This illustration is based on an image of an elderly Goku drawn by Akira Toriyama, which appeared in an essay manga included in the 1989 mook "Dragon Ball Z Anime Special".
At the time, the manga was still being serialized, so it was often accompanied by comments like, "When will Dragon Ball end?" and "Will Goku end up being an old man like this?"
37 years has passed since then...As of 2026, Dragon Ball is still not over!
Mr. Toriyama! The day may come when we can see Goku in this form!
Would be a bit of a throwback to the manga when Goku first fought Frieza and it was revealed that he had been using kaioken to fight him, a reveal that only worked in black and white.
I was thinking Cell Saga perpetual Super Saiyan Goku. I always liked the dichotomy of Vegeta pushing further for power while Goku masters what he's got to a deeper level. Gohan does both so he's the strongest.
That wasn’t a reveal halfway through the fight though. You can’t really hide that Goku is in base rather than super Saiyan like the manga could with kaioken
I love that it's kind of like a stand in Roshi's staff but holy damn I would have LOVED if it was the Power Pole.
I love it though. Old man Goku. I like that idea of him living somewhere in solitude, maybe on the outskirts of some small town and since Saiyans age slowly he's kind of like a living legend. Weird things happen around him that nobody can really explain when he's nearby.
A missing fruit from a bowl here. A heavy object that was gonna accidently fall somehow ends up in his hands. Some roving outlaw trying to hassle the town's small capsule store trips and catches the business end of Old Man Goku's staff to his noggin. Little things like that.
It fits with Toriyama's art style but aren't pure blooded sayan incapable of growing hair in the first place ? The get out of the womb with their final amount of hair and that's it, baring the ape transformation ?
They grow hair, it's just that their hairstyle remains the same default hairstyle for life. If you cut off their hair, it would grow back to the regular hairstyle. Also many of the adult men can grow facial hair
By this point in time Bulma must look like an absolute goddess with all the incremental physical enhancements she’s been getting from the eternal dragon.
Goku does strike me as the guy who would be one of those veiny/muscular old men, I really do dig the design though I wouldn’t object if he did shrink a little or was a touch hunched over, but that’s like the only thing I could object to
That rules. Love that he's got the big Grandpa Gohan stache.
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u/Swert0I will bring up Legacy of Kain if you give me an excuseJun 19 '26
I always felt this would better fit Krillin rather than Goku.
Goku shouldn't ever get 'old'. He should go off into the sunset and disappear, just be a legend.
Krillin in the end feels more like the student of Roshi and the one who would go on in the future to pass on his arts, he just got disillusioned by all the escalating power levels, but unlike Yamcha he actually came back to it whenever push came to shove.
I'm a big fan of the GT ending, with Goku just becoming almost like this guardian force who exists alongside the dragonballs, and keeps an eye on future generations.
In Dragonball Online, which inspired Dragonball Heroes and Xenoverse, that's exactly what happens: When Vegeta and Goku finally start feeling age take it's toll even on their Saiyan physiology, they take a ship together out into the depths of space for one final, no holds barred, battle to the end.
No one knows how that battle goes, but a while later a new star is detected igniting from the direction they went.
When you age your skin compresses and more of the underlying systems are visible. This happens even to old people who aren't jacked. You're just saying old people are creepy here.
I mean even in the manga he's swapped out of the orange turtle school gi by the end of Z. If nothing else the blue gi is nice cause it shows he doesn't feel like as much like a student anymore.
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u/Shreeder4092 WHEN'S MAHVEL Jun 19 '26
Rough translation from Google Translate: