Goku's Dragon Fist: where does the move come from?

Goku's Dragon Fist was never drawn by Akira Toriyama and never appeared in the original manga. Even so, its origins certainly come from the same olive branch that Dragon Ball itself originated from, and its origin is closer to Toriyama's train of thought than you might expect.

The Dragon Fist first appeared in Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon (1995), the thirteenth theatrical movie, known in Japan as Dragon Fist Explosion. Historically, Goku has always had big trump cards that get him out of a jam: Super Saiyan transformations, the Genki Dama, and now Ultra Instinct. Of all of them, I feel the Dragon Fist is probably one of the most interesting moves Goku pulls out when he's in trouble, whether you count it as canon or not.

The Dragon Fist was never in Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga

Before going any further, it's worth being clear: the Dragon Fist is not in the manga. It has only been seen a handful of times, and none of those appearances came from Toriyama's own pen.

However, the origins of the move certainly come from the same olive branch that Dragon Ball itself originated from.

How Goku used the Dragon Fist to defeat Hirudegarn in Wrath of the Dragon

In Wrath of the Dragon, Hirudegarn seemed invincible. He was able to defeat not only Goku but also Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks, Ultimate Gohan and Vegeta, and not even Tapion could stop him.

Then, out of nowhere, Goku tapped into some unknown force and unleashed an incredible power: the Dragon Fist. He charged at Hirudegarn and transformed into a dragon, piercing him through the stomach, then wrapping around him like a serpent and squeezing him into oblivion. As the movie's subtitle put it, "if Goku can't do it who can." Everyone else had failed, and Goku pulled out his ultimate trump card to win.

The Dragon Fist in Dragon Ball GT and Xenoverse 2

After that movie, the Dragon Fist showed up a few times in Dragon Ball GT. Most recently, I think the biggest showcase came at the end of the Xenoverse 2 main campaign, where Super Saiyan Blue Goku unleashes a new version of the Dragon Fist to defeat a mutated Mira.

To me, that was a very cool Easter egg. It was a great idea to wrap up that story by having Goku bring out a move we hadn't seen in a very long time.

Who created the Dragon Fist, and why dragons keep appearing in anime

The technique was presumably written by the man responsible for the original Dragon Ball Z movies, who was also one of the main showrunners and scenario writers for Dragon Ball Z when it was running in Japan. He oversaw some of the television writing and filler episodes, he wrote the movies, he created Hirudegarn, and he presumably created the Dragon Fist.

Toriyama isn't the only person with a fondness for dragons. Dragons are ingrained in Japanese and other Asian cultures, much of it coming originally from China and its philosophy. The Chinese believed dragons were very powerful gods, benevolent creatures rather than demonic or evil ones, that would protect people and help the harvest.

The people working at Toei and Shueisha all grew up with that knowledge of dragon philosophy and the importance of the dragon in culture. That's why dragons come up again and again in anime, manga and kung fu movies. It's simply part of the culture there.

The Dragon Fist and Dragon Ball's roots in Journey to the West

Was turning Goku into a literal dragon too much? I don't know. But there is something rooted in it when you look at the real origins of Dragon Ball, which go back to Journey to the West. That folktale, also known as Saiyuki, inspired Toriyama and much of Japan, and its main character, Sun Wukong, is where Son Goku comes from.

By the time of the thirteenth movie, Dragon Ball Z had evolved far beyond that original inspiration. It was a totally different show and a totally different story. Still, the roots of Journey to the West remain. In the original folktale, Sun Wukong meets dragons that can take the shape of humans and vice versa.

It's never explicitly stated that this is what happened with Goku, but it would make sense. I'm not saying Goku is secretly a dragon living as a mortal. It's more that Goku somehow learned to transform his body into a dragon, or to create an energy dragon around his body, and used it to pierce and destroy his opponents.

Where did Goku learn the Dragon Fist?

It's never explained where Goku learned this. No form of media has explained it, and we don't know whether it came from a master. Most of us have determined that Goku developed the move on his own, which is very cool, because he learned his other moves, like the Kaioken and the Kamehameha, from other people. This would be the one he developed himself at some point before the thirteenth movie.

The Dragon Ball Z movies don't fit in with the manga; they're separate stories. But if you fit the thirteenth movie into the manga, it would sit during the ten year time skip, probably shortly after the defeat of Kid Buu, and Goku may have had time to develop the move then.

I don't believe Goku invented this technique out of thin air. Even though we've made the Goku ex machina joke, "the move is way too potent and way too powerful for him to have just invented it out of thin air."

There is a Taoist belief that you can ascend into heaven on the back of a dragon and eventually gain the power to manifest a dragon from your own body once you reach that level. Many people who study this history have put two and two together and assumed Goku learned the technique in the Other World, presumably from another race or species, or from one of the gods. Again, that's just a theory and it isn't explained anywhere in the Dragon Ball material, but it makes sense based on the original roots. Either way, Goku learned how to transform himself into a dragon. It's like an Animality of sorts, if you're an old school Mortal Kombat fan, and in Dragon Ball there's no real explanation.

How strong is the Dragon Fist? The Omega Shenron fight in Dragon Ball GT

One thing that is clearly shown is the power the Dragon Fist gives Goku. He can go from losing a fight to shifting the tide completely in his favor. We don't know exactly how much of a multiplier it gives, and that's up for debate. But based on Dragon Ball GT, the Dragon Fist may grant Goku a 10 times multiplier as a low estimate, possibly even more as a high one.

Those numbers come from the Shadow Dragons arc. Yi Xing Long, otherwise known as Omega Shenron, was fighting Goku, and when he transformed he stated he was 10 times more powerful. Goku was still able to hurt him with the Dragon Fist, which means the Dragon Fist is at least 10 times stronger than Goku, at least in that moment. It could be even more than that.

It could also be that Goku chooses how much energy to put into the Dragon Fist for the final blow. I'm not going to debate power scaling here, but it does seem to me that Goku can control it. It seems he put much more of his force into the one he used against Hirudegarn than the one he used against Omega Shenron. He was also astronomically more powerful in Dragon Ball GT than in the thirteenth movie, so the Dragon Fist would presumably be stronger too. I don't think it has a set power level. I think that as Goku gets stronger, it multiplies in strength just like the Kamehameha and the Kaioken, and that makes him very dangerous with this move.

The myth that the Dragon Fist is the punch that beat King Piccolo

There's been a lot of talk in the Dragon Ball fandom, or at least there was at one time, that the Dragon Fist from the thirteenth movie is the same move Goku used to beat King Piccolo in the original Dragon Ball. That is completely false. Some have said the Dragon Fist is an evolution of that move. That could be possible, but I really doubt it, and I don't think it has anything to do with that move at all.

When Goku punched through Piccolo, he forcefully punched through him, and we saw a vision of the Great Ape, the Oozaru, behind him. He channeled all of his hidden Oozaru power and used it to punch through Piccolo. He didn't transform into a dragon, and he didn't wrap himself around Piccolo.

You can't take Goku using his right hand as a right hook and call it the same move. It's just a punch. The move in the thirteenth movie is objectively not the same, and it's another misconception Dragon Ball fans invented years ago that other fans followed without question. The only similarity is that both are right handed punches, and the Dragon Fist is far more than that because Goku turns into a dragon of pure energy.

It's definitely a move I wish they would bring back into Dragon Ball. It's very dangerous, and when you really think about it, it's maybe Goku's most dangerous move, with the exception of energy gathering moves like the Genki Dama. As I see it, "this move is deadly and can ruin a lot of people's lives if they mess with Goku."