Despite the franchise’s child friendly nature and mass appeal, Dragon Ball has never been one to shy away from the downright disturb. There are moments in the original series that are teeming with nightmare fuel. From the whole concept of a doomed future to having to watch Cell literally drink people, Dragon Ball Z cemented itself as one of the most surprisingly disturbing animes ever. Decades later, Dragon Ball Super is eager to continue the tradition with its own dose of darkness.
While the first three arcs don’t add much in the way of morbidity, the Goku Black and Universe Survival arcs have fully embraced the dark and downright vile more than the franchise ever has. Legitimately invincible villains, billions dying in the blink of an eye, and a gladiator style deathmatch beat Dragon Ball’s once child friendly vibe to a pulp. The franchise has had demons, tyrants, bug monsters, and insane genies, but Dragon Ball Super puts all of Z to shame with it own brand of unadulterated horror.
25 Freeza Was Stronger Than Both Goku And Vegeta
Let’s get one thing straight about Resurrection F – Freeza didn’t lose because he was weaker than Goku or Vegeta, he lost because he was impatient. By just training for four months, Freeza was able to close a divinely enhanced gap between him and his archnemeses. Had he simply waited a bit longer and refined his Golden form, Goku and Vegeta would have lost easily.
During the entirety of Resurrection F, Freeza is actually stronger but he keeps losing because his stamina won’t stop draining. That’s the only reason Goku is able to keep up. As Freeza’s stamina dips, Goku manages to stay at a comfortable base with Super Saiyan Blue, allowing him to overpower the frost demon. If Freeza’s stamina was stable, however, Goku wouldn’t have been able to put up as much of a fight, leading to his inevitable death.
24 Goku Black Is Psychological Horror Personified
In-universe and out, Goku Black is a villain who actively targets and assaults the psyche of Trunks and the audience. For Trunks, Black is a monster wearing the face of his mother’s best friend, his mentor’s father, and his personal savior. For the audience, Black is complete perversion of Goku’s persona, taking the light hearted Saiyan we know and love and morphing into a beast bent on causing as much chaos as possible.
The evil Goku shtick isn’t unique to Super, but no other interpretation of the idea has Goku killing Bulma and leading to inevitable erasure of an entire timeline. Goku Black’s actions are consequential, that a piece of lore, one that’s been referenced in utilizes in spin-offs for decades, gets wiped out. Goku’s supposed to save the world, not end it.
23 Freeza Won
Freeza won. He lost the overall battle in Resurrection F, but he won the war. Goku was fatally wounded, Vegeta was stumped on what to do with Freeza, and the Earth was blown up in an instant. While we don’t see Freeza survive, there’s no reason to argue against the fact that, in that moment, victory was his. He went to Earth for revenge and he got his revenge. If Whis wasn’t there to bail rewind time, that would have been the end of the series. Even worse, Goku and Vegeta were only able to keep up as well as they did because they trained with Whis. If Beerus never came to visit Earth, there’d be no rewind to save Goku and friends.
22 Zeno Can Effortlessly Erase A Universe
By the time you finish reading this sentence, Zeno will have already wiped out your universe. That’s how easy it is for him. As cute and cuddly his design is, Zeno is arguably the scariest character Dragon Ball has ever had. He’s basically a child with the ability to erase all of existence as we know it, and he can do it without breaking a sweat. Every time he erases a universe during the Tournament of Power, it’s been a quick mass genocide. There’s no charging up or special chanting, if Zeno wants you gone, you’re gone. Case in point: Frost. All it took was a look, and one of Universe 6’s strongest fighters was wiped out. Effortless extinction.
21 Goku And Beerus’ Fight Nearly Destroyed The Universe
When gods collide, no one survives. Or so we’re led to believe. Throughout Super, it’s made clear that Gods of Destruction are at risk of causing a universal collapse when fighting. It makes a fair amount of sense when you consider that characters like Roshi could blow up the moon as early as the 21st Budokai. Naturally, the power scaling would be off the chart for gods. What’s truly terrifying, though, is the fact that a Super Saiyan God Goku and a Beerus who was holding back nearly all his power were more than capable of destroying Universe 7.
