That's nowhere near the same thing. For starters, Piccolo being as powerful as a Super Saiyan is an assumption, while he certainly became drastically more powerful he isn't included in that category when the characters talk about Super Saiyan-tier powers. He beat up Gero, but the Androids were quite weak, and Gero didn't even get the same energy absorption that 19 did before he got his ass kicked by Vegeta. There's plenty of dialogue that treats the Super Saiyans as being a different class - Vegeta, Goku and Trunks are constantly used as measuring sticks with Piccolo left out - and even one to suggest that Piccolo is still weaker than Freeza (the fact that Trunks defeated Freeza is still considered incredibly impressive as a point of comparison to Piccolo's strength).
Setting aside that, Piccolo being weak in the Boo arc cause any contradictions. At the Cell Games he was way weaker than Super Saiyan Goku, because mastering the form set an entirely new benchmark for what "Super Saiyan tier" is. Forward seven years, the Saiyans have either surpassed that level (Goku/Vegeta) or started out stronger (Gohan) and Piccolo has maintained his position as 'way weaker than their Super Saiyan forms'. Goku being weaker than Freeza in base isn't a problem when you remember that would be a 40x increase for him - there is plenty of room to fit in Freeza - Boo powerscaling without becoming 40x stronger in base.
Yeah, it means Piccolo grew less in seven years training alone then he did in three years training with Goku. That's not an inconsistency, and it absolutely isn't what Strong as They Need to Be is. Piccolo's strength didn't fluctuate, his improvement slowed down. That's an often discussed topic in-universe - for starters, training alone is less efficient than having partners, established multiple times - and you only go so far without improving your training methods, which Piccolo hadn't done.
Toriyama is by no means perfect, and he does have issues - mostly in the Freeza arc as things get really inflated and large jumps become necessary to fit - but that's a poor example. He doesn't fall victim to Strong as They Need to Be, because when he establishes a character's strength or improvement, he sticks to it. The methods behind the training gains or power-ups aren't consistent, but they're not made out to be either. Instead, general observations are made - training with partners is more efficient, you can only go so far with the same training, you'll slow down as you approach your limits/a "wall" unless you find a way to overcome it.
At his worst, Toriyama can come up with dramatic power-ups that are poorly justified, but he never zig-zagged with character strengths changing without reason. Even with the huge power-ups, they stopped happening as a result of 'just training' and started including new reasons why this power-up was so much more effective than the last. Piccolo's Android arc training was the last time such a thing happened, and that's not taking into consideration how vague his increase actually was. Outside of that moment, it had probably stopped with God's training, though that was treated as different from regular training due to God's involvement as well.
The manga's power-scaling doesn't take a scientific approach to understand at all, it's quite simple. It's vague where Toriyama doesn't go into detail, when that is less important to the plot.
That has nothing on characters' strengths fluctuating at random, multiple contradictions or confusing dialogue/events of which the significance/meaning is anyone's guess. Sure, it helps to just toss out whatever appears only in Toei's version but then you have basically nothing left to work with. When people are talking about Super's scaling being batshit, obviously they're talking about the full picture.
Super has bigger problems than powerscaling. Pacing is horrible. The Future trunks Saga lasted thirty episodes and ran for over 7 months. 6 episodes into the Tournament of Power, and not even 10 minutes have passed. Not much happened in episode 102. Most of the fighting was done by 17, who was holding back the whole time and could have ended it whenever he wanted to. The big anticipated fight of Vegeta and Ribrianne was little more than what was already shown in the intro, and when it finally looks like things are gonna get serious when Ribrianne prepares to fight 17, the episode ends. At this rate, the arc will stretch into October.
Yeah, didn't like the episode. The only thing that I found interesting was the fact that it gave us the Dragon Ball franchise's first lesbian characters (I'm not counting Kale, since that has not actually been confirmed, and for all we know, that could just be a misconception brought on by poor writing that just gives off that impression when she just sees Caulifla as a big sister figure) in Vikal and Kakunsa (seriously, they embrace and hug while saying each others names as a pink background with roses appears around them and Helles comments that they are the face o Universe 2: Cooperation through love. Also, when Kakunsa says that she will eliminate 17 to avenge Vikal, Ribrianne comments that Kakunsa has the power of love on her side). Other than that, the episode seemed pretty much like filler, minus the three eliminations.
What do you all think of the pacing in this arc? Do you think this arc will stretch into October? I hope it ends 10-15 episodes from now.
jjjVikal and Kakunsa aren't confirmed lesbians. While the scene is clearly a parody of shoujo romance, it's also... a parody. Parodying romantic scenes with non-romantic characters is stock standard, and there's nothing in it explicit enough to confirm it (as Pushover already pointed out).
Given that it fits into Universe 2's motif, I think people are reading into it. At least in the case of Kale, it was pretty hard to interpret her rage at Cabba any other way (she very clearly was angry at the idea of Caulifa having a romantic interest in Cabba).
Length has no correlation to quality. Something can be short and shit and it can be long and shit.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!
Well, if Vikal is an enemy of the Kamikaze Fireballs, that was a ton of Foe Yay she had with Kakunsa. If the SDB,s are used to restore the universes and correct the problems that Zeno had with them, I wouldn't be surprised if they started dating. Assuming they weren't already.
In all honesty though, I seriously doubt that they were ever enemies going by the way they acted. Helles and Ribrianne pretty much confirmed that the two of them were an item ("They are the face of Universe 2: Cooperation through love", "You have love on your side").
Anyway, I am hoping that this arc doesn't go past 40 episodes.Who wants to wait that long to see if the other 7 universes are going to be restored? We already know that Universe 7 will be fine because of the end of the Z series.
edited 8th Aug '17 5:01:11 PM by bobg
jjjI remember when the universes were first revealed, I labelled U2 as "Magical girls and their villains, also some random aliens".
I wonder if the best mortal fighters from Universes' 1, 5, 8, and 12 are going to have some sort of theme to them, like most of the other Universes do.
edited 8th Aug '17 6:28:08 PM by PushoverMediaCritic
The most powerful foe Piccolo faced on Namek.
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Remember this handy trick for dealing with power scaling in Super: If it isn't the same in the anime and the manga, then it wasn't in the original draft, and feel free to ignore that when trying to make sense out of it.
Toei sucks hard at power scaling.
Also, remember, Piccolo got into fucking super saiyan tier by training in the woods with Goku and Gohan for 3 years, and ended up as quite stronger than the androids yet weaker than Perfect Cell at the end of that saga, but, by the next one, lol irrelevant (despite training for 7 years, and Goku never surpassing Freeza in his base form).
Toriyama also sucks at power scaling. The strong characters are usually the ones in the spotlight, and they are as strong as they need to be.
Trying to make a scientifical approach to shonen is a lost cause.
edited 8th Aug '17 2:31:43 AM by Eriorguez