Dragon Ball Super / Tropes A to C

Main Page | Tropes A to C | Tropes D to I | Tropes J to O | Tropes P to T | Tropes U to Z

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Spoilers for all Dragon Ball works preceding it will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

A

• Abusive Alien Parents: The Saiyans send their infants/toddlers off to fend for themselves... and destroy planets. Without Frieza's influence, the last Saiyans left alive do care about their young, although this caring generally takes the form of Training from Hell to ready their offspring to better handle combat as opposed to trying to keep them out of danger. According to Word of God, Saiyans don't have much of a nesting instinct. Saiyans thrive on challenge and harsh environments, becoming stronger upon recovering from fatal injuries. This may also explain Goku and Vegeta's parental styles as while they do care for their children, their way of raising would be different (not to mention Goku being raised in the near-wilderness).
• Accidental Hero:
  • Zeno arrives mere seconds before Champa kills his team for losing the tournament. Although Zeno had been watching the tournament for some time, it is questionable if he timed his arrival to stop Champa.
  • Monaka saves everyone from the Commeson by accidentally stepping on the Commeson's core. This weakens Copy-Vegeta, giving Goku an opening to kill him.
  • Turns out Goku convincing Zeno to create the Tournament of Power was a case of this since it's revealed that Zeno was always planning to wipe out the eight lowest ranking universes from the multiverse (which includes Universe 7), but decided to hold the Tournament of Power in order to spare the winning universe. So if anything Goku's actions unintentionally gave the eight lowest ranking universes a chance at survival. However, none of the gods are willing to give Goku credit for this and in fact blame everything bad that has happened on him.
  • Another minor example is Goku wanting to talk to Krillin about training with him. Krillin, however is in the middle of a shoot out. Since this means he won't be able to talk to him, Goku simply catches the bank robbers and hands them over to the cops. Not because they were criminals and shooting at the police, just because he wanted to talk to his buddy and eliminate the distraction.
• Accidental Tickle Torture: After Goku revives himself with his own energy blast, Goten runs up and hugs him. Goku lightly complains that Goten is tickling him.
• The Ace:
  • Goku as always. Just from his body having a taste of godhood, he absorbs its power and makes it his own, going beyond godhood and surpassing all of Beerus' expectations. Beerus is so impressed that he spares Goku and the Earth. In the Champa Saga, he figures out how to counter Hit's Time-Skipping ability by predicting Hit's movements for the next 0.1 seconds, shocking everyone, including both Gods of Destruction. He surprises everyone again after he reveals that he can now combine Super Saiyan God with the Kaioken, something that was thought to be impossible since the Kaioken is really hard on the body and a normal Super Saiyan is stressful enough, which is why he never combined them before. He also learns and masters the Evil Containment Wave in a single night whereas it took Tien, who is also a genius fighter, an entire day to master it (to be fair, in the original Dragon Ball, Goku did master the Kamehameha by just watching Master Roshi use it once, even though Master Roshi had spent decades developing and mastering the technique himself). Beerus acknowledges Goku as this again after the events of the Future Trunks Saga and makes him the captain for the upcoming Zeno tournament and calls him the key fighter, replacing Monaka. And as if that's not enough, during his battle with Jiren in the Universal Tournament Arc, Goku achieves a new form called "Ultra Instinct", which is so powerful that even the Gods of Destruction fear it, and one of them even states that the state is not easily attainable even for a god.
  • This is a requirement to be appointed a God of Destruction. Both Beerus and Champa are called the strongest in their respective universes, although those titles really belong to Whis and Vados. Them just fighting can destroy the 6th and 7th Universes. However, when it comes to them doing their actual jobs, they're anything but this. Universe 7 has the second worst mortal ranking in the multiverse and Universe 6 is only a little better, ranking the third worst.
  • Beerus claims that Monaka is this, citing him as the strongest mortal in Universe 7 who gave him a much better fight than Goku. He tells members of his team to do rock-paper-scissors to chose who will fight in what order, but says that Monaka will go last since he is the 'ace'. Beerus also seems to be afraid of him, going out of his way to keep Monaka happy. It's revealed by Whis that Monaka isn't that strong and is actually an amateur fighter who Beerus built up to motivate Goku and Vegeta into becoming stronger.
  • Hit is said to be the strongest fighter from Universe 6 and is a legendary assassin who never fails to kill his target, giving him the nickname "The Flawless Hit." He definitely lives up to his reputation since he easily decimates Vegeta who was fighting as a Super Saiyan Blue, without Vegeta even touching him once. He is also a Time Master with the ability to pause time for 0.1 seconds, making his movements invisible even to people like Jaco. He even one-ups himself by showing that he can improve while he fights, taking his time-stopping power all the way to 0.5 seconds, and he keeps improving.
  • Zeno tops all of them by being the most powerful being in the entire multiverse, being able to destroy the multiverse easily if he wanted and has destroyed six universes in the past (to the point where the aforementioned Gods of Destruction are scared of him). Luckily for everyone, he's too chill to want to.
  • Zamasu went from a lower Kai to being trained to become a Supreme Kai because of his prodigious talent. While the strongest Supreme Kai in Universe 7 was only as strong as Kid Buu, he can take hits from Super Saiyan 2 Goku, whose base form surpasses Super Buu. After sparring with him, Goku surmises that he could become as powerful as Beerus someday.
  • Jiren is called the strongest fighter in U11 by Top, who was in the running to be a God of Destruction. According to Top, if Goku is only even with him, he stands no chance against Jiren.
  • Iwen, the God of Destruction from Universe 1. Although he is this by default since he is a God of Destruction, he standouts among the rest since he had the highest mortal ranking across all twelves universes.
  • Gin, the God of Destruction from Universe 12 is a Deconstructed example. Not only is he a God of Destruction, he has the second best mortal rating across the multiverse. This has left him incredibly bored since there's nothing to destroy.
  • Frieza. After his resurrection, he complains about being slightly depowered by the inactivity in the afterlife. After six months of training, his base form becomes stronger than Buu, and he unlocks a transformation that powers him up even further, making it stronger than Super Saiyan Blue, which took Goku well over ten years to unlock, and even more counting the abuse of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, plus some training in the afterlife and with a god.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: Zeno is the absolute ruler of the entire multiverse, but in terms of personality and appearance is basically a child. All he wants to do is play, and befriends Goku as the only being he's ever met who doesn't bow and scrape to him constantly.
• Achilles' Heel:
  • Magetta may be a powerhouse on par with a Super Saiyan God (or rather, a fully mastered Super Saiyan, which basically amounts to the same), but insulting him causes him to freeze up and lose the will to fight. According to Whis, all Metal Men are mentally underdeveloped this way. Also counts as a Weak Sauce Weakness.
  • A downplayed example, but as in past series, paralysis-inducing techniques remain something of a soft spot for Goku. During Episode 42, Chiaotzu manages to very briefly hold back Goku with his power. Granted, Goku is in his base form, relaxed, and Chiaotzu takes him by surprise, but the fact that Chiaotzu restrains Goku for any length of time despite the atrocious gap in power really says something. For a frame of reference, the last time Chiaotzu used his power, he couldn't even hold back Nappa.
  • The Commeson can be weakened if its core becomes damaged or destroyed. The core is very weak since Monaka manages to break it by accidentally stepping on it.
  • As immensely powerful as Merged Zamasu is, he has a critical weakness: Goku Black's mortal component, while making him extremely powerful, lowers him from 'completely invulnerable' to simply really hard to kill. That said, successfully killing Merged Zamasu does little to stop his immortal soul from taking over the multiverse by merging with it.
• Action Dad:
  • Goku and Vegeta per usual, since they're the top fighters in Universe 7 while being fathers and, in Goku's case, a grandfather.
  • Gohan becomes this after Pan is born, joining the others when he hears about Frieza's invasion. He tells Shisami that this is the reason why he fights, despite disliking hurting people. He wants his daughter to grow up in a safe world. In the Universal Survival Saga, he is part of the U7 team.
  • Krillin also goes to the front lines of Frieza's invasion despite having a family and being retired from fighting. After the events of Episode 76, he regains his fighting spirit and trains again, even going as far as to shave his hair. He's also part of the U7 team in the Universal Survival Saga.
  • Android 17 has a family of three kids, yet he's stronger than ever being able to trade blows with Super Saiyan Blue Goku. He also works as a ranger on an island, keeping poachers away.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Japanese Dub:
    • Jiren, a red-wearing superhero from Universe 11, is voiced by Eiji Hanawa, who has voiced Tony Stark in Toei Animation's Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers. Likewise, Jiren is a pretty stoic hero with a Heroic Build, which sounds just like Kenshiro, which Eiji Hanawa also voiced in the OVA of Fist of the North Star: Raoh Side Story Junai Arc.
    • Ribrianne, a warrior of Universe 2 that is a Magical Girl parody, is voiced by Rina Kitagawa, who voiced Cure Honey in the HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! series. In her Establishing Character Moment, she declares to "Spread happiness, the true love", similar to the series boasts.
  • English Dub:
    • In the English dub of the Champa Arc (and every non-Xenoverse appearance after), Hit is voiced by Matthew Mercer. Rather appropriate, since Hit and Jotaro Kujo both are Time Masters.
    • Frost, Frieza's U6 double, is voiced by Greg Ayres, the brother of Chris Ayres. This is also a bit of a teary-eyed thing, since the intent was to have Greg & Chris get some time together during Universe Survival, but Chris' COPD reaching life-threatening levels nearly scuppered the idea until Frost's last episode.
    • Copy-Vegeta is voiced by Brian Drummond, the original voice of Vegeta in the Ocean dub of Z. This leads to a literal Dueling Dubs moment when Vegeta and Copy-Vegeta fight.
    • Once again, Zamasu, a green-skinned Satanic Archetype is played by James Marsters, whom played a certain other green-skinned Satanic Archetype in Dragonball Evolution.
  • Latin American Spanish Dub:
    • Cabba is not the first time Emilio Treviño voiced someone who wished to be the student of a Stock Shōnen Rival like Vegeta. He previously voiced a little kid who wished to be Shun Kazami's student in Bakugan. This was also one of the first times he gave a more serious tone of voice (during his Super Saiyan transformation) before being cast for Akira Fudo in DEVILMAN crybaby.
    • Hit is voiced by Idzi Dutkiewicz, who has already played a character who became friendly with a Mario Castañeda character, as he's the voice actor for Tony Stark / Iron Man in the MCU, while Castañeda dubs Bruce Banner in the MCU. That's right; there's a Science Bros. reunion here.
    • As an amazing coincidence, Mario Castañeda, who voices Goku Black, has previously played a petty time-traveling villain who was a dark counterpart of a hero via identity theft in the form of the Reverse Flash.
    • Zamasu is voiced by José Gilberto Vilchis, who has voiced an attractive green-themed rogue god in the form of Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who has been antagonistic to a Mario Castañeda character, as Castañeda dubs Bruce Banner in the MCU. Vilchis also dubbed Baron Zemo in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, where he's again antagonistic to a Castañeda character, as Castañeda dubs Hank Pym there.
    • Like Hit and Zamasu's voice actors, Jiren is voiced by Juan Carlos Tinoco, who also voiced the Big Bad Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and he also dubbed Hulk in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes where's this time is allied to a Castañeda character.
• Adapted Out: Vegeta's brother, Tarble, as well as the entirety of the events of Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! apparently never existed, or are at the very least never mentioned in Super, despite being confirmed part of the canon in the Battle of Gods movie the first arc was adapted from. This was likely done since the presence of Abo and Kado, the remnants of Frieza's army that chased Tarble to Earth, stand at odds with the events of Resurrection of F, which featured different remnants of Frieza's army, as well as the explanation that Frieza's men specifically avoided going to Earth out of fear of Goku's power. ^ExplanationAlthough part of the plot in Resurrection F was that Frieza's army is shattered in multiple factions, with Sorbet's simply being the largest one..
• Actually, That's My Assistant: Future Trunks meets Beerus and Whis and is told that he's in the presence of the God of Destruction. Trunks immediately bows to Whis...who awkwardly explains that he's just the assistant and Beerus is the God. Needless to say, between this and the fact that time travel is regarded as a major sin by the gods, Beerus starts off with a pretty poor impression of Trunks.
• Adaptive Ability:
  • Throughout his fight with Beerus in the Battle of Gods Arc, Goku's body adapts and evolves, going beyond godhood, to the point that he kept his god powers even after turning back to a normal Super Saiyan.
  • Hit has the ability to improve his Time-Skip ability the longer he fights. He went from only being able to freeze time for 0.1 seconds, to stopping Goku while he's using Super Saiyan Blue/Kaioken combo.
  • Goku Black is able to evolve as he fights, engraving "battle memories" into himself. When first introduced, he's able to fight Super Saiyan 2 Goku evenly; in their next fight, he's not only able to shrug off blows from Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta in his base form, and he has developed his own Super Saiyan form, which he dubs Super Saiyan Rosé. He even praises the Saiyan body for its ability to grow stronger from fighting.
  • Much like in the original series and Z, Goku gains a type of immunity from most techniques he has seen before. This comes in the form that he knows how to counter them through observation. When Goku has his rematched with Hit, he outright tells Hit that his Time-Skip won't work anymore. He later learns to counter Hit's invisible shockwaves after experiencing how they work.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Super Saiyan God. In Battle of Gods, Super Saiyan God was the definition of Awesome, but Impractical: it gave Goku the power to battle Beerus on more or less equal grounds, but it only lasted for a few minutes — short enough that Goku lost the transformation in the middle of the fight, and actually performed better fighting as a normal Super Saiyan, since he absorbed the power of godhood. Here, while the end result is pretty much the same, Super Saiyan God lasts much longer and overall has a better showing, including slowly destroying the universe just by fighting Beerus and, even if it was brief, proves able to stand up to Beerus' full power. In the movie, by comparison, Beerus never used more than 70% of his power. It also seems to give Goku a type of Healing Factor, since he recovers from being impaled through the stomach.
  • Beerus himself gets this. In the movie Battle of Gods, he uses 70% of his power to put down Super Saiyan God Goku. Whis in Resurrection 'F' claims that Goku and Vegeta working together may be enough to beat Beerus. In this series, Beerus is far stronger than Goku and Vegeta despite all their progress. Even Goku's Kaioken that he can take up to x10, isn't enough to overwhelm Beerus. According to Toriyama, he has no plans of letting Goku or Vegeta surpass Beerus anytime soon.
  • #18 appears to be weaker in the movies. Much less in the anime adaptations, where she has a more active role and Krillin more or less admits it's better for her to fight since she's much stronger than him.
  • Tagoma went from being unceremoniously killed by Frieza in the film to being the strongest soldier in Frieza's ranks, thanks to getting saddled with the duty of being Frieza's training dummy for the four months between his revival and trip to Earth.
  • Frieza puts up a better fight against Goku in his final form compared to the movie. In the movie, Goku dominated Frieza and he failed to even land a single hit. Here he matches Goku a lot more evenly and is even able to hit Goku a few times, by attacking his friends as a distraction. While it is still very clear that Goku is the strongest, since Frieza caused him no critical damage, Goku isn't overwhelmingly more powerful like in the movie. As Golden Frieza he also overpowers Goku to a far greater extent than he did in the movie. His transformation also doesn't lose power quite as quickly as Frieza has more control of his power. He beats Goku around while still holding back (although Goku wasn't at full power either). However, when he does finally use his full power, after admittedly fighting for a longer time than in the movie, it takes about a minute before before his power drops like a rock.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • While the events of Battle of Gods are mostly the same, there are some elements from the movie that were removed (such as Gohan being drunk, the Pilaf gang obtaining a Dragon Ball, and The Reveal that Whis is actually stronger than Beerus) while again, keeping the basic events.
  • Events that happened in the anime before it surpassed the manga falls into this. The fight between Botamo and Goku was longer in the manga with Botamo actually attacking Goku. The Goku vs. Frost match was also much longer. In the manga, Frost fights Goku in his first form before being forced to go into his third form and then his true form. Goku and Frost fight for awhile before Frost cheats and wins the match. In the anime, Frost doesn't fight in his first form since Goku prompts him to fight all out. He goes into his third form like the manga and they fight for a bit before Frost goes into his true form. Frost is then completely stomped by Goku before he cheats and wins the match.
• Adaptation Dye-Job:
  • Bulma's hair is blue in the show when it was an aqua-green in Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.
  • Reverted. Mai's eyes are blue in Dragon Ball, but are changed to black in this series, which actually matches her appearance in the original manga.
  • Future Trunks' hair is blue, much like his mother's. Interestingly, present Trunks keeps his original purple hair color. Word of God is this is so the audience can distinguish between the two Trunks visually.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The TV series is expanding on the events of the movies:
    • Battle of Gods: Not much has really been changed. The setting was moved to a cruise ship instead of Bulma's house. The fight with Beerus is longer and unlike the movie Goku manages to get Beerus to use more of his full power instead of only 70%. Goku still loses but it's much more of a step up from the movie. Beerus spares the Earth, but instead of a Loop Hole Abuse, he pretends to falls asleep, Whis never offers Goku the job of God of Destruction when Beerus dies, and the information about Whis being stronger than Beerus and the twelve other universes are left out.
    • Resurrection 'F': We actually see how Vegeta and Goku convinced Whis to train them, as well as some of the training regimen they're put through. Tagoma is spared from being offed too early and is the one who shoots a hole into Gohan rather than Frieza punching him. Krillin shows more self-doubt about facing his murderer, Frog Ginyu makes an appearance, and we see some of Frieza's 'training' where he tortures Tagoma. Trunks (his younger self) and Goten get wind of the battle and join in as Gotenks for a brief bit.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Beerus is far more of a Jerkass God here than he was in Battle of Gods. He even admits at one point that he actually enjoys watching planets he destroys explode and attacks the Earth directly during his battle with Goku to make him unleash more of his power. When Goku asks if he cares about human life, Beerus laughs saying that this is a battle between gods. He gets over it after his saga ends. He thankfully becomes nicer after the arc is over, lining up with his movie counterpart.
  • In the Resurrection 'F' film, Tagoma was the Only Sane Man and it got him spaced. Here, it earned him four months of brutal training with Frieza that turned him into a hardened killer. Instead of Frieza being the one to momentarily kill Gohan like in the film, here Tagoma does it by blasting a hole through both Gohan and Shisami while the latter had the former in a bear hug.
  • As absolutely amazing as it sounds, Frieza manages to get this when compared to Resurrection 'F'. In the movie, Frieza kills his men when he's revived to test his power, throws Tagoma out of the airlock for speaking out against his revenge plan, kills off his entire army after they fail to kill even one of the Z Fighters, and blows up the Earth after he loses to Vegeta. As bad as this list is, he's worse in the series. While he doesn't kill his men to test his power, he tortures and demeans them and shows no respect towards Sorbet despite all he's done to preserve the empire and bring Frieza back to life. He also tortures Tagoma for four months after he speaks out against Frieza's plan and shatters the guy's sanity, turning the once Noble Demon to a coldblooded murderer who is just as bad as Frieza. As the Z Fighters battle his army, he puts a bounty on Krillin's head, promising a planet to whoever kills him, since he knows that Krillin's death will cause Goku a great amount of pain. He then goes on to torture Gohan for reminding him of Goku's mercy towards him on Namek, which leads to Piccolo's death since he shields Gohan from a fatal Death Beam and he brags about how he is going to kill Gohan's entire family once he's done with him. When Goku finally arrives, he shows off his new power by killing off his remaining men when he goes into his true form and attacks Goku's friends during their fight to distract him. He then tells Goku about his plans to destroy Earth and Namek once he kills him so no one can ever be wished back again. The differences are so stark that Frieza in Resurrection 'F looks like a decent person compared to his Super counterpart.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Zigzagged: Overall, Goku comes across as less heroic when compared to Dragon Ball Z, mostly because that version of Goku was also the subject of Adaptational Heroism from the Japanese anime, which was increased in the English Dub. In Super, Goku is closer to Toriyama's version of the character who is more selfish and willing to put a good fight over the safety of others. That said, Goku is more heroic in the series when compared to the movies, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', where Toriyama had more active involvement in the writing. In the Battle of Gods Saga, Goku wants to rush to Earth to stop Beerus from destroying the planet and only relents after King Kai points out that his involvement could destroy the Earth by making Beerus mad. In the movie, Goku willingly stays on King Kai's planet to train and reach Super Saiyan God. Goku is also happier with the results of becoming a Super Saiyan God (although he calls the power empty since it isn't his own) and fights mostly to protect the planet from Beerus (who is also more of a jerk since he attacks the planet directly to push Goku's power), while still having a good time. In the movie, Goku is unhappy with Super Saiyan God since it's a level he couldn't reach on his own and he fights Beerus more for himself until the end. In the Resurrection 'F' Saga, Goku hates Frieza a lot more and tells the tyrant that he feels nothing but contempt for him despite the fact he normally loves fighting strong opponents. He also berates Frieza for being so careless to come to Earth without mastering his golden form and only spares him because he sees him as too pathetic to kill. In the movie, Goku is happy that Frieza has become so powerful in such a short amount of time, didn't really take the threat seriously, and spares Frieza so he can train his golden form and come back to fight him again. And when he's forced to kill Frieza to keep him from destroying the Earth, he warns Vegeta to get out of the way and hesitates for a second since he might hit him, while in the movie, Goku fires his Kamehameha while Vegeta is still within range.
  • Vegeta is a minor example. In Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', Vegeta sees Frieza as more of his plaything and, like Goku, didn't take the fight seriously. In the series adaptation, he is very concerned about Frieza's return and tells Goku to hurry up when he hears that the Earth is being attacked and gets on Goku for taking too long to take down Frieza, instead of just being mad that Goku is hogging the fight. After Goku is shot down by Sorbet, Vegeta willingly saves him, while in the movie he's fine with letting Frieza kill Goku for being dumb enough to drop his guard. He also says that he might regret refusing Frieza's offer to rejoin the army in the movie, while in the series, he never considers or even humors the suggestion, telling his old boss that he should disappear.
• Adaptational Wimp: In Resurrection 'F', Jaco is a badass in his own right, helping the Z Fighters fight Frieza's army, living up to his title as an elite warrior. Here, he has been making blatant excuses not to fight Frieza's army, despite them being weaker than Krillin. Bulma chews him out for not helping take down most of Frieza's army. This could be because less of Frieza's men attacked all at once and half of them remained near Frieza, so the Z Fighters didn't need his help.
• A Day in the Limelight: Basil gets one in the first episode of the Tournament of Power, a battle royale between 8 universes with 10 fighters from each. He scores the first ring-out of the Tournament and exchanges blows with at least three other fighters. All the extra screentime makes his - and his entire Universe's - loss of the Tournament (and subsequent erasure from existence) in the next episode more dramatic.
• Advertised Extra: Majin Buu, one of competitors for Universe 7, ends up getting disqualified from participating in the tournament for failing the preliminary test.
• Advice Backfire:
  • Gowasu orders Zamasu to fight Goku so he can have a better idea on how mortals are. Although he is shocked along with Zamasu on how powerful Goku is, he thinks Zamasu got a positive experience from fighting Goku. Instead, Zamasu thinks mortals are both foolish and dangerous. And when Zamasu suggests killing the mortals on Planet Babari because of their violent nature, Gowasu suggests going a thousand years into the future to see if they calmed down. They've developed some culture but are still pretty barbaric, which doesn't help Zamasu's attitude.
  • When talking to Zamasu about his belief that there must be a Balance Between Good and Evil, Gowasu says that evil is needed for justice to prosper since justice is created to counteract evil. Just before Zamasu tries to kill him, Zamasu says that he finally understands how acts of evil can lead to justice.
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • Subverted with Vegeta, surprisingly. He still wants to surpass Goku, but acknowledges him to be the stronger of the two for now.
  • Chi-Chi zigzags. She's back to being controlling of Goku, forcing him to get work instead of training. This is justified since the family does need money since they burnt through the Ox King's riches. Then after she learns about Pan, she refuses to let Pan become a martial artist and regularly guilt trips Goku about being a bad grandpa. By the end of Episode 17, where Goku leaves to train without her permission, she's actually quite chill about him leaving, going as far as to say it was inevitable, and even plans a welcome back party for him.
  • After losing to Goku and being killed by Trunks, Frieza realizes that being Brilliant, but Lazy was the catalyst to his downfall. So, he decides to finally train and bring out all of his latent power. He does succeed in becoming much stronger and is even able to sense powers to a degree. However, he still didn't completely learn his lesson from Namek. Part of the reason why he lost was because he never learned to control his full power, had no endurance for a prolonged fight, and couldn't fight back once raw strength proved to be ineffective. His golden form has the exact same problems to an even greater extent and he has to rely on cheating in order to bring down Goku.
  • Goku repeatedly fails to learn to take his opponents seriously. Several times he drops his guard against Beerus and gets thwacked for it, only saved by the fact that Beerus is interested in a good fight and avoids killing him; Whis, during training, tries to teach him to be more wary of threats; against Frieza, he drops his guard when he thinks he has the victory secured and gets shot In the Back for his carelessness.
  • Gohan says he wants to train again after everything that has happened with Frieza. He wants to be able to protect his family. This really should have been a lesson he learned after everything that happened with Dabura and Majin Buu.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Goku gives these gestures to Goten and appears to be his version of a hug since he doesn't really embrace his children unless they hug him, although he will carrying them on his shoulder.
