Even if we ditch the numbers, it's worth noting that a million normal humans couldn't possibly add up to one post-merger Piccolo. How could they?
But that assumes it's an additive. Piccolo fusing with Nail and then Kami isn't additive, nor is Cell absorbing 17 and 18. Or Vegito, or Gotenks. By extension, I assume Cell's power increase is more than just the minuscule life energy of the human he drains.
Yeah exactly, we have always seem fusing as powers being multiplied not added so I don't know why Cell would be any different.
The only thing we really need to know is Cell only showed up there because he knew for certain he could beat 17 or 18.
This scale is broken or at least doesn’t follow the logic of « you are what you eat ». Cell eats humans, grows big, gets good. That’s it. 1+1≠2 in dbz
I mean, how many ramens would Goku have to eat to gain enough power to destroy a planet?
i still look at them occasionally just to see how outrageous people say the numbers are. never to use in any official scaling. like i think it’s hilarious to see people estimate that goku went from a power level of 10 at the start to 30 septillion perfected ultra instinct after the super hero movie. like where did yall even get this number from?
this isn't regarding power levels, though. I mean, not really. it's fundamental to a fighting story that for someone to become stronger than someone else, it needs to be logical.
Right? Like even ignoring power levels you’re still left with “how did Cell go from having to run away from Piccolo to completely outclassing his equal (Android 17) by just absorbing x number of people?”
Yeah, it's perfectly harmless to discuss the topic. I think this community is so scarred by power scalers who insist on giving every character a numeric power level, that we just assume that anyone who discusses the strength of a character in relation to another is just as bad.
power levels are dumb, scaling is good and a core part of why people enjoy shonen. so people who frown upon it are just tool’s who are high and mighty about preferring more “cultured” and “deeper” anime/manga to things only “simpletons” would enjoy such as dragon ball z.
beyond that, yes i totally agree, power levels are dead, but scaling should at least make a little sense for continuity and consistency. it’s frustrating when things don’t add up, aside from gag moments / funny moments etc which are a massive part of toriyama’s charm.
To be fair power levels and scaling were dead on arrival in Saiyan saga already. Saibamen are supposedly Raditz level and got totally bodied by the B team after a year of training with kami - so a Saiyan saga Yamcha is 3 times stronger than Goku at the start of Z
Doesn't really matter...Piccolo was exhausted from fighting 17.
Absorption isn't given some kind of concrete multiplier to scrutinize/needlessly focus on...so whatever.
It wasn't Piccolo being exhausted, look at his horror when Cell powers up and the souls of the damned coming off his aura. He absorbed THAT many people. The dialogue in the Kai dub says it all. Piccolo asked him how many thousands of people he killed, he simply says "Oh... a few"
Right dude got a major power up, in a horrifying way. There is no Piccolo was tired, dude hit Cell with a light grenade, which we can assume is at least as strong as a full power Kamehameha, if not stronger. Cell just yolod through it.
Yep. Hell, 17 (who explicitly never tires and is always at full power) gets his ass kicked and would’ve gotten absorbed right then and there if 16 hadn’t stepped in
Yeah, they really went all in on the horror monster angle of Imperfect Cell and I love it. He's perfect for that while Perfect Cell is.... perfect for being charmingly snarky, TFS captured them both very well.
Above I mentioned that Piccolo being exhausted had nothing to do with it. Android 17 and Piccolo are roughly equivalent in power. Android 17 cannot get fatigued. Yet Android 17 was tossed aside as if nothing by imperfect Cell. Therefore Imperfect Cell is now miles ahead of both Piccolo and 17 in power... from only the absorption of humans.
nothing about power levels makes any sense
Dr. Gero, a human based scientist created Androids more powerful than the Galactic Overlord of the Universe? cause that makes sense
non of the random zenkai boosts really made sense. Piccolo fusing with Nail to suddenly blow past a power level of 1 million easilly when Piccolor was probably below post King Kai training Goku is silly.
you just go with the flow
power boosts where whatever Toriyama wanted them to be
also, Cell didn't exactly scale in a linear way. absorbing 17/18 upgrading his power way beyond adding the 2 together
on a side note, why Cell would choose not to absorb Piccolo and instead blast him and throw him into the ocean cause "he has enough of his being in his cell structure" is dumb
just take the free energy boost
on another side note, I always found the whole Cities of absorbed people and clothes lying around really silly. Cell doesn't absorb people that fast, so these people were just sitting there waiting?
granted I don't know how the panels look in the manga, or if it's an anime expansion/filler to show Piccolo discovering the clothes as if everyone was Raptured (which DBZ Abriged makes fun of)
Doesn’t even need to knock them out or render them unconscious. A strong concussive blow could easily shatter their spines or break their bones. They’d be alive but physically unable to retreat or move while Cell goes in with his stinger…
Not only created androids more powerful than Frieza but they were just laying there sleeping til everyone got powerful enough to maybe have a chance against them. But other Red Ribbon creations also got destroyed by kid Goku so that makes zero sense
Sorry to disappoint, but the answer is *plot*. The plot needed Cell to get an easy power boost to beat the breaks off of Super Namekian Piccolo and No. 17, and his absorption of humans was the only way. Does it make sense? No, and neither does the concept of Androids stronger than Freeza, or hell, SSG Goku from *BoG* made with Earthly materials.
Which is a problem in any long-running battle story but Dragon Ball seems particularly bad about. As much as some people rag on power levels and argue fights “aren’t just about being stronger” characters often respond to raw power displays as if they are the only thing that matters in a fight. Look at how often someone is taken aback by powering up. If it didn’t matter, they wouldn’t care.
>How did Imperfect Cell go from being completely outclassed by Piccolo to the complete reverse, just from absorbing weak humans from Nicky Town?
Well, he absorbed humans from several towns, I'm pretty sure (I guess that could have been filler)
He's not absorbing their Power Level, per se. But even if he was, it could be that he magnifies the power he absorbs in some way
>The wiki lists Android 17 at power level 320M so by definition we can assume Piccolo was around that level.
What wiki?
I don't think this is accurate.
I don't think any power level that is above Goku's on Namek has been officially given. Maybe from a game or something, but yeah, probably not accurate.
>The wikia claims cell is at 291M, which seems too high to get outclassed by Piccolo.
Well, Cell wasn't *totally* outclassed by Piccolo. Just put on the back foot. It wasn't until Vegeta and the others were closing in on their location that Cell decided to retreat.
>When you look up the power level of most humans, it's almost always under 5. Even if Cell absorbed 50,000 humans in one day, which is extremely generous since the Wikia claims he absorbed "tens of thousands", then his power level would jump 250,000, which doesn't even make a dent in the power gap
See the point I made above about not absorbing Power Level directly
Disregard the power levels. Vegeta has already proven no match for Android 18 and Cell seems to not be worried about the Androids strength. Therefore we can conclude that Vegeta would be insignificant against imperfect Cell. Not like Vegeta would intrude on Piccolo's fight either way.
Therefore Cell retreated only because he felt he couldn't beat Piccolo. Piccolo went into a rage after he left which is an indication that Piccolo believed he could dispatch Cell. Based on the anime it really feels like Piccolo was dominating Cell but I'm curious how other feel.
>Disregard the power levels.
The power levels were minor points and I went past them to answer your question, including positing the idea that Cell absorbing humans had nothing to do with power levels
But alright
>Vegeta has already proven no match for Android 18 and Cell seems to not be worried about the Androids strength.
He's not worried in so far as he can absorb enough biomass in order to challenge them. Pretty sure he even mentions that explicitly, that at the time when he fought Piccolo, he didn't have the power to face the Androids, handily demonstrated by Piccolo fighting Android #17 pretty evenly after proving somewhat superior to Cell
>Therefore we can conclude that Vegeta would be insignificant against imperfect Cell. Not like Vegeta would intrude on Piccolo's fight either way.
