Ok. I watched the vid, and then checked out the manga version.
Cell does seem to have a bit more of a reaction, but I'm not sure if I'd really say he was pinned down. He was definitely caught off guard though.
One Strip! One Strip!Going by that clip, Cell's reaction of bracing himself was to the initial, much stronger blast. We can't actually see his reaction to the actual flurry. What we can see is that it did absolutely nothing.
It's not an demonstration of the flurry blasts being effective, but of the typical Saiyan rage boost.
Yeah, it's not that Vegeta's flurry "pinned him down", it's that Cell decided to stand there and tank all of his blasts and took absolutely no damage from it whatsoever before bothering to attack. Cell didn't try to escape because he didn't need to. You could only claim Vegeta "pinned him down" if we actually saw Cell try to escape and fail.
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...there is no typical Saiyan rage boost. That was very specifically exclusive to Gohan due to his hybrid nature and dormant power. It's only later material that retconned that.
He was clearly bracing himself, and then didn't get out until the blasting stopped. You've made a big assumption on Cell's behavior there, I think a much bigger one than saying he was pinned down. I never said it damaged him, I just think it's an impressive show given that the opponent is so much stronger.
Again, it's a bad example to argue for spam blasts being ineffective because anything Vegeta could do would be ineffective against an opponent that much stronger than him. Nothing about ki blasts is particularly ineffective, but we've in most of the few examples we have, they are comparatively effective.
Cell constantly lets others hit him with their biggest attacks to prove he can tank them. It is one of his most consistent character traits. The only time he has ever not done that was when he was dodging Trunks' attacks to prove a point about how speed is important, and he still let Trunks get a few blows in to allow Krillin to escape with Vegeta. It's not a "big assumption", that's just Cell's established character.
Vegeta's pathetic little barrage of blasts did not pin Cell down, at best he had to put up his guard in order to take no damage from it.
Which, according to Super, is what you have to do with every attack anyway.
It should be noted that when Vegeta regains his composure and has time to think, the attack that finally distracts Cell and allows Gohan to annihilate him is... a single strong Ki blast.
And when Cell let him attack him, and Vegeta had time to prepare, Vegeta went for... a single strong attack, the Final Flash.
So a flurry of blasts is just what Vegeta does when he's in a pinch and wants to hit the enemy with a lot of energy very fast.
edited 17th Feb '18 5:57:49 AM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"

Except when Vegeta really wants to get shit done he uses a strong single attack... so I think that speaks louder about a flurr'y's effectiveness than anything else...
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"