Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[Koitsukai]

I still can't believe Goku closing his eyes and pretending to fight people from his past, because he is so bored he cannot train, is taken as some kind of undisputable proof of an neverseen, unseen, magical power up. I wish I could believe that, just closing my eyes would already make me better at freekicks than Roberto Carlos.

I remember back in the 90s, after Goku fights Uub in his base, there were two takes, (1) Uub has Buu's potential, that is he is currently as strong as, IDK, Piccolo, but can be as strong as Kid Buu if properly trained, and (2) Uub is as strong as Kid Buu and Goku can fight him in his base now. It was never clear which one was the case. In scenario (1), Goku's base is around SS or SS2 perhaps, in scenario (2), he's SS3 tier.

Now, with the whole god ki for Uub, and just how amazingly useful his power against Moro was, I'm inclined to believe his Kid Buu potential isn't something that he might need to train too hard to unlock, or at all, it seems like that might be his starting point.
In any case, Goku's base ends up being strong enough to fight evenly with an unexperienced Kid Buu's reincarnation.

If Goku's journey through DBS ends with his base as strong as his SS3 from Z, and before the journey even starts, he's already at fucking SS2 level and only needs to close a 4x gap or so, then he got 100x stronger out of the blue, offscreen, even before meeting Beerus, and he's close to the finishing line. He only needs to get 4x stronger during the entire run of DBS. Seems like we were prived of a quarter of his progress, he was magically placed extremely ahead.

I feel we've all said our peace about this, 2 months ago lol, and seems like running in circles, but I do wonder, if Goku has gotten 100x stronger just from image training even before learning what a GoD is, and assuming he'll get exponentially stronger from training with angels than pretending to fight people, then by EoZ, how strong do you guys think his base is? how strong is Uub if he is fighting him back?

According to my calculations, if he gets 100x just by image training, (and if Beerus' BoG comment was there because the author, after 40 years of telling stories, doesn't know what dialogue is actually for), after DBS he must be tens of thousands of times stronger, with a base that should be SSB level or so. Putting an untrained Kid Buu's reincarnation also on that level.

[Hugo Boss]

From the very beginning of the manga, we have Super Saiyan Goku facing off against Kid Buu despite requiring Super Saiyan 3 which set the stage for Goku to face off against someone stronger. Goku always aspires to fighter stronger opponents and was actively preparing for a powerful threat like Buu to emerge.

Not that I think this would be impossible, but don’t you think this sounds quite a stretch? We don’t have any means to know what Goku was thinking. Starting as a Super Saiyan is how he does his stuff against Beerus as well, who he was just told to be far from his reach, and we know how it turned out.

The Resurrection of F adaptation, despite the reluctance to abide by it, was acknowledged across both Toriyama's lines of work.

It’s not about reluctance. This event’s core plot line is about Goku and Vegeta using Super Saiyan God’s power in their normal forms, while the manga evidently goes against this idea. So, there is no way you can reconcile it with Frost’s discussion we are having here.

[Mr Baggins]

I still can't believe Goku closing his eyes and pretending to fight people from his past, because he is so bored he cannot train, is taken as some kind of undisputable proof of an neverseen, unseen, magical power up. I wish I could believe that, just closing my eyes would already make me better at freekicks than Roberto Carlos.

In all of my years posting here, and I say this without judgment, this thread has taught me that there are two types of folks in the DB power scaling community: people trying to figure out what the writers wanted to convey and people making Excel spreadsheets.

[Goku9001]

Not that I think this would be impossible, but don’t you think this sounds quite a stretch? We don’t have any means to know what Goku was thinking. Starting as a Super Saiyan is how he does his stuff against Beerus as well, who he was just told to be far from his reach, and we know how it turned out.

If anything, Goku's willingness to battle someone who he was told is stronger than Buu as a Super Saiyan would be evidence of that claim.

It’s not about reluctance. This event’s core plot line is about Goku and Vegeta using Super Saiyan God’s power in their normal forms, while the manga evidently goes against this idea. So, there is no way you can reconcile it with Frost’s discussion we are having here.

