Dragon Ball: Goku’s Mindbending Feat in the Tournament of Power is Arguably the Most Badass Feat Achieved in Anime History

Dragon Ball is known for the sheer scale of its fights and the rawness of its characters. Every fan of the series will not shy away from watching bulked-up Goku in his Kaioken form beating the cr*p out of Nappa during the Saiyan saga. Regardless of how Toriyama treats the other characters, one cannot deny the sheer excitement and relief fans feel after watching Goku arrive at the last minute to save the day.

Goku on planet Namek | Credits: Bandai Namco

Goku has fought many opponents over the years and each of them is stronger than the previous. Well, except for Beerus, cause’ he’s still the strongest Goku has ever faced yet. The clash between Goku and Beerus shook the very fabric of the cosmos and potentially threatened to annihilate the whole thing. But even that isn’t the biggest feat Goku has achieved in the series.

The rawest feat Goku has ever displayed in Dragon Ball

Goku shakes the null realm | Credits: Toei Animation

According to Dragon Ball YouTuber @CarthusDojo, the coolest feat in the entirety of Dragon Ball is one that took place in Super’s Tournament of Power. The Zenos wanted to increase the mortal level of 8 lower universes and wanted 10 fighters from each of them to compete with each other for the Super Dragon Balls.

As a result, the Grand Priest constructed a ring in the null realm or the realm of void. It is an isolated place outside of the multiverse with literally no time or space, basically infinite nothingness. When Goku transformed into Ultra Instinct Sign, he was able to shake the entire realm. This is insane because there’s no concept in the real world where something or someone can shake infinite nothingness. Well, first, there has to be something to shake, so Goku is filling a realm with nothing with his Ki, and that causes him to shake everything.

It’s kind of like the God Ki realm that Whis sends Goku and Vegeta into during the Resurrection “F” saga, wherein the Saiyans couldn’t move at all because of the huge pressure God Ki is putting on them. But when they relax their minds and souls while controlling their Ki output to a certain degree, they’re able to move again.

Similarly, Goku fills up the realm with so much God Ki that the pressure emanating from it shakes the very realm itself. Even Jiren managed to do it with his own Ki by merely walking on the battleground. He is packed with so much heat that everyone on the stands could feel it. Dragon Ball characters may have destroyed planets, galaxies, universes, or even entire timelines, but the fact that Goku was able to shake the very fabric of “nothingness” is something even bigger.

However, the concept of nothingness, if one takes its conventional meaning, isn’t accurate when it comes to actual science.

Analyzing the null realm from the lens of science

Gohan in Dragon Ball GT | Credits: Toei Animation

Sure, the characters in Dragon Ball have described the null realm as filled with “emptiness,” but people who are well-versed in cosmology know that empty space isn’t actually empty. Space, at the quantum level, is bubbling with energy as there exists a quantum field from which particles appear and disappear into this field (virtual particles).

This means that at the fundamental level, there is matter occupying everywhere in the cosmos, and the null realm is just a space that exists between universes. Although modern cosmology has no idea whether there are multiple universes, and if there were, scientists have no idea what exists between universes as well.

But if fans had to go with what the show says and combine it with quantum mechanics, then Goku was shaking the fabric of “empty space” filled with virtual particles along with the battlefield itself. There is space within the realm because if there wasn’t, the ring cannot be placed inside the null realm. So if power scalers come and argue that Goku can shake infinity itself, that isn’t true because the null realm isn’t truly empty nor infinite.

Nevertheless, it’s an achievement Goku can add to his resume for sure. But if fans take the science out of it, it is the biggest and rawest feat in anime history.

Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball Super are available to watch on Crunchyroll.