Ass Pull / Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball is a well-known series written by Akira Toriyama, a man who improvises as he goes along, meaning that sometimes plot twists can be well-executed and make sense... or we have an ass pull, a twist or power that has little to no build-up and will make the audience scratch their heads at what happened.

This is a compilation of all the seemingly contrived power-ups and plot twists in the franchise.

Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z

• Possibly the starkest example is when King Piccolo hits Goku so hard his heart stops, only for it to restart within the same chapter with no given reason so the story could continue.
• The existence of the Ultra Divine Water straight up comes out of nowhere, and retcons Korin's teachings. Originally, the Sacred Water was part of a myth created that hid the real method of getting stronger; trying to catch Korin. When Goku lost to Demon King Piccolo and needed something to make him strong quicker, Korin is suddenly revealed to have had something that matches the Sacred Water's story but refused to give it to Goku because it would potentially kill him at the time. It's clear that Toriyama needed a way for Goku to get stronger, but because of how the pace of the arc was going couldn't find another way for Goku to defeat Piccolo (other than months of training, which wouldn't have fit in the arc), and so invented the Ultra Divine Water to fix that. It's especially jarring since this was the first time, and one of the few times in the series, where Goku was handed a power-up instead of training or earning his power without any discussion of that fact, which feels disconnected from the themes of the story (being an outright contradiction of the original message of Korin's first appearance).
• Piccolo fusing with Nail came off as this since up until that moment, it was never hinted that Namekians could fuse if they were the same type.^note Warrior types could only merge with other Warrior types. We only knew that Piccolo could reunite with Kami since they were once the same person. For that matter, the rule is inconsistently applied, as Piccolo is apparently considered a Warrior Namekian rather than a Dragon Namekian, despite being the same person as the original Nameless Namekian, who was a Dragon Namekian—oh, and earlier in the arc, Dende was utterly baffled at the suggestion of there being multiple types of Namekian.
• Vegeta learning how to sense life-energy all by himself during the Namek saga with no proper training just because he saw Goku doing it during their fight in the Saiyan Saga. The Japanese version flat out states that Vegeta learned this technique because it was a Saiyan ability, and if Goku could do it, so could he. There are quite a number of problems with this statement: The ability is not Saiyan-exclusive. In order to attain it, Goku had to train his mind with Mr. Popo in God's Temple for about 3 years, and even though he saw Mr. Popo using the ability, he did not learn how to use it just by watching Mr. Popo do it either. Goku also never used the life-sensing ability in any meaningful way during his fight with Vegeta during the Saiyan Saga, making Vegeta's explanation for how he "learned" the ability - much like the Zenkai Boost - feel like another contrived power-up he gains during the Namek Saga for no other reason than because he's a Saiyan.
• The Zenkai Boost^note The closest to an official name is "Saiyan Power", as it was called in the Battle of Z video game. This refers to the Saiyans' ability to get stronger after recovering from near-death injuries. seemed to only exist to allow the Saiyan characters to catch up during the Namek/Frieza Saga, most notably for Vegeta. This ranges from incremental boosts (like the fights with Zarbon) to suddenly leaping up to the main villain's power (the fight with Frieza's first form). It doesn't help that it went from being near-death to simply getting injured, as Zarbon's fight gave Vegeta a minor boost after requiring life support to live, yet Recoome's fight left Vegeta fully conscious and standing yet multiplied his power from being weaker than Recoome to being on par with Frieza in his first form. This later reoccurred in the same arc when Goku, who was merely somewhat stronger than Ginyu, got badly hurt, healed during everyone else's entire battle with Frieza, yet winds up being stronger than Freeza's first three forms and, with Kaio-Ken x20 (also never hinted at prior to this fight), able to match his final form at 50% output (keep in mind, Frieza's second form outmatched Piccolo, who was ten times stronger than Ginyu). Later on, the whole idea almost entirely vanishes. Vegeta gets his arm broken and is beaten unconscious by Android 18, yet he doesn't even try fighting her again after eating a Senzu bean. We say "almost entirely" because it was resurrected for Cell to get a massive boost after blowing himself up — see below.
