Dragon Ball Super has given us many new characters, but non▨e as ominous or conceptually interesting as Zeno. Introduce𒅌d as Omni-King, the Lord of All, Zeno has quickly become one of the more fascinating figures in the Dragon Ball mythos. Definitဣively at the top of the divine hierarchy, Zeno is the being all gods ultimately bow to in reverence. If the Dragon Ball universe is a workplace, Zeno is the CEO. While he supposedly spends most of his time inactive, waiting in the shadows to judge his multiverse, the actions of🐎 Goku and the rest of Universe 7 has sparked a desire to participate in Zeno, making him a series mainstay.
By the end of the Tournament of Power, it’s hard tಌo believe Dragon Ball ever existed without Zeno in the background. Weirdly enough, though, while he feels like a natural fit, we still know very little about Zeno. The series is very conservative with sharing information about him and the lack of guidebooks for𒅌 Super means it’s hard to do research on tಞhe Omni-King. That’s not to say it’s impossible, though. Like many characters within the franchise, Z🅠eno is far more subtle than he initially appears. If you’re an attentive fan, you probably already know what I’m getting at, but if you’re not, get ready to learn quite a bit about the Lord of All.
25 Zeno Has The Highest Body Count In The Series
In a franchise where characters go through each other li🔯ke butter and the afterlife is somewhere just about every member of the main💛 cast has visited at least twice, Dragon Ball’s characters naturally end up with relatively high body counts. Of the main cast, Vegeta stands out as the hero with the most people under his belt. He spent the entire first half of his life as a tool of Frieza, so it makes sense, but he’s far from the character with the most blood in their wake. That honor goes to none other than the Omni-King himse🌄lf: Zeno.
Perhaps it goes without saying that a character who can erase universes without much thought holds the highest body count in the series, but the sheer scale of Zeno’s destruction is what’s worth discussing. Before the series even be𝓀gins, Zeno is responsible for the erasure of multiple universes. When Goku is meeting Bulma for the first time, Zeno is out there sitting on a count of billions upon billions of lives. It’s entirely likely that the Tournament of Power even brought those billions to nearly a trillion. It’s outright terrifying just how much destruction lies in Zeno’s wake. The worst part? To him, it’s just part of the job.
24 Zeno Is The Strongest Character In The Franchise
One of the most interesting aspects of Dragon Ball Super is how quickly the power gap began to escalate. Battle of Gods introduced Beerus as the str🍰ongest characters less than ten minutes in and ended with Whis as the strongest; Resurrection F brought Frieza back and made hཧim stronger than both Goku and Vegeta, and൩ then the Universe 6 tournament introduced Hit, Champa, and Vados, characters all stronger than our leads. If that wasn’t enough, the end of the arc gave us Zeno, the single strongest being in the Dragon Ball franchise.
While Zeno might just feel like another name in an ever-growing list of all-powerful beings meant to be surpassed, it seems unlikely anyone will. While Goku can theoretically reach Beerus’ levelও, Zeno is in a league of his own. We’ve seen Goku fight Beerus and do relatively well. In the film version of BoG, Beerus even says he only used 70% of his power. As for Zeno, though, the idea ofꦗ Goku fighting him is downright ridiculous. For once, Toriyama has introduced a character so far ahead of everyone else that the mere concept of someone fighting him is laughable. Zeno is almost certainly going to go down as the single strongest character Dragon Ball will ever have.
23 That Time Beerus Almost Made Zeno Erase The Multiverse
As unconventional as it is, having a Dragon Ball Super anime and manga run alongside each other has made for some incredibly creative interpretations of Toriyama’s outline. While the main story stays the same between both mediums, it’s hard not to appreciate just so vastly different the two end up being from one another. The Goku Black arc, in particular, basically swapped around all its story beats for the manga. One of the more interesting pieces of lore found in the manga, and the manga, alone comes in the Uꦚniverse Survival arc: Beerus almost doom🔥ed the multiverse.
Leave it to Beerus.
