What I hate is the idea that everyone has to be able to fight the bad guys directly. I commend Toriyama for keeping the cast useful as long as he did. It was only in the Buu arc that the old cast really couldn't do anything, and that was mostly to push Gohan and Goten.
"If you weren't so crazy I'd think you were insane."![]()
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That sounds a lot better, and that's how a lot of series do it. Tenten could potentially kill Itachi Uchiha if by some miracle she managed to put a shuriken in his heart, but she can't because he's got magic eyehax and whatnot. Meanwhile, Buu could be dying of lung cancer, chained to a post, and someone like Tien can't do jack because his power level's not high enough.
edited 25th Nov '13 5:25:49 PM by RedM
The very best, like no one ever was. Check out my Spider-Man fanfic here! [1]Somewhere amidst all the power levels, Dragon Ball Z forgot about concepts like experience, skill, intelligence, etc. It became a mad dash to raise your power level faster than your enemy could.
Vegeta, for example, doesn't have to be a threat because being a Proud Warrior Race Guy means that he was born with an awesome power level. He can be a threat because being a Proud Warrior Race Guy means he was born naturally inclined to fighting, with a high pain tolerance and unchecked aggression, and has spent the last 20-odd years of his life testing himself on one battlefield after another and sharpening all of those skills.
It can still be possible for Yamcha to punch out Vegeta while being so thoroughly improbable that we can easily dismiss it as an outcome.
edited 25th Nov '13 5:34:12 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.No it didn't. Don't let your distaste for power levels blind you, this never happened. Dragon Ball has always been consistent with the idea that strength is the most important thing, as Roshi himself says this at the very first Budokai, but throughout the series it also shows that experience, skill, and intelligence are important as well.
And to be frank that idea sounds terrible. It's taking the Dragon Ball out of Dragon Ball, and it completely devalues the villains if someone like Kuririn can go toe-to-toe with them. Not only that, but it also means that the one-on-one fights become nonsensical, because without the power gap the heroes could just gang up on the villains and beat them senseless. This is already a problem at the Cell Games and Pure Boo battles, it doesn't need to encompass the whole series. While that would be funny the first time it happened, it'd get old fast and villains just couldn't be threatening anymore.
Although I think Toriyama took the power levels too far with Freeza (the character, not the arc), that is just going way, way too far in the other direction, and just shitting up the series completely.
Also in regards to 19 and 20, it wasn't a negative reception from fans that made Toriyama change them, but his former editor who didn't like them once he saw them in Jump. He didn't like 17 or 18 either, which is why Cell was introduced, and he immediately liked him and thought he would transform so Cell got transformations.
edited 26th Nov '13 1:59:30 AM by Saiga
It was basically like.
"Here's the new villains"
"An old man and a fat Pillsbury Dough Boy? Come up with better ones!"
"Okay, here's the new villains"
"Two teenagers? Come up with better ones!"
"Fine, here's a bug monster."
"Make him transform like Frieza!"
Granted, I feel that it worked out fine in the end, but talk about a chain of dissatisfaction.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!At least he got to make Gohan the hero like he wanted...until Buu Saga came along and they told him to bring Goku back.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.-Editor slaps a sketch of Gohan off Toriyama's desk.-
"NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT GOHAN. NO ONE CARES ABOUT ANYONE BUT GOKU. BRING BACK GOKU, AND ALSO MAKE A NEW GOKU."
My various fanfics.Taking away the powerlevel discrepancies basically means creating an entirely new story.
Pretty much every story from Piccolo on centered around a 1-2 villains who were a threat precisely because weight of numbers were useless against them. The stakes and the tension of the series rely on there only being a handful of people who even have the hope of standing up to them. You'd have to give every one of them an army, a new master plan, or something else.
Also, if the reason we're doing this is to turn DBZ into another Naruto or Bleach where giving an ever-expanding D-list of characters fights against an ever-expanding villain roster, grinding the series to a halt with repetitive, stupid, tensionless battles, then I'd prefer to avoid it.
edited 27th Nov '13 7:53:49 AM by Bloodsquirrel
That's a good point. Sure, in One Piece, a lot of the crew gets to fight, but they end up fighting "Blind Sky Priest Man" or "Noodle Kung Fu Guy." On the other hand, DBZ has long, tensionless battles where someone who isn't Goku or Gohan fights the same bad guy until the actual protagonist gets a turn. Who here thought Vegeta was going to beat Frieza? Who here thought Trunks would beat Cell? Exactly.
