Highlights
- Super Saiyan transformations in Dragon Ball evolved from iconic to overused, losing impact with repetitive designs and upgrades.
- Dragon Ball Super introduces character-specific transformations to rejuvenate the series and offer unique fighting styles.
- Super Saiyan 4 from Dragon Ball GT remains one of the best-designed forms in the franchise, inspiring new transformations in Dragon Ball Super.
Goku’s transformation into a Super Saiyan remains, arguably, the most iconic moment in all of anime, setting the stage for the future of the series. Since the Namek Saga, Dragon Ball has shown the progression of this transformation. As Saiyans strive to get even stronger and master their forms, their training has led to the creation of more stable Super Saiyan transformations that far eclipse the strength of the form that came before.
However, by following this natural progression of Super Saiyan transformations, Dragon Ball eventually hit somewhat of a roadblock. By having every member of the race unlock and use a different version of Super Saiyan, the form became overused and diluted as a result, so much so that it no longer had the same impact. However, quite early on in the series, there were signs of the series moving towards better transformations for the characters, which has been achieved in Dragon Ball Super.
Evidence For Super Saiyan’s Overuse
|
First Appearance |
Dragon Ball Z, Episode 95, “Transformed At Last” |
|---|---|
|
Debut Date |
June 19, 1991 |
|
Story Arc |
Namek Saga |
When the overall strength and power of Dragon Ball villains increased ever since the appearance of Frieza, the Super Saiyan transformation became more or less the standard for the Saiyans going forward. Stronger opponents require stronger heroes to defeat them, leading to this form becoming widespread among the Saiyan Z-Fighters.
Up until the Android Saga, the form was still quite important, but the heroes needed to increase their power even more, which is where the saturation truly began. With Super Saiyan Grades 2 and 3, they took the already familiar design but just made the form even bulkier, with Grade 4 looking exactly the same as the original. Super Saiyan 2 was far more powerful but functioned the same and only had spikier hair.
These transformations are abundant in the series and, eventually, they become far less impactful, as even Goten and Trunks could easily go Super Saiyan without ever really training for it. This has shown that the form simply isn’t as important as it used to be and the eventual stages of the Super Saiyan offer very little in terms of new fighting style or design, with Super Saiyan 3 being an exception in the latter department.
Though different, Super Saiyan 3 is very reminiscent of the states that it has evolved from, with very long golden hair and a lack of eyebrows. However, the first instance of the series changing somewhat in this regard came from Ultimate Gohan, a form that ditched the progression of Super Saiyan by taking the strengths of Gohan’s potential and unlocking them.
What forms do this the most?
Design-wise, the difference between these transformations is minimal. Super Saiyan Grade 1 and 4 are virtually identical, with the only difference being that Grade 4 is achieved by Goku and Gohan and lets them stay in the form without wasting energy. Grades 2 and 3 are far bulkier and slower, but they have a great increase in physical power, with Super Saiyan 2 being only a little different from SSJ 1 as it has spikier and longer hair with lightning in its aura.
Although Super Saiyan God was vastly different from what had come before in terms of visuals, there wasn’t too much of a change to the user’s fighting style, though it now achieved God Ki and could fight Beerus on far better footing. However, this form was forgotten when Super Saiyan Blue was introduced, which gave a different look to Goku and Vegeta with their blue hair and better performance overall, eventually being perfected by them.
How Super Changes This Trend
Though not very different in terms of fighting style, the Super Saiyan God transformations do change things up in a sense by making significant visual differences, as Super Saiyan God makes the user far leaner in terms of muscle mass, along with red hair and aura. Plus, the introduction of God Ki opens the avenues for the Saiyans to fight the strongest beings in the universe.
Super Saiyan Blue gave the Saiyans blue hair as a result of mixing the standard Super Saiyan form with their already existent God Ki. This was a breath of fresh air, in the sense that it finally started to show Goku and Vegeta reaching their maximum strength through their own paths, as is seen with Goku using Kaioken x20 and Vegeta unlocking the Evolved Blue form.
This eventually culminates in the character-specific transformations. With Goku going down the path of Angels with his expertise and skill in martial arts, he unlocks their technique of Ultra Instinct to use for himself. On the other hand, Vegeta embraces his innate strength and affinities as a destructive brawler, unlocking the Gods of Destruction’s technique of Ultra Ego. Not only do these divine techniques offer different fighting styles, but both allow their users to reach the apex of strength in the series.
This is further compounded by Gohan Beast and Legendary Super Saiyan Broly, the most powerful forms of their respective users. Though they are far more straightforward with their abilities, they show that regurgitating the same transformations for each character isn’t the only way to make them stronger. Instead, character-specific transformations are the new way to gain power.
The Lessons To Learn From GT
Of all the things that Dragon Ball GT got wrong, one thing simply cannot be denied; the character designs were simply incredible. Super Saiyan 4 was a form that functioned fairly similarly to those that came before, with the exception being the attacks that the form had proved to be even stronger and visually distinct. The form itself is widely regarded as the best-designed one in the entire franchise to date.
That’s right! You may have anticipated my attacks so far, but you have no idea what I am capable of now. And what you don’t know… could hurt you!
By implementing similar design philosophies as the ones in GT, the writers of Super can make forms that are even more unique in terms of looks and functionality. What makes Super Saiyan 4 so memorable is how different it is from the previous forms, as well as how perfectly it connects to the origins of the Saiyans, so using such a transformation for any of the characters would be a great addition to the franchise.
Dragon Ball can be streamed on Crunchyroll and Funimation.
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