Current Events > Super Saiyan was ALWAYS an asspull.

(+) Yeah! (+)

It had no real buildup whatsoever. Came out of nowhere because plot.
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Didnt they introduce the concept earlier on?
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"Came out of nowhere because plot" makes absolutely no sense.
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it's not like they said the name a bunch of times throughout the frieza saga
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Why do you have such awful opinions on DBZ?
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You... Do understand who the author of that franchise is right?
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If you didn't watch the previous like 40 episodes sure
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Scotty_Rogers posted...

It had no real buildup whatsoever. Came out of nowhere because plot.

Frieza's whole reason for destroying planet Vegeta was because he feared a Super Saiyan would rise up and kill him. It's literally Vegeta's whole backstory. It didnt come out of nowhere.
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Goku having the four star Dragon Ball at the start was a total asspull. No build up at all.

TC is not very knowledgeable on DBZ it seems.

Duncanwii posted...

Scotty_Rogers posted...

It had no real buildup whatsoever. Came out of nowhere because plot.

Frieza's whole reason for destroying planet Vegeta was because he feared a Super Saiyan would rise up and kill him. It's literally Vegeta's whole backstory. It didnt come out of nowhere.

He should have just done like 15 pushups instead and then he'd have nothing to worry about.
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You still on that?
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ITT: People not knowing what actual buildup is.
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ITT: TC doesn't know what blatant foreshadowing is.
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Literally everything from DBZ onword is just "super saiyan, but we changed the name"

vegeta literally spends the entire arc shouting about being a super saiyan, then tells goku to become one as he dies.

huh???
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Here's a tip on properly building up something; you build it up right from the very start of a story. If you only come up with the general concept late into the story without ever making it clear on what it's supposed to be until we actually see it, you aren't properly building it up. That said, no, Super Saiyan was not properly built up. It is, indeed, shit Toriyama pulled out of his ass.

Duncanwii posted...

Frieza's whole reason for destroying planet Vegeta was because he feared a Super Saiyan would rise up and kill him. It's literally Vegeta's whole backstory. It didnt come out of nowhere..

False. Not only were Saiyans a forced retcon made midway into the series in and of themselves, but so is Freeza. Originally, Saiyans were destroyed by an asteroid, and Vegeta was the true leader of the remaining ones. Goku was to have killed Vegeta in their final fight in the Saiyan arc, but due to Vegeta's popularity, Toriyama decided to keep him around. Wanting to come up someone more evil to replace Vegeta as a major villain to kill off, Toriyama came up with Freeza. From there, Toriyama retconned the Saiyans being wiped out by an asteroid to them being killed by Freeza. There was no buildup to Freeza's random ass introduction at the end of the Saiyan arc; he was a last minute addition to the story because Toriyama was afraid to kill off Vegeta. Freeza = Poor man's Vegeta.

As for Super Saiyan, yes, it was an asspull. Originally, the reason Freeza feared the Saiyans was just because he feared a possible rebellion of them, nothing to do with Super Saiyans. It wasn't until midway into the arc that Freeza randomly mentions his fear of a Super Saiyan; shit randomly being brought up midway into a story arc that's already taking place midway into the manga isn't proper buildup. Furthermore, it isn't even clear if Super Saiyan is a transformation or just a title until the very moment Goku turns into one during his fight with Freeza. Making matters worse, he transforms in a blatant deus ex machina; Freeza killing Krillin drives Goku so mad that he transforms, even though Goku was never someone to get stronger from rage before. You'd think he'd have turned SS or at least something close to it when he got pissed over Krillin dying in the Piccolo Daimao arc, but he didn't. Oh, and transforming randomly heals all the damage Goku sustained before transforming, just because it does. But all the subsequent times Goku transforms, he doesn't heal at all. Plot contrived BS.

So, no, none of this is proper buildup. To properly buildup something like an epic transformation, you build it up right from the start of the series. Toriyama didn't do that; he pulled the concept of Super Saiyan out of his ass midway into the Freeza, which was midway in the series to begin with. He didn't even make it clear what it was supposed to be until the very instant Goku turned into one, and that moment arbitrarily came when the plot called for it via a trigger that was a blatant deus ex machina. The only reason Toriyama even made it a transformation was because his assistant would complain about having to ink Goku's hair, so Toriyama gave Goku a form with hair that his assistant wouldn't have to ink.
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DBZ's literary chops aren't that good? Man, you gotta be careful with crazy and wild claims like that.

