Dragon Ball Super Tournament of Power 2nd elimination post

Before I start, I will immediately predict an effort to ninja me with a prediction that I would say stuff. Ya know, because I did say that I would have so much to say about U10. Yes, I'm being meta, and isn't that going to fit with the key themes of the post.

With all due respect to the casualties of Universe 10 who simply got caught in the crossfire of divinity-related politics, especially the likes of Obuni, Gowas, and, to a given extent, Zamus, I must post this as my response to Universe 10 placing low:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs

Despite how Obuni is an even further show of how versatile and ruthless the All King duo's Erase technique is that it will even erase mementos; as somebody who would want welcome messages, I'm absolutely ecstatic now that Universe 10 has been eliminated, and early at that. If I hadn't already seen what happens via the sub, which of course allows me to pre-type this, I'd have been worried before now that they'd last longer than I'd like, what with one of the previous arcs having its villain be a rogue Creator apprentice who served as proof of how it takes all types and yet he still had valid points, no matter how easily he went too far with them. Okay, so I know Universe 10 was going to be routed second beforehand, and I'm not intending to downplay Obuni's backstory anyway--if anything, that's going to help punctuate some of my points. What doesn't change is the message of how the body at all costs mentality does not pay off.

Oh, and make sure your bodies, minds, and hearts are ready, guys, because this being commentary about Universe 10, this is going to be VERY long. I myself am even going to need to get ready before I talk about the figurative, not even literal, elephant in the room. Oh, and due to this post's length, if you want and you've seen the sub, you can check to make sure I don't provide any post-103 spoilers if you're that worried I do anything that isn't simple, hopefully subtle enough foreshadowing.

First of all, did you catch on how Universe 10 had not scored a SINGLE KO? Granted, Universes 3, 4, and 11 haven't either, or at least not yet, but they are still standing with more opportunity to ring out somebody, and meanwhile, this also contrasts Universe 9 having obtained a KO. With that in mind, I can live with them not having been taken out first, not least because Universe 9 is darwinistic in its own right. It's the individual watcher's call whether being taken out first or failing to score any KOs is worse, but with the context provided by Universe 10, I say the latter is the bigger disgrace for them. First off, that one KO Universe 9 obtained, was against one of Universe 10's TWO fliers. Considering the ONE way to defeat opponents legally in the Tournament of Power is ring out, this is flagrant, and good Heavens will I get to that. More importantly, however, Universe 10 is called the Macho Universe for a reason, and to see their emphasis on the body fail to amount to getting any KOs while most of their fighters fell in shameful ways, means that they have been proven absolutely wrong.

This does bring up that my post on Universe 10 in general could very well have some active bias because of one thing: my Squishy Wizard status. I mentioned that briefly in the middle of my condemnation of California's alarmingly hedonistic lifestyle during the Universe 9 elimination length post, to make a point that California doesn't genuinely give a rat's heinie about supporting its underdogs, especially when if it did, there wouldn't be so many homeless. May I further point out that California cares more about the body than the mind or the heart, just like what Universe 10 does, and that's obviously fuel for the fire that is how people might claim I'm just being "salty" (and yes, that term is still stupid as ever) about the way California has treated people like me. Let me tell you right now that how I would feel doesn't change that both California and Universe 10 overfocus on one of those three traits, exactly the same sort of problem I complained about with darwinism back with [URL=https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/c-c-dragon-ball-super-ah-the-uncertainty-a-universe-despairs-2-16.5724921/post-86954812]the Universe 9 elimination length post[/URL], and while it is definitely possible to overfocus on ANY of the 3 traits, doing it with the body is sure to yield the worst results.

When you care only about the body, the question is, where is the variety? As I said before, variety is life, but if you care only about the body, even if you COULD overcome every challenge, what would be the entertainment value? Brute forcing everything in sight doesn't foster variety in the least. The whole point of the underdog business is to show how to overcome problems without relying on some easy way out. Now I will say that I advocate melee combat in games rewarding methodical gameplay, certainly when you can get to see things like [URL=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXaA4gOfmmE&t=1h34m30s]this match[/URL] happen. Thing is, the key point would be to show the difference between bravery and fearlessness: fearlessness is simply an absence of fear, but bravery is a mastery of it to the point where the fear doesn't keep the person from doing the right thing. Take a wild guess which one is more appealing.

It's not like the bravery point is the only one I have for fostering the mind and the heart. [URL=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-CdwsgS4Pg]This[/URL] involves a character choice (of sorts) in Kid Icarus Uprising that happens to be a Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid. There are already active checks to that character choice to mow down mindless melee even when the distance is closed, when the Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid in *ANY* game already has the problem of having to close distance on opponents within the absolutely wanting mobility. I still like the checks when they don't get out of hand, not least when their mere existence just serve to punctuate players like me who overcome the adversity as awesome. And really, that's the key point: that the game has the Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid want to use technical gameplay but ultimately get their promised results in success, on a setup you could expect would say "mash A to win." You see how I like a game better when it signals that body advantages aren't going to be everything at all despite the pace? Imagine if I got rewarded for mid-battle analysis in fast-paced multiplayer with intel capable of deciding a game. Oh, and by the way, I gush about Phosphora's EX Attack having 2 of its blind spots indicated by the trees in the background for involving Gameplay And Story Integration.