During a hide and seek game designed to appease and entertain Ze🦄no, the Gods of Destruction were summoned as the game’s core performers. While a simple idea in theory, and certainly far more harmles🌠s than the Tournament of Power, Beerus found a way to mess it all up. By falling asleep, none of the other Gods could find him. This infuriated Zeno to the point where he nearly wiped out the multiverse on account of Beerus ruining the game. In an attempt to calm his rage, the Gods united in a joint effort to calm Zeno down, entertaining him in lieu of Beerus’ disappearance. Naturally, this leads to just about every GoD hating Beerus, a trait unique to the manga.
22 Zeno Is The First God Who Isn’t A Martial Artist
At its core, Dragon Ball is a martial arts story. No matter a character’s history, background, or motivation, what this means is that everyone involved in the grand narrative must be a martial artist. Chichi? Martial artist. Vegeta? He should technically be a soldier, but he’s absolutely a martial artist. Mr. Popo? You guessed. This goes double for the series’ hierarchy of gods. Every single deity introduced in the series is either a martial artist or related to martial arts in some way where they become a martial artist ꦕby sheer virtue of existing. Except for Zeno.
Zeno marks the first time a major deitಌy in the series has been introduced without a relation to martial arts. Kami was Goku’s master f꧃or years; Kaio taught him the Kaioken and Genki Dama; Kaioshin trained Gohan with the Z-Sword and later Future Trunks in DBS; and Whis adopted Goku and Vegeta as pupils. Zeno, on the other hand, has absolutely no connection to combat in general, as a massive first for the series. That’s not to say there haven’t been god-like entities without a connection to fighting, but Zeno is the only♑ core deity, the highest one at that, to show no martial arts prowess. Weirdly enough, the manga kind of justifies this twist on the formula.
21 Zeno Hates Violence (In the Manga, At Least)
Not only is Zeno not a martial artist, he’s also not partial to violence in the slightest. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy a good tournament, but there seems to be a very good reason by the Tournament of Power’s rules. In the ma🔯nga, instead of Universe 7 squaring off against Universe 9 in the exhibition match, all twelve Gods of Destruction get together for a proper brawl on the same scale as Goku and Jiren’s final match in the anime. Unfortunately, Zeno finds all the carnage hard to follow and generally distasteful, forcing them to stop before a winner can be declared.
Fight hard! Just not too hard.
In a way, this justifies why the Tournament of Power is fought like a regular tournament instead of a battle royale: Zeno doesn’t want▨ to watch bloodshed, he wants to watch a sport. This also explains why Zeno would be okay with the outcome of the ToP, specifically the fac🍷t that someone had to revive the universes for Zeno not to erase the multiverse. It’s quite unfortunate the anime didn’t take this approach as it adds quite a bit more depth to Zeno’s character. In fact, it makes him all the more complex since his dislike of brutality goes hand-in-hand with one of his other main traits.
20 The Universes Are Just Toys For Zeno
If not liking v𒉰iolence makes Zeno childish in th♕e context of Dragon Ball, treating the universes like his toys proves he’s just a kid. Not once during the Tournament of P🍎ower or otherwise does Zeno show any sign of remorse for what he’s doing. He takes an incredibly casual approach to erasure in general, but the way he acts during the ToP is on another level entirely. This isn’t to say his motivation behind holding the tournament is contradictory to his character, but rather fare more nuanced than you’d think. Zeno wants his toys to be morally good.
It’s sick if you stop to think about it. He’s passing off as a benev🅠olent god, but the truth is he’s just like a little kid who doesn’t want to buy any villain figures. It💝’s all very strange, especially since it works as a base for a god’s motivation and a child’s. Just look at how excited Zeno gets over Jiren’s performance during the ToP. He all but ignores Goku until he can tap into Ultra Instinct. He’s Dragon Ball’s version of Andy from the first Toy Story in that🃏 respect. At the very least, Zeno not particularly caring to treat his subjects as people does make for an interesting narrative and likely will spill into later storylines whenever Dragon Ball comes back.
19 Zeno’s Design Is Quintessential Toriyama
You can tell a fan of Toriyama’s work from a cas💙ual fa♚n of Dragon Ball based on how they react to Zeno’s design. If ꩲthey thᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚink making a cutesy character the literal lord of everything is dumb, chances are they’re mostly invested in Dragon Ball because it was something they watched when they were younger. If they think Zeno’s design is perfect, both tonally and on an artistic level, they’re most definitely big fans of the ser🙈ies and Toriyama’s work. When it comes down to it, Zeno’s design embodies everything Toriyama is about as an artist.
