So, I'll start by talking about episode 75 itself. I really liked this episode. The opening with Gohan fighting Goku was fantastic to me. First off, we're continuing a trend where we are seeing Gohan in more of an action role while still being a dork, as it should be. The animation and choreography for the brief match was excellent, and Super Saiyan Gohan wearing the Saiyaman outfit, minus the helmet, just looks really cool. Indeed, it might actually be my favorite look that Gohan has had.
But whats really interesting is how well Gohan does against Goku. It actually seems like a really even match. Considering how rusty Gohan supposedly is, and the power-ups Goku has recieved, this seems a bit odd doesn't it. Remember back in ROF when base Goku was shown to be enormously superior to SS Gohan? This actually marks the latest event in what seems to be growing trend, which I'll talk about in a bit.
I love how Chi-chi is the one to angrily call off the match, even though she's the one who suggested it in the first place. It makes sense, the farm was getting absolutely wrecked, but it made me chuckle.
Seeing more of Krillin in his role as a police officer was nice. Its good that the show keeps coming back to this point. It tells us that Krillin being a police officer isn't just some gimmick, its a part of his character, and one that he takes seriously. Seeing Krillin interact with and defend his fellow officers was quite nice, even if him being harmed by a mere bullet seems a bit strange.
His wife seems to think its strange as well, given her reaction to it. I kinda laughed at the fact that 18 wants Krillin to go train, while earlier in the episode Chi-chi wanted to call 18 and warn her that Goku was coming to train with Krillin.
I also adore the fact that Krillin's motivation to train is ultimately because he wants to be strong for his wife and daughter, rather than because of any personal need for power. Its not unlike Gohan's own motivations really.
Goku and Krillin being back with Roshi was nostalgic as hell, and seeing Goku fight in that turtle outfit was hilarious. Gotta say though, this technique Roshi is bribing them with that will supposedly make them much stronger sounds an awful lot like bullshit to me. A placebo for Krillin perhaps?
Anyway, seeing Baba again was nice, and Goku and Krillin facing off with old baddies should make for a fun time next episode.
Now, back to that trend I mentioned earlier. Back when the BOG and ROF movies came out, Toriyama explained that Goku had absorbed the power of Super Saiyan God, and it seemed that that strength had been incorporated directly into his base form, hence his ability to overwhelm Final Form Frieza, when even first form Frieza was far stronger than an ordinary Super Saiyan. And of course, this also seemed to be true in Super's retelling of those events.
However, from that point forward things started to be portrayed quite a bit differently, didn't they? For example, in the U6 tournament, Piccolo was shown as having a chance of taking down Frost, who in turn was shown as having been strong enough that Goku had to turn into a Super Saiyan in order to gain the upper-hand against him. Unless we assume that Piccolo has somehow achieved god tier strength, this makes little sense.
Further, Vegeta stated that his base strength and Cabba's base strength were roughly equal. We also know that Vegeta and Goku's base powers are fairly close to each other, with Goku having maybe a slight edge at the time. Are we therefore to assume that Cabba, a saiyan who had never even heard of a Super Saiyan prior to these events, could also be in possesion of god tier strength?
And we have more examples of this, with Future Trunks' sparring match against Goku, and most recently Gohan sparring with Goku.
What is happening here? Well, it seems like maybe there might be a bit of a retcon going into effect post ROF as far as power levels go. That is to say, before it was portrayed as if Goku and Vegeta had the power of Super Saiyan god in their base forms, with SSB being an added increase on top of that, while now it seems that Goku and Vegta's power only reaches god tier when they use SSB.
The only exception to this is during the fight with Copy Vegeta, who was shown to be superior to SS3 Gotenks while in his base form. Notably, that was a Toei specific plot arc, and not from Toriyama to the best of my knowledge.
Furthermore, looking over at the manga version of Super, which notably is not being drawn/written directly by Toriyama, we see that the author of that adaptation has been portraying things that way all along, even going so far as to show Super Saiyan god as a separate transformation from Goku's base and super saiyan forms, rather than being something that had been absorbed into those forms.
But why would such a retcon exist? I have an idea or two. Back when Goku and Vegeta were first shown to have such immense strength in their base forms, Toriyama was just working on movies, one every couple of years. The ridiculously lopsided power scaling this created was mostly manageable in that form. However, the transition to a weekly show calls for just a bit more balance in the power scaling, or else you end up with a scenario where two characters have to do everything all of the time, because nobody else can keep up.
Another idea is that originally, back when ROF was just a movie, it seemed like Goku and Vegeta may not have had golden Super Saiyan forms anymore. They had the power of the gods absorbed into their base forms, and transforming resulted in SSB. When going into Super, Toriyama may have decided he wanted to keep using the golden forms as well, which would obviously fuck with the power scaling if base already equals god tier.
If any of that is the case, it would seem that it was lost in translation somewhere along the line where Toei is concerned, although more recent material, basically everything from the Future Trunks arc on, seems to line up with the idea that Goku and Vegeta don't posses god tier strength unless they use SSB.
This can also all be explained by the two-base theory, a fan theory which states that Goku and Vegeta effectively have two base forms: one with god ki, and one without. Obviously transforming from the regular base would lead to the golden SS forms, and going from the god base leads to SSB. While this would explain almost all of the power level inconsistencies in Super, its never been officially acknowledged or confirmed to my knowledge. Still, it would make sense, and would be more satisfying than Toei/Toriyama retconning Goku and Vegta's strength without any effort to acknowledge or explain it.
Its also possible I'm over thinking things, and the power consistency in Super is just shit. I suppose the upcoming Universe survival arc will tell.
Speaking of which, that preview was pretty cool. Female Broly has caused the DB fanbase to implode in on themselves, and that's been pretty fun to watch. That aside, the few new character designs we've seen look fine. In particular, I find my attention drawn to that creepy ass God of Destruction who looks like a clown.
I have high hopes for this arc. With the vastly increased number of fighters at play, I'm hoping we'll do away with the 1v1 one match at a time formula in favor of a more Hunger Games style competition. The pacing is gonna be really slow otherwise.
Anyway, I've rambled enough for now, so tl;dr is I really liked this episode and can't wait for the new arc.
.
.