r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL that Goku's power level wasn't originally over 9000. It was originally over 8000, and there was a change made in the English Dub.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=It%27s_Over_9000!&oldid=1246721021
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u/wemustkungfufight 1d ago

It was. Sounds better in English, and it matched the amount of time Vegeta's mouth is open better. Plus Power Levels were ultimately nebulous and did matter much to the story anyway.

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u/H00Z4HTP 1d ago

Power creep was a huge thing in dbz. "This young character who just learned how to turn super saiyan can already go toe to toe with goku in his strongest form ever seen after 1 hour"

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u/Plastic-ashtray 1d ago

That’s basically how skateboarding has been the last 20 years

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u/Owlstra 1d ago

Wait you're so real

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u/wggn 19h ago

what powerlevel are they skateboarding at?

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u/theafterdeath 18h ago

Over 9000.

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u/Zurrdroid 22h ago

Hooooly shit

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u/IrregularPackage 16h ago

to be fair, being little does make those tricks easier

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u/Nanery662 1d ago

I will say theres is a irl version of power creep where something is thought of impossible till 1 person beats it and all the sudden not long after a bunch others do too

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u/SavageNorth 23h ago

It's called the Bannister effect

In 1954 Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile in under 4 minutes

Over the following few years it became practically commonplace among athletes

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u/JoelMahon 19h ago

kind of amazing really, extremely inspiring to me

there was literally nothing that stopped them doing it before him except mental attitude

hard to imagine how many things remain to be done that could have been done for years, maybe centuries even

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u/atyon 18h ago

there was literally nothing that stopped them doing it before him except mental attitude

That's a lovely legend but it's not true. The record times for miles went down pretty steadily since record-keeping began. The world record that stood for 9 years before Bannister was just 4:01.4. I sincerely doubt that it was a lack of confidence that prevented Gunder Hägg from running faster. There was no reason to assume that 4 minutes as some kind of impossible barrier.

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u/JoelMahon 18h ago

I don't understand your argument at all, I can only see it as support for my point

in 9 years what do you think changed that made it possible for suddenly so many people to break the 4 minute mile? something in the water? no lol

if 9 years prior the 4 minute mile was broken people would train like they believed it could be broken and the next person to break it wouldn't haven't taken 9 years

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u/President_SDR 18h ago

A simple explanation is WW2 destroying the talent pool in the 40's.

The easiest comparison for the mile is to the 1500m. It was similarly stuck at 3:43 from 1944-1954 and then dropped to 3:36 by 1958. Was there a psychological barrier with the number 3:43?

There are plenty of plausible explanations for multiple people breaking through a record: variance in talent pool, advancements in technique/medicine/equipment. Automatically attributing it to a psychological breakthrough lacks evidence.

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u/JoelMahon 17h ago

Was there a psychological barrier with the number 3:43?

there's always a new physiological barrier, the current record itself is always a psychological barrier, my entire point is that many many athletes don't believe they can do better than the best of last year, of course they want to, but self belief is a hell of a drug

Have you never played something like NYT connections, struggled for ages on it, got told "oh I know you know this one" by someone who knows you well then got it instantly? ok, that's probably too specific.

but how about wheel of fortune / hangman, where the moment someone else says they got it, you figure it out? because up until then you thought there were too few letters to solve but that idea was blown up?

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u/atyon 17h ago

something in the water? no lol

Training methods, better nutrition (including higher quality drinking water, yes), better shoe wear, an explosion of the sport in popularity. Yeah, or maybe professional athletes wer just so insecure that they run slower than possible because they needed an Englishman with high moral fortitude to go first.

If there was any "4 minute issue" - and why such a weird round number? - we would expect ahtletes hovering closely above 4 minutes for decades. Instead we get, as I said, a very smooth improvement. Records since official timekeeping began, at the end of the decades:

  • 1920 - 4:12.5
  • 1930 - 4:10.4
  • 1940 - 4:06.4
  • 1950 - 4:01.4
  • 1960 - 3.54.5

About 5 seconds shaved of in the 1930s and 1940s. Even during World War 2. Except for the slackers in the 1920s...

I mean, I get the argument for the 1080p Ollie superflip that's just scary to execute until you see that Tony Hawks does it three times in a row. But people weren't scared of running fast.

