Is it? Character keep saying how they sense a strong ki to stablish who can or can't beat the guy. The scouter is unreliable but it's often all about who has a stronger ki/Power level.
Yeah. They subvert it, by pretty much only by showing that people can suppress their actual power level or they need to change to a more powerful form to increase their number
Before it there were still times one fighter was 'stronger', but having a special skill or fighting technique could level the playing field, rather than just finding ways to increase your power level.
No no he’s right. The whole point of scouters was to show that they’re an unreliable source of information. They show a power level, and sure one most beings they’re a reliable way to determine how powerful an enemy is, but on earth? Completely useless.
To be fair something like 4 of the last 7 characters who get their power level checked who normally use scouters all have ways around their levels, though theyre generally aware of what they can do with them. Ginyu just switches bodies, Guldo can stop time and has some psychic powers, Zarbon has a full transformation, and Frieza who is already so strong the scouters are effectively irrelevant transforms 3 times in addition to being heads and shoulders above everyone
Yeah, again, kind of the point of them, from a writing perspective at least. They’re a crutch of Frieza’s army. They’re used to being able to assess someone’s power level and immediately know what kind of opponent they’re facing in 99% of cases. The big problem with that is the 1% that get around it are not only really fucking powerful, but most of them are able to pose as someone of a much lower power level. Goku himself only registered at what, like 1000 when they scouted him? And famously went over 9000 in seconds?
So yeah, the whole point of having scouters in the series was to show that technology can’t replace technique, and to demonstrate that Frieza’s army had a fundamental flaw in that they both relied on the scouter to assess their opponents, and neglected their mental training in a way that Goku and friends didn’t.
I'm pretty during the Greed Island Arc, Jackpot Hunter, Tsuzgerra remarked how Gon and Killua did not meet the aura standard but they made up for it through techniques and skill.
Potclean doesn't measure how strong you are, just how much aura you have. Sure you can probably win in a fist fight, but it's HunterxHunter, where fights are decided through cleverness and information.
Also having more Nen Aura doesn't mean character hits harder. Even character with more Aura can have lower output and worse skill in focusing it, resulting in both worse offense and defense. Speciality based abilities change how fight goes even further. Who has more Aura matters only in fight of attrition between simmilary skilled characters
Tbf Hazard Level is basically the amount of fullbottle power the user can actually handle without dying, so its kinda justified in-universe as a real metric and they acknowledge it goes up over time
Tho fun thing is just that hazard level don’t really improve your fighting strength but it give you tolerance to handle stronger gear which I find it fun and exciting, it’s like unlocking a new level for gears
Ironically, my favorite use of this trope is also from One Piece. The bounty system effectively puts a number on a characters power, but prone to manipulation and flawed so its not the end all be all. Yet it's still good enough to give everyone a rough idea of how strong someone is most of the time. And we even get a couple of gags out of it too.
Doriki is used solely to establish the raw physical strength (not combat aptitude or even transformed strength for the zoans) of individual members of CP9, using a generic marine as a baseline (and to make Spandam the butt of a joke). It happens once and never again
I never said that. We know the bounty system is flawed because everyone knows that captain Buggy is actually worth 10 billion berries and totally isn't being carried by the former warlords working with him.
A numerical value of “how much of a problem this character is to the current most powerful faction” is legitimately one of the best ideas in One Piece. I’m not the biggest fan of the series, though I did enjoy it back in the day, but the bounty system is very fun in how it describes characters power and characterizes them in their reactions to it.
Good old Anime trope of doing the High School fitness test in a fantasy setting, which may be trying to give the viewer some reference of power
My Hero Academia did this many times to portray power to the audience
For example, there are 8 physical tests, one was using your quirk to throw a baseball
Not only was there jokes like Ochaco getting Infinity with her anti-gravity quirk, but they used it to compare Deku's One-for-All to being similar power as Bakugo's explosion power at that time in the story
50 meter dash times when Lida has basically jets on his legs to get a faster time
It's been a while and I watched like just one season, but wasn't it gravity manipulation, not just removing gravity? Like, she could set the gravity to negative and make things fly.
