Dragon Ball Super Introduces Some Naruto-Style Techniques

Dragon Ball Super has admittedly hit a bit of a wall. Due to the wild power scaling over the course of the franchise thus far, the Galactic Patrol Prisoner arc has had to be quite creative with its new villain in order to give Goku and Vegeta believable enough challenge given that their current power levels far outrank every other foe you can think of. Eventually just saying a villain is stronger won't do the trick, and it's the same for our heroes. So the latest chapter of the manga seems to provide the answer to this conundrum by introducing a new kind of technique.

As Planet Eater Moro continued to defeat Goku and Vegeta when they just tried to fight with brute strength, they learned they need to be a bit more intelligent with how they use that power. Chapter 52 of the series introduces Spirit Control, and one's mastery of it unlocks Naruto like techniques which will allow Vegeta to summon clones, grow himself to larger sizes, and seemingly all other sorts of sneaky ninja moves.

When Vegeta finally reaches Yardrat, he learns that Instant Transmission is actually one branching of a main type of training called Spirit Control. By mastering controlling one's aura, a fighter can shift it in any way they wish, and that will open up the fights moving forward. Because if Vegeta's using these "jutsu" like techniques, which will seemingly increase over the course of the arc as Vegeta continues to master this training, it will add a new layer to the base brawls.

It's probably why the idea of it in the first place is garnering a lot of comparisons to another shonen action series, Yoshihiro Togashi's Hunter x Hunter. When Nen was introduced to that series -- a power level system that granted abilities by shaping their own personal auras -- it really changed how the fights worked.

It could very well work the same here. And while this idea might be pulling from multiple inspirations, combining this with Goku and Vegeta's massive power levels and space wide scale will hopefully bring a new flavor to this familiar concept.

Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block on Saturday evenings, and 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 and Crunchyroll. The manga has chapters that can currently be read for free thanks to Viz Media, and Dragon Ball Super's big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.