Um, the common rationale is the wound weakness.
Also, outside of tanking random Ki Blasts, both Karrot and Veggie combined landed a total of 3 physical hits before the final blow was dealt.
Oddly enough misplaced sound effects: In Karrot and Piccoro's barrage on Broli, it has sounds of impact even though Broli is clearly dodging.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.The "wound" from King Vegetarian stabbing him as a baby.
Which is where protag-kun punched him.
Edited by randomness4 on Dec 29th 2019 at 1:29:27 AM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.It's the only one.
The only one.
As such, it's the common thought.
Okay it's not the only one, but would you really accept that Kakarotto's punch and Broli's bursting maximum power caused him to explode?
Edited by randomness4 on Dec 29th 2019 at 2:09:22 AM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Even if that justification is valid, it's still a really stupid and anti-climactic ending to the movie. The Z movies had a tendency to have the villain wreck the heroes until the heroes pull an Ass Pull and one-shot them. That's what happened with Turles, if you ignore False Super Saiyan, that's basically what happened with Lord Slug, that happened with Super 13, that happened with Broly, that happened with Bio-Broly, and that basically happened with Hirudegarn.
Well, that's just a consequence of the fights basically being over right before the movie ends.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.That's not really an excuse. None of the modern Dragon Ball movies have this kind of pacing problem, the most relevant of which is Broly. Before DBS Broly came out, I was so worried that the film would end the same way as all the other Broly films: with Broly dominating up until he suddenly loses. Thank goodness that didn't happen, Broly's loss to Gogeta feels completely justified and it goes on long enough that it doesn't feel rushed.
The DBZ movies are all horrendously slaves to their formula
Cooler and Bojack suffer from "and they aren't transforming into their best form yet...' cause There is no real reason for Goku or Gohan not to just go SS 2 other then to drag out the movie.
Infact thats kinda hurts the movies worse the moment Bojack and Cooler go for their trump cards yet SS 2 haven't come into play you know how the movie is gonna end
Goku's punch on Broly works cause well the movie needs to end!
Hell Android 13, He can just absorb the Genki into himself... which honestly sounds like a pretty good basis for a power up but comes out of nowhere
The Kaiju monster... lets be honest Goku stole the ending of this movie just so he could show off his new move.
Janemba is probably best since Fusion is brought up as the solution... and ends up being the solution
Praise be to the absolute QueenHalfway through the "LSS Broly vs SSB Gogeta" portion of the fight, the tension shifts from "can our heroes defeat Broly" to "will Broly survive Gogeta", and it's only just barely that Broly does. Like, seriously, I LOVE the final part of the fight, where Gogeta is so consumed with blind rage and bloodlust that he's actually going for the kill with that Kamehameha, and Broly comes to his senses at the last moment to scream in terror as death comes barreling towards him.
It's honestly one of the few moments in this whole franchise where I have been legitimately scared.
Broly spends the entire fight DOMINATING THE GROUP
loses to Goku in one punch due to him having the remnant energy of the Z team...
Toei cares a lot more about cool fight choreography than power levels or continuity. Same reason that moves that only appeared the one time like the Makankosappo become "signature attacks" that characters bust out every five minutes in the anime.
As a result, their fights often tend to be cooler than the manga's, but also longer and with little care for consistency. Goku is able to end it in one punch, man, despite Broly's insurmountable power because that's a cool way to end the fight.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 29th 2019 at 8:27:18 AM
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Toei devotion to Rule of Cool ends up robbing many fights of their tension, which ultimately makes them less cool. Because we hardly know what events actually matter and which ones are just cool set pieces before resuming the fight to status quo, it is hard to care. Not to mention the diminishing returns. Like, the fifth time Piccolo uses the Makankousapou you start doubt it will actually do anything. This is most obvious with the holding back of transformation. If we know a character can transform, and yet, they aren't, then we know it is not important yet. It is just warm up, nothing really relevant. That can be useful to building a cool fight, for course, but Toei often likes to pretend non SSJ Goku is in danger at any point of the fight. No he isn't, and we know he isn't.
It is no accident Toriyama hardly beat around the bush with transformation. Fight starts, everyone transforms, simple. Like, I think there is something to be said about him writing too many at will costless transformations, but, still, if we know a character can just transform with no significant drawback, then the character will transform at the earliest opportunity, because wait around pretending that wasn't a thing is just silly. A think the only time he had a character just pointless stand around at base form was Freeza, and he regretted it and cut the third form short for the real deal.
I think I deviated from the main argument at some point, but what I am saying is: consistency in fights is not just a thing for pedantic fans. I mean, of course we like consistency, continuity and all that jazz, but the main thing is that consistency helps with tension building because it helps to signal to the audience what is important which helps to build tension. If you have no concern for it you either will be confused about which events are actually relevant or, even worse, you will know which events aren't relevant, which kills the mood in a fight scene.
