Krillin vs the Death Star

[khadgar567]

We might have the first thing saitama loses becouse he hits guku and guku laıghs then he shoots f you beam known as kamehameha to saitama and gg baldie you are so truly dead that you never return to life

[Manga Shoggoth]

Because it's much faster and easier than running down individual rebels on his dinky TIE? Imagine how much terror he could cause among the squadron when pilots suddenly go silent before the TIEs even started shooting.

I'm not saying that if he could do it, it wouldn't be without tactical merit, but if you have accurate telenekisis (which is essentially what this is - Vader even lifts someone while doing it at one point in the first film) with very long range then I'd start by detonating the rebel ammo dumps or making the reactors of the capital ships go critical...

My point is that you will tend to use a tool or skill in a certian way. Toolwise, if I am putting a screw into something, I use a screwdriver (and drill and rawplug as required). If I am banging in a nail I use a hammer. I don't use a hammer^* for screws or a screwdriver for nails. It is possible to do either, but it is not how the tools are designed and it doesn't work very well.

Granted, the Force is a little more flexible (or ill-defined...). There are occasions in fiction where people work out unusual uses of existing abilities, but that's generally made as a major plot point. This isn't happening here as far as I can see.

EDIT: For the specific example: I'm not aware of a force choke that does not have line of sight in some way (even if via a viewscreen) to start the choke. Perhaps you just can't see to grab the throat in a dogfight, especially where you are both moving rapidly.



^* - I managed to reach my mid-30's before I discovered that there actually was one case where you would actually use a hammer to put in screws.

[Flickerdart]

^* - I managed to reach my mid-30's before I discovered that there actually was one case where you would actually use a hammer to put in screws.

Hit it once into drywall, then switch to the screwdriver. Saves a lot of fiddling.

[TeChameleon]

Goku is literally a universe buster. Like, he has to intentionally focus his ki to not destroy the entire universe with the shockwaves when he punches things. Saitama might have no shown upper limits, but he's also never shown even a trillionth of Goku's power.

*shrug*

Saitama vs. basically anyone is like WoD Cain vs. anyone. The Caped Baldy is another one, like He-Man, who has a strength score of 'Yes'. His opponent is pretty much irrelevant, as the narrative structure of the universe means that they'll be exploding into gore after getting punched. That's just how it works with him.

And frankly, Goku's power levels are all over the map. Toriyama isn't particularly interested in keeping the physics even marginally accurate, or even character strength levels all that consistent (really, Goku struggling with ten ton weights post-Namek Saga? Despite being shown to shove or even toss boulders that weighed many times that while still in training under Master Roshi at the age of twelve?!?). And don't even get me started on what they can and can't dodge (Abridged!Piccolo: "DOOOOOOOODGE!"), since the consistency there is pretty much zero.

Then again, I'm one of those weirdoes that think that Dragonball was better than DBZ, or at the very least rather more fun. Because really, one of the contestants in the World Martial Arts tournament being a wolfman (man-wolf?) that was pissed off at Roshi for blowing up the moon in the previous tournament (because he got stuck in one form) is comedy gold.

... and why would the Culture need an anti-universe-ending strategy against Goku? It's not like he runs around blowing up the universe on purpose...

And yes, Goku could speedblitz Belgarion, but why would he? It's not like it's something he makes a habit of doing...

Finally, for a character who could completely ruin Goku... Bugs Bunny. 'Toon full immortality, high-end humour-based reality warping, and basically being a trickster god with long ears would render ki pretty meaningless.

[Lord Raziere]

... and why would the Culture need an anti-universe-ending strategy against Goku? It's not like he runs around blowing up the universe on purpose...

And yes, Goku could speedblitz Belgarion, but why would he? It's not like it's something he makes a habit of doing...

Finally, for a character who could completely ruin Goku... Bugs Bunny. 'Toon full immortality, high-end humour-based reality warping, and basically being a trickster god with long ears would render ki pretty meaningless.

The Culture is about the size of a galaxy, if Goku can take out the universe, but hasn't actually made a trained attack for that, then him destroying a galaxy and accidentally taking out the rest of Creation with it is not out of the question. Especially since Beerus has been known to do similar things. Galaxy-spanning civilizations potentially being taken out by ki-fighters is old news at DB Super levels of power. I wouldn't be surprised if Beerus has taken out a few Culture-like civilizations in his time as the God of Destruction.