See how much of a problem it is when things like frame-perfection are demanded to the point where you'd have to have that down or else you'd apparently suck at the game forever? Sure some games and other such things are MEANT to be shallow, but those things are meant to be enjoyed without too high of expectations. This is how Dragon Ball gets viewed in its writing by people out there, by the way, what with how it has Goku be a sort of Showy Invincible Hero getting by on body and heart. Of course, the expectations level does finally bring me to the very guy who called Planet Babari "no outlier" in a statement that we have seen backed by plenty of evidence from other sources, even if that guy went about addressing it horribly wrong.

Yep. To get to the character warranting a definite amount of this length post, I'm pointing to Zamus.

Some time back, I had seen people provide an Alternate Character Interpretation of Zamus that he was always a sadist looking for an excuse and that's why he targeted the Future Trunks timeline specifically instead of the more prime Cell timeline, to exercise his power on the "sinners." He didn't even need that much to be a Complete Monster, but no matter what his real motivation was, I think he was ultimately an impetuous youth trying to be enforcer even when the lack of compassion he had being an enforcer became increasingly obvious. His interest was making sure us mortals would stop misusing God-given gifts on being barbarians and warmongers, even before dealing with Goku coming across as a freaking tourist, and there are signs that he's actually a nature lover such as his nature-side house--of course, that does make him a Shadow Archetype to Android 16, who loved nature enough to say as much as his Catch Phrase in that Cell Saga In 5 Minutes video; as well as Android 17 from what we have seen so far with how 17 had become a park ranger fighting against poachers. The difference, however, is that the Androids have a respect to life, with 16 being willing to help allies and only wanting to kill an enemy, attempting to self-destruct in the process, because said enemy was irredeemable and too dangerous; while 17 as the park ranger will even avoid killing enemies unnecessarily without need of convincing.

I think what the Androids understand, that Zamus didn't, is subtlety, which is ironically a basic concept for nature lovers and proactive deities alike, check and check for Zamus. Zamus himself did point out that gardens are tended, not just watched. His interest was in plucking the weeds, even if his definition of "weeds" got a little too loose for its own good, but what, or rather who, would make sure the flowers themselves don't have stunted growth, quite possibly from burnout? I know Project Zero Mortal wouldn't exactly have been birthed by a patient caretaker. I imagine Zamus must have been thinking there was too many chefs in the kitchen, but that brings up the proactive deity side of things. There is a saying: God works in mysterious ways. If Zamus had learned that saying early on, could he have considered looking for Good Is Not Dumb to foster and end up seeing that notion get spread from the inspiration?

I don't know, maybe I'm just being idealistic. I do have concerns when Zamus is going to come across as a strawman. To be sure, Dragon Ball has ALWAYS been calling out intellectualism for its own sake, with Bulma Briefs herself having been introduced in a selfish phase of wanting to get the Dragon Balls for luxury (specifically, a boyfriend) while already being rich--of course, she does ultimately mean well. What makes Zamus a special case compared to other DB villains like Commander Red, Freeza, Dr. Gero, and Babidi is that he does have actual philosophy, even if he becomes twisted into something incredibly vile. It provides the feeling that Dragon Ball is knocking on the door. It's not like Zamus fails the Villain Has A Point trope's aspect of having valid points: even in-universe, Freeza exists, Dr. Gero is willing to create malicious killers over a ~15 year nursed grudge about an already malicious army, Commander Red commandeered the aforementioned army in a bid to make a wish to gain physical height, and Bibidi and Babidi manipulated Buu into destroying so many lives; while the divinity indicates wanting to do too little to address mortals misusing their wisdom like that. His problems was thinking that *ALL* mortals are like the Babarians. I wouldn't be surpised if Goku's first impression to Zamus being a lot better than being a flanderized Blood Knight would have made clear an example of a Saiyan who does indeed care about the innocent rather than only the thrill of combat, the latter idea having lead the clear majority of U7 Saiyans to being followers of a planet broker company head in the first place. Granted, this does point that Zamus is ultimately a tad racist anyway, but that goes back to my concerns about strawman shenanigans that led to Zamus increasingly degenerating into being barely ANY different from the Babarians themselves, and what I'm indicating with that is that when you're a writer, you don't want to be outright uncaring about the mind or the heart just to see a little power from the body. I'm sure I can say more about the intelligence aspect in general, beyond anything else I would need to say, once Universe 3 is eliminated, providing they don't pull some Darkhorse Victory on the entire tournament.

So of course, Zamus made his own choices and deserves no shortage of the blame for the problems he caused. This doesn't change that he was still in the Villain Corner, and Universe 10 actually provides a LOT of suggestion as to why--I imagine Zamus kept muttering to himself about being Surrounded By Idiots. Let's start with U10's team composition. Who is most likely the only U10 team member you'll remember for competence? Obuni, because he mixed in Confusion Fu and fought for his family, the latter of which shook Gohan (himself a family man) especially when taking out Obuni is what finished off Universe 10, and Obuni, his family, and even the dropped Fatal Family Photo with it. Right there, Obuni was not only proof positive that Zamus thinking to tar all mortals with the same brush was innately wrong, but also did it by having an actual union of body, mind, and heart. This, however, only made Obuni, unlike Planet Babari, an outlier; Universe 10's other fighters each lacked at least one of the other aspects, resulting in a mix of sadists, idiots, and rejects.