The core plotline was about adopting the "Saiyan Beyond God" concept in which Super Saiyan Blue was originally Super Saiyan as their god-powered forms and the anime had no issues handling that situation through Whis' training and merely upscaling the Saiyans and Frieza as a result. Consider this, the Battle of Gods blatantly altered Toriyama's original vision in the movie by doing away with the god-powered form yet does not change the events of Resurrection of F in any meaningful way. It only open acknowledges that it happened. With nothing else to go by, we would have no choice but to stick with the vision Toriyama originally intended.

I'm going to bring my Excel worksheet soon so I can show you how the numbers line up perfectly.

[Skar]

In all of my years posting here, and I say this without judgment, this thread has taught me that there are two types of folks in the DB power scaling community: people trying to figure out what the writers wanted to convey and people making Excel spreadsheets.

Yeah I noticed it comes down to fans believing direct statements at face value and assuming that's what this shonen author was trying to convey to their young audience vs they intended for you to reach a different conclusion based on other implications. Nothing contradicts Trunks being weaker than Cell Games Gohan until he went SSJ2 like for the last character that this exact comparison was made. To argue this isn't what Toyotaro intended, there should be at least something hinting that SSJ1 Trunks was stronger than SSJ2 Gohan.

I still struggle to understand his thought process if that was genuinely what he intended. "I'll reuse this line but I really hope fans will know Trunks is far stronger than when it was used for Vegeta and will analyze previous implications to determine that Goku could've said the same thing had he saw Trunks power up in SSJ1 (or base if someone is arguing that)".
Or
"SSJ2 Trunks is in the same ballpark as SSJ2 Vegeta so it makes sense to reuse this line".

[Goku9001]

I don't understand the argument. The comparison between Gohan inherently means that the author expects readers to be familiar with past material to understand the comparison being made. The fact that you believe the authorial intent was to reference a statement made in the Buu Saga further supports that. Regardless, if the author really wanted us to believe Trunks was in the same ballpark as Gohan was, then he would've stated that Trunks may have been stronger than Gohan as that is the language that is commonly used in the manga to represent a small gap. He didn't do that. So the statement is simply what it means. That Trunks is stronger than Gohan. That's all it means and no one is denying that.

[Skar]

I don't understand the argument. The comparison between Gohan inherently means that the author expects readers to be familiar with past material to understand the comparison being made. The fact that you believe the authorial intent was to reference a statement made in the Buu Saga further supports that. Regardless, if the author really wanted us to believe Trunks was in the same ballpark as Gohan was, then he would've stated that Trunks may have been stronger than Gohan as that is the language that is commonly used in the manga to represent a small gap. He didn't do that. So the statement is simply what it means. That Trunks is stronger than Gohan. That's all it means and no one is denying that.

Of course he would expect the audience to be familiar with the previous character being referenced. The comparison is for the audience since Trunks should already be aware he surpassed Gohan. There's still a difference between arguing he intended for SSJ2 Trunks to be stronger than the Gohan referenced or if you genuinely believe he intended for us to reach the conclusion Trunks being stronger in a lower form without mentioning it. You're free to believe that but that's different than arguing that's really what Toyotaro intended to convey.

[Goku9001]

Of course he would expect the audience to be familiar with the previous character being referenced. The comparison is for the audience since Trunks should already be aware he surpassed Gohan. There's still a difference between arguing he intended for SSJ2 Trunks to be stronger than the Gohan referenced or if you genuinely believe he intended for us to reach the conclusion Trunks being stronger in a lower form without mentioning it. You're free to believe that but that's different than arguing that's really what Toyotaro intended to convey.

Had he intended for it to serve as a rigid benchmark for Trunks, then Goku would have said he may have surpassed Gohan if that was the intention. However, that was not the case. Toyotaro made it a point that Trunks was training with the Z Sword, trained 3 years afterwards, and had undergone fierce battles against Goku Black. Likewise, Toyotaro makes it apparent that Goku was actively training for a greater threat, explicitly acknowledges Resurrection of F, makes it apparent that Goku and Vegeta were training rigorously under Whis' guidance, and makes it apparent that Goku and Vegeta were training rigorously in the RoSaT for 3 years in preparation for the Universe 6 Tournament. They were blatantly shown duking it out at full power which made a case that whatever gains they were making were not inconsequential. They were relevant. The notion that this is what Toyotaro was explicitly trying to convey, despite not even properly placing a rigid benchmark and in spite of all of the evidence suggesting otherwise means that the statement was never meant to place a strict level on Trunks' power.