• The whole "Namek blows up in five minutes" thing was later revealed in other material to be one on Frieza's part. His attack was meant to be an out-and-out Planet Killer but panicked as he feared that the explosion would be too much for him to survive and held back.^note The only other time he's shown to use the attack in question was to destroy the planet Vegeta in flashback, which it did instantly. In that case, he was in orbit, rather than being inside the blast radius of his own attack. Caught with egg on his face, Frieza threw out the five minutes number to save face.
• The non-canon Garlic Jr. arc features two cases of these to resolve the finale. First, Piccolo, after being put under the mind control of the Black Water Mist, abruptly reveals that he was faking it. Why Piccolo is immune to the Black Water Mist is never explained, other than him declaring that it'd be beneath him—and no, it's not because he's a former demon or Namekian, it's simply not explained in the original scene. It's also not explained why he and Krillin (who he pretended to infect) had evil-looking Battle Auras and Mind-Control Eyes. It's revealed that the cure for the Black Water Mist is the Ultra Divine Water (or at least, it shares the same Japanese name)... never mind that the Ultra Divine Water is supposed to be poisonous.
• The Hyperbolic Time Chamber. It has been at Kami's Lookout for the whole series, and Goku even trained in it as a child. This not only opened a Plot Hole asking how Goku as a child survived a month with ten times gravity, but couldn't move on King Kai's planet as an adult. It also raises the question of why no one used it sooner. No one was strong enough to survive an entire day before the Android/Cell Saga, but if kid Goku could survive a month, the humans could have lasted just as long during the Saiyan Saga. Yet, neither Kami nor Popo even mentioned it. It also raises a ton of questions about why the human characters didn't use it during the training to fight the Saiyans in the Saiyan Saga, especially since all of them at that point in the story were stronger than Goku was going in originally. Even a month training in 10 Gs of gravity would have made a substantial difference.
• Cell's ability to create Cell Juniors definitely reads as this. Cell is supposed to have the combined skills of all his genetic donors, but the Juniors don't seem to come from anywhere—at a stretch, you could say they vaguely resemble what King Piccolo could do, but even then, there are so many differences that it comes off as coincidental at best. Additionally, the Juniors don't appear to drain Cell at all to create, despite them being strong enough to take on a fatigued Goku, and a full-power Trunks and Vegeta.
• Cell's return after blowing himself up has several of these back to back:
  • Cell's ability to regenerate after self-destructing. Prior to that point, Cell's regeneration (and Namekian regeneration in general) seemed to require him to expend energy, and it was shown that he has a finite level of power and can get tired. Yet Cell is suddenly able to go from near-total annihilation to hale and healthy, and is at the peak of his power in terms of ki, despite having created the Cell Juniors, been on the right and wrong sides of two grueling beatdowns, and channeled a lot of ki into the aforementioned self-destruction all in the last few minutes. His prior battle with Goku was nowhere near as energy-intensive, and yet he was clearly drained by the end of it. Worse, the justification that Cell can always survive as long as a nucleus located in his head does directly contradicts his fight with Goku, where Goku disintegrated his head (and his torso) with a point-blank Kamehameha, and Cell regenerated from what was left like it was nothing.
