BEFORE YOU READ: This blog will obviously be MY opinion on Dragon Ball’s overall cosmology and where exactly I have it and its stats. Dragon Ball is a very hotly debated franchise in terms of exactly where it gets in regards to its stats, so I just want to clarify as much as possible ahead of time that these are my thoughts on stats and such, don’t expect anyone to buy every single argument or point brought up here because Vs. Debating is all about, well, debating. I do also want to note that I will be using some extra material such as a few video games (and something probably very silly) to supplement my points, but will clarify when I do use such video games or material. That being said, do hope you enjoy my insane rambling about stuff that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of most Dragon Ball MU’s.
What Are The Daizenshuu?
READING…NO!!!!!!!!!!
I think before anything else in regards to this blog, I should explain to anyone unaware what something I’ll be quoting and using quite a bit is, and that thing is the Dragon Ball Daizenshuu. The Daizenshuu were 7 different guidebooks released throughout 1993, and essentially serve as the backbone for discussion regarding Dragon Ball’s greater world and concepts. These have been referenced routinely throughout Death Battle, most importantly the Super Saiyan multipliers, which only exist and are known thanks to the Daizenshuu.
It cannot be understated that anything stated and clarified in the Daizenshuu, is essentially just canon to Dragon Ball as a whole unless retconned in a future canon work. For a recent and quite notable example, for a very long time the Cosmological Model of Universe 7 shown in the Daizenshuu contained the Demon Realm at the very bottom of the model, which stayed true through the franchise up until 2024, where Dragon Ball DAIMA retconned it so that the Demon Realm exists outside of the larger Multiverse of Dragon Ball.
The reasons why these books are often considered just as canon as the actual series itself is because they were worked on and overseen by Toriyama and tons of members of the staff for the official anime on the series, with things shown off/mentioned in this book often times being revealed to still be canon even decades later in the case of things such as the cosmological models for the Universes as shown in the DBS Manga’s Future Trunks Saga, or the existence of a Galactic Patrol that was unable to stop Frieza or the Saiyans due to a lack of power, obviously known as the Galactic Patrol introduced in Jaco, the Galactic Patrolman.
Dragon Ball’s Greater Cosmology
Don’t mind the fact I use this same image later on thanks
To start things off, we’ll be going with the “simplest” overall part of debating Dragon Ball’s overall cosmology, which is the greater overall cosmology that we find things such as Universe 7 (the universe the entire franchise takes place in). The greater cosmology of Dragon Ball is composed of/contains multiple different dimensional spaces, but to list them as concisely as possible:
The Demon Realm
The Null Realm
Zeno’s Palace
The Dimension of Strange Swirling Lights
The Room of Spirit & Time
The Multiverse
To clarify just in case, this list isn’t meant to be the actual order to these if you were to try and list them in terms of which dimension supersedes another, just generally trying to list them out. As for the actual spaces themselves, allow me to go more in-depth on all of them!
The Demon Realm
The realm responsible for the creation of Dragon Ball’s overall Multiverse, the Demon Realm. Originally, the Demon Realm was portrayed as and thought to be a part of the cosmological structures that make up the individual universes of Dragon Ball’s Multiverse, existing at the bottom of the structure and separate to the rest of the structure while still contained inside it. As of Dragon Ball DAIMA, and the time of writing this section of the blog (February 15th, 2025) however, it would be revealed that the Demon Realm exists outside of Dragon Ball’s Multiverse and can only be accessed through beings known as Sir Warp, who reside in a dimension that serves as a waypoint between the Demon Realm and the Dragon Ball Multiverse.
The actual Demon Realm is composed of Three Demon Worlds, with each world existing on top of the previous Demon World (IE: Third is on top of the Second which is on top of the First), with traversal through these Worlds only being possible through either the Demon Realm Tunnel or Sir Warp.
It should be noted the actual size of the Demon Realm is relatively unknown as of this point in time, as while the name “Demon World” would imply these are planetary structures, these Demon Worlds themselves contain planets such as the respective homes of the Namekians, Glinds, and Megaths. The fact that Sir Warp must be used to traverse to different Demon Worlds without the Demon Realm Tunnel also would imply that there is a sense of cosmic separation between these Demon Worlds in spite of their name. Despite that however, the main visualization for traversal throughout the Demon Realm that we are given in DAIMA, portrays the different Demon Worlds as being heavily interconnected with characters such as Shin stating that casual traversal throughout the Demon Realms was a normality before a barrier was placed on the Demon Realm Tunnel.
Either way, the Demon Realm should likely at least be the size of the Living World (AKA Dragon Ball’s equivalent to our own observable universe), as the Demon Realm was responsible for the creation of the Multiverse and there likely needed to be at least some sort of basis for the cosmological structures that make up Dragon Ball’s respective universes. Whether or not the actual respective Demon Worlds themselves are their own universes is a different topic (one I don’t really buy), but with the current information we have right now, I’d likely just consider the Demon Realm to be similar in size to the Living World in Dragon Ball as I stated above.
