Said mental training was interrupted by Goten falling by the way.
What does that have to do with anything exactly? Why are you pivoting?
The point is that Goku is literally training to get stronger and stronger. Why fight weaker enemies than the ones he has faced? That doesn't even make sense whatsoever.
Just because the last opponent we see him about to fight is Kid Buu, is not the same thing as Kid Buu is the strongest thing he can imagine fighting.
Why not? We are shown Goku facing the strongest enemies of their respective arcs. Are you going to claim Frieza and Cell were not the strongest? That would be absurd right? Okay if you aren't saying that, then why does this not apply to Kid Buu all of a sudden?
Where's Buuhan? Where's Buutenks? In your case, where's Super Buu? Would Goku not get stronger by gauging his strength relative to the absolute strongest he's witnessed? That goes against the entire point dude. You aren't really explaining WHY this wouldn't be the case.
You're just saying "It's not the same thing" or "it doesn't have to be this". It comes across as you just brushing off literally everything.
A "formula" for storytelling is not a hard rule set that the story cannot subvert or just not follow at times.
But if you can prove consistency, it is your job to prove that it is not consistent.
If there's no contradiction, how can you claim the formula is not being applied in specific instances?
What basis does that claim have Damage? As far as I can see, you don't really have one. Which is fine, but at least be willing to admit you're kind of talking based on claims that hold less validity than the ones you're opposing.
I've seen some of the statements brought up like "
Check out both sides which keep transforming to get stronger and stronger, and the Genki-Dama at the end" and a literal reading of that would mean that both sides do nothing but keep getting stronger and stronger but an actual read of the events shows that this isn't literally the case.
But it literally is the case. Infinite even posted more scans that claim as much.
Toriyama says both sides until the very end get stronger, and now it's just wrong..because what exactly?
He literally couldn't be anymore clear on what he's trying to convey in the story. Especially how he thinks having the last enemy be weaker than the previous would be boring for readers. That's the thing Damage. All of our claims are back up by heavy consistency with how it was intended to be, and in the actual story.
Buu does transform get stronger by absorbing Gotenks, but then he gets weaker once Gotenks splits apart. Buu does transform to get stronger by abosrbing Gohan, but then he gets weaker once Gohan and the others are removed from him.
And then he transforms AGAIN and is said to regain the lost power from the absorptions he had as his time as Pure Buu. So what now?
There are no contradictions, it's stated they both pushed beyond the limit of what they were previously, Toriyama says they both got stronger until the end, that Buu was the strongest enemy, that the final enemy is the strongest.
All of this is basically being handwaved by you nitpicking everything to try and find some sort of hole when it simply doesn't exist.
'Yeah Toriyama REALLY meant that Buu got stronger at the end EXCEPT for Kid Buu'
So Toriyama lied and both sides didn't get stronger?
Toriyama didn't make the final villain the strongest for what reason exactly? He just decided not to do it for Kid Buu specifically? Okay then, why?
It is not a constantly escalating power-level here, but one that varies up and down depending on circumstance.
Damage. The end result of all the confrontations ends in Buu getting stronger.
Getting temporary power decreases just to then get a stronger one panels later is not contradictory to Toriyama's statements.
You have to look at it in the context of the story.
Did Buu get weaker by losing Gotenks? Yes.
What happened afterwards? Buu got STRONGER when he absorbed Gohan.
Did Buu lose the absorptions? Yes.
What happened afterwards? Kid Buu was noted to have gotten STRONGER yet again. This is literally what happens dude. He gets stronger every single time OVERALL until the very end. It's extremely easy to comprehend this. You're making it harder than it has to be for no reason here.
Your argument comes down to headcanon on what Toriyama meant, and is completely founded on the belief that Toriyama is just somehow wrong here.
Only Buff Buu is stated to rise in Chi compared to Super Buu;
No that isn't true.
I already told you that the power reduction was stated for KID BUU IN GENERAL.
That entire Supreme Kai story? The power reduction talks about to Kid Buu. Since he's now pure evil and lost everything that held him back, he is now the strongest he's ever been since he has no more Heart. Something which quite literally, EVERY other Buu had.
