The Hitchhiker's Guide to the DB Galaxy

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the DB Galaxy

Post by Herms » Fri Sep 18, 2009 4:44 am

----Notice:This old thread is part of my series of guides. To avoid necro-posting, please post any comments you have in the sticky thread for my guides, rather than here. Thanks!----

So for my 4,000th post, I’m making a series of posts trying to explain about the DB world. Threads asking about the DB afterlife, god hierarchy, universe, and whatnot pop up pretty regularly asking the same sorts of questions, so for awhile I’ve been wanting to just make a big guide explaining all that’s known about this stuff. This way, I can just copy and paste from these posts whenever these questions come up, and in this way reach 5,000 posts without having to actually write anything new.

So basically, over the course of this thread I want to cover these subjects:

The set-up of the DB world (ie the afterlife in relation to the living world, etc)
The afterlife system (who gets a body, and such)
The god hierarchy (what’s the difference between a Kaio and Kaioshin, etc)
The DB universe (4 galaxies! 4!)
The DB version of Earth
The Demon Realm
Probably other stuff too

In addition, I guess this thread will serve as a warm-up for the Daizex wiki, so add anything you think should be included.

The Set-Up of the DB World
Fundamentally, the DB world is a giant pokeball. The top half of the pokeball is the afterlife, and the bottom half is split between the regular universe that Goku and friends call home, and the Demon Realm that Dabra rules. There’s not really any name given for this giant ball thingy, but I’ll call it the “macrocosm”. The Kaioshin live in their own separate realm outside of the macrocosm, which revolves around the rest of the macrocosm like a moon. None of this is apparent from the manga, but Toriyama eventually drew a map of the DB world showing all this. In the Super Exciting Guide: Character Volume, he explained that he designed the DB world in this way to make it easy for both himself and his readers to understand.

Toriyama first drew this map for the anime staff to use, and in fact his design of the macrocosm can be seen a bit during the Afterlife Tournament filler arc. He later revised the map for Daizenshuu 4, adding in the Kaioshin Realm. Versions of this map have appeared in the guidebooks Daizenshuu 4 and 7, DragonBall Landmark, and the Super Exciting Guide: Character Volume. There are also a few fan-created maps circulating around the internet; the most prominent one is distinguished by its misspelling of “Makai” (the Demon Realm) as “Maikai”, but otherwise it’s basically fine.

I’ll go into detail on each part of the DB world bit by bit, starting with the afterlife and Kaioshin Realm. But before that, just to keep my preferred terms straight:

DB World: the sum total of everything known to exist within the DragonBall series; basically the macrocosm plus the Kaioshin Realm
Macrocosm: the giant ball that is divided up into DB’s afterlife and living world
Living World: the lower half of the macrocosm; it’s divided up into the universe and Demon Realm
DB Universe: the upper portion of the living world, where Goku and co. live; it is divided up into four segments called “galaxies”, and beneath it is the Demon Realm
DB Earth: The version of Earth that exists within the DB universe.

So when I say “DB world”, I don’t just mean the DB Earth, and when I say “DB universe”, I mean only a particular part of the DB world.

Anyway:

The Afterlife
あの世/anoyo
Translation: that world, the other world, the afterlife
Other Names: the Netherworld (Viz), Other World (Funi), the Next Dimension (early Funi), the next world, the world beyond

The afterlife is the world where people go when they die, and where the gods who watch over the living universe reside. Apart from the gods and the dead, the afterlife is also home to the oni, ogre-like monsters of Japanese myth. They are portrayed as the administrators of the afterlife, assisting the judge of the dead, Enma Daio (Great King Enma, aka King Yama), a figure taken from Buddhist and Hindu mythology. Daizenshuu 7 says that Mister Popo and Karin are also beings native to the afterlife, sent to Earth to assist its God. Similar assistants from the afterlife are sent to the gods of each world. In addition, Akkuman’s race of devils is from the afterlife (Hell to be exact). According to Goku, time doesn’t exist in the afterlife, though it’s not clear just what this entails, other than that using Super Saiyan 3 there is easier.

