I liked the Shadow Dragon arc. Well, I liked the concept of the arc. Because by the time before GT starts the Dragon Balls were already abused to the penultimate exponent and were so cheap of a solution. But the negative energy idea would mean that it wasn't so cheap afterall and that they were going to pay a price for this. And at the end the price is Goku.
.... If only they implemented it correctly.
According to the Dragon Ball wiki:
- Haze (Two-Star Ball) was born when Upa wished his dad back to life after Mercenary Tao killed him
- Rage(Five-Star) was when Goku was wished back to life to fight Nappa and Vegeta
- Oceanus(Six-Star) is Oolong's "panties from a hot babe" wish
- Naturon (Seven-Star) is when Bulma and Yamcha wished back everyone *Vegeta killed when he went Majinn
- Nuova (Four-Star) is the King Piccolo one
- Eis (Three-Star) was born when the memory of Buu was erased from the world's memory.
- Syn (One-Star) is the one from Mr. Popo reviving everyone killed on Namek by Freiza and his soldiers.
edited 14th Feb '13 2:29:30 PM by GethKnight
@Enlong But the Namekians did know about the Dragon Balls. That's why the Earth Dragon Balls were designed to scatter so they'd be hard to find, and hopefully only used every 100 years... which makes zero fucking sense, because they could have just increased the "recharge" (stone) period to 100 years. No wishes can be made in that time, so problem solved.
@Nairoxev
But there's no in-story justification for why they should have to pay a price in the first place. The heroes did nothing wrong in using the Dragon Balls to save the world/revive victims of the villains.
Hell, considering the Fanon theory that selfish wishes make for nicer dragons, that would completely invalidate the idea that the Shadow Dragons are punishment for abuse of the Dragon Balls.
It is said immediately after old Kaioshin finishes his ritual and Gohan realises he doesn't need to transform anymore.
Furthermore, it's convenient about how you're forgetting the Graded forms. Super Saiyan Grade II and III, aka "Super Vegeta" and "Super Trunks 2". Those were transformations stacked on top of Super Saiyan, and while Grade II was useful, Goku deemed focusing on balancing the regular Super Saiyan state to be better. And Grade III just plain sucked.
Even the original Super Saiyan state was flawed, and that's why Goku and Gohan had to spend a year reducing the stress on their body to effectively use it. Super Saiyan 2 came around, which was the right way to go after Super Saiyan, but it used up even more energy than Super Saiyan. Then Super Saiyan 3, despite being incredibly powerful, used up so much energy that Goku failed to kill Boo while in a living body. Old Kaioshin's method resulting in Gohan having the power surpassing a Super Saiyan 3, while having none of the stress and energy consumption.
And I was talking more about the Saiyan transformations, but to touch up on the others... you've got the complete wrong idea about Freeza's transformations. They make him weaker. The form he fights Goku in is his true form, and he created the other transformations to help suppress his power. Completely different story. Once he goes through a transformation above his "base" true form (if you count his 100% as that) he begins losing energy too fast to use it effectively.
Cell's transformations were beneficial because they didn't put any strain or energy drain on his body. Simple.
Yes, transformation makes you stronger. That's all your post has argued. If you're not strong enough, you'll need to transform. However, that's still not the right way of doing things. The right way is to be like Gohan: have all that power, but no need to transform to access it.
Oh and Kid/Pure Boo is weaker than Super Boo so that's one case of transformation backfiring.
@Cobra Prime
The Dragon Ball wiki is full of shit and you should never trust it. This is just in general, not about Roshi's buffing up in particular.
Mind you, Super Buu becoming Kid Buu is more like a forced downgrade than an intentional transformation.
You know what would be funny? If people only used the Dragon Balls for selfish wishes, and as a result the "shadow dragons" born from it were all heroic protectors of Earth.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!And Frieza's species' transformations were more from the result of limiting one's power from it's natural latent state, correct?
I'd watch it. Especially if it's just petty greed, and not supervillainy, it'd be funny. Alternatively, it could be "create your own hero", the inverse to "Create Your Own Villain".
edited 14th Feb '13 3:38:49 PM by wanderlustwarrior
I do figure Cold is probably in the second form.
I don't really get the point of transforming down. I mean, Frieza does seem to delight in telling people his power level of 530000 since even that is unfathomably strong, and then telling anyone who defies him that now he's at over 1000000 would just cause total loss of hope, but why have 4 forms? Why not just walk around in his third form boasting about whatever power level that's at and then if he wants to shock them go into fourth?
Though, now there's something that's been bugging me. His power level in his second form is over 1000000. His full power in his final form is 120000000, but he starts off at 1% of it, which is 1200000, which is at MOST only 199999 more than his second form. How does that work as a significant transformation, especially with a third form between those two?
edited 14th Feb '13 3:48:52 PM by Anomalocaris20
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!Figures it was a dub thing. What's the truth of the matter?
You know what's one of the stupidest dub-related things?
I like how apparently members of Frieza's race have to have a convulsion in order to speak their native language.
Also, why does Frieza care about how violent he is in his transformed states?
edited 14th Feb '13 3:56:50 PM by Anomalocaris20
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!Furthermore, it's convenient about how you're forgetting the Graded forms. Super Saiyan Grade II and III, aka "Super Vegeta" and "Super Trunks 2". Those were transformations stacked on top of Super Saiyan, and while Grade II was useful, Goku deemed focusing on balancing the regular Super Saiyan state to be better. And Grade III just plain sucked.
