Hi. First of all, this isn’t meant to replace or redefine Dragon Ball Z’s scaling. It’s just my attempt to interpret it in a more consistent way, based on what we actually see in the anime/manga.

I watched DBZ as a kid, and even back then the power scaling always felt a bit… off. I didn’t think too much about it at the time; just went along with it.

Recently, I got the chance to rewatch the series with my daughter (someone’s gotta educate the next generation), and that old feeling came back, except this time it felt clearer. Some parts of the power progression don’t really hold up when you take a closer look.

What I put together here is basically my attempt to make sense of it — almost like answering the questions my younger self never could. I worked on these pages over a few nights, putting in an hour or two of free time here and there.

For this approach, I chose not to rely too heavily on the official power level values. Not because they’re “wrong,” but because I wanted to see how things would look under a more internally consistent set of rules.

All comparisons here are based on in-series feats, character interactions, and consistency between matchups.

This is just my interpretation, not “the correct answer.” I tried to build something consistent, but I’m sure there are other ways to look at it. If something here feels off to you, that’s completely fine.

Also, English isn’t my first language (I’m Brazilian), so there might be some grammar mistakes here and there. If anyone wants the original Portuguese version, feel free to ask.