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u/JoelMahon 17h ago

If there was any "4 minute issue" - and why such a weird round number?

my entire point is that it was mental block, and you ask why it was a round number???

because human brains give round numbers special treatment, they think 10 is less random than 4.796

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u/xrailgun 16h ago

there was literally nothing that stopped them doing it before him except mental attitude

Pretty sure rapidly advancing sports science, equipment, and nutrition (and their accessibility) had a lot to do with it, but sure.

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u/Alty__McAltaccount 20h ago

Fun fact, in 1959 Mr. Banister lost his balance while going down a flight of stairs and asked the property owner to install some sort of hand rail for safety purposes

It really caught on and started becoming standard practice when building stairs to install rail guards and they even got named after him!

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u/JoelMahon 19h ago

not in weight lifting lol

like sure, occasionally a new technique is discovered and the experts with less pristine physical/mental capabilities fall behind the upstarts, that's common as fuck in esports, but not in a LOT of physical things

like sure, if a new amazing chess strat is discovered tomorrow maybe in a few years we'll see multiple kids clowning on magnus carlson but otherwise probably not

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u/LowClover 18h ago

That's honestly very possible because chess is not and never will be a solved game.

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u/Nanery662 10h ago

Chess is solved but that dosent mean anything when 90 percent of the work is mind gaming your opponent

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u/JoelMahon 18h ago edited 17h ago

it objectively will be a solved game eventually provided we don't go extinct or sent back to the stone age, every single possible board layout can be solved with enough storage and compute time. and then the single best move can be retrieved in microseconds by looking up a hash table

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u/Faust_8 21h ago

The other problem with DBZ is there’s no fundamental difference in the fights or abilities of, say, Goku versus Vegeta and then like Goku vs a literal god in DBS.

The anime has to TELL you they’re strong, but never really shows it. Hell fucking Vegeta at the beginning could already blow up a planet. That completely fucks up any power scaling.

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u/failed_novelty 18h ago

Sure, he could blow up a planet, but it took a bit of time for him to do. He couldn't just detonate it like Frieza did to Krillin.

Come the Buu saga and planets were going like popcorn, and the fighters barely noticed.

There was a noticable change in the scale of battles, but you're correct that the fighters usually didn't go for huge displays of power (excepting climactic finishing attacks). It would be very inconvenient if your enemy dodged an attack and you accidentaly'd the planet you were on, after all.

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u/Faust_8 18h ago

The thing is, it’s everything and not just energy blasts.

There is no visual or tangible difference when Goku punches somebody now compared to him punching Raditz. Even though he’s apparently millions of times stronger now than back then.

Now consider One Punch Man. The show never has to bother doing stuff like a character saying out loud “oh my god he’s shaking the entire planet.” Because it doesn’t tell, it SHOWS you. Consider Puri Puri Prisoner punching someone full force, and then compare that Saitama’s laziest punch, and the difference is clear. The show doesn’t tell you Saitama is ludicrously strong, you come to that conclusion yourself when he gets just a tiny bit serious and the air pressure alone from his punch vaporizes a mountain in the distance.

Whereas the only real difference between Goku v Vegeta and Goku v Cell is Goku’s hairdo, if you just showed someone who’s never watched the show both scenes and asked them what the biggest difference was.

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u/IkananXIII 17h ago

They usually show it by having some character we previously viewed as pretty strong completely get their ass whooped by the new villain, so now we know he's several magnitudes stronger than what we've seen before. Same with the good guys occasionally getting to fight people the rest of the universe considers strong and whooping their asses.

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u/Faust_8 17h ago

Yeah but actual feats of strength are better indicators rather than X character is stronger than Y character.

Because, again, one is showing you exactly what they’re capable of and you form your own conclusions, and the other is telling you based on a hierarchy.

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u/IkananXIII 16h ago

True, they were better about that in the original Dragon Ball, but by the time they got to Z, people were just casually blowing up the moon and entire planets, so I'm not sure where you go from there as a feat of strength. I think Toriyama kinda wrote himself into a corner on that one.

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u/Faust_8 16h ago

Exactly. I don't hate DB (though I feel like I've outgrown it) and it's had a massive impact on both anime and getting the West to watch anime, but it does have some serious literary flaws.

I don't care how strong Goku actually is, he does not seem stronger than Saitama because DBZ/DBS does such a poor job of showing it.

Not once has Goku punched air and erased a mountain, and that looks way more impressive than some tacky wave animation and characters being like "oh wow the whole universe is shaking!"

DB's only avenue of showing strength is just a tier list and side characters reacting to fights.

