‘Dragon Ball Super’ Confirms Major Detail About Goku’s Origin

Dragon Ball Super: Broly just released its official theme song and music video, which revealed all sorts of action-packed new footage. There were also some key plot details revealed in the midst of all the combat between Goku, Vegeta, and Broly — and one of those details settles a longstanding question about the timeline of Goku’s origin story.

As you can see in the breakdown below, the latest Dragon Ball Super: Broly video shows Goku being sent away from Planet Vegeta as a young kid, en route to his fateful landing on Earth. In this updated canon version of that origin story, there’s an official year count given for Goku’s arrival on Earth, and that year is “Age 737”.

That year has long been significant in Dragon Ball lore, for several big reasons, which have mostly been covered in the two non-canon films, Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan, and Dragon Ball Z: Bardock – The Father of Goku:

1. It’s the year that Kakarot and Broly are both born.
2. It’s the year that Kakarot is sent to Earth.
3. The year Broly and his father Paragus are exiled.
4. Most of all, it’s the year Freeza arrives and destroys Planet Vegeta, killing King Vegeta, Bardock, and most of the Saiyan race. Broly’s powers keep him and Paragus alive.

Like with so many other story elements of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, Akira Toriyama and director Tatsuya Nagamine are gathering together loose threads from years of non-canon mythos, and fashioning them into a much more streamlined canon. We already know that in Broly‘s new origin, Year 737 will officially be the year that Freeza destroys Planet Vegeta and Goku is sent to Earth. However, Broly’s origin may be different.

The Dragon Ball Super movie seems to be ditching the classic connection of having Goku and Broly share a nursery as babies. In fact, there are hints that Broly’s exile could occur well before Planet Vegeta’s destruction in this version of the story. We’ll now for sure when Dragon Ball Super: Broly hits theaters. So far, the early reviews seem strong, and you can check those first reviews out here.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly officially releases in Japan this December, so fans will get to see more of Super Saiyan Blue Goku in action soon enough. Funimation will be bringing the film to theaters in the United States on January 16th. Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m. It is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on FunimationNOW, VRV, and Crunchyroll.