The Ultimate Form, Its Evolutions, And How It Lives Up To Its Name (DBS: Super Hero Spoilers Ahead)
Dragon Ball is a show with many different power altering techniques and transformations, from Kaioken to Super Saiyan to even fusion. Knowing this, many characters use these different forms and techniques in their goal of attaining further strength. But which is the best and why is it the best? If you were to ask me, that honor would go to the Ultimate form.
The Ultimate form has been and is known as many things throughout Dragon Ball’s lifespan: Potential Unleashed, the Mystic form, Power Unleashed, Power Awakening, and obviously Ultimate. Essentially, the form draws out all of a person’s hidden potential and even heightens a person's senses, as Gohan was able to see without his glasses after transforming in Super Hero, but his eyesight reverted to being poor once he powered back down into his base form. As if that wasn’t enough, the form seemingly doesn’t take any stamina away from the wielder to use. The form is typically gained through enduring Elder Kai’s ritual, but Piccolo showcased the ability to be granted the form from Shenron via a wish.
In no uncertain terms, the power that this transformation can grant its user is absurd. Gohan was able to outclass Super Saiyan 3 Goku’s power as soon as he received the form, beat Super Buu before he absorbed Gotenks, and after further training in Dragon Ball Super it was shown to be able to keep up with Super Saiyan Blue.
As if the form wasn’t crazy enough, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero gave us the fun information that just like Super Saiyan, the Ultimate form can evolve into separate, more powerful transformations. While this has caused some confusion in the fanbase, as the Ultimate form is already supposed to draw out all of a person’s latent potential, episode 90 of the DBS anime implies that Super Saiyan can be combined with the Ultimate form.
My point being that just because the Ultimate form brings out all of your latent potential doesn’t mean that your power can’t be further amplified. That being said, I think that’s what these evolved forms are doing: simply amplifying the user’s power after bringing forth their latent potential.
But that’s not all these evolved forms have to offer. When I said “just like Super Saiyan, the Ultimate form can evolve into separate, more powerful transformations”, I didn’t mean something like an Ultimate 2, Ultimate 3, etc etc, I meant that everyone who evolves their Ultimate form gets a transformation (seemingly) entirely unique to them. While it’s never directly stated why in Super Hero, I think the reason is pretty obvious: the transformations are themed around the sources of the character’s potential, and different character’s potentials come from different places. Gohan’s Beast form is unlocked in a moment of rage at seeing Piccolo hurt by Cell Max, just like the rage boosts he would experience as a child.
Piccolo’s potential comes from his Namekian heritage, but more specifically, his fusions with Nail and Kami. Think about it: his Orange form was granted to him by Shenron, the eternal dragon originally created by the Nameless Namekian who would eventually split into Piccolo and Kami. By fusing back with Kami, that means that Piccolo has returned to being the Nameless Namekian, so Shenron helping out his creator with a new transformation makes sense. You could also argue that Piccolo’s fusions not only made him stronger in the moment, but increased his potential, allowing him to grow further and faster than he would have been able to without undergoing them, but that’s a discussion for another time.
It should come as a shock to no-one reading that these transformations are ridiculously powerful. Given how Gohan’s Ultimate form allowed him to keep pace with Goku’s Super Saiyan Blue, amping the power of the form beyond that is insane to think about, and it’s no small amp either. Before Gohan obtained the form, he seemed pitiful in comparison to Cell Max, but once he transformed he was able to tank a punch from Cell Max without even flinching. I think it’s safe to say that the amp in power provided by Gohan’s Beast form outclasses the amp that Goku’s Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken x20 amp gives him, which putting it simply means that I think that Beast’s amp is greater than x20 the power Gohan’s Ultimate form provides him.
Orange Piccolo isn’t as powerful as Gohan, but that doesn’t mean he’s a slouch either. The Orange form gives Piccolo enough power to easily defeat Gamma 2, who was stronger than him in his Ultimate state. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Gammas are stronger than Android 17 who, get this, was also able to fight evenly with Goku’s Super Saiyan Blue form. Given how Orange Piccolo knocked out Gamma 2 with one punch, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that Piccolo’s Orange form gives him a similar amp to Gohan’s Beast form. I’m not saying that Orange Piccolo and Beast Gohan are equal in power, just that the amp their forms provide are similar.
So let’s summarize the main points just to make sure we got everything nice and tidy: the Ultimate form draws out all of the user’s latent potential with minimal to no stamina usage which can be further amplified by other powers, such as Super Saiyan. The form can also evolve into a new, unique form depending on the source of your potential, and these evolved states amplifies the user’s already drawn out power to ludicrous levels.
And that does it, really. That’s why I think Ultimate is the, well, ultimate form to strive for to increase your power in the world of Dragon Ball. I don’t really know how to end this other than saying that this is just my interpretation of the forms based on the information I know about Dragon Ball and that if you have a different interpretation then more power to you. I’m not trying to convince anyone that they have to agree with me, just sharing my own personal thoughts and ideas. I plan to write more short essay stuff like this as well, I think my next one will be talking about the human Z-Fighters!
If you’ve read this far, thank you so much! This is the first time I’ve ever sat down and wrote something like this and while I’m not expecting it to do super well, it’s cool knowing that maybe someone will read it and agree with me. If you see this, have a great day!
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crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.
i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.
in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.
i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.
i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.
plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.
the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.
we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.
i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.
a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.
today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.
loved beyond thinking.
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