Maybe, if your bringing toon nonsense into it, then Goku can call Arale, who is just as cartoonish and unstoppable. That is assuming he doesn't call Beerus, who can demonstrably defeat gag characters in one hit. Because Beerus straight up destroyed Dr. Slumps' archnemesis's ghost. if you think Goku or the DB universe is any stranger to cartoon shenanigans, you need to read Dr. Slump my friend.

[Coidzor]

What interplanetary ranges? Space combat in Star Wars is based on oldschool dogfighting where you have a visual on your target, which means spitting distances. And a Tie Fighter goes at 1200 kmh, roughly the speed of sound. Pretty fast, but nothing unusual for DBZ characters.

If you want to see how DBZ characters do against things that fly at jet speeds, there's always Nappa's Best. Day. Ever.

Good point. If breathing and damage from the vacuum of space is not an issue, then he probably could just outfight TIE fighters by flying around and blasting or punching them. I don't see anything to indicate that DBZ characters need to be on a planet to fly, so he can fly outside his pod and fight TIE fighters.

The Bardock special shows a number of Frieza's soldiers and Bardock, the protagonist of that special, flying in space near a planet. Or possibly in the very highest reaches of the upper atmosphere.

Normal combat is probably closer to what happens when Z-Fighters duke it out with minions or something, and Krillin held his own there just fine even in Battle of Gods.

And that was after he'd been slacking for a while and had become weaker.

If 'verse thematics are going to get involved (which doesn't sound necessary, but it's being discussed anyways), then the question is why Krillin gets killed. He sounds pretty weak compared to the main cast, so he's not being Worfed to show how badass the new antagonist is (even if Cell did no-sell* his Finishing Move for that purpose). Are his deaths meant to also be inconsequential or even comedic in-universe, a la Kenny McCormick? Is he the team 'morality pet' that the villain casually murders to show how evil and heartless they are, or to inspire his friends to power up even further by his sacrifice?

*Or should that be no-Cell?

His first death was as a kid and it was to show how serious King Piccolo was and also give Goku a personal stake in avenging his fellow student and best friend.

His second death was to underscore that they'd just failed to kill the most powerful being in the galaxy/universe(as far as they knew) with the most powerful attack that existed at the time. Also to push Goku over the edge into being well and fully angry enough to transform into a Super Saiyan to get the power boost necessary to show Freeza what-for.

IIRC, his third death was to show how trivial very strong fighters like the non-Super Saiyan 2+ Z-Warriors were to Majin Buu and possibly to get him out of the way for when the entire population of Earth gets genocided so he can be brought back along with the planet and more importantly, is out of the way of the Goku and Vegeta and sometimes Gohan and/or Hercule show that was going on.

Plus in the original film you had Luke blocking attacks from a drone while blindfolded at the start of the film, and firing torpedoes down a vent that he couldn't see while flying an X-Wing at high speed at the end. Hitting things you are not able to see is what the force appears to be for.

Relative speed and visibility does not seem to be an issue to the Force.

Relative speed is definitely an issue. It's just lessened to a certain extent depending upon what that difference in speed is and the period of time the precognition works for and what's going on. The drone was explicitly for training Luke, a complete neophyte, after all,

The speeds at which Krillin can fly or run are definitely issues for anyone in the Star Wars Universe. Precognition doesn't help you dodge attacks from all directions which are coming in so fast they're effectively simultaneous, unless it's an AoE and you can actually get out of the AoE beforehand and the generator of the AoE can't just compensate for your changed position.

Suffocation is actually pretty low on the list of ways space has of killing people. Its still a thing that would happen, but the depressurization or radiation would probably get somebody first.

I'm going to go with "not Krillin" on that one, given what he's able to do to protect himself with his ki and the baseline way DBZ characters operate in space. The issue has always been breathing in space, which seems to get handwaved as necessary depending upon how long they're out there and how far from a planet they are.

The Culture is about the size of a galaxy, if Goku can take out the universe, but hasn't actually made a trained attack for that, then him destroying a galaxy and accidentally taking out the rest of Creation with it is not out of the question. Especially since Beerus has been known to do similar things. Galaxy-spanning civilizations potentially being taken out by ki-fighters is old news at DB Super levels of power. I wouldn't be surprised if Beerus has taken out a few Culture-like civilizations in his time as the God of Destruction.