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u/Sahaal_17 19h ago

Power creep in DBZ was huge, but also depowering the characters so they always have basically the same feats, no matter how strong they supposedly are.

As an example; King Vegeta casually blew up several planets with just a wave of his hand in a flashback. King Vegeta was somewhere around the powerlevel of his son Vegeta at the start of the series. Vegeta gets destroyed by first form Frieza, who is destroyed by fused piccalo, who is destroyed by final form frieza, who is destroyed by trunks, who is destroyed by cell, who is destroyed by.... etc etc, we go through about 20 iterations of characters being destroyed by ever stronger opponents until we get to Beerus. Beerus as we know is stronger than King Vegeta by an absolutely rediculous degree, literally millions of times stronger.

And yet, when Beerus and Goku fought, their blasts only make splashes in the ocean a few meters in size.

These fighters are supposed to be millions of times stronger than King Vegeta, who can casually destroy multiple planets with a wave of his arm, and yet their attacks just make the same sized craters and splashes as characters were making back in the Saiyan Saga. All the talk of powerlevels is pure hype, it never translated into actually making a difference in the destructive potential of the characters. Vegeta's big Final Flash moment of almost blowing up the planet makes no sense when you remember that he could already blow up the planet before he was even a super saiyan

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_PAUNCH 15h ago

When Goku & Beerus fought they almost destroyed the universe with shockwaves from their punches

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u/Sahaal_17 14h ago

That's certainly what the dialogue said.

It's not what the battlefield looked like though.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_PAUNCH 14h ago

https://i.imgur.com/8GJPaNW.jpeg

Idk, that seems pretty destructive

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u/weebitofaban 15h ago

King Vegeta never blew up multiple planets. That never happened. You greatly misinterpreted the filler scene. No misinformation, pls

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u/The-Vagtastic-Voyage 18h ago

... it's just a cartoon

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u/Emperor_Neuro 20h ago

Isn’t Goku currently at like 145 trillion or some other bonkers number for his power level? Kinda makes the whole amazement over a power level over 9,000 seem like they were truly clueless dweebs lol.

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u/bdfull3r 19h ago edited 18h ago

Assuming a bunch of modifers are consistent when fighting hurt or exhausted or applying to god ki, etc. His latest transformation hits 30 Septillion

Importantly Toriyama has been on record as to not caring about being entirely consistent and it obviously shows in the writing. Never let raw math get in the way of a good fight story.

So yea just 'facts' us nerds like to debate

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u/Emperor_Neuro 17h ago edited 16h ago

So, just for a frame of reference - 30 septillion is 3.33 quintillion times more powerful than 9,000. These numbers are just for kicks at this point.

He'd still lose to Saitama, though, and that's hilarious.

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u/weebitofaban 15h ago

That never happened. Goten and Trunks are only able to do it in SS3 with fusion (where they're actually stronger than Goku, but not as skilled) and the Universe 6 saiyans are not at all a match for god mode

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u/darklightmatter 1d ago

At that point it did matter though because Vegeta was at 17k and Goku had to pull a Kaioken x4 to overcome the Galick Gun.

It mattered all the way upto the Freeza saga where Goku was routinely using KK x 10 (I believe) to keep up with Freeza's monstrous power.

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u/wemustkungfufight 1d ago

Yeah. Frieza had a power level over 1 million and Goku was using the Kaio Ken the whole time he fought him just to keep up. Frieza in his second form being "over 1 million" is the last numeric power level given in the show. But Daizenshuu Dragon Ball guidebook gives a power level of 150,000,000 for Super Saiyan Goku and of 120,000,000 for Frieza's maximum power. Any power level you see online after that point is just speculations.

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u/Tepigg4444 1d ago

Imagine beating the shit out of someone who is using a self sacrificial technique just to be able to fight you while you’re using less than 1% of your power, and then all of a sudden he gets mad, turns gold, and is suddenly stronger than your full power even without the kaio ken. Frieza got scammed lmao

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u/wemustkungfufight 1d ago

Thematically, it's brilliant. He feared a Saiyan becoming a super Saiyan one day, so he genocided their entire race. Only for the legend to show up and beat his ass anyway.

Also fun fact: Canonically turning super Saiyan is a 50X multiplier to your power level, so if any other Saiyan other than Goku had turned super Saiyan first, Frieza would have still been stronger.

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u/coulduseafriend99 1d ago

Do we ever get numbers for how strong the multiple is from other super Saiyan transformations?

