‘Dragon Ball Super’ Makes a Major Super Saiyan Change to Kale

The latest chapter of the Dragon Ball Super manga is titled “Awaken, Super Saiyan Kale”, so it’s no surprise that the story features a major twist on what we thought we knew about the female Saiyan from Universe 6. The manga chapter centers on Kale and her friend Caulifla’s fight with Freeza, and when it comes to Kale’s Super Saiyan transformation, the manga takes a much different approach than the anime!

During the Dragon Ball Super anime version of the Tournament of Power, Kale was behind fellow Universe 6 Saiyan teammates Cabba and Caulifla in terms of transformation. Cabba had learned the Super Saiyan transformation from Vegeta during the Tournament of Destruction, and had passed on that knowledge to Caulifla, who accomplished it rather quickly. The timid Kale watched on in awe, but when she felt like Cabba and Caulifla were getting flirty, she finds the emotional trigger and makes the Super Saiyan transformation – but not the one her teammates achieve.

Kale goes right into Legendary Super Saiyan form, getting lost in the Berserker state that comes with the form. Caulifla manages to talk her down, but later, during the anime’s Tournament of Power, Kale once again loses control when Caulifla is being thrashed by Goku, and once again goes BSSJ, this time endangering all of Universe 6, by potentially killing someone in the ring, and violating the tournament rules. However, Kale eventually follows Caulifla and makes the jump to SSJ2 to battle SSJ2 / SSJ3 Goku, gaining control over her berserker state in the process.

The manga treats Kale’s progression very differently. In the Tournament of Power, Caulifla is fighting Freeza in her Super Saiyan form, but gets quickly outmatched when Freeza transforms into his golden form. As Golden Freeza thrashes Caulifla, Kale is pushed by Cabba to act, and suddenly reveals two important displays of power:

• She’s fast and powerful enough to attack Golden Freeza without being detected, while in her base form.
• She’s able to go Super Saiyan first, and maintain control, before eventually being pushed to into a berserker rage, after being driven into fury by the combined attack of both Goku and Golden Freeza.

This change in approach to the character suggests some big things. First, both Kale and Caulifla seem to be more powerful than Goku, in terms of form-to-form comparison. This moment also suggests that Caulifla could be one of the strongest fighters in the multiverse, when combining discipline and control with her Legendary Super Saiyan form. Indeed, the manga chapter ends with Kale experiencing an exponential spike in her chi – more than she (or anyone) can control. We’ll have to wait and see how dangerous this berserker explosion turns out to be, and whether the manga brings the Kefla fusion into the mix.

Dragon Ball Super is currently airing 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 Funimation, VRV, and Crunchyroll.

If you want to catch up with the English dub, the first 52 episodes of Dragon Ball Super are now available to stream on FunimationNOW, VRV, and available to purchase on Amazon Video as well.