A Dragon Ball Fanboy Finally Loves Dragon Ball Super ... Why?

If you're new to the blog, then you probably won't know about my "A Dragon Ball Fanboy vs. Akira Toriyama and Toei" posts, of which I have many.  You can find them with a simple google search.  Those posts are usually directed at Dragon Ball Super's many missteps and missed opportunities.  But lately, I've found myself enjoying Super more and more, but why is that?  Well that's just what I'm here to explain.

By Rondon2020

It started with the Future Trunks/Goku Black arc.  The darker tonal shift to the series was awesome starting from Trunks' very first appearance. Black was a formidible and epic villain that I loved to hate with the most complex motivations of any DB villain to date, and it was nice to get another hero character other than Goku and Vegeta who was reasonably useful in combat.  That's all it took for me to stop skipping episodes and entire arcs of the show (Golden Frieza and Pontefidoodoo arcs).  Now the Goku Black arc did still have plenty of plot holes and face palm moments mostly to do with Trunks' new Gary-Stu tendencies, some time travel spamming, and those last three or so episodes of the arc, but overall I must say that I enjoyed myself immensely.

I've always thought that Super's slice-of-life episodes were the best thing going for it since the beginning and so I enjoyed those 9 weeks of "filler", but what surprises me is that the run up to the Tournament of Power is just as good and there seems to be a consensus that Super is hype as hell right now and why is that?  It's the sub-characters stupid!  I imagined I was saying that to Toriyama san (respectfully of course) and Toei's staff.

By: M-A-N42

First off the new characters are still pretty cool.  I think Toriyama san has always had a way of introducing new characters that get you invested just from their appearance alone.  The Trio of Terrors was a very interesting addition with some cool abilities.  Then there are the many many new gods introduced and characters like Toppo and Jiren, but again Toriyama is good at hyping new characters up.  Just look at the Supreme Kai and Kibito when they were introduced.  But what really shocked me was their treatment of Buu and Gohan in those skirmish matches, which was much better than Piccolo's treatment in the U6 tournament arc.  The fights were amazing to see and gave me much hope for the Tournament of Power until I heard they only had 48 hours to prepare.

But then we get some great episodes of Goku recruiting his 10 man team.  He starts with his best friend Krillin and Krillin's powerful wife, #18.  We are also taught the rules of the tournament, which will involve more strategic thinking and cooperation over brute force.  This gives weaker though more experienced characters like Krillin a chance to actually contribute in the upcoming tournament and not only that but Krillin is shown to have powered up significantly as well as developed powerful new techniques.  Where the hell was this development all along?  I love it!  They even put a nice bow on Krillin's overall arc.  His weakness was all in his mind.  His PTSD from getting killed by the likes of Tambourine, Frieza, and Majin Buu placed mental blocks on him and diminished his fighting spirit which limited his power all these years.  It was great to see him break those limits and stand toe to toe with Goku.  There's some controversy with him clashing beams with Super Saiyan Blue Goku but it's well documented that Goku was holding back in this fight.  Krillin's strong as hell, but he's not at that level ... yet.

The next big surprise we get comes from Buu who in two hours has transformed and gotten a lot stronger.  This was kinda silly and reminded me that the 48 hour limit was pretty dumb.  I like that the characters are getting stronger but feel they could've done this a lot more organically, like having them train before big events like this comes up, you know, so that they can reasonably keep up.  It's not like the Earth is at a loss for planet destroying bad guys.  You'd think they'd all prepare more.

A Dragon Ball Fanboy vs Akira Toriyama and Toei on Transformation Usefulness vs Cool Factor p1

Z Forms: SSJ - SSGSSJ

Super Saiyan

Cool Factor: Straight up legendary.
The iconic form that's represented the most in the movies and games.  This form was instantly legendary when it was unveiled in the Goku vs. Frieza fight on Namek.  The first transformations of Goku, Trunks, Vegeta, and Gohan to this form were all epic, if not seminal moments in the Dragon Ball Z anime.  Though it was soon outclassed by other forms, nothing really comes close to the original Super Saiyan form when it comes to effectiveness, epicness, and great design.  Pale yellow/golden hair along with the aqua blue eyes and golden aura give this form a majestic feel and it is very striking to see characters normally with deep black hair and eyes transform this way.  The gain in muscle mass and the fierce expression that normally accompanies the transformation really strikes the point that it is the form of legendary warriors ... that is until the children get it, then it quickly becomes a lame and unearned plaything.

Usefulness: Useful and versatile.
Inside the show, the form grants a 50x power boost and can seemingly be improved upon and fully mastered to grant even more power.  This makes it extremely useful when it's first introduced especially since the boost had very little drawbacks to it.  It was the pinnacle of powerups for a short while, probably longer than any other powerup that the show has had.  Everyone with Saiyan DNA tried to attain then master it.  Outside the show, the form was great for creating a new sort of hype and coolness around the show.  When other characters sought out and gained the form, it made for some really good drama and payoff for the viewers.  Not to mention that the form is easily recognizable to anyone who has even glanced at Dragon Ball Z in passing.  It's been featured in the most movies, of course, since everyone uses it.  There are two versions of the form, raw and full power/mastered.  Such a spectrum of power and utility makes it the most effective transformation yet.

Super Saiyan 1 - Grade 2 

Super Vegeta

Cool Factor: Pretty freakin' cool...but we've seen it before.
Buff Roshi anyone?  Buff Frieza?  Filler Buff Piccolo?  I think you get it by now.  Still, even though it's not 100% original it's still very awesome to see Vegeta ascend to this form for the first time and beat the ever loving hell out of Cell.  I think this form is deserving of the title Ascended Super Saiyan.


