In Response To 'Too Many Super Saiyans'

It is mentioned in another editorial on this site that Toriyama “ran out of ideas” and created SSJ2 then 3. I disagree, of course, or else I wouldn’t be writing this, but I have a few reasons that should be mentioned. However, while I agree each level was zoomed past, I think the purposes of it all was obvious. Goku became SSJ. It was obviously going to happen, and it was great. It fit in perfectly, he killed the Universe’s greatest evil (that we knew of… anyway) and it was all good. Then we find out he didn’t actually kill him. In an interesting plot twist we find another SSJ has arrived to finish him off. This turns out to be Trunks.

Trunks came from another timeline where he and Gohan were the only surviving Saiya-jin. Gohan was SSJ, and eventually through Gohans death (assuming we’re talking about the Anime that is) he also does. He is the last warrior left in his time, and comes to the past to save it in a plot similar to a Terminator movie. Well, this isn’t bad at all, because after all, he is from the future and it’s not like someone just shot up to Gokus level for no reason. Next comes Vegeta.

You’ve gotta realize, Vegeta is PISSED! Not only has Goku, his rival passed him, some no name from the future did it too. He gives it his all, and trains at 3-5x what Goku trained at to gain power. And not only that, while Goku had a matter of days to gain the power he did on Namek, Vegeta did it for years. Vegeta became the strongest Super Saiya-jin, and if nobody could guess this would happen they really don’t know enough about Vegeta. After the events on Earth took a bad turn, and Cell was loose, they all trained more and Goku re-passed Vegeta. Not only that, but so did Gohan.

Gohan is the song of the strongest warrior in the world. He’s also known to get a great deal of power when he’s angry. And what does SSJ come from? Anger. So I feel it is natural he could achieve higher powers when he transforms, and faster than any of the others could. On Namek he gave form 3 Freeza some trouble, and he was supposedly weaker than Goku was against the Ginyu force. It was obvious he would gain SSJ quickly, as he’s always kept up with the other fighters, even though he’s a LOT younger. And, he had to, because Toriyama intended him to be the next to reach a superior form (USSJ was not superior), AND to become the main character.

Sadly, he didn’t get to be the main character, because even Toriyama has to answer to people. So by the Buu saga he is phased out by Goku and Vegeta again. By then (7 years) of course they both reached SSJ2. It was another obvious event. But Goten and Trunks (the little guys) have both hit SSJ. This I will agree, is silly. They were just way too young, and had no motivation to.

So, to conclude, the only bad SSJs were the little guys.