What is a King to a God? — The Missed Opportunities of God Ki
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Ah Dragon Ball universe, there’s so much to love about you. Likeable characters, awesome fights, colourful transformations, Bulma in a bikini. And yet it is those whom we love who often hurt us most. Because while Dragon Ball has some really cool things about it, it… also has some problems. One of the more notable of these problems, in my honoured opinion, is how God ki was handled in Super. In short: It was pure shit.
Article over, see you next time.
What? You need more? Fine, fine, this is what ya’ll don’t pay me for, after all. Let me explain that just a little bit more…
What is Ki Anyway?
For those not in the know, in Dragon Ball the fantastical abilities the punchy-kickey people possess are only possible because of a little something I call “Japanese awesome juice” more boringly referred to as “ki.” This ki is a sort of energy that allows the people who know how to use it make their punches harder, fly and transform (a lot). All the things that make Dragon Ball fights world-ending rather than… just two guys standing around slapping each other and growling.
And narrative escalation in Dragon Ball being what it is, in Dragon Ball Super (or technically before that in the Dragon Ball Z movie “Battle of Gods”) a new type of even better version of this awesome juice was introduced: Beerus-sama’s super awesome mega juice! What the peasants refer to as “god ki.”
This ki is “different” in… some non-descript way (we’ll get back to that later) than regular ki and, most obviously, it’s stronger. Like… a hella stronger. If ki was beer, god ki would be everclear. Upon obtaining it, it allows Goku, who was easily annihilated by Beerus using a fraction of his power and a single quick chop to the neck in SSJ3, to go toe-to-toe with the kitty cat of ultimate destruction. Even if the tricksy little feline was still holding back some power at the time.
So that’s awesome, right? God ki allows more of the stuff we love. Big fights with lots of awesome beam struggles. Pretty lights galore! Yeah! Go Goku! Go Beerus! Go Vegeta! Awesomeballs!
Wrong. Not awesomeballs. Very not awesomeballs.
Because while being initially promising, god ki turned out to be merely the zenith of a problem which Dragon Ball has had for many, many years now: Power creep. And not just power creep. The boring kind of power creep.
Let’s first lay out this problem and how god ki is the epitome of it before we get to how it could have solved the problem instead.
Remember When Raditz Was a Badass?
Power creep has been a problem in Dragon Ball for… forever. This isn’t a well-kept secret down in Toryama’s vault. We all know about it. Now obviously I don’t want to be a pooper of le party, we all adore seeing our favouritest characters get stronger in a fighting-based anime like this, and I’m not opposed to that. It’s part of creating a sense of progression. Of making the audience feel that the characters are moving forward. That the stakes are escalating.
And in itself that’s not such a bad thing. Dragon Ball IS a story about self-improvement through struggle, after all, as Totally Not Mark has alluded to in some of his videos. So them improving their power through their struggles makes a lot of sense. The problem though, as it so often is with Dragon Ball, is in the exection.
Let’s be frank: The show has been struggling to portray the true power of characters on screen for quite a while now. Because while power levels have theoretically reached into the trillions or quintillions or holyfucktillions at this point the actual fights still look… more or less the same.
In the first fight between Goku and Vegeta, being the lowly mortals they were, both had power levels in the mere thousands. Pathetic. Barely above a farmer with a shotgun.
In this fight we see Vegeta and Goku throw each other through some mountains (as you do). Their beam struggle devastates the canyon around them. And Vegeta nearly blows up the world with his galick gun. Basically, an ordinary weekend sparring match in the Dragon Ball-verse.
In a later fight between Goku and Vegeta during the Buu saga both had grown tremendoulsy in strength. With power levels estimated to be in the billions. Truly a clash of the gods!
In this fight we see… Vegeta and Goku throw each other through a few mountains for old time’s sake. Their energy blasts devastate the canyon around them. And… well, Vegeta doesn’t threaten to blow up the planet this time (character progression!) but he certainly could have. And in fact, it’s hard to portray anything more than that.
Look, you can say that Beerus and Goku’s punches are so powerful they can shake the entire universe, but you can’t effectively portray that on screen in any meaningful way. Seeing mountains shatter is cool. We can see that happening on screen in its totality. It’s concrete. A universe shaking… we can’t actually see that shit. In fact, we can’t even fathom that shit because a universe is at least several “yo mamas” in size. So, in the writing equivalent of running a red light, there is only one option: we are told instead of shown.
