Dragon Ball Super / Tropes P to T

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

P

• Pals with Jesus: Besides being on casual speaking terms with the Kais, Kami before he merged with Piccolo, and Dende (the current God/Guardian of the Earth that he hand chose), Goku and company also befriends Beerus, the God of Destruction, after the Battle of Gods Saga. Goku and Vegeta regularly trains on his planet, and he and Whis regularly stops by Earth to hang out and eat delicious food. Goku then one-ups that by becoming pals with Zeno, King of the Multiverse.
• Papa Wolf: Pretty much any father who isn't an Abusive Parent is going to be this.
  • Piccolo won't stand for anyone hurting Gohan when he's around. He personally tries to fight Tagoma after he mortally wounds Gohan and takes a Death Beam from Frieza to protect Gohan, actually dying in the process.
  • Goku gives Frieza one hell of a Death Glare when he sees the condition Gohan is in. He also goes absolutely mental when Goku Black rubs it in his face about how he butchered his family.
  • Vegeta shows this with Trunks when he protects him from the Commeson when it tries to absorb Trunks. He also wants to kill Goku Black for trying to kill his future son, as well as in revenge for Future Bulma's death. When Mr. Satan and Yamcha accidentally make the newly-born Bra cry, Vegeta instantly reacts by transforming into Super Saiyan Blue.
  • When Barry Kahn kidnaps Pan Gohan drops all humor and goes straight to rescue her. Gohan gets double points for wanting to protect his daughter's mind as well as her health- when he has the chance to let Jaco kill Barry, he refuses because he doesn't want Pan to witness death.
• Paradox Person: Goku Black's entire existence is paradoxical. Dragon Ball utilizes Alternate Timelines, so that any changes made in the past would create a new timeline and leave the original future untouched. That is until Super introduced Time Rings allowing "acausal time travel" that did not create timelines. Goku Black was created as the result of Present Zamasu using the Super Dragon Balls to steal the body of Goku, before traveling to the future. However, Beerus had taken the liberty of destroying Zamasu in the present, yet Goku Black still exists in the future. Black explains wearing the Time Ring allowed him to evade being erased from existence and preserve his own history. It gets even more complicated in Episode 67, where it's revealed Beerus' actions did create a Time Ring (and by extension a new timeline) after all.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • Vegeta's philosophy when dealing with all things evil. Next to Piccolo, he's the least merciful of all the Earth's fighters. He kills Ginyu without any hesitation, even as Goku says that it was unnecessary. He beats Frieza so hard that he knocks him out of his golden form, even when he's too weak to do any harm to him, and he was going to kill him, but Frieza decides to Rage Quit before that happens. Unlike Goku who tries to get Frost to surrender since he didn't want to hurt him too badly, he like everyone else believed that Frost was a Nice Guy fighting for a noble cause, Vegeta punches him out of the ring so hard that he breaks Vados' barrier. Although, Vegeta did show some restraint by not killing Frost, despite it being allowed. According to Vegeta, he didn't want to sink to Frost's level.
  • Beerus' execution of Zamasu. It's one of the cruelest deaths, given how Beerus slowly atomized him to the point that Zamasu is left screaming in agony, even with his head gone. However, given that Zamasu tried to kill his master and was truly happy to hear that his future counterpart has been murdering mortals in the future, it's hard, if not impossible to feel sympathy for him.
  • All the Zamasus' prime mindset. Since they believe that mortals are Always Chaotic Evil, it is their divine right to dispense justice by wiping out all the mortals across the multiverse, even if they know that their actions are evil. Goku Black specifically kills off the Earthlings in the slowest, cruelest way possible as a 'special' punishment for Trunks breaking the time taboo.
• Permafusion: Potara Fusion is reworked to be a one or not depending on components: As explained by Gowasu, the Supreme Kai of Universe 10, the potara fusion itself is permanent so long as at least one component is a Kai, with any fusion between mortals having a time limit just like the fusion dance. This is demonstrated during the climax of the future arc, as Zamasu and Goku Black merge together into Merged Zamasu, whose oxymoronic existence causes him to mutate into a monstrous form, and then eventually further evolve into Infinite Zamasu when trying to cleave him apart is not enough to get rid of him for good. It's pretty telling that the only way to get rid of him for good was to send Zeno against him, taking out the entire future multiverse along with him.
• Pen Name: The reason you see James Marsters being cited as Zamasu's voice actor in the English dub is because people figured out that he was his VA following the release of the Future Trunks Arc DLC in Xenoverse 2, as well as some words that either Sabat has said or Marsters has said about wanting him in the dub. It also goes with Sabat's castings of the last few dubs of the last few Dragon Ball shows; first Team Four Star in Kai and the Xenoverse duology, and Brian Drummond in this show. He's going under the alias "David Grey" for Super and "Sam Majesters" (which is also almost a direct anagram of his own name, just remove one of the "r's") for FighterZ because FUNimation's a nonunion company and he's a union actor, similar to Dameon Clarke as Cell in Kai. Having them use their real names for large numbers of episodes would require the company to pay them more money than they feasibly could to have them in the dubs, so the aliases help with pay disputes.
• People Puppets: After Goku tears up the Monaka costume during his sparring match with Beerus, Vegeta and Piccolo rush over to fix it. When Goku asked what is going on, Vegeta and Piccolo pretend that Monaka is controlling their bodies.
• Person of Mass Destruction:
  • The two Gods of Destruction, Beerus and Champa. If they ever fight each other, they will destroy both of their universes. Just the two of them trading a couple punches forms a Sphere of Destruction that reduces a good potion of the room they're in to ash without one energy attack being used.
  • Goku becomes one when he reaches Super Saiyan God. Despite being weaker than Beerus, they nearly destroyed the universe just by trading a few punches.
  • Zeno is so powerful that he can destroy all 12 Universes instantly. Whis even states that there were once 18 Universes before Zeno wiped out 6 of them. And we get to see how true this is when he instantly destroyed Future Trunks' timeline in order to stop the immortal Merged Zamasu.
  • Goku Black singlehandedly destroyed Future Trunks' world over the course of a year and has wiped out other planets before arriving on Earth. According to Black, he's on a personal crusade to wipe out all mortals in the universe. Trunks is unable to do a thing to stop him despite being powerful enough to kill the androids and Cell with ease, and stopped Dabura and Babidi before they could awaken Majin Buu. He is also an even match for Super Saiyan 2 Goku who has been enhanced with God energy, and he has a Super Saiyan form that he hasn't even used yet.
  • Merged Zamasu is so powerful that when he casually releases a cloud of destructive energy, he causes Hurricane-scale storms, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions across the entire planet.
• Pet the Dog:
  • After spending most of the fight treating Goku like a lesser being, Beerus says that Goku has earned his respect and wants to fight him at full power.
  • Despite coming off as cruder and ruder than Beerus, Champa gives some of his eggs to Goku and Vegeta to try.
  • Vegeta teaching Cabba how to become a Super Saiyan and encourages him to surpass him instead of just becoming his equal.
  • Despite winning the tournament and being able to wish for anything that he wants, Beerus uses his wish to restore U6's Earth. So now Champa can enjoy the same food as Beerus, showing that despite their rivalry there is some level of care between the brothers. Beerus also gives Monaka a bunch of gold for pretending to be super strong.
  • Surprisingly, Merged Zamasu has one during his fight with Vegito. He takes the time to reflect on his goals and feel a pang of regret over the amount of destruction he caused. Sadly, he feels he must continue in spite of it.
  • Vados comes to Goku's defense when the other Gods of Destruction are disparaging him, pointing out that Goku's idea for the Tournament of Power is the only reason any of their universes have a chance to survive to begin with. It falls on deaf ears, but it's a thoughtful gesture nonetheless.
  • In a rare moment of fondness, Frieza asking Gohan to join him and the other fighters in the fight as they move towards victory.
    • Frieza, of all people, contributing energy to Goku’s spirit bomb, despite having nothing but bad memories of it, when even Vegeta refused.
  • Near the end of The Tournament of Power Jiren, after spending the majority of his screen time being an absolute ass to everyone weaker than him (meaning everyone in the tournament). He actually laments the fact that the only reason he was able to beat Goku, was due Goku suffering the backlash of Mastered Ultra Instinct at the worst possible moment, and tells Goku that he will always remember Goku's convictions
• Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: Beerus killed the dinosaurs on Earth. However, he's either exaggerating, or he missed a good number, because they're still roaming around in the DBZ universe.
• Physical God: So many since most of them are actually gods:
  • Beerus, who is given the title God of Destruction. He's every bit as powerful as the title entails, being able to take down Super Saiyan 3 Goku with two hits and destroys half a planet by lightly touching a table.
  • Goku becomes a true god after achieving Super Saiyan God. He's so powerful that his fight with Beerus can cause the universe to fall apart. With training from Whis he manages to surpass godhood by combining his god energy with that of a Super Saiyan, becoming a Super Saiyan Blue. Even more astounding he can now combine Super Saiyan Blue with the Kaioken up to X10, making him so fast that he can out-speed someone who can literally stop time.
  • Vegeta also manages to achieve godhood all on his own without the ritual. He is only a little behind Goku.
  • Although not a god in the traditional sense, Frieza is basically a god given that his power as Golden Frieza outstrips even a Super Saiyan Blue. If only he bothered to master the form.
  • Champa, Beerus' twin brother, is Universe 6's God of Destruction. He is Beerus' equal and he isn't allowed to fight his brother or they risk destroying both of their universes.
  • Both Whis and Vados are this since they are stronger than Beerus and Champa and Reality Warpers who can travel across the universe at over light-speed. Whis specifically can rewind time by three minutes.
  • Magetta, like Frieza, isn't an actual deity, but he is powerful enough to give Vegeta a hard time even as a Super Saiyan (which at this point is nearly as strong as an actual Super Saiyan God). He takes no damage even when hit head on by a full-charged Final Flash, the same attack that blew off a giant chunk of Perfect Cell when Vegeta couldn't even hurt him before.
  • Hit also isn't an actual deity, but he is powerful enough to throw down with a Super Saiyan Blue, ages slow enough that he appears to only be in his 40's despite being 1000 years old, and is a Time Master who can freeze time for up to half a second, capitalizing on it with his Super-Speed.
  • Zeno is a god in all but name and Whis outright says that there is no one higher than him. He can destroy the entire multiverse if he wanted to according to Beerus.
  • Zamasu is an apprentice Supreme Kai from Universe 10, the gods of creation in the Dragon World. He is also much stronger than the Supreme Kais from Universe 7 since he can stand up to Super Saiyan 2 Goku after he has been trained by Whis. His future counterpart is even more powerful, being able to give Super Saiyan Blue Goku a good fight and he's an immortal.
  • Goku Black is strong enough to knock around Future Trunks with ease, despite him having Super Saiyan 2, and he can fight on par with Super Saiyan 2 Goku after he has been trained by Whis, had three years of additional training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and went through a multi-universal tournament. According to Trunks, Black is at least as strong as Super Saiyan 3 Goku. By the time Goku and Vegeta confront him in the future, he has grown so powerful that he can stand up against Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta and that is before he transformed into a Super Saiyan Rose and takes down Vegeta with a single blow with his energy sword. It's later revealed that Goku Black is a god. He is a version of Present Zamasu who has taken over Goku's body using the Super Dragon Balls.
  • Like Whis and Vados, the Grand Priest isn't classified as a god, he's only an attendant to Zeno. However, he's one of the five strongest people in the multiverse. Even Whis admits that he stands no chance against him.
  • Merged Zamasu is one by default due to being born from the fusion of two powerful gods, even if one of them was in a mortal shell.
  • Toppo was in the running to become a God of Destruction for U11 and is even with Super Saiyan Blue Goku after the events of the Future Trunks Saga. His fellow Pride Trooper, Jiren, is even stronger than him by a large margin.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse:
  • Cabba is a Saiyan who is even shorter than Vegeta, but is also one of the strongest fighters in Universe 6, able to fight evenly with Vegeta in his base form and eventually ascends to Super Saiyan.
  • Frost is only as tall as Frieza and is far more powerful than him outside of Golden Frieza.
  • Monaka only comes up to Goku's waist, yet Beerus claims that he gave him a better fight than Goku. Turns out to be a Motivational Lie. Monaka is actually really weak and faints at even the smallest shock.
  • Zeno is probably one of the smallest characters in the entire series. He is also by far the most powerful being in the entire franchise since he can destroy the entire multiverse in an instant, and has done so in an alternate timeline.
  • The Grand Priest is only about as tall as U7's Supreme Kai, but he's one of the top five fighters in the entire multiverse. Not even Whis is a match for him.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The gods are supposed to encourage the development of mortals within their universe, the Kais by creating and supporting life, and the Gods of Destruction by getting rid of anything detrimental. There's even a quantified "mortal level" assigned to each universe to rank these efforts. However, almost all of the gods are either so lazy or indifferent to their purpose, such that of the twelve universes, eight are well below the standard baseline of 7. Beerus in particular spends all of his time either sleeping or eating and occasionally bullying mortals for petty reasons.
• Planet of Hats:
  • Just like in U7, all the U6 Saiyans are a powerful warrior race. However, they fight to protect the weak instead of being Psycho for Hire and Space Pirates like their U7's counterparts.
  • According to Whis, all Metal Men are emotionally frail and lose the will to fight if you call them names.
  • Zigzag with Frieza's race. Toriyama states that Frieza and his family are mutants among their race who are born unnaturally strong and cruel. At the same time, Frost from U6 is just as evil and cruel as Frieza's family, except he hides his evil nature behind a Nice Guy facade. So, it's questionable if all the mutants in Frieza's race are just naturally strong and evil, especially since we don't know if Frost is classified as a mutant.
• Player Elimination: In-universe. The Tournament of Power is a battle royale where all the fighters are in the arena at once. Anybody who falls out of the arena is eliminated and can't fight anymore. Any attempt to attack from outside of the arena will result in instant erasure as demonstrated when Frost attempted to attack Frieza after being eliminated. They even establish afterward that a second offense would result in the offender's entire universe being erased.
• Playing Against Type: Invoked in-universe. The Great Saiyaman is considered by the public to be an uncool hero who made the headlines for a while then vanished, and Barry Kahn thinks it'll be amusing to play someone so different from (how he sees) himself.
• Plot Hole:
  • While the show has Ginyu explaining to Frieza how he ended up in a frog's body and wound up on Earth, it doesn't explain how he survived Earth's destruction by the pure form of Majin Buu. When the people of Earth were wished back, Vegeta specified that only the good ones were to be revived. Unless Ginyu spent his frog years being good to his fellow frogs, it seems unlikely he would qualify as good. It is also possible that, since Ginyu was a frog, he didn't count as a "person" and the wish explicitly requested that only good ''people'' had to be revived.
  • While the show does explain how Goku Black came to be thanks to the Stable Time Loop, it doesn't explain why the Goku whose body Goku Black switched with would have gone back to farming instead of continuing to help Future Trunks, Beerus and Whis in solving the mystery of Goku Black. Even if Zamasu had killed Gowasu at a point when Whis's 3-minute reversal of time wouldn't have been of any help, it doesn't explain why would Goku have gone back to farming instead of continuing to help Future Trunks in the future.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Because of the humorous nature of the series, almost everyone can have funny moments. However, Goten and Trunks are constantly there to relieve tension, especially their fusion counterpart Gotenks. In the Future Trunks Saga, the Pilaf Gang provides much of the humor.
• Pocket Dimension:
  • Whis and Vados can seemingly store endless objects into a pocket dimension using their staffs. This includes food and even people. Goku and Vegeta trained in this dimension to learn how to contain their energy during the Resurrection 'F' Saga. During the time they're in there, Whis can't used his staff.
  • Hit has a phase ability that works by him storing the time he skips in another dimension, which he can freely enter. Once he is in this dimension he can't be hit, but he's free to attack this opponent, although it's limited. He can't stay in it forever, however, since it's limited to the time he has stored and it can be shattered by a powerful energy burst.
• Poke the Poodle: Episode 31 has a criminal who habitually dines and dashes, and he came to Lord Zuno with the intent of asking how he could continue to get away with it.
• Poison Is Evil: Frost is eventually revealed to have cheated in his fights against Goku and Piccolo by using a small needle in his arm that administers poison. The poison makes his opponents drowsy and dizzy, allowing him to easily beat them.
• Police Are Useless: Combining everything we know about them from Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, Dragon Ball Super, and official statements from Akira Toriyama, it seems that the Galactic Patrol (including the King himself, who's said to be their strongest member) are completely useless against beings anywhere near as strong as Frieza's first form (who had a power level over half a million during a time where one-hundred thousand was considered outstanding), only patrol the Milky Way, don't care for backwater planets like Earth, and spend most of their time chasing people like Burpman who commit misdemeanor crimes.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: Much like Dragon Ball Z, it's a common theme to present Goku as rude because he has No Social Skills, is often Brutally Honest, and is fight obsessed. Villains like Frieza and Black are Faux Affably Evil who have polite mannerisms and often compliment their opponents, before mercilessly torturing and killing them. Beerus falls more into Affably Evil when he was first introduced, since he really is polite to those lower to him and doesn't go out of his way to cause suffering.
• Popular with Furries: This follows from Petting Zoo People above. The series started to slowly gain this with Beerus' status as a main character, but it really took off once other universes were glimpsed in various sagas, revealing a good number of the 12 Gods of Destruction are anthropomorphic animals. In addition, a good number of the fighters from other universes in the Tournament of Power are also anthropomorphic, ranging from the more plot-important Trio de Dangers, a group of wolf brothers who are the strongest fighters in Universe 9, to minor characters in a variety of species. The trope is potentially inverted given many of those anthropomorphic fighters are the first ones to be ringed out in the Tournament, and the Trio de Dangers and their universe — which was anthro-heavy — are the first to lose and be erased from existence just two episodes into the Tournament.
• Power Copy: The Commeson can take the power and spirit of the people it absorbs, creating a perfect copy. This can be a bad thing if the Commeson absorbs someone as headstrong and as powerful as Vegeta, which it unfortunately did.
• Power Creep, Power Seep:
  • Trying to keep track of power scale in Super will likely only give you a headache. Despite Goku and Vegeta going into near omnipotence when it comes to power, they still find themselves struggling with mortal characters on a regular basis. Sometimes it's justified by them deliberately holding back to test an opponent and/or to reserve energy for bigger opponents. Other times, it's stated that the character they're facing was just that strong. Other times still it seems like characters will get a random power scale jump just for the sake of keeping them relevant, without any form of justification for it.
  • In particular, Android 17 ends up falling into the latter group. Despite apparently only doing mundane tasks in the time since the Cell Saga^note working as a park ranger, he's somehow gone from not being able to stand up to non-fully powered Cell to being able to fight on par with Super Saiyan Blue Goku without missing a beat. He also ends up being the first one to damage Jiren, who was completely mopping the floor with Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta not some time earlier.
• Powers Do the Fighting: After being beaten up by Vegeta, Goku Black uses his anger to create a giant scythe that can tear a hole through dimensions and create endless clones of himself. He then has his clones fight Goku and Vegeta while he stands back and watches.
• Power Echoes: Rather than having a dual voice that combines Goku Black and Future Zamasu's voice actors, Merged Zamasu's simply has an echo added to Zamasu's voice.
• Power High:
  • After Goku becomes a Super Saiyan God, he's all but giddy with delight and proclaims that he has been reborn and he has never felt anything like this.
  • Merged Zamasu spends several minutes reveling in his own power and calling himself the god of the multiverse.
• Power Incontinence:
  • Goku takes some time to get used to being a Super Saiyan God. He flies past Beerus, nearly harms his friends with a stray Kamehameha, and nearly destroys the universe from the sheer force of hitting Beerus. This being Goku, he quickly gets the hang of his new power.
  • Since Gohan hasn't trained in a long time, he no longer has access to his full power and struggles to maintain his Super Saiyan form. It is elaborated that as a Super Saiyan Gohan does come within the vicinity of his Ultimate form's power, but his body has gotten so dulled that it can't keep it up for more than a few minutes at most, whereas in the Buu Saga he could use his full power without transforming and it was natural to him.
  • Frieza's Super Mode, Golden Frieza. In this form his power surpasses even a Saiyan enhanced with god powers, so much so that Goku admits Frieza could possibly kill him "in an instant" if only he didn't toy around. However, since Frieza never properly trained this form, it leaks energy worse than his original 100% form. After only fighting at full power for under a minute, he exhausts himself to the point that his attacks can't even hurt Goku anymore. He's still better than his movie counterpart, however, where Frieza couldn't control his power and fought at full power from the start. Here, he can at least hold back his power, and as a result manages to fight longer. He burns up after a minute of fighting at full power after having already fought longer than in the movie.
  • There's a sickness based on this idea known as Delayed Onset Ki Syndrome. It is caused when a person uses their energy in a reckless way. Goku comes down with this sickness after he used the Kaioken with Super Saiyan Blue during his match with Hit. The symptom of this illness is an inability to controls one's power. It's so bad that Goku can't even fly straight or teleport correctly.
• Power Levels:
  • They get mentioned frequently, of course, this being Dragon Ball series after all. During the Resurrection F arc, Sorbet uses his scouter to make measurements of Tagoma's power level and concludes that he has far surpassed the entire Ginyu Force. At the same time, Super also downplays the importance of Power Levels in favour of actual fighting techniques and tactics, with numerous instances of supremely powerful fighters being brought down by things that would otherwise never hurt them (Goku getting a laser through the chest when he dropped his guard, for example).
  • As part of the Tournament of Power, all twelve universes are given a "mortal level" which partially indicates the average strength of the mortals that inhabit it. Universe 7 and 9 come in last at 3.18 and 1.86, respectively. Universes 1, 5, 8, and 12 have the highest averages, all above seven, and are exempted from the Tournament for that reason. While a Mortal Level is not decided only by power, this does remain a factor. For example Universe 9, the universe with the lowest mortal level, was indeed the first to be beaten, but Universes 6 and 7, the two next lowest ranked, actually had leading positions in the early tournament at least. And Universe 11, despite definitely having some of the strongest fighters, was actually last place at one point in the tournament.
• Power Limiter:
  • Like always, Frieza uses his transformations to limit and control his power. Only his ultimate form is a true power-up. Unlike on Namek, however, Frieza can control his true form's power with no drawback. Not so much for his ultimate form.
  • Much like Frieza, Frost has difficulty controlling his power in his true form. Unlike Frieza, he doesn't avoid using it out of pragmatism, but from guilt over needlessly killing an enemy. This is just a cover story. The real reason is because when he does fight someone stronger than him, he poisons them, so he never needed to learn to control his power.
• Power Nullifier: The original intention of the Commeson. It was created by the people of Potaufeu to nullify their enemies by stealing their strength. Unfortunately, the Commeson also absorbs the will and spirit of the original, turning it evil since it took the power of evil people.
• The Power of Acting: Frost's good guy facade is really impressive. He'll take out space pirates that are under his command and even fool a crowd into thinking that he's a hero. He also pretends that both "poison" incidents are just sudden luck on his end, and acts nice towards Goku and Piccolo about it until Jaco notices something is up. Goku falls for this acting as well.
• The Power of Hate:
  • Goku Black uses his anger towards the mortals who disrespects the gods and losing a sparring match with Goku to gain a power up that allows him to surpass Vegeta after he spent six months in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.