Usefuless: Great stepping stone to mastery.
A very useful upgrade to the original Super Saiyan form.  Increases speed, power, and durability to greater levels.  It's not officially known how much it does, but it is significant.  I wish we got to see more of the form actually, but it's eventually greatly outclassed by Super Saiyan 2, so in the end it ends up not being very useful.  I do think it was and remains an effective transformation though, at least until one perfects the first form outright.

Super Saiyan 1 - Grade 3

Cool Factor: Looks cool but quickly ends up in a trash bin.
When we first saw Trunks' eyes turn all white and him bulk up to ridiculous levels I thought that it was the end for Cell (not really but I thought Trunks would win at least).  Trunks took an episode or two to power up and Perfect Cell even admitted that Trunks was stronger, but then proceeds to school the young Saiyan and even humiliate him to the point he gave up on life.  Probably the worst showing for any new transformation.

Usefuless: Not useful (so far).
Even in the show it wasn't a very useful form.  While the form greatly increases power it also greatly reduces speed.  That tradeoff is a death nail for most characters in the DB-verse.  Speed is key to winning fights.  Slow characters have no way to use all that power to hit faster characters especially since no one really uses Solar Flare effectively.

Super Saiyan 2

Cool Factor: Badass as all hell but no lasting appeal (unless Gohan's using it).
You can't mention Super Saiyan 2 without mentioning Gohan's epic transformation into the form against Cell.  It was a character defining moment for Gohan and one that still blows fans away to this day.  Gohan has and will always have the best Super Saiyan 2 transformation in the show.  If Gohan had never attained the form then it would actually be a pretty boring one compared to the original Super Saiyan transformation.  The hair gets spikier and there's a very slight charge of lightning around the body.  Not much of a change if you ask me, and seeing Goku and Vegeta transform really drives that point home.  Young Gohan's first Super Saiyan 2 transformation was very distinct though.  It has always been a beloved fan favorite transformation and one that I still consider badass though in the grand scheme of things, since it was only a power boost, it wasn't around for very long, and since it didn't look that distinct from Super Saiyan 1, it faded into the background pretty quickly.  If it did something specific or changed the character's look a little more, then I think it would have left a stronger impression on people.

Usefulness: Powerful but proves to be a one trick pony.
Inside the show, the Super Saiyan 2 transformation is twice as strong as the original Super Saiyan transformation, making it much better than the first.  The improvements include strength, speed, and durability.  Gaining the form required a high level of training and for Gohan a traumatic emotional catalyst, but after gaining it, it seemed effortless to maintain it as long as you trained regularly.  In the show it proves to be the most balanced form until the god forms are introduced.

Outside the show however, the form was never played up to be a big deal unless Gohan was using it.  Images of Super Saiyan 2 Goku and Vegeta are not as iconic as images of their Super Saiyan 1 versions.  I don't think the form was striking enough to gain much attention, whereas every other Super Saiyan form has a standout quality.  Super Saiyan 2 is definitely the most subtle so for marketing purposes Super Saiyan 2 is fairly useless.  Not to say that Super Saiyan 2 stuff looks bad.  I believe the opposite, that it looks really cool.  But outside of us hardcore fans, who can really tell the difference between the forms without having it explained to them?

Now, in my personal opinion, it's a wasted form after Gohan uses it against Cell.  Just giving Gohan a rage boost would've accomplish the same effect.  I think either the form should be reserved for Gohan only, or Toriyama should've had it specialize in something, like speed for instance.  It's definitely wasted since Super Saiyan 3, Fusion, and the Elder Kai powerup are all introduced right after.  Making it double the power of the previous form was also a mistake since it doomed the first form of Super Saiyan to obsoletion and set the stage for its own obsoletion later on.  That was the death nail for the show when it came to power balancing especially for Saiyans and other characters who were already struggling to keep up.

Super Saiyan 3

 

Cool Factor: Highly original, sticks with you.
A drastic new look along with a huge power boost accompanied this new form that Goku hid from Vegeta as they pounded each other's faces in in Super Saiyan 2 form.  Now this form looks GODLY!  The only thing I never understood about it was the lack of eyebrows.  I still don't get that.  I think it would look even more cool with eyebrows, but as is, it's great!  I think a Saiyan's muscle mass and height gets bigger as well which makes it a very intimidating form.

Usefuless: Like new technology, powerful as heck, but drains all the batteries.
In the grand scheme of things it's not a very useful form, but then again, I suppose we've never seen it completely mastered.  What SSJ3 grants is a huge boost in just about every category.  The "official" boost for it is 4x whatever SSJ2 is which makes it 400x a saiyan's normal base level.  BUT SSJ3 comes with a humungous drawback called stamina drain.  This transformation seems to be the most taxing one yet.  Goku can't hold the form for very long and has to recharge in the middle of a fight with an opponent of similar strength.  It's quickly thrown away in the new material in favor of a more simplified god form.  I would still like to see a mastered SSJ3 form, preferably with mastered eyebrows XD.

Super Saiyan God

Cool Factor: Takes time to get used to, but actually a badass form with potential.
I'll admit, I hated this form at first.  I thought it was a lazy palette swap and an unimaginative retread of the Kaioken technique.  And the way you attain it is the biggest asspull in Dragon Ball history in my opinion.  After looking at it for a while and truly understanding what it was and where it could go, I began to see it as brilliant.  I like Toriyama's philosophy for it.  He wanted something simple and striking and he succeeded.  For me the form is at its weakest when it's motionless and doesn't have the fiery aura like you see in the picture above.  The flat magenta color of Goku's eyes and hair just looks too plastic-like to me.  But once the fighting starts and Goku starts "burning up" the form truly begins to shine.  I was hoping there'd be more to it too.  I wanted to see its concept and design pushed forward even more.

