The Physiology of Saiyans
I’m a huge fan of the Dragonball and Dragonball Z mangas, and I must have read the entire storyline (particularly Z’s) dozens of times. Akira Toriyama’s art style, sense of humor, and wacky imagination all make the series extremely entertaining.
Trying to make logical sense of most of the series would be an exercise in futility, particularly the fairy tale atmosphere of the Dragonball books. But I thought it would be fun to detail the attributes of the series’ central characters, the Saiyans. Saiyans are an alien race that figure prominently in the storyline, and Toriyama is constantly informing the reader of their various powers, even in the very last chapter. Generally, each particular power is extremely important for the storyline in which it is revealed, but quickly sinks into irrelevance in future chapters. Thus Saiyans exhibit a truly random collection of traits that, taken altogether, are biologically just plain goofy.
The tail: Saiyans look identical to humans except they are born with a monkey tail. Gohan has a mix of Saiyan and human blood, and he too is born with a tail. However, no mention of the tail is made late in the series when we see Future Trunks, Chibi Trunks and Goten – all half-Saiyans. I suppose it’s logical to assume that the tails were cut off at a young age to prevent the Saiyan transformation…or Toriyama simply forgot that the half-Saiyan Gohan was born with a tail.
The Saiyan Achilles Heel: Grabbing onto a Saiyan’s tail basically immobilizes him, but most battle hardened Saiyans discipline their tails so it longer has this weakness (Goku even does this when he’s a kid). In fact, the only tailed Saiyan that does not overcome this weakness is Goku’s brother Raditz, making him without a doubt the most worthless Saiyan of all time.
How’s that tail work again?: Goku’s tail is chopped off in an early volume to turn him back to his human form (see: the Saiyan Transformation). It grows back (almost instantaneously, I might add) at a key point in a Tenkai’ichi Budokai, where we first learn that Saiyan tails regenerate. Goku’s tail is cut off and regenerates once more, but then is gone for good when he shows up for his third Budokai. This time, God (Kami) cut it off because he wanted to restore the moon. However, the tail does not regenerate again.
Why doesn’t it come back? Is it because God removed the tail this time, in some more permanent surgical procedure? That doesn’t explain why Vegeta’s tail does not come back when it is cut off by Yajirobe (of all people). I suppose the explanation most consistent with the facts is that Saiyan tails stop regenerating after a certain age. Curiously, Vegeta (who knows more about Saiyans than any other character) expects his tail to regenerate, but he goes tail-less for the rest of the series.
The Saiyan Transformation: There is a gland in a Saiyan’s tail that allows him to transform into, well, King Kong. The catch is that the Saiyan must first absorb green spectrum radiation, such as that given off from the light of a full moon. Only then will the “Saiyan transformation” (Vegeta’s words) take place. The last Saiyan to transform in the series is Gohan, and after that we never see a tailed Saiyan again. Interestingly, only Vegeta is able to keep his wits about him after the transformation, doubtless through training of some kind.
Near-death Experiences: In the Freeza saga Vegeta reveals to Zarbon that Saiyans “increase their battle strength every time [they] recover from the brink of death.” References are made to this power as late as the end of the Cell saga, where Cell conjectures his enhanced strength is due to his Saiyan cells and a brush with oblivion.
Altogether, this is one of the more BS powers that Saiyans have. If all it takes for them to get stronger is a near-death experience, why would Vegeta or Goku ever bother to train? We see Vegeta significantly increase his power simply by having Kuririn punch a hole through his gut and having Dende heal him. Though Freeza ices Dende, eliminating the possibility of another quick power-up in this particular fight, it’s not explained why it’s never explored afterwards. The best explanation I can think of is that Super Saiyans gain a negligible benefit from the power-up, while somehow Cell was engineered to make use of it even at extremely high power levels.
The Super Saiyan: The Saiyans’ most famous ability turns their hair blond, eyes blue, and creates an aura of energy around them. It also substantially increases their battle strength. Super Saiyans are supposed to appear once every thousand years…at the very least, they appear rarely enough that both Vegeta and Freeza believed them to be myth. But five individual characters are ultimately able to turn Super Saiyan in the series (six if you count both versions of Trunks). We could conjecture that the ability to turn Super Saiyan is in part genetic, explaining why Gohan, Goten, and Trunks are able to acheive the state fairly easily. But then you really have to wonder why evolution would not enormously favor Saiyans with this gene. Another explanation is somewhat supported by Vegeta, who hypothosized early in DBZ that humans and Saiyans create particularly powerful offspring.