Death in DragonBall
When someone in the living world dies, they normally become a bodiless spirit and go to the afterlife. . Whether they’re Earthling or alien, everything goes to Enma’s palace to receive judgment, with no distinction. Even beings from the Demon Realm go to Enma’s palace when they die, as we see when Dabra dies and Enma sends him to Heaven. Some special exceptions are allowed to keep their bodies in the afterlife, but even they must check in with Enma. However, those killed by members of the Demon Clan (such as Piccolo Daimao and his offspring) are unable to properly pass over into the afterlife. Their spirits are stuck forever in the living world, floating through the air suffering. Some translations refer to these souls as being “in limbo”, but this refers only to their status, not to any special place called Limbo.

Enma decides whether each of the dead go to Heaven or Hell, and approves certain exceptional people to go train under a Kaio. People sent to Hell are cleansed and eventually reborn as new life-forms in the living world. The ultimate fate of those sent to Heaven is unclear. Dead people can potentially be revived by the dragonballs, which override the natural order. Most people who are revived by the dragonballs like this seem to have no memory of the afterlife, but others like Goku remember everything. Whether or not one has a body in the afterlife might affect this. According to Goku, if a dead person is killed again, they will disappear completely from both the living world and afterlife. It’s unknown if such people could still be revived with the dragonballs.

Travel to and from the Afterlife
Dead people can return to the living world for a single day, usually with Uranai Baba’s help. The dead Elder Kaioshin freely goes to New Namek without Uranai Baba, but as a god he might be an exception. If nothing else, some sort of teleporting ability is needed under normal circumstances, due to the separation between the afterlife and living world. In DBZ movie 9, Goku is able to teleport back to the living world on his own for a split second. After 24 hours, the dead person must return to the afterlife, though it’s not clear what would happen if they tried to stay. The 24 hour limit doesn’t seem to be merely an arbitrary rule though: Goku says that his Super Saiyan 3 form uses up so much energy in the living world that it lowers the amount of time that he’s able to stay there.

On the other hand, living people seem to have no problem traveling to the afterlife and back, but only if they have teleporting powers. Uranai Baba can travel freely between the living world and afterlife, and Goku teleports to Kaio’s planet and back again before the Cell Games.

Bodies in the afterlife
One thing about the DB afterlife that’s been a constant source of confusion for fans is the whole issue of who does and doesn’t get to keep their body after they die, though it’s mostly the fault of filler. In the manga, things are laid out pretty specifically: after the Cell Games, Goku explains that when regular people and bad guys like Cell die, they become just spirits. These are the will-o’-the-wisp type souls that can be seen lined up in front of Enma’s palace.

But Goku says that he was given special treatment, due to his saving the Earth among other things, and so he gets to have a body in the afterlife. His body won’t age, since he’s already dead, and there are masters from the past in the afterlife for him to compete with. These old masters are apparently martial artists like Goku allowed to keep their bodies due to their achievements. These are also presumably the same masters who Uranai Baba hires to fight for her, like Grampa Gohan. Later in the Boo arc, Goku mentions meeting two people from Planet Metamor in the afterlife, who taught him Fusion, and were presumably more of these afterlife martial artists.

Where do these special afterlife bodies come from? At least some of the time, it’s the same body that person had in life, but cleaned up a little. After Goku dies fighting Raditz, Kami teleports his body to the afterlife so that he can use it to go train with Kaio. The bodies of Tenshinhan and the others who die in the battle with Vegeta and Nappa don’t instantly disappear like Goku’s did, but they’re all later seen in the afterlife with bodies. Did Kami just teleport their bodies to the afterlife sometime later? At any rate, Chaozu’s afterlife body is a new one: it’s said that Kami had to regenerate Chaozu’s body, since he blew himself to bits fighting Nappa.

Also, Kami himself does simply fade away when he dies, just like Goku did. And so does the Great Elder later on, perhaps a sign that he has qualified to keep his body after death. Then when Elder Kaioshin gives his life to Goku, he doesn’t even disappear, but just pops right back up again with a halo over his head. This is probably because he died in the Kaioshin Realm, which is a special place beyond either the living world or afterlife, and also maybe because his top-god status means he doesn’t have to go receive judgment from Enma, at least not right away.

