How would you re-write DBZ to take out the power creep bullshit?

How would you re-write DBZ to take out the power creep bullshit?
I personally think there should have never been anything higher than Super Saiyan

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>Cell saga
>Vegeta and Gohan don't just suddenly get SS1
>Instead Goku is the only one with super saiyan
>Plot is mostly the same since goku is sick most of it, the fact that they don't have a Super Saiyan to fight the andriods mean they get their ass kicked just as badly as they did
>When Goku fights Cell he realizes he can't win same as before but do to the his heart condition rather than just because he had a higher power level
>Gohan goes Super Saiyan and the OH SHIT moment isn't the fact that Gohan went SS2, but instead that someone other than Goku could go SS
>Skip to Buu arc
>Vegeta is mad that he is the only one that can't go SS when Gohan and Goku can
>Bobetty gives him the ability to finally go SS

I liked it when TRUNKS went super saiyan in history of trunks when he lost this mentor to evil robot teenagers.

This was already ridiculous.
Remember that 18 000 Vegeta could already blow up entire planets.
Super Saiyan Gokuu should be able to sneeze at a planet and blow it up.

My biggest problem with DBZ was that they went back to earth instead of exploring space. Freiza could have just been one of 3-4 (one for each quadrant I guess) space emperors who come with their own bullshit. It even works with space horrors like Buu

My biggest issue is that Toriyama after the Frieza saga was clearly writing it as he went along.
The start of Z to the end of Frieza felt like it was planned. Everything after was just whatever he felt like doing that week which makes Buu and Cell not work at all as far as a complete story goes.

One way to prevent power creep, though this is a bit cheating, is to present a ceiling early on. This ceiling is often in the form of a character or characters, who represent the maximum or near-maximum strength a character in the setting can reach. Doing this means that when you introduce a character that's EVEN STRONGER than the last villain or rival, instead of your audience rolling their eyes, they go "Well of course there's someone stronger, the last guy wasn't anywhere near the ceiling". So you can keep going as long as you follow one rule, never break that established ceiling. You can crack it a bit, but as soon as you bust through it you're back at square one. I say this is cheating because it doesn't technically prevent power creep outright, it just makes it easier to swallow and less jarring since it doesn't strain the audience's suspension of disbelief as much

Super Saiyan should have been the ceiling. It was hyped up as a once in a 1000 generations. So the idea of a SS2 or 3 is pretty much a plothole.

The only plan was introducing the Super Saiyan and even that was little more than making Vegeta come up with some legend and that was it.
He literally did not plan how many times Freezer could transform when he transformed the first time, and simply made it up.
This dude probably doesn't even plan single chapters and just draws them as he sees fit.
Half of his transformations are simply because the fans didn't like some of the deisgn.

That's the worst part, starting with Z he started doing whatever to please the fans and editors. It leads to things getting scrapped suddenly

I got chills reading this.

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eh. It's pretty plausible to just say saiyans were retarded, which they were. Once it was confirmed real by characters who actually trained, thought about the future, half-breeds, etc. instead of just jerking off with their tails it's not crazy to think there would be advancements

For someone who procrastinated as much as a normal person, the Frieza and Android Sagas were surprisingly coherent

>How would you re-write DBZ to take out the power creep bullshit?
End after Frieza. Immediately introducing human made robots that are significantly stronger than Frieza was fucking retarded and it ruined Super Saiyan as a whole.

>yea there's this super saiyan legend that's super rare and shit, oh no we're gonna all be killed and go extint
>oh btw, we have this super random ritual thing that makes a guy a fucking SUPER SAIYAN GOD that's super easy to do with a kombaya circle
fucking kek

It's coherent because it has no real plot.
Anyone can write
>They go to this location, then they fight, then this guy transforms, then they fight again
Without introducing plot holes.
I do not grasp how this shit title is popular.

If you don't like power levels, you don't like Dragon Ball. Unironically, FUCK OFF.
>Oh but I love the sense of adventure, and wonder, and-
YOU LOVED SOMETHING THAT EXISTED FOR LESS THAN FIVE YEARS IN THE 80S. Dragon Ball is power levels. Dragon Ball is ATATATATA.

DRAGON BALL
IS
BASED

you just answered yourself, no one goes through DB expecting a literary masterpiece, anyone can follow the story, a 5 year old, random guy watching while he works, someone who doesn't speak the language etc and the fights are still pretty exciting with all the cool transformations and simple drama and plot twists in between

Imagine if Ultra instincts was the first real power up since SS. Imagine how much more hype Ultra instincts would have been without 2, 3, god, ect making the idea of power ups boring.