Team Universe 10's fatal flaw, stemming from their brawn favoritism, was their general dearth of both competent enough duelists and viable teamwork. Team Universe 9 already had problems with duelist ability, but with Universe 10, it's even more outlined among the lesser fighters via their clearer traits. Lilibeu and Jium are the most blatant, as show that Universe 10 has TWO natural fliers in their team, and the flying ability gets wasted on the fighters themselves, with Lilibeu not taking much pressure to forget that she could fly, earning her the first elimination of the tournament, while Jium tried to melee rush multiple fighters thinking this is Super Smash Bros. where Fragile Speedsters are favored thanks to poorly checked flinching, and actually, the performance of Jium and even Obuni, the latter to a lesser degree to be sure, are a reminder to anybody who thinks to rely on the body that there can be equally strong threats or perhaps moreso, except they can be equipped with a brain as well and won't succumb to the Peltzman Effect, because they will realize that they're not invincible and they have to consider maneuvers. Obuni's competence even ended up punctuating this when Gohan's counter to his method of illusions was to tank given hits and counterattack off of them--I have used that tactic repeatedly in Kid Icarus Uprising's multiplayer to useful effect, comes with the territory for an armor club build, but if you don't get my praise about Gohan using it, it's because getting hit means taking the damage in the first place, so you'd have to make sure you're trading well enough, as the show highlighted. Ergo, Gohan had the body to withstand the hits, the mind to juggle his options, and the heart to shake off the clear weaknesses. Universe 10 suffered because they didn't consider possibilities like this, up to and including tactics you'd even expect them to be familiar with.

I will even point to Battalion Wars 1's Wake Up Call Level, Titans of Tundra. That level's basic concept is to defeat several megaton heavy-hitters with just a moderate force of budget units, and the level isn't slow to show how the Heavy Tanks, the aforementioned heavy-hitters, hit hard and will successfully counterattack swarming with splash damage against your infantry. What really sells it, though, is that the enemy CO is shown through the level's design to be smart enough to provide the Heavy Tanks with auxiliary support, with even the first one having Bazooka Vet support that very well expects to flank the player-controlled Light Tank, then right past the first one is Grunts and Gunships aiming to cripple your anti-armor before they can take out any more Heavy Tanks, and a couple of the Heavy Tanks are even near each other and Flame Vet support that can fricassee your more evasive units. The answer to a high rank run of the level is to organize your units to continually position them with a solid balance of offense for keeping your anti-armor pressure marching, and defense for making sure your units don't get vaporized against the enemy's organization. Further punctuating my point is that Battalion Wars is, yes, real time, and it's even often favorable to directly control a frontliner unit who expects to handle the brunt of the heat in order to issue unit commands more efficiently as well as draw fire away from the AI allies who won't have the human player's adaptability for dodging.

I provide that level example to showcase how both sides can have the unity of body, mind, and heart, and how teamwork works as an equalizer against an individual having that unity. The Tournament of Power is designed to encourage teamwork, something Gohan caught onto, and something Universe 9 even tried to make use of with the Trio De Dangers, but Universe 10's Last Stand is basically with a singular fighter. I'll say what I want about a disregard to an individual's ability, especially because a team of more competent individuals could always provide each other both ideas to mix in for a general plan, and personal touches catching blatant blind spots. Even then, even when you are the strongest, that just brings up how you do better not discounting your auxiliary support. Universe 10 had multiple natural fliers, and look what happened with that bloodbath. I barely give them credit for having natural fliers in a ring-out condition battle royale BTW, even though Universe 7 didn't, because controlled flying is something a 5YO could come up with, and natural flier contenders ends up just being more flash for Universe 10, without the actual fighters having substance, even giving overly long, pretentious naming to things like SUMO. (Thanks for pointing that particular point out, NobodyMan.) There is a reason why Universe 10 had failed to score ANY KOs and are now out.

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Why was Universe 10's team composition allowed to become such a mess? You can't very well blame that on Zamus; he's long neutralized, and furthermore, he has had a regard to finesse before his eventual degregation if Goku Black having the Super Saiyan Rose form was any indication, so even if he was still around, I wouldn't be surprised if he, providing he cooperated of course, would have put the fighters and/or fighter choices under active scrutiny with a check for more working intelligence. The only thing he did to any effect relevant to the team member choice was give Gowas reason for trauma and indecision. I need to talk about Gowas anyway because he, as Zamus's former master, had the most screen time among the 3 top deities of Universe 10, and besides, I'm still needing to talk about what has had Zamus in the Villain Corner anyway, not to mention that if Zamus is a Lucifer analogue, there's also the point about how stories like to point out that the devil tends to draw their strength from when evil and/or gross incompetence is too prevalent in others to begin with.

Now let me provide the honey before the hatchet, so to speak, not least because Gowas does definitely deserve that much: Gowas was genuine about being a Creator, in that he kept an active regard to life, even wanting to keep any killing tasks up to the Destroyer. He also talked with Zamus about philosophy, and showed indication that philosophy wouldn't be that if it was simple. Of course, that's where Gowas could have stood to be more mindful about his own teachings: he started to provide points about how evil informs good, that it is necessary to make sure there is working balance. If you think those sorts of teachings could speak for itself, try teaching that to a kid. As somebody whose forte is game balance, I can tell you that the mere point of game balance is to account for kids being capricious, moreso when they show interest in video games to begin with. Kids are going to be more likely to follow simple concepts. I'm not saying Zamus should, or even would, welcome patronizing either, but he did call justice a weapon, which any kid would; rather than the scale that Gowas rightfully points it out as. It shouldn't come as a surprise when Zamus misinterprets the whole thing.