After Vegeta self-destructs against Boo, his body turns to ash and crumbles away, but Enma gives him a new body in the afterlife so that he can fight Boo. I’ve always wondered about this. Did they just have an extra Vegeta body lying around? Is there a body-making machine somewhere in the afterlife that makes custom bodies, or do they have stock bodies that transform into what the person’s old body looked like once that person’s soul has been infused into them?

Also, some of this body making happens pretty fast. When Goku, Kaio, and Bubbles die from Cell’s self-destruction (presumably destroying their bodies), they’re all seen with shiny new bodies shortly afterwards. Kaio can materialize objects from nothing, so was he able to whip them up new bodies, even as just a spirit?

So that’s all the body/afterlife stuff in the manga. The anime is fairly accurate to this as far as regular people and martial artists go, showing most dead as just souls but some with bodies. However, it really messes up on the whole idea that evil people aren’t supposed to ever get bodies when they die. But before getting into that, it’s probably best to talk about Hell.

The Sections of the Afterlife
Daizenshuu 7 divides the afterlife up into three rough areas, plus the Kaioshin Realm: the lower third is Hell, ruled by Enma Daio. The middle third is the Enma Realm, also ruled by Enma, and consisting of Enma’s palace, the Serpent Road, and the Afterlife Airport. Then the upper third is the Kaio Realm, ruled by the Dai-Kaio, and consisting of the 4 Kaios’ plants, Heaven, and the Dai-Kaio’s planet. Finally there’s the Kaioshin Realm, ruled by the Dai-Kaioshin, which is actually located outside of the macrocosm.

I. Hell
地獄/jigoku
Translation: hell, the earthly prison
Other Names: HFIL, the Home for Infinite Losers (Funi)

Hell is where the dead souls which Enma Daio judges to be evil are sent to. It consists of an extremely vast, rocky plain that takes up the entire lower portion of the afterlife, and is covered by the yellow clouds that surround Enma’s palace and the Serpent Road.

Hell is never seen in the manga, but referred to a number of times. Akkuman, the devil who works for Uranai Baba, calls it his homeland (Daizenshuu 7 expands on this, saying that devils are one of the life-forms native to Hell, but that there are others as well). The oni who guides Goku to the Serpent Road warns him to not fall off the road, because if he does so he will fall into Hell and be unable to return. During the Boo saga, when Vegeta asks Piccolo if he will be able to meet Goku in the afterlife, Piccolo tells Vegeta that because he has killed too many innocent people, he will go to a different world than Goku when he dies. His body will become nothing, he will lose all his memories, and after his soul is cleansed, he will finally be reborn as a new life-form. Though Vegeta is ultimately spared this fate, this seems to be what happens to Boo when he is reborn as Oob. This idea of Hell as a place where evil souls are cleansed before being reborn is very similar to the Buddhist conception of Hell.

Hell is frequently features in the anime filler and movies. In Z, despite the guide oni’s warning, Goku does end up falling down there while asleep on the back of the Serpent Road’s street-sweeper car (he also almost fell in at an earlier point, during which black hands shot out from Hell and tried to pull him down, but he managed to break free from them). Goku lands in Block 1 of Hell, which is portrayed as a cartoonish parody of the standard Japanese depictions of Hell, with lakes of blood and mountains of needles. There are also small hills that look like piles of rocks, and prickly, leaf-less trees. But instead of being in torment, the spirits here seem to be having a great time, going boating out on the lake of blood and taking leisurely hikes up the mountains of needles (incidentally, this is the only filler that portrays the damned as bodiless spirits, like the manga says they should be).

Block 1 of Hell is guarded by two oni: a red one named Gozu, and a blue one named Mezu. These two are jokes on Ox-Head (Gozu) and Horse-Head (Mezu), the traditional guardians of Buddhist Hell. The Ensei Tree, which only Enma Daio is allowed to touch, grows in Block 1, #3. It bears peach-like fruit that are supposed to keep you full for 100 days, and which increase one’s power. Also in Block 1 is an exit from Hell, a tunnel connected to Enma’s desk. The yellow clouds which Goku passed right through on the way down act as a solid, impassible barrier when he tries to come back up, so Goku is forced to use the desk exit, and start running along the Serpent Road all the way from the beginning. Later, during the Freeza arc, the dead members of the Ginyu Special-Squad appear on Kaio’s planet and fight Tenshinhan and the others, and are eventually knocked down into Hell. They land in the lake of blood, and the magic clouds prevent them from escaping.