The Null Realm
I ate the ToP arena sorry…
The Null Realm is an isolated location that exists outside of the Dragon Ball Multiverse, it serves as the realm the Tournament of Power takes place in during the Universe Survival Saga, and is a place that contains no space and no time. Over the course of the Universal Survival Saga, this realm’s background would change, with the sky originally turning green to signify the time left, and later on the realm’s sky being changed again heavily by either Toppo’s Hakai in the anime or Goku and Vegeta’s combined attack in the manga. Perhaps the most contentious part of this realm however is its actual size, as the official subtitles for the Dragon Ball Super anime refer to the Null Realm as “filled with infinite nothingness”, which would of course imply a sense of infinity to the realm’s size.
The main reason why this is so contentious however, is that the translation of the Null Realm being infinite is a mistranslation, as the original quote by Beerus can actually be translated as “a world without time or space, filled with only eternity and emptiness.” As for my thoughts on the size of the Null Realm? I am overall iffy on the idea of it being infinite in size, as the argument relies seemingly entirely on this one statement. The idea of eternity could possibly be substituted for infinity, but its likely that is referring more-so to the idea that the Null Realm will exist eternally rather than trying to extrapolate the idea of it being infinite out of it.
Despite that, I do also think arguing for it being infinite in size isn't too outlandish either, as there are later arguments in this blog going over the size of universes in Dragon Ball that could work as a way to argue the Null Realm would follow suit in being infinitely sized.
Zeno’s Palace
I wish I lived on a really big jellyfish
Zeno’s Palace is the, well, home of Zeno, the proclaimed “King of All” and the strongest overall God of Dragon Ball’s Multiverse. The exact location in regards to Dragon Ball’s greater cosmology is unknown, but the Palace itself sits on top of a giant jellyfish drifting over a sea of golden clouds with an absurd amount of celestial bodies in the background. The outside of the palace consists of twelve floating stone pillars that each have a different universe on top of them. Zeno’s Palace is explicitly stated to exist outside of the Multiverse, and is incredibly difficult to reach by even beings such as Angels, whose teleportation can allow them to cross between different cosmological structures in relatively short times.
Zeno’s Palace is an interesting part of the cosmology, to me it's possible that the universes floating on top of those pillars is likely how Zeno views the respective universes, combined with the amount of time it takes Whis to reach the Palace from Earth as well as it containing its own galaxies in the background, means that it wouldn’t be extremely outlandish to argue Zeno’s Palace is a higher dimensional realm than that of the traditional Multiverse. At the same time though, if one were to argue this is merely Zeno’s own personal universe that he resides in, I wouldn’t have much issue with either as there isn’t really anything supporting one or the other besides the possibility that the 12 universes on those pillars are potentially meant to be their actual size in relation to the realm.
The Dimension of Strange Swirling Lights
I have sent Gogeta to the Dragon Ball Cosmology time-out room!
Perhaps the single most hot topic in regards to Dragon Ball’s overall canon cosmology, the Dimension of Strange Swirling Lights was first and currently only seen in the movie Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Accessed by Gogeta and Broly during a beam clash in their Super Saiyan forms, this particular dimension has been the cause of many long debates in regards to what it exactly means for the stats of Dragon Ball characters, primarily because of the Dragon Ball Super: Broly novelization.
Before anything else I go into on this specific portion of Dragon Ball cosmological debates, I will NOT be using any interviews from the staff in regards to this specific part of Dragon Ball scaling, as I feel using an interview that is incredibly hard to find proper translations for anymore can hurt the arguments I’m trying to present more than help them.
To start with, the reason the DoSL has been such a large debate in regards to Dragon Ball stats, is primarily because of the Dragon Ball Super: Broly novelization. On the cover of the book as well as in Chapter 6, the term “Superdimensional” is used, with Chapter 6 (the section in which Gogeta & Broly access the DoSL) specifically being titled “The Ultimate Superdimensional Battle.” For further context on how the novelization refers to them entering the DoSL itself, the book states “With that momentum, space-time distorts, and the two of them are fighting within a cracked dimensional wall.” For how the novelization refers to their clash inside of the DoSL, the book states "The dimensions are starting to break apart even more due to the excessive aura being released!"
For some debatably canon/if it should be used at all evidence, the gacha game Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle has a SSJ DBS Broly unit that transforms into LSSJ. Upon transforming, he sets a Domain (a mechanic in the game that is basically just Domain Expansion from Jujutsu Kaisen) and that Domain’s officially translated name in the english version of Dokkan is “Extradimensional Space.” Do want to note that this portion is entirely supplementary and I think it is entirely fine if one doesn’t buy the idea of using a mobile game’s descriptors for supporting evidence.
