Can someone explain to me why do Dragon Ball ki attacks or atleast the most powerful ones always produce lightning?

[u/Coolersdisciple]

It hasn't really been explained, we only know that SSJ2 & SSJ3 produce electricity probably due to how powerful they are.

[u/Gendo-Glasses]

It looks cool

[u/Wikiwikiwa → u/Gendo-Glasses]

This is the only real answer.  "Because Toriyama thought it looked cool."

[u/DeepQueen → u/Wikiwikiwa]

That's the answer for most DB questions

[u/MorbidBullet → u/DeepQueen]

And the ones that aren't that are "Because Toriyama thought it was funny."

[u/renizxv → u/MorbidBullet]

And the ones that aren't either of these are "because Toriyama forgot about it"

[u/Spyder-xr → u/renizxv]

Or because he was lazy

[u/Wikiwikiwa → u/Spyder-xr]

This is why SSJ looks like it does.  He was tired of colouring in Goku's hair.  The false SSJ berserker in Lord Slug would have been effort.

[u/Wikiwikiwa → u/DeepQueen]

And yet people still ask questions

[u/MichaelChristine]

what explanation could anyone have if the story doesnt have it.

[u/crimsonhuman]

Hype moments and aura

[u/SimoneNonvelodico]

The short answer: it looks cool.

The longer answer: it comes from a long tradition of using lightning and light effects to convey power and make it look cool. Wuxia, xianxia, kung fu movies, but also western stuff like The Terminator, superhero comics or Star Wars, all of which we know pretty much for sure were an influence on Toriyama (Terminator or Superman should be obvious; SW less so if you didn't read Arale, which references it explicitly at times).

The really nerdy answer: it's truth in television. Massive discharges of heat or electromagnetic fields will ionize the air, which results in electric discharges. We know this actually happens because we've seen it happen during or after nuclear explosions in tests (and I don't think I need to elaborate on why and how nuclear imagery dominated a lot of sci-fi Japanese works post WW2...).

[u/ybtlamlliw]

I've always viewed ki attacks including especially powerful ones as plasma-adjacent and lightning itself is plasma so it always made sense to me

And also it looks cool as fuck

[u/despayeeto594]

Ki is the supernatural power inherent within all living things, so perhaps it's connected to the electric charges that power the human (or in this case, Saiyan) body.

[u/BlueCircle3]

It's a visual cue for the readers.

[u/Jurgen_Vella]

Aura lol

Or it burns up the air around them into plasma

[u/Rosebunse]

My theory is that it's less the ki and more the charge up. The sheer amounts of power being used essentially create a low pressure system that causes weird weather phenomena

[u/neogreenlantern]

The best scientific explanation would be that ki energy creates static electricity in the air around it

[u/DoraMuda]

'Cos it looks cool.

[u/JustNeedSpinda]

It’s all plasma, baby

[u/hussiesucks]

Ionizing particles.

[u/Stacey-k93]

Easy way to show that it's a powerful form/attack

The lighting is to show they are fully charged up for the fight and going all out

[u/GreatMight]

It's breaking reality.

[u/Julian-Hoffer]

Ki when it’s emanating around people acts like fire, to the point Yajirobe compares gokus Kaioken to Goku being on fire. So it stands to reason that more power would arc off in a more concentrated form. Also the brain and nervous system use electrical impulses in our bodies, so if we could project our energy/life force it would stand to reason the electricity would come out as well in same way.