  • Watagashi becomes more powerful the more evil the heart of its current host is; the fact that Barry Kahn becomes stronger than base form Gohan when possessed, something an armed bank robber couldn't do, reveals just how horrible he is.
• Power Parasite: Present Zamasu hijacked Goku's body specifically to steal his power for himself.
• Power-Upgrading Deformation: When Barry Kahn is possessed by Watagash, he becomes more monstrous in appearance as he grows in power until he is eventually a kaiju.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Sorbet didn't kill Pilaf and his gang for stealing their wishes since they may need them again to gather up the Dragon Balls. Tagoma is also worried that if they stay any longer the Saiyans will detect them.
  • The only reason why any of Frieza's men want him back is because he is the only one who can put the empire back together again. When they did revive Frieza, Sorbet is shocked that Frieza refuses the pragmatic solution of ignoring the Saiyans and rebuilding his empire to chase after revenge, when that got him killed the first time.
  • Frieza's Good Counterpart, Frost, turns out to be not so good. He still runs a business that's effectively a galactic real-estate scam involving ruined plants. The difference is where Frieza uses space pirates to directly liquidate planets and rule through fear, Frost uses guerrilla units to tear plants apart in controlled wars so he can step in himself and look like a hero.
  • Champa goes back on his death threat and decides to spare his team after Zeno shows up not because he realized he was being selfish and unreasonable, but to keep them around to represent him in the multiverse tournament Zeno has planned some time in the future.
  • Goku Black choses to slowly wipe out humanity instead of just blowing up the planet unlike many previous villains in the series. It quickly becomes apparent why he's going about it this way: he has no desire to harm the Earth and in fact enjoys its beauty, so just blowing planets up wholesell wouldn't be productive to his goals. That and he wants to punish the humans since Future Trunks broke the time law.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Future Zeno gives one before one shotting Merged Zamasu, who's merged with the multiverse and become a reality spanning Eldritch Abomination who was threatening to break through into other timelines.
  Zeno: A world like this... should disappear!
• Pretender Diss: As Goku Black is getting his face smashed into the pavement while annoyed by how Vegeta is now stronger than him, Vegeta states in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech that he's merely a fake Saiyan who stole his power instead of the real Son Goku who worked for his abilities.
• Pressure Point: Hit uses his time-leaping technique to target the vital parts of his opponents, critically damaging them in the process. Hit is surprised that Vegeta is able to survive this (despite being KO'ed) and he says that if Goku keeps on attacking him before finding out how to dodge his technique, Goku will die.
• Pride:
  • The Fatal Flaw in Goku, Vegeta, and Frieza for different reasons:
    • Goku and Vegeta's pride won't allow them to work together to take down Frieza. If they had, things wouldn't have gotten so bad and Frieza would have been more easily defeated. Vegeta is also so prideful that he can't stand the idea of Copy-Vegeta losing to Goku, but at the same time he doesn't like the idea of Goku losing to an inferior copy. Which makes for an interesting conflict of interest, despite the fact that he will die if Copy-Vegeta isn't defeated.
    • Frieza's pride in being the strongest in the universe won't allow him to accept that Goku beat him. He devotes all his resources to get revenge, which leads to his army being killed, and being defeated again by Goku since he left his training ground too early and didn't master his golden form. That same pride also keeps him from taking Goku's offer to leave peacefully and try again once he has mastered his new power.
  • Copy-Vegeta not only assimilates Vegeta's power, but also his pride. He refuses to use cheap tactics like absorbing Goku to win. His pride is so powerful that it overrules the orders of the Commeson, just like Vegeta did against Babidi.
  • Goku Black thinks a great deal about his power or more specifically the power he stole when he forcibly took Goku's body using the Super Dragon Balls. He's so sure of his strength that he doesn't want immortality and just wants to grow stronger to fight. This end up biting him in the butt when he fuses with Future Zamasu.
  • A key Fatal Flaw of Zamasu; however, his is very different from other villains. In Zamasu's case, his pride is centered around being unable to see or admit that he may be wrong and isn't perfect despite being a god. After he gets into his mind that mortals need to be destroyed for the greater good, nothing Gowasu tells him can sway him, and everything becomes confirmation bias. His pride also makes him believe that he can't believe in anyone but himself, which is why he teams up with his future self and kills the other gods because 'they wouldn't understand his ideals'.
• Pride Before a Fall: Merged Zamasu is the combination of Goku Black's endless power and Future Zamasu's immortality, making him the most powerful villain in the series save for maybe Beerus. At the height of his power, he grinds Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks into the ground without trying. However, his great power went to his head and he keeps torturing the heroes instead of killing them. This causes him to become disfigured by Goku's Kamehameha and his body slowly rotting since he's only half immortal thanks to Goku Black. By the time Future Trunks slices him half, he's sludge monster. His final fall comes in when the true god of the multiverse, Future Zeno, appears and wastes him with no effort.
• Prima Donna Director: Barry Kahn has creative and executive power over the Great Saiyaman movie, and will treat the film crew like dirt while making unreasonable demands on them. He even threatens a stuntman's life by changing a scene so that the stuntman will have to jump on top of a moving tank that's speeding at him without wirework. If Gohan hadn't substituted for the guy, it would've been Fatal Method Acting.
• Principles Zealot: Zamasu's fully believes in the the 'gods' justice', which dictates that all forms of evil needs to be wiped out. He comes to the conclusion that mortals are evil by nature and needs to be destroyed. To that end, he's willing to commit murder of his fellow gods to create a mortal free paradise. He tries to kill his master, Gowasu, to gain control of the Time Rings. In the future timeline, Goku Black and Future Zamasu murders all the gods so no one can stop them. Black also takes Goku's body as a necessary evil since he needs Goku's power to carry out his Zero Mortal Plan and he wants to carry the 'sins' of Goku as an eternal reminder of the gods' failure.
• Professional Killer: Hit is a legendary hitman in his universe. When he confronts Frost about trying to steal the treasure, Frost asks if Champa or someone from their universe hired him to kill him.
• Prophecy Twist: Discussed. Goku at one point theorises that "Super Saiyan God" isn't a level, but rather another surviving Saiyan named "God".
• Pyrrhic Victory: The Future Trunks Saga gives us the most pyrrhic victory in the franchise, which is saying something for a series that has been overall Lighter and Softer compared to Dragon Ball Z. Merged Zamasu's body is destroyed, but since he is still partly immortal, his soul lives on and spreads across the multiverse like a virus and threatens other timelines. He then process to wipe out everyone, killing all the survivors on Earth except Goku, Vegeta, Future Trunks, Future Mai, Bulma, and the Supreme Kais. The only way to stop him was to have Future Zeno destroy that entire timeline. So for all Trunks' efforts, he couldn't save his world and the best he got was a Bittersweet Ending thanks to Whis warning Future Beerus about Zamasu before the Supreme Kai is killed, creating a new world for him to live in with Future Mai, with another version of himself.
• Psychological Torment Zone: The Forest of Terror feeds on the fears of those within and manifests their memories to torment them. Only by controlling their fears and their energy will the manifestations be stopped. Goku figures it out pretty easily, since he only sees it as another challenge, while it takes Krillin a bit longer since several of the manifestations murdered him or came pretty close.
• Psychopathic Manchild:
  • Beerus. Between his Disproportionate Retributions, complaining when things take too long, his need to eat all the time, and his general bratty attitude towards Whis, it's easy to forget that he is a god that can destroy planets by sneezing at them. He's called out on this by Gotenks of all people, who points out he started a fight because he couldn't have pudding.
  • Between his Sanity Slippage and Villainous Breakdowns, Frieza is an even bigger brat than he was before. He has a temper tantrum when Goku bests him again, going as far as to pound his fists on the ground and after Vegeta beats him so badly that he losses his ultimate form he screams, sounding like he's close to crying. Him rage quitting was the final act of a Spoiled Brat who didn't get his way.
  • Champa goes into this when he is about to kill his entire team because they lost to U7.
  • Future Zamasu's demeanor is lined with the markings of this, and his smugness and Ax-Crazy glee at attempting to kill Goku come across both as a petulant child holding a grudge as well as trying to rub his accomplishments in Goku's face. He also holds the entire Saiyan race in contempt as thuggish animals simply because Goku is one of them.
  • Merged Zamasu spends a great deal of time after his fusion treating Goku and Vegeta like they're nothing more than toys he can break at his leisure.
  • All of Barry Kahn's actions are motivated by the fact that someone said "no" to him. This trait is made all the more clearer in his Villainous Breakdown when Videl snubs him again, hammering his car, throwing a screaming tantrum, and sulking like a child who didn't get what he wanted.
• Psychotic Smirk: Goku Black is very fond of these, especially towards Future Trunks who he regularly mocks and belittles.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Zamasu is Gowasu's student, chosen to become the next Supreme Kai of U10. However, Zamasu's black and white views on mortals cause him to see the beings he's suppose to guide and protect as being unworthy of the gods' knowledge. Meeting Goku and going to Planet Babari only solidified his bias, and concludes that all mortals need to be wipe out for universal peace. To that end, Present Zamasu tries to murder Gowasu and steal his Time Ring. When Gowasu was told of this, he is definitely not pleased. The Zamasu who would become Black not only killed his master for the earrings, but also killed Future Gowasu.
• Puppeteer Parasite: Watagash, a creature that in its natural state resembles a pink ball of fluff, possesses people with evil in their hearts, giving them great power while influencing their actions.
• Pure Is Not Good:
  • Gowasu notes several times that Zamasu is a pure-hearted person who has a strong sense of justice. However, it is Zamasu's inability to see past his own sense of justice and purity that leads him to believe that mortals are the root of all evil in the universe and it is his duty as a god to destroy them.
  • According to Beerus, Zeno is innocent and noble...and that innocent is precisely why he's so dangerous. He also holds this same opinion of Goku, who is pure and naive to the point of not seeing the dangers in people like Zeno.
• Purple Is Powerful:
  • Beerus has a purple aura with blue hues. Fitting for a God of Destruction.
  • Frieza, as always, is represented with a purple Battle Aura. He also have purple highlights in all his forms, including his ultimate form.
  • Champa's aura is a hue of purple that is more of a red-violet than Beerus' blue-violet.
  • Hit has purple skin and aura. He is also the most powerful member of his team, and is the strongest mortal fighter in Universe 6.
  • Although Goku Black's Battle Aura is often presented as pure darkness, his aura some times have purple on the edges and sparkles.
  • Zamasu has a similar purple-ish Battle Aura to Black's (although Black's is darker) and he's many times stronger than Universe 7's Supreme Kai, who Goku admits wouldn't stand a chance against him, even before he was enhanced with god energy. Future Zamasu Battle Aura is noticeably darker than his past counterpart and he's more powerful.
• Put on the Bus: At the end of the Future Trunks Saga, Future Trunks and Mai leave for a new timeline to rebuild and to keep the tragedy that befell their world from happening again.
• Puzzle Boss: What makes Hit so dangerous isn't his physical power, but his abilities. He has the ability to skip time and attack his opponent when they're vulnerable. He also has invisible energy attacks that can instantly stop someone's heart if they hit on top of being able to create a pocket dimension where he stores all the time he skipped, which allows him to phase through his enemy's attacks like a ghost. Every time Goku fights Hit, he spends most of the battle just trying to figure out and counter Hit's techniques.

R

• Race Against the Clock: After Vegeta gets copied, the heroes have to beat the Copy-Vegeta before the real Vegeta disappears.
• Rage Against the Heavens: A less dramatic example. Despite the Tournament of Power being held to wipe out less developed universes on the basis Zeno felt there were too many, Android 17 (being able to make one wish on the Super Dragon Balls, which can grant any wish with no limitations) directly contradicts Zeno's will by wishing all destroyed universes back at the Tournament's conclusion. #17, as a mortal, doing this is a stark contrast to how the gods of the series behave, as all of them do whatever Zeno wants to save their own skins. It turns out this wish is exactly what Zeno wanted the winner to do as evidence mortals are worth the trouble of overseeing, and he would have destroyed all of existence had a selfish wish been made.
• Rage Breaking Point:
  • A necessary step into becoming a Super Saiyan. Vegeta pushes all of Cabba's buttons to get him angry, including threatening to kill his family and destroy his planet. This pisses Cabba off since he didn't mind Vegeta mocking and demeaning him, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let Vegeta destroy his home and thus he transforms into a Super Saiyan.
  • Goku Black manages a somewhat unusual variation on this, achieving Super Saiyan Rose after mastering his own Tranquil Fury over the indignity of mortals.
  • Goku is pushed to his breaking point when he hears that Goku Black murdered his family in another timeline. He loses it and beats on Goku Black and Future Zamasu at the same time.
  • Future Trunks reaches his own breaking point after Goku Black and Future Zamasu accuses him of breaking the taboo of time-travel, allowing Black to steal Goku's body since he didn't die of the heart virus. At that moment, Trunks snaps and reaches a new form called Super Saiyan Rage in Heroes.
  • After realizing that the Saiyans' true power come from anger, Goku Black tries to channel his rage to make himself stronger. It largely works and he uses his new ability to keep Goku and Vegeta busy so Future Zamasu can kill Future Trunks, Bulma, and Future Mai. His plan is to purposely make them angry, which would make them stronger, and then fight them so he too can grow powerful. He abandons the plan after Future Zamasu is nearly sealed and chooses to fuse with him.
  • Subverted with Caulifla, who learns how to transform simply by having Cabba explain how the transformation feels and then imitating that. Cabba did try the rage method, but he's far too nice a guy to effectively push someone's buttons, especially since Caulifla cows him into submission the second he tries it.
• Rage Quit: After being beating by Vegeta and losing his golden form, Frieza decides to cut his losses and destroy the Earth instead of being killed by Vegeta.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: The King of All, Zeno, is the ruler of the entire multiverse. He can also destroy all the universes in an instant, putting him way above Beerus and Champa, and even Whis and Vados.
• Rays from Heaven: Exaggerated during the Super Saiyan God ritual — the sky fills with golden clouds, which whirl together in a torrent until the middle disappears, showing clear space; the sun passes overhead twice while rain, hail and snow fall amidst lightning, then finally the empty patch of sky glows golden as if lit by a massive sun. At the same time, this trope is inverted with several 'rays' that start from the characters themselves: first sending a golden radiance skyward (drawing the golden clouds), then a blue beam of light that pierces the atmosphere (and results in the tumultuous changes).
• Readings Blew Up the Scale: As Frieza finishes healing, his minions' scouters explode throughout the spaceship (in true DBZ tradition).
• Reality-Breaking Paradox: The clash between two ultimate-tier gods causes explosions that reverberate through space and threaten to destroy the universe.
• Real Men Wear Pink:
  • Vegeta wears a pink apron when he does house chores under Whis. He also wears one when he's trying to appease Beerus and Whis. First, when he cooks an octopus for Beerus to keep him happy, and later when he's trying to become Whis' student by cooking for him.
  • Goku Black's Super Saiyan transformation, Super Saiyan Rosé, gives him pink hair. He also talks for several minutes about how beautiful the form makes him.
• Reality Warper:
  • The angels have the ability to create matter out of nothing. Vados' powers allow her to create an environment, a tournament ring, and even food stands using her staff on an empty planet, for example.
  • Super Shenron, the Eternal Dragon of the Super Dragon Balls, is so powerful that he can restore a planet that has been long dead along with all its inhabitants. Beerus uses his wish to restore U6's Earth, which is beyond the power of Shenron and Porunga, who both have a one year time limit on restoring life.
• Really 700 Years Old:
  • Beerus is a god who is at least over 75 million years old since he is the one who trapped Old Kai within the Z-sword. Since Champa is his twin he is the same age as Beerus, although neither look their age.
  • Whis and Vados are older than either Beerus or Champa since they trained them. You would never guess looking at them.
  • Hit looks like he is in his mid-forties for a human, yet he is over one-thousand years old.
  • Potage, the old man on Planet Potaufeu, is well over one-hundred years old. Although he definitely looks aged, he doesn't looked that old.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Despite being the ruler of the multiverse and powerful enough to destroy the multiverse if he wanted to, Zeno is a nice, cheerful, and responsible guy. While he came to chew Beerus and Champa out for slacking on their jobs, but ultimately just scolds them rather than replacing or punishing them.
  • Though Gowasu certainly finds Goku's presence unusual since mortals usually don't interact with gods, he's polite about it. He also repeatedly scolds Zamasu for his hatred of mortals.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Goku gives one to Frieza after he allows him to burn through his energy, calling Frieza careless for rushing to Earth to get revenge instead of taking the time to master his new transformation.
  • Soon afterwards, Frieza gives Goku one after Sorbet successfully shoots him in the back, saying that the more powerful Goku becomes, the less he's on guard. He then mocks him for being defeated by a weak soldier, despite all the power he has.
  • Vegeta gives one to Goku Black of all people as he beats him up. According to Vegeta, Goku Black is just a fake who's borrowing Goku's body, but can never use it as well as the original.
  • Future Trunks gives Merged Zamasu a vicious one once he absorbs the Spirit Bomb into his sword.
    Future Trunks: It's not about gods or mortals! I won't lose to someone who can't believe in anyone but himself!
  • Barry Khan one from Videl after he tries to break up her marriage with Gohan by taking pictures of Cocoa kissing him:
    Videl: How pitiful. (tears up the pictures) Did it sting that much to be told I don't need your autograph? Does seeing Gohan stand out sting that badly? You get treated like royalty, but you have no self-confidence. How pitiful.
  • Bergamo gives Goku a scathing one after he's defeated, calling him out for condemning trillions of innocent lives to oblivion for an incredibly selfish reason and lambasting him for treating the tournament like like a game despite knowing what's at stake. Goku's response, tell all the gods to come at him with their best fighters and he will beat them.
    Bergamo: Everyone here thinks of you as a villain now. You just can't wait to see whole universes destroyed, can you? Well, since that's the case, I'll do everything to make sure your vile universe is the first to go! Every fighter here will be coming for you! You're getting obliterated, 7th Universe! The 9th isn't going anywhere! We'll win this thing, you'll see!
• Recap Episode: Episode 30 is mostly a clip show recapping the previous two arcs and the events of the previous episode, while also taking some time to set up for the next story arc by having Goku and Vegeta fly around on a recruitment drive.
• Recursive Reality: The galaxy-sized Dragon God, in order to allow people to make a wish unto him, teleports them inside his body where they meet a smaller (but still gigantic) version of himself to interact with. Beerus describes it as his core or nucleus.
• Recycled Premise: Several.
  • In the second story arc, adapting the events of Resurrection "F", Frieza returns for revenge and brings an army with him to wipe out all life on Earth, The premise is lifted straight from the beginning of the "Androids" saga from the original series, when Frieza becomes a cyborg and travels to Earth with his father and a small army. Earth's warriors battling a legion of mooks before the main villain follows the traditional structure of the preceeding DBZ movies as far back as Tree of Might.
  • The beginning of the "Future Trunks" Saga shares many similarities to the "Android Saga" and the History of Trunks special before it. Trunks goes to the past because he's overwhelmed by an enemy he can't defeat, his loved ones have been brutally murdered, and the human race is driven to the brink of extinction. The difference this time is that Trunks is going back to the past to get backup instead of just to warn the past characters about a Bad Future.
• Red Baron:
  • Because Hit never fails to kill a target he is given the nickname, The Flawless Hit.
  • Goku Black is known and feared by the In-Series Nickname Future Bulma gave him. The name he calls himself is Son Goku.
  • "Jiren the Grey", the strongest member of the Pride Troopers and the strongest fighter in his universe. All of the Pride Troopers have similar titles.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • Downplayed — The Super Saiyan God transformation includes red eyes with the power upgrade, but doesn't make the Saiyan in question more vicious.
  • Frieza is a straight example. Regardless of any form he takes he keeps his red eyes.
  • Subverted with Frost. He has the same eye color as Frieza, but he is a Nice Guy who fights against evildoers. It's actually Played Straight. Frost is very evil, just like Frieza. He's even a planet broker like his counterpart.
  • Hit has red eyes and is a feared Professional Killer who easily takes apart Vegeta even after he transform into a Super Saiyan Blue.
  • Goku Black appears as a black shadow-like creature with red eyes and has the appearance of a large demon when he confronts Future Trunks. Rather this is an actual form or an artistic choice to hide who Goku Black is not known.
  • Episode #74. Watagashi is an evil alien parasite that takes over evil beings and gives them superpowers. The more evil the creature it takes over, the more power Watagashi gives it. Not only does Watagashi have red Glowing Eyes, but any creature it possesses gains red Glowing Eyes as well.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Goku Black wears dark clothing and is known as "Black" by his enemies. His Super Saiyan form turns his hair pink, instead of gold or blue.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Interestingly, Black tends to fluctuate between red and blue with his partner Future Zamasu. On the one hand Black is the active threat through the majority of the arc being the one who is seen personally destroying mortals and their settlements the most, while Future Zamasu observes from a distance. This extends to their battles; Black is the main fighter while Future Zamasu tends to defend him. This would make him the Red Oni during combat. However Black is much more calm, composed and serene in his disposition in comparison to Future Zamasu who is a lot more emotional and hammy during battle and undergoes several Villainous Breakdown moments during the final fight (as appose to Black who underogoes none) which would make Black the Blue Oni attitude wise.
• Redemption Rejection: In Episode 63, Gowasu comes to the future alongside the Supreme Kai of Universe 7 to lecture both Black and Future Zamasu on their actions and give them a Last-Second Chance, begging them to stop what they're doing and revive everyone they've killed with the Super Dragon Balls. Instead, Black and Zamasu inform him that they destroyed the Super Dragon Balls after using them to grant their own wishes, and try to kill Gowasu on the spot; Gowasu is only saved by Goku and Vegeta's intervention.
• Red Herring: A lot of characters were led to believe that Black was Zamasu, but when Future Zamasu came into the fray they thought that Black was a separate entity made by the Super Dragon Balls. However, Future Zamasu was a distraction ... Black is actually an alternative version of main timeline Zamasu who switched bodies with a Goku and killed him.
• Reflective Eyes: Done repeatedly in Episode 37 with both Vegeta and Cabba.
• Red Is Heroic:
  • Goku is primarily associated with red or a reddish-orange. He's the only one to gain Super Saiyan God that gives him red hair and eyes with a furious orange flame aura. His Super Saiyan Blue/Kaioken combo gives him a red aura on top his blue aura.
  • The Pride Troopers of Universe 11 are heroes who fight for justice and they all wear red uniforms.
• Remember the New Guy?:
  • Bulma casually calls her sister Tights like it's nothing new, despite her never showing up in the series and only being introduced as a character in 2013. Goku and Vegeta lampshades this by them being shocked that Bulma has a sister.
  • Jaco is also treated this way. He wasn't created until 2013 in Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, yet the Briefs treats him like a old friend to the point of knowing about his relationship issues and we even see a flashback of Bulma as a child flying his spaceship.
  • Episode 89 introduces Yurin, a former student of the Crane School alongside Tenshinhan who vowed revenge when Ten left the dojo without fighting her. She's never been referenced previously or shown among Crane alumni.
• Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?:
  • In the first episode, Mr. Satan is given the World Peace Prize money for killing Majin Buu. He then turns around and gives the money to Goku since he's really the one who killed Buu with the Spirit Bomb.