Watch the hair! It’ll never grow back!: Though it is never explicitly stated, we might assume all pure blood Saiyans are born with dark hair and dark eyes. Even Goku’s father Burdock, who appears in a total of two frames, fits this description. It is Vegeta once again who reveals a bizarre Saiyan trait by stating that a pure blood Saiyan’s hair does not grow.
More transformations??: Goku, Vegeta and Trunks all flirt with the ability to dramatically increase their muscle mass at the expense of speed. However, this is probably not a uniquely Saiyan trait. Freeza, Cell, and even Master Roshi all did something similar at one point or another.
The true “beyond Super Saiyan” form, Super Saiyan 2, is denoted by lightning bolts surging around the fighter while his hair stands straight up. Well, ok, it makes sense that increased power levels would do such a thing. What makes much less sense is the transformation to Super Saiyan 3, which makes the fighter’s forehead look all Cro-magnon while his hair spontaneously lengthens. Okay, so…somewhere in the Saiyan genome is the encoding for not one, not two, but three distinct transformations, one of which (the giant ape) seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the other two. You lost me, Toriyama. You lost me.
More about that Super Saiyan 3 thing….: Goku says that Super Saiyan 3 can only be done in the afterlife; however, the fusion of Trunks and Goten is nonetheless able to turn Super Saiyan 3. This might be the only point in the series in which Goku is just plain wrong.
Prime Time: In the final chapter of DBZ, Vegeta, that walking encyclopedia of all things Saiyan, says that Saiyans age more gracefully than humans; built for combat, they remain in their primes longer. He doesn’t really imply that Saiyans live any longer than humans, but I suppose you could interpret it that way.
So there you have it: the completely nonsensical physiology of the Saiyan race. I’ll have to do Namekians next….
February 25, 2008 at 4:53 pm
The Super Saiyan – With regard to this particular power, I think it was more just a part of Saiyan lore that a Super Saiyan appeared only once every thousand years. A more likely explanation is that all Saiyans have the ability to reach this level, but most were never properly pushed to attain it. Goku and Vegeta both had powerful external motivating factors that prompted their initial ascensions to Super Saiyan — Goku first transformed in a fit of rage after Frieza murdered Kuriren (supposedly Goku’s best friend?), and it was only through the transformation that he was able to defeat Frieza. Vegeta’s transformation occurred when he abandoned his desire to be better than Kakarrot(!!!), and desperately sought to save himself from perishing in space.
Gohan transformed through intensive training in the HYPERBOLIC TIME CHAMBER(!!!) I’m not sure the transformations of Chibi Trunks and Goten can really be explained. The most likely explanation is that Toriyama said, “Eh, screw it. They can all transform. Whatever.”
I mean, no one ever becomes as powerful as Goku and Vegeta, so it’s kind of lame to say, “Saiyans and humans produce extra-powerful off-spring.” What? No. The Saiyans are clearly the most powerful race.
I’ve always felt that the best explanation is that Trunks and Goten began intense training at a younger age than Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan. Again, Vegeta was never really pushed to attain Super Saiyan. The only person he couldn’t beat was Frieza (and canonically, Vegeta is almost always a step behind Goku progression).
Goku was receiving training from humans, and only had to compete against moderately powerful adversaries in the Bodokai tournaments. Goku never really develops much of a serious side to him until he’s confronted by Frieza, which again, necessitated his transformation.
Gohan was constantly held back by Chi-chi until the Cell saga (also he sucks, so…)
Trunks and Goten were allowed to train pretty much right away. And the groundwork was all laid out for them. I mean, their mentors (Gohan and Vegeta) were already able to turn Super Saiyan at will.
February 25, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Gohan is likely the most powerful individual character by the end of the series, not Goku or Vegeta. SSJ 3 Goku tangles with the original Buu and holds his own, but says to Piccolo afterwards that he wasn’t really sure he could beat him. Contrast that with Gohan, who utterly wipes the floor with Evil Buu (who supposedly had more chi than fat Buu). So even with SSJ 3, it seems unlikely that Goku is as powerful as Gohan. Of course you could make the argument that if the Great Elder performed his mojo on Goku, he would surpass Gohan. You could also make the argument that Gohan sucks. On the latter, at least, you’d be absolutely right.
