He's completed the latest episodes, and was showing it at cons. I saw it! LK was probably waiting for this to release it; as a sort of debut, and so he doesn't have to worry about it being taken down.
Me and my friend's collaborative webcomic: Forged MenSomething else I was thinking of: The original series clearly had problems with Can't Catch Up, but because of the nature of why certain people couldn't catch up, it flirted dangerously close to Hard Work Hardly Works or even Fantastic Racism. Humans couldn't really do anything on their own, and Namekians had to try fusing to stay relevant. Try as they might, there was really no way a non-Saiyan could ever keep up, unless they were magical or filler (Pikkon). Maybe one way to tackle that might be to suggest that power multipliers are mutually exclusive, and thus non-Saiyans, namely humans, might be able to stay relevant by trying a Kaio Ken x 200, for example.
Plus, because of how much DBZ influenced those that came after it, the "inherently more powerful protagonist race" schtick became a bit of a running thing in shonen stuff.
I still feel like the moment Yu Yu Hakusho started losing me (though it was still awesome all the way through) was the point where Yusuke was revealed to be part demon. Meh.
Kaioken x200 would be ridiculous and nonsensical as far as plot consistency goes, but it would make one of the humans capable of equaling Goku's first level of Super Saiyan - albeit only if the gap between the humans and Saiyans remained exactly as it was as of the end of Namek, and Goku failed to continue growing at a faster rate than them.
By show's end, wherein Super Saiyan 2 is reliable to use and Goku and Vegeta are even further distant from the humans' powers, even the impossible x200 Kaioken would be far insufficient. Of course, at show's end, they have the Fusion Dance and Potara to play around with, so there's that. Even then, however, no fusion the humans could come up with would be able to compare with Vegito.
The hardest part about giving the humans the ability to compete on the same level as the Saiyans is finding a power-up that would be exclusive to them, something the Saiyans and Piccolo couldn't also undergo. Piccolo stayed relevant once the Saiyans started getting ridiculous zenkais by having an exclusive power-up in the form of Namekian Fusion, but as of yet, the humans don't have any ability to gain power that's race-locked.
That being said, given the sheer amount of hard work that Goku consistently put into his training, I don't think Hard Work Hardly Works would be the right message to take away from it. The hard work of the protagonists triumphing over the naturally in-born power of the antagonists is a major theme of Dragon Ball.
edited 31st Aug '14 10:50:49 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
I'd say that it works to an extent. Goku works hard, but Piccolo and Tien train a lot too and neither of them can keep up. Piccolo lucked out. He had Namekian fusions. The humans don't have that.
Speaking of Namekian Fusion, I remember one of the what if story lines from the video games having Piccolo fusing with King Piccolo. Does anyone remember that?
To me, the big issue with DBZ wasn't the fact that Saiyans totally outclassed everyone - it's that there was nothing particularly special about post-Vegeta threats except being stronger. The Androids and Cell each had interesting quirks (infinite energy, techniques of all the heroes) - but the Androids' quirk was never satisfactorily worked around before Cell usurped them, and did it really make a difference that Cell could use the heroes' moves instead of using his own like Freeza? Buu was a move in the right direction, at least, having more unique qualities (even if it just degenerated into being harder to vaporize). The ideal situation would have been for the enemies to challenge the heroes in some way that they could actually circumvent or constructively challenge, instead of just being flat stronger. The best I can say is that Toriyama clearly recognized the problem, he just had difficulty coming up with solutions.
One Piece managed to stay interesting for a very long time (I haven't checked in since around the beginning of Fishman Island, so can't judge what's been done since) by at least giving the villains interesting techniques that need some kind of strategy to be circumvented. Magellan and Moria in particular had quirky and interesting ways to challenge the heroes rather than just flat-out being stronger. Other series, Bleach especially, really fell into the constant upgrade trap where it was all about cheap spectacle of how powerful the hero and villain were. There are only so many ways you can do that story before it gets old (see the decline of Japanese pro wrestling around this same time period, which had much the same problem with endless escalation before Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kasuzhika Okada became big successes by scaling things back).
edited 1st Sep '14 12:03:00 AM by TheEvilDrBolty
To expand on what Tobias said about requiring a race-locked boost fo the humans, the problem with something like Kaio-ken x200 is even if you could justify them handling something 10x more than Goku could barely handle, the Saiyans would immediately copy it and use it themselves. They've better combat instincts than humans, so it would be a big reversal to say only the humans had the skill to learn it, and they don't stop training, so the humans couldn't out hard work them to get it.