Their fight, which now seems meager in comparison to all the action we’ve gotten since Battle of Gods, actually put the universe at risk. This poses a more frightening prospect, however: everyone must be holding back immensely. If Goku was able to put the universe at risk as a Super Saiyan God, Ultra Instinct is likely the bane of the omniverse.
Or maybe characters just like to exaggerate.
20 The Hakai Is Terrifying
You know that move Beerus used on Zamasu that turned him into ash in a matter of seconds? That’s called the Hakai, and it’s absolutely twisted. Unlike Zeno’s erasure which poofs someone or something out of existence in a flash, the Hakai is a destructive technique that slowly obliterates someone. Think of it like getting erased by Zeno, but instead of blinking and dying, you’re painfully having every inch of you torn apart. What’s worse, Beerus has actually threatened to use this technique on Goku. No matter how hard he trains and how strong he gets, it’s going to be hard to fight back against literal annihilation.
19 Super Makes Most Of The Original Series Inconsequential
It’s easy to feel minuscule in the grand scheme of the universe. We are, after all, simply beings on one planet in a universe filled with more than we can likely imagine. In Dragon Ball, however, our heroes are at the top of the food chain, their actions have meaning. Right? …R-right? Wrong. If there’s anything Dragon Ball Super has taught us, it’s that very little of what happened in Dragon Ball and DBZ actually matter in the big picture.
With twelve universe, five timelines, and an Omni-King more than happy to erase everyone and everything, Dragon Ball Super has injected some humanity into the series by reminded us of just how small we are. Goku going Super Saiyan and defeating Freeza? Meaningless. Majin Boo being defeated? Doesn’t matter. Nothing in Universe 7 matters. Nothing in this life matters. You, Goku, and I are simply waiting for the inevitable end of our universes.
At least Ultra Instinct looks cool!
18 Goku’s Never Been More Helpless
Want to know something really disturbing? Goku has yet to beat a single main antagonist in Super. Beerus? He lost while Beerus was barely trying. Freeza? He would have own, but he let his guard down and got shot. Hit? Goku forfeited his match because he realized Hit wouldn’t be able to go all out. Zamasu? You can’t beat someone who’s immortal. The fact of the matter is, Goku’s never been more helpless than in Dragon Ball Super. The man who singlehandedly took down the Red Ribbon Army, King Piccolo, and Freeza back in the original series has yet to recapture that old glory. With Jiren looming over the Tournament of Power as Goku’s greatest challenge yet, will our hero finally break his Super defeat streak?
17 Future Trunks Has PTSD
Hasn’t poor Future Trunks suffered enough? He never got to meet his father, his best friend and mentor died for questionably suicidal reasons, and he had to watch his mother get killed by someone who looked exactly like his personal savior: Goku. Toss in the fact all this happened before he was even 30 and it makes sense Trunks would carry that trauma with him. In perhaps one of Dragon Ball’s boldest moves, the series actually addresses all of Trunks’ strife by giving him PTSD.
For the uninformed, PTSD stands for post traumatic stress disorder. With so much trauma in his life, it’s only natural Trunks would end up with PTSD. We see it clearly when he confuses Goku with Goku Black and starts to panic. Trunks has been conditioned to see Goku, not as a man but, as a monster. He is a living reminder of the pain Trunks has undergone.
16 Frost Is A Bonafide Warmonger
Remember those two episodes where Frost wasn’t as stereotypically evil as Freeza? That was nice. While the reveal that Frost was actually a monster and not Freeza’s good counterpart was incredibly disappointing, we did get a piece of information that arguably paints Frost as the evil twin. Unlike Freeza who openly terrorizes the universe, Frost uses manipulative methods to accomplish as much as Freeza while coming out the hero. Frost sells planets in the hopes of inciting war so that he can stop the war himself.
