The "Unearned" Power-Ups of Dragon Ball

What power up is the most unearned? Let me know! Also leave a like on the video :)

If you read the manga, Ultra Instinct is not only Whis. It's the culmination of his training with Roshi, Korin, and Whis. So its even more earned.

I think many people confuse "unearned" with "unsatisfying". Golden Frieza is the perfect example, because he literally trained for it, but suddenly seeing a Frieza who's now golden as a result of offscreen training, yeah, it felt very anticlimatic, which is exactly the problem people tend to have.

Honestly to me personally, Piccolo's power up felt like a thing that was a long time coming. I understand why people think it's unearned narratively, but It feels like the character totally deserves it because of the place that he's earned in with the fans. Like if Tien suddenly got a random power up, I wouldn't be mad at all. His character totally deserves to step up and feel important again.

How is Roshi not included here? He had a power level of 150 in the beginning of Z as a 100+ year old man who spent his whole life pursuing Marshall arts, then somehow becomes millions of times more powerful within a few years or perhaps months? Ain't no way.

I feel like Orange Piccolo is a unique case, in that while it’s “unearned”, it’s absolutely deserved. He’s had a couple big power jumps in the series, primarily fusing with Nail and Kami, but he’s essentially had nothing since the Cell saga. TLDR: Big Green deserves his Vitamin C.

I like it imagine that the reason why Piccolo become so strong after getting his potential unlocked is because in addition to Shenron's Bonus, since Piccolo is fused with Kami and Nail, all three of them got their potential unlocked, thus adding up to a massive boost.

I think Vegetas rage boost is thematicly perfect and shows his character growth. He gets that boost for a similar reason to why goku unlocked SSJ to begin with. Where Goku gained SSJ when Freiza killed Krillin, Vegeta got a boost when Beerus attacked Bulma, one of the few people he cares about more than maybe anyone else.

Forgot to mention Master Roshi somehow quietly increasing in power dramatically through "offscreen training" after living hundreds of years and not even getting to a point of being worth mentioning at the start of Z, to the point that he can suddenly hold his own next to the other human Z fighters in the ToP.

For me, the issue isn't a transformation being unearned; it's that there are too many transformations. At this point I just want strategy and technique rather than a new color

Piccolo was criminally under developed, and deserved his boost. He’s a main character and they treat him like a sideman. Looking forward to seeing more of him and this incredible DESERVED!!! Awakening. (Hate the name tho, “orange piccolo” terrible lol)

I like the idea of Frieza, for probably the first time in his life, ACTUALLY TRAINING, then realizing he had so much more power that was locked off by his own arrogance and pride. Kinda like the explanation for 5th? form Cooler. I feel it does add to the Namek arc all the way back in Z, with Goku having earned his strength and compassion, while Frieza was born with overwhelming power and thus had no respect for it or anyone weaker, ever.

Biggest problem with recent dragon ball is it’s all decided by how strong a character is. No types of ki like special attacking ki to cut through someone’s guard. If something of the sorts were introduced it’s at least be a nice way to explain further all the different kinds of attacks like Krillin’s disc

To me at least, Vegeta's rage boost vs Beerus was earned when looking at both a story and power perspective. In the story, Vegeta learned to care for his family, even throwing hands with Beerus because he ruined her Birthday Party. It even makes sense for a power perspective as Vegeta never thought of getting SSJ3 instead pushing his body using his preexisting toolkit and was rewarded by surpassing Goku

Wasn't Gohan's "ultimate" form supposed to represent Gohan's power at his peak? Elder Kai even stated during the Buu saga that it'd remove any need for further transformations, Gohan could be trying to enter SS1, SS2, SS3, or even "beast mode" and he'd look no different, the only constant being the clear aura around him.

The biggest problem was the very invention of “power levels”. It was an early example of keeping the workings of a system a mystery in media, and opening that box can be a pandoras curse.

Personally I think that Gohan is the poster boy of unearned power ups. I don't have a problem with Gohan's power up in the Cell Saga since him having hidden potential was sorta the point of his character so I don't think there's an issue there. The problem starts in the Buu Saga where its established that Gohan has not only not been keeping up with his training but that he even became weaker than his kid self who fought Cell. And the way they fixed his lack of power wasn't to have him go through an insane training to make up for lost time and to force him to realize his mistake and the importance of keeping up with his training, instead they just GAVE him a huge power up that literally only required him to sit on his ass to get it. Years later when Freeza came back Gohan was SOOO out of shape that he was struggling to fight off Freeza's MINIONS. Later on Gohan did a bit of training with Piccolo and suddenly his power is on par with God Kii level fighters like Goku who HAS been training consistently for years. And now he gained another SSJ2 power up, how much did he train for that? Knowing Gohan's track record by this point I'm entirely convinced that he simply pulled a Goten and transformed completely by accident and just happened to get a new form...a form that Gohan should theoretically never have to turned into again since he has his Ultimate Form which should in theory be able to draw out all the power from that transformation without any drawbacks. The only way this new transformation can replace Ultimate is if it does everything the Ultimate form does but increases his power EVEN MORE than all his previous forms without any drawbacks.

My issue with Caulifla is less the way she transformed, and more that it just shouldn't have mattered that she did. The gap in base power and skill was just too huge.

Piccolo might not earned it story wise, but character wise he earned it big time.

The thing is with caulfla is that she gained ssj after just seeing cabba but goten and trunks were RAISED by supersaiyans Vegeta and Gohan