One of Dragon Ball Z‘s most debated topics may now be settled, as hardcore fans are once again digging into what the power level Scouter readouts from Dragon Ball Z‘s “Saiyan Saga” actually equate to in numbers. According to one fan who has done the necessary decryption, Goku’s Saiyan Saga power level official stands at 8,618.
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Take a look at the scene referenced for that number by checking out the image below, which has been making the rounds on Reddit:
This isn’t the first time that Dragon Ball Z‘s power level readouts have been calculated and debated by fans – far from it, in fact. What’s fueling this new wave of callbacks is no doubt the combination of renewed Dragon Ball Z nostalgia that’s come with the 30th anniversary of the series’ debut – as well as the revised canon about the Scouters and their power level rankings, which we got in the recent Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie. In fact, one fan named “Summer Flux” has gone so far as to decode the entire Scouter alphabet, which has sent fans scrambling back to decode all sorts of Scouter readouts from the Dragon Ball Z series (as we predicted they would…).
Of course, non of these big “breakthroughs” are in any way “official” by any means, and as such, there has been much debate within the fandom of how accurate the Scouter translations are, and whether or not we can trust the resulting power level numbers for key characters like Goku and Gohan, during early arcs like the Saiyan Saga. But before we get into too many hardcore debates about the topic, maybe we should all take note of this jewel of wisdom provided by Reddit user BootheFuzzyHamster:
“My favorite thing about power levels in DBZ is that the entire point was supposed to be that in the end the numbers cannot be trusted, hence why the numbers stop appearing and constantly bite the antagonists in the butt, but a huge chunk of the fan base latched onto them and puts WAY too much stock in them and just doesn’t get the point”
Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block Saturday evenings at 11:00 p.m. It is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. The manga has chapters that can currently be read for free thanks to Viz Media. Dragon Ball Super: Broly is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.
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