When the average person thinks of Dragon Ball, they likely think about Super Saiyans, the quintessential image of ever-increasing power levels and the obsession with strength. Indeed, they have come to dominate the narrative, metacanon, and fandom; the outsized popularity of Broly says it all. And I love a good transformation; they’re super cool and fun to play with. But what makes Dragon Ball so great isn’t the raw power of the characters, and what makes Goku such a great hero isn’t his ability to dye his hair without going to the salon. It’s a narrative about hard work, perseverance, and the quest to master one’s body, mind, and soul through martial arts. That’s never been abandoned, but the predominance of Super Saiyans, in my view, takes away from the messaging by either coopting those qualities as “Saiyan heritage” or focusing mostly on how to squeeze out even more power. The Dragon Ball Super manga does an incredible job over its long arc to deconstruct this idea while still having fun with it, ultimately bringing the series back to its roots of martial arts excellence.
Introduction to Godly Power and Limits
Over the course of Dragon Ball Super, we see Goku and Vegeta grow from the strongest mortals in the universe to the most powerful gods. At the beginning, Goku is challenged by Beerus, a God of Destruction with power far eclipsing anything Goku could be capable of at that time. After he, his friends, and Vegeta all exhaust their abilities against Beerus, Goku is invited to join the “there’s no getting stronger than this” tier of power by becoming a Super Saiyan God. Being a god, in this sense, means having godly chi, a special kind of chi that hasn’t really been explained all that much. I guess it’s like regular chi, but each “unit” is more powerful, and mortals can’t detect it? Those seem to be the only real differences. In any case, this moment in Goku’s life is entirely about becoming more powerful and introducing an endgame for the obsession with transformations. Goku is disappointed in the form at first, which is actually really interesting in retrospect; he says it’s because he couldn’t do it on his own, but what it implies is that he’s disappointed that it was a power he didn’t have to work for, and thus it doesn’t represent his mastery of skill or dedication in training. Any group of six Saiyans could produce a Super Saiyan God, and so becoming one doesn’t signify anything about the individual.
This moment isn’t just about Goku, though. It’s also about the world itself. Beerus the Destroyer and his attendant Whis are a new class of gods who’s purpose is to destroy life and planets that have outlived their usefulness, to pave the way for new creation. As a result, their abilities mostly revolve around raw power and their ability to exercise authority over others to that end, in contrast to the powers of the Supreme Kai. They are literally the ultimate power in the universe and all they’re good for is destroying things. This idea of power and the station of gods continues throughout the series.
After this opening volley, the manga breezes past Resurrection ‘F’ to move on to new stories. Vegeta has joined Goku as a god, and they’ve achieved the logical conclusion by combining Super Saiyan with god power to become Super Saiyan Blue. Though Whis tries to nudge them towards refining their technique, all their preparation and training before the Tournament of Destroyers is focused on getting stronger. Once they get there, two particularly important things happen. First is that Vegeta gives a speech to his alt universe counterpart, Cabbe, about what it means to be a Saiyan. Specifically, he talks about the pride and powerful, swelling, wild emotions in the Saiyan heart. It’s a speech that rails against everything Whis had been teaching him about controlling his emotions and maintaining a calm heart to master his godly powers. The second thing to note is that Hit gives Goku a challenge based on technique, rather than raw power or inherent physiological ability, for the first time in years. The manga makes it clear that while Hit is quite powerful in the larger sense, he’s not enough in that way to force Goku to turn Blue. His greater strength lies in his time-skipping ability, and that’s what gave him an edge over the raw power of Super Saiyan Blue. The transformation was even named as a liability against Hit, as draining as it was.
Zamas and the Folly of Gods
Then we get to Zamas and the return of Future Trunks. Zamas is a former Supreme Kai apprentice who turned evil because he thought mortals were inherently corrupt and could only ruin the universe he, as a god of creation, helped create. He felt that his station as a god was limiting, preventing him from commanding the world at large to fit his vision. It’s an ideology that goes counter to everything the other gods we’ve met so far believe in, which boils down to having a supervisory role in the universe and letting mortals live as they please. Zamas instead chases after raw power, drawn in by the spectacle of Super Saiyan Goku’s fight with Hit, and goes on to become a nearly omnipotent being obsessed with making all of existence a pretty museum piece for him to enjoy by killing all mortals.
He begins his attack in the original timeline of Future Trunks. Trunks grew up in an apocalypse, and even after bringing peace to his time, had to keep preparing for future devastation. He develops a close bond with his version of Shin, the Supreme Kai, and comes to respect and value the position the gods hold. Growing up in a world without hope, he sees them as a source of strength and continued life, no matter what death and destruction come his way. Zamas is the antithesis of everything Trunks believes in and has worked towards, and Trunks is forced to use time travel to recruit Goku and Vegeta to win the day. In a way, it’s like calling on a higher power, but much more literally; Trunks didn’t have any moral deity to help him or guide him, and instead was forced to look for the literal strength of the now-godly Saiyans.
