For this, I'm only going to base my reasoning from the manga as the UI avatar's only appearances are in the manga. Also, I'm not gonna come on here saying that it wasn't cool or anything like that. The UI avatar is peak, and it's very likely that they will explain how Goku attained the UI avatar once the manga returns
Now, the reasoning I believe that this is an asspull is because
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The only thing that Goku had canonically fought that had an ability like this was Piccolo, but Piccolo just made himself larger, & his ki was still the same. This would negate the idea that Goku copied it from someone else.
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It literally came out of nowhere. At least forms like SSJ3 (not saying that the form was bad), it was on tone with the "ascending SSJ" thing they did with the Cell saga. It had minimal justification; the UI avatar doesn't.
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As of 2025, every time Goku uses it, it's never talked about after. When he fought Moro, you could easily say "It was Uub's latent ki," but it fights Gas soon after, & it's also never talked about. As much as I don't like how Goku got SSJ4 in Daima, at least it had a small explanation after. With this, they legit never bring it up.
The only explanation that has a little leg to stand on is that it's a ki construct that Goku's body makes on its own when he can no longer defend himself, but even then, he was at FP against planet Moro (I could be wrong, but the spirit ball restored his life energy, right?), so why didn't he unlock it when he initially got caught. Moro never landed a single hit on him, at least not one that caused any harm to Goku. Once he was caught, Goku was still in MUI for a minute.
I also want to preface this because knowing this subreddit, my point is going to be misconstrued. I'm not saying that I don't like the concept or the avatar itself. I like the avatar & the idea of giving it to Goku. I also wanna say that this doesn't mean that I think that it's bad. I just think that it's an asspull (basically my thoughts on the manga's version of Beast Gohan). What do y'all think?