You're free to believe that one statement takes precedence over multiple pieces of evidence. I will simply take what Toyotaro has conveyed throughout the story to get a proper understanding on what he truly meant.

[Skar]

You're free to believe that one statement takes precedence over multiple pieces of evidence. I will simply take what Toyotaro has conveyed throughout the story to get a proper understanding on what he truly meant.

I think you're choosing to interpret the evidence in a way that conflicts with the direct statement which is usually the opposite of what any author intends. It's the same with Beerus saying Goku was weaker than Freeza in base. Some fans argue it conflicts with previous evidence but that same evidence could still interpreted to fit with that statement. All we know is that Trunks couldn't defeat Dabura with only SSJ1 then trained for a few years on his own so nothing contradicts him only surpassing Gohan with SSJ2.

[Goku9001]

I think you're choosing to interpret the evidence in a way that conflicts with the direct statement which is usually the opposite of what any author intends. It's the same with Beerus saying Goku was weaker than Freeza in base. Some fans argue it conflicts with previous evidence but that same evidence could still interpreted to fit with that statement. All we know is that Trunks couldn't defeat Dabura with only SSJ1 then trained for a few years on his own so nothing contradicts him only surpassing Gohan with SSJ2.

Not necessarily. People generally take that statement at face-value and reconcile the context in which that statement was made with the narrative established over the course of the series. The argument that many tend to use is that Beerus made that statement to encourage Goku to use his Super Saiyan transformations since the reason he had visited Kaiosama was in search of a Super Saiyan God. Nothing is wrong with that interpretation. It's made abundantly clear to the reader.

The only thing we have to go by from that statement alone is that Trunks is stronger than Gohan. No one is denying this. This is the only thing that is being conveyed to us at face-value. If Toyotaro wanted to make things clear, we would have other references that can be used to discern how Trunks compares to Gohan. Like in the case of Majin Vegeta where Goku is blatantly a Super Saiyan and yet only confirms Goku had surpassed Gohan as a Super Saiyan 2. Or an explicit statement like Piccolo's who could barely distinguish the gap between Vegeta and Gohan at first glance. None of that is the case with Toyotaro's statement. It's just a clear-cut, Trunks is stronger than Gohan. No different than what Goku states about Frieza when being brought back for the Tournament of Power.

[GreatSaiyaman123]

People are pretty big on authorial intent until RoF comes up and suddenly everyone says Goku used SSJ to fight Freeza off screen, or that Goku’s inner SSJB power or Saiyan physiology or whatever allowed him to not get KO’d by Rumoosh like the Kaioshin were

In all of my years posting here, and I say this without judgment, this thread has taught me that there are two types of folks in the DB power scaling community: people trying to figure out what the writers wanted to convey and people making Excel spreadsheets.

Yeah I noticed it comes down to fans believing direct statements at face value and assuming that's what this shonen author was trying to convey to their young audience vs they intended for you to reach a different conclusion based on other implications. Nothing contradicts Trunks being weaker than Cell Games Gohan until he went SSJ2 like for the last character that this exact comparison was made. To argue this isn't what Toyotaro intended, there should be at least something hinting that SSJ1 Trunks was stronger than SSJ2 Gohan.

I still struggle to understand his thought process if that was genuinely what he intended. "I'll reuse this line but I really hope fans will know Trunks is far stronger than when it was used for Vegeta and will analyze previous implications to determine that Goku could've said the same thing had he saw Trunks power up in SSJ1 (or base if someone is arguing that)".
Or
"SSJ2 Trunks is in the same ballpark as SSJ2 Vegeta so it makes sense to reuse this line".

So taking things at face value is not how the young audience is supposed to interpret things, instead they should look where a similar claim has been done to see what it really means? Really??

All the line means is “SSJ2 Trunks is stronger than SSJ2 Gohan”. There’s no “I hope they know SSJ1 Trunks is stronger too”, because SSJ1 Trunks is irrelevant. He never even uses SSJ1 in the whole saga.