  • Goku is well-known throughout the universe as the person who defeated Frieza. It is brought up a few times by his friends and even the Kais. The reason why Beerus even wanted to see Goku was because he heard that he defeated Frieza as a Super Saiyan. He is also well-known for killing Majin Buu, which is one of the many reasons why Frieza's empire stood away from him. Even Frieza is greatly impressed when he hears that Goku killed Buu. After fighting Beerus, the battle is often used as a point of reference by Beerus to tell people how awesome Goku is, despite the fact that Goku didn't win.
  • Among his friends and family, Future Trunks is credited as the one who killed Frieza the first time. Upon his resurrection, Frieza wants revenge on Trunks for killing him along with Goku.
  • Future Trunks is surprised by how peaceful Gohan has become since this is the same person who killed Cell as an enraged Super Saiyan 2 the last time he saw him. Trunks even lampshades how he had never seen Gohan so happy.
• The Remnant: While Frieza and the rest of his family are dead, his Empire is just barely hanging on. The fact they're on the verge of falling apart completely is why they bring Frieza back to life. In the end they're completely obliterated.
• Required Secondary Powers:
  • When Goku becomes a Super Saiyan God he becomes so powerful that simply fist bumping Beerus cause shockwaves so powerful that it can destroy the entire universe, including the Otherworld. It takes Goku some time to learn how control his power to the point that he can cancel out the negative effects of hitting Beerus at full power. This is how he can fight Golden Frieza and Hit without the planet he's fighting on exploding just from the force of their battle.
  • Despite Beerus and Champa's foul tempers, they both have excellent emotional control. It has been shown several times throughout the series that strong emotions make people more powerful or lose control of their powers. When this happens, they can cause earthquakes, weather changes, or dimensions to shatter. An emotional slip like Beerus going completely overboard on his temper can destroy not only the planet, but the very fabric of existence.
• Reset Button:
  • Almost literally. After Frieza blows up the Earth upon being defeated by Vegeta, Whis reveals his power to turn back time for a few minutes. He does so, undoing Earth's destruction and allowing Goku to hit Frieza with a Kamehameha before he can Rage Quit.
  • The Super Dragon Balls are the ultimate reset button. Unlike the Earth or even the Namekian's Dragon Balls which have limits on what kind of wishes you can make (like not being able to revive someone past a year, less you end up like Frieza), the Super Dragon Balls have no such limits. With a single wish, Beerus restores U6's Earth, which has been a dead planet for years, and advanced its civilization to be similar to U7's Earth.
• Ret-Canon: The "Final Kamehameha" was a move has existed in the video games for years. In the Future Trunks Saga, SSJB Vegito uses the move against Merged Zamasu, intending to finish him with it. It comes in handy in the Tournament of Power when Goku and Vegeta recreate the move while unfused, finishing off the Trio de Dangers with it.
• Retcon:
  • The Potara Fusion technique was originally believed to be a permanent fusion of two characters, barring circumstances which would result in the negation of the energies involved in maintaining the fusion such as the inner atmosphere of Majin Buu. In Super however, Gowasu explains that it is permanent only if a Supreme Kai is involved, with it only lasting an hour otherwise.
  • When introduced in Dragon Ball, Master Roshi claimed that the Immortal Phoenix granted him eternal life, and later died after he fed it tainted bird seeds. However, in episode 76 of Super, Roshi says the Paradise Herb in the Forest of Terror will let him live another 1,000 years, implying this is how he has stayed alive for over 300 years.
• Ret-Gone: Zigzagged. From where things stand, the timeline that Goku Black originated from no longer exists since Beerus killed Present Zamasu. Since a god killing another god ripples across timelines apparently, Beerus erased the future where Zamasu used the Super Dragon Balls to take Goku's body. The only reason why Goku Black isn't affected is because the Time Ring protects him from any changes in time, making Black a walking paradox.
• Retired Badass:
  • Almost the entire human cast is retired from fighting, except for Tien, Chiaotzu, and Mr. Satan. Krillin sort-of comes out of retirement after feeling first hand how powerful Goku became after getting punched by him. It isn't until after Episode 76 where he fully comes out of retirement.
  • Gohan is off and on. If things are peaceful, he doesn't train or fight. When something threatens the Earth, he's one of the first on the front lines. After the incident with Frieza, he starts training in his free time again so he can better protect his family.
• The Reveal: Despite all the clues leading to the obvious conclusion that Zamasu and Goku Black are the same person, Episode 56 reveals that they are in fact not. Zamasu and Goku Black are separate people working together. In Episode 58, Whis speculates that Zamasu used the Super Dragon Balls to create Goku Black and grant himself immortality. He was partially right. Goku Black is a version of Zamasu in Goku's body after a wish with the Super Dragon Balls.
• Revenge:
  • The first thing that comes to Frieza's mind as soon as he's brought back to life.
  • Goku Black successfully gets Future Trunks, Vegeta, and Goku wanting to kill him. For Trunks, Black murdered his mom and destroyed his world that was still recovering from the androids. Vegeta also wants to pound Black for killing Future Bulma. For Goku, it takes learning that Black took his body, murdered him in front of his family with it, and then killed Chi-Chi and Goten in coldblood to have him wanting Black's head on a pike.
• Revenge Before Reason: Tagoma tells Frieza that he doesn't necessarily need revenge upon Goku and the other Saiyan — he could go back to ruling his empire without them noticing. Frieza, being Frieza, takes offense to that suggestion and shoots Tagoma into a cripple.
• Revenge by Proxy: Frieza orders his soldiers to attack Krillin, reasoning Goku will be just as pissed about it as he was last time.
• Revision: The Future Trunks Saga alters the rule in Z that Potara Fusion is permanent, with Gowasu explaining that said fusion is only permanent when at least one of the fusees is a Supreme Kai; otherwise, the fusion only lasts one hour. The fact that Vegito defused immediately after being absorbed by Super Buu was merely because the hour was up.
• Revisiting the Roots: Super returns to some of the tones of the original Dragon Ball series. There's a lot more comedy, slapstick, shorter story arcs, and a lot less The World Is Always Doomed compared to DBZ. The earth-shaking battles and over-the-top powers that defined the Z series are still present, but the stakes are often for delicious food or simple bragging rights rather than constantly for the fate of a planet. The Future Trunks Saga leans more towards Z in seriousness, but it still manages to interject many lighthearted and comedic moments for at least the first half of the saga, and because the fighting is mostly confined to Trunks's timeline the present timeline isn't affected.
• Rigged Spectacle Fight: During the Tournament of the Gods arc, one of the opponents on Champa's side is a being named Frost who appears to be a friendlier version of Frieza. When he steps into the ring to fight Goku, the two hit it off well, and Frost makes a good enough impression to get the opposing side cheering for him, eventually managing to paralyze Goku and knock him out. Afterward, Frost fights Piccolo, and the fight proves just as epic and ends the same way. Jaco notices this and reveals that Frost had been cheating by using a weapon to poison his foes, and Frost reveals himself to be just as villainous as Frieza. Despite this, Frost is allowed one more fight at Vegeta's request, and Vegeta even allows him to continue using his poison. With his secret now exposed though, he is beaten the moment his fight with Vegeta begins.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: After Beerus kills Zamasu, he assures Future Trunks that his world is now safe. When Trunks points out that his time didn't change when the androids were destroyed, Beerus handwaves his concerns as 'mortal logic' and that when a god kills another god it effects timelines. When Trunks returns to his world, nothing has changed, confirming that Trunks was correct. However, Goku Black says that the true reason he still exists is because the Time Ring protects him from any changes in time, meaning that Beerus killing his past self wouldn't affect him even if it erased the timeline he originally came from. So Trunks was right about his timeline still being in danger, but the reasons for it were wrong.
• The Rival:
  • Invoked by Vegeta to explain why he can't allow Frieza to kill Goku. Although he finds Goku annoying, Vegeta acknowledges that he would have no reason to grow stronger if Goku isn't around to push him. Although he takes his rivalry seriously and constantly reaffirms his desire to surpass Goku, nobody else in the cast takes this motivation seriously and Goku tends to treat him more as a slightly recalcitrant friend than any sort of competition.
  • Hit starts to become a rival to Goku during the Champa Saga. Although a Consummate Professional hitman, instead of an compassionate Adult Child like Goku, Hit shares many of Goku's fighting traits: durability, determination, and the ability to develop counters for an opponent's techniques. As a result of finding a rare match in Goku, Hit gradually becomes a Spirited Competitor and is willing to bend his rules to fight evenly. Vegeta, naturally, becomes jealous when he learns that Goku put out a hit on himself in order to get to fight Hit at his best.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: It takes a lot to piss Goku off. Not even Frieza could push Goku over the edge again with his murder of Piccolo and him putting holes through Gohan. Goku Black and Future Zamasu manages to do it when they revealed that Goku Black murdered Chi-Chi and Goten after taking Goku's body and killing him in front of them. This sends Goku into a berserk rage and he plummets both of them, despite having a hole in his chest.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors:
  • Like the extended version of the movie, done between Beerus and Oolong to decide the fate of the Earth. Oolong naturally loses because he keeps picking rock.
  • Goku, Vegeta, and Piccolo do this to determine who will fight in what order during the Champa Saga.
• Rooting for the Empire: Invoked. Vegeta cheers for Copy-Vegeta whenever he successfully lands a hit on Goku, much to the confusion of Trunks, Goten, and Jaco since Vegeta will die if Copy-Vegeta isn't defeated.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something:
  • Vegeta, as always, since he is the Saiyan prince who always fights on the front lines. Although, Vegeta's rank is more of a formal title since he doesn't actually rule over anything or anyone.
  • Frieza is the prince of his empire and despite being somewhat lazy he personally leads the assault on Earth to take revenge on Goku. He even trains for the first time in his life to surpass Goku since he heard that he killed Majin Buu.
  • Akira Toriyama has stated that instead of just giving orders to the Galactic Patrol, the Galactic King directly aids them, even going so far as to help them combat evil-doers. Unfortunately, even with the king and every single other member teaming up, their combined might is still not enough to manage anything against Frieza even in his weakest form, who to be fair had a power level over half a million when a power level of over one-hundred thousand was considered outstanding.
• Rule of Cool: The series runs on this, having created amazing set-piece duels that used to only be in the realm of fanfiction, such as SSJ2 Future Trunks versus SSJ3 Goku, Android 17 versus SSJB Goku, Ultimate Gohan versus SSJB Goku, etc. This differs from Z a fair bit, which used Power Levels to determine a fighter's effectiveness, at least until they stopped showing up and the issue became more muddled.
• Rules Lawyer: During the Universal Survival saga, Quitela, the God of Destruction of Universe 4, dismisses his Supreme Kai's concern that spying on other universes in the Tournament of Power might anger Zeno simply by saying there's nothing in the rules against spying.
• Rummage Fail: Twice during the Future Trunks Saga, Bulma ransacks her own labs looking for some small piece of equipment. Both times, among the items she overturns is a gun (and a different one each time). Why she keeps these in her labs is anybody's guess.
• Running Gag:
  • It seems that Frieza is destined to never have a climactic end unlike every other major villains in the series.
  • Buu falling asleep at inconvenient times. He slept through the entire invasion with Frieza, he fell asleep while taking the test for the first Universal Tournament. He fell asleep during the Zeno exhibition match and he fell asleep again before the Tournament of Power. In most of these examples, he didn't wake up until the conflict is long over.
  • Anyone who is like Frieza's clan is destined to suffer a Humiliation Conga, as Frost finds out.
  • Ever since Zuno revealed that Bulma's breast are now sagging, it has become a joke for people like Jaco and Goku to mention Bulma's saggy boobs, much to her irritation.
  • Chi-Chi constantly complimenting people who are strong and work for living, throwing spades at Goku who she sees as lazy.
  • Monaka always faints when something even slightly surprising happens.
  • Bulma constantly putting her faith and hopes in Goku, despite Vegeta being his statistical equal and her husband, which never amuses him.
  • Goku giving Piccolo no respect. When he thought he could get Gohan to be on the U7 team, he immediately pass over Piccolo since he was literally Goku's last choice. When Piccolo asks if he had any chance against Frost, Goku answers that he stands no chance and the only thing he can do is weaken Frost for Vegeta. When Piccolo asks how weak Goku felt when he's sick with Delayed Onset Ki Syndrome, he says that he's so weak that Piccolo could beat him. In the beginning of the Future Trunks Saga, Goku wants Piccolo to train with him by picking the harvest from his farm. Piccolo scoffs at this, saying that Goku just wanted free labor. Later in the saga, Piccolo offers to show Goku the Evil Containment Wave, Goku bails on him before he can even finish the sentence to train under Master Roshi.
  • Goku falling from heights because of temporarily forgetting to fly.
  • Poor King Kai along with Gregory and Bubbles still being dead despite all the time that has passed since the Cell Saga and all the times Shenron has been summoned in that time. No matter how many times King Kai reminds Goku to get them revived Goku either keeps forgetting to do so or circumstances inevitably get in the way of it happening. While King Kai lives in the afterlife regardless it seems petty, but you gotta feel sorry for him since he really does want to be alive again.
• Run or Die: When Future Zeno decides to level the future multiverse, Goku takes one look at him and realizes that all he and his friends can do is get the hell out of there.

S

• Sacrificial Lion:
  • Future Bulma and Mai are killed by Black as they try to help Future Trunks get to the past. Seemingly, regarding the latter.
  • In a larger sense, the entire future timeline. Through History of Trunks and the final episodes of the Cell Saga, viewers have formed a connection with this era, especially after all they had suffered with the androids. Super also takes great care showing us and developing the survivors like Future Yajirobe, the two kids Haru and Maki, and the resistance fighters who keep fighting against Black despite the odds. By the end, they are all killed by Merged Zamasu after he becomes one with the multiverse and erased from existence by Future Zeno since he destroys everything, including the afterlife.
• Sadist:
  • Frieza, naturally. He spends four months not only becoming stronger, but also learning how to keep someone on the edge of death so they will suffer longer. To make it worse, he practiced on his own subordinate, destroying their mind in the process. He also orders his men to kill Krillin, knowing the pain it will cause Goku and laughs in delight when Tagoma shoots his own teammate to kill Gohan.
  • Goku Black kills Future Bulma by letting the lab explode on her while he holds her by her neck and psychologically traumatizes Future Trunks, as well as feigning a moment of weakness just so he could see the look on Trunks' face when his attack fails to even dent him. He also choses to hunt down humanity slowly over a year instead of killing them all at once like Super Buu, pushing them to the breaking point, all to punished the humans for Future Trunks' 'sins'. Probably one of his cruelest moments is him telling Goku how he murdered his family after killing his alternative self.
• Sanity Has Advantages: Compared to the utterly insane Frieza, Frost for all his cruelty and grievances appears to use his head and control his emotions rather than let them get the best of him in the heat of the moment and, for the most part, ends up much better off for it. Whereas Frieza literally gets himself killed months after his revival, Frost is able to survive for over a year as a fugitive upon losing everything he had. Even as a villain, Frost is mainly driven by profit and is a No-Nonsense Nemesis rather than enjoying wanton death and destruction and drawing out fights.
• Same Language Dub: Joining the other shows in the franchise, Toei specifically set up that an alternate English dub of at least the first 52 or so episodes be produced for Toonami Asia's English speaking countries produced by Bang Zoom! Entertainment rather than just export the FUNimation dub.
• Sanity Slippage:
  • It is clear that Tagoma is not completely sane anymore after four months of being Frieza's training dummy. Even Sorbet is shocked by his personality change.
  • Frieza isn't much better. Although he tries to hide it behind his normal calm, polite facade, Frieza's is very unstable. He can go from being happy, to amused, to angry, to batshit insane at the drop of a hat. The first signs of his slippage is seen when he sees Goten and Trunks. He recognizes Goten as Goku's son and remembers Trunks as Future Trunks. He utterly loses it, however, when Gohan tries to spare Ginyu since it reminds him of Goku showing him mercy. He goes as far as to call Gohan 'Goku' when he's about to kill him. His sanity only gets worse as he fights Goku.
  • Future Zamasu has long since falling off the deep end. Instead of the calm, young Kai we were introduced to, Future Zamasu is a Smug Super who is prone to Slasher Smiles that rivals Goku Black.
  • Goku Black was once Zamasu, a promising upcoming Supreme Kai who was promoted from a regular Kai. After Goku beats him in a sparring match, he became so obsessed with Goku that he uses the Super Dragon Balls to switch bodies with Goku. He even takes on Goku's name and mimic some of his body's movements.
  • The longer the Final Battle goes on, the more and more insane Merged Zamasu becomes until his default expressions are a completely unhinged Slasher Smile or screaming in psychopathic fury.
• Satanic Archetype:
  • Zamasu is an extremely talented Kai who is considered to potentially be one of the strongest Supreme Kais. He also ends up questioning the gods superior to him and view himself as knowing better than they do. He ends up falling completely to darkness and trying to perform genocide on all mortals. Future Zamasu also has the characteristic Pride one would expect from this trope. Future Zamasu even declares himself (and Black, who is also him) a 'supreme god' after killing off the other gods.
  • His components were already this, but Merged Zamasu even invokes the whole 'angel of light' motif, having an aura of heavenly light, and a Holy Halo. His claim that he's a Top God solidifies it and his mutated form makes him look completely demonic. Furthermore, like Old Scratch, the moment he goes up against the true God of the setting, he doesn't stand a chance.
  • Merged Zamasu holds this view about Goku. According to him, Goku represents everything that is wrong and evil about mortals since he has obtain power that can actually surpass the gods. By forcibly taking Goku's body into his own, he is inheriting the sins of the mortals and the failure of the gods. His components, Goku Black and Future Zamasu also holds this view about Goku, however, Black specifically both hates and adores Goku.
• Say Your Prayers: Sidra is the only (conscious) member of Universe 9 who isn't outwardly freaking out while being erased from existence. He looks nervous, but nonetheless doesn't make any attempt to change his fate or scream in terror as the other members - like his fellow God, Supreme Kai Roh - do.
• The Scapegoat: Thanks in part to Bergamo's words, Goku's own attitude and friendship with Zeno, and the fact that no one can outright defy/protest Zeno's decision(s) on the matter, Goku has become a target for all the participating universes for the upcoming tournament. Despite giving at least one universe the chance to save itself from destruction when there was none before, Goku takes all the blame for the Tournament of Power's universal destruction rule.
• Scenery Gorn: Episodes 47 and 48 are filled with these. We get several well drawn and animated shots of Future Trunks' world after Goku Black destroyed the planet for about a year. It's even worse than the devastation brought on by the androids or Cell since we see no living beings besides Bulma, Trunks, Mai, and surprisingly Scratch.
• Scenery Porn:
  • The entire Super Saiyan God transformation sequence. You can tell where the budget went in Episode 9.
  • Once Beerus and Goku take their fight into space, you have a wonderful view of the Earth. And after that, universal destruction never looked so good, especially after the scene goes white.
  • Frieza destroying the Earth is very well animated.
  • Any scene that have the Super Dragon Balls: no words can describe how massive they are. Especially not the summoned Super Shenron, who must be seen to be believed.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!:
  • Champa does this a bit in the tournament to try to give an advantage to his fighters. Beerus and a few of Goku's friends call him out on that and ultimately, Whis and Vados expand the ring to give the remaining fighters more of a fair shot instead of being defeated by ring out and the ring out by flight rule is abolished entirely.
  • On a few occasions, Zeno overrule the Tournament of Power rules because they regard the illicit methods used as "neat".
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Pilaf and his gang abandon ship once they saw all the fighting between the Earth's warriors and Beerus. Then subverted once they see Shenron being summon.
  • After losing to Vegeta, Frost tries to take the prize treasure and Champa's cube ship. Hit stops him.
  • Pilaf's gang planned to attack Goku while he's sick and can't control his energy. They immediately retreat when they hear Piccolo yelling at Goku for losing Pan.
• Sealed Evil in a Can:
  • Sealed away on the planet Potofu is a malevolent, purple goo that envelops people and steals their power. It's kept in an old fridge with a chain and padlock, until an alien criminal releases it, thinking it's divine water that will make him stronger.
  • In the Future Trunks' timeline, Majin Buu is still in his shell since Trunks killed Dabura and Babidi before they could revive him.
  • Piccolo comes up with the idea to seal Future Zamasu using the Evil Containment Wave since he's an immortal. After some mishaps, Future Trunks with the help of Mai seals Zamasu. However, Goku and Roshi forgot the seal tag and Zamasu escapes minutes later.
• Secret-Keeper: Cocoa Amaguri ends up finding out the Great Saiyaman's Secret Identity after eavesdropping on a conversation between Gohan and Bulma. She promises to keep it a secret though.
• Secret Test of Character: The Universal Survival Tournament was entirely this from the word GO. After 17 wished for the erased Universes to be restored, Zeno explained that, if the winner did not make a selfless wish like that with the Super Dragon Balls, he would've destroyed everything.
• Semi-Divine:
  • Goku Black is Zamasu, a Supreme Kai who is one of the Gods of Creation. However, since he traded his godly form for Goku's body, he is a god trap in a mortal's shell.
  • What Merged Zamasu technically is since Goku Black is one of his fusees. He is a god stuck in a mortal shell. This backfires a bit when it turns out that mortal half made his regeneration imperfect. His Body Horror transformation owes to that.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • While Beerus tries to remember how to pronounce Super Saiyan God properly, Whis declares it is a "far-fetched" sounding name. Similarly, when Goku explains to Frieza that he's become a Super Saiyan Blue, Frieza points out how ridiculous the concept is. He also mocks how Super Saiyan now has blue hair. Before then, no one in the fandom was impressed by Super Saiyan God, saying how it was just Goku with a different hair color and skinnier.
  • When Frieza reveals his golden form, he calls it tacky, but wanted a color that Goku would understand. He then calls himself Golden Frieza to keep things simple.
  • The Supreme Kai of U6 complains that Goku screams too much during his match with Hit. Champa is also confused when Hit didn't get stronger when he screamed and powered up. Turns out, Hit was just mimicking Goku.
  • How Future Trunks handled the entire Majin Buu situation (he listened to the Supreme Kai's advice and killed Dabura and Babidi as quicky as possible) can be seen as a giant Take That! to the cast since it was their poor decisions and basically doing the exact opposite of what Future Trunks did that led to Buu's awakening.
  • Future Trunks explains to everyone that the enemy threatening his world calls himself Son Goku, but he is called Goku Black as a sort of nickname because no one wants to connect him to Goku, who was Trunks and Bulma's dear friend. Bulma calls it a stupid and cliché name. Later, when Goku tells everyone about Goku Black's Super Saiyan form, Super Saiyan Rosé, Bulma asks what kind of name is that, and Beerus calls the name tasty. People in the fandom complained about how non-threatening "Super Saiyan Rosé" sounded, and associated the "Rosé" more with the alcoholic beverage of the same name.
  • The Supreme Kai of U9 hypes up the strongest fighters in their universe as the Trio De Dangers. No one is impressed with Old Kai calling it a name lame.
  • When Buu falls asleep, yet again, Beerus lampshades how Buu did this before at the last tournament and asked if Buu was really going to embarrass him again for the same reason.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
  • Beerus goes to Earth looking for the Super Saiyan God based on the prediction of the Oracle Fish that they would meet there on that day. The Z fighters only figure out how to make a Super Saiyan God because Beerus was there looking for him.
