Credit: Dragon Ball Super/Toei Animation
Dragon Ball was one of the most popular anime franchises when it launched and showed a child version of Goku. Still, while we may reference him as a child version of one of the most famous anime heroes, it was the first series, and Goku wasn’t referred to as such until the second series Dragon Ball Z depicted the character beyond his 20s, with his wife and kids. As popular as Dragon Ball was, Dragon Ball Z was exponentially more popular, and the intensity for the franchise has been in overdrive since the third iteration of the series, Dragon Ball Super, premiered and has been the current timeline for the series and future films. Each version of the Dragon Ball series has various villains, with stories separated into arcs for grander storylines and easy viewing. Below, we’ve detailed Dragon Ball Super, one of its leading villains, Zamasu, and how his rise to power changed everything about what fans knew about the lore and possibilities of the characters within the franchise.
Credit: Dragon Ball Super/Toei Animation
Dragon Ball Franchise
As stated above, Dragon Ball was the original manga that inspired the anime, which was the overall first series in the grander franchise of Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball depicted events that may have seemed a bit casual at the time but compared to the events they have been tied to in the rest of the franchise make, and they are monumental. Throughout Dragon Ball Z, enemies from the remnants of the Red Ribbon Army appear to be a near-constant foe of the heroes of Dragon Ball Z with the production of the Androids and Cell, as well as the characters from Dragon Ball, plus some fresh new faces. Overall, Dragon Ball introduced characters to every aspect of Dragon Ball Z that fans needed to be accommodated with. Still, Dragon Ball Z introduced viewers to a much less grounded story than Dragon Ball had, with Goku’s past and true power attracting the worst enemies for Earth. However, even with all of the characters introduced throughout Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, Zamasu was one of the most fierce on a universal level. While he did not reference Goku’s past, he had thrown himself into Goku’s life.
Credit: Dragon Ball Super/Toei Animation
Dragon Ball Super
Dragon Ball Super picked up ten years after the Majin Buu saga in Dragon Ball Z, an event heavily tied to the Kai. as he was a Kai in training and an apprentice. However, between the events of the Dragon Ball Z series finale and the debut of Dragon Ball Super, two movies took place during that time. One of the movies, Dragon Ball Z: Ressurection F, featured the return of Frieza from death, but the first film released was the addition of the newest form, at the time, for Goku, Super Sayain God, as he was tasked with defeating the God of Destruction by that very god himself, Beerus. Goku’s ability to gain energy and power exponentially as the series of Dragon Ball progressed into Dragon Ball Super, and this unstoppable gain of power in the series ultimately attracted Zamasu to take over the body of an alternate future’s Goku to create Goku Black.
Credit: Dragon Ball Super/Toei Animation
Zamasu
While Zamasu himself made no reference to Goku’s past like the Red Ribbon Army had time and time again, the introduction of Zamasu did reintroduce audiences to Future Trunks from the Android Saga and his dark reality. Dragon Ball Super did a lot to be strongly inspired by fan work related to Dragon Ball after the release of the final episodes of Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT. While much of Dragon Ball Super was inspired by such works, Zamasu was original, and its storyline was outside of anything the characters had faced. Overall, Zamasu was an apprentice Supreme Kai that went rogue and took over the body of Goku and became Goku Black and then teamed up with another version of himself to wipe out all life, as he took the ode of a Kai beyond seriously. With time travel, Trunks became involved, which was a happy addition to the unexpected with Dragon Ball Super. Ultimately, Zamasu could only have been defeated when the ultimate being throughout the Universes had wiped him out after Goku made friends with the childish being. What made such an extreme case of the defeat of Zamasu needed to be done from Zeno, the ultimate being, was that future Zamasu was invincible and at the finals stage of the evil that was Zamasu, the character transformed into Infinite Zamasu and took over the universe with his essence, and has been noted as one of the most hated.
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