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Or better yet, imagine if Super wasn't a thing at all!

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>Doesn't understand how dragon ball z, the first Shonen of it's kind would be popular
Reminder, in America the closest thing to Dragon Ball American kids got was fucking He-man. If you can't understand why Dragon Ball was the most popular show of it's era (65 million viewers average) then you weren't old enough to remember it's release.

this sounds good but is also right

Is this /dbs/?

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>Dragon Ball is ATATATATA.

>DRAGON BALL
>IS
>BASED

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Actually I do like Dragon Ball retard, it's Z when thinks became power level wanks.
Autismo faggot. Dragon ball was liked do to it's characters, humor and fights. The mentally ill who jerk off over power levels are what ruin a good action comedy.

That's too good to be true

Literally explain what's wrong with the backstory of buu, you can't

I hope this post is ironic.

The buu saga itself shit the bed. His backstory itself isn't necessarily bad.

OG Dragon Ball was a masterpiece.

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>Actually I do like Dragon Ball retard, it's Z when thinks became power level wanks.

YAAWWWWWNNNNN. Bitch. FUCK OFF. An ESL GOBLIN like yourself can't even read my post, can you? You are pining for a BRIEF STINT OF NARRATIVE from the 80s. The 80s. If you don't like power levels. Transformations. Screaming. and Jiren. Then you can go read Hunter x Hunter. Hiatus ends any day now, right??

I just noticed Vegeta gets his newer armor in the second part of that meme

I think Vegeta should have fucked off after the Namek Saga and stayed in his role of being an antihero bordering on villain. Could have brought him back sparingly for example have him keep Cell busy while Goku/Gohan were training, or even have him be the one that trains Gohan, you could later have him show up out of nowhere during the Buu arc for a fight without any of the Babidi bullshit etc

2/10

fuck off buu saga is kino.
it's even worth powerlevel bs getting a bit forced, because it gave us buukino.

no it's pretty trash, including most of the fights

>Buu saga is kino
Lol. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug
>Sayaman was fun
>Tournament was fun
>Then videl is randomly sidelined
>Character assassination
>the most bullshit of powerups
>Boring fights
>Buu and Mr. Satan interacting is fun
It's 85% shit with a few good parts.

It starts off really strong with Gohan and Videl, then he does a 180 bcause fans demanded more Goku wank.

- stop resurrecting characters so their death's have impact in the story.
- stop bringing back the same villains over and over again just because nostalgia
- set limits on what you can ask when you get all the dragon balls
- stop creating 80 thousand versions of the same villain (cell, buu, etc)

>I do not grasp how this shit title is popular.
It's very easy to get into, the plot is simple to follow and the story doesn't take itself too seriously while also remaining somewhat grounded and delivering the important moments for the characters with impecable timing.
Sure, it ain't a well written shonen let along manga by any means but it doesn't really shit the bed in any occasions AND the endings for each arc are so great that Toriyama could've literally ended it at any point and still outperform 99.99% of mangaka who can't write satisfactory a finale to save their lives.

I would understand it, maybe, if the fight scenes were actually high quality. But they're terrible too and cheaply animated and use loops constantly.
He-Man had a far more coherent plot each episode.

You still cited half that's fun stuff. that makes it good with a few bad parts, hmm?
>Character assassination
Didn't happen?
>the most bullshit of powerups
Every character doing w/e crazy hijinks and powerups they had left, literally inventing fusion or ss3 or holy swords or whatnot, to stop the new bad was part of it too.
Even if they had to backpedal at the last minute and make goku deal the last blow it was still fun.

I have spent far too much time thinking about how I would have re-written DBZ to make it flow better

Dragon Ball's power creep bullshit happened way early in the series, so rewiting it would be a daunting task. It's not really worth it either since the visual scaling is still bullshit. Be it characters moving as fast as bullets or moving at lightspeed, be it characters shooting beams that could destroy a building or beams that could destroy a planet, it's always going to be drawn the same. Even the artists and writers forget; Goku early on could effortlessly tank Frieza throwing a mountain at him but for some reason was in pain when Broly dragged him across an iceberg. This series is too far gone in its ridiculousness.