So what are my overall thoughts on the actual DoSL and if it's actually a transcendent dimension or not? Personally, I do think the DoSL is meant to be some higher dimension breached and destroyed by Gogeta and Broly during the climax of the movie, as things such as the variety of statements calling it Superdimensional or the fact that it was reached due to Gogeta and Broly’s power distorting space-time around them has me believing the intention is for this to be some higher dimensional plane. For further context on the last one, and both of these sources should be taken with some salt, one person’s account on the translation of the J Books version (which is potentially slightly different) says that “the dimensional boundary could not withstand their power” and a person’s account for the translation of the novel says “It describes Super Saiyan Gogeta and Super Saiyan Broly’s energy as being so powerful that it surpassed or broke the boundaries of the universe which transported them to that other dimension.”
All in all this will still obviously be interpretation based as all Vs. Debating is, and I also understand that Superdimensional and Extradimensional are different terms compared to something like Transdimensional, but I think in spite of that the intent for this portion of the fight was to make the viewer feel like Gogeta and Broly were so unbelievably powerful that they shattered reality and went to another higher dimension. This section as a whole is likely the most interpretation based of anything in regards to Dragon Ball’s overall cosmology, but I do believe the DoSL is meant to be a higher dimension likely beyond Universe 7 itself, albeit “universe” in the case of Dragon Ball can often times refer to the Living World as that is what is meant to be the in-universe equivalent of our own actual universe, but it wouldn't really matter much regardless.
Apologies for this section being so much longer than the others, I simply had a LOT more to talk about with it.
The Room of Spirit & Time
Anyone remember when this was the only map you could play against people locally on in Sparking Zero?
For a hopefully much shorter section then the above, the Room of Spirit & Time is a dimension that exists outside of Universe 7 and operates on a different temporal flow than that of our own universe. In the Room of Spirit & Time, one can train for an entire year in only one day, thanks to its unique temporal flow.
The actual size of the Room of Spirit & Time is sort of unknown, but from what we can gather it should be as large as a Planet. While there is a translation that states its the size of a universe, that was from an unofficial fan translation and nothing actually supports that. The only real knowledge of how big the dimension should be is Goku’s statement of it being meant to be as large as the Earth itself. Any speculation on size beyond that to my knowledge wouldn’t have much merit.
It should be noted that there are multiple Rooms of Spirit & Time as shown by DBS, with there being at least 2 additional ones as showcased by Merus in the Moro Arc and Frieza offscreen in the Granolah Arc, both of whom used their own Rooms of Spirit & Time for training and both of which had their own unique temporal flow in comparison to the one found on Earth. On top of this, Whis seemingly holds his own equivalent to the Room of Spirit & Time inside of his staff, as Goku and Vegeta were transported in there during the Resurrection F arc to further their training.
Generally don’t have any major thoughts, the RoSaT is just kinda weird to try and get any cosmology mileage out of since it's generally vague in my eyes and the only major thing in regards to its size is Goku saying it's supposedly as big as Earth.
The Multiverse
Tried typing in Dragon Ball Multiverse for this image and then remembered the webcomic existed
It took 5 sections but we’re finally at the actual Multiverse of Dragon Ball! Composed of originally 18, now 12, universes which all exist in a sort of chain. Each of these universes seemingly contains an almost completely identical cosmological structure, otherwise known as a Macrocosm, that is much larger than what one would normally consider a universe. Each universe in Dragon Ball is generally a pair, with all universes having a Twin Universe (IE: Universe 6 and 7) they exist alongside that seemingly shares everything except the actual history of the respective universes.
The Multiverse of Dragon Ball, as stated in the Demon Realm section, came into existence thanks to the Demon Realm itself. Made by the Super Majin Rymus due to orders from the current Supreme Demon King, Rymus would create the different universes that populate the Dragon Ball cosmology of which he would apparently go on to have ultimate authority over. Sorry that this is in Spanish
There admittedly isn’t too much to say in regards to the actual Multiverse of Dragon Ball, as outside of (debatably) 1 character (who affected the entire Cosmology) who you can possibly scale others to and the obvious Top Top Top Tiers like Zeno and the Grand Priest, there isn’t really anyone worth talking about in terms of stuff like this who actually scales to it.
The Universe 7 Macrocosm
It’s the thing! The thing!!!
With the overall canon Cosmology of the entire series looked at at least somewhat in-depth, it’s finally time for me to get into the nitty gritty of the major stuff most of the cast scales to, that being the Macrocosms that serve as Dragon Ball’s full on universes. For those unfamiliar, the definition of a Macrocosm is the whole/entirety of a complex structure, usually a Planet or universe. In Dragon Ball, rather than universes just being similar in size to our own universe, each respective universe is its own Macrocosm. These Macrocosms are composed of a variety of realms, which are the following:
Heaven (Part of The Cosmos)
The Enma Realm (Part of The Cosmos)
Hell (Part of The Cosmos)
The Living World (Part of The Universe)
The Kaioshin Realm (Revolves Around the Macrocosm)
For those confused on what “The Cosmos” and “The Universe” means respectively, I will be getting into it very shortly! Also, to clarify ahead of time, many of the images made for Dragon Ball Macrocosms were made well before the existence of DAIMA and its retconning of the Demon Realm’s place in the greater cosmology overall, so if any of the images I use or link to say/show the Demon Realm at the bottom, just know that is no longer canon.