Do you still do recolors of how forms should have looked?
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ITT: the first chapter of a book must entirely lay out the direction of the plot or else the rest of it is an asspull.
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Tupacrulez posted...

ITT: the first chapter of a book must entirely lay out the direction of the plot or else the rest of it is an asspull.

Not necessarily lay out the whole direction in the very first chapter, but gradually build the important shit up as the plot goes along starting from the first chapter. Coming up with important shit several years after the story started is not the way to do things. Dragon Ball should have just ended at Pilaf.
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Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (Kaioken x10)

I dont have anything to say just like to let people know that's a thing
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I marked TC for disruptive with that massive spoiler post
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Yeah, I should have just put a spoiler warning in the title. My B.
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Scotty_Rogers posted...

Tupacrulez posted...

ITT: the first chapter of a book must entirely lay out the direction of the plot or else the rest of it is an asspull.

Not necessarily lay out the whole direction in the very first chapter, but gradually build the important shit up as the plot goes along starting from the first chapter. Coming up with important shit several years after the story started is not the way to do things. Dragon Ball should have just ended at Pilaf.

Question, why do you post about Dragonball as a franchise when you seem to despise it so much? Or are there things you do like about it?
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Scotty_Rogers posted...

Tupacrulez posted...

ITT: the first chapter of a book must entirely lay out the direction of the plot or else the rest of it is an asspull.

Not necessarily lay out the whole direction in the very first chapter, but gradually build the important shit up as the plot goes along starting from the first chapter. Coming up with important shit several years after the story started is not the way to do things. Dragon Ball should have just ended at Pilaf.

With that kind of stupidity, nothing should ever go past the first arc.
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Nah, a story can have multiple arcs if the major plot points in those arcs are gradually built up from the start of the story. The only things that Dragon Ball really built up from the start were the Dragon Balls and how they grant wishes, which makes sense as it was originally intended to just last one arc. The only reason Toriyama went further is because he wanted more money; he should have just ended it at Pilaf and started a new series afterwards.
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Frieza ruined the whole power scaling. Before frieza, there was more than just having higher power level in fights, at least in DB and even in the early parts of DBZ.

Funny how Frieza feared ssj, and it was even something no one was absolutely sure it even existed, when in DBS he trained for 4 months, and surpassed not only the ssj transformation, but ssj2, ssj3, fusion forms of ssj's, mystic gohan, and finally a fucking ssj GOD. Oh and ssj god ssj...

Oh, and he surpassed them, while the ssj transformation we're way beyond what they were in dbz frieza saga. Had frieza trained for A DAY, or idk fucking stretched little bit before the fight in Namek he would had increased his PL to beat Goku easily.


Frieza shouldnt been ever defeated. Maybe use dragon balls to make him lose memory instead or something. That way they would had been left him as a background threat and maybe run into him few times. Would had made more sense than Goku increasing his PL from sub 500 to 150 million, because theres some enemy that just has to be defeated. It would had made the dbs fight epic, instead of realisation that Goku training like mad for 30 years and reaching some super duber crazy miracle ass pull, which still left him weaker than frieza who did kept beating some low level, mastwr roshi level asshole for 4 months
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I've put more thought into this than any of you.
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Scotty_Rogers posted...

Tupacrulez posted...

ITT: the first chapter of a book must entirely lay out the direction of the plot or else the rest of it is an asspull.

Not necessarily lay out the whole direction in the very first chapter, but gradually build the important shit up as the plot goes along starting from the first chapter. Coming up with important shit several years after the story started is not the way to do things. Dragon Ball should have just ended at Pilaf.

Sauron was introduced something like 1/3 of the way through The Fellowship of the Ring as I recall it. To that point the Nazgul (not even fucking named as such) were the enemy.

Moby Dick took nearly half of the book named after him to show up. Hell we don't even meet Ahab for the first 130 odd pages. And that's a literary classic like nary another.

And those aren't multi arc long running series. Those are singular works (LotR was split up after the fact).
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And yet you still can't get Buu's name right.

Yes, many popular stories follow the same flaws as Dragon Ball. Just goes to show that popularity and quality are two different things. Gotta be da proper build ups if you want quality, fammy!

You want an epic transformation? Build it from the start!
You want an epic villain? Build it up from the start!
You want an epic final fight? Build it up from the start!

