Dragon Ball Super‘s newest manga arc just brought Goku, Vegeta, and their new partners in the Galactic Patrol into head-on conflict with Planet-Eater Moro, the new villain who escaped from the Galactic Patrol prison, after ten million years on lockdown.
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The first round of conflict between our Saiyan heroes and Moro was pretty action-packed, with Vegeta having to tap into his Super Saiyan Blue form just to land a hit on the villain. However, at the end of the issue, Moro reveals a surprisingly powerful full form, while teasing that he has yet to reveal his true power: magic.
Ever since this new “Galactic Patrol Prisoner Arc” began, there’s been the tease of Moro bringing a powerful new power source to the forefront of Dragon Ball lore, in the form of his magic and sorcery. If you examine the manga closely, Moro’s magic is already being characterized like any other power source or transformation within the series: it has a power ranking (on the level of a Supreme Kai); a technique involved (absorbing the life-forces of entire planets); and even a weakness (Moro’s magic is susceptible to godly ki). This evil magic is also being positioned for an inevitable power ranking showdown with Super Saiyan godly forms, which could have major transformative impact on Dragon Ball as a whole.
As we’ve stated in some of our recent features about this new arc, magic is a device that used to be prominent in the original Dragon Ball series, which split its focus between real-world threats like the Red Ribbon Army and competing martial artists, and fantastical elements like magic and the supernatural (demons). Dragon Ball Z took way more of a sci-fi angle on the mythos, by introducing the concept of Saiyans and other alien races, time travel, androids, and of course the entire system of power ranking measurements. Dragon Ball GT revisited some of the mysticism of the original series, but since it’s non-canon, it doesn’t really count.
Getting magic and mysticism integrated into the much larger and (over)powered universe of Dragon Ball Super will be very interesting – especially since it is being set against the sci-fi-heavy backdrop of the “Galactic Patrol Prisoner” arc. It’s probably the best hybrid of the series’ two sides that we’ve seen, raising the big question: what’s this all leading to?
Will the next phase of Dragon Ball combine Saiyan transformations and magic to give us a kind of power-up we’ve never seen? Or could magic and magic users actually level the series playing field so that Saiyans aren’t the overwhelmingly dominate power in the universe? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Dragon Ball Super: Broly is out now. Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m. It is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese language release is available to stream on FunimationNOW, VRV, and Crunchyroll.
