Vegeta's Galick Gun Explained: A Killing Move That Never Finished Anyone on Screen

Vegeta's Galick Gun is meant to be a killing move, but as far as we've seen, Vegeta has never actually finished somebody off with it. That's the oddity at the heart of one of his signature techniques, a powerful energy wave that is very similar to the Kamehameha.

Vegeta has always been ruthless, especially in the early days of Dragon Ball Z. His techniques are unique to him, and they've always been primarily focused on tremendously high amounts of bodily injury or taking you out permanently. This is the start of a series examining his techniques, and I'm beginning with the Galick Gun. Because so many of Vegeta's moves are based on the Kamehameha or similar to it, it helps to have a fundamental understanding of how the Kamehameha works before getting into them.

The Galick Gun is Vegeta's signature move, though Trunks learns it too

The Galick Gun is one of Vegeta's signature moves, although later in the series we find out that Trunks knows how to do it as well. That was much, much later, though.

One thing I find very, very interesting is that Toriyama chose to name Vegeta's techniques in English. Moves like the Taiyoken, which is the Solar Flare, or the Kienzan, which is the Destructo Disc in the dub, carry Japanese titles. The Kamehameha isn't really a Japanese title, but you get the idea. With Vegeta, though, he names his moves in English. When he says them in the Japanese version, voiced by his Japanese voice actor, and in the manga, they're also in English: Final Flash, Big Bang Attack. Vegeta says these things.

The Galick Gun debuted in Vegeta's fight with Goku

The first time we see the Galick Gun is during Vegeta's epic fight with Goku. I absolutely love that fight. It's one of my top three favorite fights in Dragon Ball. During it, Vegeta gets increasingly frustrated at Goku's incredible power and his use of the Kaioken, and he busts out the Galick Gun, his signature technique at the time.

One of the things I've always wondered is where Vegeta got this technique from. Did he come up with it himself, or did somebody teach it to him? With Goku, we actually see him learning the Kamehameha after seeing it once, learning the Genki Dama, and of course the Kaioken and everything else. Even when we don't see it on screen, we know it's something he learns from someone.

My theory: Vegeta developed the Galick Gun himself after battles with Nappa

Vegeta is a different case. Based on the evidence we have in the subtext of the manga and the anime, and the fact that Beerus states Vegeta is a fighting genius, I figure that Vegeta, after having several battles with Nappa, at some point developed the technique as a finishing move against more difficult opponents.

Although the hand positions are slightly different, it is very, very similar to the Kamehameha. In fact, in Xenoverse 2 there's a scene where Goku and Vegeta discuss how similar the move is. As for how it works, Vegeta does what Goku did with the Kamehameha: he ignites the particles around his wrist using his energy manipulation, eventually inflames them, and fires them at his opponent at a rapid speed.

The Galick Gun has never killed anyone on screen

It seems like Vegeta never actually killed somebody with this move on screen. We saw him use it against Goku, and he lost that beam struggle. We saw him use it in Dragon Ball Super a few times, and even before that, in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, he used it against Beerus, and that did nothing. We saw it in GT as well, and that's where my favorite variation of it comes from.

One thing I found cool was in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, when Goku and Vegeta together did a combination of the Kamehameha and the Galick Gun. Broly just ate through it like nothing. So even though it's meant to be a killing move, Vegeta has never finished somebody off with it.

Why the Galick Gun is purple

The Kamehameha can be a whitish, light blue kind of color, but the Galick Gun is almost always purple. I'm guessing the idea behind that was Toei Animation trying to differentiate the Galick Gun from the Kamehameha and give it a different look.

Interestingly enough, Vegeta now has this god of destruction power. I'm not saying this was foreshadowed, but it is an interesting coincidence.

The Galick Gun name is a garlic pun

You're probably wondering why Toriyama chose the word Galick. It isn't a reference to some kind of machine gun. It's a pun. Vegeta's pun is vegetables, since the Saiyans are named after vegetables, and Galick is derived from the word garlic. So it's almost like Vegeta is saying garlic gun, and the pun carries into the Japanese version too. Just imagine Vegeta throwing garlic at people. That would be awesome.

Please also disregard the censored version of Dragon Ball Kai, which I attribute to 4Kids, where the move is renamed. They couldn't use the word gun because it was heavily censored, so they had to use blast. That's kind of dumb, to be honest, but 4Kids is really picky about these things.

Perhaps someday we will actually see this technique finish somebody off. Until then, there isn't much more to say about the Galick Gun, but there are a lot more Vegeta techniques to get through, and some of these get really interesting.

Which Galick Gun moment stands out most to you?