The upcoming canon-changing events of Dragon Ball Super‘s first movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, have fans asking a lot questions about some of the mysteries left hanging after the end of the anime. Recently, Dragon Ball Super’s finale episode director Megumi Ishitani did an interview that discussed some of those lingering mysteries – including what exactly happened with Vegeta.
The “Tournament of Power Arc” that ended Dragon Ball Super saw Vegeta tap into his Saiyan Pride in the battle against Jiren, unlocking a new form that’s tentatively referred to as “Super Saiyan Blue Evolution” or “Super Saiyan Beyond Blue.” However, we barely got a moment ot witness the power of SSBB before Vegeta was knocked at the tournament altogether. That’s left fans with some big questions about SSBB – and how that transformation relates to Goku’s Ultra Instinct power-up. Here’s what Ishitani had to say about the subject:
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“Vegeta’s evolved version of Blue is an anime original. Like you said, that form is the result of him mastering his strength in a different way than Goku. Strength-wise please think of it as about the same as Goku’s Blue Kaio-Ken.”
So there you have it: according to Ishitani, Vegeta’s SSBB is on par with Goku’s SSB with a Kaio-Ken boost. Of course that answer will probably invite more questions, as a lot of fans don’t consider Kaio-Ken to be a power-level in and of itself. The technique is actually a power multiplier, so when talking how powerful Goku is while using Kaio-Ken, we’d need to know exactly what numeral of multiplier he’s using. So is SSBB as strong as SSBKKx10? Or as strong as SSBKKx20? It’s still pretty unclear.
Indeed, a lot of fans have been wondering if Vegeta’s SSBB will become the next Dragon Ball transformation that will fall through the cracks as a gimmicky power-up that never really showed all that much depth or importance in the larger scope of the series. Dragon Ball Z saw its Super Saiyan transformation spiral out into an arbitrary series of numbered progressions. Yet, while SSJ3 and SSJ4 certainly had their moments in DBZ and DBGT, there was a pretty big gap in truly meaningful transformations, stretching from SSJ2 to DBS‘s introduction of divine powers like Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue. That’s all to say: with Vegeta’s Ultra Instinct power-up still a big possibility, there’s a good chance that SSBB could end up being a flash in the pan.
Dragon Ball Super: Broly will hit Japanese theaters in December, and is expected to arrive in the U.S. around mid-January 2019. Dragon Ball Super is currently airing its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m. ET. 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.