Even the original Super Saiyan state was flawed, and that's why Goku and Gohan had to spend a year reducing the stress on their body to effectively use it. Super Saiyan 2 came around, which was the right way to go after Super Saiyan, but it used up even more energy than Super Saiyan. Then Super Saiyan 3, despite being incredibly powerful, used up so much energy that Goku failed to kill Boo while in a living body. Old Kaioshin's method resulting in Gohan having the power surpassing a Super Saiyan 3, while having none of the stress and energy consumption.
And I was talking more about the Saiyan transformations, but to touch up on the others... you've got the complete wrong idea about Freeza's transformations. They make him weaker. The form he fights Goku in is his true form, and he created the other transformations to help suppress his power. Completely different story. Once he goes through a transformation above his "base" true form (if you count his 100% as that) he begins losing energy too fast to use it effectively.
Cell's transformations were beneficial because they didn't put any strain or energy drain on his body. Simple. Yes, transformation makes you stronger. That's all your post has argued. If you're not strong enough, you'll need to transform. However, that's still not the right way of doing things. The right way is to be like Gohan: have all that power, but no need to transform to access it.
Oh and Kid/Pure Boo is weaker than Super Boo so that's one case of transformation backfiring. @Cobra Prime The Dragon Ball wiki is full of shit and you should never trust it. This is just in general, not about Roshi's buffing up in particular.
If the right way is to be like Gohan, then why is it that Gohan accomplishes absolutely nothing? He has his moment of awesome, and then gets absorbed by Buu and they go right back to Transformations and Fusions to fight him. Kaioshin says his piece, sure, but then for all the boasting of how this is the true way to go, Gohan proceeds to be little more than a power boost for Buu.
Likewise, Goku may have determined that focusing on SSJ 1 was better than trying to find a form beyond it, but Vegeta and Trunks were proven right when Gohan did reach a level beyond SSJ 2. Cell was not defeated by a really awesome SSJ 1 who had focused and balanced his power, he was beaten by the SSJ 2 that Vegeta and Trunks had been trying so hard to find. Transformation stacking defeated Cell.
Finally, as to SSJ 3, Goku explicitly states that the reason he couldn't beat Buu in it is because he didn't want to. He threw the first fight to give Goten and Trunks a chance, and he threw the second one because he wanted Vegeta to have a turn. The problem wasn't that SSJ 3 drains energy too quickly to be useful, the problem is that Goku be dumbshit. Yes, it does drain energy quickly, but if Goku's statements are to be taken as true, then it doesn't drain quickly enough to matter.
Various characters may have stated the idea that maybe transformation stacking isn't the best way to go, but the actual fights themselves contradict this. As far as conflict resolution in DBZ goes, transformation nearly always wins the fight, and all other attempts at finding ways to end the fight typically end in failure. It's not about what makes you stronger or what is more efficient or less efficient. The simple matter is what works.
edited 14th Feb '13 3:59:38 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Because Toriyama changed his mind about Gohan being the hero and completely fucked him over.
And no, Vegeta and Trunks are still wrong. Because Grade II/III are less useful than a properly trained Super Saiyan 1. Super Saiyan 2 is just a better way of stacking on another transformation, and even then it uses up too much energy and is the reason for Majin Boo being revived.
Super Saiyan 3 Goku being able to defeat Fat Boo all along is a retcon, and no, he was trying to finish things with Pure Boo. Vegeta tells him to stop holding back, and he says he's being fighting seriously from the beginning. Giving Vegeta a turn was anime only. And Goku underestimated the energy drain, because he thought he could still gather his energy and defeat Boo, only to be completely wrong.
But that's simply a matter of circumstance. Super Saiyan 3 didn't work either, how many villains did it defeat? Absolutely none. If Goku had Old Kaioshin's power up, he wouldn't have needed to resort to the Genki Dama.
It's also worth noting that most of the instances of using the Dragon Balls to save the world were undoing things that happened because of either the abuse or the desire to abuse the Balls anyway.
Pilaf, the Red Ribbon Army, King Piccolo, Vegeta and Nappa, Frieza, up until the Cell Saga, just about everything bad that happened to the world happened because of the Dragon Balls. The abuse was cumulative, especially in Z. If they hadn't been boasting about being able to use the Dragon Balls to resurrect Goku, Vegeta and Nappa never would have come and killed everyone. If Vegeta and Nappa had never heard of the Dragon Balls, Frieza never would have either, and nobody would be tearing apart Namek looking for Dragon Balls to abuse.
The Dragon Ball abuse was a snowball effect that got worse as the series progressed, because of conflicts that either actual or desired abuse of the Dragon Balls brought on to begin with.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I'd noted that the crap they faced was the result of bragging about the balls before, plus, Gero and his Androids were offshoots of the Red Ribbon Army. They and Cell only got as powerful as they did because of the reviving of Goku and bringing greater threats. And didn't Babadi just come to Earth because of the amount of power there? Plus, Buu was freed as a result of people who were revived by wishes, namely Vegeta.
It's all the balls fault.

Drunken Master Roshi
edited 14th Feb '13 10:58:16 AM by Enlong
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