. Neither are gaps of 1,000 times that come out of nowhere.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by ABED » Sun Apr 07, 2013 10:21 pm

I'm not sure what it means that the gap comes out of nowhere. It was pretty well established that he was FAR stronger than any of his subbordinates.

What purpose to the story do Buu's numerous transformations have beyond making him stronger? It doesn't need any other function than that.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Gaffer Tape » Sun Apr 07, 2013 10:28 pm

Saiga wrote:It just feels like everything before his final form is completely pointless, and he only had those forms so nobody but Goku could scuff the "real" Freeza.
Definitely agree with you there. Everything before Goku arrives means absolutely nothing. You might as well skip everything before that. And it's not that the forms are necessarily pointless in and of themselves. It's just that Toriyama went about the exactly the wrong way of showcasing them. As soon as it's shown that Freeza can transform at will, then it immediately makes everything before the final form pointless because it doesn't matter how well anyone fights against him. He can top them whenever he wants. So it really makes Piccolo's entrance into the battle completely pointless as well. He gets brought back to life, gets this huge power-up... and it's totally meaningless because he's putting up a fight against a form that's entirely meaningless.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Insertclevername » Sun Apr 07, 2013 10:56 pm

By far his 3rd form was the most pointless. Why didn't Toriyama just make him have just 3 forms (1st, 2nd, then his final). If the whole point of introducing his 3rd form was to beat up Piccolo, then why not just have his final form do that?
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by CaBrPi » Sun Apr 07, 2013 11:13 pm

Well, in theory, Piccolo could've just killed him before he transformed.

Of course, I seem to remember Piccolo actually being outmatched and Freeza was just toying with him.

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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by RandomGuy96 » Sun Apr 07, 2013 11:30 pm

Definitely agree with you there. Everything before Goku arrives means absolutely nothing. You might as well skip everything before that. And it's not that the forms are necessarily pointless in and of themselves. It's just that Toriyama went about the exactly the wrong way of showcasing them. As soon as it's shown that Freeza can transform at will, then it immediately makes everything before the final form pointless because it doesn't matter how well anyone fights against him. He can top them whenever he wants. So it really makes Piccolo's entrance into the battle completely pointless as well. He gets brought back to life, gets this huge power-up... and it's totally meaningless because he's putting up a fight against a form that's entirely meaningless.
It would've been meaningless either way. Think: were you really expecting Piccolo to beat the main villain? Of course not. One of the reasons I like the movies is because Piccolo gets some bones thrown to him...

Anyway, in retrospect, if I could change power levels, I'd simply divide all of Freeza's forms by ten. His second form would be about as strong as Ginyu and his final form would be ten times stronger than that, which seems reasonable. It would certainly make Vegeta's and Goku's zenkais seem less haxxed.

Character-wise, Freeza's my second favorite villain after King Piccolo. I think that all of the main Dragon Ball villains are great (Vegeta, Freeza, Cell, and Buu), even if I don't like their actual stories. I like Freeza because he's unstoppable and he knows it. He's arrogant and cowardly, but not only do they detract from his awesomeness, they aren't just stock villain traits, they're vitals parts of his character and he has these traits for plausible reasons. He's also simply cool at times. He effortlessly destroys the most powerful warriors in the galaxy (in order: King Vegeta, Bardock, Nail, Krillin, Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, pre-Super Saiyan Goku) while playing around simply because he can, and I maintain that his mauling of Vegeta is probably the best moment any villain has ever had in this series... or at least the most memorable. He's also arguably the most important and major villain in the series, being the bigger bad of the Saiyan Saga and responsible for the state of the Dragon Ball universe and the motivations of many significant characters. He gets to appear outside of his own story arc, being mentioned a few times in the Saiyan Saga (and a lot of movies), being the main antagonist in the Bardock special, and being the starter villain of the Android Arc. He's basically iconic to the series.
Last edited by RandomGuy96 on Sun Apr 07, 2013 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
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Herms wrote: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.

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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Storm » Sun Apr 07, 2013 11:32 pm

Freeza's first form being weaker wouldn't make much sense considering how everyone in the universe fears him. He doesn't really advertise his transformation ability, either.

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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by RandomGuy96 » Sun Apr 07, 2013 11:37 pm

The majority of the people in the universe just couldn't know about Ginyu, and those that do could also know that Freeza can transform. 53,000 would still make him far more powerful than the guys he travels around with. Alternatively, there's the fact that the majority of the universe A. has never seen Freeza fight and B. don't have scouters or anything that would let them measure power levels.
The Monkey King wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote: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.

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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Gaffer Tape » Sun Apr 07, 2013 11:49 pm

RandomGuy96 wrote:It would've been meaningless either way. Think: were you really expecting Piccolo to beat the main villain? Of course not. One of the reasons I like the movies is because Piccolo gets some bones thrown to him...
No, but there's a marked difference between someone else not beating the villain and going to SO MUCH TROUBLE to re-introduce this character into a story he has next to no connection to, give him a humongous power-up in addition to the whole training with a god thing, and having everyone react as if he's some big, huge savior.

Aaaaand... despite all that, you can pretty much cut him out entirely and never realize you were missing anything. That's a problem.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by RandomGuy96 » Sun Apr 07, 2013 11:57 pm

That's a general problem not exclusive to Freeza though. The same thing happens to Piccolo in the Cell Saga, where he becomes God and still gets effortlessly thrashed by Cell after accomplishing nothing.

On another note: while I don't like the Cell Saga all that much, I do very much like that Goku is incapacitated for almost all of it, leaving Trunks, Piccolo, Vegeta, and Gohan to have their day in the limelight.
The Monkey King wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote: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.

