Gen Z fanbase doesn't get canon

Before I begin, long-time-no-see. Anyway...

The issue I am taking exists across all generations of the fandom, but Gen Z are easily the most common offenders.

I am talking about this narrative that the anime is its own canon, particularly within the frame of a debate.

It is absolutely futile trying to explain to these people how and why the manga is the sole canon, especially in the realm of debating Dragon Ball.

They don't care that the manga was Toriyama's intended version.
They don't care that their opinion is a minority when the casuals & tourists are put aside.
They don't care that having more than one canon complicates things.
They don't care that that is how the concept of canon works in nearly all other manga to anime adaptations.

Mostly, (And I say this as someone who STILL has never read the manga) I think they really really don't like it when the manga proves their position wrong. They would rather argue that each version of the story is its own canon than submit to a version of the story that they aren't very familiar with.

I get their sentiment, but unlike them, I also understand that few to none who aren't casuals or tourists in the DB community will take their opinions seriously if they insist on leaning on that narrative in a debate.

I have actually directed a few of them here; inviting them to come here and tell you guys so authoritatively about how the anime is its own canon, while I go get popcorn.

When it comes to debate, like who is stronger than who for instance, we submit to "Tier 1 Canon" for sake of cohesion.

The most recent example of this for me was on a post suggesting that Yamcha would easily beat The Viltrumites of Invincible.

A comment racked up hundreds of likes saying that post-Buu Yamcha was stronger than Frieza.

I asked for this person to explain to me why they believe this and their main premise was to include Underworld Tournament events and other interconnected canon.

When I declared it as non-canon, I was aggressively pushed back on. When I proved that it was not in the manga, they came at me with that "Canon to the anime" nonsense.

Then our discourse spiraled into a long-winded debate on the semantics around what canon is or isn't.

I am sorry that I notice that 9 times out of 10, these people are under 25. It is what it is. This is the generation that grew up primarily on Super, so of course they are more inclined to lean into hype and flash instead of analysis.

This is a slippery slope, because if we can disregard a position over "Which tier of canon" something is, discourse will be pointless chaos, no one will ever find common ground, and head-canon will be as valid as anything.

Giga Hertz said:

Not to hijack this thread, but I personally think all of the humans were Frieza-level by the Android Saga. They meet Trunks who kicks Frieza AND King Cold's asses in an actual 5 minutes and get told that a bigger threat is coming - one Trunks himself is incapable of defeating. They can sense power levels and are outright told twice: "If you can't keep up, don't bother coming."

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Disagree.

This is a common case of taking a statement as law instead of a suggestion.

What is more likely:
-That between Namek & 17&18, Yamcha became 20,000x stronger
Or
That Yamcha and a few others went:
"I may not have gotten as strong as Trunks, but I want to do what I can."

It is also realistic that Piccolo changed his stance on that and agreed that they needed all-hands-on-deck.

I refuse to believe that Yamcha became 20,000x stronger... even by Dragon Ball standards that is unprecedented.

Using my power level list (Which I shared here), the largest gain in the series is Goku's jump from 400 to 9,000 and after that, Gohan's jump from 12 billion to 150 billion (Mystic Gohan)

20,000x is just... nah.

Tien holding off Semi-Perfect Cell and Yamcha reaching the button in 500x gravity are outliers where alternative explanations should be considered imo.

I'd sooner believe that the Tri-Beam Cannon is just that powerful.

Giga Hertz said:

Yeah, but Tien outright said Chiaotzu couldn't keep up after 3 years of training

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I didn't mean to suggest that they didn't make significant gains at all, but going from what they were during the Frieza saga to Frieza level in 3 years is something I'd find less likely than other things I can think of.

I see this as Chiaotzu simply not keeping up with Tiens gains enough to justify helping at all.

Giga Hertz said:

But there's nothing to suggest they saw each other since that moment 3 years earlier. Heck, everyone acts like it's the first time they're seeing each other again.

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I meant that I'd sooner believe Piccolo would reneg on that statement than the suggestion that everyone who showed up actually lived up to it.

Giga Hertz said:

Toriyama really didn't care about scaling.

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That doesn't stop any of us from extrapolating what we can and trying to make sense of the things he writes. Doesn't matter if he intended it or not.

Giga Hertz said:

Well hang on, where are you getting that list from?

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It's the list I made. It includes all the scouter readings and reasonably & conservatively extrapolates from there based on feats and trends. It is posted in this forum. You can easily find it if you're curious.

As for the Daiz, I don't care what it says and I never cared for the fact so many use it as an authority on power levels when it gets so many things wrong. As far as I know, Toriyama had no direct comnection to the Daiz, so they are as fallible and credible as anyone else.

Giga Hertz said:

But what happens there? Tien's Tri-Beam was almost useless against Nappa but was capable of stopping Semi-Perfect Cell

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This is another case of assuming that I meant there weren't significant gains. I just refuse to accept that it was 20,000x.

I also would rather assume that the Tri-Beam Cannon didn't even damage Cell, it was simply being used as a concussive force to hold him down. Not to take away from what a feat it still is, but it's very different from how strong an attack would need to be to actually damage Cell.

That said, the Tri-Beam Cannon damaged neither Cell OR Nappa and was being used differently in each scenario.

Another scene that comes to mind is Krillin dropkicking Imperfect Cell.

The way I look at that is that it reminds me of Gohan & Krillin vs Dodoria. Dodoria had over 20k power level and Gohan & Krillin were 1500ish at the time. Yet, more than once, they caught Dodoria off-guard and dropkicked him in a similar manner.