Manga/Dragon Ball

Nah, Zeno has the ability to erase things but it's not about raw power level.

Anywho, it was obvious from the end of Goku vs Moro that Whis was still above Goku with how Whis blocked Moro's fists. This is just affirming that Goku can reach his level, in theory, and hasn't capped out by reaching UI.

Thought I'm still left wondering what the hell Omen is meant to be, with all of this. What's the difference between an 'omen' of Ultra Instinct and the lowest level of real Ultra Instinct?

I don't know how to feel about Beerus having some other technique. Nice that we're given a hint of how Vegeta will progress, but given that Beerus was previously using Ultra Instinct it feels weird to establish that Hakaishin use some other, unmentioned technique.

Beerus did say that while they can use Ultra Instinct, remaining in that state at all times is a different story. Not too shocked that they have more than one trick up their sleeve.

Yeah, it looks like the next step for Goku with Ultra Instinct is to do with it what he did with Super Saiyan in the lead-up to fighting Cell: normalizing the form so that you can do anything and everything in it without strain.

Look at Whis. Goku in Ultra Instinct is reduced to such a state that he's barely responsive to others as his body and mind can do nothing but react. Whis, on the other hand, maintains the state all the time and is able to do everything from chat normally with others to overreact about food and deal with Beerus' crap without ever ceasing to be in that reactive state.

Oh... gosh... darn it.

I am officially Dragonball-'d out.

Edited by FOFD on Jan 20th 2021 at 8:51:05 AM

This is interesting, but I'm not sure how well this arc is going to gel with me. I hope we get word on what was going on with all of the copies of robo dude. There was no mention of that this chapter. Also, I dont like the special eye thing. That's entirely a personal thing. If it was just the goggle, itd be fine, but the special eye bothers me.

If we have to crib one thing from American comics, it be a good idea to crib the fact they tend to be on a cap power-level wise.

They don't constantly improve and escalate, they just remain as is on a general power-level.

I admit, I'm kind of tired of the universe conspiring to soothe Vegeta's ego. Bit tired of Vegeta seeing the steps you need to take to ascend to the next power tier and going, "NAHHHHH That's Goku's way. I'm gonna go find my own alternative way to accomplish the same results! Or make one up!" And that just works out fine for him. I'm so over Vegeta consciously rejecting abilities (or the process to achieve them) solely because Goku gave the abilities cooties.

I understand that they're trying to diversify Vegeta and Goku, but the way they're doing it is really dumb. I honestly don't know how anyone respects Vegeta as a character anymore. He's like a really shitty clone of the Grumpy Shonen Rival archetype that is, itself, a really shitty clone of Vegeta.

For Granolah, I'm tentative. I like the concept behind his character but I'm not sure where they're going with it. I agree that they're setting him up to become the new Most Powerful Dude in the Universe, but I don't really see the path forward to getting him there in the immediate future while Goku is apparently entering Angel-tier. But I'll reserve judgment until I see where they're going with this.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 20th 2021 at 10:44:33 AM

Just read the chapter. Kind of interesting that it's going in the direction of Goku = Angel and Vegeta = God of Destruction that I predicted it would a while ago.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jan 21st 2021 at 1:04:46 PM

Is Buu the Kaioshin?

Random thought: could an angel make the wish "I wish I wasn't subject to angel rule" and go rogue? Merus would've benefited from that; he's like Good Zamasu

Current Boo is more of a fusion of Daikaiōshin and Pure Boo+South Kaiōshin.

@Tobias: What would prefer short of making Vegeta a clone of Goku?

Diversifying him without having him constantly talk about how he's not going to do Goku Things because they're Goku Things? The one is not a required facet of the other.

• Goku: The God ritual sucks and I hate it.
• Beerus: Well, good news because you internalized it somehow.
• Goku: That makes no sense but at least it means we can just do it once and get it over with!
• Vegeta: NYEH! I'm going to go find MY OWN WAY to become Super Saiyan God because the God ritual has Goku cooties ew ew ew ew ew!
• Goku: Okay but this is literally how you become Super Saiyan God. Like. I don't know what possible way you could—
• Vegeta: I DID IT OFFSCREEN WE'RE FINE.
• Goku: Oh wow, Vegeta! Did you just use Instant Transmission?!
• Vegeta: Yes, but also no, and I will never ever EVER EVER EVER use it again because it has Goku cooties ew ew ew ew ew ew.
• Goku: But you literally know how to do it. Why would you—
• Vegeta: NOW CHECK OUT MY SPIRIT BOMB.
• Goku: Okay.
• Beerus: By the way, Ultra Instinct is pretty killer and puts Goku into Angel tier. You going to learn that and ascend beyond the realm of the gods?
• Vegeta: NO! Ultra Instinct has Goku cooties!
• Beerus: It's literally the thing that makes Angels distinctly more powerful than Gods.
• Vegeta: I'll probably just make up my own way to become Angel tier instead or something.
• Beerus: Okay I guess I can teach you some Hakaishin stuff and we can pretend that this will SOMEHOW put you back onto Goku's level even though Hakaishin are decisively inferior to Angels.
• Vegeta: Perfect.