Usefuless: Great potential, but grossly underutilized.
The power boost granted from the power up is off the scales.  It's probably the biggest power boost that the show has ever had.  In universe it's considered a temporary form, though those with genius level fighting instincts, like Goku, can absorb the power into themselves permanently and make it their own.  In the anime the form even grants the ability to heal mortal wounds.  In the manga the form seems more permanent as Goku is seen transforming into it in the U6 Tournament arc.

As I said above, I wish we got to see more of the form.  I think the potential for a design that expanded upon it would have been better than what we ended up getting in FnF.  The flame-like design of the aura and hair and how unique, mysterious and temporary the powers seemed to be opened a new path forward into the Dragon Ball universe that made it truly exciting again.  But it was never really expanded upon and what replaced it turned out to be particularly flat and incongruent.  So I feel this particular form never really achieved it's ultimate potential, which I think could've saved the franchise.

Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan/Super Saiyan Blue/Super Saiyan Beyond God

Cool Factor: Every bad thing a transformation could be in one...cool aura though.
Flat. Boring. Unimaginative. Asspull. Recolor of previous form. Dumb name. Does nothing knew. Completely forgettable. Laughable even.  Okay, to be fair Super Saiyan 2 just made the hair spikier and added lighting to the aura, but at least it felt like an organic transformation.  This form just looks and feels like plastic.  It's almost as if it were made to be a toy.  The red form was jarring but it at least simplified things again and made them fresh, with new concepts such as making a character more lean.  Blooper Saiyan is just a plain ol' retread with different coloring.  The only thing I like about it is the aura and the way it looks all static-y.  If they had that aura, plain black hair and maybe some glowing blue eyes, then I think I could get behind this as the ascended form of Super Saiyan God.  As is it just feels like a cheap attempt to make new toys.  Nothing organic about it.

Usefuless: Just an obligatory power boost, move along.
It doesn't really do much either, so of course it's temporary until they get the next new form.  I think it's telling how even with the form Vegeta gets schooled against Hit.  It's already been demystified as nothing special.  As a matter of fact since it's conception Goku and Vegeta have done nothing but get their asses kicked while using it.  At full power Golden Frieza wrecked SSB Goku pretty bad.  Normal Frieza killed SSB Vegeta with a planet explosion.  Hit absolutely wrecked Vegeta so bad that they had to retcon SSB being a form with perfect ki control since the transformation itself now drains stamina and greatly reduces ki apparently.  Without the aura to back it up, it proves to be the flattest looking form yet and clashes with the character's uniforms, making them both took like vibrant taffy.  When the aura is done right, you can kind of forgive the form.  Can't wait until it gets replaced though.

When the aura is done right, you can kind of forgive the form.

Honorable Mention:

Legendary Super Saiyan

Cool Factor: Absolutely dominating.
Say what you will about Broly, but Legendary Super Saiyan is pretty damn badass.  It was especially so when it was first introduced.  The green color of the hair and huge muscle mass also made me see this as the Incredible Hulk form.  Definitely one of the more unique forms, up there with SSJ3.  One thing I never got was how it was so fast compared to Super Saiyan Grade 3.  The first movie Broly appeared in made this form absolutely stick in the minds of the fans and a lot of the DBZ fan community believe that Broly has the potential to be the strongest character of them all.  I don't fall into that camp since I've observed many of Broly's limitations in his many appearances, but there's definitely room for other interpretations.

Usefuless: The best of the ascended forms.
What if you take all that power from Super Saiyan Grade 3 and add a proportional speed increase as well?  You get Legendary Super Saiyans, that's what.  Broly wipes the floor with all grades of Super Saiyan 1 including the mastered version of the form.  Even an (arguably) mastered Super Saiyan Goku stands no chance against him without the combined power of the other Z Senshi.  Broly ran through four Super Saiyans and a Super Namek during his road trip of carnage.  And I say road trip because Broly was a Mack truck while the Z Senshi were helpless pedestrians.  The form does lose all usefulness compared to Super Saiyan 2.  It's possible that it could have surpassed it (if Gohan was indeed using it in the Broly sequel), but I just don't believe it did.  Though at the end of the day I still don't get why this form has so much speed and grade 3 is so slow. *shrugs*


Final opinions:
So all in all you can see that I'm a major fan of the more original transformations.  Some have more potential for expansion than others.  I am starting to get fatigued on them all though.  They've already lost what made them special since there's a new one with each new arc or movie, etc.  By making them palette swaps now it quickens that fatigue.  I believe the forms each need something more unique to them.  They need a real reason for their use otherwise it's just a countdown until they are obsolete and that's no fun.

Out of all the newer forms, I believe Super Saiyan 3 and the original Super Saiyan God (red) form have the most potential for expansion of abilities and updated designs.  I think the forms should specialize to give the Saiyans a reason for using lesser forms other than the need to hold back or test opponent's strength.  SSJ3 could be the new grade 3, a form that maximizes power at the cost of stamina and some speed.  SSJ2 can be the speed focused form as already emphasized by the lightning bolts and svelte designs.

For the higher forms, I think it's not too late to branch from SSG and go back to the fire motif.  Emphasize the auras and make the hair changes more subtle and not candy-like.  It cheapens it.  If they're going to keep transforming then each of the forms needs to specialize too.  Maybe SSB can be that form that they can conserve ki by fighting in while other forms burn through it like mad, or a form that powers ki blast attacks or something.  What I'm saying is that the forms need to do something and if not, they at least need to look stylish or functional.  Now, I can't say that for SSB or the rumored Super Saiyan Rose.  I think the coolest thing they could do is have the hair become more and more fire-like until maybe it blends in with the aura almost.

Anyways, thanks for reading my ramblings glorious readers and please share your opinions as well.  Til next time, everyone.  Take care.