• After the End: Future Trunks' world was already brought to the brink thanks to the Androids and Cell. After returning from the past, he kills all of them, and even prevents the raise of Majin Buu thanks to the help of the Future Supreme Kai. After almost two decades of terror and pain, the world is finally allowed to rebuild and recover... until Goku Black comes and destroys the world in the name of justice. By the time Future Bulma gathers enough fuel for an one-way trip in the time machine, humanity is all but extinct.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When Beerus threatens to kill Bulma and destroy the Earth for breaking the law against time travel, Future Trunks gets on his knees and begs for his mom's life before the God of Destruction. Unfortunately, he mistakes Whis for the god, giving Beerus a bad first impression.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Unlike in the film, where Shisami is one-shotted by Gohan and is killed by Frieza for failing, he is shot in the back by Tagoma while he's fighting Gohan because Tagoma saw it as the best opportunity to strike. The look of betrayal and shock on his face really shows how he never suspected that Tagoma was capable of such a thing. Even the heroes are equally horrified by this act of cruelty.
  • Although Tagoma crossed the line and became a Jerkass that rivals Frieza, he still gets a raw deal when Ginyu steals his body. Worse, his body is then destroyed by Vegeta, meaning he's stuck as a frog for the rest of his life. This is after he suffered four painful months as Frieza's torture dummy. In many ways, his movie counterpart got the better end of the deal since he was killed quickly.
  • Despite being the one responsible for bringing back one of the biggest monsters in the entire series and shooting Goku In the Back, you have to feel for Sorbet. Everything he did was to restore the trade empire he spent years holding together and he had to watch everything fall to ruin because Frieza couldn't let go of his grudge towards Goku. He is then killed by a deflected energy blast from the lord he gave up everything to revive.
  • Although Zamasu tried to kill him, take the Time Rings, and murder mortals in the name of justice, Gowasu is saddened when Beerus kills him. All he can do is mournfully say Zamasu's name. He even shows sympathy towards Merged Zamasu, calling his mutated form a reflection of his own conflict with mortals.
• Alien Blood: Hit bleeds purple blood.
  • As in Dragon Ball Z, Piccolo's blood is still blue/purple.
• Alien Invasion: Frieza; this time with a much larger army and more Elite Mooks compared to Resurrection 'F'.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause: As explained by Gowasu, the Supreme Kai of Universe 10, during the Future Trunks Saga, the Kais are forbidden to interfere in the affairs of mortals; their job is to create life, watch over the mortals, and give them guidance. Unfortunately, Gowasu's apprentice, Zamasu, is firmly convinced that Humans Are Bastards and openly criticizes this policy, believing that The Gods Must Be Lazy.
• Aliens Love Human Food: it's a Running Gag for Beerus and Whis to be amazed by Earth's food, willing to make trip after trip to sample something tasty. Beerus can also easily be bribed into not destroying the Earth if given something new to try. In fact, during Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods the fate of the Earth was at stake simply because Beerus missed out on the chance to try a pudding cup.
• Aliens Speaking English: Averted with Magetta; he seems to speak in his own language.
• All for Nothing: Despite all the pain and suffering Future Trunks and Mai were forced to endure under Goku Black and Future Zamasu, their efforts amounted to nothing after Merged Zamasu murdered all the survivors and Future Zeno destroyed the entire timeline, including the afterlife, erasing everyone. The same also holds true for Goku Black and Future Zamasu since they spent years trying to create a paradise where the evil of mortals have been destroyed to the point that they fused to create Merged Zamasu, who sacrificed his mind to become one with the multiverse, turning himself into an Almighty Idiot, only for Future Zeno to wipe him from existence in seconds. Rest in pieces, Zamasu/Goku Black.
• All-Loving Hero: While Goku isn't portrayed as heroic as he was in Z, he is still this thanks to his ability to make friends with almost anyone, including the God of Destruction, a thousand years old hit man, and even the King of Everything. He is also capable of great sympathy since he shows remorse when Frieza is about to be killed by Vegeta, despite Frieza killing Piccolo, torturing Gohan, terrorizing his friends, and beating him after he got a hole in his heart. He's so compassionate that it's a major OOC moment when he stops showing sympathy for his opponent: like him wanting to kill Black after he learns that he stole his body and murdered his family and how he calls a space poacher unsavable when he brags about all the money he makes from animals he's steals.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Cocoa for Gohan, who is completely loyal to his wife Videl. Although, she doesn't mind.
• All-Powerful Bystander:
  • Beerus and especially Whis. Either one of them could kill Frieza, rather easily in Whis' case, but they don't get involved in the fight at all. In fact, they're really only there for the food. Subverted later on when after Frieza destroys the Earth Whis protects everyone who was standing around him at the time and does Goku a solid by reversing time so he can kill Frieza before he gets a chance. The also sit back and watched Goku fights Black without interfering.
  • Averted in Episode 59, where Whis rewinds time to save Gowasu from Zamasu's attempted murder, and Beerus straight-up atomizes Zamasu.
• All There in the Manual: A lot of the supplemental information about the Gods of the Destruction, the other twelve universes, and the fighters for the Tournament of Power can be found on Toei's website.
• Almighty Idiot: After his transition to an Eldritch Abomination, Merged Zamasu doesn't seem to have any true vestige of intelligence or sentience anymore, having been driven so Ax-Crazy that it's robbed all but the most basic traits of his personality from him. Considering the staggering amount of power he has gained in this state, this is a good thing as he's too out of his mind to even notice the heroes and therefore outside of the retaliatory attack to Goku, Vegeta and Future Trunks' attack, would no longer pose a threat to them directly.
• Almighty Janitor:
  • Goku to the general public. Outside of the martial arts community and other circles, the public doesn't know who he is. When Mr. Satan attempted to get Goku to fight an alien in front of a bunch of regular people, everyone (including the aliens) were dismissive because he looked like a country bumpkin. It didn't help that Goku was wearing his farmer outfit at the time, making him an Almighty Farmer.
  • Whis and Vados could also count. They are not gods and seem to act as servants or carekeepers to their respective gods. They are both much stronger than Champa and Beerus.
• Alternate Continuity: The show seems to follow the Kai anime, which was more faithful to the original manga anyways. However, Super also makes references to and features appearances by anime-only characters and plots, including the Ginyu-Bulma frog shenanigans and the filler character of Gregory, as well as other minor tidbits like Gohan's "Ultimate" state being depicted as a pseudo transformation in the vein of the Z movies (Elder Kaioshin is explicit that it's not a transformation in the original manga). Flashbacks to past events also depict the anime continuity's version of them, not the manga's (e.g. Future Trunks' transformation into Super Saiyan being triggered by rage from Gohan's death, as opposed to him just having it from the beginning in the manga). The manga version of Super pointedly excludes any references to anime-only material.
• Alternate Self: Goku Black is an alternative version of Present Zamasu who used the Dragon Balls to take Goku's body and power as his own. He then teams up with Future Zamasu.
• Alternate Universe: Universe 6 is this to Dragon Ball's Universe 7, being twins save for the fact that Earth was destroyed in a war. The Earth is later restored by Beerus using the Super Dragon Balls.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Just as Beerus and Champa are boasting of their status as gods of their respective universes, Zeno, King of the Multiverse, shows up and freaks them out with his mere presence. He's so powerful that he can destroy all the universes instantly.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Zamasu firmly believes that all mortals are inherently evil and should be wiped out so the universe can be at peace. Goku Black also have the same views since he is an alternate version of Present Zamasu.
• Always Someone Better: The primary theme of Dragon Ball as a whole. No matter how powerful you become, there will always be someone better out there:
  • Goku serves as Vegeta's better and Beerus serves this to Goku.
  • Beerus directly invokes this trope by bringing Monaka, the fighter he claims that gave him a better fight than Goku, to the first Universal Tournament. Turns out not to be true. Monaka is actually not very strong and Beerus told this lie to motivate Goku and Vegeta.
  • Hit becomes this to Vegeta since he hands the Saiyan Prince a crushing defeat after he takes out most of the U6 team. Goku and Hit fight to a standstill until Goku throws the match.
  • Even Whis gets hit by this when we learned that the Grand Priest, who works directly under Zeno, is stronger than him by a wide margin and also his father.
  • Subverted when it comes to the Universe's respective "mortal level" assigned by Zeno. A mortal level is an indicator of godly guidance, and Universe 7's low rank indicates that they are quite weak in the grand scheme of things, but come the actual tournament Universe 6 and Universe 7 are actually amongst the two most performing teams, with supposedly superior universes like Universe 3 and 10 quickly falling behind.
• Ambiguously Evil: In Zamasu's introductory scene, he makes tea for the Supreme Kai, who notes that it could only be so perfectly brewed by one whose heart is pure. Of course, this series has long noted that Pure Is Not Good. Zamasu has doubts about the worth of mortals and suggests that they should be destroyed to put an end to their wicked ways. He is noted as having very similar energy to Black, but there's no solid proof that they are the same person. Goku calls Zamasu's energy similar, but not the same as Black, and Whis also confirms that Zamasu's energy lacks Goku Black's evilness. At the same time, Zamasu's tea doesn't taste as good after meeting Goku and he kills an attacking inhabitant of planet Babari unnecessarily. By Episode 56, the ambiguous part fades since Future Zamasu is working with Goku Black to kill all the humans and later, Present Zamasu tries to murder his master so he can gain control of the Time Rings, used the Super Dragon Balls to gain immorality, and begins his quest to rid the universe of mortals.
• Ambiguously Human: Despite being a Saiyan in appearance and powers, Goku Black's comments indicate this isn't his natural form and that he probably isn't a mortal. It's revealed that Black is Present Zamasu who used the Super Dragon Balls to switch bodies with Goku. So it is Goku's body, but Zamasu's mind.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear just what Goku Black's relationship to Zamasu is. They have the similar Ki, but are clearly separate entities. The heroes theorize that Zamasu created him with the Super Dragon Balls to be his servant, but Zamasu and Black state they're allies sharing a common goal. It's eventually revealed that Goku Black is an alternate version of Present Zamasu who took Goku's body and teamed up with Future Zamasu, a native of Future Trunks' timeline.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Goku Black and Future Zamasu want to kill all mortals because they feel that the universe would be better without them since they abused the knowledge giving to them by the gods, and that the gods are the only beings truly deserving of intelligence. And since they're the only gods left in the entire multiverse since they murdered the others, they basically mean that they're the only ones worthy of life and intelligence. Naturally, their fusion counterpart, Merged Zamasu, feels the same except he's even crazier.
• And I Must Scream:
  • Frieza's punishment for his lifetime of evil deeds is to be hung from a cherry tree in an endless flower field for all eternity, unable to move and stripped of his powers while angels and toy-like creatures sing and dance around him. You almost feel sorry for the bastard.
  • The result of Frieza's resurrection is this, being conscious while in pieces. He gets better eventually.
  • Tagoma is stuck in a frog's body for the rest of his life.
  • Before then, Ginyu spent almost twenty years stuck in a frog's body, trying desperately to return to Frieza's side.
• And the Adventure Continues: The Tournament of Power ends with everyone going back to their daily lives - which, for Goku and Vegeta, naturally means throwing themselves back into training. The only real loose end is Frieza being revived, but Goku seems confident they can handle him if he gets out of line again. The narrator outright says we'll see all the heroes again soon.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!:
  • Vegeta threatens Cabba with the destruction of the Universe 6 Saiyan homeworld, in order to enrage Cabba enough to transform.
  • After pulling a Grand Theft Me on Goku and using his own body to butcher him, Goku Black decides to rub salt in the wound by killing his family. He takes great delight in telling Goku all this while he's pinned to a wall.
• Anger Born of Worry: How Bulma expresses her concern for her friends and family. She gives Goku an earful after he forgets the Senzus and had to return to the past unconscious with a half-dead Vegeta.
• Angrish: When Goku is told by Goku Black and Future Zamasu that Black murdered an alternate version of Goten and Chi-Chi after taking his body and killing him with it in front of his family, Goku is so angry that he can barely talk and can only say how pissed off he is before beating the shit out of both of them.
• Angst? What Angst?: In-Universe. Beerus continuously lays into Goku for his willy-nilly attitude towards the universe possible being destroyed if they lose the Tournament of Power. He orders Goku to panic or emote something other than excitement. Even Gohan shows frustration at first since Goku has no real plan other than winning to save the universe.
• Animation Bump:
  • The sequence and effects of becoming a Super Saiyan God are much more detailed than any in the series so far, even compared to the Battle of Gods movie. It also takes up most of the episode it's performed in, as opposed to a few minutes in the movie.
  • The battle in space between Goku and Beerus has some beautiful scenery, especially of the Earth. Also, in the entire final leg of the battle the animation is noticeably increased from previous episodes.
  • The start of the Champa Saga marks when the animation becomes noticeably more consistent and a higher quality. This trend continuities with each passing story arc which gets a noticeable animation boost.
  • Goku using the Super Saiyan Blue/Kaioken combo along with his fight with Hit is noticeably one of the best animated moments in the series.
  • The Future Trunks' portion of Episode 47 is one of the best animated sequences in Super, especially any scene involving Goku Black.
  • Super Saiyan Trunks versus Goku Black is one of the better animated fight sequences in the series.
  • Goku and Future Trunks vs. Goku Black and Future Zamasu is one of the best fight sequences in the series with some comparing to the Dragon Ball Z movies.
  • The entirety of Episode 66 has some the best animation in the whole franchise, especially the Merged Zamasu vs. Vegito Blue fight and the climactic Future Trunks vs. Merged Zamasu battle.
  • Any scene from Episodes 93-95 involving Frieza, but Episode 95 takes the cake from start to finish. Quite notable because the last time we saw Frieza on screen in Super was during the mediocre animated Resurrection F arc. It's to the point where this comparison went viral on twitter. It really highlights how far the series has come.
  • From the Tournament of Power, the one hour Goku vs Jiren special blew everyone away with incredible animation and fight choreography throughout, with the debut and subsequent battle showing off Goku's 'Ultra Instinct' form and the amazingly drawn rotation sequence of the two fighters starting each other down at the climax standing out as highlights.
  • Episode 114 was praised by fans and casual viewers alike for it's noticeably crisp art and character designs harkening back to the best of 'Z'. It's at a point where some are calling it the best looking modern Dragon Ball has ever been, even more so than the special. It was supervised by Yuya Takahashi, the person responsible for the afore-mentioned rotation sequence, and fans are already crying out for him to become a regular animator for the show.
• Anticlimax:
  • Despite all the buildup around Ginyu returning in Tagoma's body, he is killed with a single energy blast by Vegeta.
  • As a whole, the trope gets heavily downplayed compared to the movie as far as Frieza himself is concerned. He beats Goku for the majority of his fight as Golden Frieza, unlike the movie where he only dominates Goku for a short time. However, he still loses because his endurance gives out and Goku is more vocal about how disappointed he is in Frieza for not mastering his golden form. His final death is Goku firing a Kamehameha, utterly vaporizing him.
  • Botamo to Goku. While Botamo's Stone Wall ability makes him a tough opponent to beat in a straight fight since he can literally absorb damage and redirect it into another dimension, in the tournament he is easily beaten by Goku once he realizes that he can just drag Botamo out of the ring with no trouble. Goku theorizes that he has become so dependent on his ability that he's been neglecting his training.
  • Frost to Vegeta during their fight. Frost talks for several minutes about how he uses poison to get ahead and even have the rules changed to allow death. Not even a second into the match, Vegeta takes him out in one punch.
  • Vegeta turns out to be this to Hit. Despite taking down three of U6's top fighters, Hit defeats Vegeta effortlessly and without taking a single blow.
  • How the first Universal Tournament ends. Goku throws his match against Hit since Beerus and Champa argued too long when he asks for the rules to be changed and his Kaioken is about to break. He also didn't like being called a pawn by a couple of gods. Hit returns the favor and throws his match against Monaka by pretending that Monaka's weak punch caused him to fly out of the ring.
  • When Goku Black is about to kill Future Trunks, he says that this is a pitiful end to a proud warrior race.
  • While Future Dabura still ended up being a tough opponent, he and Babidi end up being defeated a lot faster than their main timeline counterparts, and were unsuccessful in reviving Majin Buu.
  • Goku Black's first bout with Goku. Before either one of them could use their full power, Goku Black is forced back into the time portal.
• Anti-Hero:
  • According to Toriyama, Goku was originally supposed to be a selfish hero to the point that one wondered if he was actually a good person since he only grew stronger to fight strong people, not to protect anyone. This, however, is Downplayed even in the original manga since Goku experienced a subtle Messiah Creep to the point that he borders on being an Ideal Hero and is treated like a messiah among those who knows him. Super portrays Goku closer to his roots than Z where his Blood Knight tendencies severely override his common sense, something he fully acknowledge. This is really emphasize in the Universal Survival Saga where Goku's desire to have a tournament (despite being warned to leave Zeno alone) ends up prompting Zeno to hold a tournament where all of the losing universes will be destroyed. When Goku learns of this, he declares that he will win for his universe, not showing any real concern for the other universes and still look forward to the matches. This is later Downplayed when it's revealed that Zeno was going to destroy the lowest ranking universes, which includes U7, while sparing the four high ranking universe before Goku reminded him of the tournament. So Goku's selfish desire to fight actually gave U7 a chance to save itself. Goku himself explained this further when he tells Android 17 that he was never really aware of saving the world and he grew stronger to fight strong guys, but he can't sit back while other people suffer.
  • Vegeta is a straight of example of this. Although he is by far a nicer person than he ever was in Z, he is still merciless to his enemies since he kills Ginyu-Tagoma despite him being no threat to him and was more than willing to send Frieza back to Hell without ever considering sparing him. He also teaches Cabba how to become a Super Saiyan by beating the ever living crap of him and threaten to murder his family and destroy his planet. He trains Future Trunks almost the same way, this time using Super Saiyan Blue to pound Trunks into the ground.
• Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better: Champa is so obsessed with proving himself better than Beerus that he organizes a tournament to show up his brother (well, that, and he and Beerus can't exactly fight each other or they'll destroy both of their universes).
• The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: Present Mai is a lackey in a Goldfish Poop Gang intent on taking over the world. However, several years of living in a Bad Future has brought out Future Mai's more noble and selfless qualities. She leads a resistance against Goku Black and is willing to charge the Physical God with a rocket launcher if it means saving just one more life.
• Apocalypse How:
  • Beerus blows up numerous planets, once just by sneezing. He destroyed another planet simply by tapping his finger against it. Must be seen to be believed.
  • Frieza blew up the Earth when it was clear he was going to lose to Vegeta, but Whis undid that.
  • Earth in Universe 6 suffered a total extinction event as a result of humanity going to war. The surface is barren with volcanic hot spots. It gets better after Beerus restores it using the Super Dragon Balls.
  • Goku Black trashes Future Trunks' Earth, again. Unlike the androids, he does so much faster. Goku Black and Future Zamasu's crusade against mortals has also resulted in multiple Class 4 variants on different planets, with Earth only being their latest stop. Then Merged Zamasu (the fusion of Black and Future Zamasu) becomes an Eldritch Abomination after his body is destroyed by Future Trunks and spreads across the entire fabric of reality which threatens to spread into other timelines. Once he infects the multiverse, he becomes omnipresent and destroys any semblance of mortal life he could find in it, followed by Goku summoning Future Zeno who obliterated literally everything in that timeline in order to take down Merged Zamasu, upping it to Class X-5.
• Apocalypse Wow:
  • Beerus says that no matter how many times he does it, he never gets tired of watching a planet he destroys explode.
  • The entire universe is being destroyed by Super Saiyan God Goku and Beerus' battle, but it's still so epic to watch.
  • Frieza destroys the Earth after it's absolutely clear that Vegeta has beaten him. Unlike on Namek, he doesn't drag things out, but the ensuing destruction is still quite spectacular, as we see the ground cracking beneath the heroes' feet, volcanoes starting to erupt everywhere, we see the heroes' families during the destruction, and a good CGI shot from outer space where the planet is slowly consumed by fire and breaks apart before exploding.
  • Beerus views the destruction of the universe as being a pretty sight.
  • Whis blowing up the surface of the Nameless Planet to reveal the seventh Super Dragon Ball is pretty spectacular.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Frieza and Goku. These two hate each other. Frieza despises Goku for beating and humiliating him on Namek, and his time in hell. Goku hates him for being an evil scumbag who murders his friends.
  • Champa and Beerus views each other as this, although in a somewhat friendly way since any real fighting between them can destroy their universes. Beerus also does care for his brother since he restores U6's Earth and advances the civilization to U7's Earth's standards so Champa can eat the food there.
  • Goku Black is Future Trunks's mortal enemy. He destroyed his world and murders Future Bulma, and nearly kills Mai. Goku Black feels the same since Trunks is the only one able to oppose him in any meaningful way. He travels across time to find and kill Trunks, and when that fails he traps Trunks in the past by destroying the Time Machine. He also hates Trunks for breaking the taboo on time travel that is limited only to the gods, going as far as to call Trunks a sinner and attacking the future timeline specifically because of the time traveling.
  • Zamasu hates Goku with a passion that is only rivaled by Frieza. He sees Goku as an upstart mortal who dares to fight the gods and he's bitter that Goku beat him in a sparring match. It's his meeting with Goku that causes his Start of Darkness and leads him to become a Knight Templar. Future Zamasu takes it so far as to want to kill Goku personally, despite never even meeting him until Episode 56, and an alternative version of Present Zamasu steals his body, becoming Goku Black, and then murders him along with his family. Once Goku learns that last part, the hate becomes mutual.
  • While Merged Zamasu sees them as bugs, he considers Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks the one roadblock left in completing his Zero Mortals Plan. In particular, he really hates Goku, seeing him as the symbol of everything he hates about mortals and Goku was the one who melted half of his face. He also gets fed up with Trunks since he's always getting in his way and just won't die.
• Arc Villain: See here.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy:
  • Beerus is not only powerful, but he is also well-trained thanks to his teacher Whis. He often take down his opponents with Pressure Points instead of just using raw power. He is also very aware of his power and has no problem pushing his weight around, reminding people that he is a god. At the same time, he knows when to humble himself, like showing his respect to Zeno, who vastly out-powers him.
  • Frieza returns with all his ego intact and is even more bloated after becoming stronger than ever from his four months of training. Despite his greater power, he's just as undisciplined as ever since he was short-sighted enough not to master his newfound power and ended up burning himself out, again.
  • Goku Black is an extremely well-trained warrior who uses fast and effective attacks to take down Future Trunks. He is also quite smug about his power, humoring how Trunks intends to fight despite knowing that he has no chance of winning. He also dismisses Vegeta as a mere warm-up after impaling him. Even after being overwhelmed by Vegeta who spent six months in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, he calmly concludes that Vegeta's newfound strength comes from anger, and uses his own anger at the mortals and losing to Goku during their sparring match to make himself stronger.
  • Zamasu is a prodigy among the Supreme Kais and can somewhat hold his own against Super Saiyan 2 Goku (whose base form alone surpasses Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks). Future Zamasu is an arrogant prick since he's an immortal who can fight almost evenly with Super Saiyan Blue Goku. He's so confident in his strength that he lets Future Trunks impale him, just to show off his immortal body.
  • Basil from Universe 9. He is indeed powerful since he can pushed Majin Buu, but he spends most of his match trash talking Buu instead of fighting. This caused him to severely underestimate Buu, which causes him the match.
• Art Evolution: The series in general has a slightly different color palette and character designs compared to Z and GT. Animation lines are a little bit thinner and the body proportions don't have quite as sharp angles. The colors themselves are generally brighter and flatter, the orange gi worn by Goku and Gohan leans closer to yellow than before. The new designs also lean more towards being skinnier and streamlined, which even applies to established characters like Goku and Gohan; Goku in his farmer outfit and Gohan with his short-sleeved polo shirt are much skinnier than when they're in their gis.
• Artifact of Doom: The Commeson was meant as a weapon to help the people of Potaufeu fight against invading threats. It worked too well. It not only drained the strength of the people it absorbed, but took their very essence, turning the Commeson into an evil force since it absorbed evil people. The people of Potaufeu had to sacrifice themselves to seal it away before it spread across the universe.
• Artificial Human: Whis thinks Black is a dark copy of Goku created by Zamasu's wish on the Super Dragon Balls so he can have a powerful servant to help him in his crusade against the mortals. Although, this explanation doesn't explain why his energy is similar to Zamasu. Whis was partially right. Present Zamasu from another timeline did make a wish with the Super Dragon Balls, but it was to switch bodies with Goku.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: Bulma keeps at least two guns lying around in her lab. This is more justifiable than for most people, as almost everyone she knows is Immune to Bullets, including her child, but that means that she herself is potentially at risk from the hardware that she carelessly tosses aside while looking for something else.
• Artistic License – Space:
  • In the first episode Beerus destroys "only" half a planet, leaving the other half unharmed. Realistically, this should cause much of the planet's atmosphere to escape and the debris from the destroyed half would rain down on the remaining half, rendering it uninhabitable. It might be thought that this is Beerus' idea of a cruel joke, but a couple of episodes later the Elder Kai lists his total planets destroyed at eight and a half, suggesting he really did spare half a planet somehow. Then again, he's a god...