Shattering Plausibility Punch by Punch
Worst of all, this level of power creates inconsistencies in the visual depiction of the fights as well. Somehow Goku’s punches in Super Saiyan God are so powerful they can shake the very universe, yet when Broly overpowers Super Saiyan GOD Goku and slaps him into the ice a bunch of times with enough strength to make the divine saiyan scream his lungs out for Gine… we see a few quaint cracks form in the ice. If Broly’s strength at this point is so great that he can kick the everliving shit out of the trusty old divine carrot’s god form then him slamming Goku into the ground with enough force to hurt him should basically cleave the fucking earth in two. Maybe blow up the sun for good measure. Roshi with a power level of a few thousand at most was able to blow up the moon! And a power level of a few thousand would barely be a fly to Broly or SSG Goku. The earth should be dust after Broly and Kakarot’s little wrestling match! But Dragon Ball is, evidently, not into that because, well… where else would Beerus get his puddin’?
So while we’re told a lot about how powerful and awesome everyone is now, there’s very little change. The numbers increase (even though nowadays they try to hide the numbers) and who is more powerful than who changes. But there is little evidence of any actual progression in power in what we are shown. Furthermore, what we are told and what we are shown is often inconsistent.
This makes it all feel rather artificial. Like the writer is just, Kami-forbid, cranking up the numbers while the actual power we feel jump off the screen doesn’t really change. Mostly because… they are.
But lest you thought that was the sum total of the problem of Dragon Ball’s boring power creep, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Perhaps worst of all, the fact that the numbers climb so quickly and so extremely leaves the writers in quite the pickle. Oh, I hear you ask, “What pickle might that be?” as you glance up at me with those adorable little peepers of yours. Why the pickle of Piccolo.
Remember When Yamtcha Was a Badass? Yeah, Me Neither.
You see, the saiyans might have a clowncar of an asshole from which they can pull infinite transformations of ultimate bullshit, cough cough Zenkai boosts cough cough, but most other characters don’t. This means that the writers either have to let these characters collect dust in the background (like fan favourite butt monkey Yamatcha), or give them purely non-combat roles (standing in the background looking tough is a popular choice), or use their in-house, specially developed writing technique of dealing with the problem: just ignore it.
And, most assuredly, they hope that if they drive their heads into the ground hard enough, and put their fingers deep enough in their ears, the fans will forget about it.
Want Gohan in the tournament of power despite the fact that he’s been a lazy little shit and his ultimate form was competitive back when Buu was the biggest threat to the world? Give him a day or two in the mountains with Piccolo and he’s able to face down god-level warriors. Piccolo must give some really good head-to-head.
Want Piccolo to be relevant again? No problem, he can medidate so hard that suddenly he can take on whoever the fuck you want!
Android 17? Sure, achieving the power of a god and stacking the legendary super saiyan transformation on top of that after fulfilling an ancient alien prophecy might give you a power boost but… have you ever tried being a park ranger? That’s the real shit.
And Master Roshi, well let me tell you with all the practice he’s been getting with that right arm of his I- I- I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE, THIS IS STUPID! ROSHI SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO TAKE ON JIREN FOR EVEN FIVE SECONDS! JIREN SHOULD SWING HIS LEFT FUCKING TESTICLE IN ROSHI’S GENERAL DIRECTION AND HE SHOULD EXPLODE INTO A MILLION PERVERTED PIECES!!!
Alright, but that’s enough complaining… Oh, who am I kidding. I’ve never had enough complaining. ROSHI SHOULD HAVE DIED FROM LOOKING AT JIREN’S BALLSACK! THE ENTIRE MAN SHOULD HAVE MELTED INTO A PUDDLE AT THE VERY THOUGHT OF GETTING WITHIN SEVERAL SOLAR SYSTEMS OF THAT GREY ALIEN-LOOKING LITTLE SHIT!
It’s okay. I’m calm. I’m calm. But I hope I’ve made clear the problem: The numbers game, especially after boosting the whole thing exponentially with the introduction of Beerus and god ki, has essentially forced the writing to artificially boost characters to absurd levels of power without any apparent explanation so they could remain competitive. And, undountably to Akira’s great consternation, most fans noticed.
But now that we’ve gotten this metric assload of problems out of the way, let dear old me hold your hand as we move on to the point main point of this article. The truth. The je ne sais qoui: Explaining how these various problems could have been avoided, or at least ameliorated, through using god ki properly in the narrative.
Make Piccolo Relevant Again
Now right off the bat I’ll say that power creep is not something that can be gotten rid of in Dragon Ball anymore. Not entirely, at least. Apologies for stomping on that dream straight away but we are too far down that raging river of shit and we lost our paddles looong ago. That being said, it can be made more interesting and less devastating to the other characters. That is, without pretending park rangers get zenkai boosts.
