Why Future Trunks Might Be One of the Strongest Characters in Dragon Ball

Future Trunks may have as much potential as even Gohan does, and I have wanted to make the case for him for a very long time. Between Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super, I think we have seen enough flashes of his brilliance to argue there might not be a limit to this kid's power.

Before getting into the feats, I want to clear up one thing: I am focusing mostly on Future Trunks because he is the older, more experienced version who gets more fights in the series, but because both versions of Trunks share the same biology, everything I say about Future Trunks could also apply to Kid Trunks. The difference is upbringing. Trunks from the future grew up without a father in a post apocalyptic world with androids 17 and 18 destroying everything, while Kid Trunks has both parents and a grandfather who is the richest man on Earth. Theoretically, if present time Trunks went through the same training as his future counterpart, they would probably end up with relatively the same amount of power.

Trunks Shares Gohan's Hybrid Potential Because of Vegeta's Bloodline

One thing to keep in mind about Trunks's potential is that he is biologically very similar to Gohan. Gohan is the product of a Saiyan and a human, and Trunks is the same combination, with Bulma as his mother and Vegeta as his father. Vegeta was labeled a super elite from birth and is a fighting genius with the potential to do most of what Goku can do, if not all of it depending on your perspective. Because of that, Trunks should in theory have the same amount of potential as Gohan.

Based on what we saw in the Cell Saga and in Dragon Ball Super Superhero, Gohan may have the most potential out of anybody, able to leap frog past other characters by tapping into rage and unlocking new transformations. The key difference in why Gohan was able to excel beyond Trunks comes down to their fathers, not because Goku has a significantly higher power than Vegeta, but because of how the two father son duos trained.

Vegeta Never Bonded With Trunks in the Room of Spirit and Time

When Goku and Gohan entered the Room of Spirit and Time, Goku was coaching Gohan the whole way, teaching him and pushing him to his limits. Based on statements made by Trunks and Vegeta, that did not happen for them. Vegeta did his own thing and Trunks did his own thing, so they never had that same bonding moment, and Trunks was unable to reach the highest levels he could have.

That said, Trunks was still able to unlock Super Saiyan before Goku and Vegeta ever did, and at a much younger age, whether you go by the History of Trunks TV special, the Story of Trunks manga chapter, or Kid Trunks pulling it off before he was even eight years old. That is very impressive on its own and shows just how much potential Trunks has.

Grade Two and Grade Three Super Saiyan Exposed the Gap in Their Training

When Vegeta and Trunks left the Room of Spirit and Time to confront Cell in his second form, Vegeta debuted Super Saiyan grade two, also called Ascended Saiyan. Trunks was able to achieve that same grade two, but he went even further into grade three, the huge, muscular, incredibly powerful form that burns enormous energy and is also very slow.

Vegeta was able to reach grade three too, but he was smart enough to know that form caused a slowdown that would hurt him in actual combat, so he chose not to use it, which shows how much more experienced and intelligent he was than his son. The problem is Vegeta never shared that information with Trunks. Meanwhile, in that same episode and timeframe, Goku was literally explaining to Gohan that there were other in between forms but that those were not where they wanted to stop, pointing toward Super Saiyan grade four, or full power Super Saiyan.

Poor Trunks did not know what he was doing and did not understand his own body, so while he got powerful without question, he was too slow, and it does not matter how strong you are if you cannot hit your opponent. It is the same in real sports, where a pro fighter who puts on too much muscle mass loses speed moving up in weight. Even with that setback, Trunks showed that with a little more training he could be an absolute monster.

Trunks Unlocked Super Saiyan 2 Alone and Vegeta Says He Beat Goku's Super Saiyan 3

After the Cell Saga we did not see Trunks again until Dragon Ball Super, when he returned to the past to get Goku's help against Goku Black. By then he had become a behemoth, stronger than anybody expected. Beyond the blue hair, the most impressive thing to me is that Trunks was able to unlock Super Saiyan 2 entirely on his own in the future.

We see him fighting Goku while Goku is in Super Saiyan 3, and Vegeta outright states that Trunks in Super Saiyan 2 is stronger than Goku in Super Saiyan 3. It is similar to how Vegeta momentarily surpassed Goku's Super Saiyan 2 in Battle of Gods out of anger after Beerus slapped Bulma, showing you can overcome a higher Super Saiyan level if you are strong enough. Trunks still did not know how to use Super Saiyan 3 at that point, since that secret still remains locked in Goku's head, but pulling off what he did is still a crazy feat.

Super Saiyan Rage Puts Trunks on Par With Super Saiyan Blue

As the arc progressed, Trunks kept getting stronger through training and by exploiting zenkai boosts from his repeated battles with Goku Black and Zamasu, eventually unlocking a brand new transformation called Super Saiyan Rage. There is not much explained about this form to this day. My best guess is that, like Gohan Beast, it is a hidden power inside Trunks that he was never able to tap into until that moment, the same way it seems to work for every character and every new transformation in the series.

I am not going to sit here and call the writing lazy, even though it does come off that way at times. What I will say is that Super Saiyan Rage seems to be on the level of, if not slightly above, Super Saiyan Blue at that point in the story, at least relative to Goku and Vegeta.

Trunks Killed Frieza and Cell, Then Cut Zamasu With a Spirit Bomb Sword

Trunks's kill count alone stands out. He finished off Frieza, killed Cell, and the anime also showed him killing another opponent in the future timeline flashback. On top of that, by the end of the arc the anime shows Trunks somehow manifesting genki energy the same way Goku does with the Genki Dama, or Spirit Bomb, forming what has been called the spirit sword, or Spirit Bomb sword, which he used to cut Zamasu in half.

Merged Zamasu, just an episode earlier, had been competing against Vegito Blue, so if Trunks could compete with Zamasu at that stage, that puts him in the same relative conversation as Vegito Blue, which is still a head scratcher to this day. Trunks getting some kind of special moment the same way Gohan did in Superhero makes logical sense by Dragon Ball's own patterns, even if you can argue about the lack of creativity behind the concept.

My Case for Trunks as One of the Strongest in Dragon Ball

My goal here has been to explain why Trunks is one of the strongest characters in Dragon Ball and, in many ways, surpassed Goku and Vegeta at least within that arc. I am not saying Trunks can compete with Ultra Instinct or Ultra Ego. But if we ever see Trunks again in the future, or if he comes back to the main timeline, he may have another top secret powerful form that rivals Gohan Beast.