The story is a really powerful piece criticizing the power Goku and Vegeta sought and the station of gods themselves. Goku and Vegeta initially fail in relying on the pure power of their Blue forms and have to retreat. While away, they both focus on learning new skills to help deal with the crisis. However, with the failure of the Mafu-Ba sealing technique, they can only put into practice more skilled use of their power. They even turn to a divine miracle in the form of fusion for even greater strength, but Zamas overcomes all of these ploys for power. This forces Goku to himself call on a higher power in the form of Zeno, the Lord of All and deity ruling the entire multiverse. Introduced briefly before as a childlike being with ultimate power over everything, he’s reintroduced here as an innocent being who commands authority entirely through his capacity to destroy anything he wishes with a single thought. This is the power Zeno uses to “save” the future, by destroying the entire timeline because Zamas made it boring and bad for him. The end goal of pursuing the greatest power is simply ruin and nothingness, and giving certain beings, like the Destroyers, godly positions for having that power is, at best, a “necessary evil” in maintaining balance.
The “Power” of the Tournament of Power
After this, the Tournament of Power is held, a contest between the eight lowest-ranking universes; originally, they were all going to be destroyed by Zeno, but this tournament lets the winner survive, and grants them a wish on the Super Dragon Balls. The universes in question were chosen based on some measurement of their cultural development and complexity, but the contest that Zeno puts them through is about fighting. Before the tournament, Goku is scared into thinking that simply picking his friends and relying on their teamwork and skill won’t be enough, so he recruits the deceased Frieza for their team to add more raw power. In the tournament, the biggest opponent is Jiren of Universe 11, a man with so much raw power he’s considered stronger than the Gods of Destruction.
All throughout, we see a lot of different plays on the idea of power and what the tournament is really about. Zeno is dazzled by big fights and flashy transformations, often praising them, while the most successful groups in the tournament rely on teamwork and skill to outmaneuver and overwhelm opponents more powerful than them. We see various examples of overwhelming, destructive power toppling even the most well-trained teams, such as Frieza using Frost to take out lower-tier fighters, Jiren using sheer might to get out of Hit’s powered up time skip, and Gohan refusing to transform as he double knockouts with Legendary Super Saiyan Kefla. Jiren sees all this happening and dismisses it. He doesn’t think any techniques, strategies, or teamwork can overcome the raw power he possesses, and believes that his victory is inevitable and joyless.
Then comes Master Roshi, the old man who’s still standing among giants. Upon seeing Goku do everything he can to draw out even more power, he intervenes to show Goku that battle strength alone is meaningless, and he should instead focus on becoming a better fighter. He briefly trades blows with Jiren to demonstrate this mastery Goku needs to achieve. Upon awakening to the godly technique Ultra Instinct, Goku rededicates himself as a student of the Turtle School, rather than a Saiyan warrior. Though Jiren and Zeno can only recognize the power of the technique, and it pushes Vegeta to double down on power to become Super Saiyan Blue 2 (can we all agree that’s what it’s called, not Evolved?), the victory Goku achieves comes from his mastery of martial arts, his ability to collaborate as a team with Frieza and Vegeta, and the strategy employed by 17 to save the multiverse. Truly, he showed the Lord of All what real power looks like.
Moro Gives the Last Nudge
Of course, lessons are hard to put into practice. The next conflict they’re drawn into is against Moro the Planet-Eater (not to be confused with Galactus or Ghidorah). Moro is a powerful wizard who uses magic to steal power from life and planets, essentially making him a villain who relies on technique, yet who only sees technique as a means to raw power. They are recruited by the Galactic Patrol, a group of space cops introduced in a related work, Jaco the Galactic Patrolman. Sidestepping the different cultural view of police in America and Japan, the Galactic Patrol is shown as the kind of institution Zamas likely wanted, a powerful organization meant to protect the universe from those committing harm to others for self-gain. Besides Jaco himself, our primary patroller in this story is Merus, who we learn is an angel, like Whis. Merus was sent to the mortal world to learn what it was like before assuming his divine station, but instead of accepting the neutrality angels are supposed to embody, he embraced justice and selflessness. Merus’s conflict is with the very idea of “neutrality” and not letting your emotions dictate your actions, as deities in this world are supposed to do.
When Goku and Vegeta are recruited to defeat Moro, they initially rely on the raw power of their transformations, due in part to Goku’s inability to re-access Ultra Instinct. Buu is also brought along, in the hopes that the Grand Supreme Kai sleeping inside him, who once defeated Moro and had him locked up in Galactic Prison, could once more seal away Moro’s magics so he could be defeated once and for all. But all this exercise of raw power and attempts to counter Moro’s raw power fail. Having reaffirmed that falling back on transformations was pointless, Goku and Vegeta are forced to get serious about improving as fighters in a way they haven’t for a long time. In a telling line, Vegeta, the embodiment of Saiyan-ness, says he’s tired of relying on “tricks” like Super Saiyan Blue.