It's fine to give Vegeta a different path to power than Goku, but that does not require writing him like this. Plenty of series offer a different path to the rival without making him into a whining pissbaby who constantly complains about how he doesn't want to do things that the protagonist does because those things work and make the protagonist successful. They just... go out and do their own thing, without calling attention to it.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 21st 2021 at 7:59:43 AM

I get what Tobias is saying. In trying to make Vegeta different from Goku, they're just defining him by Goku even more than he already was.

Edited by LSBK on Jan 21st 2021 at 10:00:30 AM

Well to be fair Zeno seems more Hakaishin-esque than Angel-esque so maybe Geets is onto something.

No matter what skill tree he chooses Vegeta will always be second banana.

Though I do expect hot take about how "it's Vegeta time to shine this arc we swear!" coming soon if they haven't already.

Part of the problem is that dragon ball’s style doesn’t really allow for characters to be too differentiated

People have their own gimmicks but it mostly comes down to punch flurries and big lasers

I think what Tobias is saying is that the WRITING is directly referencing Vegeta trying to differentiate itself. Its telling the audience he wants to diversify himself, rather than just showing it.

I do agree that's been an issue with Vegeta's character lately, a lot of telling the audience information rather than just letting his actions speak for themselves.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jan 21st 2021 at 12:18:46 PM

This. It's fair too late to start diversifying, because every time someone tried to do their own thing, come up with their own techniques or become strong in a way beyond pure power, they got slapped down or set up to fail to show Goku was better.

Everyone learns the same basic techniques, and after that, it's just raising your power even higher and increasing the strength of those basics.

There were some glimmers here and there (the different ways Goku and Vegeta tried to ascend past Super Saiyan) but ultimately, Goku's method was proven to be the better way and then Vegeta just copied that.

This is what happens when you throw out certain concepts.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Jan 21st 2021 at 10:22:22 AM

I wonder, now that Granola is established to hating both Freeza and Saiyans, if Broly is going to get involved in any capacity.

So the Big Green dub is all kinds of terrible but a random video just made me think....

Was the narrator right to pronounce it Veh-ji-tuh? After all, that is how you would say "vegetable' and not vuh-gee-tuh.

Edited by Nikkolas on Jan 21st 2021 at 10:57:30 AM

Well, in Japanese, Vegeta is written as ベジータ, Bejīta, so at least in that regard it got close.

When "vegetable" is written in kana, it's as ベジタブル. Notice the short [i] sound.

Honestly, after reading Chinese Xianxia novels and Cultivation Manhua, Dragon Ball's ways of its characters always getting stronger is Par for course.

Hell, its often more straightforward in its usage, because Cultivation has stuff like Blood levels, skeleton and bone restructuring using QI, Pills (Senzu beans woul dbe close enough, but they are only healing items, most pills in Cultivation stories tend to be stat boosters much more so) And various other things that Dragon Ball barely even touches on.

hell, the Saiyan ability to grow stronger from near death is just another cultivation technique found in Manhua and Xianxia and a basic one at that.

So I honestly am not bothered by Dragon Ball's escalation at this point.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Jan 21st 2021 at 3:13:11 PM

A lot of the core pronunciation in English Dragonball stuff are carryover from the Ocean dub - they only really corrected the pronunciations/names/spellings of really important core stuff (like correcting Kamehameha away from the semi-Hawaiian one used before) and while they try to translate and pronounce stuff relatively accurately now, a lot of stuff isn't still and probably won't ever.

I imagine if the show came out now, Vegeta's name would be one of those things that might be pronounced differently.

That doesn't make those good, nor does it make any of them above criticism. Granted, most people I meet online prefer to mock Chinese Xianxia and Cultivation Manhua precisely because of how empty and transparent most of those genres are. Guess I'm only still keeping up with Super because of the hilarity of it all.