PS:Not saying that Toriyama is perfect either. One thing that I believe Toei does better is to actually try to give characters signature moves. This often falls flat and the moves get devalued as they can never work due the constants of the original materialnote but still, it at least try to make the characters fights a bit more distinct, which is a problem in Dragon Ball in general. Toriyama meanwhile creates cool moves and than never use it again far too often.
Edited by Heatth on Dec 29th 2019 at 3:27:18 PM
Agreed. Toei's usage of Rule of Cool is very superficial.
Frieza at least had a built-in justification for not using his higher forms. The idea that his lower forms serve as power locks on his incalculable might not only justified his status as a multiple-phase boss fight, but also served to really hype up the final phase.
One thing I really love about Frieza is that after Toriyama spends the whole Namek arc hyping him up, Frieza actually delivers on the hype. Frieza finally steps into the fray to show off what he can do with Nail as the poor unfortunate punching bag, and we find out that he's goddamn 4-5x stronger than Captain Ginyu. Scary, but not unmanageable after what we've just seen between Goku and Ginyu.
And then Frieza's like, "Five times? Hahaha f*ckers hold my beer."
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Oh, yeah, I agree Freeza at least had a character reason for doing that. An there is a narrative purpose also to show just how outclassed our heroes were when struggling against the second form. But, still, when new Piccolo came and beat the shit out of Freeza, it is hard to care because we already knew Freeza could transform twice over. That idea worked when the story was playing up Freeza's overwhelming strength, the moment it started to pretend the heroes were on top it fell flat, because we already knew they actually weren't.
Anyway, yeah, fully agree the story did an excellent job building up an paying off Freeza. I think it is a big reason why he became so iconic for the series, more than any other villain.
x3 Six of one, half a dozen of the other: consistency is important to create tension but if you cling too hard to established power levels it makes everything a bit predictable. If there's enough emotional weight to justify a character winning against someone that by all rights is stronger than them, you should go for it.
Just don't do it too much or it, well, you guys already described the outcome above, really.
As for moves in Super, well, it's nice seeing a lot of older techniques make a comeback, but it runs into the very same problem: they don't actually net a win half the time.
Final Flash has a worst track record than the Ki-Ko-Hô at this point.
Edited by HailMuffins on Dec 29th 2019 at 2:31:08 PM
Frieza living up to his hype is one of the better things about him really. And it justifies Super Saiyan too.
One Strip! One Strip!Still prefer the Genki-Dama as the conclusion to that fight, but that's just me.
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Consistency =/= "clinging too hard to established power levels it makes everything a bit predictable"
Admittedly I understand why this mentality is prevalent in the Dragon Ball fandom as one of its narrative problems is to place fighters so far removed power level wise that it removes any chance of a real fight. But still, you can absolutely be consistent without being predictable. You mostly just need to make so the underdog isn't so much weaker that even clever tactics can do no good. The Vegeta fight is the most clear example, I think. Vegeta is absolutely the most powerful fighter around, no doubt about it. He probably could win against everyone else combined in a straight fight. Yet, he loses, in part because of a combination of events (Oozaru, Genki Dama, surprise Yajorobe, etc) and in part because he wasn't so must stronger than Goku.
Furthermore, despite its problems, the story still created plenty techniques that can even the field, such a the Genki Dama, the Kaiohken, and even the Kienzan(if that was ever allowed to work). You are absolutely right that if there is enough compelling emotional and narrative weight for a weak fighter to win, then they should win. But the writer still need to write a convincing and consistent way for that to work out, else it just cheapens the moment, as well as every other subsequent moment in the whole series, as we can't trust the narrative anymore.
I can't say which one I personally prefer, the SSJ is a pay of to an earlier plot point, but the Genki Dama is a better death for Freeza, as he would die on top. The Genki Dama also have the benefit of giving a reason for Piccolo to be there. If he was the guy holding off Freeza before the final attack, at least we get a pay off for him to be brought to Namek. Tough I guess even that would have worked better with Gohan and Kuririn instead (who were the main character so the arc until suddenly they weren't).
Edited by Heatth on Dec 29th 2019 at 5:10:44 PM
A good example of emotional weight deciding victory is Zamasu's defeat in Dragon Ball Super. Out of the three heroes fighting Zamasu, Trunks was absolutely the right choice for the one to defeat him even though he was the weakest because he had the biggest investment in the fight and connection to the antagonist. So even though the Spirit Sword technique could definitely have been handled better in terms of setup, the moment still works well for a lot of people because it pays off the emotional buildup from the rest of the arc.
I haven't watched that because Super, but the Spirit Sword is basically just a Genkidama in sword form, right? That is precisely the sort of thing that allow for a weaker fighter to win without breaking consistency. Of course, you still need to set things up properly as a Deus ex Machina causes its own sets of problems but still.
I agree with that.
It's what I've said for a long time: Spirit Sword needed proper set-up. It was a nice new use for an old concept that rarely gets much pay-off anymore.
One Strip! One Strip!

Movie fights never make much sense
Broly spends the entire fight DOMINATING THE GROUP
loses to Goku in one punch due to him having the remnant energy of the Z team...
Praise be to the absolute Queen