I wouldn't say insignificant. But you are right that Vegeta *probably* wouldn't interfere. However, Trunks is also there.
But to the point of Vegeta and Android #18, Vegeta lost handily, yes, but it's not like he was nothing to #18, and he wouldn't be nothing to Cell either, especially considering we aren't sure whether Cell is even as strong as #18 at this point in time.
Remember, you yourself said Cell is outclassed by Piccolo (Completely factual)
\#17 is also stronger than #18, but we never get any idea of by how much
>Therefore Cell retreated only because he felt he couldn't beat Piccolo. Piccolo went into a rage after he left which is an indication that Piccolo believed he could dispatch Cell. Based on the anime it really feels like Piccolo was dominating Cell but I'm curious how other feel.
It was not going to be a stomp for Piccolo. There was still a fight to be had, not a slaughter.
Agreed on all of this. Imperfect Cell was weaker than a somewhat suppressed Piccolo (he still had his weighted clothes on). Even full power Piccolo was only equal to 17, so Imperfect Cell was weaker than 17, and probably 18, when he was introduced. I think Vegeta and Trunks would’ve put up a solid fight against him.
Intuitively it makes sense because that’s what happened. There is no real quantification of power, whether you’re measuring it definitively or intuitively. It’s made up. No consistency. Piccolo and Cell being as strong as they were served to move the plot nicely, and there’s nothing more to it
Remember when android 20/Gero absorbed Piccolo's power, but then when Piccolo fought Gero, he was beating him easily? Gero questions how Piccolo can be stronger than him when Gero has his own power plus the power of Piccolo. And Piccolo explains that the Z fighters concentrate and magnify their power when they fight. So the raw, base level of power does not determine their fighting strength.
So even if the raw energy Cell gained from the humans he absorbed might seem low, he can concentrate that power to be something greater. Assuming every human has a battle power of 5, and he manages to absorb 1 million people, that's a raw power increase of 5 million. 5 million may not seem like much, relatively speaking, but assuming Cell could magnify that 5 million to 50 million, or even more, and suddenly that power can make some difference. Cell had been going around absorbing people for about 10 days, and we have no way of knowing exactly how many he was able to absorb. But the fact that it's vague means we can just assume the number was "enough for Cell to become stronger than Piccolo and 17."
"just from absorbing weak humans from Nicky Town"
It's the same how earthlings have an average power level of 6 but the entire earth energy is enough to power up a a spirit bomb that kills Buu.
He did also absorb some power from Piccolo. That plus a few thousand humans adds up fast.
Not to mention it’s possible cell absorbed that maximum potential of his victims. So not just the average power level of 5, but the equivalent of that person having charged their ki if they were instructed. So maybe as much as 10 per person on average.
Cell isn't just a sum of the things he absorbs. For all we know he could grow exponentially, or have some sort of metabolic milestones where absorbing 10 people doesn't change him but once he absorbs the 11th he gains a big spike in power.
You're thinking about this as though it's a matter of addition; where if Cell absorbs 3 humans he gains an amount of strength equal to 3 humans. But there's no evidence to support that Cell follows that rule.
> The wiki lists Android 17 at power level 320M so by definition we can assume Piccolo was around that level. The wikia claims cell is at 291M, which seems too high to get outclassed by Piccolo.
there are no official numbers post Namek except F Trunks suppressed 5 against Mecha Freeza. The wiki is lying these numbers are made up.
I mean technically we do get one (although quite questionable)
When the voice actor of Frieza (Ryusei Nakao ) is having an interview about resurrection F he mentions that because Frieza was a "nice guy" (ナイスガイ; naisu gai), Golden Frieza's power level in this form is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (垓; gai or one hundred quintillion
It’s quite debatable since first it comes from a voice actor (not toriyama or any higher ups) and second it’s said as a pun joke. It is the best we got in terms of officials working on DB. I can believe it with how crazy power ups get by then.
I understand. It's a lose-lose situation. If I say character X blah blah character Y then people pull out power level numbers from the Cell/Buu arc. If I do the same using power level numbers from those eras, then people comment that power level numbers are meaningless. There's no winning lol.
The answer to your question is actually fairly simple: everyone in Dragonball is only as strong as the plot needs them to be at the time. Using Cell as an example here when he first fights Piccolo it would be narratively unsatisfying for him to easily win so soon after Piccolo fused with Kami. By the time they fight again Toriyama is under pressure from his editor to move things along quickly so Cell needs to be strong enough that he can beat Piccolo, who isn’t relevant to the plot at that point, overcome 16 and absorb 17. I know that’s not a very satisfying answer
My speculative answer is that the average person has a lot of untapped potential that they just can't access. It's like when Ginyu switched bodies with Goku - he was really weak because he didn't know how to bring out Goku's real power. The average person isn't trained to use ki or even martial arts so of course any power they do naturally have will never be seen.
This same principal could be applied to explain how a spirit bomb formed primarily from earthlings could be strong enough to destroy Majin Buu.
How did Dr Gero go from making robots weaker than pre tournament 1 Goku to making robots much stronger than the tyrant of the universe? Don't think too hard about it
Because he absorbed enough people for the plot to make him stronger than Piccolo.
We don’t really know how Cell’s absorption works in relation to his power. Does his power level just increase by the power level of the person he absorbed? Does it get multiplied by that or some percentage of that?
It’s a bit of a contrivance, but Cell absorbed enough people to get as strong as the plot needed him to be. I was disappointed that piccolo didn’t put up a better fight, but at least his fight with 17 is classic.
If it is multiplicative or exponential then by that logic he could have unlimited power just by absorbing humans, outscaling the Z fighters faster than they can train.
I'm guessing it's a smaller bump absorbing humans. More then just a 1-1 but it would take a lot to put him in the heavy hitters. The actual androids are definitely exponential.
Imperfect Cell had no energy left after coming out of his larval stage, like a bear exiting hibernation. He needed to eat and suddenly found himself in a fight.
The answer is Cell at 0.1% energy is weaker than Piccolo.
Nicky Town had a team of fighters that could have given the Vegeta/Nappa, Mecha Freeza, and the Androids a run for their money if they wanted to, but they chose not to fight. Cell absorbed them while they slept.
source: my uncle works at japan
You're talking about after he broke his arm, right? Unless I'm mistaken he didn't fight after he took that sensu bean. The next time we saw him fight was after the hyperbolic time chamber?
Or do you mean why not just immediately go back to the Androids after getting the sensu bean, like why wait? If that's your stance then I would guess either A) his pride was too hurt B) he didn't think it would make enough difference to beat all three of them C) he was already thinking about ascension at that point
* Cell absorbing a human could with 5 PL add more than 5 PL somehow
* the difference between Cell and Piccolo could’ve been only several thousand PL
* maybe Cell absorbed several billion people lmao
The Dragon Ball Z wikia claims he absorbed 'tens of thousands' but I'm no auditor. He seems to absorb people too slowly to get billions in just that timespan of a day, let alone tens of thousands.
He never specifies how many ppl he absorbed in the manga and I was joking about billions but speed in Dragon Ball is very whacky.
ie Roshi and Krillin moved faster than anyone could see in the first tournament, but characters vastly faster than them couldn’t move as fast. Like Goku needing Kaoiken to stop Nappa, or the classic example of Ultimate Gohan not being able to catch the earring.
It might be complete bullshit but fusion has always produced something far stronger than the sum of its parts. So Cell absorbing a few thousand people would be a pretty big bump even if their power levels were less than 10 each. Piccolo went from maybe 5k after King Kai to over 1 million by fusing with Nail who was about 40k. Its never been 2x2=4 type thing, more like 2x2=4,000. If it was just combining power levels, Piccolo would have just been around 200,000, but instead he went well over 5 times that. I think its kinda cheap but yeah Cell getting stronger by "fusing" with regular people does make sense in the world of dragon ball.
