Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Novel Reveals Magenta's Secret Funding, Vomi's Origin and Orange Piccolo's Crest

The Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero novel, written by Masatoshi Kusakabe, fills in several gaps the movie left open, including the fact that Magenta was secretly bankrolling Dr. Gero long before the Android saga. It also explains where Vomi fits into the Gero family and what the crest on Orange Piccolo actually represents.

This piece gets into spoilers for Super Hero. It won't spoil everything about the movie, but it does spoil a couple of big things. It is meant for people who have seen the film, or who have already read the synopses and know the plot. What follows is extra information, and in my opinion interesting information, on events from the movie, extra context if you will. I've broken it down into seven points from the novel that were either not in the film or were expanded on in the book.

Magenta secretly funded Dr. Gero's android research before the Android saga

The first point is a new one. According to the novel, Magenta was secretly funding Dr. Gero's research during the years before the Android saga, while Gero was developing his technology. The movie somewhat talked about Magenta at the beginning, but it didn't go into this much detail.

Magenta's operation started in secret at some point after Goku destroyed the Red Ribbon Army, but before the Android saga. With the money he had made from Red Pharmaceuticals, presumably, Magenta funded Gero's research into creating the original androids. He was a secret funder, and I always found that to be very interesting.

The second point is a smaller one. In the novel, Carmine's job title is given as Magenta's secretary and driver.

Gohan's white haired form is simply called Final Gohan in the Toei script

The third point concerns Gohan's final white haired form, the one some people call the Gohan Beast form. As of the Japanese script for Super Hero, which has been revealed by inside sources, it did not have a name other than Final Gohan, which was taken from the Toei script.

Whether Toriyama wrote that name in himself or it came from someone else working on the script, I would assume it's him. Either way, the Toei script just calls the form Final Gohan.

Vomi is the woman Android 21 was based on, and Dr. Gero's late wife

This is one I've talked about before, but I want to go into more detail. Vomi is the human that Android 21 from Dragon Ball FighterZ was based off of, and she was Dr. Gero's deceased wife.

Android 16 being modeled after Gero's son is not new. That was revealed by Toriyama in an interview going back to the full color releases of the manga many years ago. I covered it before, after Team Four Star did their parody, which was really clever, adding that scene into Dragon Ball Z Abridged.

Android 21 is of course famous for being the main villain of FighterZ, and people have been asking me whether this makes Android 21 canon. I don't like using that word, because it confuses people, and the answer is not necessarily. I think they included her for two reasons. First, it was an Easter egg for those who played FighterZ and other games like Heroes and Xenoverse, and it was cool to see her there in a cameo form. Second, it's not actually Android 21. It's who 21 was based off of. If 16 is based off his son, why not base one off his wife? That's kind of where her origin came from.

Piccolo's yellow form is known as Piccolo Capacity Liberation

According to the Japanese, the full name of Piccolo's yellow form is Piccolo Capacity Liberation. That is very Japanese. It's otherwise known as Piccolo Potential Unlocked, just like the form Gohan got in the Majin Buu saga from the Old Kai, where his potential was unlocked and it powered him up.

I'm going to call him Ultimate Piccolo or Piccolo Potential Unlocked. You can call him Mystic Piccolo if you want, but that's more of a fan name than anything.

Vegeta's lines about Jiren weaken him, but explain how Vegeta beats Goku

The sixth point is Vegeta's lines about Jiren during their training on Beerus's planet. I didn't talk about this in my spoiler review, but I was not a fan of what Vegeta said about Jiren. I get what they were saying about Jiren being more of a talented, methodical, mental fighter, and I do appreciate that as a fan of martial arts and somebody who took a little bit of martial arts when I was younger. But honestly, I think it's kind of nonsense, because we watched Super. Granted, Jiren was stronger in the anime, or at least seemed to be stronger in the anime than in the manga version, and this to me really weakens him.

Talking to Goku, Vegeta says Jiren's true strength "wasn't all that far off from our own." He goes on: "there was no waste in his use did you notice even in the midst of battle his spirit was completely relaxed outside of the moment of attack." Launching attacks from zero, "his movements couldn't be read and contain explosive power," and he was able to save stamina too.

Now, I love this part, because it mirrors Goku discovering grade four, aka full power Super Saiyan, in the Cell saga. Goku and Gohan had it, but Jiren does it with much mightier strength and much more discipline. Vegeta is able to defeat Goku in their sparring match at the end of the movie because he was much more disciplined and worked on his mental game more than his physical game. I'm a big fan of this kind of stuff when Dragon Ball does it.

Orange Piccolo's crest comes from the Namekian Ajisa tree and stands for Namekian pride

The last tidbit was in the novel, though I think it's going to come out in other sources too. Orange Piccolo, where he's a big giant hulking monster, has an orange crest on his chest, and if you notice, on his back too. The novelization explains that the crest is formed from the image of a Namekian Ajisa tree, those circular trees on planet Namek, and represents Namekian pride. This is new lore introduced into the series.

Remember that Shenron is originally a Namekian creation. Granted, Dragon Balls weren't originally from Namek, since the Super Dragon Balls came first according to Super, but the Namekians were the first race that really created Dragon Balls in multitudes, so it is a Namekian form of magic. The dragon giving Piccolo this form was sort of the dragon going into his Namekian roots and giving Piccolo the true secret power he always had inside of him, which many Namekians did not know how to unlock.

Back in Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, when they were building up Piccolo and Kami as the nameless Namekian, they talked about how powerful he was. When Piccolo and Kami merged in the Cell saga, we got to see some of that power. Piccolo got really strong, was able to overpower Imperfect Cell, and went toe to toe with 17.

My theory: Orange Piccolo is the Namekian version of Super Saiyan

This is just a theory as a Dragon Ball fan, but I believe Orange Piccolo might actually be the true Super Namekian we've heard about, the way Lord Slug was called a Super Namekian. I think it's the Namekian version of Super Saiyan, where you transform and actually look different. He's glowing orange, he has those things on his forearms and elbows, and he's bigger.

That's my opinion, and I respect anyone who disagrees. As I put it, "we're just kind of spitballing right here because we don't have all the answers yet," and hopefully Super will give us more answers in the future.

Do you think Orange Piccolo is the true Super Namekian, or is it something else entirely?