Then During the Afterlife Tournament arc, Cell teams up with Freeza and his cohorts in Hell, and they run wild. They defeat the various oni guards in Hell, but are all taken out single-handedly by Paikuhan, at which point they are locked up in prison cells. During this filler, Cell and co. are shown looking just as they did while alive, only with halos over their head, as were Recoome and the others during the earlier filler with the Ginyu Special-Squad. This seems to go against the manga, which says that at this point Freeza and co. ought to be bodiless spirits in the process of being cleansed and reborn as scrawny kids with mohawks. I guess it’s possible that this was what they were up to before they went on their rampage, and that those aren’t actual physical bodies they have, but some sort of ectoplasm simulation of their old bodies. But this is probably giving the filler too much credit.

During DBZ movie 12, Goku leads Janenba down to Hell to fight, but the place looks very different due to all the distortions Janenba is causing in the afterlife. The lake of blood has been changed into floating prisms of blood, the landscape is dotted with weird, people-shaped stones, and bright jelly bean-like objects fill the sky. The place seems deserted, presumably because all the damned have escaped back into the living world. It’s not clear where the oni are, though Janenba does find an oni’s club at one point, which he converts into his signature sword. However, Vegeta’s spirit is still in Hell, with a body of some sort, but when Janenba is destroyed and the afterlife returns to normal, Vegeta quickly reverts to a bodiless spirit (hey, maybe I wasn’t too far off with that ectoplasm body talk up above).

Finally, in GT Hell has a very different design than in the Z filler. Instead of the cartoony, almost friendly version of Buddhist Hell seen in Z, it now looks like a black, barren wasteland. Mountains with demonic faces in them can be seen in the distance, and there are large caves too. This difference in appearance could simply be because this is a different part of Hell than was seen in Z, since the place is over a million km long, but that’s the least of the contradictions here. While in the Z filler, the damned are shown as looking like they did in life but with halos, in GT the damned look exactly the same as when alive, without even a halo to mark them as dead. It seems that in GT, a halo has been changed from a generic marker of the dead to a marker of only the good dead. So Piccolo initially has a halo when he’s in Heaven, but when he tricks Enma into damning him to Hell (…what a great trick…), he loses his halo.

In addition to the regular portions of GT Hell, there is also the Bottom of Hell, which is where Freeza and Cell dump Goku down into with their Hell Buster attack. Here, Goku is subjected to various different forms of hell, such as being boiled alive, tickled incessantly (the horror!), and frozen solid by a big freezing machine, all under the surveillance of an old crone. The freezing machine is used to freeze evil people in both Heaven and Hell, but it only works on the dead: the bodies of living people are too hot for the ice spirits that the machine emits. Goku is saved by this, and uses the machine to freeze Cell and Freeza, who he then accidentally breaks (though they’re later seen all in one piece again, encaged and being hauled away by oni). Goku manages to “kill” Freeza and Cell a number of times before this as well, but they simply regenerate, telling Goku that because they’re already dead, they can’t die again. This contradicts the manga’s notion that if a dead person dies once more, they will disappear from both the living world and afterlife.

II. The Enma Realm
閻魔界/enmai-kai
Translation: Enma world, Enma realm
Other Names: the Check-In Station (Funi)

The Enma Realm is the general term for Enma Daio’s palace and the surrounding area. Enma’s palace is located in the very center of the afterlife: above Hell but below Heaven and the Dai-Kaio’s planet, and between the 4 Kaios’ planets. It serves as the entrance to the afterlife for all dead souls. As Kami explains to Goku, when anyone from any planet dies, their souls come to Enma’s palace to receive judgment determining their fate in the afterlife. Souls can always be seen lined up in front of Enma’s palace waiting to be judged. We never actually see where the road leading to Enma’s palace comes from. Is there some big portal leading to the living world?