  • When the Super Dragon Balls are activated, the view pulls out to show the surrounding space; there are a number of asteroids and fully developed planets in small clusters, with no suns to orbit, kind of like a level from Super Mario Galaxy.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Tagoma isn't killed in this version and is part of the invasion force.
  • Barry Kahn appeared in a magazine in Dragon Ball Z. He was the super model Fat Buu face took the form in order to receive a kiss from a girl, before he killed her for rejecting him. Also counts as an example of a Continuity Nod.
• Ascended Meme: Goku uses the Kaio-Ken against Merged Zamasu. The victim says 'What' and gets kicked in the face.
  • Vegeta is threatened by Mr.Popo to not break the Time Chamber again or else he is banned; complete with TFS-style zoom-in on Popo's eyes
  • Ultra Instinct Mastered Goku is, for all intents and purposes, the "Gohan Blanco" meme made official, given that Goku's hair becomes white in this form.
  • At one point, Vegeta mocks Top's bushy mustache, pronouncing the word the same silly way he did in the Abridged series.
• Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: After Merged Zamasu's physical body is destroyed, he becomes pure energy and encompasses the entire planet in his essence.
• Assassin Outclassin': Hit is hired to kill Goku, who is temporarily put down, but manages to restart his own heart with a well-timed ki blast and returns to fight Hit again. It's eventually revealed that the crazy bastard hired Hit himself so he can fight him at his absolute strongest, making this an Invoked Trope.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Tagoma being stuck in a frog's body for the rest of his life sucks, especially after he went through months of being tortured by Frieza for daring to speak out against his revenge plan. At the same time, Tagoma is still part of an organization who rules and enslaves planets, murdered millions of people, and he killed Shisami in cold blood just to get to Gohan. It's hard to say he didn't have his fate coming.
  • Sorbet maybe a Benevolent Boss who shows some care for his men, but he runs Frieza's falling empire which enslaves millions. He also helps bring back the biggest monster in the universe to restore the Trade Organization and shoots Goku in the back when his guard is down. Him dying because he has his heart accidentally pierced by the master he went out of his way to revive is a fitting end for him.
  • Frieza himself can be seen as this given his ultimate fate. He is to spend an eternity in Hell with his power stripped away, and trapped in a cocoon hanging from a cherry tree in the middle of a flower field while fairies and stuffed animals play, and hold parades around him. Even if he gets reborn someday, he will have all his memories taken from him. As harsh as this is, Frieza deserves every bit of it given what a huge monster he is. On top of that, he was given a second chance at life thanks to the Dragon Balls and blew it to get revenge against Goku.
    • Frieza's status as one is exploited by Quitela in the Universe Survival arc. When Quitela gets word that Frieza's being recruited as part of Universe 7's team, he manipulates Sidra into sending assassins after him in the hopes that being cut a member short will immediately eliminate Universe 7 from the Tournament of Power. Quitela's logic is that because everyone else on the Universe 7 team has good reasons to not want to recruit Frieza, it will obscure Universe 4's involvement and sow discord among Universe 7.
  • Gryll and his gang have their power taken by the Commeson and eventually disappear after a few minutes. Although they are shocked and frightened as they die, it's hard to feel sorry for them since they are a gang of galactic criminals who attacked Potage who is the last surviving member of his race, attacked Goten and Trunks, and threatened Monaka who can't defend himself.
  • Beerus executes Present Zamasu for his attempted murder of Gowasu by slowly atomizing him to the point that Zamasu screams in agony as he dies. Considering that he did try to commit murder and appears to be the same person as Future Zamasu, the one who has been helping Goku Black destroy Future Trunks' world, you really can't feel too sorry for him, especially when the cast learns a version of Present Zamasu becomes Goku Black, who murdered Goku and his family in cold blood.
  • Hit is a legendary assassin who is so feared that Frost is terrified when he sees him. This is the same person who threw spades at two Gods of Destruction. Without even trying, he knocks Frost out and the next time we see Frost, he's moping in his seat. Given that Frost is revealed to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who indirectly murdered millions if not billions of people in the wars he starts, just so he can buy and sell the planets he ruins, and he was trying to steal the prize treasure from the other fighters from U6 and takes Champa's space cube, what Hit gives him is extremely merciful.
• The Assimilator: After Merged Zamasu's physical body is destroyed by Future Trunks, he transforms into an Eldritch Abomination, covers the skies of the Earth and then proceeds to start assimilating the multiverse via transmitting himself through it like a demented broadcast. It was also lucky that he was killed in the nick of time too, as he was in danger of invading and absorbing other timelines as well.
• Assimilation Backfire:
  • The Commeson absorbs Vegeta and creates a perfect copy of him with all his power and skills. Unfortunately for the Commeson, it assimilates Vegeta's personality, which includes his enormous pride. He refuses to listen to Copy-Gryll and eventually he punches out the Commeson so it can fight Goku in peace.
  • Merged Zamasu being a fusion of Goku Black turns out to be his Fatal Flaw. Since Black wasn't immortal, he lost part of his immortality and could now be defeated if enough damage is done to his body.
• Assimilation Plot: Merged Zamasu's final form is a multiverse spanning Eldritch Abomination intent on becoming everything. He succeeds to such a degree that Future Zeno has to destroy the future timeline to put him down for good.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership:
  • Buu tries to invoke this to justify selfishly hoarding the pudding and then challenging Beerus to a fight when called on it, reasoning he can do whatever he wants because he's the strongest person at the party. Too bad he had no clue who he was dealing with.
  • Despite the Frieza Force usually living by this mindset, Sorbet is the commander of the failing trade empire despite being much weaker than his Co-Dragons and even his Elite Mooks. Most of this seems to be because the remaining Frieza Force truly respects him and he's overall a good leader given the situation. This is Played Straight once Frieza returns.
  • Tagoma wants to become the new commander of Frieza's army if he kills all of the Z Fighters. Frieza accepts and offers him a planet of his choice if he seals the deal.
  • Subverted with Beerus and Champa. Although they are both gods, their caretakers Whis and Vados are stronger than them.
  • Monaka is officially the team captain for U7 during the Champa Saga since he is the strongest fighter in U7 according to Beerus. It's all a big Motivational Lie. He's actually quite weak and faints at the sight of fighting.
  • Discussed when Goku asks if Zeno is powerful. Whis says that judging others by their power is a bad Saiyan habit. Beerus then clarifies that Zeno doesn't fight, but he is the strongest by a wide margin.
  • Zamasu was originally a lower Kai similar to King Kai, but his fighting power was so outstanding that he's being trained as a Supreme Kai by Gowasu, Universe 10's Supreme Kai. Just before they head off to observe Planet Babari in the future, Gowasu promotes him to a full-fledged Supreme Kai, although it's temporary since only a Supreme Kai can use the Time Ring. Zamasu, however, is a bit of a Deconstruction of this trope.
  • Beerus names Goku captain of the U7 team for the Tournament of Power purely based on Goku being the strongest mortal fighter in his universe. Vegeta is not happy about that. However, Goku relents to this title to Gohan, simply because Gohan is smarter than Goku, although Goku is still stronger than him.
• Attack Reflector: In his battle against the leader of the little aliens in Episode 2, Beerus turns the alien's breath weapon against him in this fashion. It's not clear if it killed the poor fool, but the planet exploding a minute later sure did.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The entire franchise has an entire subpage for this.
  • Super Saiyan God. It gives a Saiyan the power of godhood and allows Goku to fight Beerus on more even terms. However, it takes fives righteous Saiyans and one receiver to work and the transformation is time-limited. Still, this version of Super Saiyan God outperformed the movie version by a wide margin. Completely averted in the Universe Survival Saga, where Goku has regained access to the form at will and, in addition to being Goku's second most powerful form, it is actually much less energy draining than Super Saiyan Blue even after Goku has honed his stamina in that form.
  • In an interview, Toriyama stated that both Super Saiyan 2 and 3 are this because they drain more stamina without giving enough of a power boost to justify it. As a result, Goku and Vegeta focus on strengthening their base forms and the original Super Saiyan, only using Super Saiyan 2 on rare occasions and Super Saiyan 3 almost never (with Vegeta even dismissing it a pointless transformation during the Future Trunks Saga).
  • Golden Frieza. In this form, Frieza has power that surpasses those of a Super Saiyan Blue even more than in the movie. Also unlike the movie, Frieza can control his power to some degree and spends the majority of the fight beating Goku while holding back. However, the form leaks energy badly and is, at full power, even worse than his original 100% form. After admittedly fighting for a longer period of time than in the film, Frieza only gets to use his full power for a minute before his power plummets and he's too tired to even hurt Goku anymore. That being said, this flaw mainly resulted from Frieza's lack of training with it, and it is strongly implied that a mastered version of this state would not have this drawback. When Frieza returns later on, he has completely ironed out this flaw.
  • To an extent, Super Saiyan Blue has the same flaw. It is fairly stamina-efficient considering the amount of power it gives the user (especially with repeated practice) and provides them with extraordinary Ki control that allows Goku to combo it with the Kaio-Ken, but it is still fairly draining, which might spell trouble against opponents that necessitate using the form in the first place. Also, using it repeatedly in a short span in particular drains power dramatically, so you can't turn the form on and off like a lightbulb. Despite coming a long way towards ironing out these flaws, Goku by the time of the universal survival tournament still opted to work around constantly using Super Saiyan Blue by regaining the ability to use the original Super Saiyan God and using it as an intermediate phase.
  • Super Kaioken, the fusion of Super Saiyan Blue and the old Kaioken. The power is so great that it overpowers Hit and his Time-Leaping, and causes Beerus to go Oh, Crap!. However, since it is an incomplete technique, the power jump only lasts a few minutes (which is still longer than the original Kaioken), has a 90% failure rate, and if performed incorrectly, can kill Goku. Using the Kaioken in this way also made Goku sick days after the tournament and King Kai warns him that he could permanently cripple himself. It's because of these drawbacks that the Kaioken is Goku's last resort technique. As of the Universal Survival Saga, however, Goku has shown greater mastery of the technique to the point that he can do the basic Kaioken without causing harm to his body and he can do it multiple times.
  • The Evil Containment. It can entrap foes many times stronger than the opponent, even if they happen to be an immortal god. However, it's a draining technique that can kill the user if the sealing process is stressful enough and the process requires a container and a talisman to complete the sealing. If any of these things are missing, then the Evil Containment Wave fails. This was how Future Zamasu escaped since Goku and Roshi forgot the talisman.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Goku learns to counter Hit's Time-Skipping ability by correctly predicting Hit's movements for the next 0.1 seconds. He did this by letting Hit pound him for several minutes. In their rematch, Goku spends most of the battle learning how to counter Hit's invisible energy attacks and his dimensional time shifts. He does the same with Dyspo, who is fast enough to hit in the instant that takes for Hit to actually activate his ability. Goku, however, easily understands his movements and blocks him. This series makes a good job to remind that Goku doesn't just rely on random power-ups, but is good at fighting.
  • Hit himself is this. After Goku starts to gain the upper hand and counter him, he basically deduces how that universe works, getting stronger and refining his abilities mid-fight thank to this. Later, in his fight with Dyspo, who can increase his speed to ridiculous levels for a short instant, allowing him to counter Hit's Time-Skip, Hit quickly learns how he's doing it and learns to both read his movement and play mind-games with Dyspo, turning it in a one-sided fight.
  • Despite Vegeta beating the crud out of him, Goku Black quickly figures out that the source of Vegeta's newfound power came from anger. He uses this revelation to tap into his own anger and make himself more powerful.
  • Roshi relies on this in the Tournament of Power. Knowing he's one of the weakest members of the team, he takes advantage of his superior fighting experience, carefully observing the opposing fighters to learn their techniques and weaknesses. This allows him to seize the advantage against Ganos, who is both faster and stronger than himself, by anticipating his actions and countering accordingly.
  • Apparently, Jiren. He doesn't really need it, but when Goku unlocks his Ultra-Instinct form and get power from the Spirit Bomb, becoming able to go toe-to-toe with Jiren, he is shown to having understood that the heat Goku was emanating was him losing his energy. The only others shown getting that were the Grand Priest and the angels.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
  • Android #18 may act cold, but she dearly loves her husband. She smiles tenderly at Krillin as she patches him up after he stupidly asked Goku to punch him and she wants to fight alongside him against Frieza since she fears for his life. In Resurrection 'F', she even says out loud that she thinks he's cool.
  • Chi-Chi can be very overbearing towards Goku, especially after she finds out she's going to be a grandmother. Still, it's clear that she loves him and is very accepting of Goku leaving to train with Whis. She plans to have a big feast for him when he returns home, and she rushes to his side after he's kicked out of the ring and knocked unconscious by Frost. She hugs him, saying that she was afraid that he had died. She also becomes greatly concerned when Goku loses his appetite and control of his energy because he's sick with his Delayed Onset Ki Syndrome and wants to feed him until he gets well. Goku also returns her feelings, though showing it in his own way. He tells Vegeta that what he likes about Chi-Chi is how headstrong she is. He also didn't want to tell Chi-Chi about his illness because he didn't want her to worry. When Goku Black brags about murdering his family, he loses it and attacks both Black and Future Zamasu.
  • Vegeta and Bulma are full of this. They often yell at each other and Vegeta tries to pretend he doesn't particularly care about her. Despite all that, they are actually quite loving towards each other, like Bulma making Vegeta an upgrade for his armor and kissing him on the cheek, much to his horror. Vegeta is also very protective of Bulma. He completely loses his shit when Beerus slaps her, causing him to surpass Goku for several seconds. He even rushes into her room when she screamed in fright. And when Vegeta learns Goku Black killed Future Bulma he becomes so mad he does not even show his anger like he normally does, he immediately starts training in order to murder Goku Black in the most painful way possible.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Beerus, especially when he is in a bad mood in his Disproportionate Retribution moments. Adding to that he has extremely sharp personality changes, he can vary from a calm, fun-loving guy to incredibly crazy, irrational and extremist if he gets angry.
  • Per usual, Frieza. He is delighted when Tagoma kills Shisami in an effort to take out Gohan. He also recalls fondly murdering Krillin, which drove Goku completely off the deep end. When Gohan tries to show mercy to Ginyu, he goes completely Laughing Mad as he tortures Gohan with Beam Spams.
  • Goku Black may act calm, but he enjoys killing and causing suffering to others, and even enjoys his own pain since it makes him stronger. He laughs when Future Trunks punches him in the stomach before plummeting him and give an Evil Laugh after trapping Trunks in the past, leaving him free to kill the rest of humanity. He seems to honestly believe that his personal genocide against all mortals is a mission of godly justice, and the narrow-eyed grin of madness he takes on when espousing that belief shows that he did not come of it through sound mind.
  • Zamasu's future counterpart is evidently unhinged, expressing borderline psychotic glee at the thought of killing Goku and in the thick of battle his previously stoic demeanor is replaced with a Slasher Smile. Present Zamasu also hits this territory too eventually, trying to kill Gowasu with a sadistic smirk and then trying to pull kill Goku right in front of Beerus.
  • A somewhat more self-controlled version compared to the two Zamasus that created Merged Zamasu, but it's obvious through the joy that he takes in razing the environment around him as well as his sadistic enjoyment in toying with Goku and Vegeta that he's just as crazy as his predecessors. As the final battle wears on, especially after Goku mess up half his body, this trait only increases until he's a rambling screaming mess. His final form is basically a Laughing Mad engine of pure destruction.
  • Barry Kahn goes nuts when he is taken over by Watagash, kidnaps Pan, and lures Gohan out to kill him in front of the public in a crazed rage.

B

• Back from the Dead: As with the events of Resurrection "F", Frieza became first villain to ever to be revived in canon.
• Back for the Dead:
  • Captain Ginyu returns after stealing Tagoma's body, only to be killed in a single attack by Vegeta in the next episode. Maybe Ginyu should have stayed as a frog... something Vegeta lampshades before killing him.
  • Future Bulma makes her return after being absent for almost twenty years in-universe, only to be killed by Goku Black at the start of the Future Trunks Saga. And in the larger sense, Future Trunk's entire timeline; it returned in this arc, only to require being destroyed by Future Zeno... technically it still exists and time presumably flows on, but it's now entirely devoid of life. The only survivors of that timeline are Future Trunks, Mai, and Zeno.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Goku and Future Trunks in episode 57.
• Badass Boast:
  • Goku Black gives two epic ones to Vegeta after he transforms into Super Saiyan Rosé:
  Black: Don't you understand? Your turn is already over.
  Black: (after he impales Vegeta through the chest) A moment ago, I said you didn't know your place and look what happened now. Sorry Vegeta, you are just a warm up.
  • Episode 61 gives us one from both Goku and Future Trunks:
    • After learning that Goku Black murdered his family in cold blood after stealing his body with the Super Dragon Balls, Goku loses it and pounds on Goku Black. When Future Zamasu tries to intervene, Goku beats him up too using these words:
    Goku: Who cares if you're immortal!
    • After being called a sinner by Goku Black and Future Zamasu since he abused time-travel and created new timelines, Future Trunks finally had enough of their crap:
    Future Trunks: Go ahead and call it a sin!
  • Merged Zamasu gives one upon being born:
  Merged Zamasu: My form is justice! My form is the world! Revere me. Praise me. This noble and beautiful...immortal and most powerful god…Zamasu!
  • Goku gives one to Hit during their rematched, claiming that no one beats him and gets a way with it. This gets Downplayed when Beerus shows up and points out that he has beaten Goku and has gotten a way with it.
• Badass Crew:
  • If you consider the Z Fighters as a group, they definitely fall into this. Tien, Krillin, Piccolo, Gohan, and Master Roshi with a little assistance from Gotenks were more than enough to defeat Frieza's army of one thousand men, and Goku and Vegeta are literal Physical Gods. All of Beerus' team members for the first Universal Tournament except one are made up of fighters from Earth. For the Tournament of Power all the fighters come from Earth, at least until Buu fall asleep, again.
  • A requirement to be on the U6 and U7 teams. Each character is a badass in their own right. This is expanded in the Universal Survival Saga where the team size increased to ten.
  • The Pride Troopers are a team of super heroes from U11 who fits this. Their leader, Top, was considered a candidate for the God of Destruction. His fellow teammate, Jiren, is even stronger than him.
• Badass Decay:
  • In-Universe, Gohan suffers from this once again since he stops training after marrying Videl, getting a steady job, and having a child. It's so bad by the time of the Resurrection 'F' Saga that he can't even maintain being a Super Saiyan long. Gohan realizes how far he has fallen after Piccolo gives his life protecting him from Frieza, saying that it would have never happened if he kept up with his training like his father. He shatters further after Frieza blows up the Earth, killing his entire family. After Frieza is dealt with and Piccolo is revived, Gohan asks Piccolo to train him again since he wants to become powerful enough to protect his family from beings like Frieza. After training with Piccolo for the Tournament of Power, he finally shakes this off.
  • Downplayed with Videl. Despite being a normal-ish human in the Buu Saga, she was able to fly thanks to Gohan's training and held her own for a while against the Babadi-possessed Spopovich. Battle of Gods shows that she's become more of a homebody and seemingly lost a lot of her fire, while Resurrection 'F' reveals she doesn't fight any more, both because she was pregnant with Pan/had just given birth to Pan recently, respectively. However, later episodes show she's still as headstrong as ever, but better at keeping it on the back burner in public, and apparently still training despite not actively fighting.
• Badass in Distress:
  • Gohan gets this three times thanks in no small part to his Badass Decay. He nearly dies after Tagoma shoots him through the chest and needed Piccolo to restart his heart to eat a Senzu. He is nearly killed by Frieza and Piccolo sacrifices his life to save him. Once getting over his Heroic BSoD, Gohan uses the last of his energy to summon Goku and Vegeta to Earth and is nearly killed by Frieza again, but is saved at the last second by Goku.
  • After Goku is shot in the heart by Sorbet, he's completely at Frieza's mercy who beats him up and steps on his wound. His friends try to rescue him, but Frieza keeps them at bay. He is saved by Vegeta before Frieza can kill him.
• Badass Family:
  • The entire Son family. Goku literally becomes a Physical God, Gohan is among the strongest fighters in the universe, Goten is the youngest Super Saiyan, and Pan can be tossed around like a football at only four months old without any ill effects. By the times she's barely a year old, she blows up a Pilaf Machine just by powering up and flies into the stratosphere. The extended family also doesn't fall too far behind. Chi-Chi and Videl are among the strongest (human) women in the world, the Ox King was one of Master Roshi's students, and Mr. Satan is a renowned martial artist.
  • Let's not forget the Brief family. Vegeta is second only to Goku and he becomes a Physical God, Trunks is a young Super Saiyan who's stronger than Future Trunks at the same age, and although not fighters, Bulma and her father are two of the smartest and richest people in the world. Future Trunks also counts among them since he survived two apocalypses, fought by the Z-Fighters' side against the androids and Cell, killed the androids in his time, killed Babidi and Dabura before they could awaken Majin Buu, and achieves Super Saiyan 2. By the end of his saga, he gains access to a Super Saiyan form that puts him on par with Goku and Vegeta. There's also Future Bulma who invented the time machine, which impressed and horrified the gods, and it's something that Present Bulma can't replicate even with having Cell's time machine to study.
  • Beerus' family is probably the most badass in the series. He and his twin brother Champa are gods of Universes 7 and 6 respectively.
  • Whis and Vados are also siblings and they are stronger than Beerus and Champa, making them the strongest beings in both universes. Their father, the Grand Priest is one of the top five fighters in the multiverse.
  • The Trio De Dangers from Universe 9: Bergamo, Lavenda, and Basil. They are all brothers and are the strongest warriors in their universe.
• Badass Finger Snap: At the very end of their battle, Beerus uses finger snaps to push a large fireball on Goku.
• Badass Normal: Future Mai. Despite being a normal, relatively weak human, she still stands up to Goku Black to save the remaining survivors of Earth. To that end, she has attacked Black with a rocket launcher and sniped him in the face with a special bullet made by Future Bulma. She even saves Vegeta from Black and Future Zamasu by having her men fire tear gas at them and helps Future Trunks with the Evil Containment Wave by holding the jar for him as he seals Future Zamasu.
  • Trunks' Super Saiyan Rage mode can be considered this in comparison to the godly might it can oppose. There is no indication that it uses god-ki.
• Badass Preacher: The Grand Priest, who works directly under Zeno and is one of the five strongest beings in all creation.
• Bad "Bad Acting":
  • After being caught by Chi-Chi when he's supposed to be working, Goku makes Mr. Satan punch him to escape. When Mr. Satan punches Goku, he slowly flies out of the ring, dips down to grab his tractor, before going over a building. Goku did all this with fake screaming too. It actually made funnier in the dub because of how over-the-top Sean was:
  Goku: Woooooooaaahhhh-I forgot my tractor-ahhhhhhh-ow that hurt.
  • After Goku tears up Beerus' Monaka costume during their sparring match, Piccolo and Vegeta rush into the battle to fix it. They excused their actions by pretending that Monaka was controlling their bodies. The acting is so fake that Vegeta calls Piccolo out for being such a terrible actor.
• Bad Boss: Frieza is already one of the worst bosses in the series, second only to Babidi, but Super manages to make him worse, even compared to Resurrection 'F'. Instead of killing his men, he demeans and tortures them, best seen when he shoots Tagoma's limbs, crippling him, and then uses him as a torture dummy for four months, shattering the guy's mind. He regularly belittles Sorbet, even though he's the reason why he was revived, and is happy when Tagoma kills Shisami, one of his strongest soldiers. When Ginyu returns and steals Tagoma's body, he is happy to see his most loyal servant alive, not caring that Tagoma is now stuck inside a frog, but laughs after Vegeta vaporized Ginyu. Finally, while powering up to his true from, Frieza kills off his remaining men, save for Sorbet, mostly because Sorbet is smart enough to get out of the way. Goku notes that Frieza did it to show off when in the movie Frieza kills his men for failing to kill anyone. Here, he does it purely for The Worf Effect and For the Evulz.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work:
  • Goku is too merciful to kill Frieza's minions, as they are far below him in power. But the more pragmatic Vegeta is happy to dispatch them. In an inversion, Goku originally spares Frieza and deems him Not Worth Killing, but after seeing that Frieza would destroy the Earth and that Vegeta is too slow to stop him, Goku jumps in with a surprise attack and blasts Frieza.
  • Utterly avoided in the Tournament of Power: the killing blow for every eliminated universe has come from the Z-Fighters, with Frieza only contributing as part of a joint effort for Universe 3.
• Bad Future: Future Trunks' timeline is as unhappy as ever. Just as it was recovering from the androids, a new menace called Black showed up and re-wrecked the place. By the end of the saga, the entire timeline is destroyed along with everyone in it except Future Trunks and Mai.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • Beerus gets everything he wanted and isn't really punished for his Jerkass attitude. He came to Earth looking for a Super Saiyan God to give him a good fight and that's exactly what he got. The only thing he was denied was pudding.
  • Freiza came to Earth after his resurrection to destroy Goku and the planet. He succeeds in destroying Earth, but Whis rewinds time in order to give Goku the chance to kill Freiza when Vegeta fails to.
