Channelknight Fadran

The Goku vs Saitama debate in a nutshell:

• "NoOooOoooo but Super Saiyan Blue Goku has  g o d    k i  and Ultra Instinct! Even if Saitama was stronger - whICh hE iSn't - he wouldn't be able to keep up with the superpowered kaioken. All it would take is one well-timed kamehameha, or after awhile Goku's efficiency would..."
• "But he's One Punch Man."

 

There are actually two ways of looking at this that aren't just "I like this character better," which I have discovered because turns out both characters are pretty great.

Functionally: Simply look at the numbers. Who's exploded the biggest things? Who's killed the toughest guy? And in this scenario we have no clue who would win, because the two universe define Power in completely different ways. What consitutes a god in Dragonball might be completely different than whatever it was that gave Garou his super-mcduper cosmic powers. You could easily say "but Goku's killed gods before, and Saitama hasn't," but the types of gods Goku fight are just... different.

Narratively: The people who want to avoid the debate in question will simply say "well Saitama's a joke character, so it doesn't really matter" and hope that defuses the situation. And, indeed, this is the case; but there are additional steps you can take to assure this outcome remains true.

First of all, it isn't hard to create a character that can defeat Goku. Here, I'll demonstrate:

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"Fadran proceeded to beat the ever-loving crap out of Goku, barely even turning an eye. Pathetic, he thought."

But nobody's going to take that seriously because it is dumb. I'm sure there are plenty of characters even in published works that could take Goku and Saitama without breaking a sweat, but what's really important is that said characters have a basic philosophy or ideal to back them up.

For Saitama, it's pretty simple. He trained really damn hard for three years, and then his hair fell out and he became invincible. Now we feels nothing, because there is nothing left to feel - his life is just mishap after mishap, very few of which require him to put his all into fighting. In most cases he does, indeed, defeat a foe with One Punch; there are exceptions, but even they have never even come close to damaging him. Saitama wants to fight a worthy opponent, but none exist.

Goku, meanwhile, was developed as a paragon of hard work and perseverance. All the way up through the end, his whole gig was "The guy is stronger than me; I need to train hard so I can beat him." In fact, pretty much of all of DBZ consisted of haughty aliens born with extremely high power levels - who were then given their commupance by Goku simply working harder.

If Saitama had been born as One Punch Man, I can see a reasonable story giving Goku the win; but Saitama wasn't born with his powers, and even literally trained his hair out to get it (albeit accidentally). And in another vein, it would seem like Saitama would want Goku to be a real fight, but one of the two following situations would prevent this from happening:

• Turns out Saitama just has Infinity Power, and beats Goku without breaking a sweat. In this case he's just left brooding over tea again.
• No matter how hard these two warriors try to set aside the time for a friendly bout, something always gets in the way. Goku needs to go to Goten's piano recital; Saitama completely forgot about the Labor Day sale at the supermarket; Krillin invited them both over for barbecue and a movie night. Time and time again, something would get in the way. Ultimately, the only battle they ever have is in Super Smash Bros, during which they are both absolutely destroyed by Yamacha.