Constantly throughout the series🅷, Toriyama makes it a point to make the strong looking characters come off weak and the weak looking characters come off strong. That’s not to say there aren’t characters who look strong and are strong, but the more someone’s design leans in a specific direction, the more likely Toriyama is trying to pull a fast one on the audience. Just look at Nappa and Vegeta. Nappa’s the one with the “strong” design, but Vegeta’s far more formidable. That same concept applies to Zeno. He looks cute and ♉huggable, but he’d wipe you out in a second if you hugged him a bit too hard.
18 Zeno’s Universe Ratings Barely Take Power Level Into Account
One🐭 of the biggest misconceptions within the fandom in 🍃regards to Dragon Ball Super is how the universe rating system works. Introduced in the Universe Survival arc as a means to justify the Tournament of Power’s existence, the universe rating system is Zeno’s way of measuring the development of each universe. When the tournament began properly, many fans were confus🔯ed as Universe 7 was clearer one of the stronger universes while still second to last in the universe ranking. Since Dragon Ball is a martial arts st♔ory, shouldn’t the strongest universes be the highest ranked? Maybe, bu🎶t remember that Zeno abhors violence.
In reality, the universe ranking system barely takes strength or Battle Power into account. What matters to Zeno is quality of life, culture, and how well the Gods of Destruction do their jobs along with their respective Kaioshins. While Universe 7 is strong, they drop the ball everywhere else. Beerus destroys planets without much consideration; Kaioshin barely knows what he’s doing, and Frieza effectively wiped out countless cultures decades before the Tournament of Power. By the time the Universe Survival arc came around, the main characters did so mu♒ch damage to Universe 7 that it’s a miracle they weren’t dead last.
17 Why Goku Will Never Reach Zeno’s Level
Goku might reach Beerus’ level. He may even reach Whis’ if the series goes on long enough. One thing is certain, though, Goku will never become strong enough to compete with Zeno in power. This isn’t a theory or an ꦏassumption, this is a straight up fact based on the type of story Dragon Ball is telling. If Goku someh💛ow gets strong enough to not☂ only fight, but also defeat Zeno, Dragon Ball will have 𝓀betrayed its core theme: there’s always someone better. Zeno is the ult✨imate “someone better,” he is the unachievable.
Remember: there's always someone better.
Before Zeno, it was Beerus, but it was always clear that Goku was ju✤st a little bit away from catching up to Beerus. Battle of Gods ends with the uncertainty that he ever would, and that Whis would be right around the corner if he did, but Zeno is so separated from where Goku is currently that there’s no realistic, narrative way for Goku to catch up. To reach Goku’s level, he’d have to surpass the 🎶Gods of Destruction, including Beerus; the angels; Zeno’s guards; and the Grand Priest. While that could make for a fine story in 𒊎its own right, it’s so uncharacteristically Dragon Ball that a s🐬cenario like this would go against everything the series stands for.
16 Zeno Is The Closest Thing To A Definitive God The Series Has
Dragon Ball has never been shy about introducing new gods as the God. Kami in Japanese straight up means “God,” singular, and it isn’t until the Saiyan ꧟saga that Kaio is introduced, opening up the hierarchy even more. While he remains the highest notch on the totem pole for quite some time, Kaioshin is late introduced as the highest ranked god before Elder Kaioshin showing up to claim that title. All the while, Dai Kaio’s in the background seemingly on top of the food chain. By the time Beerus is introduced, who’s to say if it’ll last.
Of course, it doesn’t, as Zeno’s introduction rockets him up to the very top of the hierarchy. This time, however, it actually feels like Zeno will 🥂be the main man in charge for the foreseeable future. While other gods were often introduced as the best of the best, they also had their own titles. Kami was the God of Earth and Beerus was a God of Destruction, after all. In comparison, Zeno is just the Omni-King, the Lord of All. Compare this to Kaio who was the Lord of Worlds and Kaioshin who was the Lord of Lords. When you’re the Lord of “All,” there’s really nothing that can supersede you.