  • Goku, Beerus, and Whis go to visit Zamasu due to the similarities between his energy and Goku Black's, believing he might be involved. Him meeting and fighting Goku is the very thing that sends him over the edge.
• Sequel Hook: The Universal Survival arc ends with Frieza resurrected and ready to continue his battle with his archenemy Goku, setting up the events of Dragon Ball Super: Broly.
• Serial Escalation:
  • Goku's new opponents are even stronger than Buu, the strongest enemy in the original series, who put the entire universe in danger.
  • The fight with Beerus is much more intense than it ever was in the movie. The power Goku and Beerus are outputting is so great that their very blows send a shockwave that can destroy the entire universe and even the Planet of the Kais that lies in Otherworld. Planets that are destroyed by the shockwave do not explode, but disintegrate into dust and those who are not killed are still harmed including all the Earth's greatest fighters, most who are Physical Gods in their own right.
  • The Namekian Dragon Balls are larger than the Earth Dragon Balls. Turns out the Namekians copied theirs from the original Dragon Balls: the Super Dragon Balls, which are the size of planets and have no limits on their wishes. The Eternal Dragon Super Shenron is also much bigger than the other dragons. He's bigger than a galaxy.
  • A fight between Beerus and Champa will not only destroy U7, but also U6. Which is why they are not allowed to physically fight each other.
  • We meet Beerus and Champa's boss Zeno, the King of All, who can wipe out all the universes in an instant if he desired and he has destroyed 6 universes in the past since there used to be 18. He also enjoyed the tournament between U6 and U7 so much that he wants to have a tournament with all 12 universes at a later date. Champa even calls his tournament just a warm up for the main event.
  • The Grand Priest, a character who serves directly under Zeno. He is one of the top five fighters in the entire multiverse and not even Whis stands a chance against him.
  • Goku Black was already strong since Future Trunks said that he was a match for Super Saiyan 3 Goku. After absorbing Goku's fighting style, he's able to match Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta, and that is before he transforms into a Super Saiyan Rosé and nearly kills Vegeta by impaling him. Things only get worse once Future Zamasu enters the picture. He's only a little weaker than Goku at his full power and he's an immortal.
  • Merged Zamasu, the fusion of Goku Black and Future Zamasu. He's so powerful that he gives Super Saiyan Blue Vegito a tough battle. Things become even crazier after he fuses with the multiverse after losing his physical body and kills everyone in it except a few named characters. It takes Future Zeno to finish him off, by destroying the entire future timeline.
  • From the Tournament of Power, Jiren. The guy is obscenely powerful, to the point that it takes an ungodly amount of episodes before someone manages to land a hit on him, and even more to actually damage him. How powerful is he? At one point, he ends up facing Goku, Vegeta, and Android 17 - the former two in their strongest forms at that point (Super Saiyan Blue Kaio-ken and Super Saiyan Blue Evolved, respectively). He outclassed all of them. What it took to defeat him? He wasn't defeated. Goku and Frieza had to ring him out.
• Serious Business:
  • While traveling through space with Beerus, Whis notes that he has some special dessert in the fridge for when they get back. Beerus is excited, and then suddenly his eyes narrow sharply and his voice deepens and he demands to know if Whis is telling the truth, with an implied threat if he's not. Fitting, given Beerus' stance on food.
  • Champa is willing to lose the Super Dragon Balls he searched so long to collect just to show up his brother and get Earth since he loves the food there.
• Servile Snarker:
  • Whis owns this trope. He openly reprimands and mocks Beerus constantly. Can be considered foreshadowing that he's more than a mere retainer to Beerus. He really lets Beerus have it for inviting Monaka who is nowhere near as strong as Beerus keeps claiming. He also acts this way around Goku, threatening to take him back to Earth if he pees himself and when he realizes that Goku and Vegeta sparring each other is the fastest way for them to learn than him showing them, he questions why they even bothered coming all way out here if he's not needed and they can just train and get stronger wherever they find to be the most convenient.
  • Whis' sister, Vados, is just as bad. She reprimands Champa constantly for eating too much and getting fat, and she does the bare minimum to help him unless he specifically orders her to do something.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
  • Whis rewinds time after Present Zamasu kills Gowasu in his attempt to become the Supreme Kai of U10. At which point, Beerus executes Zamasu before he can begin his plans and erases Black from existence since doing that won't result in a new timeline.. Unfortunately, Black's Time Ring protects him. Though, Beerus does succeed in ensuring that Zamasu will never steal Present Goku's body.
  • Whis creates a new timeline by going to the future before Future Beerus' death and warns him about the Zamasu's plans so he can take care of Future Zamasu early. As a result, the Zero Mortals Plan and everything associated with it will never happen, giving Future Trunks and Mai another chance to live happily.
• Shadow Archetype:
  • Beerus is what Goku would be like if he didn't have anyone around to act as his moral compass.
  • Frieza serves as this to Vegeta. He is everything Vegeta would have become if he succeeded in taking his place as ruler of the universe instead of settling down on Earth and starting a family. He also shows what Vegeta would be like if his grudge against Goku became all consuming and he never gained the ability to put his pride aside.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • Despite coming back stronger than ever, Frieza's revenge plan doesn't really amount to much. In the end, he's unable to kill Goku or Vegeta due not mastering his newfound power. Even blowing up the Earth didn't mean much because Whis simply undid it and Goku kills Frieza with a Kamehameha, putting him right back to where he started. Even his one victory, killing Piccolo, is undone in the same episode he dies in.
  • Gowasu, who survived the ordeal with Zamasu thanks to the help of Goku, Vegeta and Future Trunks, only got to live a little bit longer before his universe was completely erased in the Tournament of Power. At least he faced his death with dignity Thankfully averted at the end of the tournament, in which Gowasu is resurrected.
• Shaping Your Attacks: Goku Black has the ability to form his ki into a very deadly sword. He later upgrades it to a Sinister Scythe which can apparently cut a hole in reality.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Merged Zamasu was formed while Goku Black was a Super Saiyan Rosé, meaning he is constantly transformed in his version of the form (which isn't obvious since Fusion Zamasu has regular Zamasu's white hair). However, since he also inherited Future Zamasu's Complete Immortality, he doesn't suffer from any of the negative effects this would have on his stamina or lifespan.
• Ship Tease: Cocoa plays the Great Saiyaman's love interest in the movie, and ironically enough, she meets and develops genuine romantic feelings for the real Great Saiyaman.
• Shockwave Stomp: In episode 119, Goku minimizes the bug-sized opponent Damon by punching the floor of the tournament arena, creating shockwaves that throw him into the air so that #17 can get a good shot at him.
• Shoo Out the Clowns:
  • Goku and Vegeta tells Trunks and Goten to leave once they arrived on the battlefield with Frieza.
  • In Episodes 56 and 57, Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks heads for the future, leaving behind the comic relief Pilaf gang, present Trunks, Beerus, and Whis. These episodes are some of the darkest in the series, and ends with Goku and the others being completely defeated and forced to flee back to the past. At the same time, these episodes let in a new clown in the form of Future Yajirobe, who offers a bit of comic relief.
  • Episode 61 has the gang returning to the future leaving behind the comic relief again, and this episode is even darker than Episodes 56 and 57. Not only do we learn about Goku Black's origins, we find out that he killed an alternative version of Chi-Chi and Goten after murdering Goku, who was trapped in Zamasu's old body, right in front of them. We also find out that Goku Black and Future Zamasu destroyed the Super Dragon Balls and killed all the gods in the universes, making them the only gods still alive. And to top it off, Goku is giving a crushing defeat even after getting a rage boost from learning about his family. As of this moment, this episode has the highest death count in Super.
  • To round things off, when the crew return to the future for the final time, things are so desperate that even Future Yajirobe is dead serious especially once Goku Black and Future Zamasu fused to create Merged Zamasu. This final trip ends with the series' lowest point where Future Trunks' timeline is utterly destroyed and everyone is rendered Deader than Dead except Trunks and Mai.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story: Tagoma ruthlessly kills Shisami so he can take out Gohan, who he rightly pegs as their strongest fighter. Although he nearly kills Gohan, it was all for nothing since he is a revive with a Senzu, making Shisami's death utterly pointless. To further twist the knife, all of his long suffering at Frieza's hand, which makes him stronger that ever, amounts to nothing since Ginyu steals his body and gets himself killed by Vegeta. He is now stuck in a frog's body forever.
• Shout-Out:
  • Beerus' line after surprising Vegeta ("Do I really have to give my name? After all, you are already dead.") is a reference to the classic Kenshiro line from Fist of the North Star. We get another shoutout in Episode 95 when Frieza kills several U9 assassins by poking their foreheads and making their heads explode.
  • The entire speech of Gohan's transformation into the Great Saiyaman is a reference to Go Nagai's Cutey Honey.
  • Krillin's ringtone is We Are from One Piece. This also counts as a Casting Gag since Krillin's voice in Japanese is Luffy. This even works in English since Krillin is Usopp's voice in the Funi dub.
  • Whis' symbol, which he scribes on Goku and Vegeta's clothes, is very similar to that used by Leaf Ninja in Naruto.
  • In Episode 30 Buu is reading Neko Majin Z, an one-shot spinoff manga from Toriyama.
  • Magetta name is a portmanteau of the mecha franchises Mazinger Z and Getter Robo.
  • When Goku uses his Super Saiyan Blue/Kaioken combo, his skin is tinted red, especially after he goes up to 10X. In One Piece, Luffy's skin in the anime turns red when he is using Second Gear, which works similarly to the Kaioken since it was inspired by it. They even used the same sound effects and aura, making this one big double shout out to both shows.
  • The English Dub of the Goku Black Saga repeatedly uses the phrase "Back to the Future "
  • In Episode 53, there's a brief shot of Bulma working on the time machine, with a close-up of a device that looks suspiciously like a flux capacitor.
  • In Episode 81, during Goku's fight with Bergamo, Goku takes up the latter's 'hit me' statement and leaves numerous fist imprints in his chest, not unlike what you'd see in One Piece.
  • The Pride Troopers, Superheroes in Space and possibly the most moral of Goku's opponents. Their standard uniforms, talks of truth and justice and action poses are easy nods to Toei's very own Super Sentai.
  • Before Toppo fights Goku in Episode 82, he uses the phase "Aku Soku Zan (悪即斬) - literally Evil Immediately Slay or Slay Evil Immediately". This is the catchphrase of Saitō Hajime from Rurouni Kenshin, another manga series from the Shonen Jump magazine.
  • Brianne's entire transformation sequence and attack is an obvious homage to the Magical Girls genre with Sailor Moon and HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! being the most standout examples. She even declares to "Spread happiness, the true love", similar to the Pretty Cure's boasts.
  • Kale's Metronomic Man Mashing moment against Goku is an exact replica of a similar scene in The Avengers (2012) between the Hulk and Loki.
  • Jiren defeats Majikayo using only the shockwave from a single punch, just as One-Punch Man has been known to do.
  • After going Super Saiyan God, Goku's opening shot against Kale and Caulifla is several instances of a finger beam, much like the one from YuYu Hakusho
  • When Mr. Popo warns Vegeta that he'll be banned from the Hyperbolic Time Chamber if he damages is again, Popo's face briefly takes up the entire camera view, similar to shots of Mr. Popo from Dragon Ball Z Abridged. Similar to the above, in the same episode, both Zenos fade to black, leaving the same screen, which also is a reference to Abridged's implication that Mr. Popo is incredibly powerful.
  • Mr. Satan misremembers Beerus' name as "Beavis".
  • In the FUNimation dub of episode 112, Vegeta calls Toppo "Moostache", referencing a meme that originated with Dragon Ball GT but was popularized by Dragon Ball Z Abridged.
  • Possibly unintentional but in the Resurrection F arc, at one point Vegeta sarcastically applauds Frieza and congratulates him for his hard work while floating in the sky, mirroring the infamous Gainax Ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • Tournament of Power arc. Master Roshi fights an opponent named Ganos. During the fight, Roshi tells Ganos that Ganos's fighting style is "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right". This is a reference to the Konami Code.
  • The final battle against Ribrianne references Asura's battle with Gongen Wyzen. The camera angles during Ribrianne's transformation into a giant that dwarfs the Tournament of Power arena are identical to Wyzen's transformation. Both of them use an external power source (The Power of Love from everyone in Universe 2 for Ribrianne, and a massive supply of harvested Mantra for Wyzen). Both Ribrianne and Wyzen are attacked in their fingers, which causes cracks to spread up them, from which glowing energy pours out.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Like the movie, all the Earth's fighters use real martial art techniques and submissions to take down Frieza's army. In comparison, Frieza's men fight like street thugs, something Master Roshi lampshades.
  • Hit's attacks do strike vital areas that exist on a real human body. His style of fighting is also very similar to a style of martial arts known as Wing Chun with a little Boxing thrown in.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • When Beerus is trying to kill Goku with his death ball that he keeps making more powerful by snapping his fingers, he tells Goku to give up and that he has limits. Even before Beerus finishes his sentence, Goku shouts at Beerus to shut up before punching the energy ball so hard that it explodes. After Goku completely exhausts himself, he tells Beerus that not even gods can put limits on people.
  • After listening to Future Zamasu's Motive Rant about why he wants to kill humans and the Saiyans in particular, Future Trunks tells him that he has no right to decide that before beating him up and firing a Final Flash at him.
  • Goku Black and Future Zamasu accuses Future Trunks of everything that has happened. Since he saved Goku from the heart virus instead of letting him die naturally, it allowed Zamasu to take over Goku's body and began his plan to wipe out humanity. According to them, all the bad stuff that has happened is because he broke the taboo of time-travel, which only the gods are allowed to do. Trunks basically tells them to shut up and he doesn't care if it's a sin, just as he transform into a new form of Super Saiyan.
  • Both Future Trunks and Mai gets one on Future Zamasu after trapping him in the Evil Containment Wave.
    Trunks: I said you'd pay Zamasu! And now you've been introduced to the true power of mortals!
    Future Zamasu: The power of mortals!? Is that a joke!? I'll show you what happens when worthless beings speak down to a god!
    Mai: How can we be worthless if we've got you trapped!? You have no idea what we can accomplish!
    Trunks: That's right! You underestimate mortals, you pay the price!
    Trunks/Mai: So say goodbye!!
  • Merged Zamasu goes on a rant about how gods are perfect and mortals who attempt to go god-like things are sinners. SSB Vegito punches him in the face and drives him to the ground.
    Vegito: Sorry. You were way open there. C'mon Mr. God. I'm through listening to your quibbling. Hurry up and try to squash me.
  • After running Merged Zamasu through with his spirit sword, he asked if Trunks was really going to stand in the way of justice. Trunks responses by slicing him from the groin up:
    Trunks: Who cares about your justice!
• Shut Up, Kirk!:
  • Sorbet shoots Goku while he's in the middle of sparing Frieza and telling him how futile it is for him to keep fighting.
  • During their battle, Vegito points out to Merged Zamasu that his "Zero Mortals Plan" has already failed — even if he kills every living being in the universe, half of his own body still comes from the mortal Son Goku. Zamasu merely laughs this off, saying that Goku's body will serve as a constant reminder of mortal arrogance and the gods' folly, the two "mistakes" that inspired him to kill off all mortals in the first place.
  • Since Goku decides to play the 'villain' to Toppa being a warrior of justice and calling him evil, Goku calls him out for talking too much after he told him to be quiet earlier.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • Goku thinks Vegeta has a case of this when he refuses to go training because Bulma is pregnant and is due to give birth at any time, and thus wishes to be by her side, or else face Bulma's wrath. Whis believes so as well, saying how he isn't the one pregnant.
  • When everyone learns that Goku lied about there being prize money for the Tournament and Power and that their universe will be destroyed if they lose, most of Goku's friends are upset that he lied and there's no money, not that the universe will be erased.
• Sickeningly Sweet: Invoked as Frieza's punishment in Hell. He is trapped in a cocoon surrounded by fairies, stuffed-toys, and flowers who hold parades and play cheerful music for the rest of eternity, or at least until his soul is purified and he's allowed to be reborn, in which he will lose all his memories. Since Frieza loathes and resents the entire experience, it'll probably take a long time.
• Signature Style: Barry Kahn mentions that his films are famous for having stunts without wires and insists on maintaining this even when he changes a scene so that a stuntman will have to jump on top of a moving tank.
• Sinister Scythe: Goku Black is able to forge his Laser Blade into a scythe which can cut a hole in reality, allowing Black to summon ethereal copies of himself.
• Single-Episode Handicap: Goku temporarily loses control of his ki because he's sick with Delayed Onset Ki Syndrome. He can't even fly or teleport properly, making him useless when Pan goes missing. He gets over it by the next episode.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Beerus seems to have carried his anger at King Vegeta over to Prince Vegeta, spending a lot of time messing with Vegeta personally and seemingly going out of his way to be a dick to him.
• Slasher Smile:
  • Goku Black loves these to the point that it's his default smile.
  • Future Zamasu is prone to these, just like Goku Black. The most vicious one he gives is to Goku after cornering him and asking him if he wants to know what Goku Black did to his family.
  • Present Zamasu gives one when the heroes catch him purple-blade handed trying to kill Gowasu and reveal his plans to his master, followed by Goku telling him the crimes his future counterpart committed.
  • Merged Zamasu Sports one after he forms his Holy Halo. After mutating, this becomes one of his default expressions.
• Slice of Life:
  • The first few episodes. The first is Goku working at a job, Goten and Trunks trying to find a present for Videl, and Mr. Satan rewarding Goku for saving the world. The second is Vegeta going on a trip with Trunks and Bulma. The third sets up Bulma's birthday party for the confrontation with Beerus.
  • The three episodes after the end of the Battle of Gods Saga shows life settling back to normal for everyone. Goku is a farmer again, Krillin becomes a cop, Vegeta is training more intensely than ever, and Gohan becomes a father.
  • The five episodes before Future Trunks returns acts as a bridge towards the next saga. We see the victory party for U7, Goku becoming sick from abusing his energy during the tournament, him taking care of and bonding with Pan, and a mini-crisis involving a Sealed Evil in a Can on another planet.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: The show leans more on the silly side than Z, but it isn't as comedic as the original Dragon Ball. That is if you don't count the Future Trunks Saga, which takes itself very seriously, especially during the second half, and is one of the darkest sagas in the franchise.
• Slimeball: Barry Kahn uses his fame, money and good looks to sleaze and bully his way up the social-ladder and coerce women into sleeping with him. Put him in a business suit and he will not be out of place in The Wolf of Wall Street.
• Slouch of Villainy: Establishing himself as an antagonist in the Universe Survival saga, Quitela is routinely seen casually lounging in his plush throne - which is more of a giant bed - as he devises and puts into motion underhanded tactics he uses to give himself an advantage. It's often less of a slouch and more of a laying back with his hands behind his head.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: From the start, Zamasu had some distrust towards mortals since they keep repeating the same mistakes of flourishing and war. At first, he just wants the Kais to be hands on with dealing with mortals instead of sitting back and watching them. After meeting Goku and learning that mortals can become strong enough to challenge the gods, he begins to view mortals are both foolish and dangerous. So when Gowasu is overlooking the new mortal race on Planet Babari, he recommends wiping them out since they're violent. Gowasu takes him into the future of Babari to see if the inhabitants will become more peaceful given time. They don't, and it reinforces his belief that mortals are Always Chaotic Evil and needs to be destroyed to bring peace to the universe. When a native of Babari attacks him, he murders the inhabitant in coldblood. Although he is sorry at first, he quickly justifies his actions by saying that mortals are evil and that the gods are sinning by allowing them to exist. After learning about the Super Dragon Balls, he threatens Zuno to learns more information about them and Goku. In Trunks' future, a version of Zamasu is working with Goku Black to eliminate humanity. Whis and Beerus suspects that Zamasu murdered Gowasu for his Time Ring, uses the Super Dragon Balls to wish for immortality and Goku Black, before attacking Trunks' timeline.

• Small Name, Big Ego:
  • Zamasu is merely an apprentice Supreme Kai, yet he believes he knows better than anyone, including his older, more experienced master. By the time he jumps off the slippery slope he declares himself to be the supreme god of the multiverse and kills every god in the future timeline. When he becomes Merged Zamasu he calls himself the 'the sun of this world'. While he is extremely powerful he finds out the hard way that he's an ant compared to Zeno and gets promptly smushed.
  • Rō is the God of Creation of Universe 9, so he is an important person. At the same time, he likes to brag and belittle those around him, saying how U9 is the best universe with the strongest fighters. He gets a rude wake up call when the Grand Priest reveals that U9 has the lowest mortal rating of all the 12 universes.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • The Pilaf Gang only has a small role in the Resurrection 'F' Saga, yet it is because of them that Frieza is revived. They were searching for the Dragon Balls and just found the last one when Sorbet and Tagoma cornered them.
  • Despite Zuno showing up for only two scenes in the Future Trunks Saga, it's him telling Zamasu about the Super Dragon Balls and Goku that gives Zamasu the information needed to begin his plans, first by killing his master to become a Supreme Kai and taking the Time Ring, using it to go a year into the future, and making a wish on the Super Dragon Balls to take Goku's body, creating Goku Black.
  • The three robbers that tried to mug Goku, particularly the one who shot him. Since getting hit by the bullet scratched him slightly instead of it being flattened harmlessly or bouncing off or that he didn't just instinctively dodge the shot to begin with, Goku realizes that his fighting skills were getting rusty, prompting him to ask Whis for some training, which ends up snowballing into the start of the Tournament of Power. Essentially, their attempts to mug Goku ended up kick-starting the entire plot of the saga.
• Smarter Than You Look:
  • Opponents tend to underestimate Goku and think he's dim because he often acts silly and immature. Although Goku can be thick outside of battle, when he gets down to business, he becomes extremely competent as Hit learns.
  • Champa, and Vegeta, both mistake Magetta for being dim, due to his nature, however he is actually quite clever. He uses his heat powers to give himself a Home Field Advantage and uses a mixture of his species natural abilities to trigger a powerful explosion that nearly ring outs Vegeta. He is only handicapped by his inability to fly.
  • Goku Black gets this since everyone thinks he's simply a golem created by Zamasu to act as his loyal servant and has no real will of his own. They're shocked to learn that Goku Black is Present Zamasu and he's the mastermind behind everything including: recruiting Future Zamasu and giving him immortality, destroying the Super Dragon Balls, and killing all the gods in the future timeline.
• Smug Snake:
  • Frieza, although he isn't as bad compared to the movie. He comes to Earth with his full army in tow and a new transformation that he is sure will beat Goku. His army is defeated by the Z-Fighters, including Master Roshi, his strongest men are easily handled by a severely rusty Gohan, and Captain Ginyu is killed in one shot by Vegeta. Although Frieza dominates most of his fight with Goku after becoming Golden Frieza, his stamina fails him, again, and he's left at Goku's mercy, who declares him not worth killing. He only becomes smug again after Sorbet shots Goku in the back. Before he can deliver the killing blow to Goku, Vegeta interferes, transforms, and beats Frieza senseless to the point that he loses his golden form and is on his knees in defeat. By this point, Frieza rage quits, blowing up the planet.
  • Frieza's counterpart, Frost, adopts a smug persona after his evil planet-stealing scheme is revealed. He does this even in the face of not one, but two Gods of Destruction who now want to kill him. By comparison, even Frieza, while drunk on power in his golden form, was cautiously polite to Beerus.
