While the Super Saiyan transformation is iconic in not just Dragon Ball but shonen overall, the manga originally portrayed the heightened state as much more terrifying and nuanced than the anime’s portrayal. The most effective examples come from Goku and Vegeta’s words more so than their actions, or, more directly, how the two Saiyans describe what it’s like to be Super Saiyan or the ways in which they imply they might react based on their powerful new emotions.

When Goku first transforms into a Super Saiyan in chapter 72 of Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama, Goku yells at his son Gohan to run before he loses control while episode 95 of the anime just has Goku telling Gohan to run. Much later in the manga’s 149th chapter, Vegeta transforms in front of Android 19 and informs his allies that he achieved Super Saiyan after reaching his limits and becoming enraged at himself for failing. The 129th episode of the anime, when Vegeta first transforms, however, shows prince explaining that he only became a Super Saiyan after he no longer cared about becoming one.

Super Saiyan Goku Could Have Lost Control & Hurt Gohan

Although not as descriptive, Goku’s words are the most horrifying based on their devastating implications. By commanding his son to flee before he loses control, Goku implies that he could actually hurt his own child. Goku’s words create the impression that, while he at least had some control of his faculties in the moment, something inside of him was occurring that convinced him this self-control couldn’t last, meaning that his anger was likely rising exponentially enough to alarm him.

What Vegeta says much later in chapter 149 also supports Goku’s urgency. He describes it as his ferocity increasing. But he also explains it as a “state of ecstasy.” This adds a critical ingredient to the experience that could be a recipe for disaster whereby the ferocity or fury becomes enjoyable, potentially making Super Saiyans more erratic and uncontrollable. It’s also intriguing that the anime changed how Vegeta became a Super Saiyan. Although the prospect of having to not care about transforming in order to attain the transformation creates the allusion to some kind of “test” that must be met to prove oneself, the “rage” aspect fuels the Super Saiyan’s anger-based appeal. It isn’t some mythical rite of passage, it’s rage incarnate.

Dragon Ball Z’s Super Saiyan Retcon Redefined The Transformation

Ironically, apart from these exciting descriptions, there’s nothing about any Saiyan’s actions that imply an actual loss of control. Much like how the anime retcons the more terrifying parts of the Super Saiyan, so, too, does the overall series naturally remove the brutal nature of how Saiyans become Super Saiyan after that initial transformation. Although Vegeta and Goku experience intense emotions to unlock every stage of Super Saiyan, it is no longer required each subsequent transformation after the first time they unlock Super Saiyan. They can just turn it off and on like a switch without having to undergo anything serious.

Unfortunately, all these retcons of the Super Saiyan transformation allow Goku, Vegeta, and every other Saiyan to perpetually spam the form throughout Dragon Ball without having to experience any negative side effects, which simplified every battle they fought in. Dragon Ball’s manga made Goku’s first Super Saiyan transformation a horrific event that threatened the life of his son Gohan, which is why it’s so unfortunate that subsequent uses would follow the anime’s lead by watering down a form that could have been rage incarnate.