The thing about those battles is that they tended to end with the villain winning, and tended to actually advance the plot in some way. Vegeta being killed by Frieza and begging Goku to win for him was far more meaningful and productive to the story than "And now Byakuya fights a guy! And now Kenpachi fights a guy! And now Hitsugaya fights a guy!" At very least they help establish the villain as a threat, rather than eating away at their credibility by handing them loss after loss after loss.
edited 27th Nov '13 5:29:16 PM by Bloodsquirrel
I must admit, that's not a bad argument for why all the characters shouldn't necessarily be equal.
I would argue that giving everyone a fight can work when done well, but I can't help but see your point.
Plus, it's not really done all that well in Bleach. Not sure about One Piece, but I care more about One Piece then Bleach.
One Strip! One Strip!Having a large cast and letting them get a lot of focus works when you've got the kind of story that naturally gives a large cast of characters interesting things to do. When you've got a fairly simplistic plot (The Vandereich is attacking! We must fight them!) you're better off keeping your pace brisk and keeping focus on the core elements that make your story work. Fights that don't really need to happen quickly become cruft that just prevents it from gaining momentum and clutters up your rising action.
Look at, say, A Song of Ice and Fire, and it's a completely different story. Asoiaf has a much more complex story that can support a lot more characters without becoming just tedious (that's what Daenerys is for. Zing!)
We don't all just want to watch a lot of Kamehameha, Getsuga or Clone spam. Other characters make the series because shounen heroes tend to be very bland and uninspired in terms of combat ability. It's the side characters who more often than not hav the interesting fighting styles or powers. Shounen heroes just win with plot devices and Heroic Resolve. Unless they're Kenshin. Dunno what happened there but he was actually competent. Vash too if we remember Trigun started as shounen.
I also like dramatic build up. Take the Hueco Mundo Arc in Bleach or the Fighting Festival in Fairy Tail. The nobodies take on the other nobodies but the point is that we're all chomping at the bit for the finale. We are here to see Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra or Natsu vs. Laxus. And so every fight before that feels like a step closer and closer to the big finish.
The Freeza Saga kinda did that with moving up from the Saiyans to Freeza's guard to the Ginyu's and finally to the man himself. I think we all knew that Gohan wasn't going to beat the Ginyu fellas but we also knew Rock Lee wasn't going to defeat Gaara. That doesn't mean you can't get sucked up in it and forget all about that pesky Genre Saviness. A good writer will make you almost forget that you are reading a piece of fiction with strict rules and guidelines.
That's not really true for Dragon Ball. Everyone has pretty much the same combat abilities, especially among the heroes.
I agree with Blood for the most part although I do like all the side battles in Bleach because I like pretty much all of the Bleach characters. Though I'm aware that they not only hurt the pacing, but the story in general.
I think there is a big problem with people expecting that every character get their own battle, or even worse, that they all get a battle once every arc. I used to think like this, but for Shounen manga it's really not good for the story telling. Supporting characters shouldn't get their dues if it comes at a cost to the story.
I don't think every character needs to have a fight either. That wasn't what I was getting at when I said I'd like to see the power levels more equalized. I haven't seen Naruto or Bleach or...really, I haven't seen a lot of anime, but the point is: up until Majin Buu, what keeps the other characters out of the fight isn't even the power level thing. It's completely superfluous. Krillin and Gohan contributed plenty on Namek. They didn't hide in the ship and wait for Goku to kill everything; they were out there doing things. Everybody who was alive got their shot at Frieza, and did pretty well for their portion of the fight.
Everyone showed up to face Mecha Frieza and King Cold too. The only reason they didn't do anything is because Trunks did first. They all showed up to fight the Androids and everyone came to the Cell Games. It was really only the Buu Saga where they went, "You know what, everybody hide out under this rock while the people with an awesome power level do important things," and even THEN, Hercule - of all people - had a vital role in both the conflict and its resolution.
The reason I dislike the broad power gap isn't because I want to see the humans have more fight scenes. It's not about what it adds to the story, but about what it doesn't add: anything of substance. It feels like a crutch that the series overly focuses on. There is a lot more reasons why Cell or Majin Buu are more dangerous enemies than Frieza than just the fact that they can destroy more of a planet with a punch than he could, but that's the only point about them that gets any focus.
There is a lot more to both the characters and their respective fighting styles than how many Raditzes it would take to equal the destructive force of your punch, and I feel that overly emphasizing that this character could blow up 12 Nameks while that one could blow up 15 misses that.
edited 28th Nov '13 4:53:32 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.In all fairness, in the Buu Arc the Z Fighters were really up against it when it came with Majin Boo. He always caught the heroes with their pants down, and didn't screw around when it came to fighting, if he saw the chance to absorb you or turn you into candy... he would do it and while you were least expecting it.