  • Present Zamasu is reduced to this after he's caught trying to commit murder against Gowasu. Instead of escaping since it's heavily implied he knows the Instant Movement, he tries to kill Goku, since Goku tells him that his dream succeeds in the future. This ends with him being killed by Beerus.
  • Future Zamasu comes off as this since he relies heavily on his immortality to get ahead instead of his own fighting talent. Because of this, he keeps dropping his guard and going in Motive Rants about his own superiority. The moment he gets an inkling that he can lose when he was trapped in Future Trunks' Evil Containment Wave, he has a major Villainous Breakdown and immediately fuses with Goku Black to assure victory.
  • Anime Black also have signs of this given that his end goal was to eventually fuse with Future Zamasu to create the ultimate supreme god, Merged Zamasu. The problem, he didn't take into account that his lack of immortality would end up gimping Merged Zamasu, taking him from completely immortal to merely Nigh-Invulnerable. He also didn't seem to have a plan to deal with Zeno outside of him maybe thinking Merged Zamasu could beat him since he would be a powerful, immortal god.
• Smug Super:
  • As usual, Beerus. He doesn't take any fight seriously and refused to even attack Goku, choosing instead to casually dodge since Goku is so far below him. He also brags, while crushing Vegeta's head under his foot, that King Vegeta was terrified of him despite all his power and army. He then calls Vegeta a weakling, just like his father.
  • Surprisingly, Goku has this attribute at times. When he first meets Beerus, he believes that he can put up a decent fight against the God of Destruction as a normal Super Saiyan. When Beerus suggests that Goku uses his full power, Goku refuses, saying that he didn't want to hurt Beerus. Goku got one heck of a wake-up call after Beerus knocks him out in two blows. In the Resurrection 'F' Saga, Whis cites this aspect of Goku's personality as a Fatal Flaw. He becomes so self-assured that he drops his guard at the worst possible moments, leaving himself open to attacks that wouldn't have affected him at all if he didn't get overconfident. Frieza uses this weakness to get Sorbet to shoot him when his guard is down. In the Universal Survival Saga, his smug personality returns since he tells all the gods to their faces to bring their best fighters to the tourument and he will beat them all. He also has no problem being the 'villain' to multiverse.
  • Gotenks as always. Despite Vegeta desperately yelling at Trunks and Goten to listen to him and not assume they can take on Beerus, they ignored his warnings, fused, and challenged Beerus, who literally spanks Gotenks' wrist. He shows his smugness again during the Resurrection 'F' Saga, challenging Frieza by himself after he takes down Togama. We never learn if he can back up his talk since the fusion broke before they can fight.
  • Tagoma becomes this after surviving four months of being Frieza's punching bag. He rightfully brags about being the strongest person in Frieza's army and how his power dwarfs the entire Ginyu Force.
  • Not surprisingly, Frieza. He is especially smug since he now possess power that surpasses even the mighty Super Saiyan. He is so self-assured that he goes to Earth before he mastered his new transformation, which leads directly to his defeat.
  • Hit implores Vegeta to give up before he's killed, saying that he stands no chance despite how powerful and fast he is. After hitting Vegeta several more times in his vital areas, he goes down like a rock. Hit gives Goku the same warning, but Goku is able to counter his technique.
  • When Champa is powering up to kill his team for losing the tournament, he tells them to come at him at once, including Hit using his Time-Skipping power and Cabba turning Super Saiyan. He says none of it matters and given everyone's reactions, he's right. It is a dark reminder that despite Champa's silliness, he is still a God of Destruction and the strongest in Universe 6 outside of Vados.
  • From his first appearance, Goku Black is definitionally one. He's not afraid of Future Trunks in the least and personally kills Future Bulma and Mai (or so it initially seems) in front of him. The first time he speaks is to tell Trunks that he was going to die today with a huge grin on his face. Given that Trunks can only run from Goku Black for almost a year, despite being able to power up to Super Saiyan 2, he has every reason to be confident. Furthermore, when he sees Beerus in the past, instead of being fearful of him like everyone else who knows about his reputation, he's only mildly curious and is overall disinterested in the God of Destruction. Keep in mind, Golden Frieza who was powerful enough to knock around Super Saiyan Blue Goku, was terrified when he saw Beerus. Given that he has a Super Saiyan transformation and his base form is already as strong as Super Saiyan 2 Goku, he does have a good reason to be smug.
  • However, what makes Goku Black stands out from other Smug Super villains in the franchise is that he isn't content with his power. King Piccolo thought he was invincible once he regained his youth, Frieza was happy to sit in his chair and basked in being the strongest mortal in the universe, Cell thought he couldn't get any stronger once he became perfect and no one could possibly surpass him, Super Buu was much like Cell and absorbed anyone who could challenge his power, and Beerus (while not really a 'villain') is lazy bum who is never seen training since he's the strongest thing in his universe. Goku Black, however, wants to keep pushing his limits even after he becomes the strongest being in Future Trunks' timeline to the point that he's willing to push Goku and Vegeta to their Rage Breaking Point to make them stronger so he too can get more powerful from fighting them. Most of this is because Goku Black inherited Goku's power lust.
  • Future Zamasu becomes one after not only becoming more powerful, but also gaining an immortal body. Not even being impaled hurts him. He lets Future Trunks stab him with his sword and attack him with a Final Flash he does not even bother to dodge, just to show off that he's Nigh-Invulnerable. Trunks notices this is his biggest weakness: he has a habit of letting his guard down after taking a hit due to his immortality. This allows Trunks to knock him away long enough to blast Black away with the Galick Gun.
  • Merged Zamasu probably has the biggest ego in the entire franchise. He's undoubtedly immensely powerful since he is a fusion that combines the immense power of Goku Black and the immortality of Future Zamasu, and he manages to have a more gigantic ego than his components combined.
  • Piccolo points out that Gohan has the same Fatal Flaw as his father. When they think they have the battle won, they relaxed their guard leaving themselves open to attack. This is why Gohan lost to Super Buu despite all the power he gained.
  • Liquir, the God of Destruction of Universe 8, is clearly full of himself (though not without reason, of course). While several of the Gods and Supreme Kais are reluctant to test the Tournament of Power's arena out with a battle between the Gods of Destruction, he is quick to agree to do so. He goes on to say that such a match held before Zen-Oh would be perfect to prove the superiority of his and the other Gods' universes, and when told to stop, he says that none of them were shabby. He is immediately interested to see what Zen-Oh's thoughts were, only to be taken aback when it turns out the latter was resting the whole time and thus not watching their fight.
• The Snack Is More Interesting:
  • Instead of watching Beerus fight, Whis is enjoying Earth's food. Even when Beerus was fighting Goku the first time, Whis was going back and forward about if he had enough time to eat lunch.
  • Beerus and Whis are more interested in the sundae Bulma brought than Goku's fight with Frieza. That is the only reason they're there.
  • Champa is more interested in the food stands Vados created for the tournament than thinking about fighters to be on his team.
• The Sociopath:
  • Beerus in many ways can be classified as a high-functional sociopath with impulse issues. He cares for little outside of his own wants and thinks nothing of the lives of mortals since he was willing to destroy the Earth just to force Goku to unleashed more of his power as a Super Saiyan God. He lies and manipulates others like his entire deal with Monaka, to try to bring out other people's abilities. He also needs constant stimulation when he's awake, otherwise he will grow bored and destroy more planets than he needs to for petty reasons. Part of the reason why he searches for a Super Saiyan God to fight is because he's bored since he hasn't had a real challenge in a long time. He also thinks a lot of himself since he is a god and can basically do whatever he wants, something he constantly reminds Whis of. Finally, it's questionable if Beerus really cares for anyone given that he treats the closest thing he has to a friend as a servant who he regularly bosses around, and his friendship towards Goku and Vegeta is anything but equal. He treats Vegeta as an errand boy and he mocks Goku for wanting to save the fighters from U6 from Champa, pointing out how powerless Goku actually is compared to the gods and he should remember his place. This is on top of him being extremely impulsive. He will destroy planets and solar systems over the smallest things, and he will kill those he considered his friends and allies if things don't go his way. With all that said, unlike most characters in Dragon Ball, him being a sociopath doesn't necessary means that he's an evil person. Just someone with a complicated moral code.
  • Frieza carries all the traits of a classic, narcissistic sociopath. He is utterly incapable of empathy or remorse, manipulates others with a smile, impulsive and tends to do things without thinking, incredibly sadistic and violent, and is driven by staggering arrogance and never takes responsibility for his actions nor does he learn from his mistakes. He is also unable to be redeemed unlike most villains in the series because he's utterly unable and unwilling to overcome his pride and spite. He is even willing to let his own universe be destroyed while saving his own skin, disgusting even Roh.
  • Frieza's U6 counterpart, Frost, is almost as terrible. He shows no remorse or empathy about starting wars that kill millions and then plays hero before selling the planets he destroys for profit, making him a classic Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. He uses his Nice Guy facade to gain powerful supporters for his cause like the Saiyans and uses his resources to help the children of the people he indirectly murdered. He even tries to manipulate the God of Destruction to his cause, who was completely fooled by Frost's entire act. To top it all off, when he is caught, he brags about what he has done, all with a smug smile on his face. In many ways, he's worse and more dangerous than Frieza since he rule through charm instead of fear.
  • From what we've seen of Champa, he seems to be the same high-functional sociopath as Beerus, although his impulse issues are not nearly as bad. He care for little outside his own wants, thinks his team are nothing but pawns to the gods, and treats Vados even worse than Beerus treats Whis. He was also ready to kill his entire team for the shame of losing to U7 and he did this all while gloating with an Evil Laugh. However, much like Beerus, being a sociopath doesn't make him necessarily evil, but gives him a complicated moral code since he does show some level of care when he hears that Frost is fighting to help children, and he's disturbed and angry when he learns that Frost is really an underground planet broker. But he then turns around and promises to support Frost if he defeats Vegeta, since he really wants to beat Beerus during the tournament, although he doesn't care when Frost loses.
  • Zamasu fits many of the qualities of one. He shows no empathy toward others, not even his own fellow gods, given that he is willing to commit mass murder of mortals and even kill his own master to further his plan. After becoming a complete zealot in his belief, he continues to act as the dutiful student to Gowasu so he can gain knowledge about the Super Dragon Balls and kill Gowasu without him suspecting anything. He also has a grandiose sense of self-worth, especially his future counterpart who sees himself as a 'true god' after gaining immortality, since he believes that he's doing the god's justice and all his evil acts are justified.
  • Goku Black has many of the traits of one. He is openly psychotic and enjoys the death and destruction he spreads, has a grandiose opinion of himself as his unveiling of Super Saiyan Rosé lays bare and he sees himself as a 'true god' after murdering all the other gods in the universes, a staggering Lack of Empathy for those he kills, like him murdering Goku who was trapped in his old body in front of his wife and child before killing them in coldblood and grows bored when there is no one left to satisfy his Blood Knight nature. Which all makes sense since Goku Black is an alternative version Present Zamasu who has many of the same sociopath characteristics. His fusion counterpart, Merged Zamasu, is all of this elevated, along with impulse control issues.
  • A high-functioning example; Barry Kahn possesses a superficial charm and charisma that masks a total inability to feel empathy for others; takes amusement in watching those less fortunate than himself cower in fear by threatening their livelihoods and futures, an utter lack of conscience, to the extent of being willing to ruin marriages and kidnap innocent children over jilted love. Barry would be just as dangerous as Frieza if only he was more powerful and Watagashi possessing him made him just that.
• The So-Called Coward: In the Future, the survivors insist that Future Yajirobe is a coward who runs away from danger and then reappears when there's food; but in episode 57 he saves Goku and Future Trunks when they're about to be obliterated by Goku Black and Future Zamasu.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist:
  • Frieza tries to maintain his soft-speaking mannerisms after being brought back to life, but because of his Sanity Slippage he's more prone to yelling and mood swings.
  • Goku Black speaks in a soft tone and rarely raises his voice. His softness, however, only plays up how sadistic and cruel he is.
• So Last Season:
  • Par for the course, Frieza's final form, as well as his entire army. The former was previously slightly below a Super Saiyan is now not even a match for Goku in his normal form, and that's after his Training from Hell. Had Frieza appeared a few years before, not even Super Saiyan 3 Goku or Ultimate Gohan would have stood a remote chance against Frieza's final form, but Goku has simply gotten that much stronger. Also while ruthless, he's less effective than Cell or Buu (specifically Super and Kid Buu), since those two were much cleverer when dealing with the heroes, with Cell actually matching them in terms of skill and not just raw power. For the latter, an invasion of that size/scale would have been absolutely terrifying, and the Z Fighters were in full panic-mode when Frieza returned to Earth the first time, with a force half the size of this one... here, though concerned and scared, it isn't the end of the world like last time. Though it very nearly becomes so because everyone was too relaxed during the invasion. Frieza and his army fail primarily because they didn't really evolve past what they were during the Namek/Frieza Saga.
  • Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks is one of the most powerful characters in the series since he combines the power of the Fusion Dance with the incredible might of Super Saiyan 3. When he got serious, Gotenks nearly killed Super Buu. Now, he can't stand up to Vegeta's base form, which has been enhanced with god power. This is seen when Copy-Vegeta No Sells all of Gotenks' attacks. For reference, all the fighters from Universe 6 except Botoma was even-to-superior to Vegeta and Goku's base forms, and even with Botoma he could absorb all of base form Goku's attacks thank to his special ability. Even more, all of them are much weaker than the Gods of Destruction, which highlights how much the power scale has jumped since the Buu Saga.
  • This is Future Trunks' primary problem. He's able to become a Super Saiyan 2 and his power rivals those of Goku and Vegeta during the Buu Saga. The problem, Super Saiyan 2 has been an outdated form since Buu's awakening with other more powerful forms created (Super Saiyan 3, Fusion, and Gohan's Ultimate form), and Goku Black is as strong as current Super Saiyan 3 Goku whose base form alone surpasses Super Buu. By taking out Buu before he revived, Trunks was ill-prepared to handle a force like Black - the only reasons he was able to fight him at all was rage fueling him, as well as the element of surprise in his attacks. At least, until his rage finally broke all limits.
  • Zigzagged when Frieza returns in the Universal Survival Saga. When he's temporarily revived, he has become much stronger thanks to his mental training in hell and can control his golden form so he no longer leaks energy. The problem is that Golden Frieza is no longer stronger than Super Saiyan Blue Goku. They're about even and Goku can used his Kaioken better, meaning he can easily beat Frieza if he wanted to. So Frieza lost his chance to kill Goku in a straight fight.
  • Not so par for the course, Super is demonstrating a heavy habit of bringing back older stuff, and having them work overall. It's even to the point that Super has entire pages set aside for ContinuityNods and MythologyGags.
    • The regular Super Saiyan form. In Z, Super Saiyan was obsolete by the introduction of Super Saiyan 2, and then later Super Saiyan 3, Fusion, and Gohan's Ultimate state. However, thanks to Goku absorbing the power of godhood into his body, his base form is now more powerful than Super Saiyan 3 or Gohan at full power, while his normal Super Saiyan form is nearly as strong as a Super Saiyan God. According to Toriyama, Goku will never use Super Saiyan 2 or 3 again, choosing to instead to improve his normal and regular Super Saiyan forms since Super Saiyan 2 and 3 are nothing more than extensions to Super Saiyan that drains more energy in the long run. Goku and Vegeta also make their normal Super Saiyan forms stronger by merging their god energy with it, creating Super Saiyan Blue. In the Future Trunks Saga, Goku does uses Super Saiyan 2 and 3, but in both cases he was just testing his opponent.
    • Also Played With with the Kaioken. It was Goku's trump card prior to attaining Super Saiyan, after which Goku quit using it because even the most basic form of Super Saiyan had over twice as much power with limited drawbacks. Goku also couldn't combine his Kaioken with his Super Saiyan forms because this would put too much strain on his body. The one time he did was in the anime Filler of the Otherworld Tournament against Pikkon, where his body didn't have the same limits. After Goku masters his godly powers and energy control, he can now combine the Kaioken with his Super Saiyan Blue form and he can go up to 10X, initially anyway. The technique is incomplete at first, having a 9 out of 10 failure rate in which Goku can seriously injure himself or die, but later he's overcome that limitation and now can use it relatively-freely.
    • Even the Ultra Super Saiyan form gets a Played With. Vegeta gets angry at Future Trunks for using it during their training session, calling it a sluggish archaic form... however, it was a ruse to get Vegeta to drop his guard when charging Trunks, who then uses his faster-and-smaller SSJ2 form to almost land blows.
    • Numerous other techniques from the entire cast have also reappeared. Vegeta - and later Future Trunks - uses the Galick Gun and Final Flash techniques numerous times, with varying effectiveness... and if that weren't enough, Final Explosion is brought back. Piccolo is again using signature Namekian traits like stretching his limbs, his antennae beams ^note Which haven't been seen since the 23rd Martial Arts Tournament in DB., the multi-form he only used in Filler, his Special Beam Cannon specifically designed to take down opponents stronger than him, and even the Mouth Energy Wave blast. Captain Ginyu's body change allowed him to rapidly catch up with various Z-fighter's power levels once he took control of Tagoma's power. Hit's Time-Skipping technique is also essentially a downgraded version of Guldo's Time Freeze, but works much better since Hit is a fighter who can actually take full advantage of it. While trying to distract Goku, Chaozu uses his powers and actually manages to hold him a good amount of time, Krillin uses Solar Flare to good effect, and Puar even uses the transformation technique again (though the eyes are way off). The Evil Containment Wave is broken out for both the Future Trunks and Universe Survial Sagas, still as powerful (and dangerous) as ever. In a baseball game, Yamcha again uses his Wolf Fang Fist and Spirit Ball techniques. For the Universe Survival Saga, Roshi brings back his Lightning Flash Surprise Attack and Hypnosis techniques ^note Much like Piccolo's antennae beams, haven't been seen since the original DB.
• Sole Survivor: Future Trunks, Mai, and Zeno are the only survivors of the future timeline after Future Zeno destroyed it to stop Merged Zamasu who fused with the multiverse.
• So My Kids Can Watch: In-universe case with Gohan choosing to be a stuntman on the Great Saiyaman movie, so that Pan will be able to watch it when she's older.
• So Proud of You:
  • Although he would never put it into words, the beatific smile on Vegeta's face while newly transformed SS Cabba blasts the hell out of him says how proud he is of the other fighter. He has some even subtler moments with Future Trunks later.
  • Whis and Beerus also take great pride in Goku as he gives Hit the fight of his life.
  Beerus: That's my Goku!
  Whis: I am afraid you are mistaken, Beerus-sama. Goku-san is all mine.
  • Goku has a similar moment to Vegeta after Gohan, having recently regained his full-powered Ultimate form, is able to go up against him at full power. Although Gohan loses, Goku promises that the two of them will continue to grow stronger together, which is probably the most heartwarming thing a Saiyan can say.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Goku Black dips into this once he transforms into his Super Saiyan Rosé. He uses less formal language and his tone is generally rougher.
• Sore Loser:
  • Frieza in a nutshell. Instead of taking Goku's offer to leave peacefully, he has Sorbet shoot him from behind. When Vegeta is about to kill him, he destroys the Earth out of spite.
  • Champa calls Goku a cheater for winning his match against Botamo, saying it wasn't fair for him to use an energy attack. He also whines and cries like a child when he didn't get his way. When U6 loses to U7, he was going to murder his entire team for being a disgrace.
  • Beerus is not happy about Goku losing to Frost, but tries to hide it so he doesn't come across as a sore loser to Champa.
  • Although he didn't have a tantrum, Vegeta is very upset after he loses to Hit, pounding the ground in frustration.
  • After Goku wins their sparring match and graciously offers to help Zamasu up, he powers up to attack Goku again before Gowasu calls him off. Later on, when complaining about mortals, he brings up Goku having the nerve to challenge him, suggesting he's still bitter about it. It eventually reaches the point that Zamasu becomes obsessed with Goku, and uses the Super Dragon Balls to steal Goku's body and kills him and his family out of spite. Later, after being trashed by Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta, he reaches a realization. He comes to the conclusion that Vegeta became so powerful in such a short time because of his anger. Anger towards him for hurting his son and his world, something that he never considered since he finds using anger to get stronger disgusting. So, he decides to used his own anger to fuel his new power-up. One of the grievous he names in his anger is losing to a mortal, showing that he's still sore at Goku for beating him, despite it happening years ago.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Averted in this series unlike its predecessor. The first villain in the series, Beerus, is far stronger than any of the heroes and villains who has come after him. The villains have been roughly around the same level of power as each other with the exception of Champa who is about equal to Beerus, but the heroes never fights him directly. Only Goku Black has explicitly been rising in power since he grows stronger every time he fights and, according to Atsushi Kido (Super's producer), he is the strongest fighter after Beerus. He later merges with Future Zamasu to form Merged Zamasu, who is both powerful and immortal, and It requires Vegito to tackle him. Atsushi Kido calls Merged Zamasu a cheat character even by the standards of Dragon Ball. How he compares to Beerus is unknown, but he undoubtedly surpassed him after he loses his physical body and becomes one with the multiverse.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The extremely happy-sounding song "Yoka-Yoka Dance" is used as the ending for the Goku Black arc, which has the darkest and most dramatic episodes of the series.
• Space Age Stasis: Averted. The scouters Frieza's army wears have an updated look to them along with their armor. Healing tank technology has also advanced to the point that they can reattach and regenerate lost body parts, allowing Frieza to return to normal after being wished back to life in pieces.
• Space Is Cold: While locked inside Monaka's truck in space, Trunks and Goten get very cold. They have no difficulty breathing, so apparently the truck is airtight, but loses its heat to space... somehow.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • While Sorbet is contemplating his other two wishes after reviving Frieza, Pilaf's henchmen, Mai and Shu, jump in with selfish wishes of their own. This not only prevents Sorbet from making any other dangerous wishes, but it also prevents Pilaf's own intention of wishing for world domination.
  • Vegeta himself is this to Frieza's revenge plan. Frieza knows Goku will be powerful and has a backup all ready just in case he is defeated again. He didn't know Vegeta was on Earth and he sure in hell didn't know Vegeta could become a Super Saiyan, let alone a Super Saiyan Blue like Goku. Frieza's plan is entirely undone because he missed this vital piece of information.
  • Frost's cheating may have gone undetectable throughout the entire tournament if it wasn't for Jaco's keen eyes.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Unlike the movie, Tagoma survives after telling Frieza what a bad idea his revenge plot is, as Frieza simply shoots Tagoma in both his knees and elbows. As such he's healed and survives to take part in Frieza's invasion on Earth. He remains alive, as a frog thanks to Ginyu pulling a Grand Theft Me, assuming he wasn't vaporized with the rest of Frieza's army when Frieza transformed.
  • Frieza doesn't blow up North City in this adaptation.
  • Ginyu as a frog surprisingly has a longer lifespan in the series compared to Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn, where he's apparently dead and joined Frieza's army of the undead. He steals Tagoma's body then dies by Vegeta's hand, subverting this trope.
  • Future Yajirobe survived the Android attack in the future timeline compared to how he supposedly died in the original Z.