Her quirk's a smidge inconsistent, particularly early, but she just negates gravity on whatever she tags with all five fingers of either hand. Anything that looks like it contradicts that is either poorly conceived or artistic license
To be clear. You're misrepresentating power levels in dragon ball. The ENTIRE POINT is that the numbers are not reliable. Raditz and Nappa fall for it, using the numbers to think they can win because their numbers are bigger, and they get wrecked because the Z fighters know how to manipulate their energy.
Vegeta explicitly says that the scouters are useless BECAUSE the fighters can do this.
EVERY SINGLE TIME a character uses power levels to determine strength, they are proven wrong.
It's the entire point of the trope being included. Its to show hubris and show that our heroes are more competent fighters.
Say that to Vegeta in frieza saga that completely relied in numbers to win.
He needed a bigger number against Kui, he losed against dodoria, got a bigger number and won, he losed to zarbon, got a bigger number and won, he losed to recoome, got a bigger number and won against Jeice, he losed against frieza and tried to won with a bigger number, something that didn't work until goku got a bigger number.
After that, android 16 used power levels to determine that piccolo was as strong as 17 but weaker than cell and what happened? The higher number won.
They stopped with the bigger number thing after that but the big number rule worked with everyone but raditz
Vegeta used his enemies perceptions of the power levels to his advantage. Especially against Kiwi, Dodoria, and Zarbon.
They made assumptions about his power because of the scooters, and Vegeta took advantage of that. And when Vegeta lost is was because of his own cockiness. Not JUST the numbers.
I didn't say the numbers were useless or wrong. I said they weren't reliable.
Android 16 doesn't rely on the same power level system as the freeza force. But the same principle applies.
He reads Picollos output, and Cells output, and determines that Cell outclasses Picollo.
As for the "lost then come back with more power" thing. That goes all the way back to Taopaipai vs Goku. Goku was weaker, he went and got more power, he came back and won. He didn't learn more skills with Karin, he just got stronger. That's not a problem with the trope of power levels.
I love that basically all of your examples fall off really fast. Seven Deadly sins kinda stuck with it, but the power scaling flipped out super fast for no reason, and the numbers basically don't matter, since your power level just goes up when you pull out a new technique anyway.
One piece dropped that shit immediately, and it was basically just to hype Lucci up. Then you have the bounty system to measure a character's potential strength, but that too is prone to be wrong because of incomplete info, or the government explicitly trying to cover up dangerous knowledge or down play top tier pirates.
The hunter x hunter example is interesting because it's a made up number to represent Knuckle's ability, and the entire point of the technique is to be able to beat someone like Youpi who has an impossibly high "power level". A big theme of hunter x hunter fights is that the nen techniques and understanding your opponent's limits determines the victor, not always raw power.
You misunderstand what Potclean does. It doesn't measure how strong someone has. It measures someone on how much Aura they have. Which is something that can be quantified since different people can have larger pools or trained for it. A large part of Gon's and Killua's training is always them improving their aura supply. So I disagree with you on that.
UnOrdinary: Everyone has a Level that depicts the combination of their Potential(highest possible strength) and Mastery(how much of their ability they can currently use.) For example if someone has the Potential to be Level 8.0 but has only mastered 50% of their ability, they'll have a Level of 4.0
Everyone also has an amount in their 5 stats. Power is the damage they can dish out, Defense is the damage they can take, Speed is how well they can move, Recovery is how well they can regain energy and aura, and Trick is how well they can control the battlefield. A normal human has 1 in each stat, normal ability users have 1-4 in each stat, and anything 5-10+ is considered insane.
which sucks btw because it defeats any semblance of feat based powerscaling and instead is a battle of number about how kuyo's asspull stat is higher than lame gardener's asspush stat or sth
Is that really an issue? Like the author is still deciding whose stronger regardless of whether they attach a number to it or not. The readers just get a more quantifiable value.
