Warning: Contains spoilers for Dragon Ball Super chapter #104.In a surprise twist, Dragon Ball Super has made an old-school Dragon Ball Z hero officially canon. While most anime will opt to just leave their filler content as filler, Dragon Ball will occasionally find ways to work them into canon; classic examples of this include Bardock and Ginyu being sent to Earth, and most recently, it’s happened again with Super Saiyan 4 in Dragon Ball Daima.
Dragon Ball’s filler content will always be made canon when someone least expects it, and that’s happening again in the Dragon Ball Super manga. The manga has temporarily come off of hiatus for a special chapter explaining how Goten and Trunks became superheroes, and in a surprise twist, Dragon Ball Super chapter #104 made Olibu from Dragon Ball Z an official part of Dragon Ball canon. It probably doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but even so, it’s nice that Dragon Ball would make a character like that canon so many years after his debut.
Who Is Dragon Ball Z’s Olibu & How Did He Become Canon?
The Latest Filler Character To Become Canon In Dragon Ball
In between the Android saga and the Majin Buu saga, Dragon Ball Z had a filler arc called the Other World saga, which centered around the recently deceased Goku entering a tournament between the disciples of the Kais. Among those disciples was Olibu, King Kai’s strongest disciple after Goku, and according to his history, Olibu was a hero on Earth when he was alive and inspired many of its myths while he was alive. Olibu ultimately lost to Pikkon in the semifinals, but he was still a fun addition to the anime, regardless.
For decades, Olibu seemed to just be another filler character, but that’s changed thanks to the Dragon Ball Super manga. In chapter #104, Trunks’ class went on a field trip to a museum dedicated to Earth’s heroes, with there being statues dedicated to Mister Satan, Great Saiyaman, Master Mutaito, and an anonymous Goku, and surprisingly, Dragon Ball Super chapter #104 showed a statue of Olibu, thus canonizing him as one of Earth’s oldest heroes in Dragon Ball. Olibu, himself, doesn’t appear as a spirit, but for anyone who watched Dragon Ball Z, it was a nice little moment to have.
Is Dragon Ball Z’s Other World Saga Officially Canon?
Did A Classic Filler Arc Just Become Canon?
Dragon Ball Super’s big reveal invites the idea of the Other World saga becoming canon, but it’s not that easy. While it would be easy enough for the characters to become canon, the depiction of Hell in the Other World saga directly contradicts Dragon Ball Super, as each planet now has a unique version of Hell as opposed to everyone going to the same place. The contradictory depictions of Hell in Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super make it impossible for the Other World saga to be canon, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
That doesn’t mean the Other World saga is without merit. Even if it can’t become canon, the Other World saga is still one of Dragon Ball Z’s better filler arcs for its great fights and its fun new characters, so at the end of the day, the fact that Dragon Ball Super decided to make Olibu canon still shows that there was something about the Other World saga worth acknowledging. It’s a great bit of fanservice for anyone who grew up on Dragon Ball Z, and hopefully, it won’t be the last time Dragon Ball Super does something like that.
