A Godly 10th Anniversary, Early-Access Dragon Ball Dissection!

I know Boo's power level got out of control last month on Twitter and isn't of much interest here, but it seems to me that there is an alternate interpretation of Goku's rejection of fusion that might work better. I always interpreted Goku to mention the fact that Boo is no longer fused to highlight that he was now weaker than before. If that was the case, he might think eternal fusion with Vegeta was an unnecessarily high cost to pay. In the end, when Goku found himself unable to defeat Boo, he recognized that it was a mistake to reject the Pothala. What had changed there was not Boo's individuality, but Goku's perception of his ability to defeat him. That might also explain why he was so confident at the start of the fight, although I think that still wouldn't work because, well, Boo just killed his children and everyone he loved.

Sergio PM

Ooooh, I cannot wait for Super for when we get a rant about Beerus and how he fixes and ruins the Gods of Dragon Ball! Hehehehe Though I agree, Toriyama could have done something clever and made the Gods pencil-pushing bureaucrats who just so happen to be powerful masters... Where the increase of jurisdiction could have been a... "well, you see, just like how on Earth you have governors, senators and presidents with rising authorities on regions who only involve themselves if the issue lands on their desk, the same works in the divine world. I have only jurisdiction on this part of the divine world that handle's death and the afterlife of your part of the Galaxy. Unless the threat is galactic or threatens the natural reincarnation cycle of the world, I cannot help you. And I have because when you fought the Saiyans, you were already dead, so I was allowed to help you because you fell under my jurisdiction to train. I also helped with Freeza and Cell because they were threats to your entire Galaxy. The Supreme Kai handles matters on a universal scale, so he only intervenes if there is a threat to the fabric of our entire universe, both mortal and divine. So that is why I've never mentioned him before because the situation was not dire enough to involve him." But Nah! He's just a stronger dude! and more gods because Toriyama only has one button on his desk when he needs somebody stronger than the last guy... make a new more powerful character! Need a Guy more powerful than Kami, then King Kai, need a guy stronger than him and the anime already used the directions and Grand Kai, a Supreme Kai, oh I need a guy more powerful than him ughhh I'll just use directions and a Supreme Supreme Kai! Oh I need a guy more powerful than that... ugh a God of Destruction Beerus, oh I need a guy more powerful than him... ugh Zeno! It just gets cumbersome and that is before we talk about the Kais of Time or the other universes and the universe gets crowded with redundant useless Gods and not in the clever way I outlined earlier. And they keep putting in more gods for no other reason than because we need a stronger master for Goku/Gohan. This becomes an issue in Super because Whis and Beerus basically break the fabric of the universe even before we introduce Zeno. Hence why Beerus hurts the Gods worse than before and also fixes issues you've brought up.

On Goku deciding to forgo fusion - I thought the explanation for that was contextually obvious. He's willing to face this Buu in a straight fight because this Buu is way weaker than the prior one. He went from begging Vegeta to fuse inside Buu's body when he thought he had to fight Super Buu on the outside, to being comfortable going 1v1 when Pure Buu showed up. In the case of the Potara in particular, why sacrifice your life when you believe you can beat the enemy normally? This is a consistent thing with Goku. He panicked and defaulted to double-teaming/tail-grabbing when he had to fight Raditz, who woefully outmatched him, yet insisted his allies leave him to fight Vegeta alone (before demanding they fight beside him again when Vegeta went overpowered him). He had no problem using everyone else's energy in a failed attempt to kill ~50% Freeza with the Spirit Bomb, but when his power skyrocketed over Freeza's, he insisted on letting the lizard reach his full power for a 1v1 (and still tried to spare him when he won). When it came time to face Cell, he at first tried to win with his own power to the point of directly dismissing the idea of fighting as a team (even when Cell was tired), but when he realized that he couldn't win, he was entirely willing to let Gohan take the lead and even chastised his son for not pragmatically going for the kill. Being directly exposed to how outclassed he is tends to shock Goku back into reality. He will go with the "boring" method of winning if he thinks it's the only way, but if he thinks he can get away with a fun, fair fight, he'll always try that method instead. Super Buu wouldn't be a fun fight. He'd just die. You can see that in this very battle, actually. When he realizes he can't beat even this weakened Buu, his first instinct is to go back and grab Gohan and Gotenks to fight with him. Vegeta's the one who has to dissuade him. Of course all of this is to some degree dependent on the "which Buu is stronger?" discussion, which I hope you address, because it really is vital to how the final battle plays out. If you go with the consensus view which is also fairly spelled out in the manga (that Pure Buu is weaker than any form of Super Buu, and thus Gohan, Gotenks, and Gogeta/Vegetto), the whole climax of the arc becomes completely impossible to feel invested in because it only happens as a result of the heroes handicapping themselves. The purest expression of this is probably the attempt to ring fake drama out of the idea that Pure Buu will deflect the Spirit Bomb and kill Goku... who, going by the established precedent, would then just immediately respawn in the same place with a halo over his head, with a new body more amenable to Super Saiyan 3's strain, and promptly kill Pure Buu (and if that fails, there are still three back-up plans).

I can't wait for the Dragon Ball Super Dissection God rant!(Or Angel rant I suppose)

Kian Hartley

Thank you very much for this. Great content as always.

I mean... The west, south, east and west Kaioshin mostly dying out could have been the reason the current system exists at all. The current lesser ranked overseers could have been created specifically to fill in these roles after the guys who's job this originally was were all absorbed.

Winters King

To quote Obi Wan Kenobi “I’ve been looking forward to this”

Tales from the Nuzlocke