Dragon Ball has fans in a state of simultaneous excitement and frustration right now, as we continue to wait and see what the series has planned for its next anime, as well as the next Dragon Ball Super movie. While that waiting occurs, fans have been free to speculate and imagine what Dragon Ball will deliver next, in terms of story, characters, and of course, those all-important power-ups. While some fans have pointed to Dragon Ball Super setting the stage for Super Saiyan 4‘s canonized debut, one fan has something much bigger in mind: the debut of Super Saiyan 5!
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Check out artwork of Goku in Super Saiyan 5 form, courtesy of VPagon:
Super Saiyan Five.
Under rated IMO! pic.twitter.com/mCKExNOmtj
— VPagon [Commissions OPEN] (@pagon_v) January 13, 2020
Super Saiyan 5 has never been official canon, but the fandom has certainly invested a lot of imagination into what it could be. Like Super Saiyan 4, SSJ5 is typically depicted as a merging of a Saiyan’s humanoid and Great Ape forms. However, unlike SSJ4, Super Saiyan 5 takes on a white fur appearance, which has become an ironic coincidence, given where Dragon Ball Super has taken the lore.
The irony here is that Super Saiyan 5 has been discussed in the Dragon Ball fandom since there was a Super Saiyan 4 form introduced during Dragon Ball GT in the late ’90s. Who could’ve imagined that SSJ5’s depiction as a white or silver fur form would synch so well with how Akira Toriyama would eventually depict Goku in his Ultra Instinct form. In fact, in the current Dragon Ball Super mythos, it would make sense that Super Saiyan 5 would be achieved by giving Super Saiyan 4 an Ultra Instinct power-boost.
Right now, the Dragon Ball Super anime doesn’t seem so much concerned with getting back into Super Saiyan forms as much as exploring what’s beyond: Goku is working to master Ultra Instinct at long last, while Vegeta is learning to control his ki in order to achieve all kinds of new techniques. We can’t to see where each of the paths lead!
The Japanese-language and English dub releases of Dragon Ball Super are now complete and available to stream with FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. Viz Media is releasing new chapters of the manga at a monthly rate that can be read entirely for free through the Shonen Jump digital library, and Dragon Ball Super’s big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. Fans in Japan are also able to enjoy fresh non-canon adventures from the franchise with new episodes of Super Dragon Ball Heroes‘ promotional anime series.