Build it up from the start!
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The original SS transformation was great. Even for Vegeta and trunks, then it got completely stupid IMO...that's when it became an ass pull, when chichi training Goten made him transform....and Goku having specific techniques he can't train the others like kaio ken, spirit bomb and instant transmission. Even king Kai couldn't train the dead z fighters because.......reasons.
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KillerKhan420 posted...

The original SS transformation was great

No. A textbook deus ex machina, and whatever prestige or value the form had completely went out the window once we saw a random new character casually turn into it at the start of the following arc.
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itt:

build up = mentioned in the opening of the story

deus ex machina = something that happens despite it being mentioned that it would happen beforehand.

i'm no dbz defense force, but your definitions are....a stretch.
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@pauIie posted...

itt:

build up = mentioned in the opening of the story

Doesn't have to explicitly be mentioned, but built up from the start. That's proper build up to something in a story.

deus ex machina = something that happens despite it being mentioned that it would happen beforehand.

Rage being the trigger to Goku's transformation was not at all mentioned beforehand. He had never even gotten stronger from rage before in the story. It's a deus ex machina, because it comes out of nowhere for the sole purpose of Goku finding a way out of danger. Don't straw man.
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You see, Frieza, you're not dealing with the average Saiyan warrior anymore...
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Scotty_Rogers posted...

@pauIie posted...

itt:

build up = mentioned in the opening of the story

Doesn't have to explicitly be mentioned, but built up from the start. That's proper build up to something in a story.

deus ex machina = something that happens despite it being mentioned that it would happen beforehand.

Rage being the trigger to Goku's transformation was not at all mentioned beforehand. He had never even gotten stronger from rage before in the story. It's a deus ex machina, because it comes out of nowhere for the sole purpose of Goku finding a way out of danger. Don't straw man.

pretty sure vegeta told goku he was a super saiyan, before the transformation, at some point. maybe after he got whooped and was dying. and then the whole frieza killing the saiyans to prevent the super saiyan. if it's not the original reason, that'd be a retcon. not deus ex.
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pauIie posted...

pretty sure vegeta told goku he was a super saiyan, before the transformation, at some point. maybe after he got whooped and was dying. and then the whole frieza killing the saiyans to prevent the super saiyan. if it's not the original reason, that'd be a retcon. not deus ex.

Goku simply transforming into a Super Saiyan isn't the deus ex machina. It's the way he did it that was. He had never once gotten stronger from rage before in the series, so for that to be the trigger to SS1 is an asspull and deus ex machina. There is something called reading comprehension; I suggest you look into it.
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Scotty getting decimated as per usual

I dont particularly care if it was an asspull or not, though I dont agree that it didn't have build up.

It's an enjoyable and iconic scene and its satisfying to see Goku enraged over the loss of his friend and get pushed into Super Saiyan over it.
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Small buildup may as well be no buildup.
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Having the only things that matter in a story being the stuff that is built up in the beginning is not good story telling, it's a sign that you lack ideas and or lazy.

And this from someone who agrees the buildup to SSJ was lackluster overall.

Tbf TC your way of assuming the story should be told is just as bad.
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It's a fucking shonen. The majority of them have shitty build up, shitty writing, and shitty story beats along with shitty stock narrative threads. They're for children.

Shitty build up is still build up.
Shitty hamfisted foreshadowing is still foreshadowing.
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Doesnt vegeta talk about it after Goku beats his ass on earth?

I remember him thinking Goku was a super saiyan then
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If I was a baby bird I'd sure enjoy this regurgitated vomit.
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TCs vast knowledge of the DB franchise made me change my opinion from what it was originally going into this topic. On a side note, was Goku even aware of SSJ transformation? Hes a doofus to begin with plus he also never mentions anything about it explicitly to my memory
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Kazi1212 posted...

TCs vast knowledge of the DB franchise made me change my opinion from what it was originally going into this topic. On a side note, was Goku even aware of SSJ transformation? Hes a doofus to begin with plus he also never mentions anything about it explicitly to my memory

No, he doesnt know until vegeta tells him he becomes super saiyan.
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Trigg3rH4ppy posted...

Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (Kaioken x10)

I dont have anything to say just like to let people know that's a thing

I actually found that moment quite entertaining.
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Vegeta told Nappa that he thought wishing for immortality would allow him the opportunity to become a Super Saiyan.

So it was brought up in the Vegeta Arc, not just out of nowhere on Namek.
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