A Dragon Ball Fanboy vs Akira Toriyama and Toei part 3: Transformations

Transformations have been a mainstay in the Dragon Ball series since Frieza uttered his lines about second, third, and final forms.  Even before that you had people turning into giant apes, turning into younger version of themselves, bulking up, growing giant, growing multiple arms, and even Garlic Jr.  So it comes as no surprise that transformations have become a cornerstone in the series development.

Transformations are so vital to the series, that when you can't get a new one, you aren't important anymore.  Look at characters like Piccolo, Tien, Krillin and now even the half human Saiyans.  No new transformations equals no more use for you in the plot based fights.

So today I'm here to discuss with you all the usefulness of transformations in the show.  Are they still necessary?  Will continuing to create new ones break the show even more?  Will we fans ever stop being interested in Dragon Ball if the transformations stop?  I'd like to talk about that stuff as well as my overall feelings on the new transformations introduced in Dragon Ball Super.  Then I'd like to talk about the resounding effects transformations have had on other shounen manga as well as if transformations were an overall good idea for the Dragon Ball franchise overall.

The Purpose of Transformations

Having characters that are able to transform does a few things for the Dragon Ball franchise.  As far as the story goes, it can add a sudden shot of tension to the story when a villain or hero gets a new form in the middle of combat.  It can also add length to an epic confrontation and allow for others to have epic fights against an arc's main villain like with Frieza, Cell, and Buu.  It adds a level of excitement and hype as fans wait week to week for heroes and villains to achieve new forms and show off what they can do.  When it comes to merchandising, transforming characters can potentially rake in a lot of $$$.  Look no further than franchises such as Digimon, Pokemon, and Transformers for confirmation on this.  Then of course you have Dragon Ball and the countless shounen products that have followed Dragon Ball's blueprint for success.  Each form represents a chance to market it with new toys, clothes, games, and other accessories.

So with all that said, it sounds like a no-brainer to include as many cool transformations into a show as possible, right?  Not really, when you think about it.  While transformations are cool and do a great job at bringing a dose of hype into a show, overusing them can cause them to lose any sort of meaningfulness and become downright silly.  So let's now go over the usefulness of transformations.

Negatives of overusing character transformations

We're quickly moving in this direction

 

Towards the end of Dragon Ball Z things became a bit of a mess.  It started with the introduction of power levels and power multiplications and just ran rampant after alternate forms of Super Saiyan were introduced.  The original form being a 50x boost was soon outclassed after its introduction and so a boost was needed for that to thwart another transforming foe and so we get a "new form" which doubles the power of the Super Saiyan boost, giving Saiyans a 100x boost to power overall or so the guides tell me.  So when another power transforming villain is introduced, even that's not enough and so yet again the heroes must gain a new form that quadruples that, or so the guides tell me.  But no, the show must go on, so new, more powerful villains are again introduced.

In GT we have the likes of Baby, Super 17, and Omega Shenron who are all also technically transforming villains.  For that, even Super Saiyan 3 and 400x boost isn't enough, so Goku and Vegeta need to get a new form that's even more powerful than that.  Enter Super Saiyan 4 which is 10x as strong as Super Saiyan 3 which makes it 4,000x stronger than a Saiyans base form.

In Super we have Super Saiyan God greatly outclassing Super Saiyan 3 by at least ten times, putting it on par or above the Super Saiyan 4 boost in GT.  Then we get into vague and even laughable territory with the horribly named Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan since we're never told how strong the form really is in comparison to Super Saiyan God (later they make it more clear that it is superior).

Where I'm going with this is, where does it stop?  It's already gotten silly and even a tad pointless with forms that are just recolored versions of stuff we've already seen.  SSG Goku just looks like a skinnier version of Goku when he uses Kaioken.  It's a very basic design but on its own you get used to it and can see it as a cool new form.  I do like the idea of taking things back to basics so I got into the form and actually liked the way that the aura looked.  The aura gave the form a 'godly' feel.  It gave me a feeling of fire and I figured each new extension of the form would give it more of a "red hot" feel.  Instead of taking that form to it's next evolution Toriyama gave us something completely different (really more of the same) and incongruent with his current ideas called Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, which is really just photoshopped Super Saiyan 1.  We didn't even have a chance to get used to SSG before it was replaced with a new laughable transformation.

I think transformations have overall been a great thing for the Dragon Ball franchise and served a great purpose at hyping the fanbase up.  But it was only hype when it was given to a character that we thought was already far outclassed and when it came out of nowhere it blew us away.  Now only the already strong people get them and it's not much of a surprise anymore.  Even the reveal for some of the newer forms have been lackluster. What I'm saying is that the series is becoming too reliant on them and that the newer forms have not and will not sustain the hype if they continue to be creatively stagnant.

Transformations should grant alternate abilities, not just power.

 

Killua using Godspeed in HxH

For Frieza, it was cool to see new transformations power him up, because each of his forms besides his final one was a suppressed state.  He was purposely limiting himself in a sort of armor.  Cell's transformation power ups were cool because he literally absorbed vital components into his structure to become a more complete being.  Buu's power ups made a lot of sense because he was literally absorbing other people.  He even inherited abilities (like Piccolo's intelligence) and weaknesses (like Gotenk's fusion limit and Daikaioshin's purity) of those he absorbed.  Now though, I think the time for huge powerups from transformations should be at an end.

I think the show needs to rethink its direction and have each transformation provide some useful ability so that the form has a real use and not just quickly get outclassed and discarded when someone else reveals a new form.  That is my wish for the show going forward so that it doesn't continue to discard characters every time an arc goes forward.  Other shows have already figured this out.  I need Toriyama, Toei, Toyotaro and company to figure it out too before they fatigue even the most diehard Dragon Ball fans.