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The fight scenes in the manga are among the best of the medium

I would have liked it if at some point someone (Roshi? Tenshinhan? Older Gohan?) actually explained what ki was and how it worked. A paragraph here or there explaining a system along the lines of "you get ki from breathing, it's carried through your body in your blood vessels, sometimes your soul can generate more in a way that's unknown [until later plot development fleshes it out]" would have sufficed.
There could have been interesting tactics introduced to beat enemies with stronger ki like hitting pressure points that cause it to clot and leave other parts of their body vulnerable, or techniques like the Devilmite Beam that turn an enemy's ki against them could have been more prominent, or maybe even things like that tornado ability the girl shadow dragon from GT had that dispersed beam attacks unless they were fired from above.

Power creep started during Dragon Ball though. If you want to get ahead of it, you have to go way back before Z.

What you need is, instead of everybody has to get "stronger" to win, peoples' ways of fighting are important. There are examples of characters having interesting techniques in Z, but they either fail because they're too weak compared to their opponent, or because the move is so good (like kienzan) that succeeding at hitting an enemy head-on with it would be a total game-changer that seriously fucks over the enemies available.

>Androids Saga
>Goku doesn't suddenly give out to the heart disease yet wounds up being more fatigued from the fight against 19, leaving him to have his energy drained more realistically
>Vegeta turns into SSJ by seeing Goku suffer, hence leaving much more impact on the reader
>Gero sends out a shockwave in the crevaces that he's hiding in to ward off Vegeta, Trunks, Tien, Piccolo, Krillin, Bulma, and Gohan to help expand on his usage of intelligence against the Z-Fighters
>17 and 18 act more brazen and cocky towards Gero in an act to show their more sadistic side that we've seen from the alternate future
>Cell retains his imperfect form even after he absorbs the androids to leave a much lasting impact in terms of moral terror against the Z-Fighters
>Buu Arc
>Buu arc would be a hybrid of Post-Cell Saga Z, Baby Saga from GT, and Galactic Prisoner from Super so expect to see a young Teen Gohan with an even older Videl to help keep with the dynamic that even though Gohan is acing in his classes, he's still a kid at heart exploring what it's like to be young
>Moro, Myuu, and Baby join forces to conquer earth and take revenge on the saiyans
>Baby infects Vegeta as opposed to Babidi's mind control, so that when Goku returns, he would turn SSJ4 against Vegeta so that the fight wouldn't be as one-sided
>Baby infects the human population to rebuild the Tuffle race, save for Androids 17 and 18, Tien, Chiaotzu, Hercule, Videl, and Dende, while Gohan and Piccolo train the Time Chamber.
>The uninfected characters between 17, 18, Tien, Hercule, and Dende all go out to find Dr. Briefs to reverse the infection rate of Baby's virus and find a cure to counteract and stall until Goku arrives.

Cont.

>Black water mist all over again on a planet scale while Moro insinuates that he's been betrayed by Baby's efforts, leaving the two in an all-out war. However, Moro sees through this and absorbs the infected Baby humans' powers to use his energy against Baby.
>SSJ4 Goku reappers again to stall Baby while Gohan and Piccolo train to power up
>Baby overpowers Goku until Moro intervenes
>Bulma completes the machine necessary to turn Baby into an Oozaru, which he does
>Moro continues to absorb more humans into his mass until the two have a large-scale Kaiju batlte
>Piccolo and Gohan arrive to help and stop the infected Krillin, Yamcha, and other assailants from killing Goku
>Baby and Moro's battle causes the earth to quake, leaving seismic waves to crush the earth beneath them and expose its core
>Piccolo insists that he stays behind much like he did in GT to leave the dragon balls unstable as a means to redeem himself of his former's evil crimes, in addition to helping Gohan, Goku and the others buy some time to get off of this earth.
>Gohan and Goku fly to the nearest ship made by the Briefs with 17, 18, Dende, Hercule, Tien, and Chiaotzu
>They crash land on the nearest unnamed planet closest to Earth's oxygen and atmosphere while the earth explodes behind them.
>Baby and Moro survive the battle yet are knocked unconscious and rest in space from their fight on earth