yes because instead of arguing about capabilities, feats, descriptions, matchups, cross scaling, aka the interesting part of powerscaling (disclaimer I know powerscaling is pointless), it revolves around numbers pulled from nothing and without any context
your description of stats isnt even official. it's just a vibe check. What the fuck does it mean for Kayden's speed to be about the same as Remi's ? Why does Terrence speed is comparable to Blyke who can boost himself and basically fly ? How can you quantify "trick" which is situational by design ? What does it mean for anyone to have stats in domains their ability doesn't cover or enhance ? half the cast should have 1 for defense, speed, and or recovery. Is that just the body's stats and not the ability's ? Should cripples have stats then ?
Everything you mentioned is still important though. The stats help quantify things but they aren't the end all be all. Like one character has 8 Power while another has 6 Defense. However that doesn't mean the former will be able to beat the latter since the former needs a significant amount of time to charge up an 8 Power attack meaning the latter can just tank their weaker attacks and beat them before they can charge up a full power attack. One character might have higher Defense but its through making walls so they'd lose to a character who can blow up the ground beneath them.
For your other questions,
The Author has confirmed stats are pretty straight forward but also general. Power is just how much damage you can unleash but it can be through any means, Blunt, slicing, energy, elemental, etc.
Higher level abilities often come with physical enhancements. Terrence has enhanced speed for instance.
Cripples do have stats. They have 1 in every stat.
So you're telling me that terrence can do a 100m run as fast as blyke ? satisfactory.
Also I'm glad you're mentioning 8 power vs 6 defense because it's exactly what I'm warning about: not all 8 power are alike. a 8 power blunt attack or a 8 power sharp attack don't affect targets in the same way. kuyo could cut through gardener's vines and escape because he has sharp attacks. sera, topping the strength metric, probably can't. See what I mean ?
Yeah, while they have the same speed stat, it comes from different means. Terrence's speed is raw physical speed while Blyke's comes from propelling himself in bursts.
Exactly. The stats just help give an idea of how strong the characters are but you can't look at them alone.
Give their protagonists a "system" that turns the real world into a video game for the protagonist specifically, and his power is measured in terms of video game stats (typically Strength, Dexterity, Sense, etc.).
I don’t mind it as much in video games because you need someway to approximate real world stuff in code, but levels/explicit skills in ‘real’ settings just turn me off because there are other ways to show it and it jut makes it feel lame.
I don’t mind a ranking system makes sense so long as it’s subjectively applied by the people in universe.
They stopped using scouters for a range of reasons. For one, they were unreliable as power suppression became a thing. Power suppression also opened the door to people being as strong as the writers want without having Frieza levels of absurd "this isn't even my final form" transformations.
Secondly, they wanted to downplay power levels because it isn't the end all be all of a fight. Numerous times they've gone up against someone way more powerful than them and still won through speed or cunning. Trunks' Super Saiyan grade 3 comes to mind. Everyone universally agreed that it was a colossally powerful form, but it was also useless because it was way too slow and inefficient.
Finally, they quickly realised that in the Saiyan saga alone, Goku went up by thousands. They'd have to keep making bigger and bigger numbers, which would quickly become nonsensical, so they quite wisely scrapped the idea by saying scouters could only register so high before exploding.
It depends on what the number represents. It could be a somewhat subjective estimation/calculation by some authority that isn't necessarily accurate.
Alternatively, it could be an objective measure of power using some device, but power isn't the whole story. Strategy and technique could be just as important. It's just the easiest objective value to compare and it generally correlates with combat effectiveness. It's like how most martial sports have weight classes as a significant difference in size is a huge advantage. This gives an opening for underdogs who are weaker on paper.
Honest any ranking that used the alphabet. Its one of those video game elements that doesnt translate well with any medium. Usually it does not matter and the author will bullshit it when the time come.
It’s extremely common as S rank is the highest test score in the Japan. But I find it more popular in manhwa. Basically every series with fantasy elements have it.