Both Kaioshin and Trunks on his first appearance can one shot Freeza. Are they equivalent in power? Of course not. This is definitely not a comparison that comes organically just because they’re capable of the same feat.

I still can't believe Goku closing his eyes and pretending to fight people from his past, because he is so bored he cannot train, is taken as some kind of undisputable proof of an neverseen, unseen, magical power up. I wish I could believe that, just closing my eyes would already make me better at freekicks than Roberto Carlos.

I remember back in the 90s, after Goku fights Uub in his base, there were two takes, (1) Uub has Buu's potential, that is he is currently as strong as, IDK, Piccolo, but can be as strong as Kid Buu if properly trained, and (2) Uub is as strong as Kid Buu and Goku can fight him in his base now. It was never clear which one was the case. In scenario (1), Goku's base is around SS or SS2 perhaps, in scenario (2), he's SS3 tier.

Now, with the whole god ki for Uub, and just how amazingly useful his power against Moro was, I'm inclined to believe his Kid Buu potential isn't something that he might need to train too hard to unlock, or at all, it seems like that might be his starting point.
In any case, Goku's base ends up being strong enough to fight evenly with an unexperienced Kid Buu's reincarnation.

If Goku's journey through DBS ends with his base as strong as his SS3 from Z, and before the journey even starts, he's already at fucking SS2 level and only needs to close a 4x gap or so, then he got 100x stronger out of the blue, offscreen, even before meeting Beerus, and he's close to the finishing line. He only needs to get 4x stronger during the entire run of DBS. Seems like we were prived of a quarter of his progress, he was magically placed extremely ahead.

I feel we've all said our peace about this, 2 months ago lol, and seems like running in circles, but I do wonder, if Goku has gotten 100x stronger just from image training even before learning what a GoD is, and assuming he'll get exponentially stronger from training with angels than pretending to fight people, then by EoZ, how strong do you guys think his base is? how strong is Uub if he is fighting him back?

According to my calculations, if he gets 100x just by image training, (and if Beerus' BoG comment was there because the author, after 40 years of telling stories, doesn't know what dialogue is actually for), after DBS he must be tens of thousands of times stronger, with a base that should be SSB level or so. Putting an untrained Kid Buu's reincarnation also on that level.

Goku literally unlocked transformations by meditating lol. I don’t know why you think power levels of all things in the series work like they do in real life.

But tbf, I think I’m willing to agree it’s not serious evidence. If that’s normal Perfect Cell rather than SPC, then I can see SSJ Goku handling him. The fight with Pure Boo never even started. I just think it’s silly to act like meditation can’t make you stronger while hair dye does lol.

When it comes to Oob, I’ve always gone back and forth on his power. Goku does say Oob is “as amazing as [he] expected” after they fight, but then goes on to say he needs training. Could really go either way, and Goku being pretty much unphased by Oob’s final Kiai doesn’t help much. I can easily see Oob’s power being around or a bit below whatever Goku’s base power ends up being.

[Cipher]

I don't understand the argument. The comparison between Gohan inherently means that the author expects readers to be familiar with past material to understand the comparison being made. The fact that you believe the authorial intent was to reference a statement made in the Buu Saga further supports that. Regardless, if the author really wanted us to believe Trunks was in the same ballpark as Gohan was, then he would've stated that Trunks may have been stronger than Gohan as that is the language that is commonly used in the manga to represent a small gap. He didn't do that. So the statement is simply what it means. That Trunks is stronger than Gohan. That's all it means and no one is denying that.

The language used to convey someone is stronger than Gohan but still in the expected Cell Games SS2 range would actually be ... exactly what Goku says to Trunks, since it's exactly what was said by Vegeta to convey the same thing. There's never been this "maybe" precedence. And why should there be? Characters can be clearly stronger without it being a statement on their being wildly, amazingly stronger.

No one reacts in a way that shows any shock at Trunks' power until he matches Goku's Super Saiyan 3. If something were out of their line of expectations for him before that, Toyotaro would have deigned to give it to us.

Reading Trunks as being lightyears above the SS2s of the original run when he first shows up just strikes me as being wildly obtuse.