• Sparing the Aces: One of the reasons why Beerus spares the Earth, besides for the food. After witnessing Goku's growth and getting such a good fight out of him, he doesn't want to kill him anymore.
• Sphere of Destruction:
  • When Frieza transforms from his base form to his true form, it releases a purple explosion that destroys everything within a large spherical area, including the ground and his entire army save Sorbet.
  • When Beerus and Champa fight, they create a slowly-expanding bubble of energy that turns everything it touches to ash, excepting of course Whis and Vados.
  • Goku Black was going to kill Future Trunks with a large energy ball that was black in the middle and yellow on the outside.
  • Goku Black and Future Zamasu tries to kill Goku and Future Trunks with an energy ball made up of both of their energies. They only survived because Vegeta used a Final Flash to destroy it.
• Spirited Competitor:
  • Frost wants a clean, fair match, and even tells U7 that this is just a tournament and there shouldn't be any hard feelings. In truth, Frost is a dirty cheater who uses poison when he's about to lose.
  • What Hit turns out to be deep inside. Fighting Goku and finding a Worthy Opponent awoke his warrior spirit and force him to improve for the first time n his life.
  • Goku as always. He wants the no-kill rule removed during his match with Hit since Hit is an assassin and he has been purposely holding back throughout the tournament since he can accidentally kill someone.
• Spit Take: Goku says that he's promised Frieza that if the Seventh Universe wins the Tournament of Power, he will gather the Dragon Balls and wish Frieza back to life. When he hears this, Krillins spits out the liquid he's drinking.
• Spoiled Brat: Barry Kahn expects to be giving everything and anything, and if he doesn't he flips his shit. Videl calls him out on this, saying how he's so insecure despite being treated like royalty.
• Spoiler Opening:
  • The opening sequence for the Future Trunks Saga shows Goku Black being Obviously Evil, where the first episode of said saga hides Black's appearance until the end and treats his resemblance to Goku as a surprise. Media had been proclaiming an "evil Goku" for weeks before the episode aired, so no one was surprised in any case. At the same time, viewers were still surprised to see Goku Black at the end of Episode 47 since it was widely assumed that the black dragon-like creature shown throughout the episode was 'Black' and it would possess Goku at a later date, much like Baby from Dragon Ball GT.
  • The opening for the Tournament of Power foreshadows Goku's "Ultra Instinct" transformation, which doesn't come until 30+ episodes after the opening first aired, but while the opening makes it clear that Goku gains a new power, it leaves it ambiguous to what exactly it is. The form's proper introduction episode reuses animation from the opening to make the connection clear. Additionally, it averts spoiling Frieza as the 10th member by having him replace Majin Buu only after he joins. Same goes for the 8th ending.
  • The Limit Break x Survivor opening not only spoils Kale's Legendary Super Saiyan transformation, but it also turns out that Kefla, the potara fusion of Kale and Caulifla, who debuts in episode 114, has been in the opening ever since it first aired with episode 77.
• Spoiler Title: For the most part, Super has been good for not having many of these, especially compared to Dragon Ball Z. However, old habits die hard, with several referring to events given in the actual episodes:
  • "The God With the Immortal Body - Zamasu Descends".
  • "Revere Him! Praise Him! Fusion Zamasu's Explosive Birth!!"
  • "The Gods of Every Universe in Shock?! Losers Erased in the Tournament of Power".
  • "You're the Tenth Warrior! Goku Goes to See Frieza!!".^note However, this comes shortly after the reveal at the end of the previous episode
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation:
  • The Goku Black Arc:
    • Goku Black is able to make a blade out of his ki. So could Zamasu, and this was a strong hint about Black's identity.
    • In episode 66, Vegetto does the same.
    • Later, Future Trunks gathers the energy to from a Laser Blade from his broken sword.
  • The Tournament of Power:
    • The Pride Trooper Khaseral has shown the ability to form his ki into tools of the trade rather than just energy blasts. He showed off a blade and a smoke bomb, though it was hinted he has a larger arsenal to boot.
    • Cawey from Universe 4 showed similar abilities, though she appears to have it in much greater scope. However, her weapons were nearly useless, since Roshi - at that point, roughly on par with Post-God Base Goku - could break them on his own.
• Stable Time Loop: The entire future Trunks Saga rests on one. In the future, Goku Black appears and starts wiping out humanity. Trunks uses the Time Machine to travel back for help and reveals Black to Beerus and Whis when Black follows him. Beerus and Whis draws a connection to Zamasu of Universe 10, who Goku fights and overpowers in a friendly sparring match. Bitter about losing, having all his bias about mortals confirmed, and seeing Goku with god energy drives Zamasu to seek out the Super Dragon Balls, which Whis speculates were used to create Goku Black. The two then somehow wind up in Trunks' timeline, starting the cycle again. In truth, Goku Black is Present Zamasu who succeeded in killing Gowasu, taking the Time Ring, and use the Super Dragon Balls to switch bodies with Goku. A split in the timeline occurred when Beerus killed Present Zamasu, but Goku Black is protected from the change thanks to the Time Ring.
• Start of Darkness: While Zamasu never trusted or liked mortals, he wasn't actively against them or wanted to kill them. He just wanted to take a more direct approach when dealing with mortals who abused the gods' knowledge, instead of just watching and guiding. Things, however, went downhill for Present Zamasu the moment he met Goku. Not only is Goku a mortal who is friendly with gods, but he is also more powerful than most gods outside of the Gods of Destruction. Once Zamasu gets into his mind that mortals are stupid and dangerous, everything else was confirmed bias.
• Stating the Simple Solution:
  • Tagoma tells Frieza to forget about the Saiyans and focus on the empire. Tagoma is shot to hell and tortured for his trouble. Frieza really should've taken his advice.
  • Beerus points out that if Goku and Vegeta worked together they can easily defeat Frieza. Whis points out that they're both too prideful to do it.
  • When Beerus wants a Dragon Radar to track down the last Super Dragon Ball, Bulma suggests just gathering up Earth's Dragon Balls and asking Shenron. Unfortunately, Shenron's not quite up to the task of scanning an entire alternate universe for a single object, so they fall back on the radar.
  • Bulma also points out that Champa could just wish for a lot of good food instead of moving the Earth to his universe. Beerus mocks Bulma for thinking that gods actually care about wishes. This is just an excuse for Champa and him to fight.
• Status Quo Is God:
  • The second episode gives a dose of this towards the end explaining why Vegeta is competitive with Goku again by Resurrection 'F', even though he'd accepted Goku was superior during their final battle with Buu. Simply put, he could sense him training once more on King Kai's planet despite already being the strongest in the universe, and that reignited his sense of competition. He still accepts that Goku is the strongest Saiyan, but he intends to see that change. At the very least he left his bitterness and resentment behind and the competition between Goku and him is a much healthier one.
  • Played With. Since the Cell Games, Vegeta has always been behind Goku despite the latter's attempt to surpassed him. After Beerus hits Bulma, Vegeta temporarily surpasses Goku and manages to hit Beerus several times. Goku then utterly surpasses him again after he ascend to godhood and absorbs its power into his body. Then Vegeta trains with Whis for six months and he get a slight lead on Goku, only for Goku to every so slightly pass him. However, they are all for intents and purposes equals. It was widely believed that it would be the new status quo for the series….that is until Goku revealed that he can combine Super Saiyan Blue with the Kaioken, blowing Vegeta out of the water again. So the original status quo has been maintained.
  • In the Tournament of Power, Goku broke through to the final height of his innermost potential to achieve Ultra Instinct, made clear to be the true and ultimate pinnacle of power for one who's truly mastered the art of combat, beyond even the Gods. However, once Goku's reached a level he can no longer grow, his journey of challenging himself to know how far he can go would be over as would the story, so after the Tournament of Power, he's not allowed to retain it. This is explained as Goku have been pushed beyond the brink of desperation to a level he could only reach unconsciously, so he himself has no clue how to actually achieve it on his own.
• Stealth Mentor: Like Goku would do in a few years as of the Champa Tournament arc, Vegeta fully intends to have Cabba fight at full power, going as far as threatening his family and destroy his planet so Cabba would become a Super Saiyan. His bluff works, as Cabba does go Super Saiyan when he realized he could do it. Apparently, Goku took notes from Vegeta.
• Stockholm Syndrome: Beerus' relationship with the earthlings post-Battle of Gods could be interpreted as this. He's a nice enough guy and they don't seem to mind his presence, but has a Hair-Trigger Temper and can obliterate the earth with contemptible ease. Even if he chooses not to destroy the earth as it's the source of his favorite food, there's nothing stopping him from killing any individual who pisses him off. As such, earthlings and Bulma in particular are constantly giving Beerus and his semi-Morality Chain Whis gifts of food basically as offerings to keep him in a good mood.
• The Stoic: Hit rarely, if ever, drops his calm, serious demeanor no matter what is going on around him. Even having a cracked glass shard fly directly at him made from Vados' barrier doesn't do so much as make him open his eyes. Once Goku gives him a good fight, he starts getting serious, and he is shown to break his stoic expression.
• Stone Wall:
  • Botamo's main ability is being able to No-Sell any kind of attack. His durability is so great that a Kamehameha from an untransformed Goku causes no damage.
  • Despite not being the strongest enemy Goku and the others faced in the Future Trunks Saga, especially compared to Goku Black, Future Zamasu is completely invulnerable to any attack so it doesn't matter. He puts his immortality to good use by shielding his partner from anything the heroes can throw at him.
• Story-Breaker Power:
  • The Instant Transmission. With this technique, Goku and others can teleport anywhere in the universe and even the afterlife, as long as they can sense life energy. Goku uses his Instant Transmission to move around opponents who are faster than him, escape lethal attacks, or move dangerous objects or people to another location. Only the Kais themselves have a better version of the Instant Transmission (Instant Movement where the person can teleport anywhere in the lower realm regardless if it has life or not and can even go into other universes) and even Beerus must rely on Whis to ferry him across the universe.
  • Super Saiyan God. By infusing one Saiyan with the light of five righteous Saiyans, you get a being that makes the strongest known form of Super Saiyan look like a weakling and utterly surpasses Vegito. Originally, it was balanced-off by having a strict time limit like the Fusion Dance. However, Goku manages to absorb the power of godhood into his body, making his base form almost as powerful as a Super Saiyan God even after he lost the transformation. He can also fuse his god powers with a normal Super Saiyan, creating a Super Saiyan Blue. Because of the huge power up both Goku and Vegeta gained from their god forms and training, only people close to Beerus' level can challenge them. Even more, Goku shows that he can now combine the Kaioken with Super Saiyan Blue up to 10X. He moves so fast in this state that he actually breaks the time barrier, making Hit's Time-Leaping technique useless, until he improves it again. The biggest drawback of this combination is that it is still incomplete, giving it a 9 out of 10 failure rate, can possibly kill the user if they mess up activating it, and makes the user sick with Delayed Onset Ki Syndrome days afterwards. However, as Goku got better at it he can now activate the Kaioken without any apparent drawbacks and almost spam a basic Kaioken. Meaning, Goku can double his overall power and speed without issue.
  • Not only is Whis more powerful than Beerus, but he also has the ability to rewind time by three minutes, redoing any mistakes made by him or others. It does have its limits though, he can't rewind time twice in a row. On a bit of a sidenote to this trope, Beerus has told the protagonist not to rely on himself and Whis too much.
  • Frieza's ultimate transformation, Golden Frieza. He went from being beating by Goku's base form to overwhelming Goku when he transformed into a Super Saiyan Blue. The major drawback of this transformation is that it burns through energy quickly and even that could have been avoided if Frieza took the time to master it instead of rushing to Earth, which is seen when he returns in the Universal Survival Saga. There is also his species' ability to survive in a vacuum. He kills Vegeta, despite being tired and overwhelmed, by destroying the Earth since Vegeta, even as a god, still needs to breath.
  • Botamo can transfer attacks to his body to another dimension, negating all the damage. This unique damage absorption ability can even keep him safe from Saiyan Beyond God Goku's Kamehameha. If Botamo was in a regular fight, he would certainly beat most opponents by wearing down their stamina before finishing them off. Lucky for Goku, Botamo is in a tournament with ring out rules.
  • Hit is a Time Master similar to Guldo who can freeze time for everyone except himself. He can only do it for 0.1 seconds, but since Hit has Super-Speed on top of his ability, he can mortally wound an opponent before they even have the chance to move. Also, unlike Guldo, he can spam his ability as many times as he wants since it seems to take no stamina. During his match against Goku, he improves the technique, taking it up to 0.5 seconds. Goku can only counter it by using the even more broken Kaioken/Super Saiyan Blue combination to literally break time, and even then Hit improves again and manages to stop that. When Goku has his rematched with Hit, he shows off his improve abilities, like having invisible energy attacks that can instantly stop someone's heart if they land. He also can create a pocket dimension where he stores all the time he skipped, allowing him to phase through attacks like a ghost. Goku only manages to overcome Hit thanks to being a combat genius who quickly learns how to counter Hit's techniques.
  • Zeno is not a fighter according to Beerus, but he's by far the most powerful being in all the Dragon World, bar none. He can wipe out anything. Evil people, planets, galaxies, even universes. Whis says that there was once 18 Universes. Zeno destroyed 6 of them when he was angry. We even get to witness Future Zeno destroying Future Trunks' timeline.
  • Potara fusion is this, likely being able to defeat even gods, it does come with limitations, however it allowed Goku and Vegeta to stand up to Merged Zamasu for a while.
  • Future Zamasu is an immortal, allowing him to survive any injury including being impaled and blasted by a Final Flash and a Kamehameha that disables Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Super Saiyan 2 Future Trunks. Goku even complains about how unfair this is. When Goku Black and Future Zamasu fuse, Merged Zamasu gains Future Zamasu's immortality and can grow stronger from battle like Goku Black. Super's producer even calls him a cheat character even by Dragon Ball's standards. However, since he merged with Goku Black, who wasn't an immortal, he has incomplete regeneration, allowing Trunks to split him in half. Even that didn't kill him! Instead, his spirit merges with the universe and wipes out all life except Goku, Vegeta, Future Trunks, Future Mai, Bulma, and the Supreme Kais. It takes Future Zeno coming down and destroying the entire multiverse to put Merged Zamasu down.
  • The Evil Containment Wave, when properly executed, is this, being able to seal beings many times stronger than the user, including immortals like Future Zamasu. The drawbacks, it has the chance of killing the user if the sealing process is too stressful, you need a container for the sealing, and you also need a special sealing tag, otherwise the person can escape after only a few minutes.
  • Basil from U9 finds out the hard way that Buu can regenerate along with having high endurance, meaning that Buu practically won his match by out-enduring him, despite taking several high-powered attacks that would have killed a normal person.
• Strong as They Need to Be:
  • For a majority of the series, vast differences in power levels were usually portrayed as hard walls. No matter how hard a weaker character tried, they would never be able to even scratch a stronger character. However, around the point after it was stated that Goku had absorbed some of his God powers into his natural state in the Battle of Gods arc, large differences in power levels being portrayed as impossible barriers started to slowly disappear, with characters beginning to even out and suddenly becoming as strong as they need to be to have a decent fight against anyone. Characters like Master Roshi, Krillin, Tien, Android 17, and Piccolo began having far better showings against established extremely strong characters than they logically should. This is usually hand-waved with a character implying that they did some training off-screen, to varying degrees of believability.
  • To give an example, in the Tournament of Power, Android 18 was seen struggling to beat an opponent. Krillin takes her place, and promptly beats him, even though at this point Android 18 should still be much stronger than Krillin since Krillin had given up fighting for so long. It's also hard to believe that a character like Master Roshi, who was astronomically surpassed long ago and has never been seen doing any training, could even stand on the Tournament of Power arena without immediately blowing up.
  • And of course, the usual slew of inconsistencies around how powerful a character is meant to be just compared to a normal human are present as well. Despite absorbing the power of a God, it doesnt take that long before Goku is injured by an ordinary bullet. While he was 'slightly' caught off guard by it, compared to the usual speed feats seen, he was aware of it enough that he should logically have the relative equivalent of an eternity to react and power up his arm to guard it without damage. Arguably, the bullet that Bulma shot Goku with back in the very first chapter of Dragonball appeared to injure him less.
• Stunned Silence:
  • After Goku is knocked out of the ring, everyone is completely shocked for a long moment.
  • Similarly, everyone from U7 is shocked into silence after Vegeta goes down to Hit.
  • Down twice in Episode 40. First when Goku throws his match against Hit and again when Monaka manages to ring-out Hit with one punch (Hit also throws his match).
• Stupid Evil: To show off how powerful he has become through his months of training, when Frieza transforms into his true form, he kills off all his remaining men except Sorbet, and Sorbet was only lucky. This is really stupid since that's literally the last of his army, meaning that even if he does beat Goku, he has to rebuild his entire empire from the ground up. Killing all his men also means that there is no one left to wish him back after he's killed again. On top of that stupidity, throughout the first part of his fight with Goku he keeps trying to attack Goku's friends and encourages his men earlier to kill Krillin, knowing it will cause Goku the most grief. Given what happened the last time Frieza picked off Goku's friends and enraged him, you would think he wouldn't actively try to press his buttons again. Fortunately for Frieza, he fails at getting Goku to his Rage Breaking Point despite his murder of Piccolo.
• Summon Bigger Fish: At the end of the Future Trunks arc, Zamasu becomes an incorporeal entity infecting the universe, leaving the heroes only option being to summon Future Zeno, who destroys the entire multiverse in the future timeline.
• Superhero Team Uniform: The Pride Troopers all wear matching red and black spandex.
• Superior Successor:
  • Even when severely rusty, Gohan remains stronger than his first master Piccolo even in base form until the events of the Universal Survival Saga where Piccolo manages to catch up to Gohan's Super Saiyan 2 form. He then falls behind again after Gohan rediscovers his Ultimate form and becomes stronger than ever. At the same time, Gohan is vastly inferior to Piccolo when it comes to combat experience. This also holds true with Goku, who Gohan wishes to surpass again. During their battle in Episode 90, Gohan begs his father to used his full power, which he eventually does and one-shots Gohan with his Super Saiyan Blue/Kaioken combo, showing Gohan that he still have a ways to go before he closes the power gap between him and his father.
  • Tien is stronger than the Crane Hermit when he is first introduced and he also greatly surpasses Mercenary Tao even after he's rebuilt into a cyborg. By the time of Dragon Ball Z, he becomes even stronger than Kami after training with him to prepare for the Saiyans. In this series, he becomes the new master of the Crane School since he opens his own dojo.
• Super Mode:
  • All the Saiyans in the series (except Pan) have a Super Saiyan form. Goten and Trunks can only go up to a regular Super Saiyan, while Goku and Vegeta have Super Saiyan merged with god energy known as Super Saiyan Blue. Gohan can become a Super Saiyan, but his strongest form is his Ultimate state which is Gohan's base form except buffer. Cabba eventually becomes a Super Saiyan thanks to Vegeta's guidance and Future Trunks unlocks Super Saiyan 2 since he last left for his own time. He also gains acces to a strange Super Saiyan form unique to him, which puts him on par with godly beings.
  • Frieza gains his own super form when before all his other transformations were power limiters in Golden Frieza.
  • Black has a Super Saiyan form, however, his transformation gives him pink hair instead of gold or blue. Merged Zamasu is locked into this form.
• Supernatural Sealing: The Mafuba is used to temporarily seal Zamasu, whose Complete Immortality makes him otherwise impossible to defeat, but thanks to a problem with the vessel, he escapes shortly after. Roshi later uses the technique in the Tournament of Power, using it to eliminate one opponent, and nearly succeeds with two others, but is prevented from completing the seal both times.
• Superpower Lottery:
  • Goku like all the Saiyans is already a lottery winner along his own unique abilities, but he hit the jackpot once he absorbs Super Saiyan God into his being, making his base form so powerful that it makes Super Saiyan 3 looks like a joke. He also learns to channel his god energy into a normal Super Saiyan, going even beyond godhood. He also learns to combined Super Saiyan Blue with the Kaioken, making him so fast that he out-speeds someone who can freeze time.
  • Thanks to his training with Whis, Vegeta also mastered Super Saiyan Blue, becoming Goku's true rival once again.
  • Frieza is already a big winner being born with an ungodly high power level, making him the strongest mortal being in the universe by default. After unleashing all his latent power, he went from being weaker than a Super Saiyan to surpassing Super Saiyan enhanced with god energy with Golden Frieza. And he did it in just four months.
  • Whis and his big sister Vados are probably the biggest lottery winners in the series. They are both Almighty Janitors who are stronger than their respective gods. They are also both Reality Warpers who can create nearly unbreakable shields, create their own atmospheres, hold items in Pocket Dimensions, find almost anyone in the universe using their staffs, heal wounds, and can travel faster than the speed of light with ease. Whis specifically can rewind time for the entire universe by three minutes.
  • All the fighters from Universe 6 are lottery winners. Fitting since they are the best fighters from their universe:
    • Botoma's unique damage absorption ability. He can absorb damage from Goku, including the Kamehameha. Goku says he would have probably lost in a straight fight.
    • Frost, he is stronger than Frieza with his normal transformations even after Frieza trains for four months to unlock all his latent power. He only falls behind Frieza because he doesn't have an ultimate form like the tyrant. Which does makes sense when you consider that Frieza only gained his Golden Frieza form out of revenge and his hurt pride, while Frost goes out of his way not to hurt people and wouldn't want to become stronger unless it was to help people, which is why he's siding with Champa in the tournament. After learning the truth about Frost, he most likely didn't have an ultimate form because he never fought anyone as strong as Goku and he poisons anyone who is stronger than him.
    • Magetta's naturally hard metal body makes him immune to all of Vegeta's attacks, including the Galick Gun and Final Flash. His magma spit can even push back Vegeta's most powerful energy blasts.
    • Cabba is a minor example. Although he's unable to go Super Saiyan, he's base form is equal to Vegeta, after he has been training with Whis and trained in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber for three years, which makes Cabba many times stronger than the next strongest Saiyan, Gohan. After Vegeta beats him up and pushes him to his Rage Breaking Point, he ascends to Super Saiyan.
    • Hit is not only physically powerful, but he has the ability to skip time, giving the appearance of time freezing. It only works for 0.1 seconds before he improves it, but that is more than enough given that Hit has Super-Speed. Later, he shows the ability to create a Pocket Dimension where he stores all the time he skips, giving him a phase ability. We also see his killing technique where he can instantly stop someone's heart with an invisible energy blast.
  • Goku Black not only has the ability to grow stronger from the pain he experiences during his battles, but he also has his own form of Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan Rosé, that is very similar to Goku and Vegeta's Super Saiyan Blue forms. His base form alone can also match Goku and Vegeta at their strongest, and he's still evolving. He also knows the Instant Transmission, making him one of the few named characters in the series who can teleport. In addition, he has one of the best cloning techniques, where he opens a rift with his ki scythe that can create clones of himself of equal strength.
  • On top of being a Physical God that can trade blows with Super Saiyan Blue Goku, Future Zamasu is an immortal. Being impaled through the chest, hit point-blank with a Final Flash, and hit dead on by Super Saiyan Rosé Black's Kamehameha does no damage to him.