edit: The game where Piccolo fuses with King Piccolo is from Supersonic Warriors 1. It doesn't make a lick of sense, since he's explicitly a reincarnation (and if anything of King Piccolo made it to hell, it'd be reincarnated there anyway...) but it's far from the bullshit the second Supersonic Warriors game came up with to buff Piccolo.
edited 1st Sep '14 4:25:33 AM by Saiga
No, he was a reincarnation. Piccolo IS Piccolo Daimao. If he was just offspring, then God would have died right after Daimao was impaled on a child.
Drum, Tambourine, and Cymbal were offspring, but Piccolo is explicitly stated to have reincarnated himself in the final egg he spat, so that he could grow stronger and take his revenge against Goku.
edited 1st Sep '14 6:29:33 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Can you give me the chapter/interview where that's said? I'd much like to be sure.
I have a message from another time...I don't have any problem with calling Super Saiyan a mutant thing. I mean, it's just Goku, Vegeta and their offspring who can do it- and wasn't there a thing about Goten being able to do it really easily because Goku went Super Saiyan before he was conceived?
'Cause if you pretend that makes sense, then Super Saiyan thing looks very mutant-ish.
Vegeta IS a mutant, in a sense. He's not actually a mutant, but he IS a Super-Elite. He was born freakishly powerful and represents the absolute epitome of what the Saiyan race can become. He is, in short, the BEST SAIYAN EVER and should not be taken as indicative of what the average Saiyan is capable of.
Goku, conversely, is utter garbage as far as Saiyans are concerned; his power has more to do with the incredible training he's undergone than simply being a Saiyan. Training from God himself, mastering techniques from the afterlife that have never before been seen in the world of the living, gravity training in 100x Earth's gravity, etc. That Goku is a Saiyan is secondary to the fact that Goku is Goku and, as such, should not be considered indicative of what the average anything is capable of.
In short, holding Saiyans to Goku and Vegeta's standard is like assuming every single member of Frieza's race has a power level over 100,000,000 just because Frieza does. Goku and Vegeta surpassed the limitations of the Saiyan race by sheer force of being Goku and Vegeta back when they were still on Namek.
The trend set by the Ginyu Force puts 30,000 to 60,000 as exceptionally high powers rarely seen anywhere in the entire universe. Namekians are explicitly stated to have high power for a species, which is why their average fighters are between 1,000 and 10,000, which is still unconscionably high compared to Earth. Humans are, on average, a low-power species which is why a garbage Saiyan like Goku was sent there in the first place - that humans are so pathetic that an infant Saiyan could slaughter them is, specifically, the part of canon that trying to power up humans is fighting against.
Still, when humans do compete, it's not through power boosts; it's through creativity and skill. That's what gives Earth its special flavor - the special flavor that made Goku powerful, in fact. Ki sensing, focusing techniques like the Kamehameha and Makankosappo that are substantially more powerful than their user, non-damaging but still potent attacks such as the Solar Flare or Afterimages, amazing skills such as the Kienzan, predictive martial styles, etc. etc. Humans excel at getting more bang for less buck, while the rest of the galaxy is largely content with "I am stronger, therefore I win" fighting styles.
Short of it is, if you're trying to make humans capable of competing with Goku and Vegeta, that's a lost cause. NOBODY can compete with Goku and Vegeta, not Saiyans, not gods, nobody. By the end of the series, they're more powerful than anything is ever supposed to be, and anything you can do, they can copy and do better. If you're trying to make humans capable of competing with generic Saiyans, however, putting the emphasis on their ability to outthink and outstrategize their enemy over sheer overwhelming strength can tip the scales in their favor.
edited 1st Sep '14 2:24:25 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
That, yes.
Ultimate Gohan surpasses both Goku and Vegeta individually - but, not to be outdone, Goku and Vegeta have a Fusion that makes Ultimate Gohan look like an utter wimp. Ultimate Gohan is the strongest individual fighter, while Vegito is the strongest thing that exists anywhere in the canon, with the probable exception of the new stuff Battle of Gods introduced.
edited 1st Sep '14 5:17:30 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

Lets seee, latest thing he did was Yugi vs Marik which came out last March. Definitely no team four star in terms of speed.