Influence on other shounen anime and videogames

 

I'm not sure exactly what DBZ has influenced over the years, but I would hazard to guess that it's a lot.  I think the transformation trope, now prevalent in most shounen battle mangas comes directly from Dragon Ball.  I have a feeling that the trope of transforming boss characters in videogames may come from Dragon Ball as well, but it's just a hunch more than anything.  Over time, I believe these other shounen mangas have capitalized on the trope better than Dragon Ball in its later years.

Newer anime and manga series have taken what Dragon Ball made popular and added a fresh and tactical spin to it.  Thankfully we're past the early 2000s where everything was an ex machina hidden demon form and now things are generally more creative.  I think for DB to stay viable it has to learn from its students or at the very least Toriyama has to dig further for better ideas and more inspiration.  The original SSG form was very similar in concept and design to Luffy's Gear 2 in One Piece which itself was similar to Kaioken in Dragon Ball.  What I'm saying is that the three above transformations/powerups were very good and Toriyama needs to capitalize on fresh and organic ideas like that instead of shoehorned ideas like SSGSS, Golden Frieza, and now Super Saiyan Rose.

Anyways, that's my two cents.  What are your favorite forms from Dragon Ball and from other shounen series?  Thanks for browsing, my glorious readers!  Take care.

A Dragon Ball Fanboy vs Akira Toriyama and Toei: Vegeta Fans, Be Afraid

Unsubtle Metaphor!!!

So after some thinking in the bathroom (the best place to think), it's become apparent to me that Vegeta has inherited Piccolo's former role in Dragon Ball Super, right down to his benevolent relationship with Goku.  Piccolo has inherited Tien's former role, and Tien...well Tien's still Tien. 

Okay, now stay with me on this one.  Before, Vegeta was always the loose cannon, the one who wanted to kill Goku when he got a chance.  He only kept Goku around as motivation to get stronger.  "I won't let you kill that clown cuz I reserve that right for myself" was always something he said to villains who would try to get the better of Goku.  Now he and Goku are best friends in Dragon Ball Super and Vegeta has softened up considerably even compared to the Buu saga.

Hmm...I wonder who used to always threaten to kill Goku once they were done beating the bad guy to then being his mellowed out close friend?  Well, you can say that about a lot of Goku's friends but Piccolo was in that role not too long ago and look what happened to him.  Vegeta has mellowed out a lot in Dragon Ball Super, just like Piccolo before him, and now that he's been defanged just like the Namek was, I fear that he is destined to follow the same route as Piccolo.  Just look at the facts.

Just before his ultimate combat irrelevance, Piccolo had three massive upgrades in power.  The first was on Namek when he fused with Nail where he briefly became the strongest fighter, the second was after his insane training with Goku that boosted his powers to near Super Saiyan levels apparently, and the third came when he fused with Kami and briefly became the strongest warrior in the show, even stronger than Goku.  That was twice in the show that he surpassed Goku.  Now let's look at Vegeta's trajectory of power.  He had apparently surpassed Goku in power during his fight with Beerus.  Once Beerus slaps Bulma, Vegeta forces him to use 10% of his power or something like that.  Visibly he seemed to give the God of Destruction more trouble than Super Saiyan 3 Goku.

That's a big jump in power from the Buu saga.  Then once Goku attains the god form from the ritual, Vegeta does his own personal training with Whis and once again seems to surpass Goku during his training.  I'm not sure how his power stacks up to Goku now that they've been training together, but so far that's two major power boosts he got over Goku, not counting what he got in the Buu and Cell sagas.  So that follows what Piccolo did, but it doesn't prove anything really, not yet anyway.

Now this is what I fear, for you Vegeta fans.  Taking into account Vegeta's drastic personality change, and his similar powerups over Goku, compared to Piccolo.  I feel that he will soon be replaced by a character that will inhabit the role that he once did.  It will be a character who is bloodthirsty but somewhat reformed like he used to be.  It will be someone who's a fan favorite antihero, like he used to be.  Someone who will be Goku's new rival.  Yes, Vegeta isn't a proper rival for Goku anymore.  Once you train with Goku, that's it, he's done with you as a rival.  It happened with Piccolo.  They lost that element of danger in their relationship, just like Vegeta has now lost.  I mean look at this:

They're sitting on a couch together.  Remember whose character decay came an arc after hanging out at Goku's house and partnering up with him for a driving test?  If you said Piccolo, you'd be right.  Unfortunately, this kills a lot of Vegeta's appeal with many of his fans, I think.  Now I think many of his fans will gravitate towards the new badass on the block.  My prediction is Hit or Frost.  One of them will join the Z-Senshi and Vegeta will be tossed aside while Goku gets new forms and fights stronger baddies.  The current Vegeta has a new sort of appeal with fans, but those other fans who prefer the bloodthristy badass who waxes poetic about battle and killing will flock to the new guy who gives them that.  That's it, unless Vegeta somehow returns to his roots and sharpens his fangs again.  As a Piccolo fan, I'm always hopeful that he'll sharpen his again one day, but my hope has been constantly dying out since the Buu saga.  Now it looks like it'll die completely once he's thoroughly trounced by Frost in the tournament.  For you Vegeta fans, I hope it never reaches that point.

The one thing that can save Vegeta

What can save Vegeta is the fact that he has an easy reason in the story for himself to stay close to Goku's level.  He's a saiyan, so he can easily remain at least one step behind Goku like he's been shown to be so far.  Don't count on that to save him in the end though.  Remember how irrelevant he was in GT until the very end when he used a plot device to gain relevance again.  Sure, when possessed by the current villain he gained a powerup to compete with Goku, but right after he was irrelevant again on his own.  Also look at Gohan.  Being the strongest unfused Saiyan at the end of Dragon Ball Z didn't stop him from being an utter joke in Super did it?  Oh, I'm so afraid for Vegeta and his fans that it's not even funny.  Unless he gets some of his "edge" back, I'm just sure he'll be relegated at best to "Goku's backup".  At worst, he'll be the new Tien along with Piccolo and old Tien.  Let's hope it never comes to that.

