The change from super saiyan to super saiyan 2 is very obvious for gohan - his hair goes from just being a white version of his normal hair to standing straight up (and much taller) with long thin spikes, and the yellowy color gets a lot darker. It will be obvious when the times comes that a significant transformation has happened for the first time.
@something_clevar: I guess I'm just less worried about that because they have shown a remarkable resilience to what we might generously call "fan input" in the past. They certainly didn't let anyone ruin Goku's first transformation or Vegeta's first transformation for them. I think we can guarantee that when Vegeta fights Imperfect Cell and kicks his ass these comments will be chockfull of people getting all particular about the details of what exactly that transformation is called, as will their twitter mentions and whatever else. I just am optimistic that it won't affect their enjoyment of the upcoming moments.
I think the power rankings currently are basically just Piccolo > Vegeta > Goku = Trunks. Recall that Goku spent much of his 3 years training with unfused Piccolo and weak-ass Gohan in base form and probably didn't actually outpace Trunks by that much (we can infer that the strength of your sparring partner matters from the fact that Goku's first objective in the room of spirit and time is to make Gohan a supersaiyan so they can spar while transformed) - presumably Trunks went back to the future and resumed his role as a freedom fighter sparring with the Androids to defend humans whenever he can. He mentions at one point that he is nearly on equal footing with his timeline's Androids (just not able to actually defeat them even one-on-one), so we can probably assume that he is in pretty much continual conflict with them, just based on Trunks' nature.
I think from Trunks being so impressed with Vegeta's power when he sees him fighting, and Goku clearly stating that if Vegeta can't get it done then he has no chance, we can probably assume that Vegeta is the strongest Saiyan (by some small margin) and that Goku and Trunks are probably on approximately equal footing - or that if there is a power difference between them it is academic due to how badly they are outstripped by the Androids (and not measurable since we do not see them actually fight all-out at this stage).
@hallben: They're all present and accounted for on the Podcast Addiction Android app. Make sure that you aren't missing them due to a weird setting in your app (like not showing them in publication order, or hiding episodes for whatever reason). Otherwise try unsubscribing from the ASG feed and then adding it back.
@something_clevar: Luckily they don't start using numbers or actual labels/titles for transformations beyond supersaiyan in Kai until way later in the Buu Saga when Goku is explaining the different transformations to Buu to waste time. In the Cell saga it's just like "check out *this* transformation" and they don't use any of the 800 different titles that exist in the wiki that I assume came from the manga or fan translations (like "Full Power Super Saiyan" which I'm quite sure is literally not once uttered in Kai).
Up until super saiyan 3 is discovered they basically just completely forget about the bulky useless transformation and refer to super saiyan 2 proper as "beyond super saiyan" - at least that's how I recall them referring to the transformation as achieved by gohan, goku, and vegeta.
When the series is over I want a supercut of Jeff saying "check this shit out" laid over the video clips from the events in the show he is referring to.
@liquidprince: I'm with you on the Buu saga being pretty bad, but if you cut it off after Cell you miss out on the World Tournament which is a (brief) return to form in terms of the kind of stuff that actually makes the show great (Gohan struggling to have a normal life while balancing the responsibility he feels to use his strength to help people, everyone else being flabbergasted wheneve they see Goku and friends do anything, etc.)
@liquidprince: World martial arts tournament saga has to be the best arc for my money. All of young adult Gohan's antics in high school are fantastic, as is everything that happens right up until Buu is released from his ball.
Vegeta condescendingly saying "of course we're going one on one, this isn't a battle royale" to the supreme god of their universe in response to his incredulity that he, Goku, and Gohan are planning on taking on their enemies in 1v1 fights rather than ganging up on them, and then the god's utter disbelief at how powerful they are, has to be up there as one of the best moments in the entire series.
To contrast everyone saying that the show only gets worse from here, I am going to counter with some optimism. The end of this episode makes it sound like a lot of why Dan and Jeff are down on the show right now is more because of where they think/predict it is going to go, more so than because of what is actually going on so far. The show takes a drastic turn in a way that I think very few people would predict with no prior knowledge, and I'm pretty sure that they're going to be feeling pretty great about the show by the end of the next batch. Just look at the episode synopses for the next 5 episodes and see that basically every cynical prediction they make about what happens next is subverted to some degree.
I'm not saying that the whole rest of the Cell arc is going to return to Namek-arc-pre-Freiza-fight levels of greatness, but the next, say, 2-3 batches of episodes go interesting places, and the batch of episodes to end the Cell arc has some good moments.
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