My resonse to the whole power level consistency debate is usually something along the lines of, "Who cares? The fights are beautifully animated and choreographed. Let's just enjoy that."
No beer?! But if there's no beer, then there's no beef or beans!Yeah, but it's also a fundamental tennant of the series that the Saiyans are always gonna be miles ahead of those people. The humans reached their upper limit years ago, because at some point, all the tricks and fancy techniques in the world were rendered useless by pure power.
Strategy is only relevant if you're at least in the same ball park as the guys you're fighting, which a good majority of them aren't.
I still kinda want to just enjoy the fact that the humans are back in the game as well, but I can see why people are annoyed.
One Strip! One Strip!It's never been about the saiyans, but the simple fact that it took years of training under special circumstances to get as strong as the aliens did. The humans didn't do any special training, not even a token 2-3 years in the Room of Spirit and Time, and all of a sudden they catch up to Buu in terns of power. This is the main reason I never cared for Freeza coming back in his own film, as it just diluted the point of his character for nostalgia pandering.
That is true.
One thing about the humans is they had access to at least a few of the methods Goku used to become stronger (room of time and spirit, training to use the Kaioken, and in the case of Gohan, the Hidden power release), but Toriyama never had them bother (possibly because he'd decided to push them out of the spotlight).
It's kinda annoying how now they just start doing normal training, and are suddenly shown to be on par (or at least able to not die against) much stronger character. Even Goku holding back to his bare minimum should be so above Krillin that the fight should be done in seconds.
It all comes back to Power Levels honestly. Frieza was way too powerful, and made everyone else way too powerful as well (even the ones who were ultimately weaker than him). It destroyed the combat utility of those characters.
Then again, Goten and Trunks became Super Saiyans because SHUT UP! THAT'S WHY! so maybe there was always a way for the humans to become powerful: Toriyama simply decided he wanted them to be...that is, if this is part of Toriyama's notes, and not Toei pulling bullshit again.
One Strip! One Strip!I mean, even if this is just Toei "bullshitting" again, it's ultimately on Toriyama's head for deciding to use these characters in the first place, since he could have easily just made it so you didn't need ten fighters on a team. Toei is probably just trying to justify why said characters are even getting involved in the first place.
Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!No, it isn't. Anyone can get stronger by working hard, but the massive, plot relevant, boosts in power were decidedly not reserved for all the characters equally.
Part of that's method used, but a big factor has always just been that Goku, Vegeta, and their respective offspring just have way more potential than most other characters could ever hope for.
edited 2nd Jun '17 8:55:46 AM by LSBK
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Yea, but Goku is also using Super Saiyan Blue while fighting these characters. We don't know how much he's sandbagging. And if he is sandbagging a whole lot, then it just makes the fact that these characters can only just barely keep up with him look worse by comparison.
It's like, there's no defining line. Gohan goes from losing to Krillin, and Piccolo to pushing Goku towards using SSJBKK in the span of a few hours. With the only explanation being he "trained really hard". Same thing with Roshi suddenly being able to keep up with Base Goku.
There's no rhyme or reason, it's just handwaved by "they trained" without actually going over what training the did. I understand people just gloss over that because they'd rather see these characters in limelight regardless of logic or reasoning, but it's still a glaring issue that I don't think gets enough attention because of nostalgia.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.It makes more sense that he's just sandbagging a lot, as consistent with the way Super approaches situations, 'evening" it's fights by having stronger characters blatantly not use their full power. It's the basic rule of thumb for most of Super, especially casuals situations, though the frequency of which actually somewhat bothered me in several of the more dramatic arcs as it killed the tension.
With Krillin, especially, the context makes it pretty clear that Goku is intentionally not really trying.
edited 2nd Jun '17 12:39:08 PM by KnownUnknown
Years ago, before I read the manga, I made a lot of disparaging comments about the concept of power levels. One of them was that power levels were determined purely by the needs of the plot. Characters fell behind not because it fit organically with the universe, but because Toriyama didn't care enough to keep them in the game. If he decided one day that he wanted, say, Yajirobe to suddenly be trading blows with Super Saiyan 3, he'd just throw in an offhand reference to Yajirobe meditating for three hours under the Rock of You Are Now Stronger Than Super Saiyan 3, and bam, Yajirobe can fight Goku at Super Saiyan 3.
Reading the manga at least gave me a healthier respect for Toriyama trying to keep things plausible. There are still some things that prompt ridiculous leaps - f*ck you, Saiyan zenkais - but most of the gains do make a certain amount of sense.
It is distressing to know, years later, that Toriyama has decided to vindicate my initial derision.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.That's assuming that all of this is Toriyama's doing and not Toei's.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!It's pretty strange for him to change things at Toei's insistence. I mean, he's flat out done as he pleased before, changing the story when he wanted to.
He turned Goku into an adult even though his editor was worried about such a huge change while saying I didn't really care about that, and he's shown that he's not above tossing his characters under a bus if it's the story he wants to tell.
He can be swayed by fan demand (Vegeta owes his life and role to that), but still, he doesn't really seem like the type of guy to pander. If he has something in mind for a character, he uses them, and if not, fuck 'em.
Still we'll have to wait and see how the manga handles it to know who's idea it was for everyone to get as strong as they have.
One Strip! One Strip!That too.
That being said, we know the tournament is in both versions, and that the make up of the teams will likely be the same, so I guess it's a matter of whether the justification for the members is the same in the manga or not.
Toei's justifications are incredibly weak, but we'll see if Toyotaro does better.
One Strip! One Strip!

My issue is that you shouldn't even NEED to make everyone as strong as Goku - ignoring the power bloat Goku went through in the first place - and doing so is just being really lazy and shallow.
It's really like the writers don't know how to script anything other than "holy shit THIS GUY is really strong and hype get hyped for THIS GUY" "isn't THIS GUY great because THIS GUY is strong and nothing else amirite guys give it up for THIS GUY"
rinse and repeat