As always, thanks for the browse my glorious readers!

Dragon Ball Super Insults Your Intelligence, Akira Toriyama Lost It, and Toei Blows: Part 1: Battle of Gods

I think Toriyama and Toei should call everything from the two new movies along with the anime and manga Plot Device Z: Battle of Deus Ex Machina, Plot Device Z: Resurrection of Inconsistency, and Plot Device Super respectively.  With Dragon Ball Super, it now feels that Toei and Toriyama are barely even attempting to create anything remotely coherent anymore.  We have barebones art and animation quality for the anime, a manga that moves too fast, and three different sources of canon for the show.  I'm only considering canon important in this regard because it affects the future of the show and things are now diverse enough (Tagoma, god healing, Ginyu's return) that its inclusion in one canon should affects future storylines in other canons (such as Goku not being able to heal after getting shot in FnF).  That's all just to say that all of this new Dragon Ball content is definitely disjointed and feels poorly planned and executed.

Now Let's Recap starting from Battle of Gods in 2013.

BoG was filled with some awesome ideas, great comedy, and some pretty awesome new characters in Beerus and Whis.  I loved the movie, but that didn't stop me from groaning at the inconsistencies I saw and wishing for just a little more from the movie.  As far as inconsistencies go, it had the least offenses compared to all the new content since "Yo, Son Goku and Friends Return!"  Regardless it did have some pretty big inconsistencies.  There were also a lot of missed opportunities that could've made the experience so much better.

Inconsistency 1: Kaiosama's planet is back without any mention of how it returned.  There was enough padded time in the movie to explain this.  They could've even handwaved it by saying that King Kai remembered that he could restore himself (stupid, I know), but to not address it at all was problematic.

Inconsistency 2: Bulma's Age being 38.  Almost forgivable, as women lie about their age all the time, but the movie never really treated it as a joke or had another character call BS.  Most of us fans know that Bulma is supposed to be much older at this point in the series.  By the time of the Buu Saga, she is definitely pushing 40 already at the bare minimum.  If you consider the timeline she should be in her mid forties.

Inconsistency 3: Vegeta's SSJ2 beyond SSJ3 rage boost.  Nothing ever said that this wasn't possible so it's more of a contrivance than an inconsistency, still it's kinda lame considering how it wasn't even explained properly.  I like what it did for Vegeta's character, but it just breaks much of what we've learned about the show and with no real explanation.  I mean, this sort of thing is what makes these new additions to the series horrid to me.  If you're going to break the show, as in things we know are already established, such as SSJ3 being leaps and bounds ahead of SSJ2 then for the sake of the fans, at least do it with a proper explanation instead of a wink and a nod and we barely get that really.  Casual show breaking is the theme for 2015 Dragon Ball it seems.  Oh and where was a boost of this nature when Trunks from the future died?  Vegeta seemed more angry back then, but he never got such a huge boost, never even went SSJ2.  Seems like a plot boost to me.

Inconsistency 4: This one's mostly for those of us who keep track of Battle Power, but no one else really cares.  But having Gohan having such a low showing against Beerus compared to even Buu was unnecessary.  This was a guy who was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of Vegeta, Buu, and even Goku as an SSJ3.  How did he diminish so quickly?  I rate this one lower than the others because its very possible in-universe that Gohan slacked off a lot and Goku and Vegeta caught up and surpassed him in the years between the end of the Buu Saga and BoG.  It's just so jarring considering how power has worked in the show so far and how far ahead of everyone else he was.

Missed Opportunity 1: Not including Tarble in the movie.  Including Videl's Saiyan fetus in the god ritual was just laughable.  This would have been a great opportunity to include Vegeta's brother into the canon and even as a regular character in the movies.  Why introduce a character that you'll never use again Toei and Toriyama?  Though Tarble's existence is a bit of an inconsistency in itself in many ways.  They could've even had Supreme Kai get Tarble via Instantaneous Movement, since the Earth was in danger.  I guess that when I think of it, I'm fine with no Tarble.  Since all he brings to the series is unneeded questions.  What sucks here is that they mention him in the movie.  If he just wasn't canon to the movie that would be fine, but he's instead mentioned then replaced with an unborn Saiyan baby for no reason at all really.  I had to scratch my head at such a strange decision.

This folks, is a grown ass man in his late 30's :-)

Missed Opportunity 2: Having such a lame and unbelievable way to achieve Super Saiyan God.  So according to this nearly any group of "righteous" Saiyans can achieve this form as long as they have the correct number of people.  And what does "righteous" even mean if an unborn fetus can contribute to the ritual?

Missed Opportunity 3: Not introducing a cooler look for Super Saiyan God (though the form has grown on me and I prefer it waaaaaay over the lazy Blue Super Saiyan God form.  They should've done more with a fire motif IMO even with the hair.  Think of how cool it would be if Goku's hair became more and more like fire as he progressed in power.)

Missed Opportunity 4: Making Gohan so weak.  Would've been much better to have him put up a better fight than at least Buu.    I think Gohan and Vegeta shouldn've had the same showing against Beerus, with both putting up decent fights, but then have Vegeta surpass him with the rage thingy.  That way it shows that they were initially still somewhat close at least, instead of having Gohan be a complete scrub.  Remember, Gohan was way above Vegeta in the Buu arc, like in a whole other ballpark.