  • In a very roundabout way. Despite losing the tournament and the Super Dragon Balls, Champa still gets an Earth of his own thanks to Beerus' wish to restore U6's Earth. In the end, Chamapa got exactly what he wanted.
• Zamasu vows to wipe out all mortals. He actually succeeds by fusing with the entire universe, and Goku and Vegeta are helpless to beat him. Even when Goku called upon Zeno to erase Zamasu, which to there is no way to undo the damage.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Goku has a minor moment of panic on King Kai's planet, and the god worries that Goku has noticed Beerus arriving or something like that. Nope, Goku realized he forgot Bulma's party. King Kai is relieved, and declares there's no chance Beerus is going to show up...
  • In Episode 6, Krillin passes around some "Russian roulette takoyaki" where one has been prepared with wasabi instead of octopus in the center. Anyone who's seen Battle of Gods knows that Beerus and wasabi are a dangerous mix, and Beerus pauses dramatically when he eats one... then happily declares that it's excellent. As it turns out, Krillin is the "lucky" one who picks the wasabi ball. "Why me?" indeed.
  • In Episode 16, the Elder Kai is watching some distant event, which is assumed to be naughty based on his comments and character, but it's actually just two rhinoceros beetles fighting.
  • At first it appears Champa is going to fight Beerus when he says he's going to beat the crap out of him. He then takes out eggs and tells Beerus to eat them.
  • Anyone who has been following the manga already knows that the team for Beerus will have Buu and Piccolo as the other two members from Earth. In Episode 30 when Goku asks Piccolo to join, Gohan suddenly volunteers himself, wanting to show off everything he learned in the past months. However, when Gohan hears that the tournament is only three days away he changes his mind, and Piccolo is chosen.
  • The episode preview for Episode 35 makes it appear that most of the fight will be between Vegeta and Frost. Vegeta defeats Frost with one hit and the big fight is between Vegeta and Magetta.
  • The episode preview for 38 makes it seems like most of the fight will be between Vegeta and Hit. Vegeta's fight with Hit only takes up half of the episode and most of the focus went into figuring out how Hit's technique works.
  • Episode 39 builds up to Goku using an amazing new technique to turn around the fight against Hit. The technique he ends up using? Kaioken.
  • Gryll and his goons are set up as the major threat on Planet Potaufeu after they get their hands on the Super Human Water and made themselves thousands of times stronger. It turns out, however, that the Super Human Water story was a lie and the real form of the water is the Commeson, a parasite that absorbs people's power and essences. Gryll and his gang have their power absorbed and disappear as the Commeson takes their forms.
  • The preview for Episode 66 make it seems like Merged Zamasu and Vegito would fight for the majority of the episode. In reality, Vegito is only around for less than ten minutes and it's Future Trunks that gets the killing blow.
  • The way the NEP was presented for Episode 67, it appears to be a standard wrap up episode with Merged Zamasu defeated and everyone celebrating their hard earned victory. This is all a cruel lie. Merged Zamasu not only returns, but he kills everyone outside the main cast after fusing with the multiverse. Future Zeno then destroys the entire timeline to get rid of Merged Zamasu, rendering everyone who died in that timeline Deader than Dead.
  • After hints were released of a female expy of Broly in the show, Caulifla was introduced. Since broccoli and cauliflower (the namesakes of the two characters) are related, it seems she'd be the one to fill the role, but in fact it's her protege, Kale, who does so.
  • All the promotions for the Universal Survival Saga showed off the ten member team for Universe 7. We even get a countdown of the members after Goku recruited everyone in Episode 89. By Episode 92, Buu is out of the tournament since he fell into a deep sleep and won't wake up for at least two months. So, Goku decides to replace Buu with Frieza.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: The entire Future Trunks Saga is build around defeating Goku Black and saving Future Trunks' world. In the end, the Final Boss ended up being Merged Zamasu, the fusing of Future Zamasu and Goku Black.
• Balance Between Good and Evil: Gowasu believes that there must be a balance of good and evil, because without evil there can't be any good since justice is created as a response to evil. Zamasu disagrees and thinks that all evil must be eliminated, otherwise there is no justice. Eventually, Zamasu does come to see to Gowasu's way of thinking, telling his master that he now understands that a greater good can be born through evil. He then kills Gowasu to steal the Time Rings, although it doesn't stick since Whis rewinds time on him.
• Balloon Belly: Monna is able to inflate herself into a giant bowling ball and roll at her opponents.
• Barehanded Blade Block:
  • Merged Zamasu catches Future Trunks' sword with one hand during their fight.
  • Master Roshi blocks a spear made from Caway's ki using only his thumb and forefinger, showing how far he has her outclassed.
• Baseball Episode: Episode 70. Also A Day in the Limelight for Yamcha, who was previously shown as a professional baseball player in the Saiyan arc of Dragon Ball Z.
• Bash Brothers: In Episode 123, Goku and Vegeta after breaking their limits and gaining new power-ups opt to do this instead of taking turns and double-team Jiren. Whis notes that their coordination isn't perfect, but this works to their advantage by confusing Jiren and throwing him off.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Goku spends an extended time above the Earth's atmosphere with no problems, even after his Super Saiyan God aura dissipates. Strangely, he seems more uncomfortable underwater, though still without serious issues. The Gods of Destruction and their attendants also hang out in deep space without any problems, but given their natures, it's hardly surprising. Pan and the Pilaf gang also spend about a minute in low Earth orbit with no problems after she destroys their mech.
• Batman Gambit:
  • In his match against Hit, Goku doesn't immediately use his Super Saiyan transformation, because it uses more stamina, until he can feel out a weakness in Hit's technique. He even tells Hit this is what he's doing. He's counting on Hit underestimating him and continuing the passive, counterattack-only tactic that he used against Vegeta, because if Hit went all-out, he could definitely take down base-form Goku with no trouble. This pays off and Goku is able to find a way around Hit's time-leaping technique without losing too much energy.
  • During the Tournament of Power, Frost quickly improvises a complex gambit involving several other fighters which results in Roshi attempting the Mafuuba on Magetta, which he then redirects to capture Vegeta instead.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: In the final moments of the Tournament of Power, the heat exuded by Goku and Jiren's battle sets the tournament arena on fire.
• Battle Aura:
  • Rather exaggerated at one point, even for Dragon Ball standards. Beerus and Goku spawn massive ki dragons out of their auras, which roar at each other and simply fly back into their respective hosts. Even after this, the two are still not done charging!
  • Another notable example occurs when Goku combines Super Saiyan Blue with Kaioken, resulting in a blue aura inside a red one.
  • Goku Black has a black battle aura, a first for the series since most villains have a purple aura.
  • Future Trunks' Super Saiyan Rage has a double aura similar to Goku's Super Saiyan Blue/Kaioken aura, except his is gold within blue aura.
  • Once Jiren finally begins using his full power, he is momentarily surrounded by two layers of flaming aura. His battle aura has its own battle aura!
  • During the Tournament of Power, Goku spawns a galaxy-shaped aura when powering up against Jiren!
• Battle-Interrupting Shout: The Grand Priest does this to intercede in Goku and Top's impromptu match before they can go all-out, because he wants them to save their best fighting for the upcoming tournament.
• Battle of Wits: Despite what the series is known for, there have been several situations when the cleverest, not necessarily the strongest, person comes out ahead:
  • Frieza returns stronger than ever, but this time he has the foresight to know that he can lose despite his power-up. So, he comes up with a backup plan to have Sorbet shoot Goku when he lowers his guard, something that Goku is known to do when he believes he's won. He then gets out-gambitted because he didn't know that Vegeta can become a Super Saiyan Blue like Goku and promptly gets his ass kicked. So, he's forced to use his trump card: destroy the planet since he can survive in space while his opponents can't. Frieza all but won, however, he gets out-gambit again since he didn't know that Whis can rewind time, giving Goku a second chance so he can kill him before he can destroy the Earth. Earlier in the same battle, Goku out-wits Frieza who overwhelms him in his golden form. Once Goku realizes that Frieza was rapidly burning through his energy, he lets Frieza beat him up until he wears himself out.
  • Botamo is completely immune to physical attacks. Even Goku who has been enchanted by becoming a Super Saiyan God, trained under Whis, and trained for another three years in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber can't slow him down.
  • Frost is stronger than Frieza outside of lacking an ultimate form. So when he's pushed into a corner he uses poison needles hidden in his arm to disable his opponents. He also uses his Nice Guy act to fool people into thinking that he's an honorable fighter who would never use dirty tactics to win. And even mocks Piccolo for not knowing how he fights.
  • Piccolo comes up with a brilliant strategy for beating Frost, who completely outclasses him. He charges his Special Beam Cannon to full power while dodging and blocking Frost's attack. He then allows Frost to wound him so he will lower his guard and give him an opening to grab him so he can't dodge the Special Beam Cannon. The plan works like a charm, but Piccolo still loses since he doesn't know about Frost's poison needles.
  • Magetta is not only powerful, but he knows how to use his body and abilities to its fullest. Thanks to Vados creating a second, smaller barrier to restrict Vegeta's flight, Magetta is able make the ring so hot that Vegeta can barely function. On top of that, the pressure from the heat pushes oxygen down and out of the ring, so he is also effectively suffocating Vegeta (who refuses to fight Magetta on the ground where he's at his strongest) since air thins the higher up you are. He then nearly rings-out Vegeta twice by pushes him into the barrier and then turning his lava spit into a club to hammer Vegeta, who is only saved because he lands on a small rock that used to be part of the stage. Also, like Botamo, Magetta is all but immune to physical attacks. Not even Super Saiyan Vegeta can put a dent in him. Vegeta turns the match around by destroying the second barrier with a Kiai, charging up a Final Flash that dazes Magetta, before destroying a section of the stage, ringing Magetta out.
  • Hit's Time-Leaping power seems all but invincible since he used it to demolish Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta in minutes. Goku finds a way around this ability by predicting Hit's movements for the next 0.1 seconds and he did this in his base form since he didn't want to waste energy. Hit then outsmarts Goku by increasing his Time-Leaping skills to 0.2 and then 0.5 seconds.
  • Future Trunks manages to escape Goku Black, who greatly overpowers him, by throwing his sword like a boomerang and using a Masenko to distract him. He did a similar distraction to Black later in the arc, however, this time he hit Black with an all-out, point-blank Galick Gun that sends him flying.
  • Despite being more than capable of overpowering Goku and Future Trunks, Future Zamasu holds them in place while Goku Black fires a Kamehameha at them. Since Zamasu is an immortal, he isn't harmed by the blast.
  • Goku's entire rematched with Hit is him trying to figure out how Hit's advanced techniques works. He first needed to learn how to counter Hit's invisible killing shockwaves and then learn how Hit is phasing his body.
  • Gohan and Lavenda's battle during the Exhibition Match. Despite being physically stronger, Lavenda manages to get the advantage over Gohan by blinding him with poison. Gohan gets around this by using his battle instincts to predict Lavenda's movements and used his Super Saiyan form like a radar to track Lavenda when he's flying. However, this returns to bite Gohan since turning Super Saiyan made the poison spread faster and weakened him.
  • Goku and Bergamo's match zigzags. Goku starts out stronger, but Bergamo has the ability to absorbed the power of his opponent, grow bigger, and able to return attacks with twice the power. Goku choses to power Bergamo up, which makes him bigger and have more blind spots that Goku takes advantage of. He also becomes noticeably slower. However, Goku choses to beat Bergamo by overloading him with a Super Saiyan Blue/Kaioken combo.
  • Krillin defeats Gohan in a tournament style sparring match since he understands the rules of a tournament far better than Gohan. Namely, he doesn't have to 'beat' Gohan, just ring him out. He also fares well against Goku and nearly rings him out in a similar sparring match. However, Goku is equally as skilled as Krillin, so he doesn't fall for the same tricks that did in Gohan.
  • To test Buu's new power after he become thinner, Goku challenges him to a sparring match with tournament style rules. For the most part they're even and then Buu begins to fire a barrage of energy attacks. Goku easily deflects them, which is just a distraction. While Goku is blinded by the energy blasts, Buu charges him, punches him, and then use his stretchy arms to pushed Goku into a ring out. Goku later copies this strategy when he fights Ultimate Gohan, except he uses his Instant Transmission while Gohan is blinded. In the same battle, Goku teleports in the middle of a beam struggle to catch Gohan off-guard.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • When Sorbet first wishes for Frieza's revival, Shenron says that it's pointless to bring him back since he would return in pieces. After talking with Tagoma, Sorbet demands that his wish be granted. Shenron calls the wish pointless, but grants it anyway. Turns out, Shenron was right, although for the wrong reason. The wish was pointless since Frieza chose to get revenge on Goku instead of returning to his empire. That decision led to his entire army and what was left of the empire being destroyed.
  • Goku wanted a multiverse tournament with all twelve universes despite Beerus and Whis warning him that reminding Zeno of the tournament wasn't a good idea given how unpredictable Zeno is. He gets his wish and the entire multiverse is threatened with destruction, including his own universe if they lose the tournament.
• Beam-O-War:
  • Goku and Beerus get into such an intense clash of energy attacks that their beams get condensed into a tiny sphere that could shatter the universe. The two spend some more minutes pushing it on each other, until Beerus reveals he can easily nullify even something like that.
  • Goku and Frieza have two beam-o-wars during their battle, one when they are in their base forms and one in their transformed states. The first one ends in a tie, but Golden Frieza wins the second one since Goku decides to disengage.
  • Vegeta and Magetta get into a type of beam-o-war. In this case, Magetta is using magma instead of an energy beam. Magetta wins the first two and Vegeta wins the third using his Final Flash.
  • Vegeta and Cabba get into one, with both of them using the Galick Gun. It ends in a tie.
  • Merged Zamasu gets into a beam struggle with Future Trunks who uses the Galick Gun. Before Trunks can get overpowered, Vegeta joins in with his own Galick Gun and pushes back Merged Zamasu's energy wave. Not long afterwards, Goku gets into a beam war using the Kamehameha. He eventually wins, but it costs him the use of his arms.
  • Parodied in the Baseball Episode, with Vegeta pitching and Goku batting, and both struggling with their energy to control the direction of the ball. Incredibly, neither the ball nor the bat is destroyed in the process.
  • Gohan and Goku gets into a brief one during their sparring match. The beam struggle itself ends in a draw since Goku teleports out of it and blindsides Gohan.
  • During the Tournament of Power, rather than attempting to overpower Kefla's deadly energy wave with his charging Kamehameha, Ultra Instinct Goku opted to grind on her beam with his coupled energy ball to her position, before defeating the fusion with a point blank blast.
  • In episode 118, Gohan struggles with Pirina's Breath Weapon, with Saonel caught in the middle. He wins with some help from Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon.
• Beam Spam:
  • Used all the time with the worst offender being Vegeta to the point it is considered one of his signature techniques.
  • Buu uses this during his sparring match with Goku using tournament style rules. However, the energy spams are just a distraction. While Goku is busy deflecting the blasts, Buu charges him, beats him up, and then pushes him into a ring out.
  • Taking a page from Buu's book, Goku repeats the strategy of using Beam Spams as a distraction and attacks Gohan while he's blinded. The different is that Goku uses Instant Transmission instead of a charge.
• Bears Are Bad News: Botamo, the first fighter from U6. Bear-like, and causes Goku some trouble due to him sponging all of Goku's attacks. Downplayed because he looks more like Winnie the Pooh than a real bear.
• Beast Man:
  • Both Champa and Beerus resemble humanoid hairless cats, namely the Cornish Rex breed.
  • Several of the other Gods of Destruction also look like humanoid animals like: Quitela from Universe 4 who is a yellow mouse, Liqueur from Universe 8 is a two-tailed fox, Rumsshi from Universe 10 is a somewhat skinny pink elephant, and Gin from Universe 12 has the appearance of a blue fish.
  • The Trio De Dangers from Universe 9 are three brothers who looks like were-wolves. Universe 9 also seems to be full of other canines like the Trio, given the Universe 9 assassins sent after Frieza are led by a bulldog-looking man. This would also be consistent with Akira Toriyama's tradition of using puns in the franchise, as the Universe's very numbering could be a pun, as it is Universe (ca)nine.
  • The Universal Survival arc introduces many of varying importance, from canids to boars to dragons.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game:
  • The entire reason Cabba was chosen to take part in the tournament. Champa saw that Beerus had Goku and Vegeta, so he went to find some powerful Saiyans of his own.
  • Hit manages to do this against Goku. Part of what makes the Saiyans so powerful, especially Goku, is their ability to adapt and grow stronger as they fight. Hit proves that he too can improve in the middle of a fight by increasing his time-freezing power from 0.1 to 0.5, coming close to defeating Goku right there. He almost beat Goku again after he improves his Time-Leaping so much that he can stop Goku even when he's using the Super Kaioken.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Future Mai is injured by a direct hit from a ki blast, enough that Trunks believes she's dead, but shows no sign of bodily damage. Though when we next see her, she's patched herself up with bandages across her head, and one across her cheek, somewhat averting this.
• Becoming the Mask: Though Cocoa is manipulated by Barry Kahn into making it look like she and Gohan are having a secret love affair, after a heart-to-heart talk with Gohan, she genuinely falls for him and refuses to continue with the plan, although Barry still ends up getting the incriminating "evidence" he wanted from her anyway.
• Being Good Sucks:
  • Future Trunks is he the perfect example of this. As a teenager, Trunks really wanted to help Gohan defeat the androids, not understanding how strong they are. Even when trying to become a Super Saiyan, he didn't get enough push until Gohan dies, at least in the anime. This broke him as a result to the point of becoming a No-Nonsense Nemesis to his enemies. After spending time in the past fighting stronger versions of Androids 17, 18, and then later Perfect Cell, things finally seem to go his way after he destroys all the androids and later prevent Majin Buu's revival. That is until Goku Black attacked his world, murders his mother and several innocent people, and nearly kills Future Mai. After seeing Gohan's family for the first time in the past, he breaks down that he would never have a peaceful life since his happiness was stolen from him by Black. When he returns to the future for the second time to fight Goku Black and Future Zamasu with the help of Goku and Vegeta, he is told by them that it's his fault that the Earth is destroyed because of his time-traveling. This causes him to snap and gain a new Super Saiyan form that still isn't strong enough to fend them off. And then when Goku Black and Future Zamasu fused to create Merged Zamasu, he manages to cut him down using the energy of everyone still alive on the planet, only for Merged Zamasu to become an Eldritch Abomination of multiversal proportions who kills the rest of humanity. Goku is forced to summon Future Zeno'o who not only destroys Merged Zamasu, but the entire timeline. And you know why his life is not a happy one.
  • Future Mai is almost as bad. She went through almost the same trauma as Trunks and also lost her lifelong friends, Pilaf and Shu. She also fights Goku Black for over a year, knowing good and well that normal humans can't fight Physical Gods like him. She even willingly chooses to stay in the future and fight Black after Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks loses their first match against Black and Future Zamasu. This all comes to a head after the seemingly dead Merged Zamasu returns, fuses with the multiverse, and murders everyone in it. This causes her to go past the Despair Event Horizon and shoot at the sky in despair before collapsing into tears. And that is before Future Zeno destroys the entire timeline, erasing everyone from existence. She gave her all to save the world and to keep hope, and it all amounted to nothing.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Thanks to spending four months as Frieza's glorified punching bag, Tagoma went from being the Only Sane Man to a ruthless pragmatist, willing to kill Shisami just so he can also shoot Gohan through the heart.
• Benevolent Boss: In contrast to Frieza, Sorbet is this to his subordinates. He values their opinions and is willing to change his plans if they make a valid point. He also doesn't take any unnecessary risks with them, retreating from a planet that they can no longer hold and opting to go to Earth himself with one other person to miniaturize the risk of being detected by the Saiyans. He also shows great concern for Tagoma's life when he speaks out against Frieza's revenge and is sickened when Shisami is killed. His subordinates show real respect towards him, despite being much stronger, unlike the cloud of fear Frieza puts over his men to make them submit.
• Benevolent Genie: After Sorbet wishes for Frieza's revival, Shenron informs him that Frieza would be revived as a pile of chunks and it wouldn't do much good. It is only after Sorbet insisted that Shenron grants his wish. He also explains to Sorbet how his powers work after Sorbet expresses surprise over having two more wishes. When Shu and Mai wished for a million zeni and ice cream, Shenron gives them both and throws in a small freezer to keep the ice cream fresh, free of charge.
• Berserk Button:
  • Beerus have so many that he could be his own page:
    • Beerus' is not being properly respected, as a dinosaur, King Vegeta, and Majin Buu all find out (before that, he's fairly fine in his behavior). He even has a catchphrase about it that both King Vegeta and Buu get:
    Beerus: If there's one thing I cannot stand, it is the insensitivity of those people who cannot be respectful!
    • Telling Beerus he's acting childish because he was denied food.
  • Frieza picked up a few buttons during his time in Hell:
    • Don't tell Frieza not to take revenge. Also, don't remind him of Goku showing him mercy. He utterly loses it when Gohan tries to spare Ginyu.
    • Frieza is fully aware that hurting or killing Krillin is Goku's Berserk Button. He opts to press it anyway, knowing the pain it will cause Goku.
    • Apparently, being related to Goku and showing mercy to opponents is Frieza's trigger; he flies into a rage and proceeds to torture poor Gohan for doing exactly that to Ginyu, since it mirrored the same situation Goku did to him on Namek.
  • Champa hates being called fat and Beerus hates being called skinny. He also despises anyone who embarrasses him and his universe. He was going to kill Frost when he learned what an evil bastard he was and was going to wipe out the entire U6 team for losing the tournament.
  • Calling Bulma old is a going to get you hit even if you're the God of Destruction. Unfortunately for Jaco, he doesn't know when to shut up.
  • Beerus claims that anyone who interrupts Monaka's concentration whether friend or foe gets annihilated in an instant, even going as far as saying he destroyed a whole planet because of this. This is just a lie to prevent Goku from finding out that Monaka is actually really weak.
  • It's subtle, but Black only loses his temper when Future Trunks calls him a murderer who is misusing Goku's body. This sends Black into a Motive Rant about why Trunks is the sinner since he abused time-travel.
  • Damaging Top's uniform really pisses him off, as it's a symbol of justice.
• The Bet: The basis of the tournament. If Beerus' fighters win, Beerus can use the Super Dragon Balls how he sees fit. If Champa's fighters win, Champa will use the Super Dragon Balls to switch his lifeless Earth for the thriving Earth of Universe 7.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Zeno is friendly, kind, and seemed very well-manner. However, he can destroy the entire multiverse when angry. Whis said there used to be 18 Universes. Zeno wiped out 6 of them.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Beerus can be goofy and lazy when he isn't obsessed with food and fighting. He is still a god capable of destroying a solar system on a whim and, if angered enough, the entire universe.
  • Goku can match Beerus' goofiness and has almost the same amount of destructive force. His silliness takes Hit off-guard who initially dismisses him as a young and naive fighter. He is quickly proven wrong once Goku learns how to counter his time-stopping ability.
  • Ginyu is just as silly as ever, striking poses and hamming it up. He is also more dangerous than ever since he now controls Tagoma's body, which has been hardened from four months of torture from Frieza.
  • Champa is just as silly if not sillier than his twin brother, especially when it comes to him overeating. He is also just as strong as Beerus and is almost just as petty. He was going to kill his entire team for losing the tournament until Zeno showed up.
  • Majin Buu might be good now, but do not ever piss him off or he'll try to end you. That includes preventing him from having pudding (which didn't work out too well when Beerus wiped the floor with him) and especially hurting Mr. Satan (which did, beating his opponent in the Universal Tournament).
  • Does Ginyu Force-esque poses, emphasizes all of his words, and is rather hammy about preaching justice but Top is the second strongest mortal in his universe, able to fight Super Saiyan Blue Goku and held his own until the Grand Prest cut the fight off. The only one stronger than him is his sworn friend, Jiren the Gray.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Sidra doesn't talk much since Rō tend to do all the talking. However, he is still a God of Destruction and when he does loses his patience he 'Destroys' an entire city without a thought. He was also okay with letter Frieza join his team, despite Rō being venomously against it since Frieza is not only a villain, but he's a traitor to his own universe.
• Beyond the Impossible:
  • It was originally believed to be impossible to combine Super Saiyan with the Kaioken since the Kaioken puts a lot of stress on the body and a regular Super Saiyan is stressful enough.^note For the record, this was only depicted once in Dragon Ball Z—during a filler tournament in which Goku had the advantage of his body already being dead. Goku not only makes the combination work, he did it with Super Saiyan Blue since the form requires a peaceful mind and near perfect energy control to use. Said form is so powerful and fast it goes beyond the impossible again by allowing Goku to outpace Hit while Hit has time frozen.
  • Future Trunks gets his first one in Super: his willpower to destroy Merged Zamasu is so strong, he unintentionally creates a Spirit Bomb, despite having no knowledge of the technique's workings, or even that it existed.
  • On the villainous side we have Goku Black, who seems to have taken Goku's trait for going Beyond the Impossible, such as being able to trounce SSJB Vegeta and Goku, having his own unique form with crazy unique techniques, and being able to create a rift full of Zamasus from different timelines. All while maintaining his composure. He himself even admits at one point that essentially he doesn't know what he is doing anymore.
• BFS: The sword Future Trunks creates after absorbing the Spirit Bomb is this. It's bigger than him.