Maybe, if your bringing toon nonsense into it, then Goku can call Arale, who is just as cartoonish and unstoppable. That is assuming he doesn't call Beerus, who can demonstrably defeat gag characters in one hit. Because Beerus straight up destroyed Dr. Slumps' archnemesis's ghost. if you think Goku or the DB universe is any stranger to cartoon shenanigans, you need to read Dr. Slump my friend.

I imagine Beerus would have taken some out because they annoyed him by attempting diplomacy when they realized he existed by seeing him at work.

As far as I can tell, the Culture would probably have the brains to just leave Goku's corner of the universe alone, since while they do seem to exist to engulf all other forms of life into their milieu, they also have the ability to show restraint and mark parts of the universe as ones to be left alone for very long periods of time.

[khadgar567]

As krilin can survive in vacuum if we count super as canon and trunks and goten are weaker then him he can survive prety long while casualy wrecking imperial fleet

[Manga Shoggoth]

Relative speed is definitely an issue. It's just lessened to a certain extent depending upon what that difference in speed is and the period of time the precognition works for and what's going on. The drone was explicitly for training Luke, a complete neophyte, after all,

I'd agree, but there is a huge leap between the start of the film (Luke and the Drone, which was relatively slow and Luke only did one deflection of the attack) to the end of the film (Luke in an X-wing flying at full speed and trying to hit a tiny exhaust port).

Luke was still a complete neophyte at the end of the film, yet he pulls off a feat that should be of enormous difficulty if relative speed is an issue.

The force (at least in the first three films, and I freely admit that I gave up on the films after the fourth) seems to be more based on belief in ability rather than purely training or difficulty of task. Yoda makes two comments on this:

On Luke saying that he will try a task: "Do, or not do. There is no try."

On levitating Luke's X-Wing out of the swamp:

Luke: "I don't believe it!"

Yoda: "That is why you fail."

The speeds at which Krillin can fly or run are definitely issues for anyone in the Star Wars Universe. Precognition doesn't help you dodge attacks from all directions which are coming in so fast they're effectively simultaneous, unless it's an AoE and you can actually get out of the AoE beforehand and the generator of the AoE can't just compensate for your changed position.

Oh, I quite agree that if it comes to direct combat then the stormtroopers are completely stuffed, and Vader or the Emperor (or both) would have a challenge on thier hands.

If I remember my tournaments correctly, Goku's third tournament had Tienshin performing a move that split his body 4 ways (shishin, I think), giving four simultaneous attacks, so there's room for that sort of manoever even without the high speed attacks.

But simply quoting scale isn't necessarly of value. There's a world of difference between a Death Star (highly enclosed, lots of corridors) and an open space, which is where most of the highly powered DragonBall combats seem to tale place (I can only think of one exception - The Fatal Toilet - but my information is largely from the Manga).

For example, I wouldn't think it unreasonable for precognition to give you a timing for someone coming down a corridor at any speed in time to flood the corridor with Force Lightening. Of course, they have to know that someone is coming ahead of time, so unless they have some sort of vision of the future (demonstrated, but badly handled by Luke in the second film) they could still be caught on the hop.

[Traab]

And yes, Goku could speedblitz Belgarion, but why would he? It's not like it's something he makes a habit of doing...

Thats the thing though, belgarion is bog standard human as far as physical abilities go. If goku is told he is facing someone known as the godslayer, do you really think he is going to jog towards his opponent at 5 mph? He may not go all out, but when you are goku, even holding back 99% of your strength you are still capable of casually obliterating buildings with your fist faster than normal humans can react. Remember Hercule Satan? The guy is way stronger than belgarion physically, most likely could kick his ass in a straight up fight without magic, and he is an utter joke in the dbz universe power wise.

Also, something to keep in mind. While belgarion does (or did) have the orb which has the power to create new constellations and heal the world etc etc etc. He never ever USED the damn thing for anything impressive on a dbz level. So there is that issue to worry about. Honestly, if you want to take an eddings character and put him against goku, use sparhawk at his peak. When he discovered he was basically the child of blue rose and able to use its full power to fight on par with gods. At least he earned his victory with strength of arms, belgarion was protected by literal in universe plot armor to make his god battle an even fight, since that was less about winning a duel and more about making a choice.