So instead, Goku trains with Merus to freely use Ultra Instinct, while Vegeta travels to Yardrat to find some obscure technique that could give him an edge. We see a series of space criminals empowered by Moro clash with the Z Fighters, who use their wits and strategy to defeat them. When it’s time for Goku and Vegeta to reemerge, they use their newfound abilities as martial artists to overcome and weaken Moro. After a long series of backs and forths where Moro made himself into the ultimate and most powerful being, Merus sacrificed his life by standing up for justice with his angelic powers, helping Goku reach full mastery of his heart. It’s an interesting piece of foreshadowing, that Goku got ahold of the angels’ preferred technique by going against their moral code; he does “calm his heart” here, but he’s motivated to do so by his desire to protect Earth. Moro tries to replicate the power of Goku’s new and improved Ultra Instinct, but instead winds up destroying himself through his lack of technical ability to properly wield the move. While Jiren showed that chasing raw power was ultimately a weaker path than chasing technical mastery, Moro showed that it can literally destroy a person, that raw power requires technique and vice versa.
The “Strongest in the Universe”
It all culminates in the most recent arc. We are introduced to Granolah, a fighter and trader who is the last surviving member of the Cerealians, a race killed by Saiyans so their planet could be sold by Frieza. Granolah is first seen doing business with the Heeters, another new group of alien traders who act as information brokers and middlemen between Frieza and his clients. There’s a lot of moving parts to the story, and it’s incorporated well to make for a satisfying conclusion. Granolah wants to kill Frieza, now that he’s back to life, for having his people slaughtered, and he wants revenge against Goku and Vegeta as surviving Saiyans. We learn that Beerus actually deputized Frieza as an Agent of Destruction, which is why he was allowed to do everything he did, and Beerus even ordered the death of the Saiyans. The Heeters are themselves longstanding villains who have used their position to manipulate Frieza for years for their own profit, and it’s their scheme now that sets in motion the battle. Though Granolah can blame the Saiyans for their direct hand in the death of his people, the Heeter leader Elec killed his mother, and the Saiyan Bardock, Goku’s father, saved Granolah’s life. Goku grew up disconnected from all this, while Vegeta very directly feels the guilt of his past life as Frieza’s lackey and Saiyan prince, complicated further as the new student of Beerus, Frieza’s backer and the one who ordered the death of the Saiyans for their brutality.
Goku and Vegeta continue training to refine their technique further, with Vegeta learning a competing skill to Ultra Instinct, Ultra Ego. Granolah is manipulated by the Heeters to seek out some way of becoming the strongest in the universe to get revenge against his enemies, which he does by using a newly introduced set of Dragon Balls on Cereal to shave off most of his remaining lifespan to bolster his strength. When the showdown begins, Granolah uses his newfound power and access to all sorts of new abilities to overwhelm Goku and Vegeta, both of whom are still working out the kinks with their Ultras. Interesting to note here that a wish to become “the strongest in the universe” included adding raw strength and technical ability, not just the former. Then the Heeters come back into the fray, using the Dragon Balls of Cereal to make one of their own, Gas, into the strongest in the universe, just as Granolah had. First Granolah, then Vegeta, and then Goku all fight and fail against Gas, putting them in a terrible predicament, having to beat the literal strongest in the universe.
Eventually, thanks to a reminder from his Saiyan father, Goku remembers that his power comes from his love of fighting and his passionate heart, not from any concept of tranquility that he was told he needed to be a god. With this in mind, he was able to reenter the battle even stronger using the lower Ultra Instinct Sign, combining divine power and his passionate heart using his martial arts mastery. In the end, he, Granolah, and Vegeta were able to team up to defeat Gas, before Frieza shows up. Frieza proved he was even stronger than Gas, despite the wish, because he had been training in the third known Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and thus wasn’t in the universe when the wish was made. He showcased a new transformation, Black Frieza, and proved not only that it was far superior to Goku and Vegeta’s current Ultra techniques, but that he had mastered his insecurities by letting the two live, unafraid of their potential.
It’s a long arc, and it’s great and worth it. All throughout, we get to have fun with the spectacle of transformations and ever-increasing power scales while effectively teaching our heroes to stop chasing after those lights. By the end, they’ve rededicated themselves to martial arts mastery using their best qualities, rather than reshaping their bodies or minds to fit someone else’s mold of power. Frieza may have them beat for now, but the raw power of Black Frieza is all he’s got; Goku and Vegeta will find a way to beat him down. The heroes are focused on their technical growth, while the villain is obsessed with transformational power, and since Goku and Vegeta are fighting in black-haired forms, they all match. The best part is that, while we don’t know what story awaits us after the hiatus (hopefully we finally get to the time skip with Uub), we do know that the story is headed in a more inclusive direction. Anyone can master martial arts and learn either of the Ultras, so we could see Piccolo or Gohan or Tien make a comeback that way (though I admit, it seems unlikely). We’ll also likely see Uub and Pan go down that path, as well as Goten and Trunks. Though three of those four are Saiyan children, they’ll likely not use or at least not emphasize their transformations moving forward, if for no other reason than Ultra Instinct and Ultra Ego are the new greatest powers, making even Super Saiyan Blue 2 obsolete. It’s a change I’m really happy with, as it moves the series back into more fulfilling territory, away from the supposed superiority of Saiyans. And the Super manga does a really good job of getting us there, taking the long road so the lessons hit home harder.
Life in the Gutters 
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