Missed Opportunity 5: Not having some other new, cool character introduce what Super Saiyan God is, rather than Shenron Ex Machina.  Maybe an actual "righteous" Saiyan other than the main cast.  Even Old Kai would've made sense here, but then again people would've asked "where was this knowledge during the Buu saga?"  To which you could counter that there weren't enough Saiyans around. They could've even done something cool with Tarble, had him be like an intergalactic archaeologist and find something on the legend to bring to Earth, something to expand the lore.  I personally like the new righteous Saiyan character idea the most.

Missed Opportunity 6: Making the Super Saiyan God transformation so complex yet not taking the time to properly explain it.  So its temporary and you can lose it, but if you're skilled enough, you can absorb it?  And when you absorb it, you can fight in normal form, but still have similar powers?  But are you weaker in the non-red form?  Goku seemed to be putting up a slightly better fight or at least comparable fight even when he looked "base" or just "normal Super Saiyan."  We are told that he absorbed the power, but come on!  We need more than that to understand if his final god form transformation at the end while absorbing Beerus' attack even did anything.  Besides a power up and invisible ki, does the form do anything else?

Missed Opportunity 7: Calling the new Saiyan god form Super Saiyan God instead of simply calling it Saiyan God or just God Form.  Now every dragon ball fan looks stupid saying stuff like Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan Blue.  They're really doing all this with no planning aren't they?  Sloppy.  Super Cyan and Blueper Saiyan is hilarious though.  But seeing as how this is an error really, I like to call it Blooper Saiyan hohohohohohohoho...hu.

Missed Opportunity 8: Super Saiyan God as a concept literally comes out of nowhere.  There has never been any mention of this in the show and it's not even blended into the existing lore smoothly in the movie.  Beerus literally wakes up screaming random nonsense.  Hell, even Vegeta, Saiyan lore master, doesn't know about it.  It would have been cool if they just retconned the Super Saiyan of Legend to be the Super Saiyan God and made all the other forms of Super Saiyan be inferior offshoots, but it seems us fans are far more creative and imaginative than Toriyama and Toei nowadays.

Just retcon this...

...into this.  Not hard considering all the other retcons introduced.

Missed Opportunity 9: Retconning Frieza's destruction of planet Vegeta to an order from Beerus.  It diminishes Frieza's character and does absolutely nothing new for the show.  It doesn't even add to Beerus at all.  We already know Beerus is great at destruction, now he just seems like a conniver which goes against his established character as someone who kinda just likes to blow stuff up, fight, and eat.  He's just kinda like an unrestrained Goku in many ways.

All that said, once I actually sat down to watch the movie, none of it seemed to matter.  I simply put all the inconsistencies and dumb additions to the Dragon Universe out of mind and enjoyed a fairly good movie.  Since I was starved for new Dragon Ball content and the movie had just about everything going for it including action, comedy, good art, great animation, and pure nostalgia; I was easily caught up in the hype and my body was ready for the next installment.  So I'd say in the grand scheme of things, that BoG wasn't that bad.  It seemed to set a new tone for the series, one that I was a little leery about, but way more excited for than anything else.  So if I can overlook inconsistencies and missed opportunities of this nature then I can certainly overlook whatever may come next, right?  Well, what comes next is Resurrection 'F', a movie that could use the tagline "50% of the stuff you love with 50% unnecessary and unexplained world breaking horse shit."  Or even better, "You'll love the action and the colors, but everything else is lazy as hell with no research done by our staff!"

Honorable mentions: Pilaf and crew seeming to only get one wish from Shenron (I don't really care.)  Same with Shenron simply leaving after it answered the question about SSJG.  I think it was done for simple comedy affect and it doesn't even seem to count as a wish really, but who knows since it was also unexplained.  Beerus being tender enough with his slap not to splatter Bulma's whole existence over her party guests.  I mean, why would he care?  You know how much holding back he would have to do to not kill her with just a touch?  I just chalk it up to BoG Beerus being a fairly amicable guy, despite Bulma's actions being highly disrespectful.  All in all, it just doesn't bother me that much.  There's probably more inconsistencies, but I can't currently remember them.

A DBZ Fanboy vs. Akira Toriyama part 1: Spirit Ki vs Godly Ki

In my opinion, Dragon Ball Z Battle of Gods was an awesome movie because it introduced something new into the series.  Resurrection 'F' was also awesome, but this time because it added a ton of action, most of it from fan favorite sub characters.  I find Dragon Ball Super to be a mixed bag with some awesome episodes featuring new content, good animation, and fresh fight choreography while others are the complete opposite and horribly dragged out filler filled affairs.  But all of this new Dragon Ball content has a set of glaring flaws in common and they share these flaws with...gasp!  Dragon Ball GT.

So first I'll share my vision of what I thought Akira Toriyama could have done to improve a series that I thought was on a downward spiral.  These ideas are from before BoG was even a thing.  I came up with these improvements in 2010.  So this will be a list of what I thought made DBZ so great and how to get them in the show again.

1. Ensemble Cast.

So the first thing that stood out to me about DBZ, as a kid was this cool looking and strange cast of powerful characters.  Remember how exciting that 90's intro was with everyone fighting and doing signature techniques?  The new DBZ series should have gotten back to using these characters, these fan favorites.  What made the original cast of DBZ so appealing was the diversity of them all in how they fought and how different and colorful they looked.  Tien fought like a martial arts technician, Krillin flipped around like a nimble monkey, Chiaotzu did weird stuff, Goku was balanced, Gohan would snap, Piccolo was a beast and Vegeta used dirty tricks and powerful finishing blows.  Now everybody that matters is a Saiyan and they all have golden hair and fight very similarly.  We didn't even need to see the original Z fighters win to be fans of them.  The fact that they all pitched in, gave it a try, and looked cool doing it was enough.  I always thought Tien and Yamcha were really cool even though they've never actually defeated anyone in DBZ (unless you count the filler Ginyus and Otherworld guys which I often do).  The only thing Toriyama and Toei need to do for characters other than Goku and Vegeta is give them someone to fight on their own level.  Why can there only be one fight at a time in DBZ?  Even in 2010 and before I saw this simple fix.  But if Toei and Toriyama think there's no value to be found in the old characters then they can at least make some really cool new characters to take their place.  We just need more diversity than two protagonists with the same abilities and transformations.  The reason for the decay in the initial ensemble cast of Z is due to the next thing that needs to be fixed...

