There is something of a point to the battle royale format. That point is teamwork. The central theme of the Tournament of Power is that by working together and fighting as a team, weaker fighters are capable of achieving greater heights than they could have alone.
Universe 11 is stated to not have the most impressive fighters outside of Jiren, but they're able to keep from losing a single fighter longer than any other universe because the Pride Troopers are a team; they watch each other's back, group up to face threats, and skillfully combine their powers to eliminate all comers.
Universe 7, on the other hand, totally sucks at doing that because everyone from U7 is like Jiren: they think it's all about them, personally. U7 fields a bunch of warriors who are powerful in varying degrees but are an island unto themselves, who can fight near each other but don't really understand the value of teamwork. "How do I power up to defeat this guy by myself with nobody helping me?"
Indeed, it's only when Goku, Vegeta, and Frieza put aside their pride and work together that they're finally able to bring down U11's similarly pig-headed ultimate titan of a fighter.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 21st 2018 at 6:58:06 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.U7 not understanding the value of teamwork at all strikes me as weird considering that they did just that against vegetta and nappa, and again versus freeza. Sure it was far from perfect, but peole like krillin should be perfectly aware of the value of teamwork and try teaming up with people like piccolo.
Similarly, there's several cases of fighters with weaker power levels winning in the history of Z. Piccolo vs radditz, everyone vs vegeta, so the even if there really were nobody weaker than krillin or tien, doesn't mean they automatically should have nothing to do.
Edited by Yumil on Dec 21st 2018 at 3:08:44 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."Yeah, it's really only the biggest fighters of U7 that don't get the "teamwork" thing. Most of Gohan's fights involve him teaming up with someone else. It's really only Goku, Vegeta, and Freeza who need to learn the value of teamwork.
Krillin and 18 are actually the first to introduce the concept to Goku.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Dec 21st 2018 at 7:14:47 AM
Considering how powerful even the weakest participant has to be and how small and packed the arena is, there really shouldn't be episodes where there seem to be an entire bubble around the characters in focus and nobody seems to interrupt. Rather than a free-for-all, it seems more like a survival game where the field is way bigger than it is.
Here's a thread calculating the Tournament of Power Stage's size.
Of course, due to the unreliability of doing calculations based on tiny dots meant to represent characters, it varies between 92 and 740 meters in diameter. I think the most accurate calculation would be the 200 meter diameter arena based on comparing the arena to Zeno's viewing box, though given that Zeno is high above the arena, it's possible that it's closer to 250 meters in diameter.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Dec 21st 2018 at 7:28:26 AM
Speed is all relative. Most of the 20 minute episodes take place over the course of a couple minutes. While all of them could run to the other side of the arena in an instant, all of the ones around the same level of speed could also keep up with them and stop them by engaging them in a fight. Unless they're one of the crazy heavy hitters, they're not going to look super fast compared to the other fighters, they're just going to look like they're moving at normal speed.
Yet most of the opponents are off-screen, undamaged and any fight are shown in lazily added explosions. Most of the other participants don't ring out fighters, so somehow they can escape from a fight despite supposedly looking like they're running normally. Supposedly there are relatively weak fighters that are on the humans level, yet none of the Saiyan level opponents aren't fast enough to just ring them out. They are pretty much lining up for their turn to fight a member of U7. Dypso, despite being able to accelerate beyond Hit's reaction time, doesn't bother saving his team.
U7's fighters tend only to try to team up as a last resort and even then, rarely employ actual teamwork. There's rarely moments where, like, Tenshinhan blinds someone with his Taiyoken while Krillin cuts them in half with his Kienzan. Rather, fighters in those instances will often fight adjacent to one another, but still in their own world. Most frequently, "teamwork" for U7 consists of one guy 1v1ing a dude to buy time for another guy to power up a Super Attack.
Fighters dogpile more than they actually team up. Frieza is a fantastic demonstration of that. He fights a lot of guys, but they don't actually help each other.
- Frieza fights Vegeta.
- Then Frieza fights Gohan.
- Then Frieza fights Krillin.
- Then Frieza fights Piccolo.
- Then Frieza fights Vegeta again.
- Then Frieza fights Goku.
With moments of actually working together as a team few and far between - the most visible being a "buying time" moment, where Piccolo 1v1's Final Form Frieza to buy Goku time to charge the Genki-Dama, while Gohan and Krillin's contributions are to give Piccolo their energy beforehand so he can 1v1 Frieza harder.
Weaker fighters contribute on rare occasions in small ways, but their primary function is to stand around and be shocked at the powerful fighters' battles. Nowhere was this more evident than the Cell Games, in which all of the Earth's mightiest defenders get together to watch Goku fight Cell. And then watch Gohan fight Cell.
Apart from being nearly killed by the Cell Jrs. and winning not by teamwork but because Gohan transforms and bails everyone's asses out, the weaker fighters do f*ck-all for the entire final battle with Cell. The sole exception is Vegeta - of all people - who briefly distracts Cell during Gohan's final push while everyone else continues to stand there with their thumbs up their arses.