Let’s start with talking about the latter point, how god ki’s introduction could have been a boon for the rest of the Z fighters.
For a long time the main thing that drove power progression in Dragon Ball Z’s narrative were super saiyan forms. Super saiyan and its subsequent forms, as the name might suggest, are unique to saiyans. This made it pretty hard for other characters, especially the humans, to keep up with the saiyan’s ever-ascending power levels.
If the saiyans manage to stack 50x modifiers on top of 2x modifiers on top of 4x modifiers… you’re just not going to compete through that with push-ups, sit-ups and plenty of juice. And this was pretty obvious with how many other characters, like Piccolo, slowly became less and less relevant throughout Z. Until eventually the show literally could think of no better use for him than turning him into a statue.
Yeah… I call anti-Namekian racism.
Here is where god ki, like a buff and shirtless Goku riding in on the flying Nimbus, could come to the rescue! Because you see, despite the fact that Goku is the first among the main cast to acquire god ki, and he is in fact insane from earth, god ki is not saiyan exclusive. The story somehow seems to have forgotten this little detail but, theoretically, anyone can acquire it. In fact, it is even implied that Beerus-sama himself wasn’t born with it, but rather gained it. The Kais seem to have gained it through practice as well, as did Vegeta.
God ki also happens to be so off-the-charts powerful that it is essentially on a completely different level from anything that came before it. This is memorably illustrated in “Battle of Gods” when Beerus’ neat neck chop takes down SSJ3 Goku. SSJ3 was able to take out almost everything else before this point, yet here it gets casually annihilated with minimal effort by Beerus. It is only later that Beerus is given a decent challenge by Goku after he learns to use god ki.
So taking this and running into the end zone with it, I dare suggest that the way god ki should have been used in the story is as a sort of… reset button.
The other Z fighters might be significantly less powerful than the saiyans. But that’s mostly because the saiyans can transform into their various forms to attain those precious, precious x50, x2 and x4 modifiers. When all of them are in their base forms the difference is far less extreme. Something particularly true for Piccolo who, in the Cell saga, was as strong as a super saiyan while being in his base.
So why not have the other Z fighters, who are after all also very experienced users of ki, figure out how to use god ki? It can supposedly be obtained through simply training with someone else who already has god ki, right? Well, they could train with Goku. Or even Whis if necessary. Or mayhaps even… dear old Geets.
And if this wasn’t possible, why not write in a different way to gain it? When god ki was originally introduced the rules were still malleable. It would have been all too easy to put in place rules that would allow the other Z-fighters to obtain it.
Once they all have god ki they can essentially compete with the saiyans again since, when he initially started using god ki, Goku didn’t have access to any additional x50, x2, x4 super saiyan boosts and 100% of his power boost came from the god ki. So if the other Z fighters acquired god ki then, basically, they should be no more distant from Goku in relative terms than they are when both them and Goku are in their base forms. Which is to say… at least plausibly competitive again. And in Piccolo’s case maybe even more powerful. At least, temporarily, until the plot says otherwise.
Perhaps most importantly that means that things like the tournament of power can actually make some fucking sense.
You no longer have mere human Roshi inexplicably keeping up with warriors that super saiyan god Goku is struggling against. Because Roshi is no longer a mere human using peasant ki, Roshi has access to the POWER OF THE GODS!
Consistency! Be still my beating heart.
So in short: God ki could have made old characters more relevant again, while it being completely consistent and making complete sense within the story. Sounds like a no-brainer to me. Too bad that’s still clearly too many brain cells for Dragon Ball’s writing to compete with nowadays.
Alright, that’s cool and all but: that’s not even half of the true wasted potential of god ki!
Making Ki Worthy of a God
Because you see, a power boost is nice and all but… after a while just seeing the numbers kind of tick up every few chapters/episodes gets kind of monotonous. Kind of… shitty. Kind of… Raditzy.
This boring monotony is exacerbated by the problem that, as I explained earlier, these increases in power are so great they can no longer manifest in actual visual changes. So instead of simply cranking the numbers up, you need something more than pure boosts to keep the power progression interesting.
So how does god ki solve this problem of boring power creep? Quite simply, actually. Because at the beginning of the story, way back in Battle of Gods, god ki is a blank slate. A shiny new blackboard upon which can be written whatever cool shit your heart desires.
Sure, it still has to act like ki and it still has to be more powerful than regular ki. That was expected. But it didn’t have to end there. They could have given god ki all sorts of interesting and unique properties. These could even have figured into the story and the character arcs in significant and interesting ways. Maybe introduced some more variation into the fight scenes. I know, I know, creativity is a lot to expect from Dragon Ball these days. But hear me out here.
