In Dragon Ball lore, there is a legend of a man who first obtained the incredible power of the Super Saiyan state-a man Toriyama referred to as Yamoshi. While little is known of Yamoshi within the canon of Dragon Ball, he’s clearly a central figure to the Saiyan lore, and it’s important to recognize his influence on the broader series.
Yamoshi is the Saiyan who is featured in the legend which Vegeta tells of the “Legendary Super Saiyan” back in the Dragon Ball Z episode “Goku’s New Power.” In a time long before Saiyans lived on Planet Vegeta, Yamoshi was a righteous Saiyan warrior who fought against the barbarous “Evil” Saiyans. The good and evil Saiyans had been part of a long-standing conflict, but the righteous Saiyans were on the verge of extinction. According to Vegeta, Yamoshi took on a powerful transformation and wielded incredible destructive power, being dubbed the Super Saiyan.
Despite his incredible power, however, Yamoshi was defeated by the evil Saiyans, but even that didn’t stop his righteous quest.
Yamoshi’s name is never used in canon; it instead comes from an interview with Akira Toriyama.
Yamoshi Became the Basis for Super Saiyan God
While Yamoshi is shown in an anime-original image as being in the Great Ape form in Vegeta’s story, it’s most likely that Yamoshi was utilizing the Legendary Super Saiyan state most famously used by Broly. Yamoshi’s story is said to take place 1,000 years before the main story of Dragon Ball Z, which would align with the idea that the Legendary Super Saiyan only appears once every millennium. The destructive power that he’s said to wield would certainly line up well with the almost berserk power of the Legendary Super Saiyan form.
After Yamoshi died, his spirit is said to have wandered the universe, still searching for a way to defeat the Evil Saiyans. Word of Yamoshi’s deeds spread far beyond the Saiyan homeworld, such that his transformation was even recorded in the history of Namek. Yamoshi was said to have fought alongside five equally righteous comrades, and devised a ritual, which would come to be known as the Super Saiyan God ritual, which could channel power from five Saiyans into a sixth, creating the Super Saiyan God.
While the original Super Saiyan God may have thus been a different Saiyan, they only achieved that state thanks to Yamoshi’s guidance from beyond the grave, and in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, it seems that Yamoshi’s spirit comes to Goku when the ritual is performed as well. Beerus himself has a vision of Yamoshi’s spirit, which is what spurs him to search out the Super Saiyan God as a potential opponent in the first place.
Yamoshi’s Legend Had Long-Lasting Impact
Despite Yamoshi’s attainment of Super Saiyan 1,000 years ago, it seems that few, if any, Saiyans managed to reach Super Saiyan in the intervening millennium, causing the story to fade into legend. The “evil” Saiyans, who won out, became the only Saiyans, and became known for their brutality and war-like ways, eventually coming to be a planetary invasion force in Frieza’s father’s army. Despite this, Yamoshi’s legend was still spoken of in whispers–whispers that Frieza eventually caught on to.
Since the legends, told from the perspective of the evil Saiyans, focused greatly on the Super Saiyan’s destructive power, Frieza came to fear the power that Yamoshi was said to have possessed. He worried that the Saiyans might rise up against him if they were ever to harness such a power, and decided he couldn’t take such a risk, even if it was a small one. This eventually drove Frieza to destroy Planet Vegeta and with it, the Saiyan race, all in a desperate attempt to prevent any such Super Saiyan from ever rising again.
Of course, this backfired on Frieza immensely, as surviving Saiyans like Goku and Vegeta came to obtain the power of Super Saiyan, and had great reason to hate him personally as a result. Hoist by his own petard, Frieza was killed by the very Super Saiyan he’d gone to such lengths to prevent.
How Did Yamoshi Attain Super Saiyan?
According to Toriyama, Saiyans can only transform into Super Saiyans if they have enough “S-Cells,” a particular kind of cell exclusive to Saiyans. The amount of S-Cells a Saiyan has is determined in large part by their temperament, with gentler, kinder Saiyans having a greater supply of S-Cells. This explains how Yamoshi, as a righteous Saiyan, was the first to be able to attain the transformation into Super Saiyan. The transformation is triggered by a strong emotional reaction, and Yamoshi’s final stand against the evil Saiyans seems to have done the trick.
This might also explain why Universe 6’s righteous Saiyans were able to access the form relatively easily once taught it by Vegeta. It seems that the righteous Saiyans actually defeated their evil counterparts in Universe 6, so Yamoshi’s parallel in Universe 6 may actually have been successful, since they had the same legend about the Legendary Super Saiyan appearing every 1,000 years. S-Cell levels can also be increased along with one’s battling experience, to the point where a strong emotional reaction isn’t strictly necessary to transform.
Dragon Ball: All 21 Canon Super Saiyan Transformations
Most Dragon Ball fans have heard of the Super Saiyan transformation, but there are most versions of this power-up than it may first appear.
The evil Saiyans of Universe 7, on the other hand, were largely unable to gain enough S-Cells to transform because of their barbaric nature, unknowingly depriving themselves of great power through their cruelty. Goku, due to his life on the relatively peaceful Earth and time spent battling against evil, had plenty of S-Cells, so when he was triggered into a strong emotional reaction due to Krillin’s death, he had all the pieces in place to become a Super Saiyan.
While relatively little is known about Yamoshi and his deeds, they’ve obviously had a massive impact on Dragon Ball lore, leading to the legends of both the Super Saiyan and the Super Saiyan God. As Dragon Ball‘s first Super Saiyan, Yamoshi is an incredibly important figure, and fans can only hope that Yamoshi might get the spotlight at some point in the future, and finally reveal how the first Super Saiyan came to be in full detail.