And then Buu brought us fusion, the final nail in the coffin of teamwork. See, the way fusion works is that I'm not strong enough to 1v1 this guy and you're not strong enough to 1v1 this guy, so we should come at him together and combine our pow— magically turn into ONE REALLY STRONG GUY to 1v1 this guy.
Instances of teamwork in U7 are few, far between, and generally only happen as a last resort - such as Gohan slamming Recoome's mouth shut on his Eraser Gun while Krillin pulls Vegeta out of the way, a collaborative effort coming way too late in the fight after they've already done nothing and watched Recoome beat Vegeta half to death.
Indeed, it's not without meaning that the final push against Jiren directly parallels one of the few triumphant moments of teamwork in the series. Goku puts Jiren in a full nelson, a move he hasn't done since Raditz, to hold him down while Frieza's Death Ball forces Jiren closer and closer to the edge.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 21st 2018 at 8:08:43 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.By the way, this is how the Tournament of Power ends in the anime
(obviously, major spoilers).
I can't tell you how many times I've watched that, it's so good.
There's definitely more spectacle (EXPLOSIONS! ROCKS FLYING EVERYWHERE! HEAVY ROCK MUSIC! DID YOU SEE THAT CRATER?!?!) to that version, to be sure. But it doesn't have that poignant parallel between Jiren's downfall and Raditz's that I really like, nor the intellectual twist.
In the manga, it feels like Jiren is ultimately outsmarted. Android 17 is able to conceal in the rubble because the Androids don't have ki for others to sense. This allows him to make it all the way through the end of the Jiren fight despite being admittedly tough, but not on the same level that Goku, Vegeta, Frieza, and Jiren are on. It's a clever use of continuity in a way that makes sense for the story, to achieve something more substantial than "DID YOU SEE THAT COOL ATTACK?!"
I don't like the idea that Goku and Freiza can just instantly gel as partners without any effort. The manga makes a big deal out of this when Goku and Vegeta start pushing Jiren together; Whis has always trained them in 2v1 bouts as a way of tricking them into learning to fight as a team despite themselves. Without thinking about it, without trying, Goku and Vegeta coordinate and synchronize their attacks because they've been trained to fight like this.
Goku holding Jiren while Frieza's Death Ball pushes him to the edge allows them to work together in a way that's meaningful for Dragon Ball fans and ends in a surprise one-two punch; the Death Ball was a distraction all along and Jiren predictably gets it out of the way just in time to be completely blindsided by Frieza's dive-bombing tackle, forcing the three fighters off the edge.
The anime might be flashier and more explosive, but the manga's version feels more meaningful to me. More thought was put into both what it means to work as a team and how to ultimately beat Jiren not just through strength but through cleverness.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 21st 2018 at 9:07:50 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.The moment of Goku holding Jiren back to let an attack hit him is also in the anime, but it's instead Goku holding Jiren while Vegeta fires a Final Flash. Ends the same way, too, Jiren manages to stop the attack even despite Goku holding him.
Also, in the anime, Goku and Vegeta are just functionally incapable of working well together, but their teamwork is so bad that it actually still works well because it throws off Jiren's combat rhythm.
Some other changes: Goku's first battle with Jiren ends with him going Ultra Instinct "Omen" because his own Spirit Bomb almost kills him. Ultra Instinct in the anime is triggered by Goku almost dying and pushing past it. Goku fights Kafla, and beats her using Ultra Instinct "Omen". In round two against Jiren, Goku and Vegeta fight together and Vegeta is eliminated before Goku goes Ultra Instinct for the second time.
The order of fights in the last few episodes goes:
Goku vs Jiren, Vegeta vs Jiren, Freeza vs Dyspo, and Gohan and 17 vs Toppo.
Goku and Vegeta vs Jiren, Freeza and Gohan vs Dyspo, and 17 vs Toppo. Gohan takes Dyspo out along with himself.
Goku and Vegeta vs Jiren, Freeza and 17 vs Toppo. Toppo becomes a God of Destruction, throwing away his morality in the process, and absolutely wrecks Freeza and 17.
Vegeta vs God Toppo.
Goku, Vegeta, 17, and Freeza vs Jiren. 17 "explodes" to stop Jiren's attack and saves Goku and Vegeta.
Vegeta vs Jiren, and Goku vs Jiren. Their final stands. Vegeta is eliminated.
UI Goku vs Jiren. Goku wins, but he falls out of the form because of a split-second moment of pity (fanon, but I like that as the explanation).
17 and Freeza vs Jiren.
17, Freeza, and Goku vs Jiren.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Dec 21st 2018 at 9:25:45 AM
You know, even with all the grief the tournament of power gets (Well deserved grief, even), I still find it interesting that the ultimate winner, the last one standing who gets any wish he wants, is the guy who just flat out doesn't want anything. 17 was perfectly happy just ranging the shit out of that park, and even his 'Maybe i'll wish for a yacht' sounded more like him making an excuse to pay back Goku for doing him a favor.
