SEG: Training Section

Here's the "training" section in the Super Exciting Guide. All credit goes to Herms for finding this. ----- Goku's Training OK, so Hujio has sent me scans of the training pages (he’s probably sent me half the whole darn book by now), so I’m going to do a little synopsis of it, as it seems to be the only really new feature of the book apart from the Toriyama interview. As mentioned before, the book says this section is based on training data supervised by Toriyama. So just how much of a role did Toriyama really have in this? I suppose I agree with Greg in spirit, if not in particulars. That is, while I don’t think it’s likely that by “data supervised by Toriyama” they simply meant the manga, I do think saying it’s based on data “supervised” by him is very conveniently vague. Did he actively supervise the making of this section, and make lots of feedback? Did he only kind of flip through the thing at the end? Was he just in the room playing video games while they were throwing this thing together, occasionally checking to see if any of the staff members had died? We don’t know. But anyway, I do rather like this section, if only because again it’s one of the few really new things about the guide. It makes me want to create an RPG based on it. But then, lint makes me want to create an RPG, so that’s nothing special. This section evaluates the different forms of training that Goku undergoes throughout the series, dividing them into seven groups: his training under Kame-sennin, Karin, Kami-sama, Kaio, on his spaceship, in the Room of Spirit and Time, and in Heaven after his death. Each of these training regimes are broken down into sub-sections, called menus (for instance, the milk delivery and dodging bees are two menus of Kame-sennin’s training), and each menu is evaluated by which of Goku’s stats it improves, and by how much, which is rated in stars. Goku’s 4 stats are power, stamina, speed, and ki. For each training regime, the increase in these stats is plotted on a graph (the top half of the vertical axis is for power, and the bottom stamina, while the left side of the horizontal axis is for ki, and the right for speed). So for the first training regime, under Kame-sennin, it just adds up all the stars for each stat from each menu and plots the total on the graph, connecting each stat total with a line to form a square-ish shape (ah yes, that semester of high school geometry served me well). There are notches on each axis. Each notch seems to equal 5 star points. For each graph after that, the new square-ish shape representing Goku’s post-training abilities is dark gray, while inside of that the old square-ish shape representing Goku’s pre-training abilities is in white. This way you can see how much Goku improves through the training. Through this set-up, Goku’s stats before his training under Kame-sennin would all be 0, though I guess this makes sense when you consider that the purpose of the section is to map how Goku’s abilities improved through the training he underwent over the course of the series, not map his strength in an objective way. The first four graphs, going up to Kaio’s training, are set inside a circle 8 notches thick (so 4 notches for each stat), meaning each stat would reach the edge of the circle after 20 star points. For Kaio’s training and onward, this circle is labeled as “Saiyans’ limits”. Goku’s stats go outside this circle after his spaceship training (Goku was said to have gone beyond the limits of the Saiyans during that training). At this point, a bigger circle is drawn around this circle, one 16 notches thick (8 notches/40 star points for each stat), which is switched to an 18 notch thick circle for the very last graph. These circles aren’t assigned any meaning, they just seem to be there so you can still have notches to measure the growth of Goku’s stats against. Either way, Goku’s stats break through these circles after his training in the Room of Spirit and Time (I love how they switch to the bigger one for the last graph, even though it’s still not big enough to contain Goku’s box thingy). The explanation of how to read these graphs on the first page of the section notes that all these box thingies represent Goku’s normal state, not how he is as a Super Saiyan. It’s not clear if this also means it doesn’t represent his Kaio-ken state. It does say the graphs represent his normal state, but it only says this in contrast to his Super Saiyan states, and it does list the Kaio-ken as a result of his training. Anyway. here are the different forms of training, their star increases (I just used numbers), and totals I added up myself, in lieu of the graphs. There’s quite a bit of text that goes along with each part, but mostly it just