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Saiga Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
#8126: Sep 3rd 2014 at 1:22:25 AM

The reason the scouters don't explode from Zarbon and Dodoria hanging around is because they can be set to specific people. When Zarbon's exploded, it was specifically tracking Vegeta.

Cruherrx I say things. from my own little world Since: Apr, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
I say things.
#8127: Sep 3rd 2014 at 7:13:40 PM

You'd think someone would've gone blind by now.

"If you weren't so crazy I'd think you were insane."
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#8128: Sep 3rd 2014 at 7:24:10 PM

Their power levels are too high to be hurt by glass exploding in their eyeball. It's probably just a bit surprising.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
theweirdKiddokun What a Wonderful World! from Last Place in the Race Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
What a Wonderful World!
#8129: Sep 3rd 2014 at 7:31:01 PM

I think we are to focus on the explosion on the eyes. What about the ear? Wouldn't they be off balance from a destroyed eardrum?

edited 3rd Sep '14 7:31:35 PM by theweirdKiddokun

The Reaper Games starts anew.
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#8130: Sep 3rd 2014 at 7:33:47 PM

Eardrum is probably invincible too.

...No wonder Zarbon's hair is so long and the Saiyans' so messy. Scissors probably just shatter against their hair.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#8131: Sep 3rd 2014 at 7:49:42 PM

If their eardrums are strong enough to weather the sounds of earth-shattering explosions happening all around them, as well as the deafening screaming sounds that emit from their own mouths as they power up, they can handle a Scouter exploding.

Lower level grunts are probably fucked, though.

  • VEGETA: *powers up*
  • GRUNT: Aaaaagh! *Wilhelm scream as the Scouter explodes, sending shrapnel through his face*
  • VEGETA: Hah! See what I just did there? I literally killed one of your men by flexing too hard.
  • FRIEZA: Joke's on you, that wasn't even a real soldier, it was my wine-taster.
  • VEGETA: ...
  • FRIEZA: FUCK!

edited 3rd Sep '14 7:51:32 PM by TobiasDrake

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FOFD Since: Apr, 2013
#8132: Sep 4th 2014 at 5:50:29 AM

The only Saiyan seen with a haircut was Gohan... considering they've taken energy blasts to the face, I wonder if that's just artistic license.

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#8134: Sep 4th 2014 at 10:41:45 AM

Why's Nuova bein' evil?

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Rinsankajugin Since: Feb, 2012
#8135: Sep 4th 2014 at 10:46:55 AM

The same reason Time Patrol Trunks is in GT. tongue

FOFD Since: Apr, 2013
#8136: Sep 4th 2014 at 10:56:32 AM

Two Super Saiyan 4s versus... Dr. Wheelo!

Live and let die! Fight!

Shlugo_the_great King of Burgers from Far Far Away (On A Trope Odyssey) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
King of Burgers
#8137: Sep 4th 2014 at 11:05:24 AM

Don't try to make sense from Dragon Ball Heroes. It's pointless endeavor.

Rinsankajugin Since: Feb, 2012
#8139: Sep 4th 2014 at 1:02:54 PM

I still don't get why we don't have a page for DBH. I know it's a Japan-only thing, but it still has an interesting cast, and it's inclusions somewhat change the rest of the franchise a bit. It also has 2 3DS games and a couple of manga series, one of which is drawn by Toyble of AF fame. (He has a different alias now, tho)

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#8140: Sep 4th 2014 at 2:45:46 PM

My guess: not enough people on this wiki have actually played it due to its regional exclusivity and unusual medium, so there aren't many people to actually make a proper page for it.

edited 4th Sep '14 2:46:05 PM by TobiasDrake

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DoctorDiabolical So pure. Since: Mar, 2010
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#8142: Sep 6th 2014 at 11:56:36 AM

So here's a question:

As a result of a clusterf*ck of Doylist revisions during the Android saga, many things changed from Trunks's initial predictions. 19 and 20 existed, 17 and 18 were far more powerful than they should have been - and, if Trunks is to be believed, his version of 17 and 18 were more heartless Omnicidal Maniac types than these ones - and 16 was awoken. The story tries to pin the reason for all these changes on Cell arriving a year before Trunks did.