People are pretty big on authorial intent until RoF comes up and suddenly everyone says Goku used SSJ to fight Freeza off screen

No one argues what the intent was in RoF the film, because it seems perfectly clear--Goku had absorbed the God power in the previous movie, had a super-strong base form, and fought Freeza with it.

Toyotaro's intent with "F" was to introduce a change in the BoG chapters that would prevent that from happening, then to not show us any scenes of their fight. Take that as you will.

I think we can read between the lines (and versions) there, while also acknowledging that neither the original run nor Super (manga) are meant to be all that cryptic or obtuse in their execution when it comes to what they discuss and show. (And then, of the two, what they say would take precedence, as far as evidence of intent/overall thrust, whether or not the author/artist is able to convincingly stick to it in every panel of every fight scene.)

[Hugo Boss]

If anything, Goku's willingness to battle someone who he was told is stronger than Buu as a Super Saiyan would be evidence of that claim.

I hope you are not thinking that this implies Goku is rivaling Majin Boo as a Super Saiyan, because that’s entirely the opposite of the point I was trying to make. I’m saying that Goku likes to fight his opponents in a level he can gradually do better, with the intent of revealing his opponent’s secrets until he can go all out and guarantee his victory. That’s more or less the reading I have about Goku’s fighting style.

The core plotline was about adopting the "Saiyan Beyond God" concept in which Super Saiyan Blue was originally Super Saiyan as their god-powered forms and the anime had no issues handling that situation through Whis' training and merely upscaling the Saiyans and Frieza as a result. Consider this, the Battle of Gods blatantly altered Toriyama's original vision in the movie by doing away with the god-powered form yet does not change the events of Resurrection of F in any meaningful way. It only open acknowledges that it happened. With nothing else to go by, we would have no choice but to stick with the vision Toriyama originally intended.

As Cipher explained above, the manga glosses over the details of Goku vs. Freeza, and there is no problem with that. We have several differences between the continuities and we are just about to see a few more with Super Hero movie.

I'm going to bring my Excel worksheet soon so I can show you how the numbers line up perfectly.

I’m impressed by the effort you are making to line up things perfectly, but don’t you think you are investing too much energy on a tidbit that the authors are not worried about? Though ironically as a DB Fan myself I understand this attitude, lol.

[Koitsukai]

The comparison is for the audience since Trunks should already be aware he surpassed Gohan.

This.

Trunks doesn't need to be told how strong he is, WE NEED TO.
It's for us, to show us how strong the guys in question are. We know it's not for Trunks, and if it weren't directed at us, then we have to assume characters just haphazardly say things to form sentences, like the manatee writers of Family Guy.
And that was his suppressed form, so it's not like he is getting fucked by the story (yet).

Seriously, I cannot think of a more spoonfed way of telling the audience how strong somebody is than "you are stronger than X character".


If they wanted them to be stronger than what they said, if they said A but meant C, then it should've been:

- There was a guy named Buu, we needed to fuse to beat him, and you are stronger than he was.
- Good thing I stopped his revival. (and then you have two SS2 that are Buuhan tier)

- You are even stronger than I was when I fought Buu with all of my power.
- Buu? I stopped his revival. (Both would be SS3 tier as SS2)

Or... have SS Goku fight SS2 Trunks, who is Majin Vegeta tier, or have him fight in base if the image training was actually that fruitful. Really, all these mental gymnastics is futile, the author isn't going to hide the truth of the matter behind so many directorial choices made by himself.

[Skar]

Not necessarily. People generally take that statement at face-value and reconcile the context in which that statement was made with the narrative established over the course of the series. The argument that many tend to use is that Beerus made that statement to encourage Goku to use his Super Saiyan transformations since the reason he had visited Kaiosama was in search of a Super Saiyan God. Nothing is wrong with that interpretation. It's made abundantly clear to the reader.

I think these types of interpretations are only necessary when fans decide their view on how strong a character should be so all additional information is interpreted in a way to fit that view. I was always on the fence how strong base Goku was in the Buu saga because there wasn't a clear indication. I didn't care either way since the emphasis on improving and unlocking new SSJ forms so his base being weaker or stronger wouldn't change much.

