This ‘Dragon Ball Z’ Sketch Will Make You Miss Super Saiyan 3 Goku

Dragon Ball Super might have featured Goku’s Super Saiyan 3 form for a few brief moments, but this sketch from a former key animator will definitely make you miss it.

Goku’s currently rising to crazy new levels of strength in Dragon Ball Super, and he no longer has Kale and Caulifla to tease his Saiyan competitiveness, so it might be quite a while before we get to see Super Saiyan 3 again. Luckily Masaki Sato, key animator on several episodes of the original Dragon Ball series, Dragon Ball Z, and played a major role in most of the Dragon Ball Z films like The History of Trunks and Cooler’s Revenge, has debuted a new sketch of Goku in his Super Saiyan 3 form on Twitter:

This incredibly detailed sketch of Goku has sparked fans and has then clamoring for his return to the franchise in Dragon Ball Super. It’s hard to blame them as the few instances of Goku in this transformation have widely varied in quality. The first instance during Goku’s battle with Beerus in the “Battle of Gods” arc was marred by fans for its awkward animation, juvenile art, off-model characters, and it did not quite get Goku’s hair physics right.

Goku’s Super Saiyan 3 hair does seem a bit unmanageable, but it was better handled in the more recent appearance in Goku’s battle against Kale and Caulifla. Caulifla challenged Goku in the Tournament of Power in order to reach Super Saiyan 2, but Goku was so interested in the fight he ended up showing off the kind of power one could get from Super Saiyan 3. It was a fun divergence from the norm as Dragon Ball Super had largely abandoned the transformation ever since Goku gained the power of the gods with Super Saiyan Blue and fans were happy to have it back, even briefly.

Whether or not Super Saiyan 3 will return in Dragon Ball Super is up in the air, but with Goku currently drained of stamina after his recent transition into Ultra Instinct in the battle with Kefla, we could be seeing it sooner rather than later as Goku fights to stay in the fight.

Dragon Ball Super‘s “Universal Survival” arc is part of the recent simulcast agreement that sites like Crunchyroll and Funimation have scored. Dragon Ball Super airs on Crunchyroll Saturday evenings at 7:15 p.m. CST. Adult Swim airs the English dub during its Toonami block Saturday evenings at 11:30 p.m.