How would you keep the humans relevant in Z?

[Captain Cadaver]

After the Freeza Arc, the humans became pretty much background decoration as fighters. How would you prevent this?

A few ideas:

* Limit the powerscaling - Pretty simple. You want to avoid them being swallowed into irrelevancy by power creep, don't have power creep in the first place and find a way to make a new threat engaging beyond raw strength.
* Give them Kaioken - They won't live up to the Super Saiyans, but it's better than being nothing compared to their base forms after a while.
* Have them develop their skills in a way to combat stronger foes - We kind of got this with the Shin Kikoho, but that came out of nowhere, was just a really strong attack and opened up the question of why Tenshithands didn't use it against #17. Having ones that will actively keep the villains on their toes such as perhaps a Sokidan that absorbs kinetic force to make it stronger with each time it misses or having Kuririn use a Renzoku Kienzan with the same level of control as Freeza's Death Saucer would make them far more threatening.

 

[Pocket-God]

Have it be revealed that they were all part Saiyan all along then give them all the Super Saiyan forms. 2

Or alternatively have them all be trained in the ways of MAINLY GAINZ by Roshi.

But on a more serious note your first two suggestions are probably the best choices.

 

[SSJ2]

Nothing to really add to what you’ve said, but on the topic of powerscaling, I’d limit Super Saiyan to 1 form. Restricting the power creep witnessed in the manga is the only way to keep them relevant. I’m struggling to think of any ideas to power up the humans that wouldn’t come across as an asspull. Kaioken is about all there is for them.

 

[Future Warrior]

Unfortunately you'd have to change the formula completely, which I guess is what Super was trying to aim for. Firstly, remove the insane bloat during the late-Freeza arc, and we could even go the extra mile of removing SSJ completely.

 

[withheldforprivacy]

-Remove King Piccolo's 'less than half' statement and the statements at 23rd TB that render humans trash already.
-Kaioken.
-Them training in ROSAT pre Cell Games and just admitting inferiority after that, like Piccolo did.
-Old Kai unlocking their potential after Buu Saga.
-DBS revelations that justify them being part of TOP at all, such as Tenshinhan/Krillin being half aliens (which explains Tien's three eyes and Krillin's noseless face) and Yamcha having a wolf transformation.

 

[Pocket-Gog~]

I'd argue that there could be an alternative way of doing it, just make more villains for a part. With only Cell as the villain, and him being so strong it meant that humans couldn't be relevant. However, having weaker villains around working in a team would enable the humans to have a chance to shine.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

-Remove King Piccolo's 'less than half' statement and the statements at 23rd TB that render humans trash already.

Which doesn't affect anything when they catch up to his level at the 23rd TB.

-DBS revelations that justify them being part of TOP at all, such as Tenshinhan/Krillin being half aliens (which explains Tien's three eyes and Krillin's noseless face) and Yamcha having a wolf transformation.

Those would just be contrived asspulls that'd further damage Super's writing quality and the point of making the humans relevant again in the first place.
Also, Ten's three eyes and Kuririn's lack of a nose would be poor justification in the DB World. By that logic, Oolong ought to be revealed to be a descendant of the people of Planet Pork rather than just an anthropomorphic pig.

I'd argue that there could be an alternative way of doing it, just make more villains for a part. With only Cell as the villain, and him being so strong it meant that humans couldn't be relevant. However, having weaker villains around working in a team would enable the humans to have a chance to shine.

It could, but there'd be few ways that the stronger characters couldn't just beat the humans to the punch if not changing the status-quo, not to mention it being pretty pointless to add more villains just to be cannon fodder.

 

[Pocket-Gog~]

It could, but there'd be few ways that the stronger characters couldn't just beat the humans to the punch if not changing the status-quo, not to mention it being pretty pointless to add more villains just to be cannon fodder.

I was personally thinking of how Hunter x Hunter managed to handle multiple strong villains, and how it enabled the entire cast to serve their role and have their moment. But considering it's Dragon Ball there's no way it could ever be handled well.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

I was personally thinking of how Hunter x Hunter managed to handle multiple strong villains, and how it enabled the entire cast to serve their role and have their moment. But considering it's Dragon Ball there's no way it could ever be handled well.

I did expect you to be thinking such, but of course Toriyama =/= Togashi and when even the main villains of DB are nowhere near as complex or developed as some of HxH's secondary villains and given Toriyama's track record for henchmen, it goes without saying that the villains would be at best 1-dimensional cannon fodder for a team effort.

 

[Notaka]

They could go a la One Piece and have them fight the weaker guys of the villain team.

Or like you said, limit the powercreep. Or you could have transformations like Super Human Green or something, that could work

 

[Let's Go Fearless!]

You've already mentioned the possibilities for them to be relevant. Dragon Ball has became a Saiyan jerk-circle post Freeza arc so the humans are irrelevant.