Why wasn't Trunks as powerful as Gohan?

[Kuro]

It just occurred to me that Trunks was nowhere near as powerful as Gohan was.

He never reached SSJ2
He never had the Mystic Form
He never had those explosive bouts of power
He never had the potential Gohan seemed to have


I mean, he did reach SSJ easier compared to the others but it seemed that was the peak of his potential.

I thought the entire thing was that half-SSJ breeds are inherently very powerful.

[grampagen]

In Z I believe a big point of contrast between the two was that Future Trunks did not have proper opportunities to train, and Kid Trunks was coddled.

Things did get better for Future Trunks in Super, and I'd argue that he got to be about as powerful as Z-Era Gohan in by virtue of curbstomping Dabura and skirmishing with Goku Black in SSJ2 and not immediately dying.

[master of read]

yeah, i'd say future trunks was at least equal to cell games era gohan, so there's that.

[Len Ikari145]

yeah, i'd say future trunks was at least equal to cell games era gohan, so there's that.

He's much stronger than that depending on which medium you go with. In the anime, he's capable of fighting evenly with a Post-Buu SSJ2 Goku in a spar and was able to take a serious punch from him in Super Saiyan 3 form without passing out. In the manga, He's as powerful as SSJ3 Goku and Goku needed to turn God in order to overpower him. And in both versions, he's already reached SSJ2. He also gave Goku Black in his SSJR form a good fight after he unlocked Super Saiyan Rage and caused him significant damage with a Super Galick Gun.

[Captain Morgan]

For that matter, didn't Future Gohan in his timeline get beaten by the Androids whom Trunks later comes back and easily slaughters? So Future Trunks did become more powerful than Gohan. But the power curve time table is completely different in his timeline.

[Siriel]

I thought the entire thing was that half-SSJ breeds are inherently very powerful.

This is random speculation Vegeta and Nappa did after having the example of all of Gohan tackling Raditz.

[BitVyper]

To be fair, pretty much all examples suggest that it's completely true to a point. Pretty much every half breed has been more powerful initially than their parents had been, but it clearly all evens out eventually, and the pure breeds seem to have a longterm advantage of just being way more satisfied by fighting and training than the halfbreeds., but it's not like we've got a huge sample size to work with. Plus, depending on how seriously you take the new Broly movie, Vegeta an Frieza's generation was already generating abnormally powerful individuals of their species, so it could just be a continuation of that trend.

[Fallman]

Gohan has been shown, repeatedly, to be some kind of rarity that has crazy amounts of power under the surface. He's kinda the hybrid version of Broly, actually, whereas the other hybrids seem to more like normal saiyans or humans.

[master of read]

For that matter, didn't Future Gohan in his timeline get beaten by the Androids whom Trunks later comes back and easily slaughters? So Future Trunks did become more powerful than Gohan. But the power curve time table is completely different in his timeline.

future trunks said that the androids of his time were vastly weaker than the ones in his time, since he said he was more or less equal to them. they just had the numbers advantage.

[BitVyper]

Someone around here suggested that was ultimately just a result of them toying with him in his timeline, since there was no one else to fight and they were bored, and I think that's a pretty believable explanation for it. He wouldn't have been able to tell since ki sense doesn't pick up on them

[The Drunkard Kid]

It should be pointed out that the half-breeds are all waaaay more powerful than Goku or Vegeta would be at their ages and levels of training/talent. Like, they all like fighting, but not to the degree that Goku or Vegeta do, and they have a fraction of the actual live fire experience that the full Saiyajin do, but are still legendarily powerful by the standards of normal Saiyajin.

Gohan seems to have an exceptional amount of talent, but they never really said how Goten or Trunks compares to him on that front, considering that he had way more actual training highly experienced and talented martial artists than future Trunks did by the end of the Cell Saga, under much harsher conditions than Kid Trunks or Goten did.

[Nik Hasta]

It should be pointed out that the half-breeds are all waaaay more powerful than Goku or Vegeta would be at their ages and levels of training/talent. Like, they all like fighting, but not to the degree that Goku or Vegeta do, and they have a fraction of the actual live fire experience that the full Saiyajin do, but are still legendarily powerful by the standards of normal Saiyajin.

Gohan seems to have an exceptional amount of talent, but they never really said how Goten or Trunks compares to him on that front, considering that he had way more actual training highly experienced and talented martial artists than future Trunks did by the end of the Cell Saga, under much harsher conditions than Kid Trunks or Goten did.

It's kind of interesting that Future Trunks had to work to go SSJ and have a big emotional trigger while present day Trunks could just do it apropos of nothing.

Toriyama maybe changed his mind about how the biological component SSJ actually worked perhaps?

[Captain Morgan]

I'd say an inconsistency from the author is a decent guess, yeah. And now that Super has introduced all these extra dimensional kid saiyans, I doubt there will be more consistent patterns.

[The Arbiter]

If Gohan, post beating Cell, had the same passion as Goku, he would have been invincible.

[The Arbiter]

This is random speculation Vegeta and Nappa did after having the example of all of Gohan tackling Raditz.

To add to BitVyper's comment, even Pan in Super is taking walks in low orbit and generating an aura.

They def seem to have an early advantage. It's the thrill of fighting versus not that eventually makes the difference in power.