  • Merged Zamasu. He has the strength and abilities of Goku Black, and the immortal body of Future Zamasu on top of being a Potara Fusion, the most powerful type of fusion in the series. He also has a halo on his back that makes it impossible for Goku and Vegeta to even get near him. His only weakness is the fact his immortality was partially compromised due to being the fusion of a mortal and an immortal, and that only applied to his physical body. Once he becomes a spirit and Eldritch Abomination, it takes Future Zeno to put him down, which destroys the entire timeline.
• Super Prototype: Super Shenron is the original Eternal Dragon, with the Namekian and Earth dragons being based off of his Dragon Balls. He is also much stronger than either of them, although he can only grant a single wish.
• Super-Reflexes: The gods have a technique known as Ultra Instinct, wherein the user trains their body to act without thinking. Done properly, every part of the user's body is capable of perceiving attacks and dodging them without conscious thought. Whis begins teaching this method to both Goku and Vegeta when they start training with him, though he concedes that even Beerus hasn't perfected it despite being a Destroyer God millions of years older than they are. During the Tournament of Power, Goku temporarily achieves a perfected Ultra Instinct form as a result of getting hit with his own collapsing spirit bomb, but it wears off when the energy from the spirit bomb is used up.
• Super-Senses:
  • Goku hears Bulma talking through a wall about Vegeta leaving to train with Whis despite the fact that she isn't talking that loud. He does this again when he hears Krillin talking about Vegeta leaving to train with Whis without him, despite being several yards away harvesting his farm.
  • Jaco has one of the best eyesights in the series. He is able to keep up with Goku and Frieza's fight when only Gohan and Vegeta could see anything. Even when Goku become a Super Saiyan Blue and Frieza transforms into Golden Frieza, he can still see everything. It's thanks to Jaco's keen eyesight that he catches Frost cheating by poisoning his opponents with a needle hidden in his arm, something that everyone, including Beerus, Champa, Vados, and Whis, missed. When Goku can't detect Hit's movements, he goes to Jaco and ask him if he can see Hit move. Jaco can't because Hit seems to disappears for a split second. This clues the Galactic King that Hit is Time-Leaping, in which Hit pauses time for 0.1 seconds.
• Super Spit:
  • Magetta's magma breath is really magma spit.
• Supreme Chef: As it turns out, this is Earth's particular hat in the universe. Heck, it's to the point where the likes of Instant Ramen, and a regular head of lettuce, is considered supremely delectable to the palette of a space-faring god like Beerus. It's even to the point where the food is one of the main reasons Beerus hasn't destroyed Earth, with Bulma acting as a Barrier Maiden by treating him and Whis.
• Survival Through Self-Sacrifice: Frieza is brought in as the final member of Team Universe 7 for the Tournament of Power. He's initially only out to manipulate everyone so that he can use the Super Dragon Balls to wish himself back to life. However, as things get more desperate, he's forced to put aside his animosity and cooperate with his uneasy allies. In the finale, Frieza puts full trust in Goku and both of them perform a Heroic Sacrifice to ring out Jiren, with Frieza knowing full well this will cost him his wish and he will be returned to hell. Yet to his surprise, in thanks to his crucial efforts in helping Universe 7 survive, Beerus asks Whis to resurrect Frieza, and he is returned back to life.
• Sword of Damocles: More or less the reason Frieza's minions bring him back to life: the empire is falling to pieces without Frieza around, so they resurrect him so people will fear his wrath again and get back in line.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Vegeta feels sorry for Copy-Vegeta when he hears that he's controlled by the Commeson. He shows real pride when his Evil Counterpart fights off the control and punches Copy-Gryll into a rock face.

T

• Take That, Audience!:
  • When Whis is explaining to Goku and Vegeta who Zeno is and how he rules the multiverse, Goku asks Whis if Zeno is strong. Whis criticizes the fact that Saiyans have a bad habit of judging people based on their strength.
  • Episode 52 shows Gohan living his life with his family and Future Trunks' reactions to it. Instead of being upset or disappointed that Gohan is no longer the badass he remembers from the Cell Games, he's happy and envious of Gohan for being able to live his dream, while his happiness was viciously stolen from him. This can be seen as a commentary on the fandom who wants Gohan to be an all-powerful badass again to the point that they want Gohan to lose his entire family to provide motivation, and thought that Trunks would lecture Gohan for getting weaker and tell him how important it is for him to train. Future Trunks is everything the fandom wishes Gohan was, and he's an extremely unhappy and damaged person from all the trauma he's been forced to suffer through.
  • For fans who always wanted to see Vegeta go Super Saiyan 3 in canon, Future Trunks asks Vegeta to fight at full power and become a Super Saiyan 3 like Goku. Vegeta laughs and then transforms into a Super Saiyan Blue.
• Taking the Bullet:
  • Piccolo takes a ki blast from Frieza which was meant to kill Gohan. Again.
  • Vegeta protects Trunks from an attack fired by Merged Zamasu.
• Taking You with Me:
  • A nonlethal example occurs early in the Tournament of Power, when Nink tries to take out Goku by surprising him with a suppression hold and jumping off the arena, a move calculated to remove one of the biggest threats to his team. Goku escapes at the last second by going Blue and breaking the hold.
  • Tenshinhan and Hermila effectively do this to each other as their various tactics don't quite manage to secure victory.
• Talking Is a Free Action:
  • Averted. During the fight between Beerus and Super Saiyan God Goku, Goku decides to have a conversation with Beerus, who takes the opportunity to make a surprise attack on Goku.
  • Averted earlier by Goku who punches Beerus mid-sentence.
  • Played straight in the Golden Frieza saga. Frieza's troops wait around for several minutes at a time while the Z Fighters give each other protracted motivational speeches.
  • Piccolo takes the time to brag about how he manipulated Frost throughout their entire match as he finishes charging the Special Beam Cannon. It cost him the match since it gave Frost time to poison him.
• A Taste of Defeat: Goku Black and Future Zamasu hands Goku his first true and utter defeat since Beerus. Before then, all of Goku's losses were due to outside forces (Sorbet shooting him while his guard was down), cheating ( Frost poisoning him with a hidden needle), or on his own terms ( him forfeiting against Hit).
• Tautological Templar:
  • Goku Black acknowledges that Future Trunks may find his actions cruel, but nonetheless states that he's doing what must be done, and that it's his duty to wipe out all mortals and correct the gods' mistakes. It takes a whole new level when it's revealed that he personally murdered his fellow gods to carry out his plan, which he justifies to Gowasu by claiming that the other gods would never understand his ideals.
  • After being caught purple blade handed trying to kill Gowasu, Zamasu's master demands to know why he did it since he's supposed to be a Supreme Kai. Zamasu scoffs at him, saying that he's only doing the gods' justice.
  • Just like Future Zamasu and Goku Black, Merged Zamasu believes that he's righteous and everything he does is justice by the gods. This is despite him committing mass-murdering, ruining the planet he's trying to 'save', and killing all the other gods except himself. Basically, he's a making a perfect multiverse, just for him.
• Technician/Performer Team-Up: By the time of the Tournament of Power, many of the allies Goku recruits for Universe 7 are well behind the overall power curve of the greatest fighters, but are still able to participate and contribute due to their technical mastery. Master Roshi, Tien, and Piccolo are all prominent examples.
• Teleportation:
  • Goku can teleport to any location as long as he can sense energy. He initially couldn't freely teleport to Beerus' planet because he couldn't sense god energy and had to rely on Whis for transportation. As he grows stronger, he can now sense Beerus and his energy sense has increased to the point that he can feel a powered up Trunks from Earth, when before it took Gohan releasing all his remaining energy for Goku to sense it during the Resurrection 'F' Saga.
  • Because Goku Black copied all of Goku's moveset, he can perform the Instant Transmission. Goku learned this the hard way when he thought he had an advantage over Goku Black during their second battle.
  • Despite being defused from Kibito, the Supreme Kai can still use the Instant Movement, suggesting that he always knew it even without Kibito.
  • It is heavily hinted that Zamasu also knows the Instant Movement, the most advance teleportation technique in the series. Unlike the Instant Transmission where one has to seek out energy to teleport, the Instant Movement can go to any world in the lower realm and even the different universes. Which is how Zamasu was able to move between U7 and U10 in the span of the morning.
• Teleport Spam: During his fight with Copy-Vegeta, Goku spams his Instant Transmission to confuse Copy-Vegeta.
• Temporal Paradox: We come to find out that the events of the Future Trunks Saga happened because of a Stable Time Loop. In the Dragon World, if you travel to the past and changed something, you create an alternative timeline instead of changing the past, much like how the main timeline is different from Future Trunks' timeline. However, with the Time Rings used by the Supreme Kais, one can travel forward in time, make changes, and not create an alternative timeline. In other words, you can alter the future. That is what Present Zamasu did. He went into the future, used the Super Dragon Balls to take Goku's body to become Goku Black, traveled to Future Trunks' timeline to recruit Future Zamasu, and then go on to kill off all the gods in the future timeline and wipe out the mortals from all 12 universes, which eventually leads Goku Black to Earth and Future Trunks going into the past for help. Goku Black follows him, where Goku, Beerus, and Whis sees him with the latter identifying Goku Black's Time Ring. This leads to a series of events where Goku fights Zamasu to see if he's Goku Black and beats him, which is Zamasu's Start of Darkness since he becomes obsessed with Goku and solidifies his hatred of mortals. This eventually leads to Zamasu killing his master, taking the Time Ring, and going into the future where the cycle begins again. The cycle is broken when Beerus kills Present Zamasu before he can murder Gowasu (apparently a god killing another god doesn't create an alternative timeline), however, Goku Black still exists since he's wearing a Time Ring that protects him from any changes in time. In other words, Goku Black is now a walking paradox since he shouldn't exist. We later found out, however, this paradox fixed itself by simply creating an alternative timeline, the very thing Beerus was trying to avoid.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Sorbet calls his idea to revive Frieza and have him restore the empire foolproof. He is shocked that Frieza's first order of business is revenge, instead of using his power to restore his failing empire. He also calls Frieza's victory assured, just before Frieza's endurance tanks.
  • Tagoma brags about his steel body being hardened thanks to his training with Frieza and nothing can compared to the pain Frieza put him through. Not even a second later, Gotenks headbutts him below the belt, sending him cuddling on the ground for several minutes.
  • Done twice in the Piccolo vs. Frost match. Frost declares that he won after he kicks Piccolo seemingly into a ring-out. Piccolo wraps his arm around Frost's body so he can't move away from his Special Beam Cannon. Piccolo says that Frost made a mistake in underestimating him and he has been manipulating Frost the entire time, which is why he lost. Frost then poisons Piccolo, causing him to lose control of the Special Beam Cannon and Frost blasts a hole through Piccolo.
  • Frost talks about how he's going to poison Vegeta to death and how he no longer has to hide his true power. Frost goes down in one punch, not even touching Vegeta.
  • Vegeta thinks Magetta will be an easy match since he's too slow to hit him. Then Magetta not only speeds up, but he becomes so powerful that Vegeta is forced to transform. On top of that, Magetta's metal body can withstand Vegeta's attacks, including the Final Flash.
  • Hit tells Goku that no matter what he do he can never counter his Time-Skipping ability. Goku then proceeds to counter the technique and lands a solid blow against Hit.
  • Merged Zamasu spends most of his existence declaring himself the Top God of all creation. The moment the actual Top God sees what he's done, Zamasu is Deader than Dead with no effort at all.
• Tender Tears: Merged Zamasu sheds these during the final battle as he relates that his actions are done for the sake of a better world and universe. This may be a tragic display of his original good intentions and subsequent descent into hypocritical insanity.
• Terrible Artist: Jaco's drawing of Frieza.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry:
  • After Goku Black and Future Zamasu revealed that Black murdered Chi-Chi and Goten after stealing his body and killing him, Goku loses it, saying this trope almost word-by-word, before beating the mess out of them:
  Goku: I won't forgive you! You…. took over my body. You even killed Chi-Chi and Goten! I'm mad… I'm seriously mad now! I ain't ever going to forgive you!
  • Actually invoked by Goku Black. After witnessing Vegeta's growth, he deduces that Vegeta's power came from his anger (seeing his son hurt and his world destroyed). So, he decides to used his own anger towards the mortals and losing to Goku in a sparring match to become stronger. Thing is, he never visible shows anger. His demeanor and voice are completely calm, while he tells Vegeta about his inner rage.
• Theme Music Power-Up:
  • "Chozetsu Dynamic" roars to life at the climax of Goku and Hit's battle, when Goku unveils his trump card: Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken.
  • An instrumental arrangement of "Limit Breaker X Survivor" plays as Goku charges up a Spirit Bomb to attack Jiren. The same arrangement plays a few episodes later as the Universe 7 team struggle with and overcome the Universe 2 and 6 teams.
• This Cannot Be!:
  • Frieza says this word for word after he loses to Vegeta and his golden form fades out.
  • Zamasu cannot comprehend how a "lowly mortal" could rival the powers of a God and his face practically screams this trope when Goku manages to get the best of him during their spar.
  • Vegeta says this almost word-by-word after Goku Black impales him with an energy sword.
  • Goku Black's reaction in Episode 63 when Vegeta begins to overpower and beat him down. He quickly gets over it and uses the revelation that anger make mortals stronger to increase his own strength.
  • Future Zamasu's reaction when Future Trunks uses the Evil Containment Wave on him, he is completely shocked at how it is possible.
    Zamasu: How... how can... how can this be how it ends?!
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • Beerus' reaction as he realizes that Monaka is going to fight Hit since Goku forfeited his match and he is their last fighter. Piccolo reacts the same way, you can hear him mentally groaning.
  • Hit's face when he sees how pissed Champa is for him losing and saying how he's going to kill him.
  • Although not said in words, Goku expresses this sentiment to Future Trunks when they're cornered by Goku Black and Future Zamasu, both who are able to beat him up as a Super Saiyan Blue, and Trunks only being a Super Saiyan 2. Goku can only tell Trunks to give it all they have and hopefully live long enough to come up with a plan. Also, when Goku Black fires his Kamehameha at them and Future Zamasu holds them in place, Trunks gives a classic Oh, Crap! expression, while Goku only grunts in resignation.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Once Goku learns that Goku Black stole his body and murdered his family in another timeline, he declares that he will never forgive him before beating the crap out of Black and Future Zamasu.
• Thousand-Yard Stare:
  • Gohan has this expression after he burns through all his energy so Goku can sense his energy from Beerus' planet.
  • Everyone gets this expression after Frieza destroys the Earth.
• Throw the Dog a Bone:
  • After being completely overshadowed by Goku since the Cell Games, Vegeta not only catches up with his rival, but surpasses him slightly. It doesn't last long, but he's finally within Goku's league again after over a decade of being left in the dust. He also gets some much needed payback on Frieza, takes down Frieza's just as evil counterpart, Frost, in one attack, and defeats Magetta and Cabba before being beating by Hit.
  • Pilaf and his gang, the perennial butt monkeys of the Dragon Ball franchise, walk away one million zenny richer and with no comeuppance. As an added bonus, they even get the best ice cream in the universe in this version.
  • Krillin finally gets to show how much stronger he has become in front of Frieza, surprising the tyrant greatly since he still saw Krillin as that pest he murdered on Namek.
  • After all the crap thrown his way, after being mocked repeatedly by both Goku Black and Future Zamasu about his inability to save anyone and his repeated failures, Future Trunks gets his payback against the two of them by cleaving Merged Zamasu, the Potara fusion of Zamasu and Goku Black, in half during Episode 66, ultimately managing to keep his promise of protecting his world.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: During his fight with Goku Black, Trunks throws his sword at Black in time to divert his attack that would have killed him. During his fourth fight against Goku Black, he does this again in order to close the distance and blast his opponent with a point-blank Galick Gun.
• Time Machine:
  • Trunks and his time machine return. After the first is destroyed, Bulma fixes up the one Cell used.
  • The Supreme Kais possess Time Rings which allow them to travel into the future and back to the present, but not to the past, in order to prevent changing history. As well, the rings can only be used by the Supreme Kais, who would be expected to only use them responsibly. Originally, there was one silver-colored Ring for each universe, but due to Future Trunks' use of the time machine in this arc, and the previous events of the Android/Cell Saga, four green duplicates were created, one for each alternate timeline. Goku Black has one of these rings, and he can use it to travel into the past. However, in this case he was following Trunks into the past, and was dragged back to his present in a few minutes.
• Time Master:
  • Whis can rewind time by three minutes, allowing him to do-over any mistakes. The only known limit is that he can't do it twice in a row.
  • Hit shocks everyone by having a time manipulating ability as well. He can freeze time for 0.1 seconds, given him more than enough time to strike his opponent's vital spots and coming close to killing them. Whis says that he's surprise that there is someone other than him who can control time. Hit then shocks everyone again when he reveals that he can take the Time-Leaping technique up to 0.5 seconds and beyond since he keeps improving himself as he fights Goku.
• Time-Passage Beard: After spending three years (from their perspective) inside the Room of Spirit and Time, both Goku and Vegeta have full beards.
• Time Police: Whis mentions that time travel is supposed to be restricted to the gods, and even then they are limited in their use of it. The fact that Future Bulma built a working time machine is enough for Beerus to consider destroying it and everyone who knows of it. Given this is Beerus, however, he's quickly bribed into giving them a pass with some fish sausages.
• Time Stands Still: Hit can stop time for a brief moment, allowing him to avoid attacks and counter them. For characters like Goku, they can only see him vanish, but once Goku figures this out, he's able to predict how Hit will attack.
• Time Travel:
  • Whis has the at-will ability to go backward in time a short period. It can't be used twice in a row, however.
  • Future Trunks and his mother's time machine are back. The catch is that he uses up all the fuel getting back, so it's up to Present Bulma to get it working again.
  • Goku Black has a Time Ring which allows him to follow Trunks back through time. These are supposed to be exclusive to the Supreme Kais, raising questions as to where he got it.
• Time Skip:
  • Episode 17 jumps ahead six months, passing by Videl's pregnancy. It's also meant to jump ahead far enough for the Dragon Balls to be active again so Frieza can be wished back to life.
  • The start of the Champa Saga takes place at least eight months after the Resurrection 'F' Saga.
  • The Universe Survival Arc takes place months after the resolution of the Future Trunks Saga, as Bulma is about to give birth to Bra.
• Time to Unlock More True Potential:
  • The reason why Frieza went into training. Once he was made aware of how much stronger Goku has become since he's been dead, he realizes that the only way to get his revenge is to unlock his inner latent power. By the time he arrives on Earth, his raw power surpasses Goku even as a Super Saiyan Blue.
  • After Piccolo helps reawakened Gohan's Ultimate form, he believes that Gohan can become much stronger. He largely succeeds since he can fight somewhat on par with Super Saiyan Blue Goku.

• Token Evil Teammate:
  • Frost becomes this to the U6 team after his true nature is revealed.
  • In contrast to Sidra, Rō is a Supreme Kai who happens to be a gigantic, underhanded, spiteful Jerkass. Kibito and Beerus both note that his behavior is very unbecoming for a Supreme Kai. That said, he isn't really 'evil', just extremely petty. As Goku Black notes, not even he would've approved of his Zero Mortals Plan, which is why he needed to kill him in the future timeline.
  • After Buu fell asleep mere hours before the Tournament of Power, Goku decides to replaced him with Frieza. No one, not even Goku, is happy about the arrangement, but he's the best overall choice as a last minute replacement. To make it worse, one of the conditions for Frieza joining is reviving him using the Earth's Dragon Balls.
• Token Good Teammate: Deconstructed with Sidra, the God of Destruction from Universe 9: Despite being a God of Destruction, his character profile indicates that he can hardly destroy anything due to his indecisive personality. He also doesn't seem to have the smug attitude of Rō or the Trio De Dangers. However, his indecisive personality and the guidance of a rotten Supreme Kai like Rō has led Universe 9 to have the lowest mortal level.
• Too Awesome to Use: Super Saiyan God, as in the initial state. While it's unrefined and constantly leaking ki, it also has the unique property of continuously increasing in power the longer it's in play. Multiple times Goku hits his limit, but then his reservoir of ki expands exponentially and he gets right back up again, to the point he becomes an even match for Beerus in power. However, the form eventually expires, and while Goku retains the boost of physical might and learns to temper God Ki into the stronger Super Saiyan Blue, he does not retain the nigh-infinite reserve of energy the original form possessed.
• Too Clever by Half: Goku Black's plan to kill mortals and take over the multiverse as the supreme god was nearly flawless outside of two major errors. He didn't seem to noticed that Goku's body was corrupting him since he didn't have the desire for immortality, only gaining more power. This error gimped Merged Zamasu's immortality and made it possible for the heroes to destroy his physical body. His second major error, not coming up with a counter to deal with Zeno outside of probably hoping that Merged Zamasu could beat him.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Goku, naturally, takes a lot of levels in badass in the series:
    • After turning into a Super Saiyan God, Goku is able to fight Beerus more even terms. Their battle threatens to tear apart the entire universe as a side effect of their attacks and as an added bonus, Goku keeps the power of godhood after his loses the transformation.
    • Despite Frieza being more powerful than ever, Goku is able to beat his true form without going Super Saiyan. Keep in mind, Goku's base form was originally only as strong as Frieza's original maximum power. He is also able to go beyond godhood without using the power of others.
    • Goku shows just how far he has come by training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber for three years along with all his training from Whis. He manages to successfully combine his Kaioken with Super Saiyan Blue and can take it up to 10X. It was originally thought to be impossible to combine Super Saiyan with Kaioken since the Kaioken puts a lot of strain on ones' body and a regular Super Saiyan was stressful enough.
    • After finding out that Goku Black murdered alternate versions of Chi-Chi and Goten after stealing his body, Goku becomes so mad that he powers up and beats the crap out of Black and Future Zamasu.
    • In their rematched, Goku is able to counter Hit's advance Time-Skip techniques without the Kaioken.
    • In the Champa Saga, just activating the the Kaioken with Super Saiyan Blue had a 10% success rate and failure meant Goku would severely hurt his body or even kill him. By the Universal Survival Saga, Goku can activate the Kaioken as much as he wants, multiple times, without any distress.
    • In the Universal Survival Saga, he challenges Golden Frieza to a spar. Keep in mind that Golden Frieza not only overpowered Goku in the Resurrection 'F' Saga, but he has gotten even stronger from mental training in Hell. Goku and Frieza both knock each other out in one punch, showing that Goku is Golden Frieza's equal even if he has gotten stronger.
  • Vegeta goes up several levels too as he become Goku's true rival once again:
    • Even if it was just for a moment, Vegeta surpassed Goku despite only being a Super Saiyan 2. He hit Beerus several times and took him by surprise.
    • When Goku meets Vegeta after he's been training with Whis for six months, he says that Vegeta caught up to or even surpassed him. Whis also notes that both Goku and Vegeta are beginning to sense god energy.
    • Vegeta is able to reach the same level of Super Saiyan as Goku and he did it without the Super Saiyan God ritual, something Goku specifically noted.
    • In the Future Trunks Saga, Vegeta powers up so much from his six months of training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber that he can savagely beat up Goku Black despite his major improvements.
  • Frieza manages to rival the Saiyans in the levels of badass in the short time of his revival:
    • Frieza in his first form has the power to kill Super Saiyan Gohan, who is only somewhat weaker than Buu Saga Ultimate Gohan (even if he can't keep it up for long). He also murders Piccolo with one well placed Death Beam, who is many times stronger than his original maximum form.