explains the training, and I assume you already know that, so I just summarized. Kame-sennin Menu 1: milk delivery Power: 1 Stamina: 1 Menu 2: plowing fields barehanded Power: 1 Stamina: 1 Menu 3: construction work Power: 1 Stamina: 1 Menu 4: laps in the shark-infested lake Power: 1 Speed: 1 Stamina: 1 Menu 5: dodging bees Speed: 1 Ki: 1 Total Power: 4 Speed: 2 Stamina: 4 Ki: 1 Karin-sama Menu 1: scaling Karin Tower Power: 2 Stamina: 3 Ki: 1 Menu 2: grabbing the Super Holy Water Speed: 2 Stamina: 2 Ki: 1 Total Power: 6 Speed: 4 Stamina: 9 Ki: 3 Heavenly Realm Menu 1: sparring with Mister Popo Power: 3 Speed: 2 Stamina: 2 Ki: 2 Menu 2: meditation Ki: 4 Menu 3: training in very thin air, weights Power: 2 Speed: 2 Stamina: 3 Ki: 1 Total Power: 9 Speed: 8 Stamina: 14 Ki: 10 Kaio’s Planet Menu 1: catching bubbles Power: 3 Speed: 4 Stamina: 4 Ki: 1 Menu 2: learning to control ki, sparring with Kaio Power: 4 Stamina: 2 Ki: 8 Total Power: 16 Speed: 12 Stamina: 20 Ki: 19 Spaceship Menu 1: training at 100x Earth’s gravity Power: 10 Speed: 10 Stamina: 10 Ki: 6 Menu 2: returning from the brink of death Power: 7 Speed: 3 Stamina: 3 Ki: 9 Total Power: 33 Speed: 25 Stamina: 33 Ki: 34 Room of Spirit and Time Menu 1: sparring with another Super Saiyan Stamina: 4 Ki: 10 Menu 2: meditation Ki: 3 Menu 3: constantly being a Super Saiyan Power: 8 Speed: 6 Stamina: 7 Ki: 8 Total Power: 41 Speed: 31 Stamina: 44 Ki: 55 Heaven Menu 1: weight training Power: 7 Speed: 8 Stamina: 7 Ki: 4 Menu 2: image training Ki: 10 Total Power: 48 Speed: 39 Stamina: 51 Ki: 69 It’s worth pointing out that it basically says the reason Goku’s weight training in Heaven was so effective was that he used Bukujutsu to float in midair as he used the weights, which made it much harder. Goku’s never shown using Bukujutsu during any of his gravity training on Kaio’s or in the spaceship (at least not in the manga, that I can remember). It also says his image training/meditation was a means to raise his maximum ki, as muscle training has a limit. Toriyama mentioned there being limits to how much training your muscles could do and needing ki to overcome that limit in the book's interview. Training Ex So Hujio sent me scans of the Training Ex pages (the “Ex” meaning “extra”). This is divided up into two parts, each two pages long. The first part deals with the training of other characters besides Goku. It doesn’t have the same star ratings and graphs for these characters that the section on Goku’s training does, but other than that it’s set up in the same way. It gives the location and purpose of the training, the master trained under (listed as the trainee themselves in the case of self-training), and divides the training up into different aspects, called “menus”. It has Gohan’s training in the wilderness (menu 1: surviving on his own, menu 2: sparring with Piccolo), and Vegeta’s training in the years between the Cell Games and the 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai (not for the androids, like I said before), with the two menus being training in high gravity and sparring with Trunks, and…that’s it. No other characters or their training. Kind of disappointing. I hope they focus more on the other characters in the next volume (it being called “Character Volume” and all). Some things of interest is that it describes Gohan’s training as being based mostly on strengthening and learning to control his ki, while Vegeta’s training is described as training his muscles to the limit. And as a result of Vegeta’s training, it says he awakened to Super Saiyan 2, so that’s another data point in that debate (Daizenshuu 7 also says Vegeta acquired Super Saiyan 2 through training). The second part deals with Goku’s power-ups: Super Saiyan, the Super God Water, and the potara. Again, mostly all stuff we’ve heard before, recounting the legend of the Super Saiyan and all that. It says Super Saiyan 3 has a calmer heart than Super Saiyan 2, which does seem true. It gives the same old thing about Super Saiyan making Goku fifty times stronger than his normal form. It also says that Super Saiyan 2 has two times the strength of regular Super Saiyan, and that Super Saiyan 3 has four times the strength of Super Saiyan 2, so that’s something new. The entry on the Super God Water explains why that image of an Oozaru appeared when Goku’s power awakened: it says that the poison triggered a memory within Goku associating the tremendous power sleeping inside him with the Oozaru (or possibly just that it triggered a memory sleeping inside him associating tremendous power with the Oozaru; I’m not too sure which it means). For the potara, it says that the power-up from merging isn’t a sum of the two’s battle powers, but rather as tremendous as multiplication.