2. Power Level Scaling.

I'm specifically referring to power level inflation.  It was already pretty broken by the time the Buu Saga rolled around.  Though it started to get really busted in the Frieza arc when characters like Vegeta were making instant 10x jumps, Piccolo making between 10x -- 286x jump, Krillin's potential 16x -- 70x jump, etc.  At least everyone was competitive here, and I like how the anime made the humans on Kaio's planet keep up too.  It made more sense seeing as how Piccolo made such incredible gains there (or not if you choose not to believe).

I actually liked the power levels during the Cell arc when everyone was relatively near one another.  I wished we got a more extended Android arc with the levels as they were when Vegeta fought #19 and Piccolo fought #20.  I wished Toriyama had created the movie cyborgs here so the others got a chance to fight in an arc without Goku.  That would've been rad!  The power level inflation got super busted once Super Saiyan 2 entered the picture during the Cell Games, well even before that with the Mastered Super Saiyan form or rather Full Power Super Saiyan.  By the time the Buu saga rolled around, I could clearly see how badly the unbalanced power level scaling ruined the show.

Characters who once helped drive the show forward suddenly became useless because they weren't in league with the new super strong baddie or because they didn't have another transformation to grant them more power.  Even characters that had gotten new forms and power levels in the current arc became instantly useless once the villain reached a new level of power and that just kept compounding making lesser characters even more useless.  Look at all the Buu Saga powerups as an example: Majin Vegeta, Gotenks Fusion, Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks Fusion, Mystic/Ultimate/Full Potential Gohan.  All of those powered up characters were cool for about 5 minutes then instantly became useless once Buu powered up or got a new form.  All the development (especially Gohan's) thrown out the window in favor of more powering up.

Spirit Ki (my fanboy concept)

So that brings me to my first improvement for the show.  The introduction of god ki.  That's right, I thought of it waaaaay before it was revealed in BoG.  Only I called it holy ki, or spirit ki.  It's not the most original idea and I actually may have gotten the idea from Yu Yu Hakusho, the sacred ki.  Anyways Tien really inspired me with this one, cuz how broken is the Kikoho?  Answer: ridiculously broken.  No matter where you put Tien's PL, there's no way he should have been able to hold down an enemy that was exponentially stronger than a Super Saiyan.

So spirit ki was born in my head and Tien had learned a way to use it to attack through normal ki.  It allowed him to compete with the top level fighters again.  Actually, I had made a villain come into play who has this spirit ki to wreck the strongest Z warriors because spirit ki could bypass normal ki, causing more damage than normal.  In my concept, it didn't even take a lot of spirit ki to defeat an opponent of even SSJ3 Goku's level, just a concentrated dose of it.  You can think of it like Pokemon, spirit ki is "super effective" against normal ki while normal ki is "not very effective" against spirit ki.  So it was up to Tien to teach his fellow Z warriors the basics of spirit ki to defeat this new villain and now all the Z fighters are on equal footing again and we can introduce new concepts into the show to keep it fresh, like possibly infusing spirit ki with elements or something.  This also fixes the inflated power level scaling since new villains can simply be really good at this spirit ki.  Not all villains have to be gods now.  I was even toying with the idea of spirit ki originating on earth as something that allowed humans to fight devil gods from the demon realm.  Maybe Tien's alien ancestors came to earth to teach it.  Who knows, but the idea can go anywhere.  How did Tien learn the Kikiho anyway?

But...

Instead Toriyama uses a variant of this concept called god ki and it seemed to do very similar things to my own spirit ki concept.  So I was super excited to see that and it looked like Toriyama was onto something interesting.  I didn't have super high hopes since I saw a lot of things in BoG that were indicative of the show's worst traits like the simplistic (and horribly convenient) Super Saiyan God ritual (pure hearted saiyans, really!?)  But the god ki concept held strong.  Only gods could do battle with gods and godly ki is on a whole other level than normal ki.  That all worked out nicely, until...

Frieza's intergalactic training gains (aka, damn he's strong!)

Resurrection 'F' threw that whole concept out the window.  In four months of training, Frieza not only surpassed all of DBZ's major villains, who were eons ahead of him in strength.  It flies in the face of all the ridiculous gains made by all the other characters over the years.  He also surpassed the new gods of universe 7, Goku and Vegeta who are both in the same realm of strength as Beerus the god of destruction (though Beerus is considerably stronger still.)  Why Toriyama didn't have him train for a little longer than that and with some other godly being is beyond explanation.

So as it stands now, even someone with a bunch of regular ki can trounce all over someone with godly ki as Frieza did for a good portion of RoF.  So that previous theory of god ki nullifying normal ki goes out the window.  I'll tell you BoG and RoF were great movies, but they were filled with so many sloppy plot holes, errors, and missed opportunities.  I still love them though, but only when I turn my brain off.  And hey, Toriyama and Toei at least got #1 right in RoF.  The ensemble cast looked so amazing in that fight along with the newcomer Jaco who was even weaker than most of the Z fighters, but still fought admirably and stylishly.

Next time we'll go over the ways the Dragon Ball series can be improved with a simple exploration of its existing backstory, powers, and techniques.  Think Tien's true alien race, Frieza's home planet, the Namekian book of legends, the planet of the Metamorans, Dabura's demon realm, the different ways ki can boost abilities, the applications of kaioken for the rest of the cast, etc.