  • Taken to immense extremes when, after regenerating from his self-destruct as Semi-Perfect, Cell regains his Perfect form despite regurgitating #18, who was needed to achieve the form in the first place (there's some babble about his cells retaining the "memory" of that form, but then why did he lose it at all?). There was also him getting a boost from near-death like a Saiyan. Cell up to that point has been beaten up several times and never once got a boost from it. Yet, being reduced to his nucleus somehow did it.
  • And to top it all off, he returned to Earth because he somehow learned Goku's Instant Transmission technique. Sure, Goku used it right before this happened, and there have been instances of characters learning a technique just by watching it, but Cell has seen Goku use Instant Transmission multiple times without learning the technique, and none of the other characters ever picked it up despite having many more opportunities; the only noteworthy difference is that Cell was taken along for the ride that time. It's pretty obvious that the only reason this happened was because otherwise, Cell would be stuck in Otherworld and wouldn't be able to return to the battlefield for some time.
• Goten and Trunks having already achieved Super Saiyan before the beginning of the Buu Saga and no one knowing about it except Chi-Chi in regards to Goten. Up until this point, Super Saiyan was a hard form to achieve even for the halflings. However, both Goten and Trunks were able to achieve Super Saiyan and control it better than the adults without trying. This is lampshaded by Gohan and especially Vegeta, with the latter calling it "a Super Saiyan bargain sale". This was later explained by Toriyama many years later as them accumulating large amounts of "S-Cells" which... has its own confusions and controversy as a concept.^note Though given Vegeta's reaction and the Buu arc's nature of returning to the more humorous style of early Dragon Ball, it's plausible that this was simply conceived as a gag and Toriyama felt obligated to provide an in-universe explanation after the fact. It should be noted that this only really applies to the anime, the manga has Vegeta, Gohan, and Future Trunks all earn the transformation off screen, with no explanation beyond training to attain the form, making it a bit easier to swallow when Goten and Trunks transform, compared to the anime, where the extensive focus on the struggle to reach the form makes it extremely strange that Goten and Present Trunks have a distinct lack of it.
• After Piccolo gets petrified by Dabura and accidentally shattered, the petrification is undone, leaving Piccolo as just a head. It's in this scene that we learn that Piccolo can regenerate from any wound as long as his head is remaining. This is a level of regeneration we've seen in the series before... from Cell, whereas Piccolo has repeatedly taken mortal injuries to the chest and organs with no implication that he could just casually regrow from them.
• Super Saiyan 3. When Goku is asked to kill Buu, he says point-blank that he is only equal to Vegeta and that there is no way he can beat Buu. Then, when he fights Buu to buy time for Trunks to get the Dragon Radar, he reveals without warning that he had achieved Super Saiyan 3. It's never explained how Goku got this form, how it was ever achieved, and there was no foreshadowing for it, unlike the other Super Saiyan forms. It's so out there that even the other characters think he is bluffing. Worse, Gotenks manages to achieve Super Saiyan 3 without even knowing about it. The anime makes that last one a little better by having Goku personally show Goten and Trunks Super Saiyan 3 before his time is up.
• After Piccolo destroys the entrance to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber to trap Super Buu there along with himself and Gotenks, it turns out that the key to making your own portal back to Earth is...screaming in frustration, if you're powerful enough. Which Super Buu does a couple minutes later. Terribly convenient for him.
• Vegito defusing in Super Buu. Old Kai states that the Potara Fusion is permanent, unlike the Fusion Dance which only lasts for thirty minutes. However, the moment Vegito drops his barrier when Buu absorbs him, he defuses. There's no explanation other than Goku's guess of "bad air" or some weird magic within Buu. This raises the question of why Gotenks didn't defuse when he was absorbed. Dragon Ball Super revises this. Vegito defuses because the Potara Fusion is only permanent when a Supreme Kai is involved in the fusion. For mortals, the fusion lasts only an hour.