While I'm somewhat of a spectacle man myself, I admit that how they handled it in the manga makes sense too.
Especially in regards to the 17 reveal: in the anime, him just popping up out of nowhere and being like I hid myself in order to repair myself is silly. But him popping out after all the hullabaloo because no one could sense he was still alive works much better.
As for the idea of teamwork and how it's never really been a thing (and you make a good point about how it handled it in the previous series)...
...I'm gonna mark it down as another Toriyama thing. Just like with weapons, he always made teamwork something ineffective to both show the power of the villain and make Goku soloing them more impressive. But due to the way Power Levels work in this series, that means that, with the enemies that continually appear being more powerful than the ones before them, it shrinks the number of options beyond making one dude stronger.
I sometimes wonder if Toriyama just made too many characters who were superfluous, but didn't really know how to get rid of them or use them.
I'm impressed he tried to do a team Battle Royal and all, because it's something new, but it feels like he wasn't really committed to what that meant.
80 fighters in a jumble...that's not good enough. You need to think this out and really figure out how you want to do this. He did not do that, and neither Toyotarou nor Toei knew how to do it either.
Everyone involved really should have sat down and figured out the details of this.
One Strip! One Strip!Resposting this from the DB thread since its a best movie list & TFS is doing a best fight list so it seems fitting. So the Japanese have shown what's their favorite DB movie.
What's really amusing is that Meta Cooler is higher than regular Cooler.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Especially in regards to the 17 reveal: in the anime, him just popping up out of nowhere and being like I hid myself in order to repair myself is silly.
That's not quite what happened. 17 was still severly injured, he was just unconscious. When questioned, he admits that whether or not he'd survive his self-destruct was a gamble.
That's why I like the anime's version of the Perfect Cell final clash better, since the other fighters finally realize that if everyone's going to die they should at least go out fighting.
"I sometimes wonder if Toriyama just made too many characters who were superfluous, but didn't really know how to get rid of them or use them. "
Is and issue of power levels in general: the more powerfull a chararter is, only the more relevant chararter get powerfull, this means in dragon ball that sayains get the good jazz, the same happen in naruto in their endgame, with one of the main trio(sakura) doing jack shit at the end.
Power level benefit only main chararters.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"Imo that's more a problem of having a cast that only knows variations of firing laser beams and punching things hard.
The shonens who took some cues from Jo Jo and went for the road of "everyone has a specific power unique to them" tends to find a way to keep the weaker members of the cast still relevants throughout a series. One Piece managed to keep everyone in the crew relevant for decades despite the sorting algorithm of evil never stopping. (admittedly it seems it's starting to show some limits but that manga's been running for so long I don't really blame them for that). Bleach also had it's moments but it didn't fare that well in the end.
Edited by Yumil on Dec 21st 2018 at 7:01:38 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."Indeed powers in DB lack variety since ki functions in generally the same way.
It’s like Universe 3’s Pepsiman’s ultimate technique was just a generic beam blast. It was a very generic attack.
A bit more martial arts could add some flare to that.
Edited by slimcoder on Dec 21st 2018 at 10:04:03 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I dont know if because of power being just fire beams or scaling of enemies.
I mean for what I know about jojo the nature of the enemies is diferent: Kira is not "dio but better" but he move in a very diferent way and Dio was taken out by deus ex machina for example.
Naruto have chakra who can do almost everything and they fall almost as hard as DB in power level elitism eventually, in fact it even worst because Naruto never really learn much jutsu, just to reuse the same one he learn over and over with new power ups(in fact one power up is just mixing to existin he have, efectly being blue kaioken).
Saint Seiya on the other hand never really relies in power scaling, I mean it did give new stuff to the protagonist like 8 sense but it never feel diferent because of it.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"I think the Android 17 isn't dead reveal could have been handled better in the Anime (even just having Jiren casually toss a shot at Frieza that gets blocked by a sudden Android 17 forcefield would be an improvement.)
But there's a lot of weirdness in the both versions of the Tournament of Power that isn't explored because there just wasn't that much real life planning. There's still a lot of great moments. The final Jiren vs Goku/Frieza/17 fight is great at invoking your inner 12 year old going "THIS IS MOST AWESOME SHONEN MOMENT EVER!!!!!"; that's a good fight even if it doesn't really signify anything.
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Hence why I said "shonens who took cues from Jo Jo "
Jo Jo in itslef is a whole other beast who mostly averts power creep by virtue of changing casts every time they change arcs.
Although there ARE cases of powercreep even there (Diavolo was meant to be and is "Dio but better") and they tend to stick out a like a sore thumb in the manga.
But things like one piece took the concept of the power design and fight design of Jo Jo and applied it to the more conventionnal structure of a shonen a la DBZ with a power creep very much present. the result is that even though their equivalent to krillin is hoplessely outmatched as time goes on, his particular skillset makes him capable of taking down foes even the protag can't do much about. Ditto for the rest of the crew.
Edited by Yumil on Dec 21st 2018 at 7:20:34 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."

The anime also had them feeling hopelessly outmatched.