The Cosmos
She on my After, till I Life!
The Cosmos, otherwise known as the Afterlife, exists as the top part of the Macrocosm and consists of various realms such as the Kaio Realm (not to be confused with The Realm of the Kai’s), Enma’s Realm (basically temporary Purgatory), and Hell. Completely separated dimensionally from the Living World, the Afterlife can only be accessed by either Gods, those with teleportation techniques capable of moving between the Living World and Cosmos such as the Kai Kai or Instant Transmission, and of course…the dead. Said to “exist higher than the sky”, the Cosmos essentially serve as the domain of the Gods (besides Beerus and the Supreme Kai’s) and the deceased, with everything from North Kai’s Planet to Snake Way to Heaven itself existing inside of it.
According to Daizenshuu 4, the Cosmos is “a dimensionally transcendental heavenly country that cannot be perceived from the human realm. From this land, the gods look down upon the entire world.” It should be noted that things such as “the entire world” likely refer to the entire Living World rather than one singular planet as we know Earth isn’t the only planet in the entirety of Dragon Ball with people who live and die.
Obviously, this gets into one of the most major questions that has arised in basically all Dragon Ball discussion, and that is if the Afterlife in Dragon Ball is truly meant to be a transcendent dimension rather than merely part of the Cosmology. For which I say…
Is the Afterlife of Dragon Ball transcendent?
#HeWins #TrustMe (this is a joke I promise)
In my humble opinion, of which IS the opinion of a Dragon Ball fan so do keep that in mind, yes, I do think the Afterlife as a whole is meant to be transcendent to the Living World. This is, of course, a very highly contested opinion with tons of variation but I do overall find it valid, albeit again, Dragon Ball fan so take it with a grain of salt.
To start with, the Daizenshuu 4 statement just outright says its transcendental, while the translation has been argued about plenty of times, most machine translations of the quote itself still yield similar results in terms of talking about it being transcendental. The full, original quote from the Daizenshuu is as follows: “\"天よりも高く、人間界からは窺い知ることができない次元を超越した天の国神々はこの地から世界のすべてを見おろしている \” If I put this into a machine translator such as Google Translate, I get: “The gods of the heavenly kingdom, which is higher than the heavens and transcends dimensions that cannot be seen from the human world, look down on everything in the world from this earth." Obviously not a 1 to 1 translation of the original quote, but still gets across that the Afterlife is explicitly meant to be transcendent in comparison to the Living World, which is explicitly meant to be our own universe (sort of but I’ll get into that later).
But perhaps the single most insane piece of evidence I can possibly use, and I want to clarify that if one does not consider this to be valid then I am okay with that, is this scan going over the Afterlife/Cosmos/Otherworld in Dragon Ball. The scan says, and do keep in mind this is basically an entire page (I will be paraphrasing a bit though), that: “To understand the cosmology of Dragon Ball Z, you’ll have to take a brief (but interesting) side trip into the realm of Asian mythology. The reality we live in (also known as the Universe), is enclosed in a gigantic, transparent sphere. Floating in it are all the stars, planets, and galaxies that we know. But that’s only part of the Big Picture, for this immense universe-globe orbits an even more intense globe, which Dragon Ball Z characters call The Otherworld. In a lot of ways, the “Other World” is a pretty good way of describing the place, it’s truly another reality that isn’t connected to ours except on the most meta-physical level. It is not as simple as the Western concept of Heaven or Hell; It is an entirely separate universe that encompasses another level of reality.”
Obviously, that is a lot, and corroborates the idea of the Afterlife being a separate universe in Dragon Ball that exists on a different layer of reality. So, now, you are probably asking where exactly does this scan come from? That’s the very funny part, unlike the Daizenshuu which are well known even among more casual fans, this particular scan comes from something I had absolutely no knowledge of before starting work on this blog. This scan comes from the 1999 role-playing game Dragon Ball Z: The Anime Adventure Game, a book published by R. Talsorian Games.
