The Origin of the Saiyans

Akira Toriyama has brought us a seemingly endless universe with the Dragon Ball franchise, filled with strange people, planets, and powers. There are dragons and Spheres of Destruction and even cute little love stories. There are wild roars from angry characters and colorfully animated ki blasts that make watching the show a possible problem for the health of your eyes as a whole.

At the center of it all is the franchise protagonist, Goku. Goku is sweet yet strong, a bit naive, and immensely powerful. Those who have been with Dragon Ball Z since the beginning of the show have watched him grow from a young, goofy boy to a determined warrior who has gone toe-to-toe with gods. He uses powerful ki blasts and he can sense energy from across universes. And, as lovable a protagonist as he is, he loves a challenge, and is always up for a good fight.

His morals come largely from his human upbringing, but the ability to fly certainly didn't. Neither did his spiky hair, his tail, or his superhuman physical strength. Those came from his biological ancestors—the Saiyan race.

Goku's bloodlines were something of a mystery earlier in the franchise; however, the origin of the Saiyans has become much less clouded as all the various stories from the many seasons of the show have unfolded.

The Saiyan Race

The majority of the Saiyan race did not share Goku's kindness, nor his nobility. To be blunt, they were a mean group.

They were confrontational, aggressive, and eager to prove they were the strongest, whether it be against other races or against other Saiyans. Your typical warrior race, they were trained in combat from a young age, and measured in their battle power and energy levels.

The Saiyans lived on Planet Vegeta after killing its native inhabitants, the Tuffles, who were a pretty peaceful group and who definitely didn't deserve the genocide that befell them. The reason they needed to conquer this planet? They'd torn their original home—Planet Sadala—apart with all their fighting.

The 1990 movie, Dragon Ball Z: Bardock—The Father of Goku, tells the story of Goku's parents, and delves into the Saiyan race's war with Frieza, who ruled over Universe 7 at the time. It opens with Bardock and a team of Saiyans killing all life on Planet Kanassa—which doesn't speak well for them in general.

That's not to say that they were a purely violent species, incapable of compassion and nobility. This same movie shows Bardock's fight for the survival of the Saiyan race, and the sweet paternal pride Bardock has in Goku and what he knows Goku will accomplish. He faces Frieza largely on his own, and, unfortunately, dies as a result of the battle.

Toei Animation hit us with another flashy, hype fest with the 2018 Dragon Ball Super movie—Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Here, again, we saw another instance of fatherly love: King Vegeta finds out that the infant Broly may have the power of the legendary Super Saiyan form—an immensely powerful Saiyan believed to only occur once in a thousand years—and decides he's a threat to his rule. The only rational solution to that problem, of course, is to exile a baby to a lifeless, barren planet. Of course. Naturally, Broly's father, Paragus, goes after his son.

Granted, the path that father-and-son duo goes down isn't quite as honorable and heroic as Bardock and Goku's, but the point is that Saiyans love their families.

Before I let you believe this is all doom and gloom, you should know that the developers of Dragon Ball Z wanted to let me throw in this fun fact: All Saiyan characters' names are puns on vegetables. For example, Goku's birth name, "Kakarot," and his brother "Raditz," are inspired by "carrot" and "radish." Prince Vegeta should need no explanation.

The Legends

Going back even further into the origin of the Saiyans; before the Saiyan race went to war with Frieza, before they started conquering other planets, before they tore apart their original home, Planet Sadala; there was Yamoshi.

A man with morals, Yamoshi and five of his friends rebelled against the other Saiyans' brutality. They died for it. In his final battle, Yamoshi had transformed into a Super Saiyan, an unprecedented turn of events at the time of the battle. Still though, it wasn't enough to win the fight against the overwhelming forces of the other Saiyans. The Saiyan race went on to tear up Sadala, send their babies to infiltrate planets, and get killed by Frieza—as savage as ever. Yamoshi went on to become a legend, known as the Super Saiyan God.

No Saiyan for the next thousand years transformed into a Super Saiyan; that is, until one of the top Dragon Ball Z moments of all time occurs and Goku goes Super Saiyan after Frieza murders Krillin. Not one to be satisfied with achieving the first level of Super Saiyan though, Goku then transformed into higher and higher levels of Super Saiyan until, in his battle against Beerus, he achieved the status of a Super Saiyan God. To do this, Goku absorbed energy from five other pure-hearted Saiyans—an obvious call back to Yamoshi's last stand with his five friends. Yamoshi's spirit appears in the middle of the ceremony, and before then, appears in Beerus's visions as he is searching for a worthy opponent (something you may be interested in learning about in an overview of Beerus).

Goku builds on the God form to turn Super Saiyan Blue in Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F'.

The Present

In "modern" times, the Saiyan race is nearly extinct. Only a small group survived Frieza's destruction of Planet Vegeta, but the bloodlines carry on in Goku and Vegeta's children, with human mothers. It's believed that half-Saiyans are stronger than full-blood Saiyans.

Theorigin of the Saiyans will never cease to fascinate Dragon Ball fans, and there will likely always be more to learn about their powers and their history.