It's the same with Trunks. I don't have any preconceived notion or PL list on how strong he should be by the Goku Black arc so I'm fine with any direct statements about his power. I don't have any problem with SSJ1 Trunks being above SSJ2 Gohan but all we have is Toyotaro having him up powerup to SSJ2 before having a character comment on his power.

So taking things at face value is not how the young audience is supposed to interpret things, instead they should look where a similar claim has been done to see what it really means? Really??

All the line means is “SSJ2 Trunks is stronger than SSJ2 Gohan”. There’s no “I hope they know SSJ1 Trunks is stronger too”, because SSJ1 Trunks is irrelevant. He never even uses SSJ1 in the whole saga.

Both Kaioshin and Trunks on his first appearance can one shot Freeza. Are they equivalent in power? Of course not. This is definitely not a comparison that comes organically just because they’re capable of the same feat.

Well in the grand scheme of things they both range between the first SSJ and SSJ2. Vegeta and Trunks were stronger than the SSJ2 being referenced and only other reference was to Goku's SSJ3 after Trunks powered up again.

I don't know how you're defining face value there. If someone happened to remember when a same line was used, it could help but not necessary for a young audience to understand it. I definitely don't think "face value" is any of the overanalysis I've seen in an attempt to refute these lines. You're saying his SSJ1 is irrelevant which is what has been said here because Toyotaro only considered Trunks' versions of SSJ2 worth commenting on.

[GreatSaiyaman123]

Well in the grand scheme of things they both range between the first SSJ and SSJ2. Vegeta and Trunks were stronger than the SSJ2 being referenced and only other reference was to Goku's SSJ3 after Trunks powered up again.

I don't know how you're defining face value there. If someone happened to remember when a same line was used, it could help but not necessary for a young audience to understand it. I definitely don't think "face value" is any of the overanalysis I've seen in an attempt to refute these lines. You're saying his SSJ1 is irrelevant which is what has been said here because Toyotaro only considered Trunks' versions of SSJ2 worth commenting on.

What I’m trying to say is, SSJ1 Trunks is not worth commenting because he didn’t use the form. That’s like saying Goku is weaker than 1st form Freeza because Beerus said he was weaker than Freeza. It’s not how things work at all. SSJ2 Trunks > SSJ2 Gohan means SSJ2 Trunks > SSJ2 Gohan, any other form has nothing to do with this.

No one argues what the intent was in RoF the film, because it seems perfectly clear--Goku had absorbed the God power in the previous movie, had a super-strong base form, and fought Freeza with it.

Toyotaro's intent with "F" was to introduce a change in the BoG chapters that would prevent that from happening, then to not show us any scenes of their fight. Take that as you will.

I think we can read between the lines (and versions) there, while also acknowledging that neither the original run nor Super (manga) are meant to be all that cryptic or obtuse in their execution when it comes to what they discuss and show. (And then, of the two, what they say would take precedence, as far as evidence of intent/overall thrust, whether or not the author/artist is able to convincingly stick to it in every panel of every fight scene.)

The way I take it, RoF was skipped because everyone already knew how it was supposed to went down and the manga had to play catch up to the anime. I don’t think Toriyama and Toyotaro ever talked about it, but I’ll check if there’s any interview. I know Toyotaro specifically referenced the Broly movie in an interview when talking about the manga, so there’s that.

While Goku did not get to absorb Super Saiyan God, he did train, so him being much stronger than before isn’t something that would come out of nowhere.

I agree with everything you said in the final paragraph, even though our conclusions are polar opposites. The point me and Goku9001 are trying to get across is that Goku’s compliment to Trunks doesn’t have any subtext about how strong Trunks is on Base and SSJ1, because both forms are unused and thus in the saga.

The author isn't going to hide the truth of the matter behind so many directorial choices made by himself.

Let’s be honest, this is the same author that had SSJ2 Vegeta beating up SSJ Black the next chapter without any explanation whatsoever.

But I have to say, Goku not comparing Trunks to Boo actually is a pretty good point, and I’m surprised it took anyone so long to bring it up. He didn’t mind comparing Dabra to Cell even though Shin had no idea who Cell was, so comparing Trunks to a power he only ever heard of isn’t beyond him, after all. But is an argument from silence reason to make all these mental gymnastics and say there’s been a retcon in RoF? Isn’t that like saying Freeza is retconned into being stronger than the Androids because Kuririn compared Cell to him instead of them?

