Mortal Levels are not Power Levels. U9 and U7 suck because they're terrible places to live that have been horribly mismanaged by their Hakaishin and Kaioshin. If the Tournament of Power had taken place even 30 years earlier, U7 would be screwed because the only person on their team remotely capable of hanging with anyone in this tournament would be Dabura. Freeza would be one-shot by literally anyone from any other universe, and he'd be their second strongest.
edited 10th Nov '17 8:15:48 PM by PushoverMediaCritic
Mortal Level may not have anything to do with the quality of the fighters.
Jiren might very well be able to JusticeLeague beat up real gods and make them cry (Which is perfect for a Superman expy...even if the line came from Martian Manhunter), but he's still on the chopping block with the other universes.
...
'ed
edited 10th Nov '17 8:13:37 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!I really don't get some people obsession with having humans "relevant". Is it some kind of childish human supremacy thing? Like, they can't even stand completely fictional aliens being better than hoomans? Because that's just retarded. Would they still care if Goku and Vegeta were humans who just happened to be light years ahead of everyone else and had special super human transformations? Or is it the "I like this side character so he should be the main focus instead" thing? Which is equally as stupid.
Seriously, this "humans should be as strong as the sayians" thing comes up again and again and I never seen any good reasoning behind it.
edited 11th Nov '17 3:30:46 AM by Shlugo_the_great
Ya know funny thing I'm actually pretty anti-human. My main in Xenoverse is a Frieza clansmen.
I don't care about humanity as whole, they can go fuck themselves but I do like the individual characters like Krillen, Yamcha & Tien.
edited 11th Nov '17 3:41:28 AM by slimcoder
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Guess I should have paid more attention when they were describing the other universes. I only remember them showing Sidra and his Supreme Kai trying to recruit outlaws, and Cabba trying to recruit Caulifa - in a show about where having higher numbers typically makes you better, I'd assumed "mortal level" was some kind of average for how strong everyone in that universe was.
It's not complicated. Probably 2/3 of the main cast were human characters once upon a time, given just enough depth or cool techniques that a good amount of the audience becomes attached to them in some way. It's understandable that if a character who is still a capable fighter isn't relevant in a show where fighting is the primary feature, you'd want them to be relevant again and see them fight more often. For a long time, the escalation of threats in Dragonball has rendered these characters insignificant, when they used to be major antagonists/allies.
These aren't characters who were in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw and only appeared in the background for a bit note , these were supporting cast members who played a big part in Goku's character development back when the series first started, or rather, they were the ones developing while Goku mostly stuck to his guns and wanted to train or to eat. It would be a great disservice to say they were never really important to begin with or that they weren't memorable - fans got attached to them. It's hard not to get attached to them given how static Goku is as a character. I'd argue the only way to not get attached to them is to simply not watch or read Dragonball at its earliest stages.
There are fans whose favorite characters are Piccolo and Tien. So naturally, they're going to want to see them more. It's not like anyone here is bending over backwards going, "HUMANS SHOULD BE ABLE TO USE SUPER SAIYAN BECAUSE WHY NOT VEGETA CAN GO BLUE WITHOUT THE RITUAL." Yeah, that's kind of dumb.
edited 11th Nov '17 4:13:14 AM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!I jumped in at the beginning of Z, like many in the states, so as a kid most of my exposure to the show (the Saiyan/Freeza Saga) had me believing Dragon Ball was more or less the Gohan and Krillin show. Goku was obviously the heavy hitter, but he was never alive/not broken/around when stuff started.
Ah so it's the "Why aren't my favorite characters the most important ones!" thing. Noted.
Speak for yourself. I started with the original Dragonball and have n problem with the humans being phased out. It's just how the story developed.
Funny thing, because this arc brought those character back into a greater prominence than they had in a long time, but it sure doesn't seem like people are satisfied with that.
Yeah, this is funny because original Dragon Ball was much more of an one man show than Z.
edited 11th Nov '17 4:15:32 AM by Shlugo_the_great
I lucked out and got to watch Dragonball and Z back to back.
So from that
(2) perspective, I can understand not "getting" why people like Krillin, Tien, Yamcha, etc. Otherwise I'd have to assume someone just not liking all of the human characters and wanted them gone.
Case in point.
Then this sounds more like you just not liking those characters in the first place and refusing to sympathize with people who do, rather than said people having fanatical levels of devotion to those characters.