Plus compare the two. Belgarion got like, a year or two of random training in how to swing a sword and how to use his magic. Sparhawk spent his entire life being trained in magic and martial skill, rising up to become the greatest knight of the acknowledged strongest branch of the church knights. His entire life was mastering his worlds combat skills. When it comes to regular magic, belgarion has an advantage in that he doesnt need complicated spells and gestures, but we also see that sparhawk has a direct line of mental communication to the goddess who grants him his spells and she really really likes him. Being seen letting him cut a lot of corners when needed. So the gap isnt AS huge as it could be, but is still there. But its at high level magic where it swings back. Belgarion has to try and make the orb, which is semi sentient and has a child like mind, understand precisely what he wants it to do. Meanwhile sparhawk actually IS the power of a world creating magical force, so it becomes his own will and the word type scenario.

Straight up melee duel sparhawk wins
Sword and sorcery I give the edge to belgarion
World altering level combat sparhawk wins.

[Coidzor]

I'd agree, but there is a huge leap between the start of the film (Luke and the Drone, which was relatively slow and Luke only did one deflection of the attack) to the end of the film (Luke in an X-wing flying at full speed and trying to hit a tiny exhaust port).

Luke was still a complete neophyte at the end of the film, yet he pulls off a feat that should be of enormous difficulty if relative speed is an issue.

You're comparing apples and hand grenades with that one. There's a world of difference between using the force to aim for what is essentially a single target when in his frame of reference, he's the one moving, not the target and using the force to predict and react to the attacks of someone who is so fast that it doesn't matter if you see the attack coming, because you cannot physically react to it without responding so far in advance that you change the future and they attack a different way instead.

Oh, I quite agree that if it comes to direct combat then the stormtroopers are completely stuffed, and Vader or the Emperor (or both) would have a challenge on thier hands.

If I remember my tournaments correctly, Goku's third tournament had Tienshin performing a move that split his body 4 ways (shishin, I think), giving four simultaneous attacks, so there's room for that sort of manoever even without the high speed attacks.

But simply quoting scale isn't necessarly of value. There's a world of difference between a Death Star (highly enclosed, lots of corridors) and an open space, which is where most of the highly powered DragonBall combats seem to tale place (I can only think of one exception - The Fatal Toilet - but my information is largely from the Manga).

For example, I wouldn't think it unreasonable for precognition to give you a timing for someone coming down a corridor at any speed in time to flood the corridor with Force Lightening. Of course, they have to know that someone is coming ahead of time, so unless they have some sort of vision of the future (demonstrated, but badly handled by Luke in the second film) they could still be caught on the hop.

There's plenty of spaces that are open enough for some maneuvering and even outright flight. In a narrow corridor, yes, some of his advantages are lost.

He's still literally fast and strong enough to deliver a single barehanded chop and break off vader's lightsaber arm before Vader can react.

As for flooding corridors with Force Lightning, you'd need to provide a citation for that, unless you mean just firing down a corridor for an entirely unknown range with an effect that may or may not be strong enough to give Krillin pause or that might just result in him doing the DBZ thing and beam struggling with your force lightning slinger.

Given Krillin's power, beam struggling with him isn't a safe bet.

[TeChameleon]

*Lots of fun Eddings stuff*

Honestly, I mostly just went with Belgarion because as far as I know, the Belgariad/Malloreon are the better known of Eddings' series (well, that and the aforementioned accidentally-rearranging-constellations thing).

Hrm... and just as a random aside, as far as Saitama vs. Goku goes, there is one feat that Saitama has that Goku's never matched (to the best of my knowledge)- assuming that the psychic-octopus-thingy (Geryuganshoop..?) wasn't simply exaggerating, Saitama has wandered around under blackhole-level gravity without the slightest indication of strain. Goku's never been exposed to anything remotely close to that, so... yeah. All other things being equal, Saitama has at least one major-league durability feat that means he can (casually) survive things that would turn Goku into a thinly-spread smear of random quarks. That being said, I probably should have just left this particular matchup at 'Saitama is, at heart, just as much of a gag character as Bugs Bunny, so him vs. Goku really isn't a fair or reasonable matchup'.

And I know that Goku's met Arale (during the Red Ribbon Army saga, he and General Blue ended up in Dr. Slump's world/corner of the world). But whether or not Beerus could destroy Bugs Bunny (permanently, at least) starts to get into the question of 'whose metaphysics/narrative structure are in control of the fight', which renders the whole thing pretty moot. I mean, what would happen if Beerus fired one of his 'absolute destruction' thingies at Matter-Eater Lad? It would be a conflict of absolutes; could Beerus' 'destroy anything' overcome Matter-Eater Lad's 'eat anything'? Or if Beerus ended up against Brit from Image Comics; Brit is invincible. Full stop, no qualifications. So what happens when Beerus tries to destroy him?