[Skar]

What I’m trying to say is, SSJ1 Trunks is not worth commenting because he didn’t use the form. That’s like saying Goku is weaker than 1st form Freeza because Beerus said he was weaker than Freeza. It’s not how things work at all. SSJ2 Trunks > SSJ2 Gohan means SSJ2 Trunks > SSJ2 Gohan, any other form has nothing to do with this.

I understood what you meant but the author is deciding what form the character will use and what form they consider worth commenting on. Goku and Vegeta found in base and SSJ in the Buu saga but it was only after they went SSJ2 that we get a direct statement they've surpassed Cell Games Gohan. If the argue is that Toyotaro or anyone else writing that arc could've intended for Trunks to be stronger than SSJ2 Gohan in a lower form, they could've had him powerup to SSJ1 first and reference Gohan before Trunks goes SSJ2. All we have is that they wrote for him to immediately powerup to SSJ2.

[Hugo Boss]

But is an argument from silence reason to make all these mental gymnastics and say there’s been a retcon in RoF? Isn’t that like saying Freeza is retconned into being stronger than the Androids because Kuririn compared Cell to him instead of them?

I don't think we are talking about a retcon here, but rather pointing out the continuities have different perspectives about power structure. Goku has the power of Super Saiyan God in his normal form in the movie and in its anime adaptation. In the manga, when he fights Frost, he doesn't have godly power in his normal form, not even in his Super Saiyan form, and the manga remains pretty consistent about Super Saiyan God+ belonging to an entire different dimension. The anime tries to copy the manga's power structure in Champa arc, but eventually goes back and forth to the point we are practically clueless about what it's trying to convey. That's why a lot of people don't take the anime seriously in the strength department, even when it tries to be the most straightforward as it wants to be.

As for your second point...

Chapter: 366 (DBZ 172), P4.5-6
Kuririn: “Goku, tell us—This thing’s even more terrible than Freeza. Are you scared by that? Or excited?”
Goku: “…Both…”

Krillin is not exactly trying to imply Cell is the first enemy that has surpassed Freeza in strength. He is actually drawing a parallel to how bad their situation was against Freeza. The androids No. 17 and 18, despite their unprecedent strength, are somewhat half-light and not just killing machines.

[Goku9001]

The language used to convey someone is stronger than Gohan but still in the expected Cell Games SS2 range would actually be ... exactly what Goku says to Trunks, since it's exactly what was said by Vegeta to convey the same thing. There's never been this "maybe" precedence. And why should there be? Characters can be clearly stronger without it being a statement on their being wildly, amazingly stronger.

No one reacts in a way that shows any shock at Trunks' power until he matches Goku's Super Saiyan 3. If something were out of their line of expectations for him before that, Toyotaro would have deigned to give it to us.

Reading Trunks as being lightyears above the SS2s of the original run when he first shows up just strikes me as being wildly obtuse.

Everything surrounding the context of Majin Vegeta's interaction with Goku on top of the narrative establishes where the Super Saiyans 2s stand relative to Gohan. The narrative was explicitly building the story up slowly to the point where Gohan would finally be surpassed. It was considered a monumental thing, thus there was a much greater attention to detail here. That's irrelevant to this case here. The point being established is that Trunks had surpassed Goku's expectations and that he's stronger than Gohan. That's all that means.

Comparing it to the statement made by Vegeta is irrelevant because you can't deduce that the Buu Arc Saiyans are within the ballpark of Gohan with that alone.

I hope you are not thinking that this implies Goku is rivaling Majin Boo as a Super Saiyan, because that’s entirely the opposite of the point I was trying to make. I’m saying that Goku likes to fight his opponents in a level he can gradually do better, with the intent of revealing his opponent’s secrets until he can go all out and guarantee his victory. That’s more or less the reading I have about Goku’s fighting style.

