It's pretty dumb to think that people think Frieza, Ginyu force, Vegeta, Cell, Buu, and many others don't have combat/ fighting styles. I'm pretty sure that even Roshi mentioned about martial arts existing everywhere and not exclusive thing ?. I'm pretty sure that most villains have trained or had natural talent in terms of combat. Even Goku admires Buu's combat and Buu is a idiot. So most of these villains do know how to fight in martial arts whether they train or natural talent at it. Just a quick thread to get some false information out of the way.

Knowing how to fight isn't the same as using martial arts

This. Frieza had never trained a day in his life prior to Super. His immense power was entirely a product of his innate abilities. He could fight well but a complete lack of training suggests a low skill level compared to other martial artists in the series.

I don't think anyone would argue Vegeta doesn't have skill. He was clearly trained as a child by a warrior culture and had experience fighting in countless battles before we ever met him. I'd assume the Ginyu Force, being soldiers, were also trained combatants, and like Vegeta would have been veterans of past battles. Cell had the techniques of all the Z Fighters and was basically born able to talk and fight, so it seems likely fighting skill was something innate to his development.

Buu is kind of an odd ball. I don't think Majin Buu had any sort of martial arts skill at all, but at the same time we know he can copy people's techniques by watching them like Goku sometimes does, so I don't know. Maybe he inherited some of the martial arts skill of the Grand Supreme Kai by absorbing him along with his good nature and love of food.

When we see them fighting it becomes pretty clear. All of them show great skill so I do not know who is saying that DB characters don't know MA.

@empressofdread: That would be ignorant batman fanboys lol.

@shenron007: I actually think Batman knows more martial arts and skill btw. But DB as a universe in whole is just better compared to skill. Batman is just one character. Everyone in DB has skill feats.

@empressofdread: i have found a character that knows more martail arts styles than Batman can't recall wether it was anime or comic that would be to much brain work to find again. So i pass xd.

@metaljimmor: regardless if Frieza has never trained in his life, he's an alien. We don't know how things work with other life forms.

Frieza could be literally born with natural instincts to fight and perform moves that we consider martial arts.

Look at the way he fights in the frieza saga. People that don't know coordinated attacks, or what we consider martial arts, would not fight that way.

What he might consider his race natural instincts, someone like us would consider it martial arts.

@empressofdread: So Batman knows more martial arts than Roshi?

@parallax42: Roshi has over century of training and invented the kamehameha. Roshi even out skilled enemies stronger than him. Roshi would murder Batman/Bruce in a fight.

Yeah. You can PM me? Maybe we can discuss?

You are getting me wrong. Roshi is a super humanly strong character. If all the other stats are equalised and it comes down to pure h2h I would say otherwise. Anyways these DB vs comics discussions are really tiring me these days. However I am open to a discussion if you PM me. It seems right rather than to do in this thread.

@gokuandsuperman: @Parallax42:

@EmpressOfDread:

Mr Splinter from Ninja turtles, knows more martail arts styles than batman.

@shenron007: Good. I will read more on him. My knowledge to that character is limited from the new movies.

@empressofdread: Quality always wins. No matter if Bruce learns every martial arts doesn't mean he is gonna rival Roshi. Roshi will outsmart and out skill Batman. I'll pm you later and hopefully this thread doesn't get blocked by mentioning battles with DC and DB.

@gokuandsuperman: No it wont since I am not discussing any further here. You can PM me whenever you like :)

Where are you getting that from out of curiosity? They've always been considered virtual equals, even in the crossover.

@slimj87d:

Unless it's specified that his species are born with instinctual martial arts knowledge I'm not very inclined to assume so. Whatever his species is they don't seem to have a warrior culture like the Saiyans. They are just freakishly powerful with the ability to suppress their abilities with different forms.

@indomitableregal: it is hard to find lol, i am sure it was one of the original authors of Mr splinter who left a comment on twitter about the amount of martail arts he knows. batman has ( 127 canon?) if i recall Mr splinter was stated 137, 157 or 158. 8 years ago or somthin was that twitter comment lol.

@metaljimmor: No, that doesn't explain why he does marital arts. Look at the way he fights and coordinates his attacks.

He actually DOES martial arts. It's considered "martial" arts to us. But seeing that he never trained for it it's just "natural" to him.

If Frieza didn't fight proficiently, then Goku should have curb stomped him far easier when he went SS1. Goku still had to out effort into beating frieza, it wasn't a freebee.