Dragon Ball GT

• The Black Star Dragon Balls have absolutely no foreshadowing in either the original Dragon Ball or Z, make barely any sense as to how they still exist and their planet-destroying capacities are also completely out of the blue for any previous Dragon Ball set's power. That Pilaf also somehow learned of the Nameless Namek and his creations, when the Nameless Namek arrived and split himself on Earth long before any humans met him or even got around to writing even the vaguest records of his existence is just as illogical and given that Pilaf is irrelevant to the series beyond the first episode his whole storyline and random new knowledge comes across as a forced narrative device.
• Dr. Myuu turning out to be Baby's creation and not the other way around, Baby was only shown as a non-active embryo and only really activated AFTER Myuu absorbed enough energy; that the show never bothers to explain how a non-complete Baby even made Myuu unlike how Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans depicted Hatchiyack and Dr. Lychee makes the reveal all the more headaching.
• General Rilldo's death. After being established as being stronger than Goku as a Super Saiyan, even winning their fight, Rilldo is killed in one hit by Goku, Pan, and Trunks launching a joint beam attack at him, despite being far stronger than them at the time and being borderline unkillable. To top it off, he was somehow possessed by Baby when this happened, meaning not only was his death an Ass Pull, him being possessed is one too, given it isn't shown until after Rilldo is killed.
• Goku's usage of the 10x Kamehameha against Golden Oozaru Baby. At first, the technique is practically shrugged off by Baby Vegeta, but next episode it's revealed to have a delayed paralyzing effect that manages to wear down Baby Vegeta enough to be on equal conditions with a tired and beaten Goku... just for Baby Vegeta to get revitalized by the Blutz Waves generator and go back to full power while Goku remains weakened, making the technique's side-effect meaningless for the rest of the battle. This delayed paralysis effect is never mentioned or acknowledged later, with both the anime and the videogames making it a souped-up, but otherwise indistinguishable from, Super-Kamehameha.
• Hell Fighter 17's entire existence, as Doctors Myuu and Gero somehow got away with building a new Android 17 that was stronger than the original while in Hell with not a single ogre guard or King Enma noticing even once, plus the impossibility of building anything in a landscape like Hell where there is no visible technology to even canibalize at least.
• The power of the Shadow Dragons, considering how the Dragon Balls' dragon can't be stronger than its creator and both Kami and Dende were/are nowhere near the level of even the Ginyu Force, the fact that the Shadow Dragons are of comparable or superior powers to foes like Cell or Majin Buu can be utterly egregious as there's not even an attempt to explain or show that Shenron got stronger in the years between Z and GT given the Dragon Balls were not used in the 15 years between Buu's defeat and GT. Additionally the time gap between their usage also makes the argument of their "overuse" all the more illogical. And these are two different sets of Dragon Balls and any negative energy built up in Kami's dragon balls should've been extinguished upon Kami's fusing with Piccolo and Dende's Shenron had barely granted any wishes at that point.
• Goku's defeat of Omega Shenron, which suddenly makes Goku unable to be harmed in the slightest against a foe that had thoroughly thrashed everyone who wasn't at the level of Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta, just happens with no explanation and is generally seen as a way to wrap up the conflict quickly after all other options were exhausted and rush to the finale of the series an episode later.

Dragon Ball Z movies

• The Non Serial Movies loved to give Goku new techniques or powers without explanation, likely because giving Goku a canonical powerup might make them fit in even less. Particularly obvious ones include:
  • In Lord Slug, Goku suddenly gains a new transformation with a Battle Aura and Mind-Control Eyes. It's never explained what this is, other than King Kai suggesting it might be Super Saiyan (which is never mentioned before in the film), despite the fact that it only vaguely resembles that form and looks more like a yellow Kaioken. Out-of-universe, it was Toei attempting to jump on the hype bandwagon before Toriyama knew what Super Saiyan would look like; the film came out a week before it debuted in the manga. Guidebooks have struggled to explain what, exactly, this form is, with most terming it some variant of "False Super Saiyan."
  • In Return of Cooler, Goku and Vegeta defeat Cooler when he attempts to drain their power and they channel their strength into him, causing a Phlebotinum Overload that destroys the Big Gete Star. However, a few minutes prior, the Big Gete Star was able to create Meta-Coolers that were individually strong enough to match Goku and Vegeta together—and showed no difficulty with churning out a small army of the things. How an exhausted and wounded Goku and Vegeta can now overload the machine isn't really explained, even though they should rightly be a drop in the bucket to it.
  • In Super Android 13!, Goku demonstrates the ability to become a Super Saiyan while carrying a Spirit Bomb, and then absorb it into his body, which vastly increases his strength to the point that he completely crushes the titular Android. At no point prior to this has he ever demonstrated such an ability, and some prior material even suggests that controlling the Spirit Bomb as a Super Saiyan is impossible. The film implies that this is only for carrying and throwing it, but how directly absorbing the attack's energy into his body is less harmful and easier to control than just throwing the thing is hard to justify. This did end up becoming Hilarious in Hindsight when a similar technique reappeared in Dragon Ball Super.
  • In Wrath of the Dragon, Goku develops a new move, the Super Dragon Fist, which creates a giant ki version of Shenron that pierces right through the opponent. The move is never explained, foreshadowed, or mentioned before that point (though it does reappear a few times in Dragon Ball GT), and it allows Goku to defeat an opponent who appeared to be far more powerful than him.