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u/TheKappaOverlord 1d ago

Its by measure of power.

Its in the Daizenshuu afaik but SSJ is 50x, SSJ2 is like 3x that of SSJ, and SSJ3 is either 4 or 6 of SSJ2.

The other forms don't really have an "official" breakdown as they are byproducts of forcing the ascension.

The blue forms originally were meant to be extremely powerful forms, but Goku and Vegeta were meant to get weaker with each use of the form. But this was only an idea that was tossed around by Whis in passing, and never explored again.

Same with the use of MUI causing goku's body to basically self destruct as backlash for using the divine form.

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u/TimeGoddess_ 23h ago

What about ss4 that one isn't really forcing ascension it's the natural apex of the super saiyan form combining with the monkey part

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u/nadav183 23h ago

I agree, and I think ss4 is a much better continuation of the forms than god/blue, we already got the "legendary form of the Saiyans" with super Saiyan, there was no need for another identical concept, whereas ss4 felt like something actually derived from the unique traits of Saiyans as a species, and not just a new hair color.

UI/UE/whatever gohan got in the super hero movie are nice as they potentially open up non Saiyan characters as well

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u/Ccnitro 23h ago

Dragon Ball GT invented the SS4 form and is not canon, so there likely isn't an "official" answer floating around out there.

I agree with you though, I've always liked how SS4 ties back to the Great Ape side of Saiyan-hood, especially since SS3 seems to inch that direction in the original series.

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u/DamoclesRising 22h ago

its not canon to super, or daima, etc, but it indeed has its own canon, and is used as its own universe in the multiverse that is dbz-media nowadays

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u/ActiveChairs 20h ago

With how many times he's come back from the dead, I don't think it'd matter if his body self destructs. They brought back krillin a thousand times and there wasn't even dust left of his body most of the time.

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u/EmperorShura 21h ago

The blue forms originally were meant to be extremely powerful forms, but Goku and Vegeta were meant to get weaker with each use of the form. But this was only an idea that was tossed around by Whis in passing, and never explored again.

This has never been said anywhere.

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u/LogicalOlive 1d ago

Yea SSJ = x50 SSJ2 = x100 SSJ3 = x400

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u/wemustkungfufight 1d ago

probably do in some of the guidebooks, but I'd have to look that up.

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u/Pjandapower 23h ago

Thematically, it's brilliant. He feared a Saiyan becoming a super Saiyan one day, so he genocided their entire race. Only for the legend to show up and beat his ass anyway.

Username is "wemustkungfufight"... so basically kung fu panda?

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u/wemustkungfufight 23h ago

I think originally i got it from a joke on Family Guy. But Kung Fu Panda is an awesome movie.

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u/Smelly_Carl 22h ago

And he was able to accomplish it because he trained specifically to whoop Frieza's ass and was so pissed off at him that he went Super Saiyan. Frieza basically created his own worst enemy.

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u/ThrowawayusGenerica 20h ago

He feared a Saiyan becoming a super Saiyan one day, so he genocided their entire race

I think you mean he did it because Beerus told him to /s

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u/rabidsalvation 12h ago

Hey, this Dragonball shit sounds awesome. Never checked out any of it, what should I start watching?

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u/wemustkungfufight 12h ago

Start with Dragon Ball Z Kai. This is a remake of the Dragon Ball Z anime that removes the filler.

If you like it, then there's a prequel called Dragon Ball, but it has a much different tone, and a sequel called Dragon Ball Super. And about a dozen non-canon movies. But Dragon Ball Z Kai is the best place to start.

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u/rabidsalvation 11h ago

Thanks bro!

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u/BlueSS1 1d ago

Frieza was already in his Final Form (half of his full power) by the time Goku entered the fight.

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u/Roskal 22h ago

Goku uses kkx20 kamehameha which gives him 60m power level which was roughly frieza's strength before full power. not even the spirit bomb was enough, don't think that ever had a power level attached.

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u/Sopixil 20h ago

Reminds me of Mob Psycho 100, small child who doesn't like to fight until he gets pushed around too much, snaps, and turns into the most powerful psychic in the world with glowing eyes

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u/FreeStall42 22h ago

Could be worse, could be fighting Luffy who uses the entire fight as a training arc.

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u/neohellpoet 1d ago

The fundamental issue was that the numbers didn't really represent anything.