The front of Enma’s palace has a big sign reading “Well Come”; this was fixed to “Welcome” by the Boo arc, and the kanzenban release of the manga fixed it from the beginning (albeit so that it looks more like “Wel Come than “Welcome”). Enma himself sits behind a gigantic desk, reading his grade-book that has the deeds of all the dead recorded in it. In the anime, Cell is shown being sent down to Hell by a trapdoor in front of Enma’s desk. Enma is assisted by numerous oni dressed as salary-men and wear tiger-stripe ties.

Near Enma’s palace is the starting point for the Serpent Road, and the Afterlife Airport where planes can be taken to Heaven and the Dai-Kaio’s planet. The airport was created by Toriyama as part of his map of the afterlife, but it only ever appears in the anime. In the Afterlife Tournament filler arc, the plane for Heaven is nice and fancy, but the one for the Dai-Kaio’s planet is old and rundown.

In the anime, the area around Enma’s palace includes the Café Uramesha, a café frequented by all manner of ghosts and goblins. The place is also visited by Uranai Baba, and it’s here that the guide oni gives her Goku’s message that he shouldn’t be brought back to life for a year. In DBZ movie 12, the Spirits Laundering Machine is near Enma’s palace. It’s used to cleanse the evil from those spirits that Enma sends to Hell. Unfortunately, in the movie it explodes and covers the young oni in charge of it with concentrated evil, transforming him into Janenba.

The Serpent Road
蛇の道/hebi-no-michi
Translation: serpent road, snake road, serpentine road
Other Names: Snake Way (Funi)

The Serpent Road is a 1 million km-long road that stretches from Enma’s palace all the way to North Kaio’s planet, and those who wish to train under Kaio must cross it. As the name implies, it’s shaped like a giant serpent. It’s a pretty crooked road, twisting all over the place, with a few loop-de-loops thrown in for good measure (really, it looks like something out of Sonic the Hedgehog). It’s surrounded by yellow clouds as far as the eye can see. Hell is beneath these clouds, and if you fall down there you’ll never return again, barring convenient filler plot devices. It takes Goku 6 months to cross the road when he first goes to Kaio’s, but less than 2 days to come back after powering up from Kaio’s training. Piccolo and the others take only a month and a half to cross the road. Before Goku and the others came onto the scene, the only person to have crossed the road in the last 100 million years was Enma Daio.

In the anime, the road’s halfway point is home to Jadoshin, the God of the Serpent Road (jadou=serpent road, shin=god). She’s a gigantic serpent who resembles a living version of the road itself, and has haunted the road for 1,500 years. To lure in unsuspecting passersby, she disguises herself as the beautiful (and humanoid) Serpent Princess, who lives in a Japanese-style palace with her various servant girls. In reality, the palace itself and everyone inside it are all just part of Jadoshin’s massive body. The Serpent Princess has supposedly won the Miss Afterlife Pageant, making her the most beautiful woman in the afterlife (incidentally, Boa Hancock, a One Piece character known as the most beautiful woman in the world, also has the title of “Serpent Princess”).

500 years ago, Enma visited the Serpent Princess on his way to Kaio’s, and she fell in love with him. The next man to visit her is Goku, who she also falls in love with, but when she learns that he has a wife and kids, she transforms into her true form and tries to devour him. Goku tricks her into tying her huge serpent body into knots, and escapes. Later, when Goku is rushing back across the Serpent Road to reach Earth in time, he scares the crap out of the Serpent Princess’s servants when he noisily zips by the palace. Personally, I wish there had been filler showing Piccolo and the others visiting the Serpent Princess too. I would have liked to see Yamcha’s reaction to her. Also on the Serpent Road in the anime is a street sweeper car that keeps it clean. The oni who drives it lets Goku ride on the back, but he falls asleep and drops off the car and into Hell.

Daizenshuu 7 says that Enma’s palace is the starting point for roads leading to each of the Kaios’ planets, but nothing is known about these other 3 roads. They’re never shown in maps of the DB afterlife, but it makes sense that there’d be some way to get to the other 3 Kaio’s planets. Personally, I like to think that they’re the Eel Road, the Centipede Road, and the Dachshund Road.

