Was Cell Ever Truly a Super Saiyan in Dragon Ball Z?

I've seen a lot of people state throughout the years that they believe that in the Cell Saga, when Cell was powering up, he was tapping into the same power of a Super Saiyan. Meanwhile other fans in the Dragon Ball fandom disagree and think it's a totally different kind of power. I went into the manga and the anime using evidence from both to reach a final conclusion about whether or not Cell was a Super Saiyan.

Cell was composed of multiple fighters, many of which were Saiyans, so Cell has plenty of Saiyan DNA inside of him, which was a very large aspect of his character. The fact that he could exploit the near death Zenkai power was already scary enough. On top of that, regeneration through Piccolo's incredible Namekian DNA, as well as the techniques of all these fighters including Frieza, made Cell the most dangerous opponent up until that point. But does that actually mean he can become a Super Saiyan?

Cell Is a Synthetic Organism, Not a Saiyan, Despite the DNA Inside Him

Even though Cell is composed of the cells of many Saiyans, that does not mean he is a Saiyan. Cell on his own falls under a different species from a Saiyan, from a Namekian, and from Frieza and King Cold's clan. Cell is a synthetic organism. He is a compound, a combination, you take a bunch of different things, put it inside of one, and you've got Cell.

Because of that, the percentage of him being a Saiyan is definitely not 100 percent like Goku and Vegeta, or 50 percent like Gohan. It's jumbled up in there. The difference is that he was artificially made, he is a jinzoningen, which means artificial human. Clues in both the anime and the manga tell us that Cell can assimilate many different types of living organisms, although we only see him go after humans and humanoids throughout the early part of the Cell Saga.

Cell is absorbing humans to inflate his power level because the cells that were gathered for Cell were from fights of the past, and at this point the Androids had no idea what Super Saiyan even was. The cells and DNA collected to make Cell were inferior and obsolete compared to all the training and improvements Goku and the gang had made since those cells were gathered. So by default, based on the ground level, Cell was not born a Super Saiyan. However, much like the actual Super Saiyans can, he can train to get stronger and achieve that power.

Cell's Transformation Is a Mutation, So the Aura Is the Only Real Clue

The thing about Cell is that when he transforms, it's a mutation based on his absorption of 17 and 18. No matter how many humans he absorbs, we never really see him changing his physical appearance. Physically, there is no hair to stand up, so the only thing we really have to go on is the aura around Cell when he powers up. This to me seems to be the top piece of evidence that people use to reaffirm their belief that Cell was a Super Saiyan.

Going back to the original manga, the vast majority of the pages when they were originally printed were in black and white. There were some color pages here and there, but only a few. Later on, the manga got a full color release, and that gave us a more vibrant look and a better answer. There's no question that if you've only seen the Dragon Ball anime, the vast majority of Cell's power ups are yellow or golden, just like Goku and the others.

If you really pay attention, you rarely see that golden aura during Cell's first form. There's a couple of moments here and there where you do see it, but when we first see Cell confront Piccolo, Cell has not even come close to achieving the power he could have after absorbing all those humans. It is pretty safe to say that this version of Cell, in a one on one comparison with a Saiyan, would probably still be in a "base form," though I'm saying that in comparison to Goku or Vegeta, not literally.

The Golden Aura Appears Once Cell Beats a Piccolo Stronger Than Super Saiyan

When Cell goes off and absorbs those people and then appears to confront Piccolo and 17, this time he is way stronger. We do see the yellow aura, and Cell, even in his first form, completely decimates and nearly kills Piccolo. I think people forget what a big moment that was for Cell, because this is not just Piccolo, this is Piccolo after fusing with Kami and reverting to his original form as the nameless Namekian, with his full power. He was known as a Super Namekian, which rivals Super Saiyan.

During this part of the series he was the strongest of the Z Fighters. Super Namekian Piccolo was more powerful than Super Saiyan Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks at that point. Once they would emerge from the training in the Room of Spirit and Time, they would once again surpass Piccolo, but until then he was the strongest Z Fighter, and here he is getting smashed. This is when we first start seeing the golden aura, and we would continue to see it with all of Cell's subsequent forms.

I want to make clear that the full colored manga and the anime are not directly identical when it comes to coloring. Some characters look different even in the full color manga, and some auras we see are colored differently. We see all kinds of different colors for power ups, red, blue, gold, white, green for Broly, we've seen it all. But Cell's does seem to be yellow most of the time, so if the argument is that Cell has yellow aura with Saiyan cells, it's pretty safe to assume that he's tapped into a variant of Super Saiyan.

Super Perfect Cell's Sparks Look Like Super Saiyan 2, But That's Not Confirmed

The last big clue people point to has to do with Super Perfect Cell. When he came back from exploding himself and taking Goku with him, his body regenerated into his perfect form, and because of the Zenkai inside of him, he was able to not only return to that perfect form after losing it, he was able to get even stronger, which is why we have Super Perfect Cell, and at this point he was a problem.

In this form we see Cell with sparks and electricity coming off him. A lot of people associate Super Saiyan 2 with electricity and sparks because Gohan has that when he uses it, and later on in the Buu arc both Vegeta and Goku have the sparks when they tap into Super Saiyan 2. However, we do see some sparks in some of the various grades between Super Saiyan 1 and Super Saiyan 2, when Trunks fought Cell we saw some sparks coming off his body too.

We know Cell can replicate this because during the earlier fight with Gohan, he increases his muscle mass and size but his speed goes down, and he also demonstrates this to Trunks. This tells us Cell can mimic the properties of the various Super Saiyan forms, including grade three and Super Saiyan 2 with the sparks. Despite what people may tell you, there's no guarantee that Super Perfect Cell was equal to a Super Saiyan 2, but he may have been, that may certainly have been the case. It still was not enough to beat Gohan, who was so much stronger than Cell and didn't even realize it until Goku gave him that pep talk. Even if Cell was Super Saiyan 2, Gohan's Super Saiyan 2 and all the anger and potential he had inside of him was too much for Cell.

So if the conclusion is whether Cell was a Super Saiyan, or whether Cell can use a Super Saiyan transformation, the answer is not directly, but he can mimic the properties of Super Saiyan, the golden aura, the sparks, and all that stuff.