Cell showed up in an egg, hatched, blasted his way out of the time machine, and spent the next four years steadily feeding on various wildlife and evolving himself to finally reach the bipedal form we see when he fights Piccolo; nobody seeming to notice or care that he existed until Piccolo went to merge with God. How on earth could he possibly be responsible for any of the changes?

edited 6th Sep '14 11:58:39 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#8143: Sep 6th 2014 at 12:18:18 PM

I think that his just existing in the time period affected things, though it's hard to tell, since Trunks directly altered the future by fighting Frieza.

Also, there's the Butterfly Effect to consider. Who knows what killing that local wildlife meant.

One Strip! One Strip!
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#8144: Sep 6th 2014 at 8:36:15 PM

Toriyama, no.

Goku did not spend a month in the Room of Spirit and Time at 10x gravity when he was training for the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. Goku was flabbergasted by the 10x gravity of Kaio's planet. He surpassed it fine once he dumped his weighted gear, but that's not the problem, his complete inability to recognize it and utter consternation at what was going on it.

I call bullshit on this and am adding it to the list of continuity flubs and nonsensical plot points in the Cell Saga. On its own, the story is fine, but as a part of the larger whole of Dragon Ball canon, this arc is worse than Battle of Gods.

edited 6th Sep '14 8:37:16 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Shlugo_the_great King of Burgers from Far Far Away (On A Trope Odyssey) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
King of Burgers
#8145: Sep 6th 2014 at 8:39:26 PM

Were there really this many continuity problems in Cell saga?

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#8146: Sep 6th 2014 at 8:51:45 PM

I shouldn't really say continuity problems, just...flubs. The Cell arc didn't actively contradict established plot points very often, it just relied on incredibly bad logic, nonsensical motivations, and confusing retcons. It even canonically contradicts itself - everything happening differently than it did in Trunks's time - and then Hand Waves that away with a Voodoo Shark that Cell's four years as a cicada somehow resulted in all the differences.

Oh, and even more ridiculous out-of-the-blue power escalation than Frieza, especially in the form of 17 and 18 themselves. We've all talked about the insane power escalation on Namek and the truly ridiculous gains the characters got from their zenkais and Namekian Fusion and the like, but the androids have them beat hands down, being made with ordinary human bases. 17 and 18's power level went from presumedly below Farmer With Shotgun's 5 to far in excess of 150,000,000 by adding some cybernetics to them. That these two characters even exist is the greatest example of Toriyama closing a power gap by introducing some bullshit in the entire franchise's history.

This arc is an aimless mess with no real direction or motivation on the part of any of the characters; the villains want to kill Goku for lulz just to see if they can, the protagonists want to protect Goku from being killed for lulz, and then Cell comes in who's generically evil because...well, because he just is, Cell has the weakest motivation of any Dragon Ball villain, and now it's a race to keep him from achieving Perfect Form because then he'll be a threat to the entire universe, and there's no real reason WHY he would be a threat to the universe other than because he's the bad guy and he'll just decide to destroy the universe because that's what he does, I guess.

edited 6th Sep '14 9:02:28 PM by TobiasDrake

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FOFD Since: Apr, 2013
#8147: Sep 6th 2014 at 9:25:43 PM

Dude.

How do you watch anime with other people? [lol]

Fortunately, looking back on Dragon Ball, I accept the flaws. The timeline business still baffles me.

As to 17 and 18 being stronger and less omnicidal, maybe Goku didn't waste as much time as Trunks and killed Frieza and Cold before Gero's machine could properly scan them, resulting in less data that was used to upgrade 17 and 18, the ones in Trunk's timeline. With Goku dying early, Gero also didn't analyze the gains the Z-Fighters made with three years of training, because they didn't dedicate that time to training.

17 and 18 became heartless in Trunk's timeline because they killed the Z-Fighters sooner, and didn't have any other threats to deal with. With Cell being around in the present timeline, they had other things to worry about, which meant they didn't become heartless killing machines. Without Cell showing up, Piccolo might have been killed by 17 even after fusing with Kami, and they'd have gone on to become killing machines regardless.