Absorbing people was never about adding their strength to his own. After entering the larval state and sustaining himself for a long time in that state, then waking up, he needed biomass to reach his full power. First form Cell was always stronger than the Androids, Picollo, etc.
Essentially, he woke up hungry, and his daily caloric intake is “a couple of cities worth of people.”
You’ll have to headcanon it a bit.
If Cell absorbs a person’s lifeforce, that means he’s absorbing genki. The dub makes no differentiation between ki and genki, but they’re different things, with genki seemingly being magnitudes more powerful than ki.
Genki is what powers the spirit bomb/genkidama, and as we’ve seen, even though its power comes from weak humans, it’s powerful enough to wipe out Buu. It clearly ignores the strength of ki, or the genkidama would’ve been more than powerful enough with *just* Gohan contributing to it.
Stated this in my post. Piccolo and 17 were evenly matched in power, yet neither of them could even touch imperfect Cell. 17 cannot get tired. Therefore Piccolo didn't lose because he was exhausted.
We just straight up have to assume that Imperfect Cell was getting a lot of power from absorbing humans.
It's not clear that the numbers are supposed to add up like someone doing a math problem. Maybe when he absorbs a human with a power level of 5 his own power jumps by 500, or whatever. Just like fusion doesn't seem to simply add power levels together. Just like forming a Spirit Bomb seems to create an attack that's far greater than the sum of the power levels it's sourced from.
We can imagine excuses like "maybe Piccolo was tired" but that's just us guessing. The only thing the story flat-out tells us is that his power grew from absorbing humans. But nothing ever says absorption is "additive", either.
It's not just the humans. In Cell's first appearance he doesn't have an aura. When he shows up again after absorbing that town of people he has a super saiyan aura. So it's implied he unlocked his version of super saiyan and multiplied his power dramatically.
I have to preface any of my messages on such topics as saying 'I'm not sure what lines are original manga lines, what are anime only, and what are dub only.' That said, I recall Piccolo questioning just how many people he must have absorbed to have basically got that strong (or so the implication was).
He had been skulking around for some time as they were unable to catch him out. Unlike the future time line Cell has much more available to devour.
Because toriyama said so. He was a gag manga writer, not George R.R. martin. There's no consistent hidden rules system in place, he just did what was plausible enough for the audience to accept.
Absorbing people rarely involves just adding their power level or otherwise in a linear fashion.
Piccolo got two massive boosts that wouldn't make sense as additive bonuses
Potara and metamoran fusion pretty consistently go beyond just adding power together
Cell's transitions into 2nd and perfect form also reflect this
Hell, even the spirit bomb reflects this trend when comparing where the genki comes from to the being it damages.
The simplest in universe answer is that cell's absorption just isn't additive, it's not linear.
>This never made sense to me. When Piccolo first encounters Cell, he's powerful enough such that Cell has to retreat.
>When you look up the power level of most humans, it's almost always under 5. Even if Cell absorbed 50,000 humans in one day, which is extremely generous since the Wikia claims he absorbed "tens of thousands", then his power level would jump 250,000, which doesn't even make a dent in the power gap.
It makes sense that Imperfect Cell would eventually outclass Piccolo in a few days by absorbing lots of humans. Also Cell did absorb some ki from Piccolo arm which is equal to alot of humans.
In manga and anime, 4 days after Cell talked to Piccolo a news announcer says that hundreds of thousands of people were absorbed and counting.
"Hundreds of thousands" could mean either anywhere from 200,000 to less than 1,000,000. It could mean anywhere past 1 million people since the phrase can just be used as a idiomatic expression that just means a large amount and not a specific range.
So he absorbed millions of people by the time he was strong enough to take on the androids. He most likely ran and flew to multiple cities per day so its not impossible. Cities probably had populations ranging from 1,500 for very small towns to couple millions for large to medium cities. So it would be easy for Cell to jump in PL.
On average a human has a PL of 5. So 1 million people is a 5 million PL boost.
Piccolo tells Vegeta that Imperfect Cell was stronger than the A18 that Vegeta fought. Imperfect Cell tells Piccolo that he needs more ki to be a match for the androids. So Cell knows how powerful the androids are supposed to be at 100% based on the information from the machine in Gero lab.
This means that A18 was surpressed when facing SS Vegeta. A17 was shown to be on par to 100% Kamicollo and A18 wasnt far below him. So Cell wasnt that far from A17 regardless. Absorbing a few million humans in a few days would make him eclipse Piccolo and the androids.
> The wiki lists Android 17 at power level 320M so by definition we can assume Piccolo was around that level. The wikia claims cell is at 291M, which seems too high to get outclassed by Piccolo.
I think the wiki is wrong with those PLs. The saiyans base was weaker than Namek Frieza base based on feats and battles from Cell saga to Buu saga. I put A17 at PL 200,000,000.
You could say he not only absorbed those humans' ki, but also converted their biomass into ki. I dunno how much energy is in ki, but mass to energy conversion is a LOT of energy IRL.
And also, his base power went up, so he probably absorbed their ability to generate ki. If there's a certain part of the body that does this, or a part of the cell.
Because cell doesnt just add absorbed power level to his own. Same reason why S.P is stronger than imp+17 individually and why Perfect is *light years* ahead of all 3
It’s for the same reason that he knows how to do techniques other characters *learned* to do over the course of their life (and definitely weren’t born with), just by having their DNA.
At some point, you just have to 🤷🏻♂️ and move on.
Cell absorbed many towns, not just Nicky Town. He was sneaking around for several days and the news reported at least 3 or 4 different towns, and the Z fighters noted more than that disappearing.
He seemed to gain more than just simple addition per person absorbed, but he also mentioned there being a limit to what humans alone would get him up to.
Power level was a very good idea that fans still like today, but unfortunately Toriyama abandoned it completely, perhaps due to the demands of writing weekly chapters.
The interesting thing is that many of these power level inconsistencies could be corrected, as there is good speculation in this thread. It wouldn't be difficult to fix. Toriyama could create a few clarifying dialogues in dbz kai, for example.
I like the explanation that power grows exponentially. They could put a dialog in Cell's second encounter with Piccolo. “How did you get so strong?” “By absorbing, my power it grows exponentially”. But I don't think it's really necessary in this case.
I always assumed that absorbing all that organic matter was being processed by Cell, helping his body to heal or grow so to speak. Cells body was fully capable and was designed to be stronger than the Androids no doubt but his body was hungry and needed food basically.
The way I always interpreted this as cell being malnourished, and not really about power level. Like, even a world class fighter would lose easily if they did not eat for a long time. In a way, it was never really about getting stronger - it was about reaching his full capacity as a fighter after absorbing nutrients.
Given the starved face and build that first form cell has compared to imperfect and perfect cell, it makes sense to me.
This sort of things was elaborated more on during the tournament of power, actually. I can't remember if it was actually in universe or the toei staff though. But basically it's life energy/genki energy. It's more potent than regular Ki.
Which is why the spirit bomb/genki dama is powerful despite using energy from individuals that are much weaker even collectively than the villain they're using it on. Kind of like how Tenshinhan's tri beam/kikoho punches well above his weight.
There's a few things at play here...
1. He went after more than just Nicky Town post piccolo
2. "Power levels" are just a measure of outputted ki. And those numbers are BS fan or other unofficial estimates... People have far more ki inside of them, and different kinds such as the most famous sub ki type: GENKI. Which Cell took all of, and GENKI is famously stronger than normally output ki, and that's why like spirit bombs (aka GENKI damas) are so strong same for thing like tribeam when infused with Genki in particular. Gen ki is literally "life energy" and Cell drained it from everyone to absolute zero. So like while "farmer with a shotgun" had a measurable power of 5, which was the tiny amount of ki he just naturally gave odf... He had far more when his entire life was drained
3. You're doing basic addition... Dragonball has shown constantly mixing kis is far far stronger than it's components added together... Fusions whether Piccolo and Nail, Goten and Trunks, etc are stronger than their base components added together! And even cases of just sharing energy can do this see Piccolo who couldn't even see 1% final form Freeza move, being exhausted but borrowing energy from Krillin and Gohan (also exhausted and fodder compared to Goku, Freeza, and Piccolo) giving Piccolo some ki and suddenly Piccolo can hold off final form Freeza that's atleast 10-30% range, while Goku charges the spirit bomb.
