Correcting the Manga's Worst Offenses

[Pocket-Gog~]

That would have resulted with a vastly inferior story.

 

[withheldforprivacy]

From a power level point of view, I will go into some of the wrongs I saw in the manga. I'd like to tone down a lot of what I saw, not all situations though.

Dragonball

1) The humans power increase catching them up to Piccolo Daimao levels. This makes no sense from a story standpoint when it was clear that King Piccolo is different than any of the humans. The human level is more or less maxed out around the 22nd Budokai and this should stay this way unless we come up with some really good bullshit. Like Kaioken or something.

2) Piccolo and Goku's rate of improvement in training for the 23rd Budokai. Probably not necessary for such a large gap, but this might be predetermined by Kami/Popo vs Goku. I would have to look into that a bit more.

3) The Namek Saga zenkais. They just got out of hand. Goku going to 90K is probably ok, but that massive jump after that, no. I would have to rework the saga. Freeza doesn't need to be this overbearing.

4) Kaioken 20x forces Super Saiyan to be too high. I'd reduce Kaioken to 10x and Super Saiyan to 20 or 25x if possible. This sets up the rest of the manga more reasonably.

5) Piccolo's training gains on Kaio's planet and for Android Saga training.

6) Gotenks bullshit haxes. He needs to be able to be toned down. All he needs is forms added on top of his already massive Super Saiyan power.


Wow, the list is shorter than I thought. 6x changes ain't bad.

1) Humans never won after 22nd TB, so they can remain at that level with nothing changing at the story.

2) I think Kami and Popo being stronger than King Piccolo in the first place is what causes problems. It
makes no sense at all, considering Kami is just the aged other half of Young Piccolo, and it creates enormous
gaps that AT does not support with the scouter PLs that come after the saga.
Kami/Popo being weaker than King Piccolo would make him look more fearsome, makes a better reason
for Kami never defeating him (instead of portraying God as an asshole who cares more about his position
than about humans) and fits better with the PLs AT created at BOZ, when he had already forgotten there
were two Piccolos (he said so himself).
As for Goku losing to Popo, that could be attributed to him not being used to the height. Or they could
have even made the Holy Water's effect temporary. Goku training in the lookout to rebring out his full
potential that was temporarily released by the water makes more sense than him being declared as
maxed out by Korin, then starting to increase his strength again right away.
His potential will only be reset when he starts the next kind of special training (King Kai).

3) AT should have decided what he wants before writing the saga. He makes Freeza look formidable by
giving him an absurdly large PL (530k) only to make everybody and their mommas competitive right
away once the final battle commences, thus defeating the initial purpose of making Freeza formidable.
I think that fight should have been written with Freeza ragdolling everyone till Piccolo arrives, then
Freeza transforms into the 2nd form.
Nail's statement that implies Piccolo went from 2000+ to half of Freeza's power after 6 days of training
should also be omitted. Let's leave it up to debaters to decide how much power Piccolo gained at Kaio
Sama's planet.

4) The invisible kaioken theory solves so much here. It decreases all the ridiculously high PLs by 10x,
makes Goku's zenkai more reasonable and Piccolo's future gains less haxed. It's ridiculous that AT used
the invisible bursts theory for SSJ Blue and not with the kaioken, which was meant to be a burst thing
anyway.

5) Already covered that.

6) I'd take out all the pre ROSAT Gotenkses scenes. The boys could have successfully fused in ROSAT
for the first time and nothing would have changed in the story. Let SSJ Gotenks post ROSAT be the
warrior about whom Goku stated he would surpass him.

 

[Castiel]

I definitely would not have bloated the power levels in so many different instances as much as AT did. There's no reason for Freeza to be literally 1k times stronger than his most powerful subordinate, and that's the only reason Golu and Vegeta had to rely on Zenkai and Kaio-ken/SSJin to keep up. Both those things are limited to Saiya-jins, so it's only natural that the rest of the cast fell behind without a reliable way to power up, besides Piccolo who had the luxury to find two other Namekians to merge with.

The way I would do it is probably something like:

1st Form Freeza: 530.000
2nd Form Freeza: 1.060.000
3rd Form Freeza: 2.120.000
Final Form Freeza @ Vegeta/Goku: 3.500.000
Final Form Freeza 50%: 5.300.000
Final Form Freeza FP: 10.600.000

With Vegeta getting the same Zenkai but falling short of defeating Freeza like in the original series. But I'd have Goku reach First Form Freeza's level, have his Kaio-ken top out at x10 so he'd equal Freeza's 50%. Super Saiya-jin ideally would get its power halved, boosting Goku's power to 13.250.000.

He'd get closer to Vegeta's base power by the Android saga but only truly surpass him after the trip in the RoSaT, so you'd also have an explanation of why Vegeta's stronger than Goku @19.


If we want the humans to stay relevant in this scenario we could have them learn Kaio-ken on Kaioh's planet. Hell, have Krillin join them up there and have him learn it too. The humans could also keep working on it since they don't have any more powerful, flashier transformation to use, so they could probably bring it up to x20 or even above. Although I don't think they'd play much a role in the story they would put up a much better fight against the Androids and the Cell Jr.s. Flesh out Chiaotzu's psychic powers more if you want to keep him in the team instead of shafting him.


Also, I hate how astronomically stronger Gotenks and Chou Gohan are than the rest of the cast at the end of the Boo Saga. >_> It doesn't really have any impact on the story but the gap could be GREATLY reduced.

