When it come to jojo the problem is less power scaling and more if certein stand is to OP, Dio and time stoping+vampirism pretty much made him unstoppable and anime did have to move a little bit here and there to make it work(is hard to find people who didnt find jotaro victory bullshit).
I will said a problem with dragon ball was power ups and transformation, one you have another form who give up a sustancial leap it become imposible to match and power creep start, ask digimon fandom for that, they will tell you.
Naruto is a intersting case because chakra allow for a almost infinite power moveset and yet power creep is pretty prevelant, specially when Madara "OP AS SHIT" uchiha enter the fray, there is a reason I compare with broly.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"To completely change topics (back to something more on-topic), episode four of Advanced Adventure. Goku fights Jackie Chun and moves into the Red Ribbon Army Arc, which cut out Eighter entirely. Also, Lani and Grant talk a bit about Animorphs and MST3K.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Dec 21st 2018 at 11:47:42 AM
The transformations wouldn't be as much of a problem if there wasn't a strict rule that the saiyans have just more potential than the humans. One piece has "transformations" for the main charcaters but it's not treated as something you can't catch up to. other people just make up their own transformations or a technique that works as well.
But humans in Dbz can't catch up to the saiyans because it's been established too long ago to walk back on it that a human has no way to match something like super saiyan blue and don't have a similiar potential unique to them. There's also the whole zenkai thing that makes catching up to the saiyans even harder.
I guess Piccolo could, if they found more namekians to fuse with him for, but that's not something they're interested in doing.
Edited by Yumil on Dec 21st 2018 at 7:52:05 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."With Jo Jo it's because the scaling is vertical rather than horizontal. Each stand does a thing, and that thing can be worked around with enough planning or with another Stand ability that counters it in some way. One Piece does the same thing with Devil Fruit powers having recognizable properties that also give each fruit a weakness you can figure out and exploit.
The actual problem with Dragon Ball is that horizontal scaling is everything. Every remotely challenging abilty that isn't related to brute strength can be beaten with brute strength. There's also the problem of every fight looking the same because it's impossible to make feats of destruction look more visually impressive that blowing up a planet or moon, something we saw Roshi do in the pre-Raditz days.
This video goes into my point in much greater detail. I really like it and I'm happy I found an excuse to post it here.
Edited by VeryMelon on Dec 21st 2018 at 1:53:30 PM
I like your difference between horizontal and vertical. That kinda ties up with something I said earlier : You shouldn't be able to no sell the kikoho no matter how much stronger than Tien you are. Walk away unscathed, sure, but if the attack is designed to be that power wall that WILL push you back, then it should push you back. That would give tien something unique to him he could use to his advantage in the To P to score some cool sucker punches. Frost no-selling it through questionnable raw power just makes it a more costly, inefficent kamehameha.
Same goes for Krillin who already has the kienzan, whose entire concept is that it bypasses you defense by focusing the entire power of the attack on a much smaller point. There's some perfectly reasonable victories to make out of that, if you decide to actually use it rather than make everything a dick-measuring contest.
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."I will said tranformation have that issue because they are very individualistic, they are set so one chararter become more powerfull and "diferent" and in a way it mark a arc by that tranformation: Super sayian with Freezer and Super sayian 2 with cell, god with beerus, super sayian god super sayian(CMON, REALLY?) with golden freedy I mean freezer, I mean digimon have that logic too and it shows.
In fact for all people who hates GT I least the show scale back super transformation A LOT, fase four goku isnt the end of the world and it show struling plenty of times, I still laugh when 2 star dragon said he cant transforms.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"Pre-Red Ribbon days even! Though, to be fair it was still a rare occasion back then, and it was clear it was not just something people could or would do at the drop of a hat. Fights were still reasonably varied back then and it wasn't until Piccolo Daimaoh that "destroy everything in sight to showcase strength" became a thing. And it wasn't until the Sayan arc that extreme feats of destruction became collateral damage instead of a thing the villain did purposefully to be evil.
But, yeah, eventually it just became silly. That is a large part of the reason I don't think Dragon Ball holds up. Everything is ultimately too samey after a point. I honestly would say that the Sayan arc was the last genuinely good fight in the story, though the problems were already showing since much earlier.
Okay I watched the video and eeeeeeh. It's really really long to essentially make the point you made in five lines and then another good one, that Toriyama has a poor habit of creating stakes by saying that this guy's the strongest of [[Currently impressive location]] which equates to writing yourself in a corner when it comes to introducing the next villain.
