That's how the Z Warriors fly.. Ki is actually sulphur which they light up with small matches in their pockets. True story!He literally looks like he just farted and he's flying away from it.
It might be that the last POTW was taken on the test map while this one was taken on another without the ripple implementedthe actual water geometry doesn't look to be impacted by the player at all compared to the last water screen where Goku seemed to have been flying at a slower speed yet deforming the waters surface.
The water deforming effect plus that effect in the new POTW would go great together!