Depending on when you’re reading this, Dragon Ball Super is either finally coming to a close or has just ended. It’sඣ hard to believe it’s actually coming to an end.🧜 It feels like just yesterday Toei announced Battle of Gods. Regardless of your thoughts on Dragon Ball’s revival, this has undꦯeniably been an important era in DB history. We got two new movies, a new anime, a new manga, and we’re ge🧸tting a new film at the end of the year. You can argue that Toei’s milking the series for everything it’s worth, a🎃nd you’d probably be right, but we’ve had some very interesting new additions to the series thanks to Super.
One such addition is Jiren.
Jiren, otherwise known as Jiren the Gray, is everyone’s (least) favorite antagonist from the Tournament of Pow꧒er. He’s such a polarizing character, I had to add that “least” in parentheses because there is genuinely nওo consensus on his status as a character. Is he well written? Is he boring? Is he both? Who knows! What I do know, however, is 25 crazy things you never knew about Jiren.
25 Jiren Is The Only Reason Universe 6 Didn’t Win
In a world without Jiren, Universe 6 would have easiꦛly won the Tournament of Power. Unfortunately for Champa, Dragon Ball Super does not take place in a world without Jiren. Jiren is the reason Kale could barely do any damage while Berserk; Jiren is the reason Goku unlocked Ultra Instinct and knocked out Kefla; and Jiren is the reason Hit foolishly got knocked out before he could make a dent in the tournament’s roster. Every step of the way, Jiren was there to stop Universe 6. No one else could have stood up to the task, but Jiren makes the impossible possible. He's the kind of📖 opponent that changes the game and sets new plateaus for the characters. Jiren is power on a different scale, and handily changes the stake🗹s.
24 Hit Would Have Beaten Jiren With Teamwork
A💝s overwhelmingly powerful as Jiren is, there are two moments in the Tournament of Power where he was dangerously close to losing. The first of which occurred in his match against Hit. While Jiren overpowered everyone's favorite ꦐtime skipping boxer, Hit managed to use his time-based abilities to freeze Jiren in place. In paralyzing Jiren completely, Hit put him in a position where Universe 11 could have easily lost its MVP. Unfortunately, nobody actually bothered to help Hit.
Hit put him in a position where Universe 11 could have easily lost its MVP.
Had Cabba, Caulifla, and Kale jumped in to help Hit, instead of just watching him struggle, Jiren would have never been able to break free from the time stop and would have likely fallen off the stage. It can be debated that the risk of jumping in would mean losing🤡 four fighters instead of just one, but Jiren truly was immobilized for a while. Universe 6 missed their chance and doomed themselves to erasure without Hit.
23 Jiren Is Stronger Than A God Of Destruction
With Battle of Gods came a new standard: the God of Destruction. Stronger than a Super Saiyan, stronger than a potara fusion, and even stronger than an overpowered Saiyan with God Ki, the God of Destruction was a seemingly unreachable state of power that Goku would need to striv⛎e for forever. Then came Jiren. In one instant, one man took the wind out of the sails of destruction and redefine𒊎d the ladder. With seemingly no God ki of his own, Jiren proved you don’t need to be a god to better a God of Destruction.
Confirmed by Belmod himself, Jiren is either as strong or stronger than the weakest God of Destruction. His raw power, his apparent inability to🐽 be damaged, and his ridiculous speed make him a character who can strike fear in those deities designed to be fear incarnate. Going forward, fans aren’t going to be using Gods of Destruction as power benchmarks. They’re going to be using Jiren.
22 Jiren Might Be The Fastest Character In The Series
Measuring speed has always been a tricky feat in Dragon Ball. From as early as👍 the 21st Budokai, characters were already moving faster than human eyes could perceive. Come the start of the Saiyan saga, Raditz brought with him a level of speed unprecedented where Goku and Piccolo, the two strongest men alive, struggled to keep track of his movements. The less said about Burter, the so-called “fastest in the universe,” the better. Jiren is the next step in 🍸the speed ladder, but he’s a bit different.
Where before wꦛe saw fast characters in motion, Jiren has attacked multiple times without so much as moving. That’s not to say he hasn’t moved, though. He’s clearly moving to attack, but nobody can see him without an intense level of concentration. He’s so fast that Goku, a martial artist with decades of godly experience, couldn’t read his movements initially. It took u♕nlocking Ultra Instinct for Goku to finally get a proper read on Jiren. That’s fast.
