Dragon Ball Fans Were Robbed of a ‘Godzilla vs Kong’-Style Kaiju Battle

There is no shortage of epic battles between incredibly powerful fighters within the Dragon Ball universe, though fans were completely robbed of what could have been the coolest fight scene of them all–one that would have been a ‘Godzilla vs Kong’-style kaiju battle.

In Dragon Ball chapter 50 by Akira Toriyama, Goku is battling Master Roshi in a World Martial Arts Tournament and the fight is surprisingly evenly matched. While Roshi was Goku’s teacher, the Saiyan child has seemingly been able to surpass him and gives the world-class martial artist a legitimate challenge. Just when Roshi had the upper hand in this chapter, however, Goku unlocked his most terrifying transformation which was triggered by the light of the full moon: the Saiyan Great Ape. Suddenly, Roshi was faced with a giant rampaging monster with the power to potentially level the entire planet in a matter of days.

In Dragon Ball chapter 186 by Akira Toriyama, Goku gets a taste of his own medicine while fighting in yet another World Martial Arts Tournament, only this time against the reincarnation of the villainous Piccolo. Piccolo entered the tournament for the chance to publicly kill Goku before launching his plan for world domination, and in the effort, Piccolo unveils a new power that nearly squashes Goku, literally. In this chapter, Piccolo suddenly grows to the size of a giant and even shoots devastating blasts from his mouth–effectively turning himself into a humongous and nearly unstoppable monster.

While the aesthetics aren’t perfect, there are enough similarities between Goku and Piccolo while the two are in their gigantic forms to make them comparable to Godzilla and Kong respectively. Goku literally becomes a giant ape while Piccolo becomes a reptilian kaiju with atomic breath, just like the titular monsters of Godzilla vs Kong. Unfortunately, while both Dragon Ball fighters displayed their monstrous transformations at the World Martial Arts Tournament, they each did so in two separate tournaments that were held years apart, meaning fans were robbed of an epic giant monster battle.

Not only did Goku not use his Great Ape form when Piccolo became a deadly monster, but he was physically incapable of doing so at this point in time. After Goku trained with the godly entities Kami and Mr. Popo before this tournament, Kami–who was Earth’s God–removed Goku’s tail, which along with the light of the full moon, allowed him to transform into a Great Ape. Kami did this because he believed Goku was powerful enough without his tail and that particular transformation was evidently holding him back. This change Goku underwent literally just happened before this story arc, so if he still had his tail when Piccolo became a Godzilla-like monster, Goku could have channeled his inner ‘Kong’ and become a Great Ape. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and the result was fans being robbed of a ‘Godzilla vs Kong’-style kaiju battle within the world of Dragon Ball.