One of the more prominent criticisms of Dragon Ball Super have been how fast and loose the anime is playing with its characters’ power levels, but as fans have pointed out, Super isn’t the only series in the franchise to have nonsensical power-ups.
Reddit user RadiumFusion took these criticisms of Super to heart, noting that the focus of these criticisms have been on how fast Kale and Caulifla had powered up in th Tournament of Power, and noted that even some of Dragon Ball‘s more revered stories like the “Namek” and “Android” arcs were full of these strange power level increases.
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They even bring attention to Dragon Ball‘s very first wonky power-up, the Ultra Divine Water. Ultra Divine Water was literally magic water that powered up Goku enough to defeat a younger King Piccolo, who he had failed to defeat before when Piccolo was in a weaker state. It’s not that he trained enough to increase his strength naturally, as with the Sacred Water, it was just magical water.
There’s also the matter of the Saiyan blood power increases, which is the storytelling caveat that allows Saiyans to get stronger within short periods of time because they fight strong enemies. With that in mind, it throws a lot of Dragon Ball Z‘s more notable power-ups into question as well.
RadiumFusion’s theory also posits that Gohan’s rage boost should not have been enough to damage Raditz, and that his rage boost against Freeza was unearned as well. Then again Gohan’s entire character arc in the series up to the end of the Android arc, had been about the power residing in this rage. While it may feel wonky looking back on the series’ events, taking it as a whole leading to his power in defeating Cell could negate this point.
Their theory also points out some of the more “convenient” power-ups that seem inserted to move the story along, such as Goku’s massive uptick in power training in the gravity chamber on the way to Namek or Vegeta’s massive increase in power after fighting Recoome or his first ascension to the Super Saiyan state.
This theory points out a lot of potential flaws in Dragon Ball’s treatment of power levels up to Super, so it puts a lot of the current fluctuations in a new light if you agree with these notions.
Dragon Ball Super‘s “Universal Survival” arc is part of the recent simulcast agreement that sites like Crunchyroll and Funimation have scored. Dragon Ball Super airs on Crunchyroll Saturday evenings at 7:15 p.m. CST. Adult Swim airs the English dub during its Toonami block Saturday evenings at 11:30 p.m
Do you agree that Dragon Ball has had nonsense power-ups before, or is this a brand new thing in Super? Talk to me @Valdezology.
