Between the english dub errors, and the assortment of rumours that float around the Dragonball communities, Part Saiyans have been made out to be a super race that has capabilities beyond those of any other. However, this, for the most part is not true. They do not simply gain the benefits of both Human and Saiyan parents, nor do they do a number of things that they are thought to do.
We will begin with the most frequently seen Part Saiyan throughout the Dragonball series, and discuss his potential capabilities, as well as disprove the rumours that are believed about him. This Part Saiyan, of course, is Gohan.
We will begin with a basic insight into this amazing child's powers. He first displays his talents against his uncle Radditz when his father is being killed by him. His power was greater than that of Piccolo's, or Gokous, even while they used their signature moves. We later see him blow up a mountain when Piccolo tosses him at it, and we watch him train with Piccolo, gradually increasing in strength.
During the battle of the Saiyans, Gohan was pretty much too afraid to do anything, having seen many of his friends die to the Saibamen and Nappa, he was pretty freaked out by the whole ordeal. However, he fights Vegeta when Gokou is down, and fairs surprisingly well, even without the Oozaru powerup (Which is insanely useful, at this point in the series).
Gohan travels to Namek, doing mind training techniques with Krillen during the trip, and between his adventures getting there, up until he first meets Dende, he has been increasing in power. He receives his 'hidden potential' powerup from Guru, and actually fights for the first time against Recoome, of the Ginyu Force (I wouldn't call his performance against Guldo an actual fight). Fuelling his anger here would be the fact that both Krillen and Vegeta are down for the count, Krillen with a broken neck, against Recoome.
His next fight, after getting healed by a Senzu, is against Ginyu-Gokou. This is an odd battle to try and judge powers, since he is freaked out about fighting his father, and such.
Gokou is healing in Frieza's ship, so Gohan, Vegeta and Krillin are left to captain the ship until he can return. Frieza enters, and in first form is matching Vegeta quite evenly. However, in the alien's second form, Vegeta is overwhelmed, as is everyone else, until Frieza kills Krillen. The english dub skipped an entire episode of the killing, which pretty much consists of little more than Krillen playing worm-on-a-hook, and it's all very grotesque. In any case, Gohan figures his friend is dead, and goes berserk on Frieza, dishing out some serious punishment. He gets another chance when Piccolo is getting beaten by third-form Frieza, and Gohan's powers have grown to match the alien's once more.
Dende dies, as does Vegeta, and nobody seems to have any chance against Frieza, save for Gokou. Gohan can only watch, until Genki Dama time, when Piccolo gets another beatdown on him, as does Gokou, and Gokou knocks Frieza upside the head with the bomb. Frieza survives, mortally wounding Piccolo and killing Krillen, pushing Gokou to SSJ, while Gohan is forced to flee.
Gohan returns, later, to help his father, only to hear of his death. Frieza toys with him for a bit, until Gokou returns, and Gohan gets wished to Earth.
That pretty much concludes the Gohan-events of the Frieza Saga, as we move towards the Cell Saga. Gohan doesn't play much of a part until Gokou gets sick, and he heads to Kami's tower, where he senses Piccolo being killed by Cell after his fight with #17. He then trains with his father in the room of Spirit and Time (Hyperbolic Chamber for the dubbies), and earns SSJ. More detail as to how he earned it will be discussed, later.
Gohan leaves, nearly as strong as his father, and some minor events occur, leading up to the Cell Games. Gokou fights Cell and forfeits, giving his son the microphone and sending him to center stage without a cue, where he begins to get pummelled. Gohan knows his powers of rage at this point, and explains them to Cell. Cell begins beating up his friends, until Android 16 jumps in, and gets blown up. More beating of friends follow, until 16 gets squished, sending Gohan to SSJ2. He beats Cell... twice.
During the Buu Saga, there aren't many huge powerups that Gohan receives, save for the Mystik he gets from the Rou Dai Kaioshin's (Grandpa Kai or something for dubbies; the old purple guy who dances around him and lived in the Zetto Sword) magic. He gets absorbed by Buu, spat out, blown up, and then wished back. End DBZ.
Now, to wake you all up!! We can now begin to discuss where his powers lie, and how he receives them.
Let us begin with the point form version of Gohan's trainings and times of rage, in chronological order, to see what happened, and when. Red indicates rage, blue indicates training, and green indicates near-death--healed.
Skipping the Gokou/Ginyu mix-match fight...
And that pretty much ends up to DBGT, which will not be covered.
So, where do the big boosts come in?
