Dragon Ball Super: could Goku's mind reading expose the Heeters?

Goku had a technique that could have changed the whole landscape of the Granolah arc. He could have read the Heeters' minds and learned they were not nice people. That's one of two things I didn't notice when I first read this chapter of the Dragon Ball Super manga. The other is a question about Earth's Dragon Balls that may point to Toyotaro forgetting a line he wrote.

They're worth going through one at a time, starting with the Dragon Balls.

Earth's Dragon Balls were ready in the Moro arc, so why are they stones now?

In the chapter, the Heeters were on Earth discussing the Dragon Balls. They were going to gather them up, but the balls were ordinary rocks, presumably because a wish had been made. At first I thought they were talking about the Earth balls being used in Dragon Ball Super: Broly. That's not the case, because Toyotaro may have forgotten something very important.

One Dragon Ball Super fan account raised this on Twitter, pointing to chapter 59, page 16. Their view is that Gohan is indeed talking about Earth's Dragon Balls there, but that Toyotaro forgot about them not being used. They added that we might get an answer in the extra pages of the Korean manga volumes, and that maybe somebody used the Dragon Balls off screen.

Take a closer look at that page. Gohan says, "we've already gathered up the earth's dragon balls they're at dende's place that means we can always put everything back to normal." So Gohan is saying they have the Dragon Balls and they're ready to go, which means they were glowing and active. In the Moro arc, the Namekian Dragon Balls were the ones used, not these.

Suddenly, in the Granolah arc, the Earth balls don't work. An unspecified amount of time did pass, so we don't know who used them. That leaves one big mystery. Did somebody use the Dragon Balls, or did Toyotaro forget he'd written that line?

Goku could have read the Heeters' minds the way he did on Namek

The second point comes from a tweet by my good friend MJ, and he's right about this. Not only did Goku forget about it, I forgot about it too. MJ wrote: "good thing goku doesn't remember the one useful ability he pulled off on namek," adding that otherwise the Heeters' plan would have been ruined.

In the chapter, the Heeters were on Earth asking for help to eliminate their problem with Granolah. Here's the issue. On Planet Namek, Goku read people's minds, doing it to Gohan and to Krillin. If he'd remembered that, none of this would have happened. He could have read the Heeters' minds and figured out quickly that they're not nice people.

I'm not going to call this a plot hole, even though it might be. Maybe Goku forgot, or maybe he didn't think of it. Still, I think Goku should have remembered, because being able to read minds lets you overcome people.

We also know that in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, Goku sensed that Broly was not an evil guy. So either the Heeters are good at hiding their sinister side, or Goku didn't do it.

The technique is called retrocognition, and Goku has had it since the Frieza saga

I haven't done a technique breakdown on this yet, but it's called retrocognition. Derek Padula covered it in a post at The Dao of Dragon Ball. He writes that Son Goku uses retrocognition to read Krillin's mind after arriving on Planet Namek. He describes it as one of the six supernormal powers associated with Buddhist and Taoist sages, letting them see and understand past events in the blink of an eye.

In both the Dragon Ball Z anime and the manga, Goku puts his hand on someone's forehead and reads their thoughts and memories. If he'd gone up to any of the Heeters, put his hand on their head and read their thoughts for more information, he would have found out right away that Granolah is not evil. He would have known the truth about the Heeters' manipulation tactics.

Then again, Goku may not have cared, because he wants to fight strong enemies. Who knows. I don't know.

It's right there in Dragon Ball chapter 279, where the notes tie the ability to terms for the power of knowing fates, supernatural powers and the divine power of the Buddhist law. Goku has been able to read minds since the Namek saga, since the Frieza saga. Yet apart from that one time, we've never seen him do it.