It can be pointed out that there is a line between being proactive and being ambitious, and Zamus, being the Lucifer analogue that he is, crossed that line with the efforts he made toward Project Zero Mortal. Here is my question, though: why couldn't Gowas come up with something to help Zamus with addressing the barbarians and warmongers in a much cleaner manner? I can't see calling for a meeting to bring Zamus with him to at least get advice for Zamus be unreasonable. I doubt there would have been any guarantees now that I remember that Zamus already proved himself able to Universe-jump to visit Zuno, not to mention how GodTube exists and Zamus showed familiarity with it, both further showing Zamus to be independent enough when Universes 2 and 3 exist, but Gowas still took him on as an apprentice, a sort of surrogate son, and still got dismissive about Zamus's attitude about how The Gods Must Be Lazy, even when Beerus and Whis paid Gowas a second visit asking if Zamus was talking about justice. I mean sure, he's saying that Creators shouldn't interfere with mortal affairs, and he has a point, although subtle: we learn better when we do and then see it work against more heightened adversity. A divine figure just paving the way for us would only help for the short term, instead of letting us mortals show creativity and virtue that could even be put to use by the divinity as they so wish. Still, when the barbarians and warlords flourish and challenging them becomes too much for ANY creativity to punch through, least of all without something too degenerate, divine intervention would be absolutely welcome, and even if it is kept nuanced, as long as it provides an opportunity to end the reign of the barbarians and warlords, that's a lot better than the divinity overthinking the balance between good and evil. Zamus was calling that out, really, even if, again, he went too far with it; and Gowas ignored warning signs, and incidentally, Zamus had asked him if he was watching totally-not-YouTube "again" just before seeing the totally-not-YouTube showing of Goku VS Hit because Gowas was watching it.

Oh yeah, and Gowas decided putting Zamus under a messy Secret Test Of Character that involved letting a guy acting like a tourist get his wish of sparring with Zamus was a bright idea. Even if Zamus was messed up from the start, I'd expect a sagacious old man would know better than to fail to double check to make sure an idea would avoid making things worse. Gowas, I know how the Secret Test Of Character plays out from personal experience issuing STOCs myself: even if you are thinking about the long term interest of the other party, the STOC can scream arrogance on your part, regardless of the other party's own failings.

Zamus isn't the only one who ultimately went by half-measures, and this goes to show how compared to Zamus's ambition, Gowas, while a definite Woobie who at least recognized that he failed Zamus as much as Zamus failed himself, had done so via the exact opposite problem of not being proactive in general, long before he had concerns of choosing anybody like Zamus for Universe 10's team.

This naturally brings up the next member of the Universe 10 divinity, and further evidence of how it was too unlikely Zamus could have just went to another member of the divinity to provide his complaints. Rumoosh is somebody I just plain don't have much in the way of mercy toward. He did at least Face Death With Dignity like Gowas and the whole U10 team did, but that's the extent of my reason for having any mercy toward his character. He doesn't have nearly as much screen time as Gowas, but good heavens is what he provides with his appearances a gold mine of censure toward Universe 10's general thought process, even without ANY indication that he's lazy, not even just intellectually either, which as you'll see would double as showing Zamus to not be Universe 10's only pot; and believe me, Rumoosh's behavior would be enough to get Universe 10 a significant length post even before Zamus and his playing critic, overboard one or not, gets involved in the mess. Don't believe me? Take a look at the way I had structured the first portion of this very length post as it is, especially once I am done with deconstructing Rumoosh. It makes me so glad I had waited to talk about Zamus in this bloodbath.

What does this have to do with Rumoosh? Let's review the scene where Universe 10 was arranging their team. Gowas was trying to figure out how to decide team members, but panicked at the mere thought of including somebody who would turn out like Zamus did, and then Rumoosh comes in letting Gowas know that he overthinks, and that he should learn to think with his body, not his head. Rumoosh, with Koos's bouyant help--and by the way, despite Koos not being nasty at all, will I have stuff to say about HER--then has his handpicked members for U10 display his points, while Rumoosh and Koos talk about how they're going all out with the muscle because Gowas's mind has failed. Gowas, with no choice, just opts to go along with it and let the U10 team know that he's counting on them, only to get interrupted by the prominent member at the time, Murichim, because Murichim realized it was time for the U10 team to all drink some protein shakes, simultaneously at that, with the interest of maintaining their brawny bodies, to Gowas's clear resignation.

I already mentioned how Universe 10's team was full of sadists, idiots, and rejects, and it was bad enough to have me gloss over Murichim as well as the other members not named Obuni, Lilibeu, or Jium, the latter 2 standing out for being abject, useless failures about their natural flier status, so let's rewind to Rumoosh talking about Gowas overthinking. Once again, I start with the positive, because a point about how overthinking can be problematic is good. If you overthink stuff, even if it does get you anywhere in the short term, what about other skills, or even virtue itself? Why subject yourself to Crippling Overspecialization? If you don't need to worry about duty and whatnot, there's a big world out there full of variety. Variety that isn't going to be enjoyed with a specific skillset.

Of course, this point is twofold, because the variety can be enjoyed more with sound intelligence, which is why Rumoosh's point ends up falling apart. More intelligence means coming up with more new things to try out or especially streamlining ideas, instead of being stuck with the same old boring, monotonous stuff. Tropes are kept interesting by how they can be shown as versatile, even when the tropes themselves already indicate the versatility of life in their own right. Did you know for example that Light Is Not Good and Pure Is Not Good are old tropes? And they are proven as such by none other than classical Lucifer himself. Anyway, Rumoosh's belief that the muscles should do all the thinking has the problem that that's what anybody can simply do as it is, and people learn to do otherwise because variety is not only efficient AND fun, but also challenging.