Dragon Ball Super

Anime

• Goku Black's extreme Zenkai Boost despite being nowhere near death. Yet, he gets absurd power boosts just from having someone stronger than him breathe on him, apparently. While the heroes don't get anywhere near his power despite being constantly destroyed by him and Zamasu.
• The enhanced Super Saiyan form that Future Trunks receives, later named Super Saiyan Rage/Anger. There was little explanation behind how it was unlocked when, comparatively, other Saiyans have displayed more vitriolic anger without gaining any such transformation. There are no concrete In-Universe explanations as to what it even is. Most other transformations could at least be speculated from past elements, (i.e Super Saiyan Rosé being the godly equivalent of Super Saiyan Blue), but this one left people scratching their heads.
  • It has since been stated elsewhere that it is a unique variation of the rage boost SSJ2 Vegeta used against Beerus, as exemplified by them having similar instances of the users' eyes temporarily whiting out before going back to normal, followed by intense abnormal power. However, this doesn't explain the distinctly Super Saiyan Blue-like aura surrounding Trunks, nor his newfound ability to sense godly ki (although, the series had already been steadily ignoring the trope of mortals being unable to sense gods).
• Goku Black's Sinister Scythe rips a hole into space-time. This isn't unprecedented, as Super Buu and SSJ3 Gotenks have performed similar feats, but creating clones of himself via the wormhole was rather random, since it wasn't an explicit ability of his own. The only real explanation offered is that these abilities are a result of his intense anger at mortals. This was even acknowledged In-Universe as even Goku Black admits he doesn't know what he did or how it happened.
• The Spirit Bomb Future Trunks unconsciously creates to defeat Fused Zamasu's physical body. Although it's symbolically appropriate, it's never explained how it happened. Up until that point, no one had been able to create a Spirit Bomb except Goku and he has to consciously ask for the energy. ^note Unless you count Cell's boast that he could've used the Spirit Bomb if he wanted - a technique that, like others, he knows simply because he has the others' cells, though supposedly only the pure of heart can use it. Interestingly, most fans don't mind this since they feel it fits the theme of mortals saving themselves and it's an awesome finish... even if ultimately futile. In addition, many who hated the Spirit Bomb backed down after the more controversial events of Episode 67.
• Zamasu's spirit merging with the multiverse. It comes at the last moment with seemingly zero foreshadowing and appears to exist solely to create a (near) Downer Ending. With previously mentioned Ass Pulls, fans could at least devise a fairly simple explanation. In this case, every explanation seems to raise more questions, especially since the series never had an immortal before except Garlic Jr.
• Buu suddenly having to take a nap right before the Tournament of Power. It came right out of nowhere and reeks of desperate Deus Exit Machina. Especially after all the time they spent hyping him up to the audience and showing off his new form.
• Frost somehow learning the Counter-Mafuba/Anti-Evil Containment Wave out of nowhere to redirect Master Roshi’s wave right at Vegeta. Frost isn’t even from Earth, never mind Universe 7, he had never seen the Mafuba/Evil Containment Wave before, and he wouldn’t even know about the existence of a technique to counter it either. And it’s not like there’s anybody who could’ve taught him how to counter it either, so how could he have learned how to counter it after seeing it just once? And unlike when Piccolo did the same thing back in the original series, Piccolo has seen the technique used, so him countering makes sense, whereas Frost was just hit by it and had only a few seconds to really process it.