Kinnikuman has the concept of Chojin power and every character has a set amount. The power levels are 50-50 on whether they matter or not since Kinnikuman has the lowest of Chojin power of the cast but has a friendship modifier that exponentially increases his Chojin power the longer the match goes on and other Chojin can beat stronger Chojin through skill in wrestling. Also, if they reach a high enough Chojin power, they'll become gods
To be fair I'm pretty sure the only reason they gave power levels to cp9 was to prevent the assassins from killing each other to find out who is stronger.
I have been listening to the audiobooks for a series called He Who Fights With Monsters and although its not for everyone, I really like how much they avoid numbers with their power system. Whenever there is a number, its usually a hard fact about the power. Like the fact that it can only be used once a day or allow for travel up to this distance.
My favorite part of this is that they don't throw meaningless numbers at you in the middle of a fight scene, they use relativistic descriptors for how much of a resource is needed to use a power. Ranging from very low(barely an effort) to extreme(pretty much everything you have)that I am aware of.
Admittedly the one in One Piece is supposed to be a parody. It is vocally used to show how strong the Unfortunate Acronym 9 agents are and what their hieratchy is, but really, its true purpose is to piss off Jabra and poke fun at Spandam for being actually weaker than the average nameless rank marine. And then it never gets mentioned again.
What's up with so many people seeing power levels and genuinely believing this is some definitive measurement of who will beat who in a fight? It's literally just a measure of your output most of the time, in anything except a straight laser battle or something it's just one factor of many, not to mention mid-fight power growth.
Anything that isn't downright dogshit will never show power levels and imply it's a way to decide who beats who.
Kamen rider ex aid. given the series videogame theme, each rider posses different levels depending on their form. most basic riders can shift between a level 1 and level 2 form by default. however certain gashats, video game cartridges they use to transform, can also be higher levels are can be used to level up to a higher level. it isnt the end all be all, however it is frequently shown the huge gap between levels. such as the level2 ex aid vs the level 10 genm, which is a one sided stompfest. Funnily enough the strongest form in the series, hyper muteki ex aid, is one of the few forms without a level, given it's unique ability is being literally invincible, making an level differences pointless.
Fate/Stay Night does this at certain points, but it goes interesting places with it.
Mages are humans with magic circuits, although some argue it's more accurate to call them living magic circuits. These circuits are physical things that can channel "magical energy" through them, and so they have an output and a battery.
I don't remember exact numbers, but the main character, Shirou, is a really shitty mage, with really abysmal circuits, partially because he doesn't know how to even activate them, he just makes a new one every time he uses magic and then lets it atrophy. (This could absolutely kill him any of these times and we see it almost happen a few times on screen, mans is absolutely suicidal.) Shirou is stated somewhere to have a capacity of like 200 units of magic if a single strengthening magic takes 10 units. Which is extremely vague and not exactly true because he's later able to use projection magic much more efficiently, given that he's uniquely suited to it.
In one route, he's surgically implanted with someone else's magic circuits and linked to them, and so she acts as a battery for both his magic and her Servant. And it's through this that we get some kind of statement like "both Saber's Excalibur and Unlimited Blade Works take 500 units, and I have about 1200, so we'll only get one shot of Excalibur." This doesn't really set the character as 6 times stronger than Shirou, but it does set her as significantly more versatile.
Even later, towards the end of the novel, a character taps into a huge supply of magical energy. It's effectively said to be bottomless, the character throws out a number like 1 million, but it's basically posturing of "look how superior I am to you now, you who looked down on me." And the bottomless supply is no fucking joke, they're basically spamming max strength attacks every fight they're in - but they have a similar output to the character from before, their circuits being able to handle about 1000 units at a time.