Gohan does outstandingly powerful things in the following places:
Now, where did the power for these come from?
Gokou was being killed, fueling his anger enough to attack Radditz. This was Rage-based, but note that he hadn't been trained, so he had the capability to have 'hidden potential'.
Piccolo throwing him into the mountain; this did little more than prove he could use KI to his advantage.
After the Saiyans killed most of his friends, he had plenty of rage, especially when Piccolo died. He just kept getting more and more rage, until he was powerful enough to fight Vegeta and survive. Note that he had been training, but hadn't really shown his powers from this. We can assume he didn't have them at the start, or the Scouters would have picked up more, but we do know that the training increased his fighting potential.
The poor kid was terrified of Recoome, but after seeing Vegeta and Krillen beaten, his rage was fueled to fight, and he did do alright, considering Recoome's power was so incredibly much higher than his own. Note that he had trained enroute to Namek, and had received Guru's powerup; his potential had been raised enough for the rage to increase his fighting powers to this level.
At this point, Gohan got beaten badly, and Senzu'd. If the dubbed Vegeta is correct, this would increase his power level. However, it does not:
Gohan shows no extrordinary power in his fight against Ginyu/Gokou, nor is his power even used until the Frieza battle, where Rage fuels it to new heights.
Back to the list, we have Gohan getting mad at the Ginyu/Gokou, but it's almost irrelevant, in the long run. He does get healed up before the Frieza match, though.
Frieza 'kills' Krillen, Gohan goes berserk, using his signature Masenko blast on the tyrant for a truckload of damage. He is notably more powerful than Vegeta, at this point with the Rage.
Gohan gets beaten down, and healed. Dub Vegeta says something along the lines of "Like a true Saiyan! His power has increased with near-death!". However, this is disproved due to the fact that his new power is no stronger than he was when he was Masenko'ing Frieza. He simply kept that rage powerup.
Piccolo's getting Freeza-beamed by Frieza, and Gohan comes to the rescue, with another bout of blasts to anger the tyrant. His power has increased by the rage, to do this, and he keeps it during the next battle.
It's hard to judge powers during the first half of the Frieza-form-four fight, but we can note that Dende dies, yet Gohan doesn't really 'rage'; it sets his anger on a cool simmer, though. Since none of the fighters can touch Frieza, it's hard to say if any have improved at all.
Gohan, after watching Krillen die and Piccolo be wounded, heads back to help his father. Neither of these events made him angry, though; they terrified the munchkin, but he never got mad. Frieza begins toying with him, sending blasts at him... yet he can evade them. These are the same blasts Piccolo was being hit with by Frieza-form-three, yet Gohan can dodge the somewhat playful form-four ones. His power must have stayed when he had to rescue Piccolo from form-three Frieza; he was more powerful than Piccolo, and now seems to be faster; he has all-around more power.
His next big boost is his Super Saiya-Jin transformation, which he earns by remembering all the people who needed him, and he wasn't capable of helping. This infuriates him; it always has, and he gains the power to help them, in the form of SSJ.
Now, he doesn't really earn any other major powerups during the series, save for Mystik, but there are still a few key points as to where his near-death did not increase his power.
Gohan faces near death twice during the Buu Saga; once after his energy got sucked away, and after Buu beat him up, along with Kaioshin (Supreme Kai/whatever for the dubbies). His big battle after the first event was with Dabura, who was notably considered to have a power level that nearly equalled Cell's; he wasn't any stronger than Cell, hence why Gohan could put up a fight. Plus, after his near-death experience with Buu, when he was revived, there was no notable difference in his stats; someone would have said something if they saw that he's suddenly a good deal stronger. So, near-death cannot be the case for powerups.
And now, the ever-popular counter for these arguements is why Chibi Goten didn't get a boost when he saw his mother turned into an egg and crushed, or why neither him nor Chibi Trunks when they found out about Vegeta's and Gohan's deaths.
Simply put, if you don't have the potential to earn a boost, you cannot. Gohan received his boosts when he had room to grow. These kids had SSJ, if low levels, and hadn't done any more than physical training with their families to improve upon it. They didn't spar until they dropped, like Gokou and Gohan did, nor did they stand around, controlling fire and ice while screaming continuously, like Vegeta. They didn't have the room to grow, so they didn't grow.
So, there you have it; a detailed explanation as to the strengths of the Saiyan-Human crossbreed, as well as knowledge as to how they best increase their strengths.
-Lander Zander
(01/20/03, January the 20th, 2003)