But anyway, Gohan’s really strong, AND you never really get to see the full extent of Trunks and Goten’s powers, since they’re so young. Add in the fact that the kids turn Super Saiyan at really young ages, I’d say there’s evidence that Vegeta wasn’t far off in his reasoning.
I don’t really buy the argument that Vegeta was not “pushed” to attain Super Saiyan. Granted, Vegeta himself admits that he trains primarily to prove his superiority. But given his personality, I find it hard to believe that he would not train like a madman even from a very young age. After all, there was always Freeza (and I guess the Ginyu Force) that would have wounded his pride by their mere existences. Not to mention that the Saiyans are a warrior race, and probably train at a retardedly young age to begin with.
I do think you raise a good point in that once everyone knew that the Super Saiyan was attainable, it’d become that much easier to train for the transformation. But that (again) raises the question of why the Saiyans did not become a race of Super Saiyans once the technique was discovered.
February 27, 2008 at 2:07 am
Well again, the only characters you really “see” attaining the level of Super Saiyan are Goku and Vegeta. And like I said, both of them were motivated by more than just training to finally breech the plateau.
I think Vegeta’s story of how he finally transformed suggests that you cannot simply “train real hard and become Super Saiyan”. It takes something more to ultimately push you over the line.
Despite all the adversaries that Goku faced as a child (and early in the DBZ series as an adult) he never before encountered anyone who was as evil and merciless as Frieza. Piccolo and Tien, for example, grew to respect Goku, and sought to become more like him.
Even Vegeta, who is constantly bitter towards Kakarrot (!!!) after their first battle reforms himself enough to become a reluctant ally of the Z fighters through most of the story arc. Vegeta’s not really evil. He just wants to be the best, and that means above all, being better than Kakarrot (!!!). Mostly, he’s just indifferent to the fate of everyone but himself.
Frieza is really a new experience for Goku. There’s no shred of humanity in him. And he kills people so off-handedly and with such a twisted sense of glee that it causes Goku to really lose all sense of emotional stability for the first time — and thus, transforms him.
I don’t remember how much of Gohan’s first transformation you see in the manga, but at the very least, he’s undergoing especially grueling training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber (!!!). And I think Goku is provoking him by talking about all of the innocent people Cell has murdered and so forth.
May 31, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Fantastic analysis. Just pitching my oar in:
The Hair: I think the only reasonable way to take Vegeta’s comments is that, like apes, saiyan hair reaches a point where it simply doesn’t grow any longer (surely Raditz wasn’t born with 5 feet of hair!). If you cut it off, it grows back to that point, but that’s its natural full length. Trunks didn’t inherit that feature (thought interestingly Gohan and Goten did – perhaps Vegeta’s royal genes are more recessive due to inbreeding).
This makes sense given that Vegeta starts GT with a moustache, having chopped his hair into a crewcut, but by the end of the series he’s almost back to his DBZ look. Also in the anime continuity, Nappa apparently suffered from a form of male pattern baldness, losing his hair since the Bardock special, whilst King Vegeta clearly sported a moustache and beard, presumably features that would not have been attendant in the womb.
Vegeta does outright state all pure Saiyans have black hair. This is a bit amusing given that Vegeta’s hair is constantly being given a red or brown tint and his father blatantly had brown hair.
More Transformations: It could be argued that with SSJ3 Toriyama was going for a more bestial, Neanderthal look closer to that of the Great Ape. The original sketches reveal he intended SSJ3 Goku to regrow his tail, and in the anime, he has a trippy hallucination where he morphs in and out of Great Ape form.
Of course, this makes nonsense of the GT “revelation” that the true Legendary Super Saiyan was a Great Ape with golden fur, with a further level achievable when the body transforms back into a Son Wukong-a-like, so hey. As for Gotenks, fusions seem capable of various “magical” feats anyway – Gogeta can apparently warp reality and (in GT) materialise party ribbons (the raw power…); Gotenks could make his nose grow or materialise a mirror to admire himself, so it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest he could simply copy Goku’s transformation by seeing it once.