He isn't referring to Buff Buu for the power reduction, he's talking about Kid Buu in general.
Heart=Less power/power restriction.
Less Heart=Greater power.
if Goku and Vegeta thought for a second that Kid Buu held that same level of power or even higher than they would have reacted to it.
Already explained to you that Buu's power is hard to read, Buu suppressed himself, Goku and Vegeta got cocky because of the size.
Why did
Goku only smile instead of being absolutely in disbelief that he was getting stronger?
And again, they literally ate their words after saying they could take Kid Buu. They ran away from him and stated they could NOT stop his attack.
Stop taking the momentary reactions from Goku and Vegeta as definitive proof when it was literally disproven a second later.
Did Vegeta not stated that Kid Buu's power was beyond his imagination? That's direct evidence that they messed up earlier in underestimating him without the full spill.
I think that you too are brushing aside this issue with the reasoning of "Buu's power level is hard to gauge" but that wasn't an issue from Goku and Vegeta previously when measuring Super Buu's power level changes.
What? Being able to get a read on Buu's power absolutely does NOT debunk it still being hard to gauge at times.
What about Piccolo clearly knowing Super Buu got stronger while still underestimating his true power? He thought Base Gotenks could win just for him to get smacked up a second later. This doesn't help your point here. Nobody said his Ki was unreadable like you're implying here.
As for other statements gathered from guidebooks like "Goku's feelings understood by his fellow strongest", the information gathered from guidebooks will always be secondary to the events of the actual manga.
I know they are secondary, but lets not act like we don't have statements from the
literal author who back up these notions, alright?
When nearly every single piece of official licensed material states Kid Buu is the strongest enemy, including Dragon Ball Super and Akira Toriyama, you think that should just get ignored over and we should just take the character with infinitely less statements and implications? That doesn't make any sense dude. DBS literally confirms Kid Buu is the strongest on two separate occasions. Infinite posted more statements that help Kid Buu's case as well.
Toriyama's words shape his manga. He is the author after all.
I respect your viewpoint for trying to encompass as many sources of information as possible but everything I get from the manga itself points to me that Kid Buu is not superior to Buuhan, and is unlikely to be superior to Super Buu.
Yet you've continually made wild leaps and judgement, ignored every single piece of information in favor of Kid Buu, ignored Toriyama's words outright, getting information wrong on the lore of Kid Buu and how his power actual works, and you want me to believe you 'respect' my viewpoint?
Damage, it doesn't come across that way to me when you're calling the author wrong and nitpicking his statements to make them seem like they are just pure nonsense. That's the feeling I'm getting in my personal view.
Whether you are coming off that was on purpose or not, the point still stands. I don't feel as though you are acting in good faith.
I could possibly see a scaling chain where Kid Buu is superior to Super Buu, but not above Gohan and characters stronger than Gohan.
Okay then why not go with Qaw's 'Buuhan Agenda' option like we've literally been saying all this time?
You'd literally fit within that view from what I'm seeing. If so, lets discuss it then.
Now, since we read statements in the manga differently I don't think I could ever "prove" my stance is correct to you;
We clearly aren't going to agree with each other no, but I don't particularly feel you are being very open minded either.
Goku's statement about acknowledging inferiority to Super Buy while inside Buu's body is evidence to me, but it's not evidence to you because you have a different interpretation of what Goku is saying.
I mean when I have a solid interpretation on top of actual statements, I have a pretty solid reason to do so.
If you could imagine that my interpretation of Goku's statement is correct, then could you at least see why I have so much of an issue with this proposal where Goku is seemingly worried about regular Super Buu but then has a completely even fight against someone who is supposed two power-ups higher than Buuhan? Even if you disagree with me, you can understand why this seems wrong to me?
I literally used to be a Buuhan supporter. So of course I know why you're saying the things you are. None of this is new to me whatsoever. I've gone over everything countless times. And I've found out that in order to ignore all these things, it's more so personal feeling than anything uniquely concrete in my opinion. But like you said, you'd be open to Kid Buu>Super Buu right? So we can continue with that as well.