These properties really could have been just about anything, but I’ll just illustrate with one example.
It’s somewhat hinted, in various ways, that god ki relies more on its user being calm than angry (like super saiyan does). Yet, the writing never actually does anything with this. It could have though. This could have been a central characteristic of using it. It could then have easily been incorporated into one or two character arcs. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, they incorporated it into Vegeta’s arc.
Vegeta has a few anger issues, as you may have noticed from all the screaming. Let’s say that he finds it difficult, despite great training, to acquire god ki. And when he finally achieves it, he tends to drop out of it when he gets angry. That’s what we’re starting off from. This could then have been a plot point in Resurrection F.
Imagine that Vegeta (using god ki) is capable of going toe-to-toe with golden Frieza for a while but as Frieza, gold-hearted bastard that he is, reminds Vegeta over and over again of what he did to the saiyan race and his father, Vegeta gets angrier and angrier and suddenly… poof. The red flames around him disappear and he reverts to base form. He is suddenly utterly outclassed by Frieza. Before he’s able to regain his power, Frieza blows up earth and Vegeta’s family with it.
Afterwards Vegeta feels like a failure. Like a screw up. The proud saiyan prince was unable to protect those he loved and the planet he calls his home.
The arc that follows is one where Vegeta has to learn to get passed his anger. And by the end of the character arc (which would happen around the end of the tournament of power) we see Vegeta finally not only re-attain super saiyan god (as he had before), but perfect it. And stay in it regardless of the barbs and taunts and insults of his enemies. Finally having shed the deep anger that controlled him. Rather than, you know, just get Super Saiyan Blue With Sprinkles.
Special attribute of god ki so that it’s more than a straight power boost? Check. Works on a narrative level? Check. Brings a new dynamic into the fight scenes? Check.
Now, this is just one example. If you don’t like it… well, suck my super saiyan cock cuz it’s great. But also, many alternatives would have been possible. Many other properties of god ki could have been used or added. Immortality and restorative abilities are two options. Maybe god ki changes its functionality depending on the user’s species and personality. Kind of like how there are gods of war, gods of the hunt, gods of the ocean, etc. the user receives new godly abilities regarding what they align with. Gohan could be a god of knowledge, Vegeta could have been a god of war, Roshi could’ve been… Dionysus. What does it mean to be a god? You name it, the possibilities are nearly endless!
But the point is: Make it different. Make it more than just a power boost. Make it change up the pace of the fight scenes, allow it to twist the plot and make it relevant to the characters and their arcs.
Breathing Space
Not only would using god ki in this way have catapulted old characters back to relevance (without being absurd) and given relevant characters interesting arcs surrounding god ki’s unique properties (of which there could be many) but this would also have had the side benefit of making it so much more memorable and impactful by significantly extending super saiyan god’s lifespan.
As it is, super saiyan god has one shining moment, the fight against Beerus, before it is replaced almost immediately by super saiyan blue. An underwhelming transformation that came out of nowhere.
This is… kind of a problem. Part of the reason why regular super saiyan was so memorable and iconic, after all, is that it had time to breathe. All the way from Namek to the end of the Cell arc, super saiyan (or grades of it) really were the top dog.
And the reason why its follow-up, super saiyan 2, was so memorable was because it took a long time to achieve, it made a decisive difference against the main villain of the arc and, most importantly, it marked the end of a character arc. The completion of Gohan’s character arc from scared child to determined defender of the earth.
The same should have happened for god ki. Having character arcs surrounding how to use god ki and giving it time to be the top dog before finally introducing something like super saiyan blue (which could have been the big thing Goku achieves in the tournament of power rather than ultra instinct) would have given it its own memorable moments. Its own flavour. And made it so much more iconic, interesting and dynamic than it currently is.
The Answer to the Ki-uestion
It’s probably too late for Dragon Ball Super to make these adjustments. As sad as it is, god ki will probably always be underdeveloped and come down to a pure power boost. And super saiyan god and super saiyan blue will never be as iconic as the OG yellow paintjob. But maybe, just maybe, whatever super awesome megajuice they come up with next will take these lessons into account.
Or they can just introduce more really buff looking guys and keep kicking the numbers up. That works too.
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Copyright: The images used in this article are screenshots taken from the episodes of Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball: Super. We are allowed to use them under section 107 of the US Copyright Act of 1976. Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super belong to Funimation, Toei Animation, Shueisha, and Akira Toriyama.
