Dragon Ball Z Abridged

I mean, when the raw power was there and works better, I totally can.

Gero may not have seen Super Saiyans coming but he still ultimately opted for an inferior design over a superior one. Androids 19 and 18 both fight Super Saiyan Vegeta, and 18 vastly outperforms 19. That's about as objective of a demonstration for their particular capabilities as you can get.

The shittier design doesn't stop being the shittier design just because Gero had reason to believe that the shittiness wouldn't ultimately be the handicap it wound up being. It's still a shittier design, all the same. Infinite Energy > Energy Absorption.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 3rd 2020 at 8:55:10 AM

The thing is, it's arguably only a shitty design by virtue of the existence of Super Saiyan.

In a pre-Namek scenario (which is what Gero prepared for, even if he didn't know about it), 19 probably would have been more than powerful enough to out-muscle Goku and company, and drain his energy.

Lets remember it wasn't just Namek that prepared the heroes: they also had Trunks warning.

Another thing to consider is that since the heroes can't sense the Android's Ki (on account of them not having any), so building your strategy on a trap may not be as bad a move as you think. Gero got the drop on them multiple times remember, including managing to drain Piccolo for a bit (and had Piccolo not contacted Gohan telepathically, would have drained him completely).

Based on the data he thought he had, I can see why Gero would go with a weaker design if the initial attempt was already well beyond what he needed (and also uncontrollable). Ultimately, it still raises the question of why he made himself an energy draining model, but we've been over that already.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Mar 3rd 2020 at 9:21:59 AM

You'd think 17 killing Gero would be a severe ding against that model's performance.

turning yourself into an infinite energy model makes you rebel against yourself

I mean if we're talking about Gero changing body, there's no guarantee Gero's body would've survived the procedure. 17 and 18 hate him for it despite the fact that it's basically been nothing but positives for it. The main advantage of the model he went for is that it didn't require his body to survive as much shit going through it, only a brain transplant (which, admittedly is a big thing but DB and Science don't mix)

Really I dont even know why were comparing 19 to 18/17 when the real trump card was 16, who is both fully artificial, and outclasses all subsequent model. Gero's only issue seems to have been that it was too peace loving, which wouldn't have been an issue if he put his brain in it.

Edited by Ghilz on Mar 3rd 2020 at 11:33:42 AM

My suggestion, before I knew wtf 16's deal was (According to the wiki, he's supposed to be even stronger than 17 & 18, wth) that the infinite energy model required some kind of organic component that Gero's old frail body wouldn't have survived but would integrate fine with teenagers of Lapis and Lazuli's age.

In light of 16 being the strongest in the universe but never does crap, I can only assume he required parts Gero simply didn't have more of because Watsonian-why the Hell would he not make 19 and himself like 16 then.

We see it in the manga/anime. Imperfect Cell utterly outclasses Piccolo and 17, and 16 all but curbstomps Imperfect Cell, requiring the later to sneak up and grab 17.

Huh, actually, now that I remember, even just watching the Abridged, that is how it plays out.

I can only imagine a lack of additional parts and sentimentality prevent Gero from giving himself 16's capabilities then.

Why not make 19 like 16?

Edited by fredhot16 on Mar 3rd 2020 at 8:50:30 AM

Because Toriyama hadn't invented him yet when he made 19 lack of parts

Was 16 not meant to fight? Because if he wasn't, why was he a fighting robot?

Gero allowed conflicting emotions to muddle what he was trying to do with 16 and ultimately meant he couldn’t do anything.

Why not take what made 16 so strong and put them into 19 if he wasn't going to fight?

Edited by fredhot16 on Mar 3rd 2020 at 2:59:31 AM

Gero's character started out pretty simple. He made some deadly assassin robots to get revenge against Goku for destroying the Red Ribbon Army. Simple, elegant, straightforward.

The multiple retcons in the Cell Saga basically rendered his character into complete gibberish. So much so that by the end of it, Cell's like, "Dr. Gero intended for me to wipe out the universe," and that doesn't even sound unreasonable for the chaotic mess of a character that Gero's become. Like, it's not even about Goku anymore; now he's just an Omnicidal Maniac who wants to exterminate all life everywhere because reasons.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 3rd 2020 at 10:34:42 AM

Why not take android 16 and use the entirety of him to make android 19 is basically what that amounts to...

And Ignoring this aspect, is obvious that 19 being built before 20 means it also serves as a proof of concept or whatever.

Why would he only build one successful model of absorbing energy robots before testing it out.

If 16 isn't going to fight, then he just needs to be a normal robot. He doesn't really need the arm cannons to exist.

And who did he test 19 on? Seriously, who?

Edited by fredhot16 on Mar 3rd 2020 at 3:00:38 AM

Well, we all know Toriyama changed his plans for the Android Saga super quickly entirely based on the criticism of his old editor.

Combined with his Writing by the Seat of Your Pants and Throw It In! style, it's not a surprise there are a lot of holes with...well everything regarding the Androids.

I do wonder why it took no more than a few comments from this old editor to make him change his mind though. Did he not at least try to defend himself, or was he so unattached to the concept even though he went through with it that it took almost nothing to get him to change gears?

Well, partly because he really trusted the guy, and partly because the guy actually had a pretty good point. This might just be entirely hindsight bias, but 19 and 20 never really had much "main villain" appeal to me.

Not to mention, they show up really early in the arc. Remember how long the Freeza saga went on for before actually fighting Freeza? But here, 19 and 20 show up right away, and the good guys start fighting them right away, so I guess it would just be a repeat of the Saiyan saga in a lot of ways. Just all the good guys fighting two opponents in one location. No running around like on Namek. That would have made for a shorter arc.

Edited by WillKeaton on Mar 3rd 2020 at 12:11:57 PM

Benefit of initial enemies.

Well, if we're going to throw around criticisms that the Android Arc seems inconsistent due to Toriyama changing his mind over and over again, what do you think would be a better way to write the Android Arc + Cell Saga that still has the same fundamental results coming from it (Gohan kills Cell, Krillin marries 18, etc)?

Allow Gohand to actually be involved outside of 2 moments and the final bawss.

He should do more things.

I actually kind of like how the Android arc turned out, because it's perhaps the only time in the franchise where there was a sense of mystery, even if that was the end result of Toriyama changing his mind. If 19 and 20 aren't the Androids Trunks warned us about then what are? What was up with that second time machine, and what came out of that egg? I actually really liked the tournament section of the Buu arc, because there was some mystery there too. Who are these strange looking people? What do they want? And who are those humans with the M on their foreheads? It seems they used to be regular guys, so how did they get so strong? Thing, is after Gohan's fight with Kibito, we get a big info dump and al the mystery is gone.

We get that with Cell too.

I get the feeling Toriyama isn't good at maintaining mysteries. He can set them up pretty well, but as soon as the opportunity to give The Reveal happens, he goes all in and gives away the entire ghost.

I suspect he just wants to get it over with as soon as possible.

Something I think he's very good at writing is cliffhangers. When taken as a whole, the Cell and Buu sagas can feel haphazard, but reading or watching week to week they're very effective at drumming up interest to see how this new wild development is going to play out.