Really, with Rumoosh, I expect if I were to tell him about this novel concept called "flanking", it would blow his mind completely, long before I ever so much as mutter the term "Grid Reading" in reference to that meta mechanic from Kid Icarus Uprising. Let me tell you a bit about Grid Reading, because while it has its flaws, it involves proof positive of valid points the length post is going for. For starters, I figured it out when trying to make the game's local Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid work out against the obvious answer of kiting them out, using it to accommodate this power called Black Hole that allows for summoning (natch) a black hole to vacuum opponents into place for hitting them with close range burst damage--what a coincidence that's exactly what the Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid specializes in. And what it involves is keeping track of the opponent's used Powers to determine how they would fit onto their Power Grid and work from there. I could go into further detail than what I will here, but I think it'd be MUCH more fitting to save that for Universe 3's own length post, again providing they don't get first place somehow. I bring up Grid Reading because even though it does have a memorization aspect and does prove rather mechanical, its meat lies in having to be done in the middle of a match where you do have to worry about the opponent layering pressure, and remember that Kid Icarus Uprising is fast-paced as well. May I provide the random pairup matches starting [URL=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEGo1hIizyY&t=1h5m12s]here[/URL] (language warning) where I have the standing out opponent's Power Grid deciphered after 2 matches, and even within the first match, I just plain capitalized upon Energy Charge suffocating 1 center space per level (suffocate, not quite use, which is what was confusing my Grid Reading effort due to the Homing Boost usage), definitely something more advanced than the stepping stone Grid Reading of Line Powers such as Bumblebee immediately contradicting the full row and column powers, notably Trade-Off, Aries Armor, and leveled Slip Shot.

My main point there, is the concept of variety juggling. I recall it's said that the brain uses more calories than any other organ in the body, correct me if I'm wrong. I imagine that would partly be because the rest of the body is holding it on top if one is standing, but also, I want to say muscles involve getting stronger simply through active movement. Variety juggling means that the mind is jumping between brain cells in an effort to get quite possibly unrelated concepts going in a coordinated effort. Now of course, people could point out that yeah, there are different muscles too and that's what happens with the protein shakes, but the body provides its own defense and thus a well built one can afford to take more hits. A well built mind isn't enough to allow for shaking off a bad situation without clear effort, which actually further punctuates what makes mid-battle analysis to useful effect impressive.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and even in our respective fortes, there is always bound to be something to keep each of us from being completely dominant, never mind when particularly active competition gets involved. I can say my sense of game balance has definite structure, but even then, that structure has to support something, and I can even miss obvious ideas--it was actually when writing this when I realized that flanking is (at least meant to be) the bane of the manual unit in Battalion Wars, something I should have figured out in light of wanting to make a Spiritual Successor of sorts what with flanking being something that strategy games welcome, the best manual unit choices in Battalion Wars generally being frontliners, things like that. This actually indicates that awareness bolsters creativity, something I've been pretty much saying for years, but I'm better realizing it now.

You want to know what I really realize, and what I suspect is the truth behind the truth that Gowas was trying to teach to Zamus?

That enlightenment is ever continuing.

(And yes, guys, this is the project where I figured that out.)

There's always new concepts, and there's always new ways to put together those concepts. When we become adept at something, we do it with the most minimal of effort, the most minimal of thought. Becoming better at it requires that we give it thought to have further ideas about it or have comprehension of what happens, but that's where things get complicated, because we would want to make sure we can do it with casual effort for when we would need or really want to, when an amateur mistake at the worst possible moment could spell disaster. Obviously, the trick is to find a balance between the two. The empty mind mindset can definitely help by allowing for mental focus on other aspects, and that's good, but a heavy reliance on it can definitely result in stagnation-induced burnout.

How much does Rumoosh understand about any of this? Heck if I know, but I know he should have considered his competition. I already pointed out about Titans of Tundra in Battalion Wars and all that stage implies, but ironically, I actually missed points about Goku himself until getting to writing Rumoosh's portion of the length post, when I decided to review the Universe 10 team member selection scene, and came across this nice little gem in the comments for the Sub version's video:
"That elephant is an idiot, yeah why not pick 10 mindless muscle-heads who can't even think about a strategy against folks who are close to defeat even gods."
Let me further add to that with how Goku, Keet that he is, had made his Blood Knight status absolutely clear to all of the pantheon, and had provided the tournament suggestion to our prince friend in the first place. With how Goku is able to fight absolutely ferociously to effect, demonstrated in his match against Bergamo, why does Rumoosh think that more brute force is going to answer a dangerous fighter who wants the thrill of battle? If you think you can say Rumoosh could have expected results from superior numbers, there's also the point that Goku is a combat specialist and there's no way Rumoosh could be sure of less. What, was Team Universe 10 going to swarm everybody in their way? For all Rumoosh knew, Goku could have had answers to that even without spraying them with cluster punishment, and that's if Goku was isolated AND the only threat. And really, it's telling when only one fighter, Gohan, was needed to bring down their trump card Obuni. Rumoosh in general was full of hubris to assume that anybody was failing to be even half as capable of brute force as Team Universe 10, especially when what we saw of Obuni suggested a cavalry type to Gohan deciding to go heavy infantryman in response, and once they were inevitably proven wrong, they were just 160% dead.