Manga

• Goku Black receives a second Zenkai Boost after Future Zamasu healed him of some bruises, allowing him to reach Super Saiyan Rosé. However, the Zenkai Boost only happens when the Saiyans are revived from the brink of death, which is what happened with his first one.
• Future Zamasu paralysing Goku may come off as this, mostly due to some uneven panelling from Toyotaro. Despite clear indication that mental techniques like paralysis and telekinesis have little to no effect against a significantly stronger opponent, Zamasu still manages to restrain Goku, but only because Goku for some reason powers down to regular Super Saiyan offscreen. When we cut back to Goku, he already looks severely beaten-up, which is quite hard to take seriously when earlier it was shown Future Zamasu that he was by far the weakest of the Project Zero Mortals duo and could barely scratch Goku at all.^note Whereas his anime self seemed to be roughly as powerful as Goku Black, Future Zamasu in the manga still seems to be around Cell or Buu arc level, which makes sense as he is still just a Kai and he only wished for immortality, not to increase his power
• The manga does not do Fused Zamasu's ultimate fate much better than the anime. Fused Zamasu's fusion time runs out, but he wills himself back from separating, and he takes on a half-Goku Black half-Future Zamasu state, a moment that is taken advantage of by Future Trunks to cut him in half. Goku Black and Future Zamasu seem to be defeated. However, as Future Trunks stabs Goku Black, the latter gets back up, and transforms himself into Fused Zamasu. Future Zamasu appears behind Goku and also transforms himself into Fused Zamasu. Vegeta blows them into bits, but each piece of the two Fused Zamasu's regrow into more Fused Zamasus.^However...Unlike the anime, it's actually possible to explain what caused Infinite Zamasu to happen in the manga: due to both components of the fusion being the same person from different timelines, Fused Zamasu achieved an effective cellular fusion, as explained by Gowasu. Trunks' attempt to force the separation of the Zamasus via splitting them in half caused their regeneration ability to go into overdrive, making each half regenerate into a full, fused Zamasu. When Vegeta blew these two up with the Gamma Burst Flash, the numerous bits left regenerated into more copies. Realizing that, Zamasu only needed to exploit this and let it snowball from there.
• Gowasu revealed that Fused Zamasu would only exist for an hour since he wasn't a Supreme Kai. Black and Future Zamasu usurped the position. This twist came out of left-field since up until that point Black and Future Zamasu were shown to be Supreme Kais since they could use the Time Rings, something only Supreme Kais could do. The only explanation is that you don't need to be a Supreme Kai to use the Time Rings, only the Potara Earrings, while the Potara Fusion worked under a different guide set, but this just brings more questions.
• In Chapter 25, Goku can do Beerus's Hakai technique. While it gave us an incredibly memorable scene, many view it negatively as it had no foreshadowing at all. Unlike in the anime, Goku never saw the technique onscreen in the manga, as Goku wasn't with Beerus when he killed Zamasu in this version. It raises the question of when Goku and Vegeta saw it since they clearly know about it. Much like Trunks' Spirit Bomb sword, fans don't necessarily mind this but feel that it deserved more build-up. It should be noted that Goku's knowledge of the technique was discussed in the 15th chapter of the manga, where Beerus discusses it with Goku, but due to the ambiguity of the conversation the discussion of the technique got translated into Beerus just telling Goku he should destroy planets, making the technique appear more out of left field.
• Another aspect not very well-explained in the manga is that Trunks develops healing powers. Apparently, he got them for being a disciple of Future Shin, however, he did not know of this fact until Shin and Gowasu revealed it to him. That raises many questions like why the hell Future Shin never told him this important fact.
• Moro eating Seven-Three and transforming into a more powerful version of himself. While Moro does get stronger from taking energy from people, this power-up has little foreshadowing and makes no sense with how all of Moro's previous displays of power worked. He just eats Seven-Three and gains a new form, with no explanation for what makes it possible.
• Moro after eating Seven-Three, unlike Seven-Three, has no time limit to the abilities the android stole from others, meaning he can use Piccolo, Gohan and Vegeta's abilities without a limit despite it being a power he took from Seven-Three. Not only does this not get explained, but the story acts like it isn't unusual despite it not making sense for Seven-Three's powers to just work differently. Even with the addition that the gems on his body act as a power source, the lack of a time limit still comes out of no where.
• Moro's third wish revealed to be of liberating the Galactic Prisoners has been called out to be a cop-out by readers. Quoting Totally Not Mark on Moro: The Trouble Chapters | The Anatomy Of Anime:

  This wasn't a surprise. There was no aha moment. At no point we are led to believe Moro valued anyone other than himself, and at no point we could have ever guessed it was going to be planned this way.

