I have no idea what that metaphor means.
Ah, gotcha.
So if I may say something potentially controversial, I think I prefer One Piece's handling of powerups to DB. In OP there's been only a few actual powerups, which serve the Straw Hats well for a good long time: they gradually get stronger over the first half of the Grand Line, then a big spike at Enies Lobby which sees them through to the timeskip, then another big spike there which they're still coasting on.
DB has many more powerups spread here and there, and as a consequence a lot of them ultimately seem rather irrelevant, either because whatever powerup the heroes got, the villains are still stronger (ex. Krillin and Gohan's potential being unlocked) or they're able to hold their own for a while before the villain either powers up themselves or is replaced by a new one (ex. both Picollo's fusions). In the long run it seems only a few powerups actually matter.
That must be nice.
I mean, you don't see many arcades anymore.
I admit, I'm bitter over the Kaiouken being essentially tossed out.
If Toriyama had planned things a little better, maybe we wouldn't have had the Power Level bloat could have been avoided.
But I've beaten that particular horse bloody, and there's no real point.
One Strip! One Strip!Yeah, the constant powerups make the Power Creep really, really obvious. About a third of the Cell Arc consists basically of good guy powers up, smacks Cell around, Cell powers up, smacks the person who just smacked him, rinse, lather, repeat.
Mind you, this stuff starts as early as the late Red Ribbon arc, with Tao oneshotting the previous main villain and owning Goku, then Goku owning him after just three days of training.
edited 6th May '15 9:49:52 PM by HamburgerTime
Oddly enough, I don't mind that. The problem is the lack of an upper limit. There was never a point where the villains stopped getting so ridiculously powerful.
As (I think) Tobias Drake (if I'm wrong, please correct me) pointed out, the Androids and Cell make no sense being as powerful as they are. They really shouldn't have come after Frieza. It made more sense for them to come in-between the Piccolo and Saiyan sagas, as the first generation of Androids, with continued improvements in-between other arcs.
Then maybe have him incorporate some of Frieza's tech into his android technology to explain why they got so powerful. And also have the actual introduction of the Androids make sense (i.e., don't send the weaker ones in first, and maybe do a better job of keeping 17 and 18 under control).
Maybe if 18 is introduced earlier, they can better justify Krillin's sudden feelings for her.
Just plan shit out a little. The series could have been even greater.
One Strip! One Strip!Of course, OP DID start after Dragon Ball had ended. The creator was a huge fan of Dragon Ball, wasn't he? Obviously, he realised the problems that Dragon Ball had, and tried to make sure OP didn't fall into that trap.
The Power Creep came WAAY too fast. Especially during Namek, which happened over the course of a week, maximum, and yet characters got THOUSANDS of times stronger almost instantaneously.
I've realised Namek is probably the most classic Shonen Dragon Ball ever gets. From the ridiculous powerups, to the quirky minibosses, to Vegeta as the anti-hero who has to team up reluctantly, to the introduction of transformations, and let's not forget the infamous '5 minutes'.
The *Legendary* Super Saiyan is motivated by a crying infant! He is a literal giant f***ing baby!If Oda was a real fan, then he would be able to see both the good and the bad. And the ugly too. The point is, he'd know what made Dragon Ball great, and what made it suck, and he'd know how to step around that.
It makes sense that he doesn't fall for the same pit traps.
edited 7th May '15 12:36:19 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimariI don't think Dragon Ball's escalation was a problem except for the Namek arc, where Freeza fucked everything up. Even then it was mostly just the ludicrous battle powers that did it. And I absolutely see no reason why the Androids / Cell can't be stronger than Freeza.
I don't think One Piece handles its power ups well, because Oda's reluctance to use training generally means the protagonists just breeze through most arcs without being pushed very hard. And when he does give them, there is fuck all foreshadowing or explanation. We still don't know what Asura is.
I'm liking Vow of Z more and more. It's clear that whoever made it had a ball with the music video. So many references...
Now I'm just waiting to hear the english version (I've heard there's going to be an english version. Right?) so I can actually sing it and not just talk in gibberish trying to work out Japanese.
edited 7th May '15 4:05:49 AM by LOLypop1224
The *Legendary* Super Saiyan is motivated by a crying infant! He is a literal giant f***ing baby!Well, if you can pronounce Japanese and can at least read romaji then the lyrics found here
seem fairly accurate as far as I can tell.
I'm tempted to translate it since I'd probably be one of the first people to do so (at least, a cursory search didn't turn up any English lyrics but I didn't look very hard).
There's also here
which, in my experience, is more reliable. However, that requires you to be able to actually read kanji or to access the page's source (which is easy enough) in order to copy/paste the kanji elsewhere in order to get the readings.
Comparing the two, the first one should be accurate.
edited 7th May '15 4:21:10 AM by Zelenal
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Thanks!
I'm looking up lyrics to a song so I can sing it in Japanese. ...well, that settles it. I guess I've gone full weaboo now. *sigh*
The *Legendary* Super Saiyan is motivated by a crying infant! He is a literal giant f***ing baby!Edit: RoF is doing really well.
edited 7th May '15 5:17:49 AM by LordofLore
I think Asura is little more than a particularly vivid-looking Battle Aura, kind of like the images of bulls and demons and such that Zoro pulls out for some of his moves.
I have a message from another time...I think the reason I thought that the song "F"
inspired the movie is the line about "Godly Transfiguration".
Because that fits.
Not only that, we're also given an account of how Planet Vegeta was destroyed that is entirely wrong. Raditz explains that a meteor blow'd it up.
The anime later fleshed this explanation out with Kaio-sama delivering a story about how the God of Planet Vegeta, distraught at the evil and viciousness of the planet he was in charge of, summoned down a swarm of meteors to annihilate the planet and everyone on it.
Raditz's account is understandably wrong and can be explained away as being the Official Story of what happened, that Frieza passed along to the surviving Saiyans. Kaio-sama's embellishment, meanwhile, is another example of anime filler screwing up the story's consistency.
Toriyama wrote by the seat of his pants. He didn't mention Freeza because up until Namek, Freeza didn't exist.
Not completely made up, but not entirely "planned" either. It's more accurate to say that Toriyama came up with an idea for how he could end the current story, then wrote towards that, and then as he got close he was like, "But wait, what if I did THIS," and then he wrote that.
Yep, that's me.
There are a lot of other problems with the Android arc as well, most of which could easily be resolved via things like having a concise plan of where the story is supposed to go.
As noted, Toriyama writes by the seat of his pants; The Androids/Cell Saga was him at his pantsiest, and the story's consistency both internal and external, fantastic mechanics, characterization, etc. all suffered for it.
edited 7th May '15 8:27:18 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.That's true.
I still think Cell should be the final result of all Gero's efforts. So it's really just the other Androids that need work. They needed to be built up to more, with Frieza's arrival being the primary reason for both Cell and their existence and power.
I said before that Cell works as basically every enemy Goku ever fought coming back to challenge him one more time. The culmination of every foe he's defeated, all in one form, himself included (because we are always our own worst enemies).
There just needed to be a buttload of tweaking.
One Strip! One Strip!