• Big Bad: See here.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: The big reveal in Episode 56 is that Goku Black and Zamasu are not the same person. They are just working together for a common cause. Future Zamasu even makes it a point to say that Goku Black and he are not comrades, just kindred spirits. It's later revealed that Goku Black is Zamasu, an alternative version of Present Zamasu.
• Big Bad Wannabe:
  • Downplayed. Gryll is described by Jaco to be a top target for the Galactic Elite, and is played out to be the antagonist of his own minor arc even though the heroes vastly outclass him and his minions. Except, they end up dead halfway through his debut episode, with his role being taken over by Copy-Vegeta.^note His death is not pointed out until the following episode, however
  • As was seen in Dragon Ball Z, Future Dabura and Babidi had the potential to be a serious threat, but several factors stood in their way, such as Earth containing a significantly lower population with only one powerful person. There's also the fact that their mainline counterparts got lucky by having Vegeta to exploit.
  • Present Zamasu. After several episodes of buildup of his Face–Heel Turn, the way he's going to pull his Final Solution and learning of the Super Dragon Balls, right as he murders Gowasu, Whis rewinds time and stops Zamasu's energy blade from working, and Beerus outright disintegrates him. Beerus thinks this will get rid of Goku Black in Future Trunks' timeline since killing a god does afford different timelines for some reason. However, we the audience know that isn't the case.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Goku, true to form. It's to the point that his friends lampshade this tendency. He shows up at the last minute to keep Beerus from destroying the Earth. Although he's just as powerless as everyone else against Beerus, he manages to buy some time by promising to find a Super Saiyan God. In the Resurrection 'F' Saga he teleports in at the last possible second, saving Gohan from Frieza's Death Beam. He also saves Vegeta and the Earth from Frieza blowing it up after Whis reversed time for him.
  • Gotenks pulls a brief one, hitting Tagoma in the groin when the other Z Fighters were having trouble with him.
  • Vegeta pulls this on Goku, saving him before Frieza can give him the death blow after Sorbet disables him.
  • Episode 57 gives us several. First, Vegeta musters up his remaining strength to fire off a Final Flash to destroy Future Zamasu and Goku Black's energy ball. Then, Future Yajirobe comes out of nowhere to pull a badly wounded Goku and Future Trunks to safety. Finally, Mai and the resistance saves Vegeta who was seconds away from death.
• Big Eater:
  • Any Saiyan, but Vegeta really sticks out since we rarely see him pig out. Bulma even notes that Vegeta becomes less irritated when he eats.
  • Beerus. Almost every other sentence out of his mouth that does not contain destroying something or looking for the Super Saiyan God is about eating. He loves to eat all the food on a planet before leveling judgement on it.
  • Whis, who stalls Beerus constantly because he's not done eating yet. He also considered stopping the fight between Goku and Beerus when Mr. Satan offered him a lifetime supply of food.
  • After Goku's big battle, he eats a ton of food from Bulma's party. Justified given how much energy he burned through.
  • Everyone chows down, even Piccolo, after Frieza is defeated.
  • Champa can pack away the food, although unlike most examples he can't keep his figure, something that both Beerus and Vados mocks him about.
• Bigger on the Inside: Bulma's cruise ship somehow has enough room in the cargo hold for an entire castle.
• Big Good:
  • Ironically, Beerus and Whis take on this role after the Battle of Gods Saga where they were the antagonists. Whis personally trains Goku and Vegeta to unlock their god forms, rewinds time when Frieza blows up the Earth and when Zamasu murders Gowasu, and he creates a new timeline for Future Trunks and Mai after Merged Zamasu and Future Zeno destroyed his time. Beerus indirectly trains Goku and Vegeta by claiming that Monaka is the strongest fighter in Universe 7 when it was all a lie to make Goku and Vegeta stronger. He also directly investigates Zamasu when he realizes that Goku Black has a similar energy to him and executes Zamasu when he's found guilty of attempted murder, saving Gowasu's life. This action destroys the time loop that created Goku Black, assuring that Present Goku will never get his body stolen by Zamasu.
  • After being absent from this role in Super, Goku become the Big Good for the Universal Survival Saga. Although it was Goku's selfish desires that prompted Zeno to create the Tournament of Power that ends with the losing universe being destroyed, he indirectly saves at least one universe since Zeno was planning to destroy the eight lowest ranking universes and winning the tournament means that an originally doomed universe would be spared. He's also the captain of the U7 team, before he gives that honor to Gohan, and personally picks the team members and recruits them. He's so efficient at it that U7 is one of the few universes to have a complete team with time spare, at least until Buu falls asleep again.
• Big "NO!": Frieza gives one (in Gratuitous English, even) when he finds himself back in hell, for good this time.
• Bishounen Line: Goku crosses it upon assuming his Super Saiyan God form; his build becomes slightly slimmer, along with his hair and eyes turning red. Chi-Chi lampshades this by saying he looks younger.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Frost pretends to be a good guy, but it ends up that he's just as cold and mean as Frieza was. Instead of being openly evil like Frieza, he plays hero and "saves" planets from wars that he himself causes. He then buys the war-torn planet cheap, repairs them, and sells them at a high price, all the while being seen as this Nice Guy who is a Friend to All Children. Everyone is understandably disgusted when they learn this.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Future Trunks Arc ends this way. Zamasu is destroyed for good, but in the process become a multiverse encompassing Eldritch Abomination that threatened to break into other timelines, forcing Goku to summon the Future Zeno who has to destroy Future Trunks' timeline to finish him off. However, Trunks and Future Mai survived, and Whis warns Future Beerus of Zamasu's plans before his death, creating a new timeline for Trunks and Mai to go to identical to their old one with the exception that the Zero Mortals Plan never happened and everyone is alive ... well that, and that they have to share said timeline with already previously established versions of themselves.
• Bizarre Alien Biology:
  • The Saiyans aged and grow differently from humans. Goku says that Saiyans stay in their prime until they're at least eighty, and Goten and Trunks looks exactly as they did when they were seven and eight despite being in their teens. They also grow stronger the longer they fight, a trait Goku Black takes great pride in.
  • Frieza's species can survive in a vacuum, something that he takes advantage of when he blows up the Earth. They can also suppress their power by using transformations, although in Frieza's case he finds a way to create a transformation that increases his power like the Super Saiyan.
  • Although not stated in Super, Jaco's Galactic Patrol uniform isn't a suit, but his actual skin (yes, he's basically running around naked). He also pees through his ears and has excellent eyesight that puts the gods to shame.
  • Magetta' species, the Metal Men, looks like robots, but they're actually living creatures. They drink lava, can withstand high heat, and are super tough to the point of tanking energy blasts that can destroy planets. They also don't seem to have natural ki like every other character in Dragon Ball.
  • At least one of the Galactic King's many tentacles serves as a genital, though they are indistinguishable (this is true of real-world octopuses as well). Goku has the misfortune of grabbing that particular tentacle when he shakes the Galactic King's "hand" in gratitude for telling him about Hit's ability.
• Black Comedy:
  • The Resurrection 'F' Saga is filled with this, mostly revolving around Frieza. There is Frieza's suffering in Hell with teddy bears and fairies holding parades and dancing around him, which Frieza treats as the worst torture imaginable since he is powerless and trapped in a cocoon in the middle of flower field. When he is revived, he's brought back in pieces and is scattered across the ground like jigsaw puzzle and is thrown into a tin container like garbage. To add further insult and horror, Frieza is completely conscious and we see his eye moving. Once he is killed again, he is sent right back to Hell where the fairies and teddy bears happily welcomes him back, and all Frieza can do is scream in horror.
  • In the Tournament of Power, Roshi's first serious fight is against Cawey, who uses her looks to distract Roshi to open him up for an attack. When it fails, he responds with an implicit threat to sexually assault her, and she flees, eliminating herself. This was after overcoming his Dirty Old Man tendencies, so he was just using it as a psychological tactic. Probably. Maybe.
• Black-and-White Insanity:
  • This is Zamasu's primary problem. He has a very black and white view of mortals and gods. Namely, mortals are evil and needs to be cleansed, while the gods are good, if not a bit lazy for not taking care of the mortals. His inability to understand that mortals can learn and grow, and the gods themselves are also flawed and needs to learn from their mistakes is a point of tension between Gowasu and him. Just before he kills Gowasu so he can set in motion his plans to destroy all the mortals, he does admits that his actions are evil, but through them will come a greater good.
  • Like his components, Merged Zamasu's worldview is that mortals are evil mistakes of the gods and gods (or rather himself) are good and holy beings. This is part of what drives him insane: the contradiction between him considering mortals inherently sinful and being part mortal and needing the power of one left him in complete conflict that is reflected in his appearance upon mutating.
• Black-and-White Morality: Much like its predecessors, the Z-Fighters are good and whoever they're fighting is bad. Although Beerus isn't necessarily evil and does have a type of a moral code, he still wants to destroy the Earth because he didn't get pudding. The next major villain, Frieza, is one of the biggest monsters in the franchise with no redeeming qualities. The Champa Saga subverts this in favor of Grey-and-Gray Morality since Champa isn't really evil and his team is overall decent people. The same holds true with the Universal Survival Saga. The Future Trunks Saga plays this straight with the arrival of Goku Black who is one of the evilest and creepiest villains introduced in the series and his comrade Future Zamasu isn't much better. They hold the honor of being Super's first Complete Monster entry, not counting Frieza since he was already on the list.
• Blackmail:
  • Played for Laughs when Bulma threatened to tell the Galactic King that Jaco drew on his picture in order for Jaco to rescue Trunks and Goten.
  • Barry Kahn attempts to blackmail Gohan for petty reasons, first by arranging a Honey Trap and then leveraging his knowledge that Gohan is actually Great Saiyaman. After Barry is transformed into a kaiju by Watagash, Cocoa counter-blackmails him with that secret to keep the whole thing under wraps.
• Blank White Void: when Zeno destroys the multiverse in the Future Trunks timeline, all that's remains is a blank void of sparkly glitter that Zeno is left drifting in.
• Blasphemous Boast: Merged Zamasu Badass Boast is this since he declares himself the supreme god. Yes, he is a god and an extremely powerful one, but he's still not the Top God.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Beerus gets into the party by claiming he and Whis are Vegeta's friends. Bulma even lampshades how odd it seems for Vegeta to have friends, but accepts it anyway.
  • Mr. Satan's entire story about how he defeated Beerus by becoming a god.
  • Sorbet telling Frieza that it wasn't the empire falling apart that made them decide to revive him. Frieza doesn't buy this for a second.
  • Champa telling Beerus that he's just visiting Universe 7 for no particular reason, while he searches for the last Super Dragon Balls.
  • Beerus' claims about Monaka's true strength are clearly false, and only work because Goku so thickheaded.
  • Frost trying to fool Goku into thinking that his third form is his final transformation. Goku is confused since he's never seen Frieza's third form before, and Piccolo, Krillin, and Vegeta scoff at Frost's attempt at deception.
  • Champa telling Beerus that the new secondary barrier is for everyone's protection during Vegeta and Magetta's fight. He actually wants the new barrier to give Magetta the advantage.
  • Krillin claims that he has no clue where Goku has been since he left to train on Beerus' planet back in Episode 47, even swearing on his badge that if he knew he would tell her. Chi-Chi doesn't buy this at all. Bulma is an even worse liar since she can't even keep a straight race while trying to lie about Goku's whereabouts.
  • Two in Episode 72. Vegeta wants to finish his training with Whis so he can see the 'special' training Goku is doing. So, he tells Whis that he will give him a steak with 'Grandma's Secret Sauce' poured on it if they can end the session early. This comes back to bite him in the rear when it's time to pony up. On Goku, it's revealed that he put a hit on himself so he can fight Hit at his very best. Chi-Chi finds out about the assassination attempt because Piccolo told her. She asked if Goku knew who put the hit on him. Goku answered that he didn't know….without looking Chi-Chi in the eye and is cuddled up like a small child.
  • Beerus claiming that Monaka is sick and he can't be part of the Tournament of Power. Strangely, Gohan doesn't catch the lie.
  • Goku telling #18 that the winner of the Tournament of Power will get 10 million zeni and he keeps upping the prized money every time it's mentioned, something #18 calls him out on.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Because it took Super over a year to get an official international release and sub, fans were forced to endure fansubs. Thanks to individuals like Herms and Dragon Team, fairly accurate translations were made, although it took days. However, the dreaded speed sub often butchered the translation to the point of giving misinformation, like there being twelve universes inside a thirteenth universe when the proper translation was all universes being paired to equal thirteen.
• Blob Monster: What the Commeson looks like when it doesn't copy anyone.
• Blood Knight:
  • The reason why Beerus is searching for a Super Saiyan God is so he can fight one. Goku surmises that given how powerful Beerus is, it's been a long time since he had a Worthy Opponent.
  • Despite the danger to himself and the Earth, Goku greatly enjoyed his battle with Beerus and wants to become strong enough to fight him again. He also asked Beerus to fight him the first time they met. When Champa proposes a tournament with fighters from both universes, Goku is the first to jump in and is excited to hear that there are more strong people to fight in these new universes. It reaches new heights when he puts a hit on himself so he can fight Hit, the legendary assassin of U6, at his best since he wasn't allowed to use his killing techniques at the tournament.
  • Although the Saiyans in U6 are not Space Pirates like their U7 counterparts, they are still considered a warrior race who love to fight. They just use their power to protect people from evil instead of terrorizing them, much like Goku.
  • Much like his Good Counterpart, Goku Black enjoys fighting. He laughs when Future Trunks punches him and grins as he viciously beats Trunks down. He even puts his personal mission to kill Trunks aside so he can fight Goku and test his body. When Goku tells him to fight all out, he says he's in no hurry and he will take his time. When Future Zamasu suggests that he should have used the Super Dragon Balls to gain immortality, he waves it off, saying that he will grow rusty and that they need his 'infinite' growth for the 'Zero Mortals Plan'.
  • Piccolo is a subtle example. He doesn't live to fight like the Saiyans, but he spends all his free time training and he's one of the few people excited for the Tournament of Power even after hearing about the universe destruction rule.
• Bloodless Carnage: Considering the fact that Super aires as a Sunday morning cartoon in 2015 (Japanese's censorship laws are much harsher than it was back in the 90s and early 2000s), we were bound to get some notable examples:
  • In Episode 11, Beerus pierces Goku's stomach. There's no blood, only the fiery aura of his Super Saiyan God form, and the wound heals once he gets his Heroic Second Wind.
  • When Gohan gets pierced through the heart in Episode 21, there's just a dark hole visible.
  • Piccolo doesn't bleed after Tagoma tears his arm off.
  • There is also no blood as Gohan gets shot full of holes from Frieza and Piccolo getting a hole blown through his chest.
  • There is no bleeding after Goku is shot in the heart. Sorbet also doesn't bleed when his heart is pierced.
  • Frost puts a hole in Piccolo's chest, yet there is no blood.
  • Episode 38 stands out since it noticeably averts this trope. We see Vegeta bleed after taking a number of blows from Hit and Hit bleeds after Goku cuts him across the cheek. Episode 39 continues this a little when Goku stands back up after Hit allows it, visibly spitting out blood briefly.
  • Episode 55 continues the aversion, albeit with Alien Blood, while Zamasu and Gowasu are watching an alien race. All the warring forces are bleeding a darkish-green from their mouths and eyes, including the one who tries to attack the Kais... along with some barely-visible blood seeping from it's split sides, when Zamasu finished his attack.
  • Episode 56: Vegeta gets stabbed through the chest by Goku Black's energy sword. After he coughs up blood in shock, he drops to the ground, severely wounded - but in SSJB or base form, there's nothing more from this major wound when there should be.
  • Episode 57, despite getting the crap beaten out of them, neither Goku nor Future Trunks (or Vegeta; see above) bleed.
  • Despite being impaled several times by Black, including getting a hole blown into his chest, Goku doesn't bleed at all.
  • There is no blood in sight after Future Trunks slices Merged Zamasu in half. There are beams of light that maybe can be seen as 'artistic' bleeding.
  • Strangely averted in the baseball episode. Both Beerus and Champa get bloody noses after they beat each other up.
  • Buu barely notices having a giant hole put through his torso, but then, he's Buu.
  • Frieza completely massacres the assassins sent by U9 by piercing holes through them using his Death Beams and even making their heads explode Fist of the North Star style. Yet, there is no blood to be seen despite the brutality of the scene.
  • In Episode 130, when Goku finally reaches the limit of his Mastered Ultra Instinct form, blood violently erupts from his back, stylized in an exclusively black-and-red color scheme. However, when the palette returns to normal, there's no blood or even a wound to be seen.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • King Kai more or less uses this to sum up Beerus when Goku asks if he is a bad person since he destroys planets. King Kai explains that since he's a god who balances out the Kais, he has no need to create and destruction is needed for the universe. At the same time, Old Kai states that the kind of destruction Beerus brings is pointless and petty. Most likely because of Beerus' habit for Disproportionate Retribution.
  • Goku himself has a bit of this in that he loves fighting and training to the point that he tends to ignore everything else, including his family and his own common sense. He wants Zeno to hold the tournament he promised back in the Champa Saga so badly that he ignores warnings from both Beerus and Whis not to mess with Zeno. Even Beerus threatening to Destroy him doesn't deter Goku. This has the effect of making him come off as a villain to many universes with Top from U11 seeing him as evil.
  • Being Beerus' twin brother and a God of Destruction, Champa also have an odd mortal code. Overall, he treat mortals decently like sharing food with Goku and Vegeta, and felt sorry for Frost when he heard that he entered the tournament between U6 and U7 to gain his support for his charity organization. At the same time, he's extremely petty and a Sore Loser. He's willing to murder his entire team for losing to U7 during the tournament and sees his team as nothing but pawns in the game of the gods.
  • Zeno is the exact same way. He is the King of the Multiverse and he's very innocent, noble, and pure. However, these are not necessarily good traits since Zeno's innocence allows him to destroy anything that annoys him without thought. This includes six other universes in the past, Merged Zamasu in Future Trunks' timeline, and he wants to destroy seven of the twelves universe during the Tournament of Power because "there're too many universes". This becomes more awkward in that he sees Goku as his friend and adores him, but won't hesitate to wipe him out if he's universe loses the Tournament of Power.
  • The angels, being the servants of Zeno and standing in power well above all other beings, are also completely indifferent to the lives of mortals and gods alike. Although they tend to be affable, they never show the slightest concern or discomfort when faced with the prospect of mass destruction, or even the death of the God of Destruction they serve or of the whole universe they are bound to. This is exemplified in the Tournament of Power, when Universe 9 is erased and the only reaction from the angels involved is to smile in satisfaction.
• Blue Is Heroic: The color primary associated with the heroes, especially Goku and Vegeta whose god forms turn their aura, hair, and eyes blue. Even Trunks exclusive Super Saiyan form has a blue aura inside golden aura.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Zeno has two attendants that serve as his bodyguards, but he really doesn't need them. In fact he's far more powerful than them and has them terrified with one idle threat Considering his wishes though, he likely keeps them around more for company than actual need of bodyguards.
• Body Horror:
  • When Goku successfully blasted away Merged Zamasu Sphere of Destruction, it melts the right side of his body. Due to his imperfect Healing Factor resulting from part of him not being immortal, it gets much worse. As Merged Zamasu draws in more power, his right side grows more unstable.
  • In Episode 74, Watagash uses Barry Kahn as his host and beats down Gohan and he turns into outright terrifying forms as he grows stronger.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Given Merged Zamasu's self-declared status as a supreme god, it's only natural he has one of these in the form of two purple lightning bolts fired from his halo.
• Bond Villain Stupidity:
  • Despite having the power to utterly waste Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks in one attack, Merged Zamasu choses to toy with them. It takes Goku melting his face for him to finally get serious.
• Book Dumb: Goku barely passes the qualification exam for the first universal tournament because of his poor understanding of scholastic topics. We see him struggling to understand a basic arithmetic word puzzle.
• Book Ends: Not a definite one, but the final shot of the series prior to the release of its first movie is Goku and Vegeta squaring off in the wasteland they had their very first fight in way back in Dragon Ball Z, complete with them taking their stances from said fight's beginning. Only this time, they're in Super Saiyan Blue.
• Book Worm: Gohan's nerdy side is in full force. He reads a book literally titled, "This is a Difficult Book."
• Boomerang Bigot: By taking Goku Black's mortal nature into himself, Merged Zamasu is technically as much of a mortal as the mortals he hates. He knowingly forced this contradiction on himself to forever be reminded of the 'sins' of mortals.
• Boomerang Comeback: Future Trunks can throw his sword in such a way that it returns to his hand.
• Boring, but Practical: In a Toriyama's interview, he says that after Goku's battle against Beerus, he reached the conclusion that it is overall better to just train his base and Super Saiyan forms to become stronger instead of relying on transformations since Super Saiyan 2 and 3 are little more than extensions to the normal Super Saiyan form that ultimately drains more energy in the long run. In the series, the transformations Goku uses regularly are his Super Saiyan form and his Super Saiyan Blue form, which is just Super Saiyan merged with godly energy. He does uses Super Saiyan 2 and even goes Super Saiyan 3 to showoff to Future Trunks, but Super Saiyan 2 is treated an in-between transformation that Goku uses when he wants to test opponents who surpass him as a regular Super Saiyan.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Gohan's lack of training has much more dire consequences compared to the movie, Resurrection 'F'. He is almost killed three times and Piccolo had to sacrifice his life to save him from Frieza. By the end, Gohan can only lament that Piccolo wouldn't have died if he kept training.
  • Frieza destroying the Earth is this to the surviving Z Fighters and Bulma.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • The Dr. Slump crossover shatters the fourth wall with Vegeta outright calling Arale a gag character who breaks the laws of physics and that he can't win since he's a battle manga character, and Senbei taking out an actually issue of Dr. Slump to show to Dr. Mashirito that he died in the original manga. Although, given that Dr. Slump is a gag comic with no fourth wall at all, this isn't surprising.
  • In the FUNimation dub of episode 76, Goku summons Nimbus for the first time in this series, and sings a bar of "Head Cha La" (the theme to Dragon Ball Z) in reminiscence.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Frieza is again given this. Because he is so impatient to get his revenge, he rushes to Earth as soon as he becomes Golden Frieza. Despite greatly increasing his raw power and beating the crap out of Goku, he has no endurance for a long battle, which leads to him getting his butt handed to him by Goku and Vegeta. To add further insult, his army is stomped by people like Master Roshi, a character who lost to King Piccolo, who is nothing compared to the standards of the Z villains, and his second-in-command is one-shotted by Vegeta.
  • Frieza's counterpart Frost gets too this. After acting smug after being disqualified from the tournament for cheating, Vegeta demands a match with him, forcing Piccolo to forfeit. Frost brags about how he's going to kill Vegeta with poison after he has the rules changed. He is KO'ed with one punch. To add further humiliation, when Frost tries to run off with the reward treasure and Champa's ship, he gets intercepted by Hit who takes him down with one attack. He spends the rest of the tournament unconscious.
  • After winning three matches in a row against U6's team, Vegeta gets destroyed by Hit without landing a single blow. He's extremely upset and becomes madder when he sees Goku performing better against Hit in his base form. He really gets upset when he sees that Goku can now combine the Super Saiyan Blue form with the Kaioken, utterly surpassing him once again after he worked so hard just to be Goku's statistical equal.
  • Nearly getting sealed away causes Future Zamasu to have a massive Villainous Breakdown. Even after breaking free, he's visibly freaked out. Deconstructed, as instead of humbling him, it causes him to realize the heroes are actually a threat to him and Goku Black, spurring them to fuse into Merged Zamasu.
  • Merged Zamasu starts out poised and confident that he will succeed, believing himself to be the true and only god. But after having his attacks repeatedly thrown back at him, the right side of his face and later, his arm reduced to mush, and his Holy Halo broken by a being he thinks of both as inferior and his Arch-Enemy, he's ultimately reduced to an openly crazed madman frenziedly trying to tear and hack his enemies to bits with his bare hands.
  • Barry Kahn after he gets taken over by Watagash and going Drunk with Power, Gohan beats him down with ease after he becomes Super Great Saiyaman and then Cocoa blackmails him with threatening to tell the public about his time as Watagash's host if he even thinks about outing Gohan's secret to the world.
• Breather Episode: The first three episodes lead gently into the "Battle of Gods" arc and Episodes 15-19 bridge that and the much darker "Resurrection F" arc. The episodes are light-hearted and focus mostly on the daily lives of the cast. There are also five light episodes before the story goes into the Future Trunks Saga, which is the darkest story arc so far. Episode 52 is another lighthearted episode in the middle of said arc, focusing on Future Trunks meeting Gohan and his family. After the depressing ending of the Future Trunks Saga, there are three comical episodes, one being a crossover with Dr. Slump and Champa returning to play baseball.
• Brick Joke:
  • When Vegeta was trying to win Whis over to become his student, he does so by giving Whis a cup of instant ramen noodles. To show up Champa about who has the best food in their universes, Beerus gives him a cup of instant ramen noodles.
  • While Goku is training at King Kai's place, King Kai complains that Goku never bothered to wish him back to life. In Episode 29, when they gather the Dragon Balls in an attempt to find the last Super Dragon Ball, Goku forgets again to wish King Kai back to life before Shenron leaves. Cut to a shot of an annoyed King Kai.