[Traab]

The thing about captain baldy is, the real reason its useless to use him in a vs match isnt so much the fact that he is a parody character, though it is connected to that, its that we have never seen him hit a limit, hard or soft to his abilities. It makes it really tough to say, "He can do this, but the other guy can do that." Because while its true, we havent yet seen one punch surpass that level of feats, we also havent seen any sign he couldnt should he need to.

[Lord Raziere]

And I know that Goku's met Arale (during the Red Ribbon Army saga, he and General Blue ended up in Dr. Slump's world/corner of the world). But whether or not Beerus could destroy Bugs Bunny (permanently, at least) starts to get into the question of 'whose metaphysics/narrative structure are in control of the fight', which renders the whole thing pretty moot. I mean, what would happen if Beerus fired one of his 'absolute destruction' thingies at Matter-Eater Lad? It would be a conflict of absolutes; could Beerus' 'destroy anything' overcome Matter-Eater Lad's 'eat anything'? Or if Beerus ended up against Brit from Image Comics; Brit is invincible. Full stop, no qualifications. So what happens when Beerus tries to destroy him?

Its not a question of which franchise has which meta-narrative structure.

Both Dragon Ball and Looney Tunes have demonstrated the same gag character meta-narrative structure and that most of the time, this overwrites the normal ki fighting. Beerus however, while in an episode of nothing BUT gags and cartoon meta-narrative, permanently killed a gag character in one hit with his Destruction God powers with no effort, no ki blasts, just poke, says the word "Destroy" and the person is gone. The same poke that destroyed Present Zamasu. So most of the time, gag overwrites the serious fighting, but Beerus overwrites the gags.

Beerus doesn't NEED to fight to destroy someone forever. He commands the powers of Destruction, and the universe obeys. Even against gag characters. He doesn't need to fire anything at Matter-Eater Lad, just poke him in the head, say "Destroy" and Matter Eater Lad is GONE.

As for invincible people.....well technically, Future Zamasu was still immortal when he was the Zamasu Plague-Cloud of Doom. Future Zeno destroyed him along with that entire timeline....so....its possible Zeno could destroy Brit. He wouldn't even care if the rest of reality went with Brit as well.

honestly, its not even a question of Goku anymore, because he isn't the strongest person in Dragon Ball. Zeno and the Gods of Destruction are where all the hax are now.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Isn't Tien human, and stronger than Krillin? He was in the Cell saga at least. He does have a third eye but I don't remember anything about him being a demon or an alien so he would seem to be a human with a weird mutation.

Depends when you compare them, doesn't it?

During the the Saiyan saga? Toss up but probably Tien. Frieza saga? Krillin, all the way. After that? Tien and its not even close.

18. He gives it to 18.

You don't give something that impressive to a woman who is not your wife. You give that planet-busting cannon to your beautiful blonde goddess and mother of your sweet child.

And then, when she laughs and points out that she doesn't need a planet-busting cannon, because she, and everybody she knows, can do just as well without a cannon, then you can offer that juicy bit of galactic space-tech to your friend the mad scientist.

Who is married to Space Genghis Khan.

And what happens thereafter is entirely predictable.

This is the best reply in the history of ever.

He gives it to Trunks on the basis a) the Saiyan Prince needs no baubles and b) he thinks Trunks needs bigger balls and that's the only way he'll get them?

Wait, no, that's DBZA!Vegeta.

...

Or is it...?

Well you aren't wrong...

....on the first part anyway. Canon Vegeta probably wouldn't think the second.

...and this is ancillary because it doesn't really make a difference (this is so in the bag for Krillin barring a direct hit by the Death Star), but I do not think Krillin CAN destroy a planet. Could have swore that Toriyama said you couldn't blow up a planet with sheer power (unless it was butt-tons of power aka the Final Flash), you had to KNOW how to blow a planet up. Vegeta, in the Saiyan Saga, actually can't blow up planets...the whole thing with the bug people was filler that Toriyama didn't okay and regrets was included in the show because...well..it created the impression that any strong character could blow up a planet.

Like I said, this actually doesn't change anything, this is still Krillin's fight to lose but it does mean there will be a roughly intact Death Star that has merely been left uninhabited by the end of this fight. At which point see Red Fel's post.

