Super Saiyan Rosé Explained: The Anime Error Around Goku Black's Form

Super Saiyan Rosé is Goku Black's exclusive form, and it's a polluted, twisted, evil version of Super Saiyan Blue rather than a pink take on regular Super Saiyan. The Dragon Ball Super anime described it as Goku Black's version of Super Saiyan, not Super Saiyan Blue. I think that error confused many people, and I want to set the record straight.

Goku Black's pink hair first surfaced in an Amazon Japan leak

I remember when I broke the story of the Amazon Japan leak that showed what would become Goku Black's exclusive form. The image was indeed Black, and his hair was pink. At the time I called it Super Saiyan Pink. We now know it as Super Saiyan Rosé, or as some call it, Super Saiyan Rose.

As of when I covered this form in August 2021, Goku Black was the only character who had accessed it. I won't go through the whole history of who Goku Black is here. I've discussed his power before as part of my look at the strongest characters in Dragon Ball, so I'll focus on the form itself.

Zamasu's god ki let Goku Black twist Super Saiyan Blue into Rosé

The form was first introduced in Dragon Ball Super during the Future Trunks arc. We soon found out that Goku Black could evolve his power at an extremely rapid rate. The reason is that Goku Black is Zamasu inside Goku's body. Zamasu is already a god, so he understands how god ki works and how to use it. He also knows how to use the body of Goku that he took by using the Super Dragon Balls and switching.

Super Saiyan Rosé adopts the virtually identical properties of Super Saiyan Blue. Understanding how Blue works is essential before diving into Rosé. It's a polluted, twisted, evil version of Super Saiyan Blue that Zamasu, inside Goku's body as Goku Black, was able to manifest.

By that point, the body of Goku with Zamasu inside it had grown far more powerful than anybody could have anticipated. In many ways, Rosé trumped Super Saiyan Blue, at least back then. Maybe not the Super Saiyan Blue that Goku and Vegeta use in the Broly movie or in the Moro arc. In those earlier days, though, Rosé was far and away more powerful, because Goku Black himself was more powerful.

The anime left out Goku Black's golden Super Saiyan form

Here's the misconception. In the Dragon Ball Super anime, they state that Super Saiyan Rosé is Goku Black's version of Super Saiyan, not Super Saiyan Blue. That's not how it really went down. Toriyama himself said that Goku Black could become a Super Saiyan like Goku, and also a Super Saiyan of a slightly different color than Goku. Those are two separate things.

Later, we saw character designs and character models of Goku Black in the regular golden haired Super Saiyan form. In the Dragon Ball Super manga, we see Goku Black using both golden haired Super Saiyan and Rosé. In the anime, we only saw Rosé.

It makes more sense that Goku Black can use both Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan Rosé, because it's Goku's body. As Zamasu was testing the body out, he was able to figure out how to tap into Super Saiyan. Then, since he's a god, he could do what Goku figured out during his training with Whis: tap into Super Saiyan while using god ki. That made it easier for him to use Rosé.

In some ways the anime's approach makes sense too. Zamasu is a god, so Super Saiyan Rosé should come naturally to him. In the anime, it's more like he figured it out off screen. In the manga it's more of a journey, because we see Goku Black getting stronger and stronger and eventually figuring it out, and we see it happen visually.

Rosé's darker shades are unconfirmed, and it shows no stamina drawbacks

The form does resemble a pink rose. It's pink, but in some instances we see a darker shade of pink. Some have said this shows how much power Goku Black is using, so darker pink means more power than lighter pink. I haven't been able to confirm that based on any actual data from any of the Dragon Ball sources, so I can't say that it's the truth.

Much like Super Saiyan Blue, the form gives Black a complete balance of power, speed and agility. However, the stamina issues present in Super Saiyan Blue, both in the manga and to a lesser degree in the anime, don't seem to show up in Rosé. We never see Goku Black showcase any drawbacks.

That makes me wonder whether it's because Zamasu is a god and has known god ki longer than Goku has, or whether it's something they forgot. I think it's more the former. I think Zamasu being a god let him use Rosé much more effectively than Goku used Blue at the time. Goku needed more time with it, and Goku and Vegeta learned more about Super Saiyan Blue as the series progressed.

In the manga, we see Goku Black transforming from golden hair into Rosé hair. I thought that was a cool little effect, because it reminded me of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, where Goku went from golden hair to the Super Saiyan God form with red hair. It's a cool transition, although we only saw it on the page, not in actual animation.

Fused Zamasu's white hair is still Super Saiyan Rosé

So where does merged Zamasu's white hair come from? When Goku Black fuses with Zamasu to form Fused Zamasu, or even Infinite Zamasu, this version has white, spiked up hair. Many people have theorized that this is the perfected version of Super Saiyan Rosé, or at least the result of combining two gods in one body. It's a weird mutation that isn't really explained anywhere.

Without question, though, Fused Zamasu is using a version of Super Saiyan Rosé, even with the white hair. Toriyama teased the idea in an interview with Toyotaro, where he talked about giving Super Saiyan Blue white hair before he had come up with the blue color.

In the manga, there's a point where Zamasu rages out and can't control his power. In the colored Dragon Ball Super manga, which was a very recent release when I covered this in 2021, we see the pink aura surrounding his white, silver hair. That confirms that although Zamasu has white hair, it's still Super Saiyan Rosé. His body is difficult to maintain because this incredible power is almost leaking out of him, and even though he became immortal, he still couldn't handle what was happening to his body.

Combine a god who has god ki with a mortal Saiyan body, transform, and you get Rosé. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the white haired version or the pink haired version. It's the same form. The fused version simply has a bizarre mutation into white hair, but it keeps the power and properties that make it Super Saiyan Rosé.