    • In his true form, he can more or less keep up with Goku, even if Goku has an edge, at a point in time where Goku's base form makes Super Saiyan 3 look like a complete joke.
    • Golden Frieza, Frieza's new ultimate form. In this form, he surpasses any known form of Super Saiyan, including a Super Saiyan Blue. It is even more powerful compared to its movie counterpart since he is able to easily beat Goku into the ground with it. The biggest drawback of this form is that Frieza's power drops drastically and he only maintains his full power for less than a minute.
    • When he returns in the Universal Survival Saga, he mastered his golden form in Hell using mental training so he no longer have the stamina drain issue. He's also stronger to the point of matching Super Saiyan Blue Goku who have also gotten much stronger.
  • Even the Frieza Force manages to improve thanks to Shisami and Tagoma:
    • When Sorbet introduced him to Frieza, Shisami was said to be as strong as Zarbon and Dodoria. When the invasion begins, he's within Piccolo's league of power and able to easily deflect Gohan's energy blasts.
    • Tagoma even more so. He went from only being around Zarbon and Dodoria's level, to being able to put a hole through both Shisami and Gohan. Granted, their guard was lowered at the time.
  • During Frieza's invasion, Piccolo ranks around or slightly below Shisami's level, who is in turn completely ineffective against an untransformed Gohan. After about six-to-eight months of training with Gohan, Piccolo is an even match if not slightly stronger than Gohan's base form, even though Gohan himself has greatly improved as well. He is also able to dodge and take attacks from Frost's true form, who is way stronger than Frieza. Granted, Frost was holding back since it was a tournament and was trying not to kill Piccolo. He also underestimates Piccolo, which nearly cost him the match.
  • Universal 6's team manages to become stronger, while they're fighting:
    • Cabba is already a badass since he is able to match Vegeta's base form even after he trained with Whis for almost two years and got an additional three years of training inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. He, however, falls behind Vegeta since he can't become a Super Saiyan, not even knowing that the form existed until he saw Goku transform. After Vegeta purposely pushes him to his Rage Breaking Point, he ascends and gives Super Saiyan Vegeta a run for his money. He is then one-shotted by Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta to show how much farther he can go and the levels he can achieve if he trains hard enough.
    • In just a few minutes of fighting Goku, Hit increases his Time-Skip ability from 0.1 to 0.5, utterly demolishing Super Saiyan Blue Goku. He does it again when he manages to time skip Goku when he's using his Super Saiyan Blue/Kaioken combo that originally overwhelmed him. During the time after the tournament, Hit learns how to create a pocket dimension where he stores all the time he uses from his Time-Skip, giving him a phase ability.
  • Future Trunks goes up several levels when he reveals that he defeated Dabura and Babidi in his time, stopping Majin Buu's revival. Keep in mind that Dabura is as powerful as Super Perfect Cell and the last time Trunks fought, he was weaker than Perfect Cell, and he can become a Super Saiyan 2. He also manages to take another one after some training with Vegeta and he's able to perform the Final Flash. He even gets a new transformation that lets him fight Goku Black and Future Zamasu at the same time.
  • According to Future Trunks, Goku Black is as strong or stronger than Super Saiyan 3 Goku. After fighting Goku in the past and growing stronger, he is able to fight almost evenly with Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta in base form. He then reveals that he can transform into what he calls a Super Saiyan Rosé and takes Vegeta down with a single strike. He then overwhelms Super Saiyan Blue Goku and claims to be getting stronger. Before fusing with Zamasu, he regains his advantage over Vegeta, who severely overpowered him, by using his anger to become powerful, rip a hole in dimensions, and create endless clones.
  • Future Zamasu can fight against Super Saiyan Blue Goku on almost even footing. This is the same person whose present counterpart was overwhelmed by Super Saiyan 2 Goku when they first met.
  • As a result of Goku and Vegeta's individual improvements, It stands to reason that Vegito himself is many times stronger than before, and he has access to Super Saiyan Blue on top of it.
  • No.17 went from being curb stomped by Imperfect Cell to being able to trade blows with Super Saiyan Blue Goku, giving him one of the biggest power jumps since Frieza.
  • In the Universal Survival Saga, Piccolo is able to overpower Super Saiyan 2 Gohan during their training. Keep in mind, in the Resurrection 'F' Saga base form Gohan was stronger than him and he was only about even with Gohan by the time of the Champa Saga. This shows that Piccolo's power greatly jumped since his last real fight.
  • Gohan not only regains his Ultimate form, he can fight Super Saiyan Blue Goku at his full power.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Upon fusing, Merged Zamasu loses much of the pragmatic traits that made Goku Black and Future Zamasu so dangerous; rather than finishing off Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks, he choses to toy around with them and tends to use his techniques to show off. He also keeps underestimating his enemies and cannot accept that the "lowly mortals" managed to even scratch him. Like Future Zamasu, he also tends to go on Motive Rants in the middle of the battle, which leaves him wide open. If he had more of Black's personality aside from his mood swings, there is no denying that he would have easily won since he would have killed his enemies at the first opportunity and would've kept his cool under pressure. Instead, his arrogance ended up allowing Future Trunks to destroy his body. This goes even further when he turns into an Eldritch Abomination, as his madness has now consumed his mind completely.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Buu comes out as of a jerk after he makes his Heel–Face Turn. Throughout the Battle of Gods Sage, all he ever does is intimidate Mr. Satan for more food and actually pushes him out of the way so he can fight Beerus over pudding.
  • Tagoma went from someone who cared about his comrades and boss, Sorbet, to someone who has no problem shooting Shisami in the back to kill an enemy and openly mocks Sorbet for being soft and his failure to keep the empire together.
  • Since they follow a similar path to darkness, Future Zamasu goes from a kind-hearted Kai who wants to protect the universe from the foolishness of mortals, to helping Goku Black murder people in coldblood. He even wants to kill Goku for daring to be a mortal who fights gods, despite never even personally meeting him before. Present Zamasu becomes so hardened in his belief that mortals are evil that he's willing to commit murder on his own master.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • Vegeta not only takes his family on vacation, but he puts up with a lot before finally leaving. He also comes to Bulma's party on his own before learning that Beerus was coming, granted Bulma had to yell at him before he came, but it still counts. And after failing to stop Beerus, Vegeta is ashamed not because his pride is hurt, but because he failed to protect everyone. A huge change from the selfish Jerkass he was in the past. We see even more of his Character Development during the Champa Saga. When Cabba asks him to teach him how to become a Super Saiyan, Vegeta gets mad at Cabba and beats him, not even allowing him to surrender. He then threatens to kill everyone Cabba's knows and destroys his planet once he's done with him. This is all so Cabba will reach his Rage Breaking Point and become a Super Saiyan. Once he ascends, Vegeta beats Cabba with one punch by becoming a Super Saiyan Blue. He then tells Cabba to surpass him, not just become his equal.
  • Android 18 offers to go with Krillin to fight Frieza after Krillin laments that he won't be killed a second time by the same person. In the movie, she offers to takes Krillin's place because she's much stronger than him and therefor will be more useful. Here, the offer is done more out of concern for his life. This also shows development for her character since she is more willing to show her concern for her husband when before she tries to hide behind an air of indifferent.
  • Beerus is much nicer to Goku and Vegeta, and sees no problem letting them train on his planet. He does find them unbearably noisy, however, so he has Whis warp them somewhere that will make them stronger without bothering him. He seems to tolerate them because he wants them to become stronger so he can fight them again. He also sets up Monaka as the greatest fighter in Universe 7 to encourages Goku and Vegeta to become stronger, while in reality Monaka is much weaker than them.
  • In Resurrection 'F' Whis rewinds time so he can get a feast out of it. Here, he didn't say why he gives Goku another chance, although it's hinted that he wants what happen to be a learning experience.
  • Buu has come a long way from the selfish child that he was at the beginning of the series. Goku offers Buu to have a wish from the Super Dragon Balls if he fights in the tournament. He agrees, only that he has nothing to wish for since Mr. Satan has given him everything he ever wanted and wants him to have the wish.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • King Vegeta, who was ordered to get Beerus the most comfortable pillow in the universe. He did find the pillow, with Beerus noting he likely stole it from another planet and killed to get it... and then kept that one, giving Beerus the second-best one. At least that's the theory Beerus comes up with since he didn't like the pillow King Vegeta gave him.
  • Despite all the chances giving to Frieza to turn away and go back to his empire, he just can't let go of his pride and spite. It ends up getting him kill, yet again, and taking what was left of his empire with him.
  • Frost bragging about all his misdeeds in front of an angry Champa, who is disgusted to have someone like Frost on his team. Champa is ready to kill him and only stops because Vegeta wants to fight Frost. After he loses to Vegeta, he tries to steal Champa's prize treasure and ship. When Hit catches him, Frost is terrified that Champa sent him to kill him. It comes back to haunt him in Episode 71 as he is now a wanted fugitive on the run in Universe 6 thanks to Cabba bringing to light his real intentions and actions in Universe 6.
  • From Zamasu's point-of-view, mortal are this since they keep repeating the same mistake of flourishing and war. They're so dumb that he feels that the gods should just destroy all the mortals and put them out of their misery for universal peace.
  • What does Present Zamasu do when he was confirmed as Gowasu's murderer? Escape to hide away from everyone else who knew of his plans to gain immortality and create a Black Goku? Nope, he attempts to kill Goku, thinking everything has come to full-circle since Goku tells him that succeeds in the future. And what happens after that? Beerus grabs his hand mid-attack and atomized him.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Although copied by the "Superhuman Water" of Planet Potaufeu, Copy-Vegeta has the original's indomitable will and refuses to be controlled by the Commeson. However, the clone also has Vegeta's stubbornness and desire for power, so it's still bad news for everyone else.
• Top God:
  • Beerus and Champa are both Gods of Destruction in their respective universes, making them far stronger than the Kais, the Gods of Creation.
  • Whis and Vados blows Beerus and Champa away in power and they have a powerset that would be right at home in DCU since they are Reality Warpers who can create their own environment and put items in Pocket Dimensions.
  • The god of the multiverse, Zeno shows up in Episode 40. Despite his looks, Beerus and Champa are freaked out by his mere presence. He has the power to destroy all 12 universes instantly.
  • Gowasu is the head god of Universe 10 and is training Zamasu to be his successor.
  • Merged Zamasu declares himself to be the supreme god of the multiverse upon his birth and proves his superiority by easily stomping Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks. He becomes even more powerful after losing his physical body and merging with the universe, wiping almost all life in just a few minutes. He then meets Future Zeno, the true top god of the multiverse. To call this a Curb-Stomp Battle would suggest that Merged Zamasu had even a slight chance at winning.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Toppo has an extremely bulky upper body but comparatively tiny legs.
• Tough Love: Vegeta's bread and butter. Even after becoming nicer to his family and friends, he still a tough person to please. The way he helps Cabba to achieve Super Saiyan is to beat the crap out of him, threatened to murder his family, and blow up his planet. He also beats on Future Trunks as a Super Saiyan Blue and calls it training. Despite the physical abuse, his heart is in the right place, and the people he manhandles are grateful to him in the end.
• Tournament Arc: Wouldn't be Dragon Ball without at least one of these. The Champa Saga kicks off an universal tournament against Universes 6 and 7. If Beerus wins, he gets the Super Dragon Balls. If Champa wins, he gets the Earth. Zeno enjoyed the tournament between U7 and U6 so much that he wants to hold his own tournament in the near future, with all 12 universes.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Gowasu loves his tea, so much that he has some at hand in every single appearance. Zamasu's main job seems to be to serve it up for him, which he uses as a gauge of Zamasu's character, saying that the flavor will be marred if made by one with flawed intentions.
• Tragic Dream: When Future Trunks visits present day Gohan, he gets to see the happy family Gohan made for himself. He briefly imagines what his life would be like if Goku Black never invaded his world. We get a scene of Trunks having dinner with his mom, Mai, and even Scratch (the black cat) in the background. This causes Trunks to break down into tears since he knows that such a thing can never happen since his mom is dead and so is Mai (so he thinks).
• Training from Hell:
  • Goku thinks part of the training is doing chores like changing Beerus' sheets without waking him and being killed and weeding the grass. He's then told by Vegeta that this isn't training, this is just ordinary housework. When they do finally train, they have to go around the planet while carrying heavy stone weights on their wrists. Not too bad, except the road they're running is slowly disappearing and if they fall they will go into through another dimension and never be able to return. Whis then suddenly teleports them in front of Beerus, who randomly shoots them with a mouth blast, nearly killing them. Goku actually doesn't mind, but he hates the house chores, saying he doesn't even do this stuff at his own house.
  • Deconstructed with Vegeta. After the events of the Frieza Saga, Vegeta puts himself though torturous training sessions that some times leaves him bedridden, like training in 150 or more gravity, while Goku only trains at 10g at most. Despite all his hard work, he can't surpass Goku who also works hard, but doesn't destroy himself while training. This is best shown when Vegeta is working out late at night while Goku sleeps only a few feet away from him. It is explained by Whis that Vegeta works too hard and doesn't allow his body to properly rest, which slows his reaction time and keeps him from reaching his maximum potential.
  • Frieza puts himself through this to awakening all his latent power so he can challenge Goku and get his revenge.
  • Tagoma is forced into this, becoming Frieza's practice partner for four months. Although, the training is only a side effect of Frieza using Tagoma to learn how to nearly kill a person. Frieza wants to have Goku helpless and on the cusp of death for as long as possible.
  • To prepared for the first universal tournament Goku and Vegeta train for three years straight in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. During the Cell Saga, Goku disliked spending a year there, calling it torturing their bodies.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Unlike the movie where Goku is rather uncaring about Frieza, he shows much more emotions here given that Frieza murdered Piccolo, badly wounded Gohan, and keeps trying to kill his friends during their fight. Although he never raises his voice except once, he tells Frieza that he feels nothing but contempt and anger towards him, and doesn't even feel his normal excitement at facing a strong opponent to boot. Goku also shows this again when he's pushed to his Rage Breaking Point by Future Zamasu and Black Goku. He freaks out for a couple of seconds, understandably. But then afterwards adopts a scowl and wordlessly proceeds to brutalize Goku Black and Zamasu at the same time with the only true display of emotion being the occasional snarl of utter hatred and rage.
  • Vegeta's interaction with Frost. He is disgusted that Frost turns out to be just as bad as Frieza and reminds him too much of his former boss. Still, he keeps his cool and takes Frost down quickly. He is practically made of it in the Future Trunks Arc, considering how Goku Black killed Future Bulma and tried to kill his son. It stands out the most in Episode 63 where he beats Goku Black to a pulp and is clearly incandescent with rage, but it only manifests through the sheer brutality of his attacks and his scathing "Reason You Suck" Speech about how he's on the end of a beating instead of dishing it out.
  • Despite his Hot-Blooded temperament, Beerus slips fully into this when killing Zamasu. No yelling, no screaming, he just sticks his hand in front of Zamasu's face, utters the word "Destroy", and watches him be completely disintegrated with the only sign of his rage being an irritated glare.
  • Future Zeno slips into this once he meets what's left of Merged Zamasu. He is not happy with what he has done to his multiverse.
  • Toppa's anger at Goku for dooming their universe to possible extinction only manifests itself as a Twitchy Eye and an eagerness to pummel him into the dirt.
• Transformation Is a Free Action:
  • Defied when Tagoma sees Gohan powering up to fight Shisami and sneak-attacks him.
  • Frieza also attempts to subvert this and shoots Goku while he is transforming. Goku just gently tells him to knock it off.
  • Goku tells Frost to transform into his true form since he believe that he will have similar stamina issues that plagued Frieza. Frost choses to uses his third form, claiming that is his true form. After Goku goes Super Saiyan, Frost decides that Goku is powerful enough to handle his full power and transforms.
  • Despite usually going for quick attacks, Hit allows Vegeta to transform into a Super Saiyan Blue. He then questions Goku when he didn't transform at first, saying he's being foolish. And when Goku is powering up to combine his Super Saiyan Blue form with the Kaioken, Hit allows him to do it, seeing Goku as a Worthy Opponent, despite Champa yelling at him to attack while he has the chance.
  • Goku Black allows Trunks to turn Super Saiyan after he kills Mai, seemingly. It didn't make a bit of difference.
  • The Kamikaze Fireballs of Universe 2 play this for laughs. During the Tournament of Power, they attempt to make a big show of their transformation, only for #17 to blast them in the middle of it. Not only do they chew him out for interrupting, but so do Goku and Toppo. Life or death stakes are apparently no excuse for bad manners. #17 gives up and allows them to go ahead, so they repeat the whole sequence, complete with Beerus and Champa lampshading it.
• Trash Talk:
  • While he is no where near as bad as before, Vegeta likes to talk down to opponents that he especially dislikes like Frieza and Goku Black.
  • Interesting, Goku Black in the anime doesn't do this often except to Future Trunks. He barely acknowledges Vegeta's existence and he sees Goku as his one and only Worthy Opponent.
• Trauma Button: Due to his defeat at Goku's hands and his experience in Hell, any kind of mercy, cruel or otherwise, will trigger an attack of PTSD from Frieza. When he sees Gohan choose to spare Captain Ginyu-in-Tagoma's body after defeating him, Frieza is immediately reminded of Goku's Cruel Mercy towards him back on Namek and has a massive Freak Out, personally stepping into battle and torturing Gohan with Beam Spam until he's left crippled on the ground.
• Trauma Conga Line:
  • Future Trunks has been through his share of trauma. He was born into the world that has been ravaged by the androids, his father died fighting them and he's too young to remember him, and he loses his mentor Gohan to the same androids. He is also humiliated and later killed by Cell during the Cell Games. When he does returns home and kills the androids, and stops Majin Buu's resurrection, things seem to be finally looking up for him. Then, Goku Black arrives, destroys the world in the middle of its recovery from the androids, murders his mom, and traps him in the past so he can kill the rest of humanity unheeded. The pure trauma Goku Black puts him through causes him to developed PTSD and self-worth issues. And in the end, everyone he tries to save is killed by Merged Zamasu except Mai and then his timeline is wiped out completely by Future Zeno to keep Merged Zamasu from spreading into other timelines. The best ending he got is moving into another timeline where Whis warns Future Beerus about Zamasu so he can take care of him. Even then, he had to deal with another version of himself. Ouch.
  • Future Mai has it almost as bad as Future Trunks. As far as we know, Pilaf and Shu are long dead, making her the lone survivor of the Pilaf Gang. She is also a survivor of the android massacre that lasted almost twenty years. Just when things were starting to look better after the death of the androids, Goku Black arrives and destroys the planet. For over a year, she resists him and tries to save as many people as possible, but is utterly helpless against such a monster and is forced to watch people die around her. And just when peace seems to be restored after Trunks sliced Merged Zamasu in half, Merged Zamaus returns, fuses with the multiverse, and murders everyone. By that point, Mai can only scream in denial as she shoots at the sky before collapsing into tears. Things only get worse after Future Zeno destroys the entire timeline to kill Merged Zamasu, erasing everyone from existence. The only solace Whis can give is to create a new timeline for Future Trunks and her before Goku Black kills the Supreme Kais. Even then, it's not her world and there will be another version of Future Mai in it.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: As per franchise tradition, strong emotion is critical to unlocking the power of a Super Saiyan, and this usually takes the form of crossing the Rage Breaking Point. However, this series plays with the tradition in several ways:
  • The Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (or Blue) transformation is an aversion, as it's achieved through complete control of one's ki and, by implication, emotions. Thus the strongest potential transformation is only possible through complete calm rather than strong emotion.
  • Kaulifla, a Saiyan from Universe 6, is such a fighting genius that she doesn't need to become angry to unlock the transformation. She only needs to have Cabba show it to her and explain what it feels like, and she's able to mimic it immediately. Later, she unlocks Super Saiyan 2 out of desperation when she needs to protect Cabba from Kale's berserk form, but she isn't able to repeat the feat until Goku demonstrates it, whereupon she is again able to mimic it by observation.
  • Kale is so shy and timid that she doesn't become angry easily. Initially, she can only awaken her power through jealousy regarding her mentor, Kaulifla, which results in a Berserk form that is powerful but unstable and in which she has no self-control. Later, she is able to control the transformation after she gives into despair over her own uselessness.
• Trickster Mentor: Cabba begs Vegeta to teach him to how become a Super Saiyan so he can better protect his universe from threats. Vegeta becomes angry that Cabba would ask this during their match and beats the crap out of him while he's a Super Saiyan and refuses to allow Cabba to give up. He then threatens to kill everyone Cabba knows after their match. This pushes Cabba over and he ascends to Super Saiyan, exactly as Vegeta had planned.
• Tritagonist: In the Future Trunks Saga, Future Trunks is the third main character alongside Goku and Vegeta since it is his world in peril from Goku Black.
• Troll:
  • Beerus throughout Bulma's birthday party keeps shooting sly looks towards Vegeta when nobody is looking. He also takes great delight and demeaning Vegeta and treating him like a servant.
  • Vados constantly Loophole Abuse her orders from Champa. She makes the barriers protecting everyone not as strong as it could be since Champa said it didn't matter and she brings Frost despite knowing that he's an underground planet broker because Champa told her to bring the strongest fighters in U6, not the strongest moral fighters.
  • Bulma makes Beerus promise that he won't wish for anything bad on the Super Dragon Balls, to which Beerus coyly won't promise anything. When he makes his wish, Bulma asked what he wished for. He claims it's for a more comfortable bed, much to Bulma's annoyance.
  • After Future Trunks learns that Krillin married Android 18, No.18 tells him to pay retribution for killing her alternative future self. She was only joking.
  • The Grand Priest seems to enjoy making all beneath him - even Gods - squirm for his amusement. When the 4 Gods of Destruction from the universes exempt from the Tournament of Power arrive, they examine the stage... and wonder aloud whether it will hold up with 80 fighters battling for the survival of their universes. Cue the Grand Priest floating in, stating that the arena is extremely durable. When he asks the Gods if they want to test it and some show hesitation, the Grand Priest notes that Zeno seems to be bored waiting for the Tournament to start... implying the Gods might be punished or erased from existence if they do not do battle.
    
    In the end, 3 of the Gods of Destruction agree to battle... and almost completely destroy the arena despite its supposed durability. When they ask if Zeno enjoyed the show at least, the Grand Priest states that Zeno has been sleeping the whole time... then "asks" the Gods to repair the arena for him, as the Grand Priest - someone established to have absurd amounts of power - will be busy opening the gates. As the Gods freak out that they're now responsible for repairing the whole arena minutes before the Tournament starts, the Grand Priest floats away.
    
    The scene soon cuts to Gene - the one God of Destruction who didn't participate - with a grin on his face... his earlier decision to stay out of the fight on the basis that "the results are obvious" suddenly makes so much more sense, and implies this is likely not the first time Grand Priest has done something like this.
• Tsundere: Vegeta is a rare male example, although he's better than he used to be since he isn't obsessed with surpassing Goku, although he still wants to. He is more willing to show his Hidden Heart of Gold, but he is still harsh and is unwilling to admit that he cares for anyone, like him trying to deny that he yelled, 'That's My Bulma' when Beerus slaps her. When Beerus asks about his relationship with Goku, Vegeta is unable to really answer since he doesn't want to call Goku a friend, but only halfheartedly calls him an enemy or rival.