Without Trunks going back, no one found Gero's lab, Trunks didn't blow up Gero's lab, 17 and 18 didn't meet 16. Heck, maybe 16's awakening is what did it. There was no mention of 16 in Trunk's timeline. He nearly shat himself when he found out about another Android. With 16 as a team mate, 17 and 18 don't become bored enough to invoke Beware the Superman.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#8148: Sep 6th 2014 at 9:30:39 PM

Frieza and King Cold's data went into Cell, not 17 and 18. The two of them dying faster would have nothing to do with 17 and 18's power.

17 and 18 could have killed the protagonists immediately after awakening. 18 wrecked Vegeta, then 17 beat down everyone else rushing to help him. The only reason it didn't end the exact same way as Trunks's timeline is because 17 and 18 chose for it not to; they deliberately spared everyone and let Krillin heal them with the Senzus because...they just did, no real reason.

Trunks blowing up the laboratory has nothing to do with 17 and 18 discovering 16. He was in the middle of the floor and 18 expressed curiosity about him and was about to activate him when Trunks did that; preventing her from doing so and awakening a third Android was the entire reason for why Trunks blew up the lab in the first place, and it failed.

Everything happens differently than it did in Trunks's timeline for no real reason at all beyond the Voodoo Shark of Cell arriving and not actively changing anything. The Doylist answer for why all the changes is because Toriyama kept retconning the story in order to pacify a friend who really just didn't like this arc at all, but there's never a good Watsonian explanation for why absolutely nothing happens even remotely like what went down in Trunks's timeline. And that's only the tip of the iceberg as far as gross inconsistencies and nonsensical plot points in this storyline goes.

Reading the manga, Dragon Ball just Jumped the Shark hard. I remember liking the Buu Saga, so I have high hopes for once Cell is gone.

edited 6th Sep '14 9:34:25 PM by TobiasDrake

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Saiga Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
#8149: Sep 7th 2014 at 12:31:35 AM

I don't remember a single point in the manga where the story tries to pin the changes on Cell. Not once is he said to be responsible for them. Piccolo speculates that the mere act of Trunks time travel threw other events out of whack, and if that's true then Cell's travel would do the same, but it's never claimed that the time travellers themselves changed things.

The only problem with 17 and 18's escalation stems entirely from coming after Freeza. Their actual step up from Freeza isn't ridiculous at all, so it's alllll in the Namek arc.

Also, I am a bit surprised by the idea that wanting to keep your friend alive is "for lulz". Wanting to keep Goku from getting killed is a completely legitimate motivation. 17 and 18 actually acknowledged their lack of motivation, which is the same reason they allowed Kuririn to heal his friends - so they'd still have someone to "play" with. Much like the future Androids made a game of slaughtering humanity, and it's the same reason they pursued Goku. I don't see anything wrong with that kind of motivation, it's pretty much the same thing as Piccolo Daimao's but expressed differently. Then 16/19 as fully mechanical beings are following their programming and Gero is out for revenge.

The only real legitimate point you have is with Cell but his whole schtick is cartoon biology and he even attributes it to being a combination of Saiyan, demon and whatever Freeza is. He comes from some pretty fucked up stock.

On 17 and 18's differences with their future counterparts, we know that Gero can suppress their powers to make them easier to control, so if he had succeeded in that instead of activating them at the wrong time, they'd be less powerful and more evil (by losing their individuality and accepting his values).

While Jump the Shark is too harsh a word, I think the series' decline started earlier than the Android arc, when Goku arrives on Namek. The Saiyan - Early Namek stuff was the series' peak.

edited 7th Sep '14 12:36:37 AM by Saiga

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#8150: Sep 7th 2014 at 9:35:52 AM

Wanting to keep a friend alive isn't lulz, but the threat to that friend is. That's the problem. None of the villains have any reason to even be the villains at all. The only reason 17 and 18 are a threat at all is because they just thought killing Goku would be a fun game. The complete lack of a reason for this conflict to exist makes it feel more like a Tournament Arc than anything else, except that the Tournament Arcs in Dragon Ball had plenty of characters with far better motivations to be competing.