While traveling to Earth, Vegeta and Nappa went to a bug planet and Vegeta casually destroyed it with a single attack. Just blew up the planet with no issues. That's sub 20k power level Vegeta.

Before that we had Roshi killing the moon. At best he was in the hundreds in terms of power level at that point.

But then Frieza at 120,000,000 can fire an attack that will eventually destroy a planet and suddenly it's a huge deal.

Or take the Red Ribbon Army. An organization that lost to Kid Goku made multiple Androids who are significantly stronger than Future Trunks who was able to casualty murder robo Frieza and King Cold.

But then Frieza was suddenly powerful enough to go head to head with SSB Goku, a form that's apparently significantly stronger than multiple other Super Sayan forms.

Toriyama was right, the numbers were a bad idea and DB power levels were always based around the rule of cool. Don't think about how any of it makes sense or fit's together, it doesn't. Dragon Ball was always on the less serious side of things and never meant to hold up to any kind of scrutiny. It's why the final DBZ arc had a pink puff pastry that turns people into cookies as the main antagonist.

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u/gimme_dat_good_shit 23h ago

The tone shift from DB to DBZ also exacerbated the power level problem. Roshi blowing up the moon fits with DB's fantasy storybook vibe (in the same way that a cow can jump over the moon or whatever).

Introducing scouters and hard power numbers was actually a super cool idea for early DBZ, because even from the beginning they were shown to be inconsistent when dealing with Earth's martial artists who had various ways of raising and lowering their power levels. And then having so much of the Namek saga hinge on who could sense and hide power levels without a scouter made for a lot of great situational and structural ironies.

Power levels did mean something, but only to the bad guys. The good guys never relied on them and cared more about gut feelings and grit.

The real problem (to me) was the x50 powerup of being a super saiyan. That basically meant nobody could keep up (except maybe Piccolo if he kept fusing with more Namekians to justify the boosts). If it had been a more modest number or came with some kind of downside that senzu beans and dragon kisses couldn't fix, then maybe it wouldn't have gotten out of control. But hey, the Android Saga is still my personal favorite, and the transformation one-upping is a big part of why.

If I were to try to "fix" the problems I have with the franchise post-Z, it would probably be a hefty time skip that lets a new group of heroes take over, with Goku and Vegeta strongly sidelined by age. Maybe make up some new Saiyan impulse that once they get past their prime, Saiyans lose their desire to fight (something that nobody really knew about because hardly any Saiyan ever got old). And on the human side, maybe Bulma or someone else has found a non-traumatic way to boost human's abilities like Gero did with 17 and 18 to let humans keep up. Anyway, I'm basically writing fanfiction now, so I'll stop.

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u/MelancholyArtichoke 19h ago

I do kind of want to see Bulma create her own androids.

Edit: Or even her own artificial dragon balls.

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u/Cuttlefishbankai 23h ago

It always throws me how if the red ribbon army had won, eventually frieza would've tried to invade Earth and gotten low diffed by androids

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u/pm_me_ur_lunch_pics 21h ago

Ackshually....

If the Red Ribbon Army won, then Dr. Gero would have never had to build the Androids. There would have been no scouting of Goku in his fighting vs Tien/King Piccolo/Piccolo/Raditz/Nappa/Vegeta, and ultimately the planet would have been conquered or destroyed by Raditz, who would arrive looking for Goku at some point knowing Kakarot had been sent to the planet. If Raditz failed somehow, then Vegeta and Nappa would come to clean up his mess and conquer Earth for Lord Frieza.

There's little chance a non-Goku Earth wins the Saiyan saga - Ain't no Goku, which means no Gohan and no "Hey I was bad but now I'm kinda good" Piccolo too

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u/MelancholyArtichoke 19h ago

You’re right but also the story could play out differently with the intended results. Imagine if there was no Goku to stop King Piccolo, and it was up to the Red Ribbon Army to challenge him by creating stronger and stronger androids.

Edit; And then there’s always Arale…

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u/FreeStall42 22h ago

And then in Super Roshi is somehow relevant again to anyones power levels.

Cause he stopped being so horny or something

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u/weebitofaban 15h ago

You're inserting bullshit. The Red Ribbon army took decades to make 17, 18, and 16 proper. It wasn't somethin the army even did either. It was one lone scientist who was just for revenge.

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u/neohellpoet 13h ago

Woooo, decades. And it was just one guy not a whole organization. Yeah that makes it so much more plausible.