And some observations of my own:
The half-saiyan kids: Genetically, this is pretty much nonsense. OK, a galaxy full of humanoids can be just about justified via convergent evolution, but there’s no way any two species would be sexually compatible. We share over 50% of our genetic structure with a fern. Bulma would share 0% of her genes with Goku, giving her better odds coupling with a plant (hey, at least it evolved on Earth). Yet not only do they manage to produce a son, he’s actually fertile and has a child of his own, meaning saiyans and humans would have to be closer than a horse and a donkey. Saiyans would effectively be a race of humans, or vice versa. Some fairly contrived solutions:
– Saiyans evolved on Earth but left/were abducted before the Stone Age. By unimaginable random chance, the low-class Saiyan Goku was dispatched to a backwater world that turned out to be their original homeworld. (This sort of makes sense given the backstory about Saiyans not being native to Planet Vegeta/Plant).
– DBZverse humans didn’t evolve on Earth – they’re just one of many races of space-going Cro Magnons who have populated the universe (possibly bringing along an Ark-like raft of flora and fauna that just happens to match their genetic code). As one of the more common species, many low-class Saiyans were sent to worlds populated by their distant relatives. Huamns are one of the weaker offshoots, having lost both their tail and their characteristic strength under Earth’s weak gravity. Recoome could well be another example of this widespread species.
Only (three, six, whatever) Saiyans Left: What? They were a spacegoing civilisation that actively weeded out their weakest members by sending them to conquer low-powered worlds! Plus, millions or even billions of Saiyans would have to be off-planet at any one time to constitute even a marginal presence in a galactic empire. Even if Frieza recalled all missions and the Saiyans were naturally centralised on Planet Vegeta, there should be hundreds or thousands of Saiyans left.
How did we lose that planet again? Kaio-Sama apparently lied to Goku by telling him Planet Vegeta was destroyed by a meteor storm brought down by their Kami-Sama. Interestingly, that’s the same lie Frieza told Vegeta. We could speculate that Kaio-Sama simply didn’t want Goku to know about Frieza, but it’s almost certainly an error by Toei. To make things worse, Vegeta later claims the planet was destroyed by the Legendary Super Saiyan.
Perhaps the planet just imploded under its own weight – Toriyama seems to believe Earth is one of the smallest planets in the cosmos, whereas in real life its one of the biggest physically possible. To have ten times Earth’s gravity on its surface, Planet Vegeta would pretty much have to be a gas giant core stripped of its outer layers (even that pales in comparison to Superman, though, when they decided Krypton should have 35 times Earth’s gravity, effectively making it a white dwarf). Yet in GT when the planet’s brought back, it can be happily stationed in Earth’s orbit and the entire population of Earth can be evacuated there and walk around on the surface with no ill effects.
It’s possible to construct the following rationalisation – the original “Saiya-sei” had ten times Earth’s gravity and was destroyed by the Legendary Fantabulous Palooza. One of the fleeing Saiyan ships crash-landed on Planet Plant (roughly Earth gravity) and were “taken in” (Saiyans claim enslaved) by the Tsufuru/Tuffles. Saiyans rebel under “Vegeta” (name subsequently passed down generations), planet named after revolutionary leader, Tsufuru exterminated/exiled. Rinse and repeat. This still doesn’t explain why the Saiyans luxuriate in Earth’s “low gravity” in the Saiyan Saga, but hey.
How strong is that guy again? Toei tends to boost on-screen power levels for visual effect without considering the consequences. Because of the above dialogue, we are forced to conclude that in Trouble On Arlia Vegeta effortlessly brute-force vaporises a planet rather larger than Earth. Yet Frieza in his fourth form struggles to initiate a chain reaction on a planet Bulma walks around on just fine and which Goku says is already geologically unstable. In the Saiyan Saga Vegeta seems somewhat depowered, only threatening planetary destruction with his best attack (the “Garlic Gun”). In the Frieza Saga he seems to have been totally robbed of any planet-busting powers. Fast-forward to GT, when Bebi Vegeta, approximately a billion times more powerful, fails to destroy the Earth with a “Super Garlic Gun.”