Before pitchforks are thrown and slander images are made over how desperate I am to make Dragon Ball forever stronger than Sonic (I am not denying the accusations), I want to clarify above all else that I am not saying this is some new insane source that must be used, but I do also want to say that…this book had two very big names with direct involvement on it who might sway your opinion on it being used as supplementary evidence. This book was partly written by Cindy Fukunaga, an executive producer on all dub episodes of the original Dragon Ball anime and much of Dragon Ball Z, clearly showing that this book wasn’t simply grabbing people who had no idea what a Kamehameha even was. While not nearly as major or direct, the book was also given permission to use illustrations by Toriyama. Obviously this isn't nearly as direct of an interaction with important members of its creation as the Daizenshuu, but it is clarified in the book itself via an Editor’s Note that most of the information found in the book was found in the series itself, much more extraneous material such as Toriyama’s sketches and even things like source/guidebooks. They clearly did a LOT of research for this book, and while I’m not saying this is anywhere near as close to “confirmed canon” as something as the Daizenshuu, I do think it is something that can be brought up especially as supplementary evidence similar to me bringing up Dokkan Battle as supplementary evidence for the DoSL section.
So to sum it all up, yes, I do believe that Dragon Ball’s Afterlife is a higher dimension than the Living World and all the potential Vs. Buffs that can come from that. I am of course not saying you need to buy every argument presented here, as much of this comes from either unofficial translations or RPG Books that are older than me and very dubious on if they should be allowed or not for actually discussing canon cosmology. At the end of the day, my main purpose for this blog was just to have fun chronicling and thinking about all this stuff, and I think this was by far the most interesting and fun thing to look into in regards to Dragon Ball’s cosmology. However, there is one other part of the Afterlife section of the cosmology that must be looked into, which is…
Is Heaven as Big as a Planet or a Universe?
I’m going to need you all to trust me on this when I say what the size of this DEFINITELY NOT Planet is.
In a hopefully MUCH shorter portion of this blog, the actual size of Heaven in Dragon Ball is a somewhat hot topic that has been pushed further by Death Battle themselves bringing up the idea of a universe-sized Heaven in Goku vs. Superman 3. So what’s my take on it? Yeah, I also think it's universe-sized.
Even disregarding things like say Daizenshuu or Guidebook statements, it’s just sorta logical to the idea of an Afterlife itself that portions of the Afterlife where people are sent (IE Heaven and Hell) have to be as big as the actual places people reside in before they die. If Heaven was only a planetoid, then it’d be outright impossible for it to fit all forms of sentient life across the entirety of the Living World’s existence, which is bare minimum 13.7 billion years old just going off of our own universe. It should also be clarified that Heaven in Dragon Ball isn’t just a place for warriors or whatever either, it's explicitly just the place where good dead people go, meaning that yeah a simple planetoid just wouldn’t make much sense for a place that such an absurd amount of beings would reside in after death.
But…with the Daizenshuu in mind, it's blatantly stated to be “about as wide as the universe” and is even corroborated by Videl in the (admittedly non-canon) Toei anime.
Sorry if this section is short, I just don’t think this one needs to be gone into too much.
The Living World
Don’t mind the Demon Realm they have been retconned into the Fish Dimension
The Living World, otherwise known as The Universe, is well…our Universe! Sort-of. The Living World serves as the World of the Living as the name implies, where the entirety of Outer Space and basically all mortal life exists. Composed of 4 Galaxies that exist in their own quadrants, it's here we find the birthplace of basically our entire main cast, as things such as Namek, Vegeta, and Earth are all found in this part of the Macrocosm. For some small fun facts, Earth is located in the North Galaxy, Planet Vegeta in the West Galaxy, and Planet Namek in the South Galaxy, making it so there isn’t a single important Planet visited in the East Galaxy (sorry East Kai).
For more Vs. Related info on the Living World however, we have to look into the previously mentioned Daizenshuu, as well the Chouzenshuu which were updated rereleases of the Daizenshuu in 2013 that came with some new/updated information to better fit the state of the Dragon Ball franchise at the time. Now of course, there is one VERY major part of the Living World in Versus Discussions that is going to be the main reason we look at the Daizenshuu and Chouzenshuu for this, and that is…
Is the Living World Infinite, or Not?
I had to include Eren somehow
Is Dragon Ball’s Living World, and by extension things such as Heaven, Infinite or not? Well, if you want my thoughts on it…yeah probably!
To get major counterarguments out of the way before getting into statements supporting it, I’ll go over the rebuttals I have to the main counterarguments I see, of which there is Bulma talking about the edge and center of the universe and the fact that the Macrocosm doesn’t portray the Living World as infinite in size.
To get Bulma (no offense queen) out of the way, Bulma likely is wrong here for a variety of reasons, from her just generally having no knowledge of the actual size of the universe or the fact that Jaco (a Galactic Patrolman with decades of service) outright calls her insane for her idea of finding the Super Dragon Balls via the radar and that she’s vastly underestimating the size of the universe of which he says there are “countless numbers of galaxies.” Want to clarify that I’m not saying that Jaco saying there are countless galaxies means he’s saying the Living World is infinite, more-so that someone with absurdly more experience and knowledge in regards to the cosmos thinks Bulma is insane for this idea.
