Who Is Jiren the Gray? The Tragic History Behind Goku's Rival

Jiren the Gray is the mortal said to hold power beyond the gods of destruction, and his history is one of loss, solitude and an obsession with strength. During the Tournament of Power in Dragon Ball Super, he became Goku's rival, pushed Goku to new heights and new powers he had never experienced before, tested his will and changed him forever.

Jiren was shrouded in mystery for a very long time, so I want to look at him as a character and examine what we actually know. My hope is that by the end of this piece you'll have a greater understanding of Jiren, why he has so many fans, and why he's a very, very interesting addition to the Dragon Ball mythos.

Akira Toriyama vetoed a louder Jiren and gave that personality to Toppo

Jiren was created by series creator Akira Toriyama during the pre-planning phases of the Tournament of Power. Interestingly enough, Toei Animation wanted to change Jiren's personality to make him more outspoken and more of a justice freak. Toriyama himself vetoed that idea and said that Jiren was in fact more of a quiet, somber individual: a focused, strong martial artist with a tragic backstory. So Toei Animation gave that outspoken personality to Toppo instead.

I would have loved to have seen Toriyama's original notes on Jiren and what he actually wrote, but much of it was put into the series later on, when we found out about Jiren's backstory.

The first time we saw Jiren was in the intro to the Tournament of Power portion of Dragon Ball Super, where Goku was having an intense brawl with a mysterious, alien looking character in a red and black outfit. At that time we had no idea who he was. Jiren was actually supposed to appear earlier than he did, back in Dragon Ball Super episode 78. In the next episode preview shown in the previous episode, we saw Jiren cloaked, standing next to the Universe 11 gods, but at some point during production Toei Animation changed that to Toppo. Jiren was also supposed to fight Goku in episode 82, and the synopsis released before that episode premiered discussed Goku fighting Jiren.

Jiren is completely jacked, a giant titan of a man, and unlike other rivals Goku has had in the past, he's not a villain. He's a superhero and a major part of the Universe 11 Pride Troopers, led by Toppo. Although Jiren is the strongest of the Pride Troopers by leaps and bounds, he's not the leader. He's sort of their secret weapon, the guy they call upon when they run into a problem they can't resolve themselves.

Jiren's backstory in Dragon Ball Super episode 127 is built on loss

Even though Jiren's backstory was revealed in Dragon Ball Super, there are still a lot of mysteries and unanswered questions about his past. Episode 127 really sheds some light on it and on why he behaves the way he does. Jiren is of an unknown alien species from an unknown planet, presumably in Universe 11. As a child, he left his home, returned, and found his parents had been killed by a mysterious villain. At the time I put this together, we still didn't know who that villain was. It's one of those mysteries that's up in the air, and we may never have an answer.

Jiren was saved by another mysterious character named Gichin, whose name is a pun on the word kitchen. Gichin brought Jiren onto his team and began training him in the martial arts, which really began Jiren's lifelong quest for supreme power. At some point, Jiren, Gichin and the rest of the team confronted the villain, and many of Jiren's teammates were killed in that battle, including his teacher. With Gichin dead, the surviving members gave up hope and chose to abandon Jiren rather than avenge their master, and moved on with their lives.

Having lost his parents, his master and even people he thought were his friends, Jiren changed. He developed a sort of version of PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. Imagine coming home to find your parents slaughtered, then trying to get revenge and seeing your master and friends killed while your other friends just give up. That's when Jiren's mentality changed. He became a loner and sought the strongest possible strength, because he couldn't trust anybody. To Jiren, power and being the strongest are absolute, a defense mechanism to protect yourself and your loved ones, and that drove him to train until he surpassed the gods of destruction.

For a long time Jiren lived in solitude, although it's implied he had a relationship with Universe 11's God of Destruction, Belmod, which Gichin apparently knew about. It's never stated exactly when, but Jiren eventually meets Toppo and agrees to join the Pride Troopers as their big secret weapon. The manga version is slightly different: there, Gichin encouraged Jiren to join the Pride Troopers and died after he joined. Whichever version you follow, Jiren suffered several tragic losses early in life that left him with trust issues, and even though he trusts the Pride Troopers, it's only to a degree.

Jiren became, in many ways, the polar opposite of Goku

Jiren and Goku were key members of Universe 11 and Universe 7 during the Tournament of Power, and while both share the goal of getting stronger, their core values and ideologies are quite different. Goku wants to get stronger so he can face more opponents. Because of the warrior race blood inside him, he enjoys the thrill of the fight, but he doesn't want to hurt anybody innocent. He just wants to challenge himself and get better. Goku also cares about his friends, and they help motivate him to reach higher levels of power. The most notable example is when Krillin was killed by Frieza, which pushed Goku to a new level.

During the tournament itself, it was Goku's will not to die that pushed him into tapping Ultra Instinct while he was trying to block the Genki Dama that Jiren had reversed. This comes up again in episode 130, when Jiren, frustrated at being unable to beat Goku, attempts to hurt Goku's friends, which severely angers Goku after a philosophical discussion about what his friends mean to him.

In the manga, Jiren does seem a bit more like Goku and a bit more virtuous. He seems more heroic there, and his goal with the Super Dragon Balls, had Universe 11 been the surviving universe, was to resurrect his dead master. In the anime, it appears all Jiren wants is more power, even though he's already frighteningly strong. When he began to fight after meditating for a very long time, he blocked Super Saiyan God Goku's punches with one finger, and even Goku's Blue form was nothing to him. "It was like goku was literally a jabroni."

