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Summary
Dragon Ballis a franchise that is all about self-improvement to get stronger. Throughout the series, characters have been defined by their need to break through their limits and unlock an even more broken transformation or ability that puts their strength far above everyone else in the series for a specific time period, whether it’s villains or even their allies.
However, in doing this, there has come a trend inDragon Ballthat takes away from this aspect of the series. This is because, due to the need to make just every one of the main charactersequal in terms of strength, the resulting hierarchy of power has become trivialized and nonsensical to a degree. Let’s see why this is and how this can be fixed for the future of the series.
Wild Powerscaling Of Characters
Some Characters Are Way Stronger Than They Should Be
Ever sinceDragon Ball Superbegan, the powerscaling of the series with regard to some characters has been absolutely wild, especially because of how little sense it makes within the wider context of the story. Perhaps there is no better example of this than Gohan himself. Although Gohan is a fan-favorite character andhis brand-new Beast formhas been embraced with open arms by fans, the level of strength it possesses is completely nonsensical.
To preface this point, it’s no secret that Gohan has the greatest latent potential of all the Saiyans save for Broly. Through his near-limitless potential and perfect mixture of Saiyan and human genetics, Gohan was always built up as someone who could easily surpass all the natural Saiyan states of Goku and Vegeta, which he was even shown to do multiple times within the story. However, this was never a problem beforeDragon Ball SuperChapter 103.
I’m going to surpass you, dad.
Gohan always managing to surpass the others in the context of the Super Saiyan forms was always believable, but for him to match Ultra Instinct despite barely even training for it is very inconsistent and merely acts as a plot convenience to bring Gohan back into the limelight. Even though Goku and Vegeta trained non-stop for their entire lives and suffered greatly toachieve their Divine Transformations, Gohan manages to match this strength by just getting angrier than usual once.
This greatly lessens the need and importance of Goku and Vegeta’s ultimate forms. Why should anyone need to train for power when there exist characters who can match it with minimal effort? The fact of the matter is that Goku uses the signature technique of the Angels while Vegeta uses that of the Gods of Destruction, the two most powerful groups in the multiverse. So, logically, this shouldn’t just be a power that anyone can surpass.
This is also true for Broly, who was able to surpass Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta as a normal Super Saiyan in his first-ever actual battle against someone. However, this wasn’t as bad, considering Broly was still considerably weaker thanUltra Instinct and Ultra Ego. Still, though, the entire concept of characters reaching the strength of Goku and Vegeta’s Divine Forms by only getting angry is preposterous.
Moreover, this is just as true for the villains, as seen in the Granolah arc, where the titular character and the final villain, Gas, were able to surpass Goku and Vegeta by simply making a wish to the Dragon Balls. Although the ending of the arc showed Frieza dismantling the Saiyans with his brand new Black Frieza transformation, it made sense because he got in 10 years worth of training with his insane potential, so he could definitely have done it.
How To Fix This Problem
How Can This Power Hierarchy Be Fixed?
Although Goku and Vegeta’s strongest forms house techniques that are used bythe Angels and Destroyer Gods, it doesn’t mean that no one can surpass them. However, the method of surpassing them is where the issue lies. Someone getting angry and matching Divine Transformations because of their potential is just lazy storytelling, but if someone is shown to put intense training and hard work into it, it would be far better.
This is why Beast Gohan matching Ultra Instinct wasn’t met positively by fans while the introduction of Black Frieza was, since the latter was achieved believably. During the events of theSuper Herofilm, Gohan was even shown to have taken an almost indefinite hiatus from training to focus on his work, so his transformation’s incredible strength was even less believable.
However, what should have been done was such powerful forms as Gohan Beast, Orange Piccolo, or Broly’s complete Super Saiyan should have instead matched up with Goku’s Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken or Vegeta’s Super Saiyan Blue Evolved forms. By making these forms even stronger,the very concept of God Kiis made almost meaningless, since these other characters didn’t need it to achieve such power like Goku and Vegeta.
One way that this concept can be corrected is through a bit of a retcon. Although there’s no turning back from how strong these forms have officially been made because of what’s been stated in the story, it could be that there are some extra setbacks to these transformations that don’t make them as sustainable as Ultra Instinct or Ultra Ego, once more making the techniques of the Angels and Destroyer Gods the greatest powers to be achieved.