People aren't satisfied with a lot of things from Super. The only complaint I have about the humans here is that 17 and 18 aren't more active in this tournament. Everything else has been fine. Tien even got to make a badass exit by falling with style.
edited 11th Nov '17 4:45:20 AM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!Y'know, there's quite a bit of difference between "the most important ones" and "bearing any level of importance whatsoever". In Z, unless you were a direct descendant of either Bardock or King Vegeta, you were pretty much doomed to become worthless in combat situations, and that kind of sucked for some people.
Why are you constantly belittling people for liking characters who aren't Goku or Vegeta? Am I that pathetic because Krillin's my fave?
edited 11th Nov '17 4:35:30 AM by TyeDyeWildebeest
No beer?! But if there's no beer, then there's no beef or beans!Ah yes, it's because I'm a hater. That's truly the only reason why anyone would not buy into the constant complaining about humans not keeping up with the sayians possible. Well, you learn new things every day.
Yes yes, everyone who disagrees with you is a hater. Clearly.
But it's clearly not enough for some people, otherwise we wouldn't come back to the same topic roughly twice a week, every week.
Oh look, another new thing I learned about myself. I had no idea I was "constantly belittling people". This day proves to be the most enlightening.
Also, you know you can like a character even if he isn't the strongest or in the center of attention, right?
I mean, you're the one who went, "why do people like these characters? People who can't accept that they aren't as important anymore are just whining."
We come back to the same topics here a lot. Was Super Saiyan 2 Gohan stronger than Perfect Cell? What power level was so and so on Namek? What are the greater existential implications behind potara fusion? Is Goku a bad father? GT is the worst thing that ever happened, ever! Akira Toriyama doesn't remember anything, he said this, he said that! Which is better, Super the Manga, or Super the Anime?
Bringing up the relevance of the human characters is just another facet of discussing Dragon Ball with any large enough group of people. And it's perfectly relevant because of what's going on in Super at the moment.
edited 11th Nov '17 4:54:30 AM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!I mean, you did say this:
That sounds pretty belittling to me. Also, please don't use the R word.
@Verymelon: Okay, granted. Sorry if I came off as defensive.
No beer?! But if there's no beer, then there's no beef or beans!I just dislike the idea that relevancy must always come from being strong. Bulma is more relevant than Gohan, Goten, and Trunks I'd say and she doesn't fight at all.
This song needs more love.You said
I said
So no, that isn't exactly what you said, but that's the connotation it gave off.
I think that's just part and parcel with this genre.
Bulma is relevant yes, but she has a different role to play and not that of a combatant - she's a smart cookie and that's never called into question, or downplayed by the story, because even now Bulma's smarts/wealth are contributing.
Tien and Krillin don't really have that luxury because they were always fighters, which is severely downplayed because they simply Can't Catch Up to Goku and Vegeta.
The only ways they could be relevant without nerfing Goku and Vegeta, is if one of them formed some kind of bond with a new character/antagonist, or if they used Fusion, or if one of them had an ability that specifically gave them an advantage that Goku and Vegeta lacked, or if Super told a story without Goku and Vegeta at the center of it.
But we've seen what that leads to.
edited 11th Nov '17 8:06:26 AM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!I like Goku, and I like Vegeta, but I still like the humans, and it always seemed like Toriyama never had any use for them outside of being measuring sticks for Goku.
If that was the case, it's kinda frustrating, but that's how it goes, but then he insists on sending them into battles with the intention of having them be unable to do anything in order to once again drive home that only Goku is any good.
All other fights are mostly just warm ups to when Goku shows up to save the day. He comes up with a lot of cool techniques or powers for them, but they are set up purely to fail from the get go, and the scale grew so large that all their cool powers were only relevant when Goku stole them.
I just kinda wish Toriyama would retire them instead of keeping them around as punching bags.
As for Bulma, she does get to do more, but even her technology has it's limits (look at her role on Namek: once she got them there, the ship was immediately destroyed, and she was regulated to the background for the rest of the arc). If she can't use her money or be a techno-wiz, she can't do much either.
One Strip! One Strip!

See, if they are gonna have them jump, I want it to be with plausible shit.
Not just something like fighting Poachers. That's bullshit.
There were plenty of in-universe ways for 17 to reach that level, but they couldn't even bother with that.
One Strip! One Strip!