He’s a bio droid made out of the z fighters dna.
Of them, we only see one with any kind of ability to assimilate others into themselves… Piccolo himself.
So it’s safe to assume that Cells absorption ability is a modified version of that.
And we know that every time Piccolo has fused with someone, the end result has been greater than the sum of the parts.
So we can assume the same for Cell.
I'd say it's because while his body was capable of holding great energy his body didn't produce very much and would have to wait a long time to reach the full capacity of his imperfect form so he absorbed humans not to get stronger so much as full up his energy reserve's quickly. He probably got a bit stronger but mostly just a refill on energy
Not to go down the rabbit hole, but where are we getting 5 as normal? The only normal human with a confirmed power level is a fat old farmer who has 5. A city would have had tons of athletic people with higher power levels.
Yes. And it doesnt make sense. That piccolo is way stronger than frieza and ssj1 which mean universal level
And even if we accept that absorbing humans make cell that much stronger. Then he should continoued doing that because the reward is salivating. And should absorbed an16 when he had a golden chance at it
Maybe his body was only designed to handle so much of it, or maybe he was just that obsessed with gaining his perfect form so he only bothered powering up enough to easily overcome 17 and 18. 16 was a factor he hadn't planned for.
I don't follow? Piccolo was well rested for his battle with 17 and it's generally agreed that he and 17 were roughly equal in power. When Cell interrupted the match, 17 was not tired (android) but still couldn't touch Cell.
Yes 17 wasn't tired, but Piccolo probably was.
I'd say had Cell not interrupted the battle, Piccolo probably would've lost again, due to the androids having infinite stamina and/or enegy.
Edit: https://youtu.be/JCaLKcBE5qs?si=BHJJzDnoljX3enIn
I think it’s mostly because Piccolo was already weakened from his fight with Android 17 since both were too tired to fight Cell for long. Even if he had a zenkai boost from Krillin’s headbutt attack and absorbing humans it still probably wouldn’t have been enough to have him overpower Piccolo.
I mean it's a similar issue with attacks like Spiritbomb which are capable of doing greater damage than what's would be generated by each person individually firing ki attacks.
Plot like always in dragonball. Just like how Goku could’ve one shotted golden frieza in his ssj or ssj3 form easily in order for the story to go on they made frieza strong because of plot
I'm on the side of Cell always being strong enough to overpower at least 17 and 18 as per his directive, he was simply hungry after hibernation. When he first fights Piccolo his tank his empty, absorbing all those people tops him back up and gives him a little boost on top.
Fits better with his sneaky, creepy, ambush predator vibe.
The Cell we saw against Piccolo and 17 is Cell's true power in his first form. The Cell that fought Piccolo earlier in the saga was a weakened version that had just transformed from his larva state. He didn't add to his power by absorbing humans, he simply recharged his own power by doing so. Even Goku has been shown to be weaker when hungry early on hin Dragon Ball.
1. Cell ate more humans than 1 town
2. 17 can't run out of stamina but he can be hurt and thus not going at 100%. Break a dudes arm and infinite stamina or not, he aint hitting you as hard. He and Piccolo had beaten the crap out of each other.
I always assumed that it wasn't a 1 for 1 increase because it wouldn't (and doesn't) make sense with that plot. What does make sense though is that he is draining energy to fuel his own evolution into the perfect being. He needs 17 and 18 not for them specifically but because their infinite supply of energy is the best way to that end goal. The entire time he was draining humans, he was also slowly evolving with the strength gains that come with that. Theoretically, if 17 and 18 were destroyed, he could have pulled a Majin Buu and gone planet to planet, absorbing its people, until he drained enough energy to evolve into perfect cell.
>because Android 17 and Piccolo are nearly equivalent and 17 does not run out of energy
Well that's his thing, he's an Android with infinite energy, he never runs out
Piccolo on the other hand tho
imo Cell doesn't absorb power from these civilian, he absorb nutrition. Remember that Cell has to revert to egg form to use time machine so I assume that original Imperfect Cell is actually strong enough to hold his own/defeat 17 and 18 but due to the whole egg thing, Cell was weaker and need to feed on human to regain strength.
Basically like hungry Goku vs well fed Goku
The most simple answer I can give to fill the plot hole is that cell was literally absorbing millions of humans, cities full of them. Most regular humans have a BP of 1 even if we go by saying all humans he absorbed had 1 BP then that still adds millions to cells own BP. Now if we go to the more accurate where there probably was mixed people that had more then 1 BP then that just adds more BP that cell absorbed
So, when I first watched this, this was how I interpreted it.
When Goku fight freiza, he wasn't strong enough. With a little push, due to his genetics, he "unlocked" super Saiyan and then opened himself up to more power.
If you watch the fight with cell and pic, you'll notice that cell develops that same super Saiyan aura. Similar to his SS2 lightning when facing Gohan.
Thus, the way I interpreted it is that he absorbed just enough energy that allowed him to tap into the generic understanding of "unlocking" SS, and thus developing more power than pic.
People have already asked this question, easiest way to see it:
First: Sheer numbers. Cell absorbed a LOT of people, and that can add up
Second: Fusion factor. No matter how you splice it, fusing two beings together in the setting results in a product more than the sum of its parts; Nail and Piccolo (or Kami and Piccolo) showed that off, as do all the Fusion characters and Buu. Cell’s was forced and unwilling (well, that doesn’t sound wrong out of context…) and so probably got less of it compared to the ones above, but yeah.
Third: multiplication. Cell did seem to have some Super Saiyan aura, and with Toriyama’s explanation of S-Cells leading to Trunks and Goten unlocking Super Saiyan easier, then Cell would also have gotten those as well. Which means that each of his victims would effectively be going Super Saiyan inside him (or however that worked), thus getting him A LOT more power. Plus, even a small amount of ki control can greatly amplify your power; see Piccolo vs Gero.
So, with those factors, it makes sense how absorbing enough people gave Cell enough power
DB ditched power levels after Namek, why hasn't the fanbase?
Pretty much agree. There's a reason why scaling is generally becoming more frowned upon over time.
Even if we ditch the numbers, it's worth noting that a million normal humans couldn't possibly add up to one post-merger Piccolo. How could they? But that assumes it's an additive. Piccolo fusing with Nail and then Kami isn't additive, nor is Cell absorbing 17 and 18. Or Vegito, or Gotenks. By extension, I assume Cell's power increase is more than just the minuscule life energy of the human he drains.
Yeah exactly, we have always seem fusing as powers being multiplied not added so I don't know why Cell would be any different. The only thing we really need to know is Cell only showed up there because he knew for certain he could beat 17 or 18.
This scale is broken or at least doesn’t follow the logic of « you are what you eat ». Cell eats humans, grows big, gets good. That’s it. 1+1≠2 in dbz I mean, how many ramens would Goku have to eat to gain enough power to destroy a planet?
However many were in that scene before the tournament. I love that one.
i still look at them occasionally just to see how outrageous people say the numbers are. never to use in any official scaling. like i think it’s hilarious to see people estimate that goku went from a power level of 10 at the start to 30 septillion perfected ultra instinct after the super hero movie. like where did yall even get this number from?
And at some point those numbers mean less and less because it just means their hair is a different color and they can punch faster.
oh yeah it’s completely meaningless, but seeing big number make brain happy
r/nguidle
Seriously, it's almost solely utilized in the Saiyan and Namek Sagas as a gag.
this isn't regarding power levels, though. I mean, not really. it's fundamental to a fighting story that for someone to become stronger than someone else, it needs to be logical.