As far as the whole power level issue there is in Dragon Ball Z, it's just a case of Sorting Algorithm of Evil. Villains simply had to be naturally stronger than heroes, because if they weren't, where's the drama and tension? If the villains stayed the same strength that they were around the Namek Arc, even guys like Krillin could defeat the villain with breaking a sweat and honestly that would be were I lose all interest in the series. Because you know that any one of the Z Fighters could kill the Big Bad, it would just be a case of who could be bothered enough to do it.
I mean what I love about Dragon Ball Z is that makes you keep on guessing who would kill the main villain. And for all that it's worth, as far killing significant villains go, Vegeta actually has the best record:
Raditz - Killed by Piccolo
Nappa - Killed by Vegeta
Cui, Dodoria, Appule, Zarbon, Guldo, Burter, Recoome & Jeice - Killed by Vegeta
Vegeta - Killed by Freiza
Freiza and King Cold - Killed by Trunks
Android 19 - Killed by Vegeta
Dr Gero - Killed by Android 17
Android 16 & 17 - Killed by Cell
Cell - Killed by Gohan
Spopovich - Killed by Badadi
Yamu - Killed by Pui Pui
Pui Pui - Killed by Vegeta
Yakon - Killed by Goku
Dabura and Babidi - Killed by Majin Boo
Majin Boo - Killed by Goku
edited 1st Dec '13 6:48:03 AM by FireShadow
Wow. It is really easy to forget that Goku hardly killed anyone in Z.
And this is the guy who slaughtered pretty much every member of the Red Ribbon army single handedly.
One Strip! One Strip!Nik, if adult Goku isn't pure than neither is kid Goku. Both are considered pure by the narrative because it uses a different definition of pure than most people in real life would.
Also, Rob, the whole Super Saiyan not being pure of heart thing is something the movies added. As far as we know Goku's still pure of heart as a Super Saiyan.
x6 But Cell and Boo were both threatening for more than their power, as well as Piccolo Daimao way back when. If you really want to see villains be threatening in other ways, you don't need to tone down the power escalation at all. Keep the escalation and also give them other ways to be a threat.
Piccolo Daimao was strong, but he only got as far as he did because he used his cunning. Of course his plans relied on his strength to work, but that's because he uses every advantage he's got for the best result.
Android 18 was stronger than Vegeta, but her infinite stamina was what made the battle hopeless for him.
Cell was introduced as being weaker than Piccolo, and was a threat because he was crafty and just straight up refused to get into a direct confrontation until he was ready.
Dabra was weaker than Gohan, but his sorcery and Gohan's rustiness had him winning their short fight.
Boo was definitely a problem for more than just his power, he was unpredictable, hard to kill even if you overpowered him, and had abilities that were hard to counter regardless of how strong you are. He showed that even when Gohan outmatched him twice, he could just use absorption.
edited 30th Nov '13 7:12:46 PM by Saiga
I didn't know the Not pure as a Super Saiyan was a movie only thing. So then there really is not reason he never tried to summon a Spirit Bomb as a Super Saiyan.
You make a good point about the villains being dangerous for reasons beyond power, but let me counter with this:
Why couldn't the other heroes be the same? Sure, Piccolo still kinda did well up until the Buu series (he was equal to 17, and had been stronger than Cell at first), but the others didn't really hold up.
Krillin had the Kienzan, which may be one of the best techniques in the series(when the anime isn't having everyone catch it or break it by standing still) but he never gets to kill anything with it even if it made Frieza have to duck.
Tenshihan has the Kikosho and the Taiyoken (the latter is even more useful than the Kiezan, since anyone can use it, and it's a great way to get you some distance) both of which have serve him well, but the former is too costly even if it can pound Second stage Cell into the ground, and the latter, for all it's usefulness, can only buy time to run when the enemy is too strong.
I wish the others had learned Kaiouken. It might not have helped much, but maybe it would have given them something else to work with. Everyone can be caught off guard, so suddenly having a burst of power and kicking a villain in the face would have been pretty cool for the weaker human characters, and it would have fit a theme of the others always being one step behind Goku, but a little better at what he did (recall that Piccolo, Tenshihan, Chiaotzu, and Yamacha actually made it down Snake Way faster than Goku did, and the latter three and Krillin were apparently stronger than he was after he trained with Kami when they did the same).
One Strip! One Strip!

Goku teaching Gohan the Spirit bomb huh?
That wold solve the problem of Gohan having the role of hero taken from him, and allow the Spirit bomb to actually work in the T.V. series.
I like that.
Not complaining, just want to be sure.
One Strip! One Strip!