No, that’s what I mean by calling Dragonball inconsistent. Gohan will stop training, lose basically all his skills, then train for a month because the newest threat showed up and turn out twice as strong as ever. Goku will get beaten up by the latest evil alien or god or whatever and then unlock a super cool new form that’s so powerful even the gods bow down, then that form will be rendered arbitrarily irrelevant by the next enemy who’s even stronger. But luckily, Goku, who’s been training all his life mind you, can train extra hard and reach a pinnacle of power hitherto undreamt of… for the tenth time. Also, Vegeta will spend the arc getting stronger but still not quiiiiite be good enough. The show’s formula is incredibly consistent, but the nature of that formula requires the internal rules of the setting to be extremely loose and for power scales to be largely arbitrary.
Speaking of which, all the other mostly irrelevant Z fighters will reach a new level of power as well so that they’re just strong enough to be sort of within the notice of the next villain. Forever. Roshi can kick ass in the Tournament of Power, as long as it’s cool enough!
All of this will occur alongside dramatic music, cool explosions, and awesome screams and feats of strength, so it’s still fun as long as you don’t care about consistency too much.
If Disney were to try to “fix” that by being consistent and having rules, you’d never see that scene with Krillin and Gohan, because it would fall afoul of some rule about not making the Saiyans too weak, or maybe not letting the humans get too powerful, or something, anything put in to stop exactly the wildly fluctuating power levels you’re pointing out. But then you’d also have to change every other aspect of the show as well. Neither the villains nor the heroes would jump or shrink in power nearly as dramatically or rapidly. The point is that the possibility of that kind fluctuation is core to the show.
No, that’s what I mean by calling Dragonball inconsistent. Gohan will stop training, lose basically all his skills, then train for a month because the newest threat showed up and turn out twice as strong as ever. Goku will get beaten up by the latest evil alien or god or whatever and then unlock a super cool new form that’s so powerful even the gods bow down, then that form will be rendered arbitrarily irrelevant by the next enemy who’s even stronger. But luckily, Goku, who’s been training all his life mind you, can train extra hard and reach a pinnacle of power hitherto undreamt of… for the tenth time. Also, Vegeta will spend the arc getting stronger but still not quiiiiite be good enough. The show’s formula is incredibly consistent, but the nature of that formula requires the internal rules of the setting to be extremely loose and for power scales to be largely arbitrary.
Speaking of which, all the other mostly irrelevant Z fighters will reach a new level of power as well so that they’re just strong enough to be sort of within the notice of the next villain. Forever. Roshi can kick ass in the Tournament of Power, as long as it’s cool enough!
All of this will occur alongside dramatic music, cool explosions, and awesome screams and feats of strength, so it’s still fun as long as you don’t care about consistency too much.
If Disney were to try to “fix” that by being consistent and having rules, you’d never see that scene with Krillin and Gohan, because it would fall afoul of some rule about not making the Saiyans too weak, or maybe not letting the humans get too powerful, or something, anything put in to stop exactly the wildly fluctuating power levels you’re pointing out. But then you’d also have to change every other aspect of the show as well. Neither the villains nor the heroes would jump or shrink in power nearly as dramatically or rapidly. The point is that the possibility of that kind fluctuation is core to the show.