Could someone clarify that though? Cause I know Krillin never gets more powerful than Frieza during the Frieda saga, so I really doubt Krillin reaches the point he could 'power through' destroying a full on planet without a proper technique...which he may know, Krillin is a technique guy. He literally developed a technique that gives him a chance to OHKO an opponent who takes a direct hit by it unless they vastly, vastly outclass him (or are Kid Buu, but Buu's whole thing is he's basically pink bubblegum...doesn't matter if you hurt him cause he just comes back together...he doesn't really NEED defense so he doesn't have any)

[khadgar567]

for super era frieza mooks to show they are even more powerless then heros side kick who for long time didnt even try to train to keep his form due all major treats are basicly toys to goku or vegita so he applies to job so he can pay the bills for peacefull future of his family

[Knaight]

I thought that the thread had previously established that is no contest, and there was no situation in which anything from DBZ could lose out to anything that wasn't DBZ.

I think there should a requirement that maybe not use DBZ for future vs threads. Like you can't have Doctor Doom challenge anyone, that you can't have DBZ challenge anyone.

I wouldn't go that far. While I'll admit to being less familiar with DBZ than most anyone else here (I've picked up some by osmosis but never actually watched it), it started out as a retelling of Journey to the West and went up from there. It's rooted in old stories about powerful god like figures. Star Wars is much more grounded, at its heart a story about a handful of characters in a resistance movement which is then made bigger by being put in space and extended over a huge number of planets. That Star Wars specifically doesn't operate at DBZ power levels is to be expected. It doesn't mean that nothing else will. To use a hypothetical example, making something like Dragonball using The Epic of Gilgamesh as the inspiration instead of Journey to the West would probably accomplish it just fine. Using a non-hypothetical example, there's stuff like The Chronicles of Amber, Lensman, and TTGL.

After all, getting blasted into boulders and surviving was pre time skip naruto levels of toughness. And I dont think even the biggest naruto fanboy would legit try to claim that it was on dbz levels of toughness and power.

While you're probably right, the underlying assumption here - that fans of a series are dedicated to the characters in the series being more powerful than the characters in other series - is just bizarre. I'm not saying that it's in any way wrong for the fan bases in question, just that the whole mentality makes basically no sense.

[Anteros]

It makes perfect sense really. It's tribalism. We root for "our guy" and want them to be the best. It's the same basic reason we get so invested in things like spectator sports despite the outcomes having no real impact. Humans are weird sometimes.

[OctoberRaven]

Scenario 1: Krillin wins all day. Ejects from his ship, Destructo Disk in the thermal exhaust port (remember, he can control where it goes) and flies to the nearest thing with air. Also the scenario says the Z-fighters can't help but doesn't say they don't exist, so Krillin can probably be rezzed anyway.

Scenario 2: Vader guns him down. The plot is not strong enough for Krillin now that actual Jedi are in play.

Scenario 2, Alternate Ending: Krillin thinks he's still in a shonen anime and goes after Vader. Ironically, this plays out as it always does in DBZ, with Krillian getting curbstomped.

[Knaight]

It makes perfect sense really. It's tribalism. We root for "our guy" and want them to be the best. It's the same basic reason we get so invested in things like spectator sports despite the outcomes having no real impact. Humans are weird sometimes.

Getting to "the best" makes sense. Fanbases arguing that their preferred stories are objectively better written than other fanbases preferred stories makes a lot of sense. Fanbases arguing that the characters in their preferred stories are more interesting, better developed, better written, so on and so forth makes sense. It's the conflation of "the best" and "the most powerful" which gets into the bizarre category.

To use an anime example specifically, while I shy away from the term "fan" I like Seirei no Moribito and consider it to be a good work. I'll be more than willing to argue that the characters in it are substantially more interesting and better written than the characters in lots of other anime works. A versus thread featuring the handful of characters who could fit in one though? Why should liking the series translate to arguing that they'd win fights? Most of the time they probably wouldn't.

[Keltest]

Question: why would Krillin ever aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The only reason the rebels knew to aim there is because they had blueprints that told them, quite specifically, that it would kill the death star.

[Lemmy]

Question: why would Krillin ever aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The only reason the rebels knew to aim there is because they had blueprints that told them, quite specifically, that it would kill the death star.

He wouldn't even need to. Seriously, by the time the time of the Freeza saga, pretty much every character is powerful enough to destroy a planet! During the sayan saga, Vegeta aims his special attack downwards specifically so that Goku can't evade the attack because doing so would mean the destruction of Earth.

