Manga/Dragon Ball

Though out of all of them, Broly has the most potential.

He's throwing down with them while still just a plain ass Super Saiyan.

But Gohan reached all their level going beast in just 2 seconds, so...

Classic Gohan move

Devilman can still one shot everybody on that planet except Goku right now.

Edited by FOFD on Mar 22nd 2024 at 2:26:57 PM

To be fair, he did do some offscreen training to get close to that.

Unlocking Beast was just the result.

Come to think of it, with the exception of the Full Power State (do we still call it Mystic), Gohan's power has always come from a combination of training, epiphanies, and a bit of a hand out (Guru's power-up).

He's just got a ridiculous amount of Potential.

Broly is impressive still. Like, we haven't seen a Saiyan with as much raw potential as him (like it's already there, and he doesn't need to work to bring it out) since....well, probably Vegeta.

Again, he's as powerful as he is as just a Super Saiyan. No SSJ 2. No SSJ 3. No fusion, no God Kid, no Super Saiyan on top of God Ki, or any other bullshit. What will he be capable of once he does start achieving those forms?

I think the idea was to set a kind of ground rule for how the Saiyans are going to be depicted in terms of power going forward, after the end of Super Hero already showed that Goku and Vegeta are basically equal going forward.

These last two chapters read, at least to me, as very quick establishment for what each Saiyan's "thing" is going to be.

• Goten and Trunks will always fight in tandem, and are surprisingly effective that way, though their flash and lack of training make them lag behind the others.
• Gohan has the most raw power (*, see blow), and can dip into depths of sheer strength the others can't.
• Goku: the technique, speed and agility of Mastered Ultra Instinct counter Gohan's power, but the focus is on agility rather than raw power.
• Vegeta: We don't see it this time, but the earlier arcs have already established that Vegeta's whole thing now is soaking and redistributing his enemy's strength while empowering himself.
  • Essentially in a first for the series (or at least, first in a long while), they're basically branching the characters in different paths while not having one path be explicitly better than the other. Gohan has the power, Goku has the agility and senses, and Vegeta is the tank with manipulative powers. It's almost a Fighter, Mage, Thief thing.
• (*) Broly basically is Gohan on steroids, hence them making a hint that they might have Gohan train Broly to have better control. I'm guessing he's basically going to be their Godzilla going forward.

It's interesting, and I wonder if they'll also continue to do what they've said regarding the films and keep doing stories that focus on the other characters, such that we might see more things like Orange Piccolo.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 22nd 2024 at 12:07:35 PM

I wonder how much of this was Toriyama's ideas and how much of it was others?

Guess we'll never know. Though it is good to see the branching out.

....hmm, if we're seeing more stuff from other characters, maybe the rest of the cast will finally learn Kaioken. Sure, it's outclassed compared to other abilities, but it's better than nothing, and maybe they can figure out a way to mitigate the flaws.

Or not. We have absolutely no clue what the future has in-store. We also have little clue how much Toriyama planned ahead before all this happened.

We could have other characters achieving god ki as well.

Pretty much. If non-canon material has taught me anything, it's that anyone can achieve a god form, and anyone can achieve Beast. I wanna see how Toyble can confirm and elaborate on that, kinda put that old AF line of thinking back to work, ya know? But ya know, not as insane as AF was.

Edited by Rinsankajugin on Mar 22nd 2024 at 5:59:57 AM

Both Goten and Gohan can use the kinto'un, so they're also safe.

Wasn't Chi-chi also able to ride it as well?

And I'm sure Pan would be on that list.

Bra as well, more due to her youth than anything else, because the rest of her family is toast.

yeah but they weren't on Beerus' planet :P

Good point.

Also, I'm gonna throw Marron on that list of Nimbus Riders as well, at least right now.

Ohhhhhhh Devilman, Baba's sidekick. I thought you meant Go Nagai's Devilman for a sec and this was one of those "most powerful being in all of anime" conversations.

I did too actually.

Completely forgot about Dragonball Devil-man.

It's pretty funny just how broken he is. The only issue is how slow the Devilmite Beam is, and that he himself is a massive Glass Cannon compared to everyone who shows up later. If not for that, he'd be pretty damned terrifying to the vast majority of characters in the series.

I may have asked this before. I wonder if Tien could ride the Flying Nimbus now? Certainly he has a checkered past, but I'd say he's more then atoned for it by this point.

Also, I wonder how the Devilmite Beam would effect Launch? Being good enough to ride the Nimbus... When until she sneezes.

Edited by diddyknux on Mar 22nd 2024 at 6:24:47 AM

I assume that the beam would have zero effect no Good Launch.

The Nimbus didn't reject her as the good one, so that means her evil deeds in that form don't register. I figure the Devilmite Beam is the same.

As for Tien, I think that, barring Super Saiyan, once you aren't pure of heart anymore, you just stay that way, so I don't think he'd be able to ride it now.

Then again, we never see him try, and have never seen anyone who wasn't pure become pure again.

The closest we got was the inverse with Roshi. He was Pure of Heart once, but isn't by the time he give it to Goku.

In the games Zamasu is actually immune to the Devilmite Beam because his head is just that deep in his own ass

For real?

You sure it's not because he's immortal and his heart exploding would only be a minor inconvenience?

If it were like that he'd just explode and regenerate after. He is flat-out immune the same way Goku is

Same thing would happen with Cell unless the Beam obliterated his core for sure but that's no guarantee.

I don't think it would happen with Cell. Cell KNOWS he's evil and doesn't care. He relishes in causing terror in people.

And indeed, I don't think it should matter if Zamasu believes in his shit or not. The Devilmite Beam works by taking the evil in your heart and making it explode. Not thinking you're evil doesn't feel like it should be a workaround.

Edit: I realize now I misunderstood what you were saying... Oh well, I'm leaving it.

Edited by diddyknux on Mar 22nd 2024 at 12:04:46 PM

I love Gohan's character so much, but I wish the show was more realistic when it came to his development.

I feel like if Gohan was more realistic, he would have suffered from a mental health disorder (preferably Borderline Personality Disorder because most people who dealt with lots of trauma and parental neglect suffer from this). I’m saying this because he's gone through many traumatic things before he even turned 20 (being kidnapped by his own uncle, being forced to grow up too fast by being put in dangerous situations when he wasn’t even 10 yet, being neglected by his father for years, etc).

Gohan showing signs of being traumatized after his whole trip on Namek was realistic. Gohan having No Social Skills as a high schooler was realistic (since he barely hung out with kids his own age growing up). However, Gohan not needing any type of therapy after these experiences wasn’t realistic at all. I know that if I went through even a quarter of what Gohan went through, I would be in therapy for the rest of my life.

It might have something to do with how the Dragon Balls are able to, among other things, bring people back from the dead, a mitigating factor that Real Life does not, in fact, take into account. It probably helped Gohan to internalize that, "Okay, so… death isn't exactly the worst thing in the world, people are able to shrug that off, and get back in reasonable time before long."

…Man, saying this hits differently in light of Toriyama himself passing.

Apparently the Daima versions of characters are being referred to as "(Mini)". I would've expected them to be just "Character Name (Daima)", but I guess that'd be on the nose.