• Brilliant, but Lazy:
  • If it doesn't relate to fighting or getting stronger, Goku has no interest in it. A lot of the tension between Chi-Chi and him is about him not wanting to work to support his family, despite having the skill sets to do many jobs even with his lack of formal education. Chi-Chi finally forces him to get work as a farmer. Even then, Goten asks why doesn't he do what Mr. Satan does and get paid for fighting. Goku dismisses the idea, saying he likes the farmer job since he can ditch it at any time to train. He also does his job on a tractor, despite it being faster for him to plow the fields using his hands.
  • Beerus comes across as this, spending most of his time either eating or sleeping. Him sleeping for several decades is considered a light nap. But there is no doubting his power and the fact that he is extremely well trained. At the same time, it's hinted that his laziness is the reason why U7 has such a low mortal level, second from the bottom.
  • Gohan is essentially the opposite of Goku. He's very dedicated to his studies and taking care of his wife, however, he slacks off when it comes to keeping up with his training. This comes to haunt him during the Resurrection 'F' Saga where Gohan can't even activate his full power anymore without becoming a Super Saiyan. He also can't maintain being a Super Saiyan for long since he's so rusty. Despite that, he is still the strongest Z Fighter outside of Goku and Vegeta.
  • Champa is just as strong as Beerus and he's even lazier than him. He won't even destroy his own planets, leaving it to Vados. Strangely, despite this, the mortal level of his universe is higher than U7's, although it's still low since his universe is one of the eight on the chopping block by Zeno.
• Bring Help Back: The reason why Future Trunks returns to the past. Instead of warning the others about an impending Bad Future, he goes to get help to fight Goku Black.
• Broad Strokes: Dragon Ball Super takes this approach to the two movies preceding it. The basic events still happen, but any changes made by the series, such as Beerus being awake earlier than he was in Battle of Gods, overrides the old material.
• Broken Ace:
  • Vegeta is almost as talented as Goku and is able to bridge the gap between them with six months worth of hard work. This is especially notable since he didn't go through the Super Saiyan God ritual, so he didn't use a shortcut like Goku did. He would be a straight ace if it wasn't for his personality issues and his annoyance that Goku always manages to stay one step ahead of him, something that Whis points out during training. However, he's much better than before since he no longer has an Inferiority Superiority Complex and cares about others to the point that he will lay down his pride to protect his family.
  • After going through some serious Training from Hell, Tagoma becomes this. His power greatly surpasses Shisami who is about as strong as Piccolo, becoming the strongest soldier in Frieza's army. However, being Frieza's punching bag for four months has left him horribly broken. He now has a cold outlook on things and no longer values his comrades.
  • Frieza himself. He was born so powerful that he was the strongest mortal being in the universe by default. After his defeat at Goku's hands, he becomes mentally broken to the point of having PTSD. His mental status only gets worse after suffering in hell for almost two decades. By the time he returns to life, he is clearly not sane anymore, and only cares about revenge. Despite his mental state, however, he still manages in just four months of training to surpass Goku in sheer power, though he fails to train the stamina required to use it effectively and eventually gets himself killed again.
  • Zamasu slowly and steadily goes off the deep end after losing his sparring match with Goku. Not only does he become a complete zealot in his belief that mortals are evil and must be destroyed for universal peace, but he also abandons his godly body and takes Goku's body as his own to acquire more power, becoming the very thing he hates. His sanity also takes a hit given his wild mood swings as Goku Black.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Cabba is surprised and heartbroken when he learns that Frost was Evil All Along, and used him and the other Saiyans to do his dirty work.
  • Although he hides it, Future Trunks is a bit disappointed when he sees that main timeline Gohan is a scholar who spends his time studying and playing with his family, rather than the serious badass Trunks knew who died fighting the androids. He gets over it, however, when he realizes this is the life that the Gohan he knew wanted.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu:
  • After Beerus slaps Bulma, Vegeta loses it and attacks the god, landing several powerful blows and pushing Beerus back for the first time. It all amounted to nothing. Beerus takes no noticeable damage and slaps Vegeta out of Super Saiyan.
  • After some difficulties, Goku has Frieza beaten and at his mercy after Frieza starts losing power to his golden form. While Goku is talking down to Frieza, Sorbet shoots him In the Back, putting him at the tyrant's mercy and is almost killed until Vegeta steps in. Vegeta then beats the mess out of Frieza and forces him out of his golden form. However, because Vegeta took too long to kill Frieza, he destroys the Earth, killing Vegeta and everyone who isn't near Whis. Frieza all but won and his victory is only rendered moot because Whis rewinds time, allowing Goku to kill him before he can blow up the planet.
  • This trope can also be seen from Frieza's point-of-view. When he is revived, he is far below Goku even before he got enhanced with godhood. So, he trains for the first time in his life to beat Goku only for him to be beaten back by an untransformed Goku in his true form and his Golden Super Mode running out of energy before he can kill Goku. His backup plan also fails because he didn't know Vegeta could become a Super Saiyan Blue. He is forced to use his trump card, destroying the Earth, giving him the last laugh despite all the humiliation he suffered, only for Whis to rewind time and be killed by Goku's Kamehameha. In the end, Frieza challenges the gods and he lost everything.
  • This is Future Trunks throughout his own saga:
    • After Goku Black does his utmost to kill Mai and mocks Trunks about her apparent death, he loses control and attacks Goku Black in a Super Saiyan-fueled rage. Goku Black laughs and beats the shit of Trunks, and he would have died if he didn't find his sword at the last second and use it to create a distraction.
    • Later, despite his valiant attempt against Future Zamasu, he can't harm the fallen Supreme Kai since he's an immortal. Then, after getting a new form that greatly increased his power, he puts all his energy into a Galick Gun that blasts Goku Black across country and tries to self-destruct on Future Zamasu, thinking that there has to be a limit to his regeneration. He gets stabbed in the back by Goku Black, who mockingly tells him that his attack may leave a bruise.
    • Both Vegeta and he combined their Galick Guns to deflect an energy blast from Merged Zamasu. Not only is Merged Zamasu unharmed, he takes Vegeta down with one hit.
    • And as a final kick to the nuts, after splitting Merged Zamasu in half and seemingly winning the day thanks to using the energy of all the survivors on Earth, Merged Zamasu's spirit fuses with the multiverse and kills everyone Trunks tried to save except Future Mai. Then Future Zeno outright wipes out the timeline, destroying everything including the afterlife. So all Trunks' efforts were literally for nothing.
  • Goku loses it when he hears from Goku Black and Future Zamasu that Black murdered his family after taking his body using the Super Dragon Balls and killing him. Goku screams that he will make them pay before plummeting both of them. It's all in vain since Future Zamasu is an immortal who can't be killed and Goku Black only grows stronger from the beating. Once Goku Black powers up, he easily defeats Goku. Much later, when fighting Merged Zamasu, Vegeta and he destroys Merged Zamasu's energy bird and attacks him directly. He catches their fists with ease and breaks their arms literally.
  • Many, many lesser fighters during the Universal Survival arc, particularly those that thought challenging the quasi-divine powerhouses Goku and Vegeta would be a good idea.
    • Basically everyone that fights Jiren. The most literal example would probably be Goku, whose victory appeared to be certain after mastering the autonomous ultra instinct technique. Unfortunately the strain of harnessing such absurd power caused his body to completely shut down before finishing the fight. Amusingly enough this mirrors his fight with Frieza near the beginning of the series, the one difference being that Goku still had allies left to save him from the consequences of punching his own Cthulhu.
• Brought Down to Badass: After Goku becomes sick with Delayed Onset Ki Syndrome, he has no control of his power and can't even fly properly. According to Goku, he would lose to Piccolo if they fought. He's still, however, extremely strong. He wrecks his entire house without so much as bruising himself.
• Brought Down to Normal: After the Commeson drains Vegeta's strength, he becomes so weak that he can't even fire Ki. Vegeta then finds out that is the least of his worries since he will die in next five minutes if his evil copy isn't killed.
• Brutal Honesty:
  • Goku does not mince words when he tells Piccolo that he stands no chance against Frost and he can only hope to soften him up for Vegeta. He also tells Gowasu up front that Zamasu is wrecking Future Trunks' timeline when asked if Zamasu did something bad.
  • When cornered by Goku Black and Future Zamasu, Goku basically tells Future Trunks that they have no real chance of winning and the best they can hope for is to live long enough to come up with a plan.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Goku is one of the strongest beings in the universe who regularly battles super-powered aliens and fought the God of Destruction himself. He is also one of the softest characters who can gently play with his granddaughter even when suffering from Power Incontinence.
• Bullying the Dragon:
  • Bulma does this quite a lot.
    • In the Battle of Gods Arc, she angrily chews out Beerus for spoiling her birthday and slaps him across the face. Keep in mind that Beerus is the God of Destruction and The Dreaded for even Shenron himself, and Bulma just saw him effortlessly beat down all of the Z-Fighters, including Vegeta, with her own eyes. Thankfully, she gets off with nothing but a slap. Thank God (Akira Toriyama) for Plot Armor!
    • Invoked in Resurrection 'F' Arc: upon discovering that Frieza has come Back from the Dead and invaded Earth, Goku explicitly tells Vegeta that they have to return to Earth right away before Bulma says or does something stupid to piss Frieza off.
  • What is left of the Frieza Force is perfectly willing to fight Goku when he arrives. This is despite knowing that this is the same Saiyan who beat the crud out of their boss.
  • Frieza's men sees Frieza taking on the Super Saiyan again as this. Tagoma tells Frieza point-blank to leave Goku alone. For his trouble, Tagoma is shot up and is tortured to insanity by Frieza for four months.
  • A lesser example: Barry Kahn, a reasonably-successful movie star, tries to threaten Gohan—who he knows is the superhuman Great Saiyaman and the son-in-law of Mr. Satan/Hercule^note Who is possibly the single most famous man on the planet, believed to have saved the world from Cell, Buu, and Beerus.. Gohan ignores it.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Who would have thought that Ginyu would return?
  • Future Trunks is back and has his own story arc. Vegetto also returns for the climax.
  • Episode 75 marks the return of Fortuneteller Baba, along with the Ginyu Force, Nappa, Cell, Super Buu, Piccolo Daimao, and Tambourine (as illusions). The very next episode also brings back Dabura and Raditz (also illusions), along with Flying Nimbus.
  • Android 17 comes back to fight on the U7 team for the Tournament of Power.
  • As of Episode 93, Frieza returns again to fight in the Tournament of Power to replace Buu.
• Butterfly Effect:
  • Whis explains this as the reason why time travel is forbidding by anyone outside of the gods, and even they can't travel time freely. If you pluck a flower, that one action could change the course of history and even lead to a planet being destroyed.
  • Facing Future Trunks really didn't do Future Dabura and Babidi any good since they were killed quickly when they tried to revive Majin Buu.
• Butterfly of Doom: The entire Future Trunks Saga is one big butterfly effect that messes up two timelines. As Goku Black and Future Zamasu points out, it was Future Trunks' time traveling that allowed their rise since he created a timeline where Goku didn't die from the heart virus. If Goku had died, Present Zamasu would have never become interested in Goku and take his body using the Super Dragon Balls, which leads to Future Zamasu joining his past counterpart, killing the gods in every universe, and them eventually attacking Earth to punished the Earthlings for Trunks' crime. Even more, Goku would have never even met Zamasu if Trunks didn't return to the past again to get help fighting Goku Black, since Goku only went to U10 to see if Zamasu was Black, leading to a Stable Time Loop.
• Butt-Monkey: Depending on the situation, anyone can become the Butt-Monkey, but there are some characters who get struck with this more than others:
  • Goku falls into this when it isn't related to fighting or a current threat. He is a Henpecked Husband to his wife Chi-Chi who forces him to work instead of train and spends all the money he gave her in just a few days (which she actually lied about). He also get no respect for his world saving.
  • Vegeta is this whenever Beerus or Whis is around. Beerus completely disrespects Vegeta despite him humbling himself to keep Beerus happy and unlike Battle of Gods never comes to respect or see Vegeta as a Worthy Opponent like Goku. Vegeta also had to beg and bribe Whis to train him, while Goku only had to ask and Whis was considering bringing him even if he didn't.
  • Tagoma just can't catch a break. He has his limbs shot by Frieza for speaking out against his revenge, tortured every day by Frieza for four months as his practice dummy, which completely shattered his sanity, and when he finally gets the chance to prove himself, he has his body stolen by Ginyu and is now stuck in a frog's body. To add further insult, Frieza is very happy to have Ginyu back and immediately forgets about Tagoma.
  • Jaco is basically Bulma's butt monkey, often taking physical hits from her and threatened to have Vegeta set on him. He also occasionally catches crap from Vegeta and Beerus when they're around, and during episodes 45 and 46 gets massive disrespect from everyone on planet Potaufeu even while trying to save them. Even the Commeson, villain of that story, doesn't bother attacking him, to his annoyance.
  • Champa gets the least respect for a God of Destruction. He's belittled by his brother and even his own attendant who constantly trolls him by twisting his words.
  • Yamcha, the original Butt-Monkey. While he gets his own character focused episode where he gets to shine as a baseball star against the Gods of Destruction, he is brutally beating up by Vegeta and Champa who nearly kills him. He wins the game for Universe 7, but does it by reaching home base in his infamous death pose. In the Universal Survival Saga, he thinks Goku will asked him to join the Tournament of Power so he can play hero again. Sad thing, no one considers inviting him even when Buu falls asleep. Instead, Goku nominates Frieza to take Buu's place.

C

• The Caligula: Frieza is a violent tyrant who readily kills his own men when he's in a foul mood, but he really falls off the deep end after his defeat to Goku. When he's rebuilt into a cyborg, he rushes to Earth with his dad to get revenge, and is killed by Future Trunks. When he's revived, instead of listening to his men who beg him to leave the Super Saiyan alone and rebuild his failing empire, he ignores them and devotes all his remaining resources to invading Earth. Although he last longer against Goku and Vegeta thanks to his four months of training, he's killed again in the end, and what is left of his empire also dies on Earth.
• Call-Back:
  • In Episode 2, Vegeta takes Trunks on the vacation he promised when they were training back at the beginning of the Buu Saga.
  • Also in Episode 3, Old Kai reveals that it was Beerus who trapped him in the Z Sword.
  • Like in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, Whis shows Beerus images of Goku transforming into a Super Saiyan the first time and fighting Frieza.
  • We see a flashback of Frieza murdering Krillin.
  • We see more flashbacks of Namek, from Ginyu trying to switch bodies with Vegeta and getting stuck in a frog's body, Dende wishing everyone to Earth using the Namekian Dragon Balls, and Goku giving Frieza mercy after he cuts himself into pieces.
  • Bulma recalling Ginyu stealing her body on Namek. Piccolo also recognizes Ginyu. Both events were Filler in Z that was maintained in Kai.
  • Instead of being killed by Vegeta after being beating and loses his golden form, Frieza choses to destroy the Earth, killing everyone not near Whis. When Tien calls Frieza a coward for choosing to kill everyone in his suicide attack, Whis corrects him, saying that Frieza is most likely alive since he can survive in a vacuum. On Namek, Frieza tried to do that exact same thing after being overwhelmed by Super Saiyan Goku. However, Frieza was fearful of being caught in his own blast and held back, which was why it took the planet several minutes to explode. He also wanted to fight Super Saiyan Goku somewhat fairly using his full power, which was why he never tried to finish the job after his failed attempt.
  • Bulma recognizes the time machine because the word 'Hope' is written on it. This is how Future Trunks identified the time machine Cell came in as his.
  • After realizing that Goku wasn't Goku Black, Future Trunks is confused since Goku was killed by Cell and didn't want to be revived. Goku laughs this off, saying a lot has happened and he was brought back to life.
  • Whis and Beerus confirms that time travel is a sin, something Jaco has been saying since the Resurrection 'F' Saga when he learned about Future Trunks' existence. Going even further back, time travel being a serious crime was stated in the Dragon Ball prequel Jaco the Galactic Patrolman. Whis even mentions the Butterfly Effect, which was the direct cause of the Cell Saga since both Future Trunks and Cell's meddling in the past caused many unexpected changes.
  • After Goku Black destroys Future Trunks' time machine, Trunks is seemingly trapped in the past, unable to stop Goku Black from wiping out what remains of humanity. Then Bulma remembers the second time machine, the one Cell came in when he killed the Future Trunks in his timeline.
  • We see Gowasu watching the U6 and U7 tournament on Godtube, specifically he's watching the Goku vs. Hit fight. That is when Zamasu sees Super Saiyan Blue Goku and the Super Dragon Balls. To learn more information about the Super Dragon Balls and Goku, he visits Zuno, the same person Bulma and Jaco sought during the Champa Saga to learn about the Super Dragon Balls. There, we learned that Zamasu wants the Time Rings because the Super Dragon Balls were recently used and it takes a year for them to recharged.
  • After witnessing Gowasu's death to Zamasu, Whis rewinds time to prevent the murder and catch Zamasu red-handed. Exactly what Whis did against Frieza back in the Resurrection 'F' Saga to keep him from blowing up the Earth.
  • After losing to Goku Black and Future Zamasu, again, Goku and Vegeta are at a lost how to beat them since Future Zamasu is an immortal. Piccolo suggests using the Evil Containment Wave, the technique used to seal King Piccolo back in the original Dragon Ball, which includes a flashback of Master Roshi using the Evil Containment Wave against King Piccolo. Even better, Goku learns the technique from Master Roshi, who learned it from his old master who was the person who sealed King Piccolo and invented the technique. Piccolo also offers to show Goku the techniques since he was once Kami and he tried to used the Evil Containment Wave against Piccolo during the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament.
  • In the Future Trunks Saga, Vegeta destroys the Hyperbolic Time Chamber after he finished training. At the time, it's treated as a gag. Vegeta does the same thing in the Universal Survival Saga, except him doing it holds story importance. Namely, no one can put Buu in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber so he can wake up sooner.
  • When Buu falls asleep, again, and can't be woken up, the U7 team is short one member. With time short Goku decides to revive Frieza for 24 hours using Baba. This is what Baba did for Grandpa Gohan back in Dragon Ball and Goku and Vegeta in the Buu Saga.
  • The fight between Hit and Dyspo is very similar to the first half of the fight between Hit and Goku: Dyspo has an unknown ability that allows him to strike Hit without the latter understanding how. Hit spends the first part of the fight figuring it out. He also let's himself be beaten to predict his opponents movement, just like Goku did against him. The second half, however, goes its own way, turning it in a two-on-two fight.
  • The Universal Survival saga in general is full of references to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. The most obvious is during Roshi's fight against the Universe 4 fighters where he used pretty much all of the special techniques he did in the Tenkaichi Budokai fights...yes, even the Sleep Song...
  • For the first time in Super, Goku used the Spirit Bomb against Jiren, with all it entails.
  • Android 18's battle against a giant Ribrianne brings to mind Goku's fight against Hirudegarn in Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon. Bonus points for defeating her with a punch to the face which penetrates right through to the back of her head, like Goku's Dragon Fist, but without the dragon shaped ki.
  • The first batch of episodes (prior to Dragon Ball Super: Broly) ends with Goku and Vegeta fighting and taking the same battle stances they did at the start of their first fight, way back in Z, except in Super Saiyan Blue forms.
• Call-Forward:
  • Several mentions are made to Uub, who appears in the Distant Finale of Z and is slated to appear in the near future as this series progresses:
    • In Episode 30, Goku recalls his wish that evil Buu would be reborn as a good person, and looks forward to their meeting.
    • What Vegeta did to Cabba during their fight is almost a mirror of what Goku will do to Uub when they finally meet. They both act like Jerkasses to unleash their opponent's hidden power and wants said opponent to surpass them one day.
    • In the Universal Survival Saga, Dende tells Goku about a powerful human child who is the reborn Kid Buu and implores Goku to train him when the time comes. Goku isn't keen on the idea since he claims he isn't really good at that kind of stuff.
  • In episode 103, there were a few to the Cell Saga's fight between Piccolo and Android 17. The first was Goku getting surrounded by energy balls which hovered in a loose sphere around him, much like Piccolo's Hellzone Grenade attack, with 17 jumping in and putting up a barrier around Goku, much the way he countered it before. Later in the episode, Piccolo used the Hellzone Grenade against another fighter for the first time since the same fight.
• Call to Agriculture: Chi-Chi makes Goku take a job as a farmer so they can earn money for the household. While he doesn't enjoy it and he would rather train more, he still manages to be competent at it. He even gets Goten to drive the tractor while he gets in some training. Lucky for him, Mr. Satan bails him out with a 100 million zeni reward, which was given to him as part of earning the World Peace Prize. Chi-Chi then burned through that almost instantly when she found out Videl was pregnant, so it's right back to agriculture for Goku. Then we find out that Chi-Chi never spent all the money. She lied so Goku would go back to farming.
• Calvinball: In theory, the Universal Tournament is supposed to have a certain set of rules that all participants must abide by at risk of disqualification. In practice, the rules don't really matter much if the Zenos are sufficiently entertained.
• Came Back Strong: As it turns out; destroying Merged Zamasu's physical body actually makes the situation worse as he becomes a multiverse spanning Eldritch Abomination that is only defeated by Zeno COMPLETELY OBLITERATING THE TIMELINE HE IS IN!
• Came Back Wrong:
  • Shenron reveals the previous stipulation to resurrection wishes of needing to be within one year of death to technically not be absolute. He can restore the person's soul afterwards still, but their body will be in the state of its death when he does. Sorbet goes with it anyway, and brings back Frieza exactly as he was during the last moments of his life: in pieces. Said pieces have to be collected and put in a special healing chamber in order for the overlord to get himself back together.
  • While Merged Zamasu's final form is a multiverse spanning, multiple timeline threatening Eldritch Abomination, it also seems to have rendered him completely insane to the point being Laughing Mad and 'destroy everything' are all he seems capable of.
• The Cameo:
  • When Goku loses control of his ki in Episode 43, one of the people he accidentally teleports to is Arale from Doctor Slump.
  • In Episode 65, during Merged Zamasu's destruction ringing through-out the planet, we briefly see Future Android 8.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • Jaco from creator Akira Toriyama's Jaco the Galactic Patrolman appears. Jaco's final chapter reveals it to be a prequel to Dragon Ball, so technically the two stories were already in continuity.
  • Tights also makes her first appearance in the series in Episode 29.
  • On a wider scale, Super seems to count certain segments of anime-original Filler as canon. For example, the subplot of Bulma getting taken over by Ginyu; Piccolo being able to use the Multiform technique, which he previously only used in filler during the battle against Nappa; Maron, from the Garlic Jr. saga, is implied by Android 18 to still be around; and Gregory, an anime-only character who appeared on King Kai's planet, is most noticeably present in this series.
  • Goku using the Kaioken in conjunction with Super Saiyan Blue revisits a concept from Z's Otherworld Tournament filler arc, where Goku used Kaioken and Super Saiyan together in his fight against Pikkon.
  • Future Trunks using the Earth's energy to empower his Super Saiyan Rage form seems to be based on the Spirit Bomb Super Saiyan from Super Android 13!
  • The Legendary Super Saiyan transformation, once exclusive to Broly, made the leap to canon with the introduction of Kale.
• Canon Welding: As noted above, the Super anime acknowledges various anime-exclusive characters and events from Dragon Ball Z despite their absence from both the original and Super manga series.
• Can't Catch Up:
  • Krillin pretty much calls out this trope when he laments how him and Goku used to be equal in power, but now there's an impossible gap between them. He even says that he made the right decision in quitting martial arts when there's people like Goku out there. However, he later changes his mind and takes up martial arts again and even improves an old technique.
  • Piccolo is fully aware that he can't catch up to the Saiyans in terms of pure power, but he knows how to outsmart his opponent, as seen when he manipulates Frost during their battle. He also can at least keep pace with base form Gohan and successfully holds his own against a tired and weakened true form Frost. By the Universal Survival Saga, he's even to stronger than Super Saiyan 2 Gohan.
  • The Universal Survival Saga has Averted this somewhat by making several characters stronger. While Goku and Vegeta remains the top tier, some characters can somewhat hold their own against them in their various forms.
• Can't Default to Murder: One of the rules of the Tournament of Power is that the fighters aren't allowed to kill their opponent or they'll be disqualified. Frieza, who has zero problems killing anyone, is stuck having to restrain himself. However while he can't kill anyone in the tournament itself, there isn't a rule that he can't make it so someone is at risk of dying after they're disqualified from the tournament.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: When Pilaf expresses concern that Sorbet might kill him, Sorbet assures him that his knowledge makes him more useful alive than dead. Sorbet even admits that he plans to use Pilaf again to collect the Dragon Balls.
• Can't Live Without You:
  • Whis reveals that the Supreme Kais and Gods of Destruction are a set, meaning if one dies, the other dies with them, similar to Piccolo and Kami when they separated.
  • In a lesser example, Supreme Kai explains that attendants like Whis are angels who become inert if the god they serve dies, to awaken when a new one is chosen.
• Canon Discontinuity:
  • Dragon Ball GT's events do take place after the manga's Distant Finale, with Super taking place during the Time Skip before it, but numerous inconsistencies (and the fact that Toriyama didn't have the same involvment in the series as he did with Battle of Gods, Ressurection "F", and Super) firmly places that series as a What If? story.
