Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero completely ignored three Dragon Ball Super stories. Picking up years after Gohan and Piccolo helped Goku and the others win the Tournament of Power for Universe 7 at the end of Dragon Ball Super, Super Hero saw the two Z-Warriors return to protect the planet from the Red Ribbon Army. Curiously, though, events that took place in the anime didn’t matter nearly as much as expected.
In many ways, Super Hero was a huge deviation from the formula that drove nearly every adventure in Dragon Ball Super. Throughout the anime, the central focus was on Goku and Vegeta, the two strongest heroes in the franchise. Their insane power levels made them instrumental to each of the show’s biggest battles. As a consequence of this, the other heroes became increasingly irrelevant. For most of the series, characters like Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, and Tien felt rather useless when compared to Goku and Vegeta. The Tournament of Power finally helped find a purpose for the weaker Z-Warriors, but immediately after that, attention shifted back to the two main characters. Dragon Ball Super: Broly sidelined everyone else and put the spotlight back on Goku and Vegeta.
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Super Hero, on the other hand, was a reminder that Goku and Vegeta aren’t the only ones capable of protecting the Earth. Instead of making the two Saiyans the stars, Super Hero let Gohan and Piccolo – joined by Android 18, Krillin, Goten, and Trunks – make a stand against the main villains. In addition to abandoning the Goku-centric approach taken by Dragon Ball Super, the movie made some surprising choices in regards to the continuity established by the anime. The direction it took its characters caused Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero to pretend like three stories from Dragon Ball Super never happened.
Gohan’s Redemption In The Tournament of Power
For years, Gohan has been a bit of a disappointment in terms of his power level. In the Cell Saga, he cemented his status as the franchise’s strongest hero when he accessed the Super Saiyan 2 form and beat Perfect Cell. Both Goku and Vegeta noted during the Buu Saga that Gohan let himself become weak by foregoing his training. This worsened in Dragon Ball Super and finally reached a breaking point when Gohan couldn’t stop Frieza. Determined to correct his mistakes, Gohan sparred with Piccolo and eventually regained his lost vigor. With Piccolo’s help, he even succeeded in becoming Ultimate Gohan again. In the interest of gaining the strength he needed to protect his family, Gohan became powerful enough to fight Super Saiyan Blue Goku and help Frieza defeat Dypso in the Tournament of Power.
What happened with Gohan provided clear setup for the next step in his journey in Super Hero, but rather than use it as a springboard, the movie simply repeated his redemption story. Although Gohan had already reawakened the fighter inside him, Super Hero went backward with his character development and kicked off with Gohan once again uninterested in training. Just like the situation in the anime, it was up to Piccolo to give Gohan the motivation he needed to become a force to be reckoned with again. In doing so, it inadvertently made Gohan’s arc in the Tournament of Power feel pointless. Dragon Ball Super gave Gohan a new attitude toward fighting, but it obviously didn’t stick. With that in mind, it’s unfortunately a real possibility that Gohan’s new place in the Dragon Ball power structure won’t last either.
Krillin Became A Fighter Again
Gohan wasn’t the only Z-Warrior who lost interest in fighting. During the lead-up to the Tournament of Power, it was revealed that Krillin too had taken a break from training. In fact, he slacked off so much that a bullet bruised his skin. After getting a wake-up call from Goku, Android 18, and even Marron, Krillin decided that the time had come for him to resume his training. Though he only had a few days to back into fighting shape, Krillin made some impressive gains that were on full display when he sparred with Super Saiyan Blue Goku and beat Majora in the Tournament of Power. There was also a sense that he was on par with Android 18 as a fighter.
Krillin’s Tournament of Power story put him in a position to become stronger than ever, but all of that became a distant memory in Super Hero, which reverted Krillin back to where he was before Goku recruited him for the Universe 7 team. Apparently, Krillin is back to being a retired martial artist who avoids fighting. Even though he proved in Super Hero that he could hold his own when fighting alongside 18, he elected to stand back while his wife and Gotenks joined Gohan and Piccolo in the fight against Cell Max. It wasn’t until he was needed most that Krillin finally developed the courage to get into the action.
Vegeta’s Super Saiyan Blue Evolved Form
In Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, Vegeta found a new method for fighting Goku. After meditating while Goku fought Broly, Vegeta explained a major breakthrough he had made in his training. According to Vegeta, fighting Jiren taught him a valuable lesson about how to make the most out of his power. Having identified Jiren’s intense level of concentration as the primary reason for the challenge he posed in the Tournament of Power, Vegeta strove to go down the same path. By training his mind and placing an emphasis on concentration, Vegeta bettered himself as a fighter and actually succeeded in beating Goku in Super Hero’s post-credits scene.
What Vegeta did isn’t all that different from the steps Goku took to unlock Ultra Instinct, which is why his new tactic feels like a contradiction to his Dragon Ball Super story. For Goku, Ultra Instinct came about as a result of his efforts to focus his thoughts, whereas Vegeta is of a different style that doesn’t fit with Ultra Instinct. This is a fact that’s been acknowledged by both Whis and Vegeta himself. Passion is ultimately what fuels Vegeta and is also what allowed him to discover the Super Saiyan Blue Evolved transformation. Part of the point of their respective arcs was to show that Goku and Vegeta get stronger in different ways, which is why it was quite surprising that Super Hero drastically changed course with Vegeta’s approach to fighting.