• Grand Supreme Kai coming back and effectively serving as Split Personality for Buu comes out of nowhere, contradicts what had previously been established about Buu's absorption technique, and creates a Voodoo Shark of its own.
• The Granolah arc has enough examples to fill an entire page. The story can be fairly described as an extended sequence of characters pulling new power-ups out of their rear ends to turn the tide of a fight, among many other Ass Pulls.
  • The Cerealian Dragon Balls lack most of the limitations that other Dragon Ball sets in the series have. For starters, Granolah only needs to collect two marble-sized balls to summon Toronbo. Every other set in the series has seven balls, including the Super Dragon Balls. Evidently, this was purely done to move the plot along and it is never explained why the Cerealian set is the only exception.
  • Granolah's wish to become the strongest warrior in the universe is a huge sticking point for many fans. Some criticise it as a thematic slap in the face to the rest of the series, where characters fight and train for self-improvement rather than simply wishing for more power, and many wonder why no other antagonist in the series made the same wish. Like with the "Ultra Instinct Roshi" example, there are some explanations (e.g. the heroes likely wouldn't have been able to make Granolah's wish as they either lack the potential or lifespan of a Cerealian; most previous villains did not believe they needed more power and used the Dragon Balls for other selfish purposes; there's no evidence that Shenron or Porunga can grant wishes beyond their power in the same way as Toronbo, etc.), but it still leaves a sour taste in the mouths of some readers. The wish also specifies that Granolah will still be below the gods of Universe 7, yet he is slightly stronger than Goku and Vegeta, both of whom are stronger than most gods. Even worse is that the wish will make Granolah more powerful than Broly, who overpowered both Vegeta and Goku to the point to force them to fuse into Gogeta, yet, Granolah never managed to do anything that forced them to do the same.
  • Granolah demonstrates a number of strange, ill-explained abilities shortly after his wish is granted. Right off the bat, he creates a half-powered clone to attack Goku and Vegeta when they first arrive on Cereal. Throughout the fight, he also mimics famous techniques from other fighters that he can't possibly know about. This is mostly harmless fun, but the unexplained technique mimicry becomes a critical plot point later in the story.
  • After being wished to become the new strongest in the universe, Gas basically becomes a walking Ass Pull. His natural ability to generate intricate ki weapons is fairly random but it at least looks cool and lends a unique dimension to his fight scenes. However, that ability turns out to be inconsequential, since Gas was holding back the full power he gained from the wish in order to fight Granolah "his way". Then, it turns out that he and the other Heeters have a hidden transformation ability and from there, things really spiral out of control. After losing his Power Limiter and hulking out into a musclebound form not unlike Broly, Gas quickly regains self-control and reaches a higher level. And just when his power seems to finally run out as he rapidly ages into an old man, Gas reveals that this decrepit state somehow makes him even more powerful than before. Of course, this whole time he also uses every stolen ability from Granolah, Goku and the others. In general, whenever the heroes make any slim progress against Gas, he reveals he has been holding back some new trump card that prolongs the fight for a few more chapters. This is far from a new trope for the series, but it is quite egregiously overused in this arc.
  • Vegeta using destruction powers to close the gap between him and Goku caused by Ultra Instinct. Everything before Beerus mentioned the idea indicated that the technique of the Angels far surpasses that of the Gods of Destruction's, with Beerus himself training to use Ultra Instinct.
  • The exact mechanics of the various "strongest in the universe" wishes made throughout the arc are not explained very well. Sacrificing years of the user's lifespan for a huge power-up is one thing, but it's never adequately explained how Granolah and Gas are able to mimic advanced ki techniques (such as Beerus's Hakai, Moro's magma blast and Goku's Instant Transmission) that they've never seen before. The fact that Gas has several further trump cards, including a sophisticated weapon-spawning ability and the power to unleash his full potential even further by removing his Power Limiter necklace, is also contrived to extend the fights even more.
  • Monaito knowing hypnosis can be considered completely out of left field, as it is never even hinted Monaito has any fighting abilities, let alone something as powerful as putting enemies to sleep. The fact that it brings up Forgot About His Powers for how it could have potentially been used much earlier on the likes of Elec means that it seems like an excuse to stop Oil and Macki for interrupting Granolah.
  • The story ends with Frieza showing up, outright killing both Gas and Elec, showing off his brand new "Black Frieza" form to one-shot both UE Vegeta and UI Goku before leaving is easily this. The circumstances of how he got so powerful is hardly any better. Somehow he managed to conquer a planet that leads him to a dimension like the Room of Spirit and Time which enabled him to become much more powerful in a short amount of time.