36 Years Later, Dragon Ball's New Anime Retconned The Series' First Super Saiyan Out Of Existence

Published Oct 23, 2026, 11:00 PM EDT

An experienced Editor representing Canada via ScreenRant's Team Anime, J.R. has been reading manga since the first printing of Shonen Jump in North America. This passion drove him to write about anime, manga, and manhwa since 2022, having recently served as Lead Anime Editor for ComicBook.com.

His favorite moments in media coverage include reviewing the series premieres of Zom 100 and Bleach: TYBW Part 2 back-to-back and briefly meeting Junji Ito at a VIZ gallery event in 2023.

Nailing down the canon status of the Dragon Ball series isn't so much about missable pockets of lore so much as its history being altered by later tweaks. Cases exist, like Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan, where their stories are entirely replaced and more coherently added to the timeline, in its case being Dragon Ball Super: Broly. But other, similarly mythical Super Saiyans aren't necessarily safe, as seen in the updated Dragon Ball Super: Beerus anime. Beyond simply re-cutting the original story first made into a movie and then TV series, this series' flashback about Beerus' premonitions of a Super Saiyan God may have just cut out allusions to one character completely.

Although not explicitly mentioned in the manga, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama created Yamoshi to be the catalyst for the Super Saiyan God, and was essentially the first, Legendary Super Saiyan. This got a nod particularly in the original Dragon Ball Super, in which fans believed the ambiguous silhouette bathed in golden light to be Yamoshi. But with how Dragon Ball Super: Beerus appears to be structuring its titular God of Destruction's premonitions, this character appears not at all to be the one from Beerus's visions, but instead Goku after assuming the Super Saiyan God form. For now, it appears Yamoshi's tiniest glimpses might have just gotten buried.

Dragon Ball Super: Beerus Replaces Yamoshi Glimpse With Goku Vision

While there's still time for the new re-cut anime to shift course, Beerus' 39-year-old vision of a Super Saiyan God he'd eventually fight was initially shown in Dragon Ball Super episode 9. Bathed in gold light and bearing significantly different vibes from the intense red hues of Goku upon achieving the Super Saiyan God state, fans filled in the blanks that this was indeed Yamoshi. But in Dragon Ball Super: Beerus episode 1, Beerus' visions of a formidable enemy, confirmed to him by the Oracle Fish, seem only to show the vague silhouette of Goku surrounded by similarly intense red light.

For now, this is a simple change that hardly affects the narrative beyond begging the question whether another explanation for the Super Saiyan God's power will come up. After all, Yamoshi's original legend was that, after dying, his spirit would seek out the power of six pure-hearted Saiyans who could gather and imbue one of their kind with a special power-up. But through Beerus skipping straight to only seeing Goku, Yamoshi's one "appearance" in the Dragon Ball anime franchise just got retconned through simple clarity. Granted, with Whis acknowledging Beerus's spotty record when it comes to premonition accuracy in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, the vague figure could just be his faulty memory on the matter.

The Dragon Ball Timeline May Still Have An Open Spot For Yamoshi

Toriyama's backstory may not be explicitly referenced yet, but that hasn't stopped a pretty fascinating chapter of Dragon Ball lore from already being laid out. Featured in the Saikyo Jump issue released on December 1, 2017, Toriyama took the time to answer fan questions about Yamoshi following the Beerus Saga. Asked whether this mysterious character was the same as the Legendary Super Saiyan from the Namek and Frieza Saga, Toriyama confirmed that to be the case. Talking about a time of the Saiyans before their homeworld was called Planet Vegeta, Toriyama discusses the warrior raising a rebellion alongside five other companions, where he became the first Super Saiyan.

It lays out the myth behind a Saiyan whose fate is unlike that of any other, where his soul essentially wanders in search of the Saiyans capable of mirroring his supposed purity. Leaning into this mythology could make the ritual more fascinating, especially coupled with the surprise reveal of Videl's pregnancy with the sixth Saiyan-descended child, Pan. It's certainly fascinating, but even the removal of a vague glimpse at a Saiyan that could be construed as anybody but Goku puts this reveal in doubt. For now, for the fans keeping score, Yamoshi exists in Dragon Ball's history according to Toriyama, but due to, at the very least, a stylistic choice to remove ambiguity, he may not get the cameo he deserves in Dragon Ball Super: Beerus.