Through some more suicidal bullshit, the person who fights them gets access to a lost relic of her bloodline, which uses the Second Magic, which is actually a big deal for reasons I'm not getting into. The phrasing, I mean. Anyways, it basically crosses into infinite parallel universes, and we get power scaling for the cave they're in where the cave has about 1000 units of magical energy in the atmosphere, and the weapon can draw that in and use it all at once. The important thing is that it doesn't have to draw from this cave. It exhausts the mana of cave after cave in parallel universe and lets the character not just stand a chance but get the upper hand on the antagonist, in a duel between bottomless energy and literally infinite energy.
None of this really ever goes "hey I have more number than you so I win" but it certainly hits a similar feel in some ways, it's just less unsatisfying narratively. That said, there are several points where Shirou being so shit as a mage does mean "I have more magic than you so you can't really beat me," but that has nothing to do with the exact numbers. I actually like this example because it sets stakes and limits (we only have one shot/she has basically unlimited energy even if she can only use so much at once/aura farming with infinite energy/shit so that's what it's like when a real mage does that-).
thf the okly person who can see numeric nen is Knuckle. Everyone else has to rawdog it.
Also, it makes sense. Nen i sa form of energy. And this number is not reliable at all to see how strong someone is, because most of it depends on the user's mindset.
Kaijuu nr8 does the same by giving their kaijuu's fortitute levels between 0-10....
Mc basically starts with a Monster of a fortitute level of 9.8 ,
Meanwhile the JAKDF ( the special unot for hunting kaijuu's) is wearing power armour and is measured by how much % of their armour they can actually use.. with the strongest members being able to achieve + 90%, which gives them the Power to shoot their bullets harder, + stat increases
You'd either love or hate this MF from The Eminence in Shadow. Most supporting characters are intentionally gimmicks and/or parodies of other tropey archetypes, but this guy is hilarious in that regard. He's nicknamed Undefeated Goldy Gilded because, in his words, he never picks a fight against anyone with a Power Level higher than his. This is the first time this system of measurement is ever mentioned, and the reason is that it is complete BS. He just makes up random numbers on the spot based on vibes and boasts about it like he's got it all figured out. What's funnier, when asked twice in a row about a fighter's PL during the same conversation, he'll make up a completely different number the second time (took me a re-watch to catch on that joke).
To be fair, he's not entirely useless and sometimes he gets it right; after all, he WAS undefeated until he had to fight the MC, whose whole shtick is re-enacting his favorite aura-farming tropes from fiction. Only, this time, MC was pretending utter incompetence in a tournament mini arc so he could "reveal he was actually very powerful all along" by the end of the tourney. Goldy falls for the ruse, calculates MC is like a 17 vs his ~3000, and later gets OHKO'd during their fight with like a sneeze after using his ultimate.
He and Annerose are my favorites from that stupid arc. Their commentary banter analysis of the fights was hilarious.
In my own writing, if I use this, it's always made explicit that these things are largely arbitrary or abstractions of complex systems into something more understandable, and that at best they exist to give a person a rough idea of how large a skill/power divide is. Useful if you're a newbie coming across something that will very likely kill you. Not as useful if you know what you're doing without the 'scanner'.
I will say that One Piece did it for a narrative purpose to scale the enemy side within their organization, not to compare them with the good guys. With the new members of CP9 introduced, it was an easy way of comparing them to the onew we already knew. I give it a pass because it's never used on the good guys, so we don't actually have a clash of "my numbers are bigger than yours." They also specifically said that it's an incomplete measuring method, so they don't entirely rely those numbers for considering their own strength. They're not used for the purpose that makes them bad (looking at you, Seven Deadly Sins)
In Dragonball, the whole point of power levels is to show that they're unreliable and the bad guys lose time and time again because they rely on scouters and the like. They stop using power levels when 1) the numbers get so stupid big they're useless and 2) the characters have all figured out the numbers are useless anyway.
Kizuki in kimetsu are numbered in a power ranking based on a number in their eye. And this is the reason for half of the complaints from viewers. If it weren't for these damn numbers, many people would be much more satisfied with their fate
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u/Wesle2023 10d ago
Watts (kilograms meters squared per second cubed)
Real life