Does Fusion Really Make Goku and Vegeta Weaker? Why Screen Rant's Dragon Ball Argument Falls Apart

Screen Rant ran an article arguing that Goku and Vegeta's fusion actually makes them weaker, not stronger, and I think the argument does not hold up. The time limit on fusion is real, but in Dragon Ball the whole point of fusing has always been to beat an enemy the two Saiyans cannot beat on their own, and Dragon Ball Super: Broly, the very example the article leans on, proves it.

Screen Rant's case rests on the Zamasu fight from Dragon Ball Super manga chapter 23

The article was published on June 19, 2022, only a few weeks before I wrote this response, so it is not some old piece dug up from years ago. Its pitch is that while fusions are a good way to harness immense power in a quick burst, Goku and Vegeta prove they can actually make them weaker rather than stronger.

The writer builds that argument on Dragon Ball Super manga chapter 23, which came out back around 2017, roughly four or five years earlier. In that chapter Goku and Vegeta fight Zamasu as Vegito, something that also happened in the anime.

The argument goes like this. Goku and Vegeta only use the Potara earrings fusion against Zamasu, but the article says the Fusion Dance has the same weakness, which makes the whole practice of fusing almost not worth it. Fusions, the article says, are good for a burst of energy as a last resort, like when Goku and Vegeta need to become Gogeta to finish off Broly in Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Against someone like Zamasu, who cannot be taken out with a few ultra powerful attacks, the writer thinks it would have been better for them to attack one at a time while the other conserved energy, then use everything they had all at once.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly shows Gogeta is stronger than Goku and Vegeta apart

When I saw the article cite Dragon Ball Super: Broly, my first thought was that maybe the writer had never seen the movie. In that film, Goku and Vegeta are both in Super Saiyan Blue, more powerful than they were during the Trunks arc, and they fight Broly together. They hit him with a Galick Gun and Kamehameha combination, and Broly chews right through it.

Broly, by himself, manhandles the two of them to the point where Goku and Vegeta have to retreat. Goku then teaches Vegeta the fusion pose, they become Gogeta Blue, and Gogeta Blue is able to fight Broly without even being damaged. So how does that movie show Goku and Vegeta are stronger without fusing?

It never has. As I see it, "there is no version of goku vegeta individually that's more powerful than fusion," because if there were, why would anyone have come up with fusion to begin with?

Fusion has always been the answer when Goku and Vegeta cannot win one on one

If the article had said it might be better for them not to fuse because of the time limit drawback, I would agree with that. But when you are up against someone like Zamasu or Broly, someone you cannot beat one on one, you have to fuse. That is what they have always done historically.

Vegeta does not like fusing, and Goku does not really mind it, but they have done it a few times across Dragon Ball. That goes for the material Toriyama wrote and even the material he did not write, like Fusion Reborn, the twelfth movie, and GT. The principle is the same every time: we cannot beat this guy individually, but if we fuse, whether through the Potara or the Metamoran fusion, we are going to win.

Even young fans understand this better than the article does

Honestly, there are probably children reading this, kids around nine or ten years old, who understand this franchise better than the grown man who wrote it. It boggles my mind when I go on Twitter or Facebook and see an opinion from someone who is clearly an adult that lacks so much logic. And I am not talking about in depth power scaling debates, lore, or even misinformation. I am talking about surface level things that are clear as day.

I once saw a meme on Facebook asking who was more powerful, kid Goku from Dragon Ball or kid Gohan. Yet in the fourth episode of DBZ, the show states that kid Gohan is more powerful than adult Goku and has more potential. It is right there. If kid Gohan is stronger than Goku at the start of Z, he is obviously stronger than kid Goku from Dragon Ball. "This is not rocket science."

I watched these shows when I was 12. Many fans have followed this franchise since the Toonami days, when we were all kids of 10, 11, 12 or 13, sometimes even five, six and seven. This is not difficult to understand, yet articles like this get made without anyone thinking about whether they make sense.

The time limit is real, but it does not make Goku and Vegeta's fusion weaker

The rest of the article says the power levels of Goku and Vegeta have grown exponentially since their introductions, and that their fusion, especially when it taps into Super Saiyan God forms, is insanely powerful and has proven nearly unmatched by stronger opponents like Janemba and Broly. Then it argues that Goku and Vegeta are not really allowed to go all out while fused, for fear of cutting their time short and burning through their energy quickly, and that this proves fusion makes them weaker.

"It does not make them weaker." Yes, there is a time limit on fusion. We have known that for quite some time. But how does that make the fusion weaker? In the Zamasu fight, Goku and Vegeta had problems facing him individually, and once they became Vegito Blue they were able to fight him. I just do not understand the logic.

Why I see the headline as clickbait built for search engines

As I have said before, these articles are all the same, and a lot of the paragraphs are formatted the same way for a reason: SEO, search engine optimization. I do not know whether this writer was hired by Screen Rant or is a freelancer, but the format is always one, two or three pictures with four or five paragraphs and a title.

It would have been one thing to title the piece something like Goku and Vegeta's fusions have a time limit. The problem is that everybody already knows that. So the article gets a title that makes curious fans say, wait a minute, that is not true, and click in. By the time they start reading, Screen Rant's ads have already popped up and the writer has already made money.

To me, "it's literally the definition of the word click bait." They bait you either by making you think the writer has discovered some kind of secret, or by making you realize how weak the argument is. Either way, once you click in and realize it makes no sense, they already have your click.

I do not get mad at this anymore the way I used to, although some of it still irritates me. I do not know the writer, but I can tell what is happening here: it is a very cheap tactic to get clicks, because everybody knows that when someone fuses they get stronger, with or without the penalty of the fusion running out.

Do you think the time limit is ever a good enough reason for Goku and Vegeta to skip fusing, or is fusion always the right call against a villain they cannot beat alone?