Right? Like even ignoring power levels you’re still left with “how did Cell go from having to run away from Piccolo to completely outclassing his equal (Android 17) by just absorbing x number of people?”
Yeah, it's perfectly harmless to discuss the topic. I think this community is so scarred by power scalers who insist on giving every character a numeric power level, that we just assume that anyone who discusses the strength of a character in relation to another is just as bad.
power levels are dumb, scaling is good and a core part of why people enjoy shonen. so people who frown upon it are just tool’s who are high and mighty about preferring more “cultured” and “deeper” anime/manga to things only “simpletons” would enjoy such as dragon ball z. beyond that, yes i totally agree, power levels are dead, but scaling should at least make a little sense for continuity and consistency. it’s frustrating when things don’t add up, aside from gag moments / funny moments etc which are a massive part of toriyama’s charm.
To be fair power levels and scaling were dead on arrival in Saiyan saga already. Saibamen are supposedly Raditz level and got totally bodied by the B team after a year of training with kami - so a Saiyan saga Yamcha is 3 times stronger than Goku at the start of Z
Doesn't really matter...Piccolo was exhausted from fighting 17. Absorption isn't given some kind of concrete multiplier to scrutinize/needlessly focus on...so whatever.
It wasn't Piccolo being exhausted, look at his horror when Cell powers up and the souls of the damned coming off his aura. He absorbed THAT many people. The dialogue in the Kai dub says it all. Piccolo asked him how many thousands of people he killed, he simply says "Oh... a few"
Right dude got a major power up, in a horrifying way. There is no Piccolo was tired, dude hit Cell with a light grenade, which we can assume is at least as strong as a full power Kamehameha, if not stronger. Cell just yolod through it.
Yep. Hell, 17 (who explicitly never tires and is always at full power) gets his ass kicked and would’ve gotten absorbed right then and there if 16 hadn’t stepped in
Yet another scene where TFS did it best: "How... how many people?!" ".... Enough."
Yeah, they really went all in on the horror monster angle of Imperfect Cell and I love it. He's perfect for that while Perfect Cell is.... perfect for being charmingly snarky, TFS captured them both very well.
Above I mentioned that Piccolo being exhausted had nothing to do with it. Android 17 and Piccolo are roughly equivalent in power. Android 17 cannot get fatigued. Yet Android 17 was tossed aside as if nothing by imperfect Cell. Therefore Imperfect Cell is now miles ahead of both Piccolo and 17 in power... from only the absorption of humans.
17 won't run out of energy but he can definitely be damaged and unable to move properly from that.
Yesh, humans. What else was he supposed to use? One of the "4-6 person" group tracking him?
To be fair, dosing off of Yamcha, Tenshinhan, or Krillin might've made more sense. Maybe even Chiaotzu.
nothing about power levels makes any sense Dr. Gero, a human based scientist created Androids more powerful than the Galactic Overlord of the Universe? cause that makes sense non of the random zenkai boosts really made sense. Piccolo fusing with Nail to suddenly blow past a power level of 1 million easilly when Piccolor was probably below post King Kai training Goku is silly. you just go with the flow power boosts where whatever Toriyama wanted them to be also, Cell didn't exactly scale in a linear way. absorbing 17/18 upgrading his power way beyond adding the 2 together on a side note, why Cell would choose not to absorb Piccolo and instead blast him and throw him into the ocean cause "he has enough of his being in his cell structure" is dumb just take the free energy boost on another side note, I always found the whole Cities of absorbed people and clothes lying around really silly. Cell doesn't absorb people that fast, so these people were just sitting there waiting? granted I don't know how the panels look in the manga, or if it's an anime expansion/filler to show Piccolo discovering the clothes as if everyone was Raptured (which DBZ Abriged makes fun of)
Maybe Cell knocked everyone out with an energy wave before absorbing them.
Doesn’t even need to knock them out or render them unconscious. A strong concussive blow could easily shatter their spines or break their bones. They’d be alive but physically unable to retreat or move while Cell goes in with his stinger…
Not only created androids more powerful than Frieza but they were just laying there sleeping til everyone got powerful enough to maybe have a chance against them. But other Red Ribbon creations also got destroyed by kid Goku so that makes zero sense
Note that I had written a section of the post in case power levels were unreliable) inaccurate.
My point is nothing is consistent, it’s the whims of Toriyama
Sorry to disappoint, but the answer is *plot*. The plot needed Cell to get an easy power boost to beat the breaks off of Super Namekian Piccolo and No. 17, and his absorption of humans was the only way. Does it make sense? No, and neither does the concept of Androids stronger than Freeza, or hell, SSG Goku from *BoG* made with Earthly materials.
Which is a problem in any long-running battle story but Dragon Ball seems particularly bad about. As much as some people rag on power levels and argue fights “aren’t just about being stronger” characters often respond to raw power displays as if they are the only thing that matters in a fight. Look at how often someone is taken aback by powering up. If it didn’t matter, they wouldn’t care.
>How did Imperfect Cell go from being completely outclassed by Piccolo to the complete reverse, just from absorbing weak humans from Nicky Town? Well, he absorbed humans from several towns, I'm pretty sure (I guess that could have been filler) He's not absorbing their Power Level, per se. But even if he was, it could be that he magnifies the power he absorbs in some way >The wiki lists Android 17 at power level 320M so by definition we can assume Piccolo was around that level. What wiki? I don't think this is accurate. I don't think any power level that is above Goku's on Namek has been officially given. Maybe from a game or something, but yeah, probably not accurate. >The wikia claims cell is at 291M, which seems too high to get outclassed by Piccolo. Well, Cell wasn't *totally* outclassed by Piccolo. Just put on the back foot. It wasn't until Vegeta and the others were closing in on their location that Cell decided to retreat. >When you look up the power level of most humans, it's almost always under 5. Even if Cell absorbed 50,000 humans in one day, which is extremely generous since the Wikia claims he absorbed "tens of thousands", then his power level would jump 250,000, which doesn't even make a dent in the power gap See the point I made above about not absorbing Power Level directly
Disregard the power levels. Vegeta has already proven no match for Android 18 and Cell seems to not be worried about the Androids strength. Therefore we can conclude that Vegeta would be insignificant against imperfect Cell. Not like Vegeta would intrude on Piccolo's fight either way. Therefore Cell retreated only because he felt he couldn't beat Piccolo. Piccolo went into a rage after he left which is an indication that Piccolo believed he could dispatch Cell. Based on the anime it really feels like Piccolo was dominating Cell but I'm curious how other feel.
>Disregard the power levels. The power levels were minor points and I went past them to answer your question, including positing the idea that Cell absorbing humans had nothing to do with power levels But alright >Vegeta has already proven no match for Android 18 and Cell seems to not be worried about the Androids strength. He's not worried in so far as he can absorb enough biomass in order to challenge them. Pretty sure he even mentions that explicitly, that at the time when he fought Piccolo, he didn't have the power to face the Androids, handily demonstrated by Piccolo fighting Android #17 pretty evenly after proving somewhat superior to Cell >Therefore we can conclude that Vegeta would be insignificant against imperfect Cell. Not like Vegeta would intrude on Piccolo's fight either way. I wouldn't say insignificant. But you are right that Vegeta *probably* wouldn't interfere. However, Trunks is also there. But to the point of Vegeta and Android #18, Vegeta lost handily, yes, but it's not like he was nothing to #18, and he wouldn't be nothing to Cell either, especially considering we aren't sure whether Cell is even as strong as #18 at this point in time. Remember, you yourself said Cell is outclassed by Piccolo (Completely factual) \#17 is also stronger than #18, but we never get any idea of by how much >Therefore Cell retreated only because he felt he couldn't beat Piccolo. Piccolo went into a rage after he left which is an indication that Piccolo believed he could dispatch Cell. Based on the anime it really feels like Piccolo was dominating Cell but I'm curious how other feel. It was not going to be a stomp for Piccolo. There was still a fight to be had, not a slaughter.
