In Dragon Ball Z, androids 19 and 20 can absorb energy. In the other hand, 17 and 18 had an infinite supply of energy. But according to ScrewAttack which uses to make very detailed analysis of superheroes from cartoons, animes, sci-fis, comics and videogames (they made a Goku vs Superman video with almost 40 million views) , 18 can absorb energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcNvMW4s9a8. Did I miss something? I dont remember anywhere in DBZ, DBS , the manga or DBGT stated that 18 can absorb energy. Is this idea present in any videogame or something?
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2I think when he first turned up Future Trunks said the Androids could absorb their energy– Memor-XCommented Jun 15, 2017 at 2:21
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2Hmm i would say no, both 19 and 20 had those opening in their arms that allowed them to suck energy, since 18 is lacking those she should not be able to steal energy from other people.– ProxyCommented Jun 15, 2017 at 16:39
3 Answers
So let me preface this by stating that I do subscribe to screw attack and I f******* LOVE their death battle series and 1 minute melee. (Shang Tsung vs Akuma was my first one).
With that being said, they are wrong on more than a couple occasions about certain capabilities because they don't seperate canon/non-canon when they do these battles.
Canonically, android 17 and 18 do not have this capability. It is a bit of confusion regarding it because it never appeared in any of the anime (I cannot vouch for the manga). This is because they are a fundamentally different series of machines designed differently from the others on a core level. I won't spoil what those are but lets just say they are more human than you think.
Aside from that in Xenoverse and Xenoverse 2 they did add that skill to their movesets for continuity of the android type characters. Personally, I hate that decision. It was a bad design choice and only adds more to the fact that you can't trust games as cannnon to anime and manga.
Fact of the matter is, their analysis is ok given that they did (probably, I haven't watched the newest one yet) cite the games as a resource that they used. But just because it's cited doesn't make it canon.
Lastly, I'd like to give a shoutout to Dbzfan's answer for bringing this question into more visibility for me. And include some links
As has been said, no, canonically, she can't.
But it doesn't matter anyway, as, as TVTropes says: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/DeathBattle
Just Here for Godzilla:
It should be mentioned that the animation proceeding the research is completely scripted and written well after a winner has been decided based on feats and statistics, basically the animation is just for fun and does not have any impact whatsoever on who actually comes out victorious. Despite this though, the animation will often be the first thing detractors will use as evidence if they disagree with the overall outcome, pointing out flaws or out of character moments to make their point.
I'd just listen to the summary post-animation, if you want to argue the point. And that summary doesn't mention Android 18's Energy Absorbtion at all, placing her win on her speed and tactics.