While Goku is one of the strongest warriors in the entire Dragon Ball universe, he isn’t above borrowing techniques from his fellow Z-Fighters from time to time, and one episode of Dragon Ball GT reveals that Goku effectively stole one attack in particular from Trunks – the attack Trunks used to kill Frieza.
Trunks was introduced in Dragon Ball chapter 331 by Akira Toriyama, and it was one of the most badass debuts of any character in the franchise. When Frieza and his father, King Cold, traveled to Earth to get revenge on Goku, the villains were met by a mysterious, sword-wielding warrior who fans would later learn was named Trunks.
Frieza initially laughed at this unknown fighter and threatened to kill him if he stood in the way of his vengeance – to which Trunks responded with swift and brutal violence. In the blink of an eye, Trunks flew up into the sky, dashed behind Frieza, and then came down upon the villain with his sword, slicing Frieza in half before chopping him up into little pieces.
Goku Used the Same Sword Attack Trunks Used in Dragon Ball Z
In Dragon Ball GT season 1, episode 12 (written by Masashi Kubota, directed by Osamu Kasai, produced by Toei Animation), Goku finds himself in an alien castle where he is battling a villain named Mutchy who has the power to turn anything he touches with his whip-arms into a living slave that does his bidding. The objects Mutchy can put under his control include pieces of rubble, stone lanterns, and even the ground itself.
As Goku becomes overwhelmed by the amount of newly-sentient enemies that are surrounding him, he decides to grab a sword that was hanging on a nearby wall in the castle and use it against the attacking objects. When one of the aforementioned stone lanterns flies at Goku with malicious intent, Goku flies into the air, dashes behind it, and comes down upon it with his sword, slicing the lantern in half before chopping it up into little pieces.
Goku & Trunks’ Sword Attack Confirms How Similar The 2 Saiyans Are
The parallels between Trunks’ sword attack against Frieza in Dragon Ball Z and Goku’s in Dragon Ball GT is striking to say the least, and the fact that it happened at all is incredibly interesting given that Goku wasn’t present for Trunks’ murder of Frieza – and neither was GT’s Trunks, for that matter. Dragon Ball GT’s Trunks isn’t the same Trunks who killed Frieza in DBZ.
GT’s Trunks is the version of the character who existed in the timeline Future Trunks saved through his intervention in the timestream. This means that Trunks (GT’s Trunks) has no memory of killing Frieza the way Goku killed Mutchy’s minion, since it technically wasn’t him who did it. Plus, in DBZ, Goku was still off-world when Future Trunks killed Frieza, meaning both Trunks and Goku had the same murderous idea as the other at completely different points in time, with neither of them able to influence the other.
This coincidence just goes to show how like-minded Goku and Trunks are in the Dragon Ball series as both arrived at this particular murder-method totally independently. However, since GT is a sequel to DBZ, Trunks used this attack first, meaning Goku effectively stole Trunks’ Frieza-killing attack.
All episodes of Dragon Ball GT are available on Crunchyroll.
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Dragon Ball GT
Dragon Ball GT is the third series in Akira Toriyama’s most famous anime franchise. However, it is the first one not to adapt a manga storyline. Set after the events of the Buu Saga, Dragon Ball GT sees Goku and the Z-Warriors battle powerful villains such as Baby, Super 17, and the Shadow Dragons. 18 years after the 64-episode show was met with a lukewarm reception, Dragon Ball Super replaced it in the anime’s official continuity.