  • The Super adaptation of Resurrection "F" makes any time where Frieza has appeared in hell in previous segments explicitly non-canon. Previously, those events weren't canon to the manga and were considered to have only happened in the anime versions, but they didn't contradict the former either.
• Card-Carrying Villain:
  • Pilaf thinks he's this. He calls himself the most evil person in the universe when bragging about how much of a villain he is. In truth, he barely counts as evil since he was brought back with the Namekian Dragon Balls after he was killed by Buu, and the wish that brought everyone back specifically omitted all the evil people. He also refused to throw baby Pan out of his mech, seeing that as cruel.
  • Frieza is a straight example. His own minions call him the Emperor of Evil and he relishes in doing terrible things to people, both his allies and his enemies, such as murder and torture. He even calls himself an evil villain when shows disgust towards Goku and Gohan for being virtuous people.
  • Played With with Frost. Unlike Frieza, Frost puts on a good guy facade and acts as Universe 6's savior, fighting off space pirates, restoring damaged planets, and providing aid to children of war-torn worlds. When his true colors are revealed after he's caught cheating, he brags about his underground planet broker operation and how he starts wars so he can buy planets on the cheap. He is so shameless about his evil acts that he all but thumbed his nose in front of two Gods of Destruction, something Frieza never did even when he gained an ultimate form.
• Casting Gag:
  • For the Funimation English dub, Chris Ayres reprised his role as Frieza, at least while his lungs held up. Given that fact, it's very fitting that his younger brother Greg Ayres is the voice actor for Frieza's Universe 6 Counterpart, Frost.
  • Copy Vegeta is voiced by Vegeta's original English voice actor Brian Drummond from the Ocean Group dubs of Z in the Funimation dub, which will make the fights very entertaining to watch between the two Vegetas. Dueling Dubs indeed!
  • For the Latin American Spanish dub:
    • Salvador Reyes, who voiced Recoome and Cell in Kai, voices King Vegeta in a flashback here.
    • Tights (Bulma's older sister) is voiced by Mónica Manjarrez, who previously took over the role of Bulma from her original voice actress (Rocío Garcel) in the Buu Saga and GT. In other words, we have Bulma talking to herself.
    • Idzi Dutkiewicz, the voice of Piccolo for the first 98 episodes of Kai, voices Hit in Super.
    • José Gilberto Vilchis, who dubbed Burter in Kai and later Kibitoshin in Battle of Gods, returns here voicing Caroni and later (and most importantly) Zamasu, who is very much the opposite of Kibitoshin/Supreme Kai.
    • José Arenas has done a lot characters voices in the DB series. His best known voices are West Kai, Android 15, Yajirobe, Adult Upa (Z) and Jeece (Kai), in this version voices Grand Priest in Super.
• Casual Danger Dialogue:
  • Despite the danger the Earth is in, Goku still manages to strike up a casual conversation with his friends like wishing Bulma happy birthday and apologizing for not bringing a gift. He even had the nerve to ask Bulma how old she was.
  • After he calms down, Goku has a very casual conversation with Frieza, while the latter is trying his best to kill him. This drives Frieza crazy and also annoys Vegeta since he wants to see a fight and less talking.
• Catchphrase:
  • In the Japanese version of Black tends to say subarashii, which means magnificent
  • Zamasu can hardly go one sentence without saying "justice" or some variation of it in a sentence. The phrase he mostly uses is "Kami no seigi", which means "The justice of the gods." Since this is Zamasu we are talking about, he mostly means "his justice".
• Cats Are Superior:
  • Beerus is a cat-like being who also happens to be a god and the most powerful being in the known universe, not counting Whis.
  • Being Beerus' twin and equal, Champa also falls into this. He is also weaker than Whis and Vados.
• Central Theme: Dragon Ball Super is revolved around The work of the Gods and hard training vs talent of prodigies. For more info, see the analysis page.
• Challenge Seeker:
  • Like always, Goku loves to fight and challenge himself. He's so anxious to test himself against stronger opponents that he requests a fight with Beerus, despite being warned several times that he's the God of Destruction, forfeits his match with Hit during the tournament because the latter can't use any of his killing techniques, and begs Zamasu to spar with him. This proves to be a Fatal Flaw during the Resurrection 'F' Saga, since Goku prides himself on being self-reliant, so he never asks for Vegeta's help, even when he's being pummeled by Golden Frieza. These factors contribute to the Earth being destroyed. This comes up as major flaw again in the Universal Survival Saga where he reminds Zeno of the promised multiverse tournament, despite Beerus and Whis telling him he should forget about it since Zeno is dangerous. This lead to the Tournament of Power where the losing universe gets their universe destroyed. However, this is Subverted when we learned that Zeno was always going to destroy the eight universes with the lowest mortal ranking and the tournament is just a handy excuse. The winning universe surviving is actually an universe saved from destruction, so Goku indirectly did a good thing.
  • Vegeta enjoys fighting strong people and testing his limits, although he isn't quite as obsessed about it as Goku. He becomes disappointed when he learns that Cabba can't become a Super Saiyan and give him a proper match. Like Goku in the Resurrection 'F' Saga, he refuses to team up to take down Golden Frieza. This leads to the Earth being destroyed because he took too long to finish Frieza after knocking him out of his golden form.
  • Goku theorized that the reason why Beerus wanted to fight a Super Saiyan God so much was because it has been a very long time since he had someone challenged him. While Beerus agrees with Goku's assessment, he makes it clear that Goku isn't that Worthy Opponent….until Goku pushes the limits of Super Saiyan God and earns Beerus' respect.
  • While he hides it better than most Blood Knights on the show, Black loves to be challenged and will show boredom or disappointment if he isn't pushed. He's all but giddy to fight Goku since he sees him as his only Worthy Opponent, while everyone else are side-dishes. Part of the reason why he doesn't want immortality is because being unable to die take the challenge out of battles.
• Character Development:
  • Beerus goes from an apathetic and somewhat cruel Jerkass God, to caring for mortals to the point of becoming the Big Good of the series. He's still a jerk, but he's nowhere near as bad as he was in the Battle of Gods Saga.
  • Zamasu goes from a well-meaning, somewhat naive Supreme Kai in training to an Ax-Crazy, sadistic sociopath who is willing to commit mass-murder and genocide to promote his brand of 'justice'. The Zamasu who becomes Goku Black becomes a thrill seeking Blood Knight who is obsessed with growing stronger, all because he took the body of a Saiyan.
  • Android 17 has changed quite a lot in-between Z and Super- for starters, he now has a wife and kids (two of them are even adopted) and he's also a park ranger. It seems that 16's appreciation for life has rubbed off on him, especially after getting a second lease on life.
• The Charmer: Barry Kahn tries to charm Videl right next to Gohan. However, Videl doesn't buy it, outright telling Gohan that "he is cooler".
• Charm Person: One of Ribrianne's basic attacks, a rain of exploding hearts, also emits a scent which has an alluring effect. It seems to be most effective against sentimental characters; many fighters are affected, in particular the Pride Troopers, whereas everyone from Universe 7 is able to resist it without much difficulty.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • A very unexpected one. Goku Black destroys Future Trunks' time machine, trapping him in the past and giving him free reign of the future. Then Bulma remembers Cell's time machine, the one he stole from the Future Trunks from his time after he murdered him. That particular time machine hasn't been mentioned in over twenty years both in and out of universe.
  • When Hit kills Goku, he was about to fire an energy blast at Hit to bypass his Intangible Man defense. Instead, Goku fires the blast into space before collapsing. A few minutes later, that blast returns and restarts Goku's heart.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In Zuno's initial appearance, he gives Bulma information on the Super Dragon Balls and isn't mentioned again. In the Future Trunks Saga, Zamasu breaks into his temple to gain information about the Super Dragon Balls and Goku.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • In the Resurrection 'F' Saga, Jaco shows that he is able to see Goku and Frieza's fight when no one else could except Gohan. Bulma even remarks on his remarkable eyesight. In the Champa Saga he is the only one who saw Frost cheating by injecting his opponents with poison through a hidden needle in his arm. When Vegeta was being destroyed by Hit, Goku asks Jaco if he sees Hit's movements, which Jaco answers no since it seems Hit disappears for a moment before attacking. This gives the Galactic King the hint that Hit is time-leaping.
  • Surprisingly, Goku's Kaioken comes back from a long absence. In-universe, he hasn't used it in about seventeen years.
  • The fight with Goku Black and Zamasu forces the heroes to reach a dangerous Godzilla Threshold and bring back a move that hasn't been used since the original Dragon Ball: Mafuba, the Evil Containment Wave!
  • It seemed like it had been long outclassed and not worth mentioning anymore, but Android 17 and 18's built-in power sources turned out to be a real boon in the Tournament of Power. In a Battle Royale format, fighters with a lot of stamina have a certain amount of advantage, and the Androids have infinite amounts of stamina.
  • Many skills that had barely seen their use in decades make a comeback in the Tournament of Power due to their usefulness in strategic and team-battle situations rather than ones where raw power is the most important factor: Tien's Multi-form, Roshi's Lightning Flash Surprise and Evil Containment Wave, Piccolo's Hyper Explosive Demon Wave and Special Beam Cannon, among others.
• Cherry Tapping:
  • As the Great Saiyaman, Gohan beats down an empowered street thug. He's about to use the Kamehameha to finish off the thug, but Gohan sees that he's all but beaten, and changes his mind to using a tiny energy ball and casually flicking it at the thug.
  • Goku Black is seen using a similar move to cripple Future Trunks's time machine the last time they travel to the future.
  • Again seen in the Tournament of Power with Top using the power of Destruction forms a tiny energy pellet from his palm, then flicks it with his thumb at one of Frieza's planet busting energy balls. Frieza's energy ball is eliminated pretty much immediately.
• The Chessmaster: Whis believes that Zamasu used the Super Dragon Balls to create Goku Black, then used the Time Ring to skip forward one year into the future, used the Super Dragon Balls again to wish for immortality so he could begin his crusade against the mortals. He's mostly right. Zamasu 'created' Goku Black by stealing Goku's body using the Super Dragon Balls, went into Future Trunks' timeline to recruit Future Zamasu, and used the Super Dragon Balls of that era to make Future Zamasu immortal before destroying them.
• The Chosen One: Played With. Beerus had a dream that he would fight a Super Saiyan God who would be his equal. Goku fulfills this prophecy by becoming a Super Saiyan God and fighting Beerus. However, the prophecy only happened because Beerus made it happened by threatening to destroy the Earth and any righteous Saiyan can become a Super Saiyan God. So Goku isn't chosen by destiny, he's chosen by his friends to go through the ritual. And, even with godhood, Goku is utterly outmatched by Beerus who beat him without coming even remotely close to his full power. At the same time, Goku puts up such a spectacular battle that he impressed Beerus and he often talks about his fight with Goku.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome:
  • The moment Gohan has his Great Saiyaman outfit, he can't stop himself from foiling a robbery, even when Krillin has things under control.
  • Goku tells Android 17 that while he grows stronger for the sake of fighting powerful people, he can't sit back and watch others get hurt.
• Chronoscope: The Time Rings are designed as a way for the Supreme Kais to view the future and see how things will turn out.
• Clean, Pretty Childbirth: Invoked in Episode 83; when Vegeta is needed in the tournament but refuses to leave Bulma while she's about to give birth, Whis solves the problem by teleporting the baby out of her body, and creates a bassinet and swaddling blankets to boot.
• Classic Antihero:
  • Gohan tries to play the Ideal Hero when he is the Great Saiyaman, but he's much closer to this trope since he's often plagued with self-doubt in himself, has no real love for fighting outside of sport (which greatly affects his power), and often depends on his father and Piccolo to protect him when he screws up (which has cost them both their lives at several points). He still fights to protect the world, despite his shortcomings and has extra motivation to keep fighting since he doesn't want his daughter to experience the same horrors he grew up with.
  • Future Trunks is even more this than Gohan. Trunks is constantly weighted down by his failures like being unable to beat the androids, his failings at stopping Cell since he didn't understand the Fatal Flaw of his Ultra Super Saiyan form, and his inability to stop Black from killing everyone he cares for, including his mom. He hits rock bottom at the end of his own saga since he loses his entire timeline.
• Clipped-Wing Angel:
  • Golden Frieza has the exact same stamina issues that his original 100% form had. While Frieza has better control over his power and can fight some time longer while holding back, his full power drains his stamina even faster than on Namek. While Frieza is able to fight Goku at his full power for a while before burning out in their first fight, Golden Frieza fights at his best for only a minute before the power leakage becomes too much. Goku calls Frieza out for being so careless. This problem is fixed when Frieza returns in the Universal Survival Saga thanks to his mental training in Hell.
  • As Merged Zamasu fights Super Saiyan Blue Vegito and get more damaged, he mutates and become bigger. This only slows him down and appears to make him overall weaker.
• Close-Enough Timeline: After Future Zeno destroys Future Trunks' timeline, Whis offers to recreate his world by creating a new timeline where Goku Black and Future Zamasu never came to be by warning Future Beerus so he can take care of them. Although it wouldn't be his world, it was the best Whis could offer and they would have to double up since there would be a Future Trunks and Mai in the new timeline. Trunks and Mai take the offer, wanting to be around those they fought so hard to save.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • The entire Pilaf gang. They are all feather-brained to some extent, especially Pilaf who thinks he's much smarter than he actually is. One of the best examples of this is when they wish for a million zeni and ice cream from the Eternal Dragon, despite him having the power to grant almost any wish they want. Before then, Pilaf wished for youth on the Dragon Balls and got turned into infants. Given what a Benevolent Genie Shenron is, he must have really screwed up the wish.
  • Because of Goku's fight obsessed personality, he comes off as this to those who don't know him. Beerus thinks he's nuts for challenging him to a fight despite knowing that he's the God of Destruction, Hit dismisses him as a young and naive fighter because he tells him his game plan before they fight, and Zamasu finds Goku downright annoying because he keeps begging him to spar. Possibly the craziest thing he has ever done is put a hit on himself so Hit would come and assassinate him, all so he can fight Hit at his best. However, his foes and even his friends are often surprised to find out that Goku isn't as empty-headed as he seems.
• Clown Species: Implied with Vermoud, the God of Destruction from Universe 11. He's also a Monster Clown. It's not explained just what species he is supposed to be. The series suggests that mortals can ascend to fulfill the position of God of Destruction if they're powerful enough, so it's not out of the question that an entire race of clowns exist like him.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder:
  • Mr. Satan becomes this to Buu, or at least he tries to be. He manages to keep Buu from losing his temper when he crashes the press conference asking for food, however, he isn't successful in getting Buu to share his pudding with Beerus.
  • It is Whis' job to keep Beerus in line. Overall, however, he tends to let Beerus do whatever he wants as long as he doesn't take it too far.
  • Just like Whis, it is Vados' job to keep Champa in line. However, she is even looser than Whis and lets Champa do whatever he wants except physically fighting Beerus.
  • Chi-Chi comes off as this at times since Goku can be a fight obsessed idiot to the point of ignoring his family and other responsibilities. She forces him to work to support his family instead of mooching off of Ox-King and Mr. Satan and training all the time.
  • Beerus, amusingly enough, becomes this to Goku as they become more friendly. Whenever Goku is introduced to someone he really wants to fight, Beerus tries to keep him in line like trying to keep him from sparring with Monaka and Zamasu. He is also horrified when he hears that Goku put a hit on himself to fight Hit at his best and gets on Whis for enabling Goku's behavior.
• Cold-Blooded Torture:
  • Instead of killing Tagoma like in the movie, Frieza shoots his limbs, crippling him and making him apologize for speaking out. For extra agony, Tagoma is forced to become Frieza's practice dummy for the next four months, every day being beaten to within an inch of his life so Frieza can figure out how best to torture Goku without killing him. Tagoma has to use the healing tank just to survive their sessions. By the time the invasion of Earth begins, Tagoma completely snaps, becoming the same coldblooded monster as Frieza.
  • Frieza gets to test this out on Gohan, blasting him with precision ki blasts that hurt but don't kill, until Gohan can't even move. Then, after he has Goku at his mercy, he beats him senseless and steps on his heart wound.
• Cold Ham:
  • Most of the time, Goku Black's speech and voice are quite calm and soft, while at the same time carrying a lot of weight, like his entire monolog after transforming into Super Saiyan Rosé is all about how beautiful he has become and how he's at a realm that no mortal can reached, all without him raising his voice much. He also declares to Future Zamasu that he will kill Goku, all with only a slight vocal change. Earlier, when he tells Future Trunks why he's killing humans, he did it with a huge slasher grin and wide-eyed with madness, and his voice didn't raise in volume.
  • Much like Goku Black, Merged Zamasu gives bold declaration of godhood and how he is the universe, while never raising his voice. That all changes, however, when he starts having his Villainous Breakdown.
• Color Motif: Goku Black, as the name suggests, wear black clothing and he's heavily associated with darkness to the point that even his Ki takes a dark appearance.
• Combat Breakdown: Happens in multiple fights during the Tournament of Power, as numerous competitors suffer increasing fatigue and lose access to their stronger techniques. Of particular note, the tournament ends with Goku and Frieza against Jiren, all of them in base form and unable to maintain powerups.
• Combat by Champion: Although it takes the form of a normal martial arts tournament, thanks to Goku suggesting they use the rules of the Tenkaichi Budokai, the multiverse tournament in the Champa Arc is a proxy battle for Beerus and Champa, who can't fight each other directly because it'd destroy the universe they're in.
• Combat Compliment:
  • Despite losing godhood, Goku is still able to battle Beerus as a normal Super Saiyan. This makes Beerus give his respect to Goku, and even says that he somewhat regrets looking for the Super Saiyan God.
  • Frieza actually gives a bow of respect when he hears that Goku has become a god among the Saiyans.
  • After disseminating Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta, Hit notes that Vegeta was the first to take so many blows to his vitals.
  • Although Goku didn't speak these words out loud, he praises the entire U6 team for giving such fantastic battles. He even muses that he gets to fight the strongest of them in Hit. When Future Trunks returns, he praises him for reaching Super Saiyan 2 and becoming so powerful.
  • Trunks is left speechless for several seconds when he sees Super Saiyan 3 Goku. He also compliments Goku for becoming so strong since the last time he saw him.
  • Vegeta gives Future Trunks a mock grade for almost hitting him by tricking him into charging blindly since Trunks was using the obsolete Ultra Super Saiyan form, which is known for being extremely slow.
  • While he looks down on all mortals, Goku Black has real respect towards Goku. During their first bout, he calls Goku the strongest of the proud warrior race and compliments Goku's on his strength. When he sees Vegeta turns into Super Saiyan Blue, he claps, saying how magnificent it is to see the warrior race clad in godly garbs.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • While Goku uses up his energy keeping the Earth from being damaged by Beerus' attack, Beerus uses that time to sneak in on Goku and impale him through the stomach.
  • Frieza and his army runs on this:
    • Tagoma's time as an unwilling partner in Frieza's Training from Hell not only made him a lot stronger, it also gave him a cold and ruthless outlook on fighting. He shows this when he blasts both Shisami and Gohan through the chests, knowing it was his best chance to take out Gohan before he started seriously powering up.
    • Frieza shoots Gohan while he's in the middle of sparing Ginyu. This is partly because Gohan's mercy hits a very sore Berserk Button for Frieza. During his fight with Goku, Frieza shoots at Krillin and Bulma to distract him, really pissing Goku off. Frieza also attempts to shoot Goku while he is transforming into his new Super Saiyan state, which Goku tells him to knock off. When he fails to kill Goku in his golden form, he has Sorbet shoot Goku in the back when his guard is lowered. Finally, he blows up the planet before Vegeta can kill him, taking advantage of the fact that he can survive in space while Vegeta can't. Beerus calls Frieza dirty, but clever to shoot Goku when his guard is down, since Goku was being a moron, and for taking advantage of his species' ability to survive in a vacuum.
  • Gotenks headbutts Tagoma below the belt, immediately taking him down.
  • Instead of allowing Ginyu the chance to fight, Vegeta chooses to instantly kill him. Which is quite different from Vegeta's usual self who likes to drag things out.
  • Frost beats Goku by taking advantage of Goku's sudden fatigue and kicks him out of the ring. Turns out, he has a poison needle embedded into his arm. He uses the same trick to beat Piccolo. When he fights Vegeta, he brags about how he can uses his poison to both paralyze and kill his opponents.
  • Gryll, the leader of the gang of thieves after the sacred water runs on this. When Gryll's men attacked Potage, the old man responds by taking a fighting stance that impresses Goten and Trunks. Gryll's men responds by taking out their guns. When that fails, they retreat and noticed that Potage dropped the item they are after and comes back for it while Goten and Trunks search in the wrong direction for it. When Goten and Trunks try to attack them again, they take Monaka hostage.
  • Copy-Gryll, the form that the Commeson takes after absorbing Gryll's personality and power, inherits the original in being pragmatic. While Vegeta is prepared to fight Copy-Gryll directly, the Commeson absorbs him while he's distracted and takes Vegeta's power. Copy-Gryll then wants Copy-Vegeta to absorb Trunks, but Copy-Vegeta doesn't really listens since he has Vegeta's pride and love for his child. Copy-Gryll also tries to get Copy-Vegeta to absorb Goku, but Copy-Vegeta wants to fight Goku fairly.
  • Future Zamasu exploits the fact that he has immortality by grabbing both Goku and Future Trunks so that Goku Black can hit them head-on with his Kamehameha. The attack knocks out both Saiyans, but Zamasu is completely unharmed. Before then, he had no problem with Goku Black jumping in to help him kill Goku during their fight.
  • Goku Black also proves to be this. He teams up with Future Zamasu against Goku, disables Future Trunks' sword while he's fighting Zamasu, and fires a Kamehameha while Zamasu have Goku and Future Trunks pinned down. When Trunks grabs Future Zamasu and is ready to blow himself up with him, figuring there must be a limit to Zamasu's immortality and that if he blows him up on a molecular level there would be nothing for Zamasu to regenerate from. Rather than letting Trunks make a potentially pointless Heroic Sacrifice, Goku Black stabs him in the back of the chest and knocks him out. Finally, although he had his fight with Goku and Vegeta well under control, he takes Future Zamasu's advice and fuses with him since they were done playing. At the same time, he does subverts this in one key way, namely he doesn't want to be an immortal despite the combination of his power and having the inability to die would make him invincible. Since he loves to fight and to be challenged, he sees immortality as a hindrance since he would eventually get rusty like Future Zamasu. This later returns as a Fatal Flaw in Merged Zamasu since Black not being an immortal gimped Merged Zamasu's immortality, taking him from an immortal to simply Nigh-Invulnerable.
  • Strangely Subverted with Merged Zamasu. Despite being the fusion of Black and Future Zamasu he inherited none of their pragmatic personalities. While Black and Future Zamasu would have killed Goku, Future Trunks, and Vegeta the moment they have the chance, even if they played with them a little, Merged Zamasu spends most of his fight hovering above them and talking about how great he is. This, along with several other factors, costed him the fight.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Goku Black takes delight in his own pain since it helps him to become stronger and more perfect. He laughs and smiles when Super Saiyan Future Trunks punches him in the stomach and he has a good time when Goku beats up on him as a Super Saiyan 2, saying how it powers him up. Goku is quite creeped out by this, calling him gross.
• Combined Energy Attack:
  • Goku Black can merge his energy attacks with Future Zamasu to create an even more powerful energy blast since they are basically the same person and have the same ki. Their "signature" combo attack is launching red and purple energy blasts (from Goku Black and Zamasu respectively) that oscillate before merging into a giant fiery ball.
  • In order to finish off Merged Zamasu, Future Trunks creates a Spirit Bomb from the energy of the planet and everyone on it, including Goku and Vegeta. He then merges the energy into his sword and uses it to cleave Merged Zamasu in half.
  • Parodied in Episode 69 when Bulma has everyone in the world focus thoughts of their favorite food onto Senbei's desire-fulfilling machine to create the ultimate delicious food and entice Beerus to Earth.
  • In the Tournament of Power, Universe 2's final effort involves the entire population of that universe sending their "love" to the three remaining fighters, causing them to transform and develop an ultimate attack. Unfortunately, Goku just tanks it and knocks them out with a Kamehameha.
• The Comically Serious: Zamasu is a very serious person with no comical quirk, however, the situations he finds himself in are what makes him funny. Namely, his entire first meeting with Goku is him trying to get away from Goku as he begs him for a sparring match. His reaction when Whis stops his assassination attempt on Gowasu with a cat mitten is comedy gold. Future Zamasu is the same. While he's having one of his usual Motive Rants, Goku and Vegeta ignores him and have a comedic argument about Goku leaving the urn they were going to use for the Mafuba in the time machine (which Black destroyed). When Zamasu realizes they aren't listening to him, he admits that he just likes hearing himself talk, which even Black finds funny. Later, Bulma actually tries to flirt with him to buy time for Future Trunks to learn the Evil Containment Wave. He isn't amused. This also extends to Merged Zamasu. During his grand speech to Vegito about why he took Goku's body, he burst into tears about the burden of being a god carrying the sins of both the mortals and gods. Vegito isn't impressed and can't believe that he's crying.