21 Jiren Barely Fights
For a main antagonist, Jiren might actually be the villain with the least fights uꩵnder his belt in his own arc. Jackie Chun, Tien, and Piccolo fought in all the fights they p❀ossibly could have in their respective Budokais; King Piccolo fought Goku, Roshi, and Tien; Vegeta fought half the main cast; Freeza fought the entire main cast at the time; Cell foughts villains and heroes alike; Buu pretty much fought everyone; and the Super antagonists befor♏e༒ Jiren fight everyone they possibly can.
He fights some fodder from time to time, but his main fights are all tucked away at the very end of the arc.
Comparatively, Jiren doesn’t do much in the Tournament of Power. He fights some fodder from time to t෴ime, but his main fights are all tucked away at the very end of the arc. Before Anilaza is dealt with, Jiren’s only notable fight is against UI Goku, a battle Jir﷽en didn’t even bother fighting to completion. It’s that indifference to take action that separates Jiren from other antagonists.
20 Jiren Should Have Been Disqualified
Jiren is living proof that rules mean absolutely nothing in the Tournament of Power. Despite firing an energy ball with murderous intent at the audience🐓 in episode 130, Jiren was inexplicably not erased on the spot. This isn’t a rule oversight, either. Frost pulls something similar earlier in the arc which leads to his immediate erasure. What’s worse, Frost wouldn’t have actually done any reasonable damage while Jiren would have had Goku not blocked the attack. As far as the rules are concerned, Jiren should have been disqualified the moment he fired an attack at the audience, securing the win for Universe 7. It's a bit unfair — but what would the story be if not for this change.
19 Android 17 Put Up A Better Fight Against Jiren Than Vegeta
Jiren is cool, but you know what the coolest thing about him is? He made Android 17 awesome. Everyone would expect Vegeta to be the second banana to Goku, doing the most overall damage to Jiren, but Android 17 actually managed to put up a better fight than Universe 7’s second strongest fighter. While Vegeta exhausted his new transformation and barely made a deℱnt in Jiren’s composure, 17 inflicted actual damage against him, used a massive barrier to save Goku and Vegeta from Jiren, and hid in the rubble until the end of Goku and Jiren’s fight in case Goku needed help. Without 17, Jiren would be truly unbeatable. The same can’t be said for Vegeta.
18 Jiren Has One Of The Most Basic Fighting Styles In The Series
In a series where just about everyone has their own fighting style rooted in martial arts, Jiren stands out as one of the few major characters do lack a definable style of their own. His style ofඣ combat is incredibly basic, relying almost exclusively on brute strength over actual skill. Keep 🍒in mind, this is all in the choreography of the character. Jiren is clearly meant to be depicted as a skilled fighter, but his overall technique is rather bland.
His style of combat is incredibly basic, relying almost exclusively on brute strength over actual skill.
He’s at his most interesting, visually, when he’s using Ki, but even that feels less like🍸 martial art🧸s and more just a consequence of being in Dragon Ball. He’s the only main antagonist who lacks a definable fighting style of his own. It could 🐟be intentional given his almost bl🐻ank slate persona, but it’s nonetheless a bit disappointing.
17 Jiren Is Basically The Only Asset In Universe 11’s Team
While other universes certainly fail to impress as much as Universe 11, the Pride Troopers are, on a whole, incredibly disappointing. A team made up pretty much entirely of fodder, Jiren is the only thing carrying their universe to victory. Toppo and Dyspo are supposedly quite powerful and forces not to be reckoned with, but neither characters manages to get an elimination under their belt before falling off the stage🐼. Jiren is the only member of Universe 11 to actually fight more than one major battle during the entire tournament. It’s great for Jiren fans, but it’s disappointing for anyone who expected the Pride Troopers to actually do something.
16 The Tournament Of Power Is Just As Much About Jiren As It Is About Goku
The Universe Survival arc doesn’t have much going on for it narratively, but it stands out i💞n large part thanks toಞ Goku’s development. In granting him the pursuit of Ultra Instinct, Goku is able to challenge himself as a martial artist into reaching a state of complete zen. As a progression of his character, it’s a turn that makes perfect sense for the series. At the same time, Jiren is seeing his idea of strength challenged by Goku, forcing him to confront his ideology.
Together, they develop a mutual understanding of one another and develop into fighters keenly aware of their own weaknesses.
In this sense, Goku and Jiren are developing alike. Goku into a martial artist aware of his surroundings♚, and Jiren into a warrior who understands where true strength comes from. Goku fights for himself, but he doesn’t stop fighting for others. Jiren fights for himself, but at the expense of everyone else. Together, they develop a mutual understanding of one another and develop into fighters keenly aware of their own weaknesses.