Perhaps Rumoosh should have paid more attention at the Exhibition Matches, but oh wait, when Vados mentioned in the Destroyer meeting about how Goku gave the participating Universes a chance at a reprieve, he followed Sidra's response about Goku's manners. I'd be granting that manners are something more people should have, but the focus on Goku being informal, over how he gave the All King duo a better idea than just erasing the participating Universes on the spot, is the definition of Skewed Priorities. Goku did get needlessly cavalier about the whole thing and coming up with the tournament idea wasn't him having directly in mind to save any of the participating Universes, but nothing is saying he doesn't care about them, even without the desire to fight more strong warriors, and besides which, it was our prince friend who came up with erasing the participating Universes at all to begin with. But, ah right, details are a little difficult for Rumoosh to grasp, especially when we get an idea, although unconfirmed, of his criteria for destruction in that intelligence takes a clear backseat for survival requisites, ignoring that that asks for repeats of Planet Babari in its own failure to evolve well in a span of millenia. All this because at best, Rumoosh's energy runs ahead of his mind.

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Speaking of energy running ahead of mind, the final member of the Universe 10 divinity, Koos, ends up being further indication of why Zamus couldn't just ticket the whole body emphasis mess to ANY of his superiors. And believe it or not, I actually saved the most noteworthy for last. It might not seem like it, because Koos is genuinely nice and her role in Universe 10's workings seems innocuous from her being a bit character when all is said and done, to the point where I had barely mentioned her in my (later spoiler heavy) length post for the Future Trunks arc. However, since then, I had thought about her involved aspects, and the more I thought about this, the more I realized that yes, how she handled things does deserve commentary. I don't doubt I'll get personal about this, but if somebody wishes to provide their input unsprinkled by bias, that would be nice.

What comes actively to mind is how Koos has some clear favoritism of Rumoosh. It became flagrant already in the Destroyer meeting because her response to Rumoosh's rant about Goku's manners was to laugh like a fangirl over Rumoosh hamming it up, ignoring Rumoosh's clear ingratitude toward Goku. She then keeps following along Rumoosh's body focus mentality during the fighter selection, even adding to the flash when there's already concerns about the amount of substance. Now those concerns would no doubt be brought up by somebody more proactive. Say what you want about Zamus, even if he definitely deserves it, but at least he will commentate on the likes of the Babarians in a genuine stance regardless of if that same stance further highlights his degeneration into increasing hypocrisy. Moral of that story? Don't dismiss individual viewpoints, especially when you'd be happy to celebrate individuality.

Of course, this is all guesswork anyway and I risk just repeating myself continuing with that point. With Koos, as the U10 Angel, no doubt being able to overrule Gowas and Rumoosh, there has to be something special about her to bring up the implications provided by her role and behavior, or none of this means a thing and the Future Trunks timeline would have been erased over mere coincidence. Fortunately, Koos's default disposition of being upbeat ends up leading to just what we need. It happens to be the very reason I used the adjective "default" just now at that.

As we just saw, the only person left on Universe 10's part of the audience stand after Universe 10's erasure is a very depressed girl who looks much older.

[URL=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4URUWlF2hj8]...[/URL]

I want to bring up a work called Star VS The Forces of Evil. You may have heard of it. I want you guys to put yourselves in the shoes of somebody visiting its page on vanilla TV Tropes for the first time, unaware of any of the context I'm talking about. What I want you guys to do is from the viewpoint I just mentioned, to guess what would be the page image for its Tear Jerker page, and why it would be that. I can tell you that it wouldn't take being too Genre Savvy to guess that something like [URL=https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/s2e27_star_butterfly_ive_lost_glossaryck.png]this picture[/URL] is what it would be. Spoilers: it is, rightfully so. Incidentally, we have a similar case with Code Geass's Tear Jerker page as well.

I need only one word to describe a concept worth bringing up: hope. This is what the Genki Girl is supposed to represent. If she's able to brute force anything, it'd be because gender biology doesn't stop her. Just a definite amount of physical activity coming from her is indicative of life's variety. But what makes her worthwhile is less to do with physical ability, and more to do with outright willpower. You want to know a Genki Girl character who I have definitely more respect for than before by proving as much? Trucy Wright from Ace Attorney. We know her for a certain running gag that makes her come across as an idiot--for reference, she had shown confusion about what the problem is with it, despite why the first case with the running gag had it play the role it did. Come Spirit of Justice, though, and there's a moment, backed by evidence outside of Trucy's retelling of the given story, where her assistant had made a mistake that could have ruined the show she was handling, but what Trucy did to address it was maneuver heavy objects around in "the abyss", within what must have been a short time frame. Oh, and in case you couldn't gather from the context alone, Trucy is a stage magician, not exactly somebody who would casually handle on-the-fly physical labor.

It becomes a curiosity that the Genki Girl doesn't break. Of course, even so, she CAN break and it is guaranteed that she actually does--it just takes a lot for that to happen. I can tell you the reason Kid Icarus Uprising appealed to me in the first place was because the Power system provided a happy medium between base unconditional flinching and actual disregard to taking hits beyond any damage output, in that the Super Armor power issues a buff stopping flinching for its above average duration but eats through Power Grid space that could go to other options, while still having a limited number of charges--IOW, KIU makes it clear that The Big Guy just has a lot of power, not an infinite amount. At the same time, that high amount of power can still achieve results when used well, and the Genki Girl's willpower isn't so different.