It wasn't until Goku began using Ultra Instinct Omen that Jiren really began to feel Goku's power, and even then Jiren kept up with him in speed and power. Only when Goku used the silver haired, mastered or perfected Ultra Instinct did Jiren begin to fall. Before that, he was seemingly invincible because of all his training. But unlike Goku, he didn't train to protect his friends or seek challenging opponents. He wants to be the strongest because he never wants what happened to his parents and master to happen again, to himself or the Pride Troopers, and from his viewpoint the only way to achieve complete protection is to be the strongest and be fearless.

Jiren is a flawed hero who needs therapy more than power

In my opinion, that ideology kind of makes Jiren more formidable but also a bit hard edged. In episode 131, Toppo kind of calls him a coward, because Jiren doesn't really understand there's more to life than power and needs to get over what happened to him when he was younger. In real life, if we suffered something like Jiren did, it would take a lot of therapy to overcome it. "Jiren needs therapy more than power," get it?

In the manga, Jiren seems a lot less selfish and more like Toppo in that he has a high regard for justice. Either way, he's not a bad person. Outside of when he tried to attack Goku's friends, Jiren is a hero, albeit a bit of a flawed hero, which is very reminiscent of Goku. The debate over whether Goku is a hero has gone on for decades, and it depends on your definition of a hero. Jiren is more like a Marvel or DC type of superhero, a Pride Trooper on Universe 11's superhero team. He also has flaws, a temper and frustrations, but heroes don't have to be perfect.

One of the things I loved about Super, and that I hope they develop more, is that by the end of the story Jiren respects Goku and is beginning to let go of the past and his trauma and build friendships with those around him. Goku's motivation not to die and not to let Universe 7 be destroyed under the rules Zeno made for the Tournament of Power is what drove him to get stronger. Jiren saw that as a weakness, but it was Goku's love of his friends that pushed him to overcome Jiren.

During the run of the anime, it really seemed like Jiren was the strongest mortal ever and only an angel could defeat him. That's how I perceived it initially. I can kind of understand why people would say Beerus is still stronger, but Jiren competed with Ultra Instinct Goku for a very long time, evenly matching that speed and power without using Ultra Instinct himself. He does meditate a lot, so it's assumed he has some kind of knowledge of a technique or of combat that lets him go neck and neck with it. Jiren is scarred and traumatized, and his past both motivated him and anchored his emotions, holding him back from being the great person he's capable of being. He's heroic and cares about others, but he had a very dogmatic, narrow minded view of power until he begins to soften up a bit at the end of Dragon Ball Super.

Whis hyped Jiren as a mortal stronger than a God of Destruction

Jiren was hyped up for a while, with a lot of foreshadowing throughout Dragon Ball Super. Even before we saw him, Whis was teasing a mortal stronger than a God of Destruction whom they would have to face in the tournament. Whis, being an angel with a lot of knowledge about the lore of the multiverse, knew of this character but didn't really know who he was. For a while, Jiren was just a rumor, just lore, just a possibility, until we saw him in action.

Jiren is a tad egotistical in how he fights. He often lets his opponents come at him for two reasons: first, to see their fighting style and techniques, and second, to show complete dominance and superiority by blocking and reversing everything they try. He's a defensive counter striker, and an effective one. He's also a huge proponent of meditation, and we see him meditating through a big portion of the arc and between his fights with Goku, Hit and others, presumably to conserve and draw out his true strength and stay focused on victory.

Jiren is extremely confident, and some would say overconfident, but he actually proves it. He took blows during the tournament, which lasted a while in TV time, but he wasn't really injured until that big fight with silver haired Goku at the end. He went through God and Blue power, as well as Blue Kaioken, like a hot knife through butter, which is why he often comes off as ridiculing others for not matching his level. Still, he shows respect to those who push to their maximum peak, as he did with Vegeta and later Goku, and even though he's stronger than Toppo, he respects Toppo as the actual leader of the Pride Troopers.

If Jiren is so powerful, why doesn't he try to be a God of Destruction like Toppo? Jiren doesn't seem interested in that job whatsoever, whereas Toppo is literally next in line. That makes me wonder: when Toppo takes over as Universe 11's God of Destruction, does Jiren become leader of the Pride Troopers, or does it go to another Pride Trooper? Either way, it's something to think about.

I'd say breaking out of Hit's time cage was Jiren's most impressive feat

I'd say the most impressive feat we ever saw from Jiren came against Hit in Dragon Ball Super episode 111. Hit trapped Jiren in a time cage, a sort of prison made of an endless loop of time that Jiren shouldn't have been able to escape, and Jiren broke out of it in one of the most impressive feats in the entire series. Vados, an angel, describes his power as beyond comprehension and says he has power that transcends time itself. When Jiren powered up, he also shook the entire World of Void, an endless realm outside of time and space.

When Jiren fights, his senses are heightened and he's completely focused. But when he loses focus after fighting multiple opponents, he's open to attack, which is what happened when 17 blasted him in the back. We also don't have confirmation that Jiren actually knows Ultra Instinct. He seems to be cloaked in a mysterious aura that resembles it, with a sort of red tint, but it's never actually stated that it's Ultra Instinct.

A stronger Jiren could possibly return to challenge Goku

Jiren is one of the most powerful warriors in the multiverse, and even though Universe 11 didn't win the Tournament of Power, it makes me wonder whether he kept training, how strong he would be after some time has passed, and whether he could defeat Goku now. It's stated in the manga that Jiren's power is immeasurable and that the rate at which he grows his power is quite high.

So the idea of Jiren coming back stronger than Goku, even as Goku keeps learning and getting stronger himself, is a possibility. But he's still mortal, which means he can get tired and he can be beaten over time. I sincerely hope that someday Goku and Jiren fight again, and I hope Jiren returns.

Do you think Jiren could beat Goku in a rematch?