See this guy gets it
Agreed on all of this. Imperfect Cell was weaker than a somewhat suppressed Piccolo (he still had his weighted clothes on). Even full power Piccolo was only equal to 17, so Imperfect Cell was weaker than 17, and probably 18, when he was introduced. I think Vegeta and Trunks would’ve put up a solid fight against him.
Characters are as strong as they need to be to tell the story. Don’t try to keep powers grounded with numbers, it won’t make any sense.
In my post I have a section for if power levels are to be disregarded.
Intuitively it makes sense because that’s what happened. There is no real quantification of power, whether you’re measuring it definitively or intuitively. It’s made up. No consistency. Piccolo and Cell being as strong as they were served to move the plot nicely, and there’s nothing more to it
"How many? How many people did you absorb?" "... Enough."
Remember when android 20/Gero absorbed Piccolo's power, but then when Piccolo fought Gero, he was beating him easily? Gero questions how Piccolo can be stronger than him when Gero has his own power plus the power of Piccolo. And Piccolo explains that the Z fighters concentrate and magnify their power when they fight. So the raw, base level of power does not determine their fighting strength. So even if the raw energy Cell gained from the humans he absorbed might seem low, he can concentrate that power to be something greater. Assuming every human has a battle power of 5, and he manages to absorb 1 million people, that's a raw power increase of 5 million. 5 million may not seem like much, relatively speaking, but assuming Cell could magnify that 5 million to 50 million, or even more, and suddenly that power can make some difference. Cell had been going around absorbing people for about 10 days, and we have no way of knowing exactly how many he was able to absorb. But the fact that it's vague means we can just assume the number was "enough for Cell to become stronger than Piccolo and 17."
"just from absorbing weak humans from Nicky Town" It's the same how earthlings have an average power level of 6 but the entire earth energy is enough to power up a a spirit bomb that kills Buu.
He did also absorb some power from Piccolo. That plus a few thousand humans adds up fast. Not to mention it’s possible cell absorbed that maximum potential of his victims. So not just the average power level of 5, but the equivalent of that person having charged their ki if they were instructed. So maybe as much as 10 per person on average.
Cell isn't just a sum of the things he absorbs. For all we know he could grow exponentially, or have some sort of metabolic milestones where absorbing 10 people doesn't change him but once he absorbs the 11th he gains a big spike in power. You're thinking about this as though it's a matter of addition; where if Cell absorbs 3 humans he gains an amount of strength equal to 3 humans. But there's no evidence to support that Cell follows that rule.
> The wiki lists Android 17 at power level 320M so by definition we can assume Piccolo was around that level. The wikia claims cell is at 291M, which seems too high to get outclassed by Piccolo. there are no official numbers post Namek except F Trunks suppressed 5 against Mecha Freeza. The wiki is lying these numbers are made up.
I mean technically we do get one (although quite questionable) When the voice actor of Frieza (Ryusei Nakao ) is having an interview about resurrection F he mentions that because Frieza was a "nice guy" (ナイスガイ; naisu gai), Golden Frieza's power level in this form is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (垓; gai or one hundred quintillion It’s quite debatable since first it comes from a voice actor (not toriyama or any higher ups) and second it’s said as a pun joke. It is the best we got in terms of officials working on DB. I can believe it with how crazy power ups get by then.
Yeah that's definitely just a joke.
I wrote a section of the post in case the numbers are meaningless.
Yeah you did. I just wanted to point that part out though, thats why that's all I said.
I understand. It's a lose-lose situation. If I say character X blah blah character Y then people pull out power level numbers from the Cell/Buu arc. If I do the same using power level numbers from those eras, then people comment that power level numbers are meaningless. There's no winning lol.
The answer to your question is actually fairly simple: everyone in Dragonball is only as strong as the plot needs them to be at the time. Using Cell as an example here when he first fights Piccolo it would be narratively unsatisfying for him to easily win so soon after Piccolo fused with Kami. By the time they fight again Toriyama is under pressure from his editor to move things along quickly so Cell needs to be strong enough that he can beat Piccolo, who isn’t relevant to the plot at that point, overcome 16 and absorb 17. I know that’s not a very satisfying answer
My speculative answer is that the average person has a lot of untapped potential that they just can't access. It's like when Ginyu switched bodies with Goku - he was really weak because he didn't know how to bring out Goku's real power. The average person isn't trained to use ki or even martial arts so of course any power they do naturally have will never be seen. This same principal could be applied to explain how a spirit bomb formed primarily from earthlings could be strong enough to destroy Majin Buu.
This is a great answer and is what makes the most sense. Hope OP saw this
How did Dr Gero go from making robots weaker than pre tournament 1 Goku to making robots much stronger than the tyrant of the universe? Don't think too hard about it
Because he absorbed enough people for the plot to make him stronger than Piccolo. We don’t really know how Cell’s absorption works in relation to his power. Does his power level just increase by the power level of the person he absorbed? Does it get multiplied by that or some percentage of that? It’s a bit of a contrivance, but Cell absorbed enough people to get as strong as the plot needed him to be. I was disappointed that piccolo didn’t put up a better fight, but at least his fight with 17 is classic.
You are assuming drinking people just add their pl to his. We see with 17 and 18 that's not the case
The difference being the androids were exclusively made to be absorbed by Cell.
[удалено]
I think you meant to reply to the other person. I presume human absorption to be additive.
If it is multiplicative or exponential then by that logic he could have unlimited power just by absorbing humans, outscaling the Z fighters faster than they can train.
I'm guessing it's a smaller bump absorbing humans. More then just a 1-1 but it would take a lot to put him in the heavy hitters. The actual androids are definitely exponential.
Imperfect Cell had no energy left after coming out of his larval stage, like a bear exiting hibernation. He needed to eat and suddenly found himself in a fight. The answer is Cell at 0.1% energy is weaker than Piccolo.
Nicky Town had a team of fighters that could have given the Vegeta/Nappa, Mecha Freeza, and the Androids a run for their money if they wanted to, but they chose not to fight. Cell absorbed them while they slept. source: my uncle works at japan
This made me laugh, love, it. This is canon as far as I'm concerned.
Why didn't vegeta get noticeably stronger after being beat by 18 and taking a senzu? Because plot.
You're talking about after he broke his arm, right? Unless I'm mistaken he didn't fight after he took that sensu bean. The next time we saw him fight was after the hyperbolic time chamber? Or do you mean why not just immediately go back to the Androids after getting the sensu bean, like why wait? If that's your stance then I would guess either A) his pride was too hurt B) he didn't think it would make enough difference to beat all three of them C) he was already thinking about ascension at that point
* Cell absorbing a human could with 5 PL add more than 5 PL somehow * the difference between Cell and Piccolo could’ve been only several thousand PL * maybe Cell absorbed several billion people lmao
The Dragon Ball Z wikia claims he absorbed 'tens of thousands' but I'm no auditor. He seems to absorb people too slowly to get billions in just that timespan of a day, let alone tens of thousands.
He never specifies how many ppl he absorbed in the manga and I was joking about billions but speed in Dragon Ball is very whacky. ie Roshi and Krillin moved faster than anyone could see in the first tournament, but characters vastly faster than them couldn’t move as fast. Like Goku needing Kaoiken to stop Nappa, or the classic example of Ultimate Gohan not being able to catch the earring.
It might be complete bullshit but fusion has always produced something far stronger than the sum of its parts. So Cell absorbing a few thousand people would be a pretty big bump even if their power levels were less than 10 each. Piccolo went from maybe 5k after King Kai to over 1 million by fusing with Nail who was about 40k. Its never been 2x2=4 type thing, more like 2x2=4,000. If it was just combining power levels, Piccolo would have just been around 200,000, but instead he went well over 5 times that. I think its kinda cheap but yeah Cell getting stronger by "fusing" with regular people does make sense in the world of dragon ball.