Definitely not and I didn't intend to manipulate what you were saying. What I'm saying is that Goku intending to battle Beerus as a Super Saiyan could be used as evidence to suggest that the Saiyans had greatly powered up. As you've mentioned, Goku does start at a level that he believes he can reasonably battle his opponent before guaranteeing an all-out victory. There's no situation where Goku greatly miscalculated the current level of his opponent other than against Beerus, which he had no way of knowing how powerful he was. He could only go by what he heard. And Toppo but he makes it a case that he's simply going to use a greater transformation after realizing how large of a gap there was between him. Given that, Goku believed that Super Saiyan would be enough based on what he was told.

I think the argument you are proposing definitely suggests that he isn't so far above Kid Buu as a Super Saiyan at this point in time, which I can agree with.

As Cipher explained above, the manga glosses over the details of Goku vs. Freeza, and there is no problem with that. We have several differences between the continuities and we are just about to see a few more with Super Hero movie.

And there is no inherent problem behind the Goku vs. Frieza fight. Toyotaro explicitly references the Battle of Gods movie and only opts to change the implications of Super Saiyan God and its effect on Goku towards the end of the fight. Toyotaro does the same with Resurrection of F. If there were any issues, we would've received changes as was the case with Battle of Gods. Otherwise, this is just confusing for the reader.

The DBS Broly movie explicitly honored both continuities to accommodate for the manga. I'm certain Super Hero will establish its own changes but if Toyotaro merely references the movie with nothing else to go by, I don't see why you wouldn't adhere to it regardless of the changes being made.

I’m impressed by the effort you are making to line up things perfectly, but don’t you think you are investing too much energy on a tidbit that the authors are not worried about? Though ironically as a DB Fan myself I understand this attitude, lol.

Nah, it was just a joke in light of Mr. Baggin's comment. I do enjoy making tier lists for specific arcs where I scale characters around a reference point, but I only do that for my own entertainment and never as a means to understand what the author was intending on. Because at the end of the day, I definitely agree that the authors aren't worried about precisely calculating battle powers.

I think these types of interpretations are only necessary when fans decide their view on how strong a character should be so all additional information is interpreted in a way to fit that view. I was always on the fence how strong base Goku was in the Buu saga because there wasn't a clear indication. I didn't care either way since the emphasis on improving and unlocking new SSJ forms so his base being weaker or stronger wouldn't change much.

It's the same with Trunks. I don't have any preconceived notion or PL list on how strong he should be by the Goku Black arc so I'm fine with any direct statements about his power. I don't have any problem with SSJ1 Trunks being above SSJ2 Gohan but all we have is Toyotaro having him up powerup to SSJ2 before having a character comment on his power.

The point being made here is that in Trunks' case, only Super Saiyan 2 was relevant hence why Goku's statement was made when Trunks was a Super Saiyan 2. This remains consistent with the anime. I don't see an issue with this perspective. The story constantly demands you to make sense of past material to make sense of current material. In fact, Majin Vegeta's statement to Goku absolutely requires you to understand the narrative to make sense of Vegeta's statement. The fact that Piccolo had to specify how difficult it was to distinguish Vegeta's power from Gohan's power proves that a simple strength comparison like the one Goku made isn't enough to get an accurate measurement on their powers.

[Skar]

The point being made here is that in Trunks' case, only Super Saiyan 2 was relevant hence why Goku's statement was made when Trunks was a Super Saiyan 2. This remains consistent with the anime. I don't see an issue with this perspective. The story constantly demands you to make sense of past material to make sense of current material. In fact, Majin Vegeta's statement to Goku absolutely requires you to understand the narrative to make sense of Vegeta's statement. The fact that Piccolo had to specify how difficult it was to distinguish Vegeta's power from Gohan's power proves that a simple strength comparison like the one Goku made isn't enough to get an accurate measurement on their powers.

The Strength Checker has a few characters using the word "perhaps" and "maybe" but they've always been treated as fairly accurate measurement of strength because the author went out of their way to have the character say it. To be honest, this might be the first time I've seen someone use that in an attempt to refute one of those lines. The characters making these references are pretty skilled at sensing energy and the story would mention if they were wrong. All we get for Trunks is that his SSJ2 is above SSJ2 Gohan then the next form, SSJ3, is used as a comparison to his upgraded SSJ2.