Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot: does the 8% tail lore explain Broly?

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, the 2020 game developed by CyberConnect2, introduces several new pieces of lore about Saiyan tails. Some of it contradicts the original manga, some of it expands on it, and some of it is very weird. The game's explanation of why tails stop growing back somewhat explains why Broly has no tail by the end of Dragon Ball Super: Broly. The wording behind it, though, is poor enough that parts of it make no sense to me.

There has been plenty of controversy around Kakarot because Toriyama was involved in the creative process. Before getting into the tail material, that involvement needs some perspective.

Toriyama's involvement doesn't make Dragon Ball Z Kakarot canon

Kakarot already changed the story of Piccolo destroying the Moon. Many fans seem to think that because Toriyama helped out with the game, its content is somehow more canon or more important, and that it changes the original manga. That's not the case at all. Toriyama has helped make several games before, including Dragon Ball Heroes and Dragon Ball Online, and very few people consider those canon. In fact, it's close to impossible to think so.

The word canon is so overused in this fandom that it has caused a great deal of confusion. My view is that canon does not matter and has never mattered in Dragon Ball from day one. Outside of the original manga, everything else is extra. We also don't know exactly what Toriyama contributed to this game. We don't know whether any given idea was his or came from somebody at Bandai. We have no idea, so people need to stop putting so much stock in it.

Kakarot's 8% chance of a Saiyan tail growing back is brand new

The tail lore appears in the pages of the in-game book that tells you the story. It states that Vegeta and Gohan both appear as great apes at this point in the story and both lose their tails, making it the last time the great ape transformation is seen. That part is true to the original manga and the anime. In the original manga, we don't see the great ape form again after the Saiyan Saga. GT does not count when we're talking about the original manga.

The entry then says a Saiyan's tail has an 8% chance of growing back, but that it seems it will not grow back if the Saiyan's power exceeds that of the great ape transformation itself. That 8% figure is brand new. It has never been discussed in any of the material before, not in the anime and not in any of the guidebooks.

The 8% figure by itself isn't too strange. It has always been assumed that tails grow back whenever they grow back, and it seems to be a story point that Toriyama dropped. I would believe Toriyama did give them that number, because Toriyama makes up numbers as he goes along, which is something we've known about from various interviews with him. So that doesn't surprise me much.

Why the great ape power rule breaks the ten times multiplier

What I find very strange is the claim that once a Saiyan's power exceeds that of the great ape transformation, the tail won't grow back. The Oozaru transformation, the great ape form, is a multiplier, and it provides ten times the power you already have. Mathematically, this makes no sense. How can you exceed the power of a multiplier?

If your power level is a thousand, you'll be at 10,000 when you become a great ape. If your power level rises to 10,000, the multiplier takes you to 100,000. That's how multipliers have worked since the beginning of Dragon Ball. This isn't fan headcanon. It comes from statements Toriyama himself made in the past about how much power the transformations give, and the great ape has always been a ten times multiplier.

So if Vegeta had a thousand as a little kid, that multiplier never left him as he trained and became stronger. Vegeta and other Saiyans can become great apes from a very young age. Goku's power level at the beginning of Dragon Ball compared with near its end is astronomically different, and if he still had his tail, he should still be able to tap into that ten times multiplier. This is especially odd for Saiyans like Vegeta and Nappa, who have trained and learned to control their great ape forms since childhood. A ten times multiplier you get as a child means a lot more the stronger you get, and Vegeta obviously surpassed how strong he was as a child.

How Kakarot's tail lore could explain Broly's missing tail

My own perception of the idea behind it is this: when a Saiyan warrior internally hits a certain level of power, on a case by case basis, that warrior no longer needs to regrow the tail because the tail becomes obsolete. The wording is still very strange, but it does somewhat explain why Broly in Dragon Ball Super: Broly does not have a tail.

In some of the early promotion for Dragon Ball Super: Broly, there was an image of an icicle with a tail in it, meant to represent the movie's villain. We didn't know who it was at the time, and many people thought it would be Yamoshi. It turned out to be the new, rebooted Broly, and he had a tail there. Yet in the film, by the time we get to the battle with Broly closer to the end, he has no tail.

In a way, that does make sense. It's almost like the Saiyan body is prepping for Super Saiyan, prepping for a higher power, so the stronger you get, the more your tail regresses. That idea in itself still doesn't make sense, and the wording is very odd.

Kakarot's Goku entry says the tail won't return once a Saiyan is "as strong as Goku"

There's more game lore covering the secrets of Goku. It says that, being a Saiyan, Goku can transform into a great ape as long as he has his tail, and that Kami removed the tail to prevent him from ever transforming again. This ties back to Kakarot's change around Piccolo destroying the Moon, which I'd call either a story change or a contradiction, whichever you prefer.

The entry goes on to say there's still a small chance the tail will eventually grow back, though it seems it won't if a Saiyan becomes as strong as Goku. That's very weird, because "as strong as Goku" is subjective. Goku's power changes as the series goes on. Which Goku are we talking about, the one from the Piccolo fight or the one from the Vegeta fight? It doesn't elaborate.

Toriyama's 2003 Shonen Jump interview on Saiyan tails

There is a connection to something Toriyama did state. In a Shonen Jump USA interview from January 2003, Toriyama was asked what happened to Vegeta's tail after he was defeated on Earth. He wrote that "the tail lets you gain tremendous strength instantly by transforming into a great ape but the risks are equally great." He added that once you're as powerful as Vegeta and Goku, "the tail just gets in the way," and that it is thought the bodies of Saiyans, as a fighting species, decide their tails are unnecessary appendages.

So we know that as the series progresses, tails become less and less important. The only weird part is how Kakarot words it. It reads as though a Saiyan has to surpass the initial ten times multiplier from birth, in which case Vegeta and Goku would have done that during childhood. Even at the start of Dragon Ball, Goku was stronger than when he was born, because he wasn't a baby anymore. He was a martial artist who trained with his grandfather, Grandpa Gohan, and then with Roshi as the series progressed. Goku surpassed himself who knows how many times.

I'm wondering whether something was lost in translation, or possibly something wasn't stated eloquently, because part of this makes no sense. But the idea that Saiyans and their tails become less important as they get older and stronger has always made sense to me.

Goten and Trunks have no tails for a different reason

The case of Goten and Trunks is separate. Toriyama was already interviewed about this, and he said tails are a recessive trait and that most Saiyan hybrid babies do not get tails. It's not because Toriyama forgot. They simply weren't born with tails, and that remains the original explanation for them.

Kakarot's new lore makes more sense for characters like Broly, Goku and Vegeta deeper into the series. Part of it holds up and part of it is odd.