@slimj87d: kaulifla is the only brawler in DBS even Goku notices this. Overtime she got the hang off it, and started performing some tactical combo's. Showing she was creating a martial arts styles of her own.

Whoever thinks that is in epic denial.

Let's take a look on Goku himself.

All these guys here pale in comparison to DBZ Goku let alone current one:

Even his son could do this and paralyze everyone just like How Goku paralyzed Nappa.

Makes fun of Beerus with a pressure point to head once taking his revenge from the SSJ3 fight.

And this is all infinitely below Ultra Instinct aka Mastery of Self-Movement.

Even Google agrees.

100% this.

@slimj87d:

Caulifla also displayed good fight choreography for the most part, but she was confirmed to just be a brawler with no martial arts background. Like the person I quoted said, knowing how to fight isn't the same as being a high end martial artist like Goku.

Frieza couldn't even control his own power back on Namek he had so little training. He was getting overwhelmed by SSJ Goku once his massive stat advantage was gone, to the point that Goku ended up getting bored and didn't want to continue. That is probably the biggest insult Goku has ever given to an opponent in the entire series.

I will tell you why...Poor animation,lazy writing and people trying to lowball Dragon ball....Goku was above peak human level in skill,reflexes,talents even before he met master roshi who is obviously at superhuman level in everything that considers fighting...After master roshi he continued to grow even further beyond arc after arc in every single aspect....I will remind you that anyone who ever lived in our reality,dragon ball reality,DC,Marvel reality (point was humans only) cant hold a candle to master roshi in skill,fighting and experiance...the best representation of gokus skill was when he fought hit.he was able to predict where hit will go to deliver his punch even beofre hit even moved or used his time skip...That was some next level skill if i ever seen one...Literally like he is able to see future or predict events on such a detail like ultra mega giga tera super computer....

goku is a fighting prodigy,genious whatever you want to call him....His talents are insane,his potencial it seems to be limitless...

@metaljimmor: look at frieza like a wild cat (tiger for instance), these guys dont train (although playing with siblings mimics fighting somewhat) and most of their experience comes from actual hunting. Frieza may have not trained, but it's not far fetched to think he played/fought with his sibling and other folk he eventually murdered like he was playing with Goku's crew.

Anyway, if you look at it that way you can also see him as a very flexible and naturally athletic individual. Unlike the mainly sedentary human species.

@thecount:

Canonically Frieza doesn't have a sibling, and as you pointed out even wild animals need to train their combat abilities to be effective fighters as they mature. Though I recall that Frieza did mention King Cold was the only person to ever hurt him, so it's possible he may have done some sparring with his father. Though that also means he's likely never fought anyone close enough to his level to develop real combat experience either.

Like you said, he's a naturally athletic individual. Likely has some basic combat skills he picked up from his father. But in terms of being a highly skilled martial artist? I have a hard time buying that.

At this point, using martial arts is pretty redundant.

@metaljimmor: I think that's fair. But what I meant is that they learn on the job, which wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for frieza, he's sadistic and loves playing with guys letting them take some shots. Athleticism also goes a long way, look at the one-dimensional Pacquiao vs the schooled boxer-puncher Marquez in their first meeting. Anyway, I agree overall, "martial arts" or official schooling I don't think Frieza had, but he probably knew how to fight nonetheless.

Oh yeah? What is the primary purpose of Martial Arts?
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If you said anything other than "teaching people how to fight", you're wrong.

@paytience: What martial arts did kimbo slice know ?

Goku trained with the "Turtle School" which is obviously a parody of Traditional Animal style Kung Fu. He also mimicked Roshi's Drunken Boxing.

It comes from a strong ignorance of the very foundation that the series is written on. Which is understandable, because nobody in America will be super familiar with Japanese and Chinese culture.

But the entire point of Dragon Ball is that these guys are taking martial arts to superhuman limits. In real life martial arts are about a lot more then learning super cool instant kill moves and pressure points. The way that Comic Vine thinks martial arts are all about "moves" is laughable to any professional. Dragon Ball warriors are not trained for combat sports, they fight for their lives.

So a lot of their training is unrelated to "moves", but it's still martial arts and it still revolves all around skill.