III. The Kaio Realm
界王界/kaiou-kai
Translation: Kaio World, Kaio Realm
Other Names: ?

The Kaios’ Planets
界王星/kaiou-sei
Translation: Planet Kaio, Kaio’s planet,
Other Names: sometimes called “Neptune”, because the Japanese word for the planet Neptune is also “Kaiou-sei” (海王星/Sea-King Planet)

Each of the four Kaio have their own personal planet, positioned at the afterlife’s 4 cardinal points. The only one of these planets seen in either the manga or anime is the North Kaio’s planet. It’s an extremely small planet that floats high above the tail end of the Serpent Road. It contains only North Kaio’s one-room, dome-shaped house, what appears to be a garage, a road that circles around the planet, North Kaio’s car, and a few trees. Despite its small size, the planet has 10 times the gravity of Earth, similar to Planet Vegeta and Zun. North Kaio lives here with his pet monkey bubbles (and his cricket Gregory in the anime), spending his time counting the blades of grass, contemplating the heavens, and seeing how far he can pee. During the Cell Games, the planet is destroyed by Cell’s self-destruct attack, so Kaio relocates to Heaven.

During the Afterlife Tournament filler arc, North Kaio makes a bet with West Kaio that if Goku beats Paikuhan, he’ll get West Kaio’s planet (this falls apart when Goku and Paikuhan are both disqualified). In GT, he still seems to be in Heaven at the beginning, but by the Super 17 arc he’s at a new planet that looks just like his old one (either that or the GT staff just forget his old planet had been destroyed). Though the other 3 Kaios’ planets are never seen in the series, in Toriyama’s map of the afterlife they look basically the same as North Kaio’s planet. The series also never reveals how the other planets can be reached, but Daizenshuu 7 says that there are roads leading to each Kaios’ planet.

Heaven
天国/tengoku
Translation: heaven, the heavenly country
Other Names: the Upper World (Viz)

As you might expect, Heaven is where those who Enma Daio judges to be good are allowed to go to. It’s a large planet directly above Enma’s palace. To reach Heaven, one must ride a special plane that takes off from an airport near Enma’s palace (this plane was part of Toriyama’s drawing of the afterlife, but only appears in the anime). The place where Goku is shown training for the 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai is identified in the daizenshuu as being Heaven. It’s shown as a pleasant, grassy place with round buildings. The sky has odd clouds, and a moon or something is visible at one point (maybe it’s Dai-Kaio’s planet?). In addition to Goku and Kaio, a dead dog and squid creature are also seen here. Kaio continues to hang out here for the rest of the Boo arc, since his planet was destroyed by Cell. When Dabra dies, Enma decides to send him here, on the logic that he’d be happy to go to Hell (this is mentioned in the manga, though it’s only in the anime that we actually get to see Dabra in Heaven).

In the anime, Videl, Bulma, and co. look for Gohan here after being killed by Boo. Heaven is said to be as wide as the entire universe itself, and seems to consist mostly of an immense field of flowers. Videl and the other dead people are shown as looking the same as in life from the waist upward, but with ghostly tails instead of legs, and the standard halo. Dabra is shown as now being ridiculously nice and happy now, to the point that he freaks everyone else out. In GT, Piccolo comes to Heaven after dying in the destruction of Earth, but he purposefully makes Enma send him to Hell to save Goku. Kaio also seems to still be hanging around Heaven at the start of GT (or perhaps Dai-Kaio’s planet).

The manga says that those sent to Hell are eventually reborn as new life-forms, but it’s not clear what ultimately happens to those in Heaven. Do they just stay there forever, or are they eventually reincarnated as well? The DB afterlife seems to be mostly based on the Buddhist conception of the afterlife, and in that souls in Heaven are reborn after they use up all the good karma that they accumulated in life, so maybe that’s what it’s like in DB Heaven too? If only the people in Hell are reincarnated, wouldn’t that mean that everyone in the living world is a reincarnation of some evil jerk? That’d be kind of weird.