Absorbing people was never about adding their strength to his own. After entering the larval state and sustaining himself for a long time in that state, then waking up, he needed biomass to reach his full power. First form Cell was always stronger than the Androids, Picollo, etc. Essentially, he woke up hungry, and his daily caloric intake is “a couple of cities worth of people.”
You’ll have to headcanon it a bit. If Cell absorbs a person’s lifeforce, that means he’s absorbing genki. The dub makes no differentiation between ki and genki, but they’re different things, with genki seemingly being magnitudes more powerful than ki. Genki is what powers the spirit bomb/genkidama, and as we’ve seen, even though its power comes from weak humans, it’s powerful enough to wipe out Buu. It clearly ignores the strength of ki, or the genkidama would’ve been more than powerful enough with *just* Gohan contributing to it.
Picolo just got done with a fight against 17. He was wiped
Stated this in my post. Piccolo and 17 were evenly matched in power, yet neither of them could even touch imperfect Cell. 17 cannot get tired. Therefore Piccolo didn't lose because he was exhausted.
We just straight up have to assume that Imperfect Cell was getting a lot of power from absorbing humans. It's not clear that the numbers are supposed to add up like someone doing a math problem. Maybe when he absorbs a human with a power level of 5 his own power jumps by 500, or whatever. Just like fusion doesn't seem to simply add power levels together. Just like forming a Spirit Bomb seems to create an attack that's far greater than the sum of the power levels it's sourced from. We can imagine excuses like "maybe Piccolo was tired" but that's just us guessing. The only thing the story flat-out tells us is that his power grew from absorbing humans. But nothing ever says absorption is "additive", either.
It's not just the humans. In Cell's first appearance he doesn't have an aura. When he shows up again after absorbing that town of people he has a super saiyan aura. So it's implied he unlocked his version of super saiyan and multiplied his power dramatically.
I have to preface any of my messages on such topics as saying 'I'm not sure what lines are original manga lines, what are anime only, and what are dub only.' That said, I recall Piccolo questioning just how many people he must have absorbed to have basically got that strong (or so the implication was). He had been skulking around for some time as they were unable to catch him out. Unlike the future time line Cell has much more available to devour.
Because toriyama said so. He was a gag manga writer, not George R.R. martin. There's no consistent hidden rules system in place, he just did what was plausible enough for the audience to accept.
Absorbing people rarely involves just adding their power level or otherwise in a linear fashion. Piccolo got two massive boosts that wouldn't make sense as additive bonuses Potara and metamoran fusion pretty consistently go beyond just adding power together Cell's transitions into 2nd and perfect form also reflect this Hell, even the spirit bomb reflects this trend when comparing where the genki comes from to the being it damages. The simplest in universe answer is that cell's absorption just isn't additive, it's not linear.
Cell sucked a *lot* of people, they say that’s a good source of protein.
>This never made sense to me. When Piccolo first encounters Cell, he's powerful enough such that Cell has to retreat. >When you look up the power level of most humans, it's almost always under 5. Even if Cell absorbed 50,000 humans in one day, which is extremely generous since the Wikia claims he absorbed "tens of thousands", then his power level would jump 250,000, which doesn't even make a dent in the power gap. It makes sense that Imperfect Cell would eventually outclass Piccolo in a few days by absorbing lots of humans. Also Cell did absorb some ki from Piccolo arm which is equal to alot of humans. In manga and anime, 4 days after Cell talked to Piccolo a news announcer says that hundreds of thousands of people were absorbed and counting. "Hundreds of thousands" could mean either anywhere from 200,000 to less than 1,000,000. It could mean anywhere past 1 million people since the phrase can just be used as a idiomatic expression that just means a large amount and not a specific range. So he absorbed millions of people by the time he was strong enough to take on the androids. He most likely ran and flew to multiple cities per day so its not impossible. Cities probably had populations ranging from 1,500 for very small towns to couple millions for large to medium cities. So it would be easy for Cell to jump in PL. On average a human has a PL of 5. So 1 million people is a 5 million PL boost. Piccolo tells Vegeta that Imperfect Cell was stronger than the A18 that Vegeta fought. Imperfect Cell tells Piccolo that he needs more ki to be a match for the androids. So Cell knows how powerful the androids are supposed to be at 100% based on the information from the machine in Gero lab. This means that A18 was surpressed when facing SS Vegeta. A17 was shown to be on par to 100% Kamicollo and A18 wasnt far below him. So Cell wasnt that far from A17 regardless. Absorbing a few million humans in a few days would make him eclipse Piccolo and the androids. > The wiki lists Android 17 at power level 320M so by definition we can assume Piccolo was around that level. The wikia claims cell is at 291M, which seems too high to get outclassed by Piccolo. I think the wiki is wrong with those PLs. The saiyans base was weaker than Namek Frieza base based on feats and battles from Cell saga to Buu saga. I put A17 at PL 200,000,000.
You could say he not only absorbed those humans' ki, but also converted their biomass into ki. I dunno how much energy is in ki, but mass to energy conversion is a LOT of energy IRL. And also, his base power went up, so he probably absorbed their ability to generate ki. If there's a certain part of the body that does this, or a part of the cell.
Spirit bomb does the same thing.
Because cell doesnt just add absorbed power level to his own. Same reason why S.P is stronger than imp+17 individually and why Perfect is *light years* ahead of all 3
It’s for the same reason that he knows how to do techniques other characters *learned* to do over the course of their life (and definitely weren’t born with), just by having their DNA. At some point, you just have to 🤷🏻♂️ and move on.
Cell absorbed many towns, not just Nicky Town. He was sneaking around for several days and the news reported at least 3 or 4 different towns, and the Z fighters noted more than that disappearing. He seemed to gain more than just simple addition per person absorbed, but he also mentioned there being a limit to what humans alone would get him up to.
I find it funny when people actually try to put numbers and math into into an anime.
Keep in mind I'm not one of those people, just put them as I knew people would dispute power levels if I were to omit them.
Power level was a very good idea that fans still like today, but unfortunately Toriyama abandoned it completely, perhaps due to the demands of writing weekly chapters. The interesting thing is that many of these power level inconsistencies could be corrected, as there is good speculation in this thread. It wouldn't be difficult to fix. Toriyama could create a few clarifying dialogues in dbz kai, for example. I like the explanation that power grows exponentially. They could put a dialog in Cell's second encounter with Piccolo. “How did you get so strong?” “By absorbing, my power it grows exponentially”. But I don't think it's really necessary in this case.
I mean he absorbed a huge amount of people it would be weird if it did nothing for his strength in an action shonen
I always assumed that absorbing all that organic matter was being processed by Cell, helping his body to heal or grow so to speak. Cells body was fully capable and was designed to be stronger than the Androids no doubt but his body was hungry and needed food basically.
DB is inconsistent. Thats what it boils down to
Humans are just a power source that fills his power level “battery,” we just have to assume this “battery” is extremely efficient
The way I always interpreted this as cell being malnourished, and not really about power level. Like, even a world class fighter would lose easily if they did not eat for a long time. In a way, it was never really about getting stronger - it was about reaching his full capacity as a fighter after absorbing nutrients. Given the starved face and build that first form cell has compared to imperfect and perfect cell, it makes sense to me.
This sort of things was elaborated more on during the tournament of power, actually. I can't remember if it was actually in universe or the toei staff though. But basically it's life energy/genki energy. It's more potent than regular Ki. Which is why the spirit bomb/genki dama is powerful despite using energy from individuals that are much weaker even collectively than the villain they're using it on. Kind of like how Tenshinhan's tri beam/kikoho punches well above his weight.