Both are undeniably evil with Freeza leading due to the sheer fact he enslaves races, but Frost does put up a decent fight since he sells out entire races just so he can rescue them and reap the rewards. Freeza is honest about his sadism, Frost hides his true nature until he’s caught cheating in the Universe 6 tournament. Say what you want about Freeza, but at least he plays fair.
Until he blows up your planet, but that’s beside the point.
15 We Still Don’t Know Just How Strong Hit Is
With the Universe 6 tournament and the Universe Survival arc, we’ve now had two arcs where a 1,000 year old assassin boxer has been unable to use his full power. He can timeskip, sure, but we’ve yet to see Hit fight with killing intent outside of a mediocre two-parter bordering on filler. When it really counts, Hit’s had to hold back every time thanks to both tournaments implementing the standard “no killing” rule from the old school tournaments. While it’s hard to believe Hit can be stronger than Jiren or Ultra Instinct Goku at this point, we know for a fact he’s got some assassination tricks up his sleeve. He may not be the physically strongest anymore, but we still might see the day where Hit gets to go all out and murder someone without a moment’s hesitation. It’s just a shame he had to hold back yet again during the Tournament of Power.
14 Trunks’ Timeline Is Pilaf’s Fault
Pilaf. You either love him or you hate him. He’s either much needed comic relief in a series that too often dwells in its own melodrama, or he’s a total nuisance who distracts from the narrative whenever he’s on the screen. Whether you’re a fan of him or not, you’re going to have plenty of reason to hate him after reading Super’s first bonus chapter. Canon to the manga and most likely, but not confirmed, canon for the anime, this bonus chapter details why exactly the Dragon Balls weren’t used in Future Trunks’ timeline: Pilaf got to them first.
While Piccolo was fighting off the Androids, Gohan and Bulma rushed to collect the Dragon Balls. Unfortunately, Pilaf had already collected them and wished for youth. Seconds after granting the wish, Piccolo dies and so does Shenlong. Had Pilaf not made his wish to become a child again, Gohan and Bulma may have been able to throw in a last minute wish to stop the Androids.
13 Gowasu Has Nothing To Live For
Gowasu, like Trunks, was dealt the worst hand imaginable in the Goku Black arc. Unlike Trunks, however, Gowasu doesn’t use Zamasu’s betrayal as a motivator in bettering his station. Instead, he gives up and prepares for the inevitable. Gowasu barely manages to round up a competent team for the Tournament of Power and his attitude is that of a man ready to die. It makes sense, after all, since he’s coming right off the loss of an apprentice he loved like a son. Zamasu’s fall not only made Gowasu question the value of his teachings, it broke his heart completely. By the time he gets erased by Zeno, Gowasu simply accepts his fate and closes his eyes in the face of death.
“If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.” - Japanese proverb
12 The Original Timeline Doesn’t Exist Anymore
As confusing as it is, our timeline is not the original timeline. Since Trunks comes to the main timeline to save it from the Androids, that means Trunks’ timeline is actually the original. It’s the first one where Goku grew up, the events of Dragon Ball happened, and everything up to the end of the Freeza saga occurred. Tragedy struck, as it often does, and the timeline branched off as Trunks started to time travel. With the end of the Goku Black arc, however, this does mean the original timeline, the one that actually started it all in canon, no longer exists.
That means, the original history of the series covers Dragon Ball, the first two arcs of Z, Trunks time traveling to another timeline, coming back to defeat his Androids and Cell, defeating Babidi and Dabra before they can summon Buu, and then ultimately failing to protect his universe at the end of the Goku Black arc. Talk about a downer ending.
11 Trunks Will Never See His Mother Or Mentor Again
Not everyone gets to keep their body when they die, but they do get to get reincarnated if they don’t get sent to Hell. Unfortunately, you can’t get reincarnated if you don’t exist. The sad reality of Trunks’ life is that he can never see his mother or mentor again, even as just souls. Bulma and Gohan simply doesn’t exist anywhere anymore, the afterlife being erased with Trunks’ timeline. This is perhaps the saddest aspect of Trunks’ life if you think about it.