Dai-Kaio’s Planet
大界王星/dai-kaiou-sei
Translation: Planet Dai-Kaio, Dai-Kaio’s planet
Other Names: Grand Kai’s planet (Funi)

The Dai-Kaio lives on a relatively small planet that floats above Heaven, and is therefore the highest point in the afterlife and the entire macrocosm. It’s never seen or mentioned in the manga, but it is part of Toriyama’s map of the afterlife. In the anime, the Dai-Kaio’s planet appears during the Afterlife Tournament arc. It’s the home of the various great martial artists from the past who have been allowed to keep their bodies in the afterlife. They train here in the hopes of eventually being able to receive the Dai-Kaio’s own personal training. Goku comes here to train after his death in the Cell Games (in the manga, he’s only ever shown training in Heaven), and the Strongest in the Afterlife Tournament is held to commemorate North Kaio’s death. The Dai-Kaio lives in a large mansion that somewhat resembles the White House. One of the many rooms inside this mansion contains a huge alternate dimension filled with many small planets, one of which has an arena built on it, and it’s in here that the Afterlife Tournament takes place. Outside the mansion, the planet is dotted with obelisks resembling the Washington Monument. In the anime, Boo comes here briefly and wrecks the place, but fortunately leaves for the Kaioshin Realm before he manages to (re)-kill anyone.

IV. The Kaioshin Realm
界王神界/kaioushin-kai
Translation: Kaioshin World, Kaioshin Realm
Other Names: Planet of the Kai (Funi), Kaioshin’s faraway planet (Viz)

The Kaioshin Realm is, well, the Realm of the Kaioshin. It is a special realm completely separate from the macrocosm that the afterlife, universe, and Demon Realm are all enclosed within. It’s made up of a giant crystalline sphere, about 1/10th the size of the macrocosm, and it revolves around the macrocosm like a moon. Inside this sphere are numerous suns (some of which are depicted as moons in the anime), and at the center is the Kaioshin Planet. While the Dai-Kaio and 4 regular Kaio live on separate planets separated by millions of kilometers, their superiors the 5 Kaioshin all live together on this sacred world, which Kibito says not even the Dai-Kaio is permitted to enter. The only way to reach this realm is by teleportation: East Kaioshin himself relies on Kibito’s Kai-Kai technique, while Goku uses his own Instant Movement, and Boo gets here by copying Kibito-Shin.

The Kaioshin’s planet seems to be devoid of any buildings, and consists simply of grassy plains, small hills, and lakes. The Elder Kaioshin describes this planet as especially durable, but nevertheless it gets roughed-up pretty bad during the final battle with Boo. It is so far removed from the macrocosm that East Kaioshin and Kibito are astonished that they can sense Goku’s Super Saiyan 3 ki when he fights Boo on Earth (though they later seem to have no trouble sensing that all the regular people on Earth have been killed). But despite this distance, the Kaioshins’ godly eyes still enable them to oversee conditions in the macrocosm; in particular, Elder Kaioshin likes to watch women as they change. In the anime flashback showing Boo’s origin, the 5 Kaioshin are shown living peacefully on their planet, fishing and goofing off. Cleary the DB universe is in good hands.

The only real landmark on the Kaioshin’s planet is the Z Sword’s location. 15 Kaioshin generations ago (75 million years back by Daizenshuu 7’s timeline), the East Kaioshin of the time was imprisoned inside the Z Sword by some unknown evildoer who was afraid of his awesome ability to draw peoples’ power out past their own limits, turning any loser into an overpowered, unstoppable force. The Z Sword was stuck up to the hilt into the top of a tall, barren mountain in the middle of a lake. Generations of Kaioshin tried to pull the sword out in an attempt to free the old Kaioshin and receive his massive power-up, but could not due to the sword’s absurd heaviness. Eventually the Kaioshin forgot about the old Kaioshin trapped inside the sword, and just thought that the sword itself somehow gave its wielder unmatched power. Or possibly it was just the current East Kaioshin who made this mistake, because the other Kaioshin got taken out by Boo before he ever had a chance to hear the whole story. At any rate, Gohan is ultimately the one to pull the Z Sword out and promptly free the Elder Kaioshin by accident.

