Is Goku Being Set up to One Day Become a God of Destruction Based on Recent ‘Dragon Ball Super’ Chapters?

Ever since Goku achieved god form in the first arc of Dragon Ball Super, his power has increased exponentially; however, it was never clear how much of the divine he has been able to take on. Is he now capable of obliterating entire planets with a single thought? Is he omniscient? Is he now more powerful than any Kai in existence? On par with most Gods of Destruction? What can he do as a god, exactly? Which part of him is divine? Is he now capable of doing things only a real god can do? Or is he just stronger than your regular strong guy? Not a god at all, just similar to a god?

For a while, he seemed to just be the latter. Nothing too special; just hardworking, earnest, and extraordinarily powerful. Classic Goku.

And then Chapter 25 happened.

The Power of a God, in the Palm of His Hand (Literally)

The manga, illustrated by Akira Toriyama’s protege Toyotaro, recently finished serializing the Future Trunks/Zamasu saga. It ended the same way as in the anime, with Goku summoning Future Zeno and the latter obliterating the alternate timeline into non-existence — and in a fit of annoyance, Zamasu along with it. Before that happened however, manga Goku tried erasing Merged Zamasu in similar fashion — by using Beerus’s signature move “Hakai” against him. Which would have worked had Zamasu not taken Mai hostage, forcing Goku to stop the technique midway. This didn’t happen in the anime.

In the anime, and prior to this shocking chapter reveal, it was never clear if Goku had learned any god-level techniques from either Whis or Beerus during the long period he had trained with them. The popular assumption was, they held back from teaching Goku and Vegeta too much, for fear of either Saiyan eventually becoming strong enough to take Beerus’s place. The anime has never given viewers any hints that Goku knew how to perform “Hakai” either, or if he had attempted to perform it at all.

But if we are to go by the manga alone, and what we know of Goku since he was a kid, it’s really not so surprising he was able to pick up on the Destruction move so fast. He has always been a quick learner, and need only see a technique once to learn how to do it on his own. For instance, when Goku asked to learn the Kamehameha Wave, Master Roshi only had to demo it once; it didn’t take long for Goku to copy it and perform it perfectly.

To date, Goku has had two opportunities to learn how the Destruction move worked — once when Beerus erased the present timeline’s Zamasu, and another when Beerus eliminated Dr. Mashirito (back when the cast of Dr. Slump crossed over with Dragon Ball Super’s).

Burgeoning Competition

Beerus’s signature killing technique is capable of erasing non-immortals from existence in as quick as a few seconds. The technique is normally characteristic of only Gods of Destruction, but the fact that Goku — a mortal with the temporary powers of a god — was able to learn it proves that maybe becoming God of Destruction might not be so impossible for a mortal after all. It’s entirely possible Beerus and Whis might even be grooming Goku and Vegeta to become Gods of Destruction themselves, if we are to go by their behavior in the manga (particularly the latest release, Chapter 26).

Is being God of Destruction in the cards for Goku? Who knows. With this guy, sky has always been the limit. There’s not one thing in the universe he was never able to do.