>Goku, 17, Tien, and Gohan land on the nearest planet while 18, Chiaotzu, Hercule, and Dende stay behind and Goku enters a fit of rage for losing his planet, family, and loved ones
>Baby wakes up and senses the nearby power level from Goku, with Moro following him soon after
>Baby and Goku fight again, but this time, Goku, 17, Tien, and Gohan all charge their attacks against him
>Baby shakes it off and charges at the remaining Z-Fighters, knocking Goku and Tien out and breaking Gohan's arm
>While Baby walks up to Goku, 17 grabs Baby from behind and asks Gohan to charge a Kamehameha
>17 throws Baby in the air, leaving 17 and Gohan to send out an energy wave to launch him into the sun where he'll burn, even with Vegeta's body
>Moro sees the energy blast coming from the nearby planet and lands in to see the incident
>Moro sees the tired Z fighters and asks Gohan to fight him so that he could die knowing that a successor would take his place
>Gohan walks, yet is past the point of caring anymore. By this stage, he's surpassed Vegeta and Goku yet again and ends Moro in one punch
>Gohan gets on his knees and asks himself what he's done to save himself for the Earth and future.

saiyans become stronger when they are beaten up to an inch of their life. so when you leave half a dozen full-blood saiyans in existence, you apply that to the entire race and saiyans as a whole become stronger, that's why goku is stupidly strong even before z despite being a shit-grade saiyan.
then proceed to kill radish, nappa and vegeta, baisically half of the remaining saiyans, and suddenly you get a free super saiyan out of him despite being a shit-grade saiyan.
revive vegeta and have him fuck to make a little dilute saiyan in bulma's womb and suddenly there are too many saiyans to go around again and he can't go super despite being a top-grade saiyan. time to kill broly and his dad, except not because fuck the movies, but whatever. broly is the actual legendary super, the natural one.
trunks goes super saiyan when he becomes the last bearer of saiyan blood in his universe, he's trash-grade sub-saiyan otherwise.

>to take out power creep
I don't. Instead I spread the power creep equally. The problem with Dragon Ball isn't power creep, it's that after Namek, Saiyans started hogging all of the meaningful power creep, and after Cell, they didn't even try with characters that weren't directly related to Goku/Vegeta.

Had it been more equally distributed, it would fix the "predictability" issue, which is the real problem with the series- Vegeta gets a power up, but gets owned, so that Goku can win with his even stronger power up. But if everyone is getting power ups of equal measure now not only do you break that cycle and give other characters chances to shine, but you also add the unpredictability feature of "we know longer know which character is going to actually save the day".

Dragon Ball without power creep simply isn't Dragon Ball, as the entire series is about Goku's drive to continuously get stronger.

>Frieza is now the peak of mortal strength
>Make Cell not necessarily stronger than Frieza, but make him more complicated to fight due to all the genetic engineered bullshit he has going on
>Completely skip Buu

On another note, I'd have Oozaru and Kaio-ken remain viable throughout the whole series. I'd also make SSJ4 and Golden Ape canon

Unfortunately, not canon

>Frieza is now the peak of mortal strength
But user, that's already the case.

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This.

yea good one.

shut up canonfag

Ultimate Gohan shoulda been the last Gohan. Super sucks for making him go SS again.

>ULTIMATE GOHAN!
>THE GUY WITH A REGULAR AMOUNT OF HAIR

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Super Saiyan is basically 'better kaioken'. Stay with me.

It's function is an inbuilt kaioken with a more lucrative multiplier. It requires a lot of control not to burn yourself out immediately, and losing control can actively hurt you. It's something you'd burst in and out of at opportune times. Goku, with his experience with the kaioken, pioneers this method of fighting. Super Saiyan itself being easy enough to reach once you know the trick, but controlling it is an edge Goku retains due to his experience and training with the kaioken. It's a hard thing to catch up to. He knows exactly when best to turn it on or when to play it cool. Of course, future enemies would have to be scaled back. Freeza himself would likely need to have his pointlessly inflated power level scaled down. We're facing the reality that Saiyans need the ability to fight opponents in their base form and not get their arms and legs torn off.

Though this also puts greater emphasis in a future where they are trying to find a way AROUND the need for Not-Kaioken. Cause no matter how good you get at it, it is essentially a burden. It also keeps more clear dividing lines between characters. Vegeta I could see trying to brute force the form itself stubbornly. Making him something like a bottle rocket the size of a family sedan. Very impressive for a brief moment then gone. If he can't wipe out his opponent with his new meme attack he just made, he's fucked. Which.. matches how he fights anyway. Goku would put emphasis on base form training, toughness, stamina, and wise use of the form. Vegeta forever seethes that raw power isn't doing the job.

How we handle SSJ2, 3, or Blu and later? Don't care. None should probably exist at all. Though I could still see a case for "SSB is just SSJ with god ki". It's just "Godly Kaioken" at that point. And will explode your knees just as well as ever for daring to abuse it. Which would give us more fighting in base god form, at least.

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>Sing it. Don't yell it.