As for the other point, while I understand reservations about accepting infinite size when the canon diagram for the universe shows an edge…it can’t really be understated that actually depicting something as infinite is virtually impossible. While obviously an extreme example, especially since it’s basically accepted outright that it’s infinite, the DC Multiverse is drawn as having an edge despite many people believing that it is an infinite Multiverse. Obviously, some may argue that because it is drawn with that edge it isn’t infinite, but most would argue nowadays that the DC Multiverse is still infinite even in spite of this depiction not actually being infinite in size. This isn’t me trying to argue that a Dragon Ball cosmological structure is as large as the DC Multiverse nor are its arguments as long standing as DC’s, rather just trying to show that it’s incredibly difficult to actually depict infinity in an artistic sense.
As for the actual arguments in favor of the Infinite Living World, there are quite a few! Starting with this statement from Daizenshuu 4, which in a section explaining the Kai's states, “The various Kaio govern the infinitely expansive universe. This is primarily determined by the compass points, while the Dai Kaio serves as general manager of the places governed by the Kaio, and beyond that the Kaioshin of the North, East, South, and West govern the universe. Ultimately, the Dai Kaioshin supervises the universe in its entirety.” In yet ANOTHER page of Daizenshuu 4, when describing the Universe it states “When it infinitely spreads, the illumination of the galaxy stretches for tens of thousands of light-years... Hundreds of millions of light-years... In the distant stars that even light cannot reach, there are countless unknown extraterrestrial beings and monsters beyond imagination, breathing.”
Now, if you thought the statements of the universe being infinite stopped there, we still have more! In the Daizenshuu 7, it states the universe is “an endless space that envelops all celestial bodies that exist in the world. Within the universe, there are “nebulae” composed of innumerable stars, and there are “galaxies” composed of innumerable nebulae.” And finally, in the Chouzenshuu 4 it is stated that “This world is an endless expanse, you will find the DB world holds a worldview with a tremendous scale beyond human understanding.”
While some may consider it overkill to include this many sources, I think it's a good idea here just to try and explain as much as possible on WHY I think the Living World is infinite as concisely as I can with as many scans as possible.
The Realm of the Kai’s
My chud realm that I hate
The Realm of the Kai’s, also called the Kaioshin Realm, is where well…the Supreme Kai’s reside! Completely separate dimensionally to the entire macrocosm that contains The Cosmos and The Living World, the realm is depicted as a glass sphere that is 1/10th the size of the macrocosm.
Within this realm are numerous suns and a single planet, known as the World of the Kai’s, which can only be accessed by teleportation techniques such as the Kai Kai or Instant Transmission. The realm’s unique position also allows the Supreme Kai’s to oversee both the Living World and The Cosmos, thanks to it existing outside of the structure and orbiting around it.
As for what any of this means Vs. Debate wise? I don’t really know to be honest. The Kaioshin Realm is completely disconnected dimensionally like the Cosmos, is infinite if you buy Infinite Living World considering 1/10th of infinity is infinity, and views both the Cosmos and Living World at once. However, it's never once given the same sort of treatment in various material as the Cosmos in regards to its size or how its perceived, and the reason for the Supreme Kai even being capable of viewing both at once is more due to unique abilities rather than say the Macrocosm coming off as something small to them. I’d say the most important thing overall about it is that it confirms that everyone’s favorite Shockwaves were reaching into different dimensions of the Macrocosm such as the Realm of the Kai’s rather than just the Living World, and that Elder Kai’s statement of the entire universe being destroyed would likely apply to things like the Cosmos considering Elder Kai would see the universe as the entire Macrocosm.
Who Actually Scales to Things Brought Up Here?
This actually happened in DBS Broly, look it up
So, all of this is fine and good right? I went over the Dragon Ball cosmology as in-depth as I feel I could while still trying to stick to just what is generally considered canon outside of some stuff used for supplementary evidence, but now comes the question of…who the hell scales to some of the stuff brought up here?
For starters, I think it can generally be argued that at this point in time, almost all major characters likely scale to the Shockwaves in some form or another. Obviously that’s contentious for some characters such as say Krillin, Roshi, or Tien, but considering the ridiculous power growth throughout Super it isn’t even close to outlandish to argue that most of the cast are likely absurdly stronger than SSG Goku was in that initial clash. Even disregarding the idea of Saiyan Beyond God, episode 13 of Dragon Ball Super has Goku absorb the power of Super Saiyan God yet feel like he was at the same level of strength he was the entire time he was in Super Saiyan God, showing that Goku likely absorbed the entirety of its power into his base form. As I stated previously, considering the absurd jump in power DBS routinely does in basically every arc, most of the cast being above base form end of BoG arc Goku doesn’t seem very outlandish to me.