DBZ hasn't been my favorite anime in decades, and I honestly think Super is a pretty bad show with a few good points... But I can't deny the fact that the DBZ plays on a tier of power most characters from other franchises simply cannot compete.

[Red Fel]

Question: why would Krillin ever aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The only reason the rebels knew to aim there is because they had blueprints that told them, quite specifically, that it would kill the death star.

Follow-up: Why should Krillin aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The Rebels go after it because they use space lasers and torpedoes that can only deal surface damage; they would need to somehow hit the core in order to damage it. But blasts in DBZ can burst through ships, end to end; assuming Krillin is sufficiently powerful, he could simply shoot the Death Star, fire some kind of drilling blast straight into the core, and blow the whole thing sky-high.

Additionally, in response to the argument that not everyone can blow up a planet even with force, that's no moon. The Death Star is an artificial construct. More accurately, it's an artificial construct with a built-in design flaw engineered expressly to trigger total destruction. That already makes it substantially more destructible than a planet. Even assuming that Krillin couldn't kill a planet, he might still be able to blow up an incredibly large space station.

That said, we have a movie illustration for that, too. Let's review: robotic villain commands a moon-sized mechanical terror that destroys planets. Yes, Krillin was in that movie, and it took the combined powers of Goku and Vegeta to overload the Big Gete Star. (This creates some oddity, since it took their combined power to destroy one Metal Cooler, yet somehow their combined power could then destroy an army of them plus the Big Gete Star, but whatever.) Now, Krillin didn't, to my recollection, attack the BGS directly. Assuming, however, that it had a power level, and that the power level of the Metal Coolers was less than that of the BGS which created them, we can infer that Krillin was weaker than a Metal Cooler, and thus substantially weaker than the BGS, and unable to defeat it.

So, if we're willing to rely on only-sort-of-canon, we have a more direct comparison to the Death Star, and it does not bode in Krillin's favor.

[Lemmy]

Follow-up: Why should Krillin aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port? The Rebels go after it because they use space lasers and torpedoes that can only deal surface damage; they would need to somehow hit the core in order to damage it. But blasts in DBZ can burst through ships, end to end; assuming Krillin is sufficiently powerful, he could simply shoot the Death Star, fire some kind of drilling blast straight into the core, and blow the whole thing sky-high.

Additionally, in response to the argument that not everyone can blow up a planet even with force, that's no moon. The Death Star is an artificial construct. More accurately, it's an artificial construct with a built-in design flaw engineered expressly to trigger total destruction. That already makes it substantially more destructible than a planet. Even assuming that Krillin couldn't kill a planet, he might still be able to blow up an incredibly large space station.

That said, we have a movie illustration for that, too. Let's review: robotic villain commands a moon-sized mechanical terror that destroys planets. Yes, Krillin was in that movie, and it took the combined powers of Goku and Vegeta to overload the Big Gete Star. (This creates some oddity, since it took their combined power to destroy one Metal Cooler, yet somehow their combined power could then destroy an army of them plus the Big Gete Star, but whatever.) Now, Krillin didn't, to my recollection, attack the BGS directly. Assuming, however, that it had a power level, and that the power level of the Metal Coolers was less than that of the BGS which created them, we can infer that Krillin was weaker than a Metal Cooler, and thus substantially weaker than the BGS, and unable to defeat it.

So, if we're willing to rely on only-sort-of-canon, we have a more direct comparison to the Death Star, and it does not bode in Krillin's favor.

Are the movies even canon, though? I'm leaning towards "No". I can't remember anything that happens in them being ever mentioned in the series... Most of them don't even fit with the manga's chronology.

Now, what is definitely canon is Piccolo destroying Earth's moon with barely any effort at a time when his power level as little more than 2000 (at best).

[Keltest]

Are the movies even canon, though? I'm leaning towards "No". I can't remember anything that happens in them being ever mentioned in the series... Most of them don't even fit with the manga's chronology.

Now, what is definitely canon is Piccolo destroying Earth's moon with barely any effort at a time when his power level as little more than 2000 (at best).

Honestly, I think that goes back to more "rocks in the Dragon Ball Universe are made of Styrofoam" theory than it says about relative power levels. Physics are applied pretty inconsistently (IE somebody hitting a boulder/mountain/large objects with enough force to shatter it/them, and then just stopping on the other side).