Sadly, there are unrepentant scumbags out there who try to live to destroy the idea of hope. Case in point: Roger Retinz, from the same case in Spirit of Justice involving the assistant business. I wish I could go into more active detail than I will because there's something particularly awful that he does under at least one of multiple possible flimsy motives, but it involves spoilers. Just know that there's more than enough reason I find him to be perhaps the most evil Ace Attorney villain, and definitely more evil than Ace Attorney's own Lucifer analogue (whose identity involve spoilers too, but I'm sure anybody who has played enough of the series would know who I'm talking about), because at least with the aforementioned Lucifer analogue there was ANYTHING good that was a sure bet even if it wasn't redeeming. You don't even get that mercy with Retinz, he's able to outmaneuver the law enforcement well enough that you need to capitalize upon no fewer than *THREE* bites of his own sadism AND his lack of status as an active law agent to create the opportunity for bringing him down, and he happily exploits his apparent safety to do what he can to traumatize Trucy as well as her present associates, who includes Athena Cykes, ANOTHER Genki Girl and one who is completely clear about being competent at that. Threats like that, who are both powerful and cruel in addition to punishing optimism specifically, can very well be a nightmare to hold off if given the chance.

What I find to be a solution to problems like that would be to make sure the Genki Girl has a sound bodyguard who doesn't have to forget the less pleasant details of reality to support her valid points. Now Rumoosh could provide the bodyguard aspect, possibly, but the rest of that? Well, I had mentioned about flanking earlier--that is done in place of focusing all power on one singular method of attack against opposition. As pointed out in Samurai Jack, the arrow relies on the bow, and the bow relies on the arrow, but they are not tied together. The whole point of flanking is to reduce damage from cluster punishment via spread out and confound the target, as opposed to an oversimplified attempt to muscle in having to worry about defenses that flanking could counter blunting the whole thing. Sure flanking is vulnerable to focus fire on the weak link of the chain, but failure to account for that implies that somebody was weak, and I very much doubt a Genki Girl would like getting hit with such an implication in the first place. Even a Squishy Wizard wouldn't want to come up with a plan just to fail to make use of having better morale. I know I for one would rather account for weaknesses, than overfocus on a single, predictable strength.

This is why Savvy Guy Energetic Girl exists. A vibrant female is going to be easier to stereotype as an idiot, which doesn't mean she is going to be one, but the stereotype didn't pop up from out of nowhere, and it's a guarantee that blind spots in her intelligence ARE going to show up. Somebody who hopes for the best is bound to really get going when given the support of somebody who prepares for the worst, because the former's lows will get addressed and their highs will still work out. Now, of course, there is still getting there, because usually, the pragmatic guy has a track record of being portrayed as less moral, usually by being dismissive of the bundle of energy, but they can be less moral in other ways. Heck, just the point that I workshopped the trope in the first place out of Wish Fulfillment does bring up given reasons for being pragmatic around the opposite sex to begin with. Although I will say in my defense that back in mid-October, I had bought a notebook and wrote [URL=https://i.postimg.cc/Yqs4st8r/20181030-173117-1540945906623.jpg]this page full of the Genki Girl's deeper traits[/URL], even notably circling "Improved Insight", precisely to at least mitigate the involved shallowness. I don't want females to be scared, stupid, or submissive. I just want them to have bravery, creativity, and patience, so that their happiness doesn't have to worry about a failure to adapt to some detail short-circuiting it.

Of course, this all goes back to the choice a female makes about who to favor. And when she makes that choice, it would have to be respected. Maybe you think I'm just being "salty" (again, anger shamers should buzz off) with how much text I've already spent on Koos, but it doesn't change how there's a reason before the opposite sex gets involved why I spent nearly 1000 words deconstructing the body at any costs mentality before even starting to talk about Zamus, a further 1000 on Team Universe 10's composition, and about another 2100 words tearing at Rumoosh's thought process itself. And yes, call me a nerd for using a word counting tool, but results don't lie, and they're saying that Zamus is not the only one who still made his own choices, he's just the most blatant about it. What Koos practically did was basically enable Rumoosh, in blatant favoritism of style over substance.

Oh, and that's another thing: isn't Koos actually the oldest of the Angels, furthering the Younger Than They Look trope in her case past the Angels' aging rates? And I doubt Koos looked so much older than usual simply by falling into depression, even if that definitely contributed. Going by that, I believe I stated before potential reason for the Likes Older Women trope being precisely that they have more experience to work with to better understand what sort of drawbacks a given contract is going to have. I'll also point out that females tend to live longer than males, and all that implies of course. Obviously, there's going to be some sense of deeper reason for preferring vibrant and relatively older, even individually, but mix those two together, and what do you get? Somebody who has managed to stay sunny against the trials and tribulations of life. Somebody who can prove by mere existence that life is worth it.

Seeing somebody like Koos break is what really hurts. It's even worse when she got there by implications of being Innocently Insensitive, and precisely because karma judged her at that, despite or perhaps even because of her exclusion from Universe 10's erasure. Even when what you really feel is the annoyance I'm expressing, what can you do about it when you don't get to do anything about it? Even better, do you guys remember what happened with Euphemia li Britannia and Shirley Fenette in Code Geass? And obviously, what happened with them both, on Lelouch's watch, does say that intelligence absolutely isn't a sure thing in stopping a repeat, but it provides a better chance than just throwing about muscle.

I wish I was done here, but there's still more about Koos for me to say, because she's practically also one of those nice mother types. She had clear favoritism of Rumoosh, but I don't doubt if U10's members were practically her children too. I can tell you how being too negative can lead to seeing only the flaws in the children, never the merits, whereas positivity can at least lead to figuring out their respective fortes. The negative shouldn't be ignored, which is what makes somebody like Koos so frustrating for failure to heed that sort of thing, but positivity does work as a counterbalance for selfless reasons. Still, what happened with Universe 10 because of a failure to balance between the two? Red flags with a critic of mortals who happened to hail from U10 got ignored until it escalated into getting an entire timeline's multiverse vaporized, and then U10 is forced into a tournament under penalty of erasure for incidental failure to adhere to something called the Mortal Level, and then Koos would have learned, too little too late, about her children's defects and how poorly they were addressed, getting them wiped out without fanfare.