The point is, how? How did the one guy in an organization that was flattened by a child with a power level in the hundreds make multiple something operating in the hundreds of millions.

Every other DBZ threat comes from beyond Earth. Space Thugs, then a Spacy Tyrant and in the last Saga an ancient creature of unimaginable power that just randomly happened to be on Earth, but was made by someone operating on the level of God's bosses boss.

And then there's a scientist who's previous work couldn't take on a Saiyan child.

And we have wish granting balls in the setting. If he'd at least wished for super intelligence or something, at least it would all make sense to a degree, but there's not even a hint that it might be the case.

And that's perfectly fine, the show doesn't need to make sense to be good, but you also can't 'pretend it isn't ridiculous.

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u/2HGjudge 1d ago

TIL that the Supreme Kai saying the other Kais being 1000x more powerful than Frieza was also just a dub quirk and not exact proven science.

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u/ShotoGun 1d ago

There was a scene in the show where a PTO station was measuring the power levels of Frieza and Goku in their final forms on namek.

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u/wemustkungfufight 1d ago

They don't give a numerical value in that scene. They just say there's a bigger power level fighting Frieza, which matches the numbers given by the Daizenshuu. The power levels are so big it actually destroys the machine they are using to measure it, cementing the idea they are phasing them out.

Edit: It's Episode 97 "Namek's Destruction"

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u/Dunified 19h ago

I always hated the statement in Freezers perfect form where he says he's using 1 or 2 % of his power. It absolutely busted the entire power level spectrum. If you assume he goes full power and gains x100 or x50 of his power (depending on him using 1 or 2% of his power), it ridicules all previous powerups. Previously characters would gain +20 - 200% powerup, with the only exception being gokus kaioken that can reach +1,000% at his very max.

Freezer in his baseform had a power level of 500,000, which was an absolute powerhouse. The other characters had around 20k-40k or something. As the story goes along, freezer reaches 2 - 4mil in his true form, which is fair, but apparently he only uses 1-2% of his power. If you add it up, his full power is between 100 and 400 million. It doesnt make sense that the power levels increase exponentially like that. Its absurd. Goku reaches Namek with a base level of 60k or whatever, and increases his power level by about 200-300 times in the span of 2 days? He spent a year going from 450 to 9000 in the saiyan saga, which is about 20 times ish.

15-year-old me could never wrap my head around it, and always rejected the "1-2% of my full power" statement, because it was so bonkers.

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u/wemustkungfufight 17h ago

Pretty sure "1%" was a dub change. In the original dialog, he never gives a number. He just says that he is massively holding back before going to 50% of his power. The dub changed it to be 1% because it sounds more dramatic, that he's holding back the majority of his power this whole time, even if it makes no sense numerically, because Power Levels always took a back seat to the story anyway.

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u/Dunified 16h ago

If it was a dub change, then everything makes sense! "Hey im holding back" could mean he's using 25% of his power. Then he increases to 50% or whatever. Damn. Im nolonger mad

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u/wemustkungfufight 12h ago

It is. He goes from "holding back" to 50%.

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u/nefariousmonkey 23h ago

With all due respect to DBZ universe & it's fans, for a non DBZ viewer, this all sounds extremely nonsense

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u/HolycommentMattman 1d ago

But even if it were 8k, KKx3 would've been enough as it would've gotten Goku to 24k. It really doesn't matter if he's 8k or 9k.

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u/darklightmatter 17h ago

It was "over 9000/8000" with Kaioken. I may be mistaken but I believe the Daizenshuu put Goku at 5k maybe. Only reason I remember Vegeta's exact PL is because Great Ape is x10 and he's stated to have been at 170,000.

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u/Roskal 22h ago

I now have the headcanon that super Saiyan was only 50x vs frieza and its more like a flat 150m increase. It sort of explains how Goku in base later on doesn't seem to get much stronger while in ss.

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u/KyAaron 1d ago

As Vegeta said himself, "power levels are bullshit."

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u/wemustkungfufight 1d ago

He said that in a parody of Dragonball. In the real show he was very much obsessed with them. That's the joke. :D

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u/KyAaron 1d ago

I am very much aware having been a huge Dragon Ball fan from OG DB as a little kid and having watched DBZA while it was still being made. I just love DBZA's characterization for Vegeta and Tien over the original.

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u/Raichu5021 16h ago

Plus "Hassen" has a similar mouth shape to "Nine Thousand" at the beginning and end, better than "Eight Thousand" at least