Sigh. Anyway, great job again – I look forward to the Namekian commentary if you were seriously planning on it
May 31, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Woops! Grammatical alert – to the best of my knowledge only Goku, not Toriyama, experienced the “trippy hallucinations” whilst transformin
June 4, 2008 at 11:08 pm
This is great. I could read this kind of stuff all day.
I think Dragonball was originally planned as a comedy. I haven’t read the DB manga yet, but based on what little I saw of the anime, it does seem to be considerably zanier than Dragonball Z.
When Toriyama decided to continue on with the characters, I believe (pretty sure I read somewhere) that he made a conscious decision to make Dragonball Z a more serious, more adult-oriented story than Dragonball had been. Certainly the violence in DBZ takes a big step up, so it seems consistent with this idea.
Even so, Dragonball Z never truly abandoned its whimsical roots. There’s an underlying current of tongue-in-cheek humor throughout the series (sometimes seen even during the most intense battles). Point being that however humorous and/or interesting it is to discuss and try to decipher the “science” of how Saiyan physiology works, in the end we’re probably not supposed to be putting it under the microscope.
The story arc shines because it has great character development and a pretty good sense of “raising the stakes” to put Goku (and Vegeta) in situations that are ever more desperate. I’m sure Toriyama realized at some point that there was virtually no continuity to the rules of Saiyan physiology that he had previously laid out (and the whole “power increase after near death experience” is a perfect example as it’s completely tossed by the wayside beyond a certain point).
July 30, 2008 at 3:19 pm
About hair:
It isn’t that it grows to a certain length or never grows back. As Akira has said, Saiyans keep the same hair style their whole life. Goku, Vegeta, and Bardock are never seen with a different hairstyle. Except for GT, but that isn’t an accurate continuation of the story. Gohan does not have this, as is obvious considering he has nearly as many hairstyles as bulma. Neither do Goten, Trunks or any other half saiyan.
July 2, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Breaking the forth wall a bit (and purely in reference to the show and not the manga) there are decent explanations for the inconsistencies in Sayajin physiology. First and foremost the series was originally supposed to end just after the fight with Freeza until the fanbase through a fit.So it’s completely possible that Goku’s sudden transformation was never planned from the get go(Watch the original japanese episodes, that whole fight becomes almost nothing but filler towards the end).
If you pay attention you notice a lot of other inconsistencies that start to crop up about the time everyone is teleported to earth. Vegita’s sudden transformation from a cocky, headstrong warrior with character depth to a grumpy guy leaning against a tree is one. The wishing back of the dead fighters is another. Originally it’s stated outright that to be wished back from the dead one’s body would have to be in tact. Goku’s body is restored after he’s killed in the fight with Raditz so he can use it in the afterlife. Same for all those that died in the fight with Nappa. Kami says specifically that he had to work quite hard to restore Chaoutzu. They begin to ignore all of that later on when they wish back Krillin who just appears out of nowhere, fully clothed. Tien and Yamcha also just show up near by. Seems like Goku could have just appeared at the fight with Vegita the same way.
Why did Vegita’s tail never grow back? I’d say you had it right with the age idea. Tails seem to grow back suddenly in stressful situations when a sayajin is young. Though you could also note that the entire time that they were all on Namek only spanned maybe a month if even that. Then the writers got lazy (or were replaced) and the finer details of a show about space monkies shooting lasers out of their fists became less important. That’s how I see it anyway.
As a side note: it’s a damn shame what they did to Vegita. He was a skilled, cunning, clever, miltarily-minded warrior through the first two sagas of Z. Come the next adventures he’s been transformed into an angsty, stupid teenager that know how to do little more than scream real loud and blow shit up.
July 2, 2010 at 2:27 pm
I think you (This Guy) are right in pointing out the story was built up beyond what Toriyama originally intended – his vision was fairly consistent up through Frieza’s defeat, but beyond that his primary concern was more keeping the story interesting, even if it meant making it a little more arbitrary.
I think you are right about Vegeta, too. He’s my favorite character from start to finish, but it’s a shame that he loses that edge. His running commentary when he and Nappa first arrive on Earth is tremendously entertaining. He’s one of those rare villains that is well-developed AND legitimately threatening to the hero.
P.S. I feel pretty stupid commenting on a blog I shelved so long ago. ;p