Honestly Goku was a master martial artist when he was 11. He was already such a master, that he had the striking form and muscle control to operate on a slight superhuman tier. Yamucha's Wolf Fang Fist wasn't a random burst of metahuman strength, it was a type of Fa jin strike, basically technique so perfect that it multiplies the power of the strike, and it obviously requires a ton of skill to do. Remember that Goku's master was Son Gohan, the man heralded as being unsurpassed in all the various martial arts forms. For the first years of his life, all Goku did every day was train with him.

The whole point of Kamesennin's training was to surpass human limits entirely. And people miss the point on the milk delivery training. It isn't just the equivalent of lifting weights. Mr. Miyagi also taught his student martial arts through seemingly ordinary tasks. Goku was exercised on more then just muscle power, but also muscle control, as well as his senses, and his mind. The reason he didn't learn techniques is because Roshi intended for Goku and Krillin to develop their own styles of fighting, which they did.

The point of the Turtle Style training in Goku's character arc was to establish the fundamentals of Goku's motivation and mindset (remember, all that stuff about being the best you can be, working hard instead of searching for shortcuts, using martial arts only to protect people and not pick fights, basically all of Goku's motivations that have allowed him to gain power over others in the future, he did not possess those traits in the first arc. He learned them under Roshi)

After that was when Goku could move onto more advanced martial arts. Like move reading from Karin. Then an unbelievably better way of move reading under Popo that took the form of ki sense. Goku and everyone who wanted to keep up with him literally developed an entirely new sense just for fighting. Ki sensing tells Goku and friends so many details about a person and their attacks all without even needing to see them. If Goku met someone like Batman, he would sense Batman's ki and anticipate his every move.

Freeza was actually stated multiple times in the original Japanese anime to be be adapting to Goku and that every single nerve in his body had a read on Goku's moves, and this was an example of Freeza just barely starting to try slightly.

Also Gohan was stated to be reading every one of Cell's moves, and to have surpassed him in every single way.

@the_hajduk: Your post makes me wish the site had a Like button.

After the Sayian Saga, skill definitely took a back seat.

@the_hajduk: Ty. Really...

Thank you!!!

Watching the show in its original Japanese with accurate subtitles, really gives you a new perspective on the series. The meat of the whole martial arts aspect is one thing that really never got carried through into the dub. Even simple things, like how in the original script the characters are frequently commenting on each other's skill and technique, whereas the dub changes all of these to mentions of power.

Goku shouting "Vegeta's technique has vastly surpassed my own!!" is transliterated into "Vegeta's power has vastly surpassed my own!"

But the sense that watching the Japanese gives me, is that almost nobody is strong without being skilled.

@the_hajduk: i never got where it came from that these guys are not good martial artists or at the very least be great fighters. For someone with logical and critical watching, this should be seen with ease.

While other shows like Naruto arre preached for their good fighting DB gets bashed on. When Naruto uses his clones to learn how his opponents fights or uses distractions to get into a better position to attack it is said to be brilliant while Goku does all that always in every fight.

People today are more impressed with animation and effects to showcase a fight most of them don't understand the context behind the scenes or what they actually do.

One of my favorite scene is after Frieza dodges Gokus kick and how Goku instantly uses his other leg to kick him. Or Gokus way of outmaneuvering Zamazu with a backheel kick after his punch gets countered.

I always see how everyone talks about random kicks, fists and elbows thrown in DB verse. But they somehow don't understand that fighters in DB verse use all their abilities to the fullest and adapt best to their own set of power. I would compare them to MMA fighters or someone like Yuri Boyka.

You're right. The double kick on Freeza is a moment that the anime somehow actually ruined because you can't even see Goku do it.

Personally my favorite is all the tactics Future Gohan used to fight the androids. It's made pretty distinct that he was using his superior skill, and feasibly could have defeated one of them if they didn't double up (the manga is different but who cares, everybody thinks of the Trunks TV Special, not the one chapter in the manga).

@the_hajduk: yes those were actual good tactics showcased by Gohan. Like i said never understood where that came from.

People just hate DBZ while simultaneously not understanding it. Nothing brings my piss to a boil more then when I see somebody claim that all of Goku's training amounts to lifting weights.

@the_hajduk: it is trending lately even more than before.

It isn't difficult to shut down for anyone who has either read the manga or watched the japanese. Just post a scan of Karin teaching Goku how to read moves. There, 12 year old Goku is at least as skilled as Cassandra Cain, and he only goes up from there.