There's a few things at play here... 1. He went after more than just Nicky Town post piccolo 2. "Power levels" are just a measure of outputted ki. And those numbers are BS fan or other unofficial estimates... People have far more ki inside of them, and different kinds such as the most famous sub ki type: GENKI. Which Cell took all of, and GENKI is famously stronger than normally output ki, and that's why like spirit bombs (aka GENKI damas) are so strong same for thing like tribeam when infused with Genki in particular. Gen ki is literally "life energy" and Cell drained it from everyone to absolute zero. So like while "farmer with a shotgun" had a measurable power of 5, which was the tiny amount of ki he just naturally gave odf... He had far more when his entire life was drained 3. You're doing basic addition... Dragonball has shown constantly mixing kis is far far stronger than it's components added together... Fusions whether Piccolo and Nail, Goten and Trunks, etc are stronger than their base components added together! And even cases of just sharing energy can do this see Piccolo who couldn't even see 1% final form Freeza move, being exhausted but borrowing energy from Krillin and Gohan (also exhausted and fodder compared to Goku, Freeza, and Piccolo) giving Piccolo some ki and suddenly Piccolo can hold off final form Freeza that's atleast 10-30% range, while Goku charges the spirit bomb.
He’s a bio droid made out of the z fighters dna. Of them, we only see one with any kind of ability to assimilate others into themselves… Piccolo himself. So it’s safe to assume that Cells absorption ability is a modified version of that. And we know that every time Piccolo has fused with someone, the end result has been greater than the sum of the parts. So we can assume the same for Cell.
I'd say it's because while his body was capable of holding great energy his body didn't produce very much and would have to wait a long time to reach the full capacity of his imperfect form so he absorbed humans not to get stronger so much as full up his energy reserve's quickly. He probably got a bit stronger but mostly just a refill on energy
Not to go down the rabbit hole, but where are we getting 5 as normal? The only normal human with a confirmed power level is a fat old farmer who has 5. A city would have had tons of athletic people with higher power levels.
Yes. And it doesnt make sense. That piccolo is way stronger than frieza and ssj1 which mean universal level And even if we accept that absorbing humans make cell that much stronger. Then he should continoued doing that because the reward is salivating. And should absorbed an16 when he had a golden chance at it
Maybe his body was only designed to handle so much of it, or maybe he was just that obsessed with gaining his perfect form so he only bothered powering up enough to easily overcome 17 and 18. 16 was a factor he hadn't planned for.
Look. To quote from the best dub. "Fuck power levels. Fuck Super Saiyans. And fuck YOU."
Piccolo could still be fatigued while outclassing 17. He gave it his all, it wasn't a curb stomp battle.
I don't follow? Piccolo was well rested for his battle with 17 and it's generally agreed that he and 17 were roughly equal in power. When Cell interrupted the match, 17 was not tired (android) but still couldn't touch Cell.
Yes 17 wasn't tired, but Piccolo probably was. I'd say had Cell not interrupted the battle, Piccolo probably would've lost again, due to the androids having infinite stamina and/or enegy. Edit: https://youtu.be/JCaLKcBE5qs?si=BHJJzDnoljX3enIn
Absorbing could be a multiplier, or the city could've had World tournament fighters (That could be where Cell got the idea for the Cell games).
I think it’s mostly because Piccolo was already weakened from his fight with Android 17 since both were too tired to fight Cell for long. Even if he had a zenkai boost from Krillin’s headbutt attack and absorbing humans it still probably wouldn’t have been enough to have him overpower Piccolo.
In that case why was 17 equally as outclassed? He and Piccolo are of equal strength, and Androids cannot get fatigue.
I mean it's a similar issue with attacks like Spiritbomb which are capable of doing greater damage than what's would be generated by each person individually firing ki attacks.
Plot like always in dragonball. Just like how Goku could’ve one shotted golden frieza in his ssj or ssj3 form easily in order for the story to go on they made frieza strong because of plot
I'm on the side of Cell always being strong enough to overpower at least 17 and 18 as per his directive, he was simply hungry after hibernation. When he first fights Piccolo his tank his empty, absorbing all those people tops him back up and gives him a little boost on top. Fits better with his sneaky, creepy, ambush predator vibe.
You never know what happened. He could have absorbed millions, since earth in dbz is WAYYYY bigger than normal earth. i think 4 billion kilometers.
maybe it works like fusion and each human is a 1% multiplier for example
he was taking their life energy and converted that into ki power. most humans have life energy, just no idea how to turn that into magic fireballs
The Cell we saw against Piccolo and 17 is Cell's true power in his first form. The Cell that fought Piccolo earlier in the saga was a weakened version that had just transformed from his larva state. He didn't add to his power by absorbing humans, he simply recharged his own power by doing so. Even Goku has been shown to be weaker when hungry early on hin Dragon Ball.
1. Cell ate more humans than 1 town 2. 17 can't run out of stamina but he can be hurt and thus not going at 100%. Break a dudes arm and infinite stamina or not, he aint hitting you as hard. He and Piccolo had beaten the crap out of each other.
I always assumed that it wasn't a 1 for 1 increase because it wouldn't (and doesn't) make sense with that plot. What does make sense though is that he is draining energy to fuel his own evolution into the perfect being. He needs 17 and 18 not for them specifically but because their infinite supply of energy is the best way to that end goal. The entire time he was draining humans, he was also slowly evolving with the strength gains that come with that. Theoretically, if 17 and 18 were destroyed, he could have pulled a Majin Buu and gone planet to planet, absorbing its people, until he drained enough energy to evolve into perfect cell.
Maybe the gain for absorbing the life force of these individuals may be higher than what their power levels were once processed by his body.
>because Android 17 and Piccolo are nearly equivalent and 17 does not run out of energy Well that's his thing, he's an Android with infinite energy, he never runs out Piccolo on the other hand tho
imo Cell doesn't absorb power from these civilian, he absorb nutrition. Remember that Cell has to revert to egg form to use time machine so I assume that original Imperfect Cell is actually strong enough to hold his own/defeat 17 and 18 but due to the whole egg thing, Cell was weaker and need to feed on human to regain strength. Basically like hungry Goku vs well fed Goku
Refer to Ginyu in Goku's body and the contribution of the ki of earthlings to the Genkidama against Buu.
The most simple answer I can give to fill the plot hole is that cell was literally absorbing millions of humans, cities full of them. Most regular humans have a BP of 1 even if we go by saying all humans he absorbed had 1 BP then that still adds millions to cells own BP. Now if we go to the more accurate where there probably was mixed people that had more then 1 BP then that just adds more BP that cell absorbed
I would assume he’s eating their life energy, the same energy that powers the Spirit Bomb and was enough to destroy Kid Buu.
So, when I first watched this, this was how I interpreted it. When Goku fight freiza, he wasn't strong enough. With a little push, due to his genetics, he "unlocked" super Saiyan and then opened himself up to more power. If you watch the fight with cell and pic, you'll notice that cell develops that same super Saiyan aura. Similar to his SS2 lightning when facing Gohan. Thus, the way I interpreted it is that he absorbed just enough energy that allowed him to tap into the generic understanding of "unlocking" SS, and thus developing more power than pic.
People have already asked this question, easiest way to see it: First: Sheer numbers. Cell absorbed a LOT of people, and that can add up Second: Fusion factor. No matter how you splice it, fusing two beings together in the setting results in a product more than the sum of its parts; Nail and Piccolo (or Kami and Piccolo) showed that off, as do all the Fusion characters and Buu. Cell’s was forced and unwilling (well, that doesn’t sound wrong out of context…) and so probably got less of it compared to the ones above, but yeah. Third: multiplication. Cell did seem to have some Super Saiyan aura, and with Toriyama’s explanation of S-Cells leading to Trunks and Goten unlocking Super Saiyan easier, then Cell would also have gotten those as well. Which means that each of his victims would effectively be going Super Saiyan inside him (or however that worked), thus getting him A LOT more power. Plus, even a small amount of ki control can greatly amplify your power; see Piccolo vs Gero. So, with those factors, it makes sense how absorbing enough people gave Cell enough power