He’s a man who fought his whole life for a better future, but was never able to attain one for himself. His life’s biggest moments revolve around protecting a past that isn’t his, can never be his, and will never be his. There are no Dragon Balls that can bring his family back. The next time you’re watching the end of the Goku Black arc and Trunks sees Future Gohan in our Gohan, just remember that the two will never be reunited, in life or death.
10 Freeza Was Able To Perfect His Golden Form Just By Meditating
Dragon Ball Super has been very generous to Freeza. If it wasn’t enough that he was stronger than Goku and Vegeta in Resurrection F, he’s now managed to refine his only drawback by meditating. While dead. While restrained in a personal Hell of his own making, Freeza managed to drown out a nightmare created exclusively for him and meditate to the point where his super overpowered transformation no longer had its once ferocious stamina drain. From just meditating, Freeza managed to put up an even match with a Goku who’s trained basically non-stop since their last encounter. Resurrection F told us Freeza was a prodigy. The Universe Survival arc proved it.
9 Krillin Could Have Been Erased
If you’re playing with Zeno, you need to play by the rules. Frost learns that lesson firsthand when he breaks Tournament of Power protocol and tries to attack Freeza from the sidelines. It makes sense that anyone not on stage interfering with the match would be considered a rule breaker. Guess what Krillin almost did when he saw Master Roshi struggling?
Had he not been stopped by his fellow spectators, Krillin would have been the first main character in the series to straight up be erased. Zeno would have immediately caught Krillin trying to interfere much like he did with Frost. Losing Frost is one thing, but Krillin? He’s been around since practically the beginning of the series. Watching him be erased would have been an overwhelming dose of morbidity in an already disturbing arc.
8 Freeza And Beerus Have Pushed Universe 7 To Near Extinction
Universe 7 is ranked second to last when it comes to universes, and for good reason: Beerus and Freeza absolutely ravaged Universe 7. Beerus tries to push the blame onto Shin for neglecting to influence planets in early development, but Beerus and Freeza both destroyed entire civilizations to the point where there are only 28 planets with intelligent life in the universe.
On Beerus’ end, it’s his pettiness that led Universe 7 down to the bottom. His reasons for blowing up planets were often too simple to justify, leading to pointless destruction. For Freeza, his empire systematically enslaved other races, wiped planets clean, and sold them off to the highest bidder. It’s telling that every single fight from Universe 7 needed to come from Earth. Beerus and Freeza made sure no one could thrive elsewhere.
7 Goku Is Risking His Life Every Time He Uses Kaioken
Kaioken’s biggest drawback has always been how much stamina it takes to use. In the Saiyan saga, Goku completely trashed his body during his beam struggle against Vegeta by pushing himself too hard. In the Freeza saga, he wasted so much stamina that he had to fall back on the Genki Dama to try to beat Freeza. With the exception of the Otherworld Tournament filler in the anime, Goku never used Kaioken again. Until Super.
If you thought Goku was reckless with Kaioken before, Dragon Ball Super’s going to make you look back and applaud Goku for how “careful” he was. By mixing Kaioken with Super Saiyan Blue, Goku puts so much strain on his body that there’s roughly a 90% chance that he’ll die just attempting it. While he hasn’t yet, this really looms over every time he uses it in the series. It would not have been great for Trunks and Vegeta if Goku’s heart gave out the moment he triggered Kaioken Blue against Zamasu.
6 The Super Dragon Balls Are Easily Exploitable
The Dragon Balls are already stupidly exploitable so it makes sense that a super version of them would be even easier to abuse. To give you an idea of just how ridiculously useful they are, Zamasu was able to find them all without a problem thanks to their obscurity, and then he managed to wish for his and Goku’s bodies to switch and for immortality. The Super Dragon Balls can grant any wish and barely anybody knows about them. There’s a reason Zamasu is so difficult to defeat in the Goku Black arc; he basically turned on God Mode and griefed the main characters until the admin was forced to come in and shutdown the server. He’s the Dragon Ball equivalent of every angsty twelve year old on CS:GO if you think about it.
