Manga/Dragon Ball

AU where Bardock becomes king, tells Freeza to take a hike, planet gets blown up anyway

I think it's the same logic Bocaj used:

Bardock was constantly out on missions, getting stronger through combat and zenkai, and might not have realized how strong he became until that clash with Frieza elites (he even comments on it himself).

Likewise, King Vegeta, being a king, sat on his butt and did king stuff. He was powerful, but since he rarely went into the field, he never got stronger, but since I doubt anyone bothered to challenge him, everyone was unaware of how his strength had stagnated.

It's also possible that Bardock didn't reach the same level as the king until the events of the movie, and said events prevented him from realizing it.

Bardock isn't even that impressive. Yeah, he has a power level of 10'000 (i.e. his drastic power growth is the kind of stuff that bothers Freeza when it applies to an entire race). But that's still half of what Vegeta was when he came to earth. It's half of Qui, for heaven's sake. Heck, honestly I've never been impressed by King Vegeta. From all appearances the Saiyans have a hereditary monarchy, so I don't see why just because he's the king he has to be the top tier of power.

More to the point, Bardock is never really treated as special. He's just given enough of a window on fate that he is tortured by it but he's not the sort of person who can change it. It's a fitting punishment. I'll take that irony and that anti-hero over the gelding in Minus.

And Gine? Of all the things you could make Goku's mom, a glorified housewife is not what anyone wanted.

She worked in a meat factory. Saiyans do love meat. But there is a strong overlap with the kinds of things that a housewife would do. So it comes off as... eh.

Maybe she should have been an engineer working in the pod factory. Makes it easier to steal that pod off-screen. Or maybe she should have been the brilliant scientist.

Working in a meat factory on its own isn't really objectionable. But when its the first saiyan woman that really gets fleshed out and is really only notable for being someone's wife and mother that you're just piling it on.

I can agree that her job should have been better, but I will fight to the death the reality that she has a job, disqualifying her from being a housewife. I also think she should've still been a genocidal monster, just gentle by genocidal monster standards.

She was at the least an accessory to genocidal monsters. She didn't have a problem with what her husband did for a living. Nor with the other saiyans that she prepared meat for at the meat factory. She just personally had a distaste for fighting. That doesn't really paint her as some paragon. She was neck deep in a murder society.

She was also met Bardock as a member of his elite force so for someone so bad at fighting apparently she was decent at fighting?

Edited by Bocaj on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:24:16 AM

She required constant saving by Bardock, so I would say no.

How the hell did she get on an elite team of warriors

God damn it Toriyama, think about things

Wasn't Bardock a low-level Saiyan? I haven't read Minus in a while so I forgot if they retconned that?

God, I come here to see the fuss about the first trailer and end up finding out a war has started over Broly.

I may not be a fan of the guy, but man, I want to watch this movie.

I am very curious as to how Toriyama will work this guy, especially after Kale became a thing.

His team was an elite force, but Frieza didn't exactly fear it.

Edited by ZeroDozer on Jul 20th 2018 at 1:08:07 PM

Its called an elite force so presumably he and the force were stronger than average. And stronger than just kinda good.

Bardock was low-class (i.e. I guess the equivalent of working class). He was just strong in power level terms.

I admit, the fact that she's a meat vendor isn't so bad. It's that the only significant pure blooded Saiyan female (before Kale and Caulifa came along) was both a weak fighter, ridiculously nice, and the saiyan equivalent of a housewife (via the aforementioned meat vending) that was the issue.

None of these on their own would have been a problem, but Toriyama hit a trifecta of female stereotypes. Gine only being seen as nice in comparison to other saiyans would have been something though.

Its so weird that the Saiyans had a class hierarchy that doesn't involve who can punch hardest.

They had a royal family but were there nobles? Landed gentry? Was there a merchant class?

I've never really imagined Saiyan culture being in any way complicated.

According to Toriyama, there's Upper-Level Saiyans and Lower-Level Saiyans, and that's determined based on their Power Level. Upper-Level Saiyans go out to kill planets, while Lower-Level Saiyans have to stay on Vegeta and take jobs that don't involve fighting. The fact that Gine was allowed to go out at all indicates that she was an Upper-Level and decided to become a Lower-Level, so she's at least probably one of the strongest Lower-Level Saiyans on the planet.

My personaly theory is that Upper-Level Saiyans are further divided into the Low-Class, Mid-Class, High-Class, and Elite-Class Saiyans we know, based on their Power Level.

I'm guessing Toriyama didn't either...or at least he hasn't yet.

He can be pretty thorough when he really sits down to hammer out the kinks of his world, such as the reveal of the how the universe looks (with Earth actually being above both Heaven and Hell...I think, I sure someone posted a map of it).

Edited by HandsomeRob on Jul 20th 2018 at 10:26:53 AM

Earth is actually below both Heaven and Hell, since the physical universe is divided into two halves: the mortal plane and the godly plane and afterlife.

EDIT: I'm sorry. I don't know why the image is so small and low-resolution. It looks fine before I copy and paste. Just Google "dragon ball universe".

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jul 20th 2018 at 9:34:10 AM

I like how it looks like the Lookout.

As above, so below.

One thing I just noticed is that the Kaioshin realm orbits the Mortal half of the universe, which is interesting. Another thing I've always wondered is where Beerus' planet is. I assume it's somewhere in Otherworld.

Is King Kai the only one who got a snake way to his planet house? Or does the whole thing rotate around as needed?

South Kai was late to the distribution and got stuck with Monitor Lizard Way.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jul 20th 2018 at 2:04:47 PM

I wonder how Ultra Instinct can be challenged too

The same way Jiren challenge it

Nu Broly looks cool.

I do hope we see Ultra Instinct again. It's a pretty cool concept...though I don't care for it being a full transformation in a series that's kinda loaded down with them.