 

[p123]

@withheld

1) Humans should be capped around 22nd Budokai levels. That's factual and logical with the manga and it's history. No reason for them to bloat up enormously.

2) I agree, Kami and Popo should fill in the massive gap between 22nd Budokai Humans and King Piccolo. There is quite the gap, something like 10x? How much weaker should Kami be than Piccolo? Maybe half? Or 75%?

3) Freeza's power is definitely an issue.


Are we ready to tackle some of these issues with a power level list? I'll start a thread.

 

[p123]

I think Goku should probably only be double or triple other average humans. No need for it to be that out of hand that early. Krillen is clearly doing some super human shit, but it should all be reduced way way down. This whole series doesn't require ridiculous power levels.

 

[withheldforprivacy]

I think Goku should probably only be double or triple other average humans. No need for it to be that out of hand that early. Krillin is clearly doing some super human shit, but it should all be reduced way way down. This whole series doesn't require ridiculous power levels.

Which period of the series are you referring to? Wanna check out my rewriting PLs from scratch thread?

 

[p123]

Nah, not really. Our visions differ too greatly.

 

[Six Trails]

I actually don't mind Gotenks and Gohan being so high in the Boo saga, I think that fusion and Gohan's maximum potential should both leave Goku completely in the dust, I just don't like how pre-RoSaT Gotenks starting off so low that his post-RoSaT power ends up being such a huge power up. It makes fusion make no sense.

 

[p123]

Nothing in the manga suggests that Goku is an ant. In reality, Goku is still seen as somewhat relevant. The gaps shouldn't be all that tremendous.

 

[Six Trails]

Goku trembling in fear of Evil Boo (the same one who got pulverized by Gohan) would definitely suggest he is an ant. Why should Fusion (and Gohan's potential) be so underwhelming?

 

[p123]

Agreed. Goku would get destroyed by Super Buu. Also, First Form Freeza destroyed Nail. No need for it to be all that much larger than that. Gohan being 10x Goku or in that general vicinity is reasonable. Gohan being 100x Goku is unreasonable.

 

[Six Trails]

I'm not saying you have to agree with the gaps I'm suggesting, I was only refuting your original claim of Goku being "relevant" and not an ant.

To me Gohan being 100x Goku is not unreasonable, but that's because I believe Ultimate Gohan should be the pinnacle of Saiyan power, completely unattainable by any other unfused Saiyan. Maybe that could work with a 10x gap, but I don't feel a need to have it so tight.

 

[Fantastische Hure]

I'm not saying you have to agree with the gaps I'm suggesting, I was only refuting your original claim of Goku being "relevant" and not an ant.

To me Gohan being 100x Goku is not unreasonable, but that's because I believe Ultimate Gohan should be the pinnacle of Saiyan power, completely unattainable by any other unfused Saiyan. Maybe that could work with a 10x gap, but I don't feel a need to have it so tight.

Exactly. Gohan's potential was build-up all the way from the beginning of DragonBall Z and he was shown to be special, light-years ahead of the others so 100x+ is not unreasonable.

 

[p123]

I never said Goku was relevant. I only said he was somewhat relevant. He was considered to possibly be a help against Buutenks with Gohan at his side. That wouldn't be possible as a 100x difference. But at a 6x difference, he might be able to manage something.

 

[Six Trails]

What suggests he could be of any help? Old Kaioshin literally says him and Gohan wouldn't be able to beat Boo.

Even if that is the case and I'm misremembering here, not even a 6x gap would make Goku of any relevance. To make that statement actually work you'd need Goku to be like 2x weaker than Gotenks-Boo at worst, which obviously isn't the case.

 

[p123]

BS. Krillen did just fine against 2nd Form Freeza, creating enough of a distraction to keep the main players alive. You know nothing sir.

 

[ahill1]

I don't think what's being argued here makes much sense, honestly. So Goku needs to be at least in the "10x weaker" ballpark to be of use? I honestly think someone being 10x weaker than the other is already as useless as one can get. For instance, 1st form Freeza stated he wouldn't be using his full power against Nail (42,000)... and based on everyone's else reaction towards Freeza powering up, with Kuririn even stating he didn't think it was that much, I think it's easy to conclude Freeza was still far from full power. So, it's likely Freeza's gap over Nail, in their fight, was considerably below 10x, yet Freeza didn't even flinch over Nail's full power attack, and Nail's blast did nothing to him... honestly, that's as useless as one can get, so if Goku is 10x+ below Bootenks, he sure wouldn't be of any use. So you either have Goku in the ~50% ballpark of Bootenks, or conform to the idea of Goku being completely useless. Goku just believed he was of any use because he wasn't thinking straight btw... once Old Kai pointed out to him that he doesn't think they'd manage something fighting together, Goku promptly suggested fusion.

It's also worth noting that Kuririn could only do something to 2nd form Freeza with the Taiyo-ken and Kienzan and based on far weaker opponents getting affected by the former (Dodoria being affected by it when Kuririn did use it), I think it's fair to say Bootenks would be also affected were Goku to pull off such attack, as he also possess such attack. So, that would be as far as his usefulness would go imo, considering a Kienzan would also not be effective against Bootenks.

 

[p123]

I think Goku vs Super Buu could go about as well as Krillen vs Freeza. So definitely not 100x, but something less than 10x, sure.

 

[ahill1]

Well, as long as Goku is completely powerless against him. I have the gap at around 50x.

 

[Fantastische Hure]

150,000x at–least