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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by TheMightyOzaru » Mon Apr 08, 2013 12:45 am

Insertclevername wrote:By far his 3rd form was the most pointless. Why didn't Toriyama just make him have just 3 forms (1st, 2nd, then his final). If the whole point of introducing his 3rd form was to beat up Piccolo, then why not just have his final form do that?
The third form looks the coolest, that's why.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Kid Buu » Mon Apr 08, 2013 1:03 am

RandomGuy96 wrote:That's a general problem not exclusive to Freeza though. The same thing happens to Piccolo in the Cell Saga, where he becomes God and still gets effortlessly thrashed by Cell after accomplishing nothing..
Not true, he at least gets all the info on Cell to inform the Z Senshi. If he was weak, Cell may have just absorbed him there and the Z Fighters may not have found out.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Nikkolas » Mon Apr 08, 2013 2:02 am

All non-Saiyans are worthless is just a rule of DBZ and why I hate it.

I guess that's an unpopular opinion right there - I don't like Z/Part 2 very much.

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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Kid Buu » Mon Apr 08, 2013 2:38 am

Nikkolas wrote:All non-Saiyans are worthless is just a rule of DBZ and why I hate it.

I guess that's an unpopular opinion right there - I don't like Z/Part 2 very much.
They wont really that useful in DB either.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Nikkolas » Mon Apr 08, 2013 2:56 am

It depends on what you mean by "useful". DB was not an ensemble cast story - it was Goku's story. He went around pummeling the armies and villains. The other heroes maybe did something here and there in the regular arc but their best place to show off was in the tournament.

If the series stopped at the 23rd Tournmanet, the power tier be something like:
Goku
Piccolo Jr.
Kami
King Piccolo
Tenshinhan
Yajirobe (he's somewhere around here. Maybe above or below Tien or Tao)
Cyborg Tao
Karin
Krillin
Yamcha

That's not bad really for the Earthlings, especially when you compare to:
Gohan
Goku
Vegeta
Future Trunks
Goten
Kid Trunks
All forms of Buu
Cell
Freeza
Androids 16
Android 17
Android 18
Android 19
Android 20
Supreme Kai



Tien
Krillin
Yamcha
Chaotzu


So yeah, the heroes weren't useful in that they were going around defeating the Red Ribbon Army or King Piccolo but they weren't worthless either. They were all impressive fighters in their own right.

In fact, now I think on it, the tournaments really helped a lot of the side-characters look good even if they weren't actually as good as Goku. Goku vs. Krillin? Yamcha vs. Tien? Neither Krillin or Yamcha stood a cahnce but neither fight was so bad that they came out of it looking like garbage.

That's the difference between DB Part 1 and Part 2 - all the side-characters just looked pathetic.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Storm » Mon Apr 08, 2013 2:57 am

Nikkolas wrote:Well first, there weren't any Saiyans in Part 1.
Except Goku. :)

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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by Nikkolas » Mon Apr 08, 2013 3:03 am

Storm wrote:
Nikkolas wrote:Well first, there weren't any Saiyans in Part 1.
Except Goku. :)
I swear to God I don't know how Toriyama got away with this.

If Kubo or Kishimoto or Oda suddenly said "oh, by the way, Ichigo/Naruto/Luffy are really aliens and your mentor knew all along but he didn't mention this until hundreds of chapters later and you don't remember because you bumped your head" - the internet would explode. People would fly to Japan to beat them to death. And if they couldn't afford to fly to Japan they'd mail letter bombs.

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Re: Unpopular DB opinions

Post by RandomGuy96 » Mon Apr 08, 2013 3:10 am

All non-Saiyans are worthless is just a rule of DBZ and why I hate it.
Piccolo and Krillin are pretty useful. The former is instrumental to Raditz's defeat, stopped Great Ape Gohan, led the Z-fighters against Nappa (where he actually landed some decent hits, killed a Saibaman, and saved Gohan numerous times), got to beat up on second form Freeza (and saved Gohan numerous times again), distracted Freeza while Goku charged the Spirit Bomb, crushed Android 20, defeated Initial Imperfect Cell, stopped Android 17 from killing Goku, was one of the only fighters left standing against the Cell Juniors, and remains on-par with Vegeta until the Buu Saga (power level enthusiasts would disagree, but if it wasn't for the Buu Saga there'd be nothing placing post-ROSAT Piccolo below post-ROSAT Vegeta, just from what was seen at the Cell Games). Piccolo also gets a pretty good deal in the movies. Krillin at least got to kill some Saibamen and Freeza soldiers, hit Nappa once or twice, was instrumental in Vegeta's defeat, saved Gohan from Dodoria, saved Vegeta from Recoome, beat up on Ginyu-Goku and Guldo, and distracted Freeza, probably landing the most damaging hit anyone landed before Goku got there.

And were the humans ever useful? The only arc that I'm familiar with really is the King Piccolo arc, and everyone but Goku and maybe Yajirobe is useless there. Krillin gets killed by Tambourine the minute the arc starts, Chazou and Roshi are casually killed off by King Piccolo, Yamcha is Yamcha, and Tien gets clobbered by Drum in the only fight he had. I'm also somewhat familiar with the Piccolo Jr. arc, and the only one who was even mildly prominent there was Tien, when he beat Cyborg Tao. Krillin got defeated by Piccolo Jr. easily and early, and the same thing happened with Yamcha/Kami and Chaozu/Tao. Then all the non-Goku characters just sat there as Goku saved the day, too piss scared to step in.

I also laughed at "People would fly to Japan to beat them to death".
The Monkey King wrote:
RandomGuy96 wrote:
dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.
It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWoke
Herms wrote: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.

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