PerhapsTheOtherOne wrote:LowRyder2005 wrote:PerhapsTheOtherOne wrote:You know, something that people missed with regards to trying to place base Goku below 18.
SS2 Goku vs. Ultimate Gohan.
That was a relatively even fight, and Gohan was recently retrained and powered up thanks to Piccolo's help. This is a suppressed Ultimate Gohan that's almost certainly stronger than his original power level, and yet SS2 Goku is going toe-to-toe with this one quite well until Gohan decides that he's had enough of his dad holding back full power.
By the numbers alone, Goku's base form divided down from SS2 would STILL be much greater than the power 18 displayed. Even if this Ultimate Gohan were only exactly as strong as his old self, which he's almost undeniably not, that would STILL place Goku's strength somewhere above his SS strength from before the beginning of the current anime, which is stronger than how strong 18 is perceived to be currently.
Gohan should be stronger than ever per various sources, but at
some power output. There's no direct comparison made between the power Gohan is displaying against SS2 Goku in the beginning of their fight and the full power of Ultimate Gohan from the Buu arc. You can arbitrarily place him anywhere, at least at that point. Same goes for Goku, actually: what's even funnier is that Goku randomly turns Super Saiyan 2 even before gauging Gohan's power at all; namely, Goku transforms first - going from base to SS2 - while Gohan is still chilling in base form.
A better approach could be the argument that there's a chance #18 got stronger off-screen. She should be at least pretty darn similar to her brother in every way (although older statements do depict #17 as the one with the most potential); realistically, though, assuming she did train with Krillin off-screen or even from time to time how strong could she become, especially when everyone - herself included - decided Goten and Trunks stood a better chance to become strong enough to face Majin Buu? Two, three, five times? At best I could see her reaching some vague "Super Saiyan" level in late manga/ Z, and it's clear she should be either comparable - or most likely quite above - current base Goku.
The problem with this approach is that it has no on-screen context or statements to back it up, whereas we have plenty for Goku being extremely strong in base form. Not only that, but I checked out the offending episodes in question again to get the full context.
With Tupper, he states that Goku let his guard down, after which he starts shifting his weight massively; the floor beneath Goku sinks like crazy afterwards. Not to mention that Goku was getting hit by Zoiray's spinning dash at the same time. Then 18 blasts Tupper in the back, and his red weight-shifting aura disappears. At this point, Tupper can stand on solid ground without sinking into it, and can even be thrown by Zoiray's tornado state. The scene seems to more likely imply that 18 might've simply been crushed by that powerful attack, but it turns out she was fine and threw out Tupper by surprise.
There's obviously a lack of statement with #18. I did say I was starting off the premise she is around base Goku through feats (more or less for the same reason I'm not claiming SS3 Gotenks was out-of-shape or something), though; and unless the scene is a crass error or something that doesn't fit, in which case we'd need more contextual information, this is what it strongly implies... if not just "states".
Priorly, the only "statement" about Goku and Vegeta possibly being extremely strong has to do with their ability to sense the realm of the gods; in general, it's the ROF arc which can be somewhat difficult to reconcile. If we want to discount the idea there are "two base forms" with different level of powers and/or if you wanted to keep the base forms "strong" they could be around the billion mark - or around ten times stronger, with Goku's ability to feel the godly ki having more to do about some technique or acquired state of mind - and ROF would virtually work without a problem. We'd later need to follow the idea Gotenks got almost unnaturally weaker, still, but I've found out nothing else can work numerically unless we assume the gap between Gotenks and Gohan was in the order of hundreds of times (which to me just sounds even more unnatural).
Going back to #18, your take about the Tupper fight is at best as good an intepretation as any, assuming that when he stops emitting light his weight goes down. Like I said multiple times, also in this very thread, it could also mean he stops emitting light when he stops
raising his weight. It's also worth of noticing that, although no clear comparison can be drawn, Tupper in the end also
stands without moving on the edge of the arena and his weight is enough to break it, which means he should at least weight quite a lot.
Nobody says you can't make hypotheses, but it won't change the fact the evidence they are all at least in the same ballpark, limiting ourselves to the scene in question,
is overwhelming. Leaving the extremely obvious authorial intent aside, Tupper can put Goku into some sort of bearhug; restraining in general only worked between opponents of relatively similar build and strength (Gohan can't restrain Beerus, but Goku can stop Raditz). Yet he's not powerful enough to withstand #18's random ki blasts, which suggests all three should at least be relative to each other. Even if we want to nitpick every single detail in the scene (and
I did:
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=30781&p=1377308#p1377364) and try to follow, you'd only ultimately find more evidence that Goku is helpless and that he needs to be saved by #18 or that the scene and characters' behavior are more logical and intuitive if Tupper is still weighting the same.
More importantly, I don't personally see how this could be more straigthforward than assuming #18 got stronger, especially when you Super gives you a precedent like #17. But anyway, the most natural conclusion at this point is that we'll eventually see #18 doing something Goku can't anyway (just like Good Buu did something, with extra handicaps, that base Goku apparently couldn't do) unless the scene was a slip-up. Believe what you will about Tupper being totally careless... or something, I guess.
With Gohan, Goku asked him why he didn't go Super Saiyan, so the two are almost certainly equal in the same forms. As we see, even Vegeta's impressed with Gohan's performance against SS2 Goku, and with this combined with how nervous Piccolo and the others are at how spectacular this battle is, lends further credence to the idea that these two are beyond the original threshold of the original series in this fight. Gohan even states this is his current full power, something that he strives to improve to something unimaginable, and he continues to power up throughout the fight as Goku starts holding back less and less at his son's behest.
I'm not really following any of this either. Goku being puzzled by Gohan not going Super Saiyan only proves he thought Gohan would stand less of a chance, and that it appeared strange to him he wouldn't transform. At most, it proves Goku thought that the "Ultimate" form wasn't Gohan full power.
The rest is honestly just an
extremely personal take of the fight; I can only say, again, that I still can't quite comprehend what of concrete value (feats, statements) is to be found in there. Besides, Tien or Roshi hasn't seen an all-out battle between "serious Saiyans"... well, basically never in the series, now that I think about it (Cabba vs. Vegeta is the closest thing, I guess?). Same goes for anyone there. It's not like they didn't also see more battles between more powerful beings than Gohan and the current SS2 Goku, either.
There's no actual "need" to venture further with the guesswork as far as to how anyone is mesmerized by some Saiyans' lust for battle, especially when they face each other. It's an interesting and a respectable intepretation, perhaps, but I don't see how it "lends a lot of credence to your theory" being the
actual truth -- it looks like a bold claim (too bold, in fact) more than anything else, to me.
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