Like, those are good points, and they probably explain in hindsight why I felt nothing about DBZ before watching the abridged, which focuses a lot more on the characters rather than the fights, but you can make both of those points in two minutes tops by cutting the bitching, the random tangents and the general need to shit on things.
Also it means that you got horizontal and vertical mixed up. I thought so that horizontal was implying diversity rather than vertical.
Edited by Yumil on Dec 21st 2018 at 8:47:48 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."If my memory serve me well, there is a video that was post here saying it was Freezer fight that change everything because it took insane level of power up in order to defeat him, Each time the z warrior beat him he just took another transformation, The fact he stand a genki dama to the face and just get going is a clear point by that everything was broken as hell.
Edited by unknowing on Dec 21st 2018 at 5:19:17 AM
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"![]()
It's in every discussion related to power levels because it's true.
If we're ignoring battle power numbers then that escalation actually happened in the Vegeta fight, when he shook the planet and caused storms just by powering up, was capable of scorching a continent by raising a finger, and was stated (and in the anime, shown) to be capable of destroying an entire planet with a charged beam attack. Short of some scenes in Super like Champa shattering a dozen planets in quick succession with jabs and his clash with Beerus threatening to destroy the universe, or that anime-only scene of Buu destroying all the solar systems in a galaxy over time, you can't really visually escalate up from that. This was also the first time we really had "Superman-style" fights where everyone was flying around casually, punching each other through mountains, and throwing out ki blasts like water.
1.Krillin and tien are better used in the manga than the anime.
2.The anime was wrong for giving them fights against fodders.
The implication being the manga used them better by making them doing... Nothing of value ?
Pretty sure I remember that.
Weaker than Semi Cell.
I think people miss the whole point of the Semi-Perfect Cell scene with the Kikoho. It's not that the Kikoho will magically work on anyone no matter how powerful; its very first Z usage proves otherwise, and no one working on the show thought this considering Gohan, Buu, and apparently now Frost no-sell it in anime-only scenes. It's that Tenshinhan is so irrelevant that his greatest effort, to the extent that it literally kills him, is barely enough to stall an off-guard Cell for a few seconds. Which is still a huge stretch by the series' own logic, but a smaller one. The anime kind of ruins this by having the Kikoho scene take ten minutes but there's no indication it took that long in the manga.
Edited by Kamiccolo on Dec 21st 2018 at 12:43:15 PM
It's a Ki Blade...it cuts things.
That's what makes it special.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Gee TFS, Goku vs. Freeza couldnt possibly be at the top of the list :V
This is almost the same order as their villain countdown.
But yea, when you get down to it Dragon Ball fights kind of suck lol. Every character has the same basic abilities (Flying, beams, etc etc) with the only difference being who has a bigger power level. And even then, the only way the audience knows who has a bigger power level is if the characters tell you or if Goku has a different hair color.
Even characters like Hit, who have unique skills, are overcome by simply raising their power level higher than his.
But for some reason, we all eat this shit up, including myself and I can't explain it.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I mean, it is not like the anime staff is worth much...
Anyway, I agree that "Kienzan will cut thought absolutely anything, no exception, ever" might be an unsupported exaggeration. However, it does have the ability to punch well above its height. It could have killed, or at least gravely injured, Nappa, whom Kuririn couldn't do anything against otherwise. And, yeah, that does apply to Makankosappo. Except that technic is much shittier as it needs a lot more prep time.
Anyway, that Toriyama did create these techniques and then basically forgot about is another of his flaws. He creates an interesting thing and then simply doesn't think through about what it means. These abilities should, by all logic be factors to be considered in future fights, and could create more diversity, as they aren't "stronger person win" type things. Yet, they are never relevant again after their debut fights (I don't think Kuririn ever uses the Kienzan after Vegeta in the manga). I am almost amazed that Toriyama at least remember the Genkidama exists until the very end.
About the video: that fight is boring and I wouldn't consider it ever. It has precisely one good moment as far I can remember (teleporting Kamehameha) and that is it.
Edited by Heatth on Dec 21st 2018 at 7:00:07 AM

One of the things that helps Jojo keep from suffering power creep is that nearly all of the combatants are normal humans, and their Stands are the ones with superpowers. So they might have an ultra powerful punch ghost but they'll still die if you shoot them with a gun.
And a thing I really like about One Piece is that elemental advantages can mean just as much as brute power.