Moral of the story: don't ignore your smart voice's valid points. If they're going to have clear selfishness, that can be intercepted, but don't act like it's going to change any legitimate issues they would have.

Now I will state the, actually obvious, long shot to providing hope with what Koos wants now with her children: the Super Dragon Balls. They'd be able to grant ANY wish with no limitations, at least none that are stated--I imagine there would be a safeguard against infinite simultaneous wishes or else that's a plot hole with Zamus's usage of the SDBs. It's not hard to guess that among the possibilities would be wishing the defeated Universes back into existence, which anybody with decency would want to do. And they have been collected by the Grand Minister with Champa's help to be provided to the tournament's MVP.

So why are the Super Dragon Balls a long shot?

First off, to get to use the SDBs, somebody would have to be the MVP, and it can be anybody within the winning Universe's team--and if Universe 7 wins because they ARE our protagonists, it can even be Freeza. Even if it could be surprising he wouldn't care to restore the defeated Universes, he has expressed wanting to hold power over the All King duo. Considering our prince friend had already kept their method of gauging Mortal Level ambiguous, the MVP criteria could be anything.

But of course, the All King duo themselves provides the second, karmic to Universes 9 and 10, and more important, reason: they can still undo the whole wish, under the same, already stated premise of Universal balance, and there's absolutely no chance of stopping them with ANY manner of direct combat if they do.

This keeps simply using the SDBs for undoing Universe erasure from going by too easily. Not helping matters is how the SDBs are so powerful in the first place, that seeing a wish be wasted immediately would be despair-inducing. Without a doubt, what would have to be done by a virtuous enough MVP would be to convince our prince friend and the Grand Minister to permit the defeated Universes continued existence post-wish, possibly make the wish also provide some form of even subtle improvement to get the defeated Universes going better. I wager the variety of life would provide very solid material for this. I may doubt we have seen the end of Crippling Overspecialization from the subpar Mortal Level Universes, but I said it myself: there's always new concepts, and there's always new ways to put together those concepts. Perhaps the other Universes could always set up information trade routes to show each other their own concepts and what provides appeal. Even Universes 9 and 10, for all that I rail on them both because both of them have clear problems that further punctuate the valid points that Zamus did have to keep him from being little more than Freeza V2.0, can have something going for them, with Universe 9 making its gems able to gleam brighter exactly because of the adversity, and Universe 10 able to provide a standard of adrenaline to stack up against. Okay, I'm stretching a bit with Universe 9, but when I was writing this back in late November, I had thought about [URL=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXaA4gOfmmE&t=1h59m21s]this Smash 4 match[/URL] that without given context can very easily come across as me being a rich snob bully just making a mockery of mental disorder, and it's Moral Luck that Bayonetta existed in all her controversy to provide overshadowing matches (to be precise, a couple at around 90 minutes into the vid), but even then, I very well would rather have shows of hope, not somebody getting flattened when trying to stand for mental cripples.

Where I was going with this is how when you're somebody caring and vibrant like Koos is, you want to be careful not to cross into outright patronizing, and make sure you have somebody who can let you know when you start doing so, or else those you are intending to care about just suffer in the long run. One way or another.

It's just catharsis, at the very least to me personally, that the 2 Universes that have a clear focus on sharing California's worst underlying aspects, are the 2 to get the bottom placings. Universes 9 and 10 generally both cared more about the body and the "fittest", aspects that only served to reduce variety, with 9 doing it by weeding out who they deemed to be weak, and 10 caring too much about the body to the clear cost of the mind; and they have both paid the price, with 9 being proven the weakest and 10 being outmuscled. It was worrisome that Dragon Ball wouldn't do something like that, but no longer is that an issue. All of the still standing Universes have shown indication of better sophistication, and it's a good bet that that will reflect in their tactics. By the way, for those keeping track, Universe 6 was the last Universe to lose ANY fighters, and between their fighters covering each other's weaknesses, showing clear competence and wariness, and understanding the surrounding world (or multiverse as the case may be), I say they earned that status, let's see how well they'll hold out before falling. And even if Universe 6 does crumble fast before long, they still provide notes for anybody who would need to hear of the cautionary tales provided by the likes of Universes 9 and 10. I'm looking at you, California. Let's not forget this whole thing is practically written in late November when the wildfires had still been on people's minds--there was editing and proofreading down the road, but the general points remained unchanged all the way to the dub's airing of episode 103.

I don't doubt I missed some points, whether on purpose or not, but that's where others can chip in, right? If you understand that, I guarantee you'll understand better than Universes 9 and 10 did.

Oh, and the author of this entire post? Just some Squishy Wizard who would very much want a happy wife, and recognizes that all something like the Super Dragon Balls would directly provide for that would be a self-defeating cheat. And now you might want to consider asking Vegeta what the scouter says about this post's word count level.


....RIGHT! KO counts:
*Universe 2: 2
*Universe 3: 0
*Universe 4: 0
*Universe 6: 10
*Universe 7: 23
*Universe 9 (ROUTED; 8th place): 1
*Universe 10 (ROUTED; 7th place): 0 (REJECTS!)
*Universe 11: 0