[Rynjin]

The Big Gete Star allowed me to cheat death, how can this BE is significantly weirder and probably more powerful than the Death Star. It has the ability to create a clone army of robotic minions that are each powerful enough to destroy a planet without breaking much of a sweat.

It's also less a space station and more a computer chip that absorbed stuff and became a big lumpy mass of metal and stuff.

But yeah, most importantly it's not canon. The canonicity of some of the movies is questionable (the first Cooler movie and first Broly movie probably are), but most of the sequels and way out there ones (like the one with Hirudegarn) are definitely not.

[Knaight]

Additionally, in response to the argument that not everyone can blow up a planet even with force, that's no moon. The Death Star is an artificial construct. More accurately, it's an artificial construct with a built-in design flaw engineered expressly to trigger total destruction. That already makes it substantially more destructible than a planet. Even assuming that Krillin couldn't kill a planet, he might still be able to blow up an incredibly large space station.

This is the least of the things that makes it more destructible. For instance, the Death Star has huge amounts of open space, it's clearly not massive enough for gravitational crushing into a smaller denser ball to be an issue (whereas planets generally do this, as do moons, as do reasonably large asteroids), it's held together by the actual material strength of its components, which as previously mentioned make up only part of the space in it, and it has all sorts of volatile high energy stuff in it that can be easily blown up.

[Mato]

Question: why would Krillin ever aim for a seemingly irrelevant exhaust port?

I have no idea, in his prime he could simply destroy it from the surface of Alderaan even as it fired at him.

Also we're talking about Krillin here, he actually has a set of brains to go with his brawn. He is a formally an educated monk and training with Master Roshi included math and literature. He is an active Japanese-style cop, and he has been shown to exploit his opponent's weaknesses whenever he could. Such as tricking Goku, using porn to beat/bribe Roshi, pressure point attacks, and he is the inventor of the energy disc technique which was expressly designed to kill opponents far strong than he is and in Super he shows off his bankai and he compresses his power-leaking aura around him self for a power boost. He has lived a life facing opponents far superior to him but unlike Goku who wants to face everyone at 110%, Krillin is not above trying to blindside you with his murderous techniques.

[Lemmy]

But yeah, most importantly it's not canon. The canonicity of some of the movies is questionable (the first Cooler movie and first Broly movie probably are), but most of the sequels and way out there ones (like the one with Hirudegarn) are definitely not.

I'd say they fall into "not-canon until Toriyama decides otherwise".

Let's take Cooler... When did he invade Earth? Gohan still has the same appearance (including short hair) that he had in the Freeza saga, but at the same time, Cooler can't have arrived before Freeza and King Cold because Goku wasn't on Earth at the time. Additionally, he would probably have known about his brother's mechanization, but he makes no mention of it (or his father's death). Besides, no one ever mentions Cooler at any point in the show.

Every DBZ movie has similar issues.

[Rynjin]

I think he fits pretty neatly into the 3 years of training before the Androids show up. Same way Broly is in that week between the Cell Games announcement and the tournament happening (and Super has all but confirmed Broly as canon. Unfortunately.).

[Traab]

Getting to "the best" makes sense. Fanbases arguing that their preferred stories are objectively better written than other fanbases preferred stories makes a lot of sense. Fanbases arguing that the characters in their preferred stories are more interesting, better developed, better written, so on and so forth makes sense. It's the conflation of "the best" and "the most powerful" which gets into the bizarre category.

To use an anime example specifically, while I shy away from the term "fan" I like Seirei no Moribito and consider it to be a good work. I'll be more than willing to argue that the characters in it are substantially more interesting and better written than the characters in lots of other anime works. A versus thread featuring the handful of characters who could fit in one though? Why should liking the series translate to arguing that they'd win fights? Most of the time they probably wouldn't.

It happens in literally every versus thread, unless the power gap is just absurd. Everyone fights to proclaim their favorite is the best/strongest/most deadly. Especially when talking about series that revolve around getting stronger and winning fights. You see it in comics as well as books, as well as movies as well as anime. If you have a preference, you are going to try to find something that suggests they could win. Even here early on people were trying to find a way to "prove" that vader or the emperor could crush krillin, or at least win the fight. My point was just that even the most fervent fan of naruto would have to admit that yeah, dbz is just in an entirely different realm of power unless you start bringing in all sorts of shenanigans like cherry picking a specific point where the guy you want fighting naruto was at his weakest and blah blah blah.