Why 'Dragon Ball Super's New Villain Opens Major Doors For the Franchise

Dragon Ball Super has officially moved into its next big story arc via the manga, which has just kicked off the "Galactic Patrol Prisoner Arc". That new storyline sees Goku and Vegeta join the cosmic police force known as The Galactic Patrol, for a special assignment to hunt down a powerful villain, who has escaped imprisonment after thousands of years.

That new villain is named Planet-Eater Moro, a tremendously powerful fighter and sorcerer, who can consume the life force of entire planets, to increase his own strength. It's a pivotal new character to add to the Dragon Ball mythos - especially at this point in Dragon Ball Super, after the events of the anime and Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie!

Here's why Planet-Eater Moro is opening some big doors for the Dragon Ball franchise:

The Perfect Union: Since its inception, the Dragon Ball franchise has always straddled the line between sci-fi and the supernatural. The original series relied a lot more on the latter, with Goku battling demons like King Piccolo when he wasn't thrashing more grounded foes like the Red Ribbon Army or fellow martial artists. However, when Dragon Ball Z came around Akira Toriyama layered the franchise with a whole new mythology steeped in sci-fi tropes, fleshing out Goku's alien roots and their connections to a much wider universe (and multiverse) of evil aliens, killer androids and time travel. It was only the "Majin Buu Saga" that brought things back around to the threat of demons and sorcerers; and while Dragon Ball GT would lean heavily into supernatural mythology, the official canon of the Dragon Ball Super anime was more of a fine blend of the two, layering a supernatural framework of gods, angels and other divine beings over the sci-fi world of aliens, time travel, and alternate timelines.

That brings us to the finale of the Dragon Ball Super anime, and the Tournament of Power. All throughout the ToP arc, fans were wondering what kind of larger threat could be waiting in the wings for Goku and co. It was heavily speculated that some kind of Divine War arc could follow the ToP, with Goku and the Saiyans having to go up against the likes of angels or the Grand Priest himself.

Planet-Eater Moro's debut has now opened a new door to uniting sci-fi and supernatural into a storyline that can bridge all sides of the Dragon Ball universe together into a new Dragon Ball Super continuity. Moro presents the threat of the supernatural and/or demonic forces of the universe surfacing once again - this time on a level that seems to be greater than any of the threats we've seen before. Based on the history we saw, where Daikaioh had to sacrifice most of godly power to seal away Moro's magic, the villain seems to be a threat that even the angels and Grand Priest would have to fear. More to the point: if threats like Moro exist in Universe 7, there's no telling what kind of counterparts he may have in other universes; what other demonic and/or magical forces exist in opposition to Grand Zeno and his divine order.

We'll soon find out just what level of threat Moro's magic may pose to the multiverse, when Dragon Ball Super's next manga chapter arrives.

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 16. Dragon Ball Supercurrently 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.