But, Shockwave scaling is pretty much a commonly agreed upon topic nowadays, with most arguments about whether or not this character scales to it usually just being accepted because DBS is VERY silly! On the opposite end however, we have DoSL (Dimension of Swirling Lights) brought up earlier in the blog. This dimension was entered by Super Saiyan Gogeta and Super Saiyan Broly, and destroyed during the clash between Super Saiyan Blue Gogeta and Legendary Super Saiyan Broly. Of this, I think I can reasonably list out all the characters who I believe scale to the DoSL or have arguments for it, and go further into detail on why shortly after. The characters are as follows:
Goku
Vegeta
Broly
Frieza
Gohan
Piccolo
Moro
Granolah
Gas
Cell Max
Gamma 1 (debatable)
Gamma 2 (debatable)
Jiren (debatable)
“But wait!” I hear you say through my computer screen, somehow reaching me in a time before the blog is published, “isn’t Broly confirmed to still be stronger than Goku & Vegeta? How could they or anyone else scale if they haven’t surpassed him?” That’s actually a bit of a misconception, one I wanna get into…now!
Is Broly Still Strongest There Is?
Yes I know this is Z Broly shhhh shhhhhh
While not as common of a debate nowadays as it used to be, a pretty hot topic a few years ago was the idea that LSSJ Broly in Dragon Ball Super: Broly was stronger than Goku and Vegeta all the way up to even the Granolah arc, despite Goku and Vegeta fighting against two different characters who wished to be the strongest in the universe. So, is Broly actually stronger?
Nah, probably not. The only real evidence for such an idea was an interview with Toyotaro that has long since been deleted and directly goes against the very story he has written in the post Broly arcs of Dragon Ball Super. For starters, let's go with the Moro arc, in which near the climax of the arc where Goku has unlocked and gained full access to Ultra Instinct, he says that Moro is the toughest enemy he’s faced up to this point. There’s no reason to believe that Goku would just lie about the strength of his opponent, especially in this scene where he’s trying to convince Moro to give up on his ways and instead start training, so that’s already one example of a character who should be above Broly in power. After that, when talking about the upcoming “strongest in the universe”, Goku asks Whis if he knows of anyone stronger than him and Vegeta to which Whis says he doesn’t. Whis dodged attacks from Broly and directly witnessed the fight between Gogeta and Broly, and would have no real reason to lie to Goku or Vegeta about their strength. This would mean that post-Moro arc Goku and Vegeta would be above LSSJ Broly. Furthermore, Granolah wished as bluntly as possible to become the “strongest in the universe”, and there is no reason for this wish to ignore Broly whatsoever, since he’s just an extremely strong mortal like Goku and Vegeta rather than a deity like Beerus. Finally, in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, Cell Max is stated that if he were to be completed, he would be so strong even Broly couldn’t defeat him. Now, the main issue with this quote is that it is specified as a completed Cell Max, but for all intents and purposes outside of actually being controllable, Cell Max in the movie was completed. There is no Perfect Cell Max or anything like that, his overall battle abilities were complete by the time of his emergence. Therefore, Cell Max should likely ALSO be above Broly, with the former then getting absolutely annihilated by Beast Gohan, who is portrayed as around equal with UI Goku.
This hopefully should be enough evidence for these members of the cast being relative to above Broly, and by extension having arguments to scale to the DoSL. Also, little addendum here, no, Jiren also isn't above Goku or Vegeta. It should first of all be remembered that the Movies, Anime, and Manga of DBS are all their own separate continuities that are composited together, and that conflicting information can arise out of that. Second of all, this statement about Jiren being stronger than them still just doesn’t even exist in the DBS Manga, with the quote from Vegeta instead being “Jiren, Broly, Moro, Gas, and now even Frieza…I was shown to be inferior to all our foes in recent years.” This makes it much more explicit that Vegeta believes he must train beyond just his physical body, rather than the idea that the duo haven’t progressed in power at all since the Tournament of Power. On top of that, with this added context, the idea behind Vegeta’s statement in the movie can more-so be read as Vegeta believing Jiren honed himself perfectly both physically and mentally rather than Vegeta believing Jiren was just astronomically stronger than either, although either way I think the manga makes it clear the actual idea is that Vegeta just is trying a new form of training.
Infinite Zamasu.
This fucking guy.
Everybody’s favorite megalomaniacal genocidal God, Zamasu! At the end of the Future Trunks Saga, after being cleaved by the Sword of Hope and us almost getting a satisfying conclusion to Trunks’ character, Zamasu’s essence merges with not just the universe, not even just the multiverse, but the entire timeline itself. A timeline in Dragon Ball is not one singular universe, but rather a replica of the entire greater cosmology I have described in much detail. Zamasu merged with the timeline itself, and was beginning to merge into other timelines such as the one of our main cast. I am going to try and list out the amount of potentially different space times that Zamasu would be corrupting and affecting as Infinite Zamasu, which would be:
The Multiverse, which is composed of 12 different Macrocosms
The Dimension of Strange Swirling Lights
The Null Realm
The Demon Realm
The Room of Spirit & Time
Zeno’s Palace (Debatable, as Future Zeno only intervened after being summoned which could imply it was not reaching his realm)
This is extremely impressive and is the only actual showing of a character in Dragon Ball affecting the wider cosmology en masse, with Infinite Zamasu being so unbelievably unstoppable that it required the God of Gods Zeno to erase him entirely. But…is this scalable to AP? Uhhhhhh, maybe?