• Comically Small Bribe: Upon learning that Bulma has made a time machine, Beerus explains that time-travel is strictly forbidden, even to the gods, and is prepared to destroy everyone who knows of the device, but lets it slide because Bulma gives him a fish sausage. Lampshaded by Pilaf:
  "Our lives depended on a sausage?!"
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Although Goku is grateful to Future Yajirobe for saving Future Trunks and him from Goku Black and Future Zamasu, he doesn't like that Yajirobe saves them by dragging them across the ground like sacks of rice, complaining that his butt hurts and that he can walk. Yajirobe promptly tells him to stop complaining since he can't fly.
• Complete Immortality: As far as we know, Future Zamasu is a complete immortal where nothing can kill him. Being impaled or blasted by powerful energy attacks does no damage to him. Anything that can penetrate his body is instantly healed. When Goku Black and Future Zamasu fuse, Merged Zamasu inherits Future Zamasu's immorality, however, the Goku Black's mortal half isn't quite 'complete', causing his regeneration to become imperfect. Instead of healing perfectly, his right half begins mutating out of control. However, even when Merged Zamaus's body is destroyed, he still lives and merges with the multiverse, killing everyone except a few named characters.
• Concepts Are Cheap:
  • During the "Future Trunks Saga", Goku Black and Zamasu constantly toss around terms like "justice" and "righteousness" to justify their plans and actions, at one point even getting into a heated dispute with the protagonists over what constitutes a morally righteous act. The impetus that causes Trunks's transformation into Super Saiyan Anger is Black stating Trunks' time travelling is a sin, even though all Trunks wanted to do was save as many people as possible.
  • During the "Universe Survival Saga", most universal warriors are fighting for some ideal that they believe in, such as Brienne fighting for "Love" and the Pride Troopers fighting for "Justice". These words have very little meaning outside of being a powerup mantra, however, especially near the climax of the Tournament of Power, where things become so desperate that throwing away one's ideals for the sake of survival becomes a point of contention. Jiren is revealed to be so cynical about a concept like "Justice" that he believes it is only defined by who's stronger.
• The Conscience: Gowasu tries to be this to Zamasu, guiding his pupil to becoming a proper Supreme Kai and overcome his hatred of mortals. Unfortunately despite his best efforts, he can't get through to Zamasu and he tries to kill him so he can become the Supreme Kai and use the Time Ring. This is probably why Beerus saw Zamasu's actions as an In-Universe Moral Event Horizon.
• Consummate Liar:
  • No one saw Frost's nature except Vados because she picked him to be on Champa's team. Even Piccolo, who is usually very good at picking up evil energy, sensed nothing from him. He only got exposed because Jaco caught him cheating.
  • When he sees the Super Dragon Balls on Godtube, Zamasu plays the dutiful students and questions Gowasu about them, seeing them as the key to start his plan. When confronted by Beerus, Whis, Goku, and U7's Supreme Kai, he keeps a cool demeanor the entire time and has a pleasant conversation with them. He even asked about their investigation into the Time Rings and only shows shock when Gowasu states that they're there to see him. He's so good that only Beerus and Whis sensed any Killing Intent within him and that's because they're particularly sensitive to such things. Even Goku failed to sense anything evil within Zamasu, something he's usually good at picking up.
• Consummate Professional: Hit gives off this air. He's a legendary and feared hitman, but is stoic and completely serious, and mostly acts like the only reason he's present is to get his reward and otherwise isn't interested in the situation. And even when he curbstomps Frost, he only did so to keep him from stealing his prize and doesn't even kill him, even though he very easily could have, rather than doing it to be a sadist. The only time he showed any interest in the tournament is when Vegeta transforms into a Super Saiyan Blue and then stares at Goku. Even then, he takes down Vegeta quickly and effectively, aiming all his attacks for his vital areas and suggesting Vegeta gives up before he gets killed. When shown on the job, he simply uses his time skip to bypass everyone who isn't his mark, kills the target quickly and as painlessly as possible, and leaves.
• Continuity Nod: Now has its own page.
• Continuity Porn: Super makes a lot of references to Dragon Ball and Z to the point of having its own Continuity Nod page. It also has nods to works not connected to Super's lore, giving its own Mythology Gag page.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Thanks to the secondary barrier surrounding the arena, Magetta's lava attacks increase the ambient heat enough that even Vegeta begins to feel it. Magetta is, naturally, immune to his own heat since he literally eats lava.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment:
  • Frieza's personal hell is this; he's wrapped in a cocoon and dangling from a tree in a Sickeningly Sweet fairy land, Forced to Watch as angels, fairies, and living stuffed animals happily dance, sing, and generally have a good time around him. Naturally, Frieza hated every second of it and describes it as if it was the most horrifying and brutal torture ever devised.
  • Ginyu suffered something similar being stuck in a frog's body for almost two decades. He tells Goku and Vegeta that they couldn't imagine the suffering he experienced.
  • Tagoma gets to experience the same punishment as Ginyu since he is now struck in a frog's body for the rest of his life.
• The Corrupter: Although he was already evil, Tagoma went from being a Noble Demon and the Only Sane Man, to a monster who is just as cold and ruthless as Frieza after surviving four months of torturous training sessions. This in itself is a Call-Back to how Frieza corrupted Vegeta to be more coldblooded even by Saiyans' standards by nurturing his dark tendencies and treating him like trash for being a Saiyan.
• Cool Sword: Not only does Future Trunks return, but so does his iconic sword. He even learns how to fire energy blasts from it.
• Cosmic Entity:
  • Beerus and Champa, both Gods of Destruction capable of destroying both of their universes if they fight. They also don't care too much about the lives of mortals, although they do respect them to various degrees. Beerus is more dismissive towards life than Champa since he destroys worlds because he didn't like the food or had a temper tantrum, while Champa destroys for his own greed (looking for the Super Dragon Balls).
  • Whis and Vados are not technically gods, but rather angels assigned to watch over their respective Gods of Destruction. If their charge is killed, then that particular angel "ceases functioning" until a new God of Destruction can be chosen. However, they are both stronger than their respective gods and are Reality Warpers. Whis specifically has the power to rewind time and Vados can drag six planet-sized objects across the universe at light speeds.
  • Zeno, the King of All, is the ruler of the entire multiverse. He is also so powerful that he can wipe out all 12 universes in an instant. In the past, there used to be 18 Universes and he wiped out 6 of them.
  • The Eternal Dragon of the Super Dragon Balls is far in a way stronger than all the other dragons. He restores the long-dead U6's Earth along with all its people and advance them to U7 Earth's standards with a single wish. He is also bigger than a galaxy.
• Cosmic Horror Reveal: Shockingly enough. While the Battle of Gods saga set the stage with the advent of beings like Beerus and Whis, the "Universe Survival" Arc plants the series in as close to Cosmic Horror as a Shonen manga has any right to be. It's revealed that the multiverse itself only exists at the whim of an astoundingly capricious, immature Jerkass God so far above everyone else that should he decide he wants it gone, there'd be literally nothing anyone could do to stop it.
• Cosmic Plaything:
  • Where to begin with Future Trunks? Despite the boy trying to live his life the best way he knows how, the multiverse seems to hate him and go out of his way to make his life a living hell. He was already born into a world where the androids killed everyone he loves except for his mother, but then Black shows up and not only wrecks his world again but also murders his mother and seemingly his last friend Mai. Even when he finally seems to win his entire timeline is wiped out by Future Zeno, after Merged Zamasu killed everyone in it. Mai and him are forced to move into a new timeline created by Whis where they have to live with another version of themselves who didn't suffer such tragedies. Yeah, it really sucks to be Future Trunks.
  • The Universe Survival Arc shows that under the rule of Zeno, everyone, gods and mortals alike, are toys for his amusement.
• Courier: This is Monaka's occupation. Beerus puts a huge pile of gold in his truck as thanks for being the Motivational Lie for Goku. Chi-Chi is impressed that Monaka works along with being very strong. That is before she, along with everyone else minus Goku, learns that Monaka isn't strong.
• Cowardly Lion: Future Yajirobe saves Goku and Future Trunks' lives when they were about to killed by Goku Black and Zamasu by dragging them away from the battlefield.
• Crapsaccharine World: The Dragon World may seem colorful and friendly, but the peaceful atmosphere of the series is mostly limited to the Earth. The universe is filled with gods and godlike beings who can destroy planets just by sneezing too hard. There is even an official God of Destruction whose job it is to destroy planets, populated or not, so new ones can be created by the Kais. That god also happens to be a Psychopathic Manchild who will destroy planets because he didn't like or was denied food. You also had an organization that went around wiping entire population of planets so they could sell them to the highest bidder. Even worse, this empire was the closest thing to a central government in the universe since Frieza and his family were practically gods among mortals, and the galactic police were helpless against their power and the Supreme Kais, who are the good gods that balance the Gods of Destruction, could do nothing to stop them since they're not allowed to interfere with the affairs of mortals. Even with the galactic patrol, they have a weapon known as an Extinction Bomb that releases a virus that can kill off an entire species on a planet, usually used as a Mercy Kill. Jaco accidentally used an Extinction Bomb which wiped out a planet and only got scolded for it. If that isn't bad enough, you have Gods of Destruction from other universes, who are all notoriously violent, that can come and blow up your planet without warning because they're looking for something, or you may have the bad luck of running into a rogue Supreme Kai who've decided that all mortals should die for the good of universe and slowly wipe out your population. On top of all that, you have Zeno, who is the supreme ruler of the multiverse, who can wipe out the entire universe on a whim and has done so in the past. The Earth is only peaceful because almost all of the strongest warriors in the universe happens to live there, they have a Reset Button in the Dragon Balls, and they have gained favor with the gods thank to Goku making friends with King Kai, the Supreme Kais, Beerus, and even Zeno, along with having great food. Even then, humanity was terrorized by Cell, all but wiped out by Majin Buu, and was conquered by King Piccolo decades earlier. Frieza also successfully blows up the planet and it's only revived because Whis rewind time. Future Trunks' timeline shows exactly what will happen to the Earth if it lost its fighters, especially Goku, and the Dragon Balls.
• Crapsack World:
  • Future Trunks' Earth. After surviving nearly two decades of terror and death under the androids, humanity is brought to the brink of extinction once again. Unlike the androids, who kept humanity alive for their own entertainment, Goku Black doesn't play around. In a year's time, he trashes the world worse than the androids to the point that Trunks is forced to eat pet food to survive. And things only gets worse when it's revealed that Goku Black and Future Zamasu murdered all the gods in the 12 universes, leaving them as the only higher power. So the humans don't even have a god to pray to.
    • And then it's destroyed by Zeno, as Zamasu merged with Black and spread across multiverse, after being split in two by Trunks.
  • The whole universe of Universe 9. It is the lowest-ranked universe in terms of development, and what we see of it isn't promising, indicating it is full of war and poverty. The Trio de Dangers, its strongest fighters, themselves refer to it as a "garbage dump" universe, saying the reason they love each other so much and know how to work together so well is because it was the only way they could survive.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • In the event that Goku was stronger than him, Frieza had a backup plan. Have Sorbet shoot him when his guard is down since he knows that Goku tends to get careless once he becomes self-assured.
  • Despite being overwhelmingly powerful, Frost has a poison needle in his arm and injects his opponents whenever he's at a disadvantage.
  • Bulma gets several in the Future Trunks Saga:
    • When Goku and Future Trunks start sparring and their power output generates hurricane-force winds that threaten the city, Bulma pulls out a device that generates a force field around them with a single button-press (like her dragon radar, it seems to be context-sensitive). Predictably, the field smashes as soon as they get serious.
    • In the next episode, she reveals that she kept the Time Machine that Cell stole and was retrieved way back during the Androids arc in Z.
    • She also makes sure to bring a garage with her to the future with all the tools needed to fix the Time Machine if it was broken. She even brings super glue so Future Trunks can glue back the pot needed for the Evil Containment Wave.
    • Bulma also gets a recording of Piccolo performing the Evil Containment Wave so she can teach it to Future Trunks, just in case he needs the technique.
    • She frantically repairs the Time Machine during the battle with Merged Zamasu just in case it's needed in a hurry. Good thing too since Goku and the others would have been erased with the timeline by Future Zeno.
• Creator Cameo: Toriyama's Author Avatar, Tori-Bot, is the face on the Dragon Ball world's money.
• Create Your Own Villain: Future Trunks' timeline shows that Zamasu would have continued to serve Gowasu despite his grudge against mortals for many years. His present self meeting Goku and being defeated by him in a sparring match pushed him to start planning the genocide of both gods and mortals, starting with taking Goku's body by using the Super Dragon Balls. However, given how quickly Future Zamasu jumped at the chance to join his alternate past self, something similar would have happened eventually.
• Crippling Over Specialization: While a good fighter in his own right, Botamo's strategy mainly relies on using his invulnerability to wear down opponents until they're too weak to fight back or to push them out of the ring. In a tournament match against Goku, Goku realizes he doesn't have to beat him, just throw him out of the ring, something Botamo can't prevent because Goku is far stronger and he has become too reliant on his unusual body, something Goku notes.
• Crossover: In Episode 43, Goku briefly encounters Arale while his Instant Transmission is on the fritz. Episode 69 is a more complete crossover, with several Dr. Slump characters appearing and dominating the story (and its conventions).
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • Beerus may be a fun-loving person who is extremely food-obsessed and sleeps so deeply that it takes bombs to wake him up, but he is the God of Destruction, who also happens to have a lot of Berserk Buttons and is extremely fond of Disproportionate Retributions. Even after becoming more mellow after befriending Goku, he still has no problem reminding people that he's near the top of the food chain by atomizing Zamasu with just a word, and he was stronger than Super Saiyan God Goku.
  • Goku is just as goofy and childish as Beerus, and is often pushed around by his wife. He is also one of the strongest beings in the universe, The Ace among his friends and family, and is currently the strongest creature on Earth. Officially, he is the strongest mortal in Universe 7 since Monaka being stronger is a lie. He is also a Genius Bruiser in all things related to fighting. When he couldn't physically beat Botamo's ability to absorb his attacks, he tosses him out of the ring, surprising everyone. He then shocks Hit when he finds a way around his time-stopping ability after initially dismissing Goku as a young and naive fighter.
  • Ginyu is extremely silly and goofy, but when he gets down to business he easily takes care of the Z Fighters, including a rusty pre-Super Saiyan Gohan whose base form is still stronger than Piccolo. It helps that he now possesses the strongest body within Frieza's ranks.
  • Champa may be fat and more boorish than Beerus, but he is still a God of Destruction and Beerus' equal. When he loses to Universe 7, he's ready to kill his entire team and dares them to attack him all at once. Given what Beerus did to Zamasu, a fighter only little below Super Saiyan 2 Goku after training with Whis, this wasn't a bluff.
  • Monaka is this according to Beerus. When he gets serious, he will destroy anyone regardless if they're friend or foe. When he's calm, he comes off as a complete wimp. Whis reveals that Monaka is an amateur fighter who Beerus plays up as the best to give motivation to Goku and Vegeta.
  • Kale of Universe 6 is a very demure Saiyan girl who easily prone to letting her emotions control her due to low self esstem. When her mentor and gang leader, Caulifla, personally vouches for her inclusion in The Tournament of Power with Cabba's Super Saiyan training, she weepingly calls herself "a pathetic Saiyan" when she can't seem to unlock it. However, her lack of emotional control becomes a catalyst to shockingly become a "Super Saiyan Berserker": a large, powerful and violent form that has her easily take down Cabba, even in his SSJ form (which is considered as powerful as a base-level Vegeta post-SSJ Blue).
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • Present Zamasu gets atomized by Beerus after being caught in his attempted murder. Although these types of death are not unusual for this series, what makes Zamsu's death stand out is how slow it was. It takes several seconds for his body to disintegrate and Zamasu is screaming the entire time in anguish.
  • Merged Zamasu meets his end (his physical body anyway) by being slowing sliced in half by Future Trunks, from the groin up. It's probably one of the more gruesome deaths in the series.
• Cruel Mercy: Unlike in Resurrection 'F', where Goku spares Frieza because he sees him as a Worthy Opponent and wants to give him the chance to master his new Golden Super Mode so they can fight again, Goku only spares Frieza because, as far as he's concerned, Frieza is so pathetic that he's not worth the effort to kill.
• Cruel Twist Ending: The Future Trunks Saga, just when it looks like Future Trunks has finally killed Merged Zamasu after using the power of everyone on Earth, Merged Zamasu turns out to be Not Quite Dead since he is an immortal and he fuses with the multiverse to become justice itself. He then kills everyone that is left, leaving only the main characters alive. Goku is forced to summon Future Zeno, who wipes out the entire timeline to kill Merged Zamasu. Meaning, everything Trunks fought and sacrifice for was All for Nothing.
• Crutch Character:
  • Frieza to his entire empire. After his defeat and death (along with the deaths of his father and their strongest men on Namek) the trade organization fell apart and declined to the point that they barely counted as an army and are seen as a laughingstock. The only reason why anyone wants Frieza back is because they see him as the only way to revive the empire since no one has his power and fear factor. The sadly ironic thing is, given how powerful people like Shisami and Tagoma became after only four months of training, they probably wouldn't have needed Frieza if they only trained themselves. They may have never become as strong as Frieza after his Training from Hell, but those two reached powers that utterly trounced Frieza's original level.
  • Gohan finally acknowledges that Goku and to a lesser extent Vegeta have become this to him. He allowed himself to fall behind and is unable to protect the Earth from Frieza. He even mourns that it took everything he had just to summon Goku to Earth. Once Frieza is dealt with, he asks Piccolo to train him again.
  • Highlighted in the Future Trunks Saga. When Future Trunks sees the power of Super Saiyan Blue, he's fully prepared to just kick back and let Goku and Vegeta deal with Goku Black. Vegeta scolds him for it, telling him he should always strive to surpass his limits no matter what, and Trunks takes his advice to heart.
• Culture Clash: Humans interacting with gods is considered quite unusual, such that most gods are taken off guard by just how casual Goku is with other gods. Gowasu, the Supreme Kai of U10, doesn't mind after getting used to Goku, but his student Zamasu finds it offensive since he has a strong distrust of mortals. The assembled Gods of Destruction all ask Champa what the deal is when they see how chummy Goku is with Zeno and the Grand Priest, something Champa can't quite answer.
• Curbstomp Battle:
  • Beerus gives many of these in the Battle of Gods Saga:
    • His fight against the leader of the little aliens in Episode 2. Poor guy never stood a chance.
    • Beerus' first fight against Goku in Episode 5. After letting Goku power up all the way to Super Saiyan 3, he takes Goku out in two hits.
    • Majin Buu vs. Beerus. Unlike the above examples Buu actually hits Beerus, but that's because he didn't bother to dodge and Buu's attacks did no damage. Beerus responds by spinning Buu around so hard he actually loses cohesion for a few moments. Then he blasts Buu into the ocean.
    • Beerus vs. everyone at Bulma's party. With the exception of Buu, who keeps coming back for more, no one lasts more than a minute against him. Piccolo, Tien, and Android 18 are knocked flat by his aura alone. Krillin wisely stayed out of it.
  • The Resurrection 'F' Saga has more than a few of these from both sides:
    • The Z Fighters versus Frieza's entire army. Outside of Tagoma and Shisami, no one within Frieza's ranks stood even a remote chance.
    • Tagoma/Ginyu versus anyone who isn't Super Saiyan Gohan or Gotenks.
    • Super Saiyan Gohan vs. Ginyu. Gohan beat him with two attacks.
    • Vegeta vs Ginyu. Vegeta atomizes him in one energy blast.
    • Downplayed during the battle between Frieza's true form and Goku's base form, which was a complete curbstomp battle in the movie. Goku is still more powerful, but not overwhelmingly so and Frieza manages to get a few good hits in by targeting Goku's friends.
    • It gets Played Straight when Frieza tries to take on Super Saiyan Blue Goku, and finds himself completely outclassed. Once Frieza uses the full power of his own Super Mode, however, it becomes a curbstomp battle in Frieza's favor. Then it swings back around once Frieza's stamina runs out, and Goku easily beats him in a couple hits.
    • Vegeta also has a very easy time smacking Frieza around once he takes over the fight since Frieza already burned through all his reserves fighting Goku. He beats Frieza so badly that he's close to tears before Vegeta decides to finish him. Unfortunately, Vegeta gets a little too careless and Frieza still wins by quickly blowing up the planet (as Frieza can survive in outer space, while Vegeta can't). Goku quickly rectifies this, however.
  • The fights from the Champa Saga:
    • Despite Botamo's unique ability that makes him almost impossible to damage, Goku beats him by dragging him towards the edge of the ring and flipping him to a ring-out. Goku did all this without bothering to transform.
    • Frost is stronger than Frieza and his third form is more powerful than Goku's base form. Since Frost lacks an ultimate transformation, however, he gets beaten to the point that he can barely stand by Super Saiyan Goku. Frost still wins his match since Goku suddenly became fatigued and he gets kicked out of the ring. It turns out that Frost poisoned him.
    • Frost vs. Vegeta is similarly one-sided. Even after he's allowed to use a weapon, Frost goes down in one hit. For added humiliation, when he tries to sneak off later, Hit catches him and takes him out with one move.
    • Vegeta does it again against his Universe 6 Saiyan counterpart, Cabba. Though evenly matched in their base forms, Vegeta is able to trounce Cabba after his first transformation, as Cabba can't become a Super Saiyan. After teaching Cabba to transform, they're evenly matched again, until Vegeta goes Blue and knocks him out with one punch.
    • Vegeta is on the receiving end against Hit, thanks to the latter's Time-Skipping ability.
  • Copy-Vegeta easily handles Gotenks, even when he transforms into a Super Saiyan 3. Copy-Vegeta treats the entire fight like a training session.
  • Future Trunks Saga
    • The saga starts with Goku Black easily pushing Trunks back and beating the crap out of him in his Super Saiyan form. Goku Black beats Trunks so regularly that even while image-training, Trunks can't touch Black and dies in one hit.
    • After turning into a Super Saiyan Rosé, Goku Black dismisses Vegeta by impaling him with an energy blade.
    • Although Goku and Future Trunks gave an heroic effect, they stood no chance against Goku Black and Future Zamasu. Not only was Goku Black stronger than them thanks to his Super Saiyan Rosé transformation, but Zamasu rivals Super Saiyan Blue Goku in power and he's immortal.
    • Round 2 didn't go much better for the heroes. Goku Black and Future Zamasu easily takes out Future Trunks and Vegeta with their combination attacks, and although Goku gets some good hits in after getting a rage boost, Goku Black powers up and takes Goku down by blasting a hole through his chest, impaling him with multiple blades, and then making those blades explode.
    • In Round 3, Vegeta gets some much needed payback on Goku Black. Not only does he completely overwhelms Black, but he even gets in "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Black.
    • To say Merged Zamasu vs Vegeta and Goku (and later Future Trunks) is one sided is an understatement.
    • The immortal supreme god Merged Zamasu after he fuses with the entire multiverse versus Future Zeno. This 'fight' was over before it even began and it isn't in Merged Zamasu's favor.
  • One of the most extreme curbstomps is seen in Episode 71 with Hit crushing Goku by utilizing a phasing ability that makes Goku's attacks past right through him and he kills Goku with a single strike with invisible ki. And this is while Goku is not incapacitated or handicapped in any way. Luckily for Goku, he manages to revived himself and win round 3 against Hit by learning how to bypass these techniques.
  • Universe Survival Arc:
    • Goku's exhibition match against Bergamot quickly turns into one of these. When Bergamot reveals his ability to grow bigger and stronger when hit, Goku is unimpressed and just hits him harder, eventually using Kaioken and Super Saiyan Blue to overwhelm him.
    • While training the Saiyan newcomers Caulifla and Kale to unlock their Super Saiyan potential, Cabba accidentally triggers Kale's surprisingly powerful "Super Saiyan Beserker" form. As he is hunted down by SSJB Kale, his regular Super Saiyan abilities prove to be barely effective while the girl knocks him around the canyons they were training in. Caulifla had to bail him out by talking down Kale to revert her back.
    • Golden Frieza vs the Universe 9 assassins. Frieza calls it 'exercise' and that's a pretty apt description of what it is to him.
  • Just about every single fight Jiren participates in. He effortlessly defeats every opponent except for ultra instinct Goku, who can ascend to Jiren's power level but only for a very brief moment of time before crashing back down. It comes down to a three-on-one push with Goku, Frieza and 17 (each of them likely to be among the most powerful mortals in the universe by this point and able to stand toe-to-toe with lesser gods) all fighting him together while still barely keeping up, and in the end they still couldn't manage to defeat him directly but had to settle for a ring out. World's Strongest Man indeed.
• Cuteness Proximity: Even the mighty Piccolo can't resist the cuteness of baby Pan. Not that he'd ever show it in public.
• Cutting the Knot: When Bulma is pregnant with Bulla and Vegeta refuses to leave her side until the baby is born, Whis solves this problem by using his powers to teleport the baby out of her. Instant birth, no hassle.
  • In the Universe 6 vs. 7 tournament, one of Goku's opponents is too bouncy to hurt. Since he can't do damage, he just knocks the guy down and drags him to the edge of the arena and tosses him off. Picolo and Vegeta are annoyed that they didn't think about that.

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