Kaioken Blue explained: how Goku stacked it on Super Saiyan Blue

Kaioken Blue is Goku stacking the Kaioken on top of Super Saiyan Blue. It appears in Dragon Ball Super (2015), and the manga is where things get confusing. It's also known as Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken or Blue Kaioken. It's the third part of the Kaioken story, following the original Kaioken and the Super Kaioken.

The technique appears to have given Goku enough speed to beat Hit's time skip, though there may be different ways to interpret that, and it left his body in pain afterward. Whether it appears in the manga at all depends on which source you believe.

Kaioken Blue debuted in Dragon Ball Super during Goku's fight with Hit

Kaioken Blue first appeared in the Dragon Ball Super anime, during Goku's fight with Hit in the Universe 6 vs Universe 7 tournament, also called the Champa arc. At the time I wrote this, it was unclear what Toriyama's stance on it was. I'm not entirely sure it was a Toriyama idea, and I don't recall an interview where he discusses Blue Kaioken.

It seems like another idea invented by Toei Animation and carried into Dragon Ball Super. It builds on an idea Toei came up with back during Z, the Super Kaioken. The difference is that very similar properties now apply to the stronger and newer Super Saiyan Blue.

The reason Goku does not use the Super Kaioken more often is the danger of stacking Kaioken on Super Saiyan. It can have adverse effects on the body, and Dragon Ball Super shows this when Goku uses the Kaioken on top of Super Saiyan Blue. Super Saiyan Blue is a powered up version of Super Saiyan with god ki, and Goku stacks Kaioken on top of that.

Goku developed Kaioken Blue for his rematch with Beerus

Goku says it himself: he had been working on this for quite some time as a possible way to defeat Beerus in their eventual rematch. Hit challenged him so much that he figured he might as well use it then.

It was not a single appearance. Goku used Kaioken Blue numerous other times through the rest of the Dragon Ball Super anime. Interestingly, it was absent from Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which leads many fans to believe that maybe Toriyama did not come up with it.

Kaioken Blue is a technique, not a transformation

Even though many people consider Kaioken Blue a transformation, that's incorrect. It's a technique. It's Goku using the Kaioken on top of Super Saiyan Blue.

When Goku first used it against Hit, he had not yet mastered it. The show says it had only a 10 percent chance of working and a 90 percent chance of failing, possibly destroying Goku's body in the process. Super Saiyan Blue was still new at that point, both to Goku and to us as fans. It makes you wonder how well Goku understood the properties of Super Saiyan Blue then, compared to later in the series.

Why Super Saiyan Blue's calm ki suits the Kaioken

Super Saiyan Blue on its own seems to have an instinctively calm ki control. Super Saiyan God seemed more explosive and unstable at the time, but Blue does not seem to have that issue. Later, that seems to have changed a bit when it comes to red and blue, but that belongs to a fuller look at those two forms.

It matters here because Super Saiyan Blue is a calmer form that Goku uses effectively in battle. That means the Kaioken should, in theory, be tailor made for it. It's not unstable, and it's not necessarily based on rage the way the Super Saiyan form is. Kaioken Blue should let Goku focus his mind and body in combat without worrying about losing control.

The implication is that if Goku had tried stacking the Kaioken on the regular Super Saiyan forms, it may have shredded him and killed him. That's like Toei saying the Other World Tournament material from Z never happened. It's their acknowledgement of that in a weird roundabout way.

Kaioken Blue let Goku outpace Hit's time skip

The Kaioken amplifies your senses, speed and strength. That's what makes Kaioken Blue so interesting in this fight. Goku was having a lot of trouble with Hit's time skip, but once he activated Kaioken Blue, he was able to outspeed it.

Some people take this feat and eyeball it into believing Goku surpassed space time by moving faster than the time skip. I don't blame them, because that's what seems to happen. There may be other ways to interpret it, depending on how you believe the time skip works in Dragon Ball.

Whichever way you look at it, Goku with Kaioken Blue does appear to have been faster than Hit with the time skip. Keep in mind that in the Hit fight he was using a times 10 Kaioken Blue. Later in Dragon Ball Super he used Kaioken Blue times 20, which would be even faster. That's mind blowing speed and power.

The toll Kaioken Blue took on Goku's body

One of the more eye opening things about Kaioken Blue in the Hit fight is how sustainable Goku's body seems while he's using it. He fights effectively without any backlash. It wasn't until the fight ended and he dropped to his base form that he felt the aftereffects.

Super Saiyan Blue might protect Goku. Or maybe it was an adrenaline rush, or willpower. Who knows? I feel like once the battle ended and that adrenaline calmed down, Goku was in severe pain. A whole episode of Dragon Ball Super is dedicated to Goku's strange muscle spasms and his body trying to heal from using Kaioken Blue. "It really tore him up." It didn't kill him, but he was in pain for a long time after the fight.

Based on how the technique is used in other Dragon Ball Super fights, I feel like Goku overcame that handicap. We never saw it again. Goku used Kaioken Blue at much higher levels later and, from anything we saw, didn't suffer any consequences.

Kaioken Blue may be Dragon Ball's first double aura

A fun fact: I do believe Kaioken Blue is the first time in Dragon Ball that a character has what I call a double aura. The red surrounds Goku's body, with the blue closer to his body. We later saw this with Trunks's rage form, but this is the first time I can remember a double aura.

I think it looks really cool. I remember when we first saw the episode where Goku did it against Hit, and we were all fanboying out over it. It was awesome to see.

Whether Goku uses Kaioken Blue in the Dragon Ball Super manga is unclear

That's the anime. The manga is where things get confusing. In the original black and white manga, we never saw Goku use Kaioken Blue: not on Hit, not on Goku Black, and not really on Jiren. But it was discussed at one point.

During Goku's fight with Jiren in the manga, he increases his power exponentially. Krillin, on the sidelines, questions whether he's using the Kaioken. Whis says it seems Goku is drawing deep from his reserves for a temporary power boost, and Tien asks if it's the same principle as the Kaioken. So the suggestion is that what Goku is doing is similar to the Kaioken, but not exactly the Kaioken.

Then V Jump magazine revealed that it was Kaioken Blue, and we all thought it was in the manga after all. You can't tell in black and white, because there are no colors. Then the Dragon Ball Super full color editions came out, and Goku was not shown using Kaioken Blue, or at least not its aura.

So this is up in the air. I don't know if the colorist made a mistake. I don't know if V Jump was wrong, which they have been many times in the past. Whether Goku used Kaioken Blue in this scene depends on who you want to believe. Based on the statement and the color, which is "two against one," I'm going to say it was not Kaioken Blue. Again, it could have been a mistake. These things happen.

I feel like V Jump and its editors often say things that don't line up with the series. V Jump is not always what Toriyama is saying. Sometimes it's an editor putting in his two cents without clarifying where the information came from, so it has always been a bit iffy. Either way, even if we don't see Kaioken Blue in the manga, it's basically said that it exists in that continuity, and to me that makes it okay, I guess. Vegito also used Kaioken Blue in the Heroes show and manga, but it's Heroes, and they do whatever they want.