And yes, their actual step up from Frieza is still pretty ridiculous, in large part due to the fact that there is no justification for that step up. The explanation for why they're more powerful than the Super Saiyans is because they're androids built by Dr. Gero. Even if you ignore the actual numbers that Namek escalated to ridiculous extremes, Dr. Gero took two random humans and used cybernetics to make them more powerful than the Super Saiyans that defeated the strongest living entity in the entire universe - even when that same entity had cybernetics of his own installed by far more advanced civilization, he still utterly paled in comparison to these two random teenage humans and their incredible power.

Up until now, every villain was at least an appropriate level of threat for their step up the sliding scale. Pilaf was some asshole living in a castle with approximately two subjects. The Red Ribbon Army was the strongest military force on the planet, and Tao Pai Pai was the greatest human assassin alive. Piccolo Daimao was a mighty demon suddenly released from his imprisonment, greater than any human army. The Saiyans were planet-killing aliens. Frieza was the king of planet-killing aliens, the strongest being in the universe. The power levels may have increased ridiculously, but there was still a sense of consistency in which villain was stronger than which.

The androids shot that consistency in the face. There is no reason for two random kids upgraded by a new character pretending to be a Red Ribbon scientist - who isn't even properly theme-named for the cast of characters he claims to be part of - to be higher than Frieza. There isn't even an attempt to justify why the Androids are so powerful, beyond Dr. Gero really hating Goku and working really hard to top him. You know who else works really hard? Tien, but he doesn't get to punch out Super Saiyan Vegeta just because he really badly wants to.

At least Majin Buu has a legitimate excuse to trump Frieza, being an ancient god-killing eldritch abomination created by unfathomable magicks to destroy everything in existence. The Androids are powerful for no other reason than because the story said so.

As for Cell, while I agree that his coming from f*cked up stock works as an explanation for many of his tendencies, the idea that he would blow up the planet for no good reason is just silly. He stems from Goku, Vegeta, Frieza, King Cold, and Piccolo. That's a pretty solid melting pot of evil - and, unlike the androids, he has a fair justification for why he becomes a threat. In addition to ridiculous Saiyan power acceleration rates, Frieza and Vegeta's natural propensity for power, and Piccolo's absurd gains from absorbing people, Cell is practically tailor-designed to go from 0 to psychotic almost instantly.

Cell is justifiable as a step up from Frieza, but his motivations aren't. I can even appreciate why he wants to hold a Tournament and, in fact, he's perfect for a villain of a Tournament Arc, which Cell himself acknowledges by establishing the Cell Games - albeit a pretty skewed Tournament Arc, leaving it unclear whether the genuine intent of the Cell Games was to fight strong guys, or just to flagellate his ego.

With Vegeta in him, it might just be both. He has Goku and Vegeta's desire to fight strong enemies and show off how strong he is, but with two Saiyans and Frieza in him, that also makes him pretty egotistical. What I can't understand is the threat to destroy the planet. The worst he has in him - Piccolo, Vegeta, and Frieza - are all conquerors, not omnicidal maniacs. None of them blow up planets for lulz, and all of them had aspirations of rulership. I could buy Cell wanting to reignite a new galactic empire with himself as king, the same motivation Vegeta had and Piccolo would have had if the galaxy beyond the Earth's borders had been a part of the story prior to his change of heart, but just blowing up a planet for no good reason? The worst his components came to that was always done out of spite.

The biggest problem with Cell himself is the fact that he even came from the future at all. This is unnecessary and overcomplicates the character, especially when there's no reason for him to. It adds nothing to the story or to his character, but it detracts significantly from the already confusing motivations, history, and actions of Dr. Gero. Cell was born decades after Gero enacted his plan, into a world that was guaranteed to be devoid of either Goku or 17 and 18; either his reason for being created would have been rendered obsolete from the moment of his activation, or he would still be needed but would never be able to achieve his Perfect Form.

Short version: The Androids suffer from nonsensical motivations, history, and power level, while Cell himself suffers from believable motivations and power level, but nonsensical history. And I just can't help but feel a complete lack of urgency in this plotline, like there are no real stakes, just random characters who emerged out of thin air to fight the protagonists for reasons they themselves admit are stupid and bullshit.

edited 7th Sep '14 9:39:31 AM by TobiasDrake

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