For some further context, Infinite Zamasu is Zamasu essentially shedding his godly body and “attempting to become justice and order itself” according to Gowasu. Infinite Zamasu undeniably still has actual strength and was capable of defeating Goku, Vegeta, and Rage Trunks in a beam clash with all of their actual attacks having no effect on him. But was that because of his sheer strength or because you can’t really fight a timeline? Again, kind of unknown, for Zamasu to fuse with the timeline it must’ve required an absurd amount of Ki of some kind but I don’t really know if this is a feat of strength, or just a trait of Zamasu becoming omni-present. Zamasu completely shed his original body and was attempting to become literal concepts of the timeline itself, essentially becoming an omnipresent being rather than some sort of traditional fighter with Ki and everything.
It should be noted that if one does view Infinite Zamasu as something applicable to AP, then he is surpassed by Jiren in the Universe Survival Saga, as Goku says that Jiren is the strongest foe he’s faced thus far with multiple other characters such as Shin (who was present for Infinite Zamasu) and outside sources saying he is the strongest opponent yet. As for the other major part that involves Infinite Zamasu, which is speed, I do think it isn’t too absurd to argue for even if it also is weird. The main crux of the argument involving speed for Infinite Zamasu nowadays is that, again, Jiren is stronger than Infinite Zamasu. Infinite Zamasu became one with the space and time of an entire timeline, and generally in Dragon Ball, strength correlates with speed meaning that Jiren is stronger and faster than a being who literally merged with time itself. There is also an argument to be made that this is supported in the series itself, as during his fight with Hit, Jiren is stated to “have power that transcends time itself.” While on its own this seems very blatant, it's been noted many times that in Dragon Ball, power usually can just…overcome hax abilities such as stopping time. The moment comes from Hit using his last resort called the Time Prison, which essentially traps the opponent in time in a sort of pocket dimension, which Jiren then breaks out of by flexing his left pectoral a little harder than average. Jiren transcending time here likely just refers to his strength being so great that he can just break out of Hit’s time related hax, like how Goku did, rather than the show trying to support the idea directly that Jiren is immeasurable. Despite that, I do think arguments for it are still okay-ish, and I don’t have too many issues with immeasurable DBS as a highball for the series’ speed tiers.
So, what are my full actual thoughts on scaling Infinite Zamasu? Truth be told, I don’t really feel qualified to talk about it. There’s a lot of intricacies that could go into trying to actually understand if what Infinite Zamasu did can be even close to an actually quantifiable feat in terms of AP, and various arguments for or against it that I’ve seen in recent memory that make it hard for me to actually have a full on stance. As of right now, I don’t really buy AP scaling for Infinite Zamasu, but I am open to any arguments in the future as I could just be forgetting something completely obvious in regards to it.
Conclusion
This is canon trust me
So what’s the overall take-away from all this? Where do I, WWAL, the Strongest (trust), have Dragon Ball? Personally, I have the top tiers of Dragon Ball at 5D or Low Complex Multiversal, as I believe the Afterlife in Dragon Ball is a transcendental realm above our the Living World (which contains 3 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time) and I also believe the DoSL is meant to be above the Living World in some way, if not the entirety of Universe 7 itself. As for speed, generally have characters in the Infinite range with some arguments for Immeasurable.
But truth be told, my main idea wth making this blog was just to try and have a concise blog that contains my thoughts on Dragon Ball Cosmology while also making just one big blog going over it as best as I could, at least in terms of the canon cosmology of Dragon Ball. If you have any questions or disagreements then that’s all good, Vs. Debating is about Debating after all!
Thank you so much for reading if you got this far, the last section of this will be me thanking and listing a bunch of incredibly helpful sources I used while working on this blog whether it be scans or just introducing me to new arguments I had never heard of. These sources are:
It's About Time We Discussed Dragon Ball's Afterlife Scans (by u/ProfectusInfinity)
Dragon Ball’s Dimension of Swirling Lights (Revision) (by u/ProfectusInfinity)
Debunking Bulma’s Statement About the Universe Having an Edge and a Center (by u/SmoothSundae14)
Dragon Ball’s Macrocosm (by Sir Marvelous)
The End of a Zamasu-Flavored Era (by Nullflowerblush)
Daizenshuu 04 - World Guide - JP (uploaded by Kami Sama Explorer Museum)
Dragon Ball Super Broly: Novelization Partial Translation (translated by Ningenron)