The Kaioshin Realm’s unique position outside the macrocosm enables the Kaioshin to oversee both the afterlife and universe (though even their eyes cannot view the Demon Realm). More prosaically, Toriyama says in Daizenshuu 4 that he drew the original version of the DB cosmos map as background info for the anime staff, but didn’t include the Kaioshin Realm at this point (presumably because it hadn’t shown up in the story yet). It was only after DragonBall ended that Toriyama added the Kaioshin Realm to the map, and its position as separate from everything else is probably because of the fact that it was tacked on later like this.

The Living World
この世/konoyo
Translation: this world (in contrast to “that world”, the afterlife)
AKA: 現世/gensei (“the present world”)

The living world is the lower half of the macrocosm. It’s perfectly sealed within opaque walls marked with strange patterns, in contrast to the transparent crystalline dome that covers the afterlife. The living world is split into two dimensions described as being like the two sides of a coin. The top half is the universe, overseen by the Kaio and Kaioshin, and run according to science (or what passes for it in the DB world). The bottom half is the Demon Realm, where magic has more sway than science, and where the evil Makaio and Makaioshin are gods. Despite the two dimensions being polar opposites like this, when beings from each one die, their spirit still travels to the afterlife with no distinction. There are apparently other dimensions that can be accessed from the living world (such as the Room of Spirit and Time, and Sugoroku Space in GT), but it’s unclear where they fit into the grand scheme of things.

I. The Universe
宇宙/Uchuu
Translation: the universe, space, outer space

The universe is the upper portion of the living world, and is the realm where Goku and the other main characters live and die. It’s the only portion of the DB world that even remotely resembles reality, being based off of the actual universe (or at least the universe as seen in countless sci-fi space operas like Star Wars). As such it consists of countless planets, stars, and other celestial bodies. Daizenshuu 7 explains that in the DB universe, a collection of planets forms a nebula, and a collection of nebulas forms a galaxy (in actual modern astronomy, nebula are collections of space dust and gas rather than planets, though the term was originally looser and included galaxies). There are four galaxies in the DB universe: north, south, east, and west.

These 4 galaxies serve as the governing areas for the gods, and so each one is overseen by the corresponding Kaio and Kaioshin. In fact, Daizenshuu 7 says that the “galaxies” of DB are merely administrational units used by the gods, and so there’s nothing stopping races from travelling from one galaxy to another, provided they have the technology to do so. So basically, these “galaxies” don’t have much reality as physical divisions, and are sort of like the boarders between countries. It’s not clear what significance the cardinal directions could have in space, but the map of the DB world shows what appear to be division lines between galaxies engraved into the living world’s outer walls, so that might have something to do with it.

The DB Earth is located on the outskirts of the North Galaxy, which Daizenshuu 7 says is home to many beautiful planets like it. Other than that though, there’s not much mention of what specific galaxies planets are located in. Planet Namek, however, is located somewhere outside the North Galaxy. During the end of the Freeza arc, North Kaio explains that he can’t do anything to help revive Goku or Kuririn because they died on Plant Namek, which is outside of his region. Some translations make it sound like Kaio is referring to the area of death as being outside his jurisdiction (it being Enma’s duty), but the word for “region” used, 地域/chi’iki, implies a physical region. What’s more, Bulma flat-out says shortly thereafter that Planet Namek is located outside of Kaio’s region, but this line is left out in Viz’s translation.

If Planet Namek isn’t located in the North Galaxy, where is it? The maps of the DB world that have planets labeled always show Earth and Namek as being on opposite sides of one of the galaxy-dividing lines etched into the macrocosm’s side, so going by that Namek would be in either the East or West Galaxy, but we can’t tell which from the map’s side-perspective. However, the Elder Kaioshin says that he warned the Namekians about using the dragonballs, and since he’s supposed to be the East Kaioshin of 15 generations ago, it would be logical for Namek to therefore be in his region. So overall I think the best guess is that Namek is located in the East Galaxy. The map of the DB world also shows Planet Vegeta and Planet Freeza No.79 as being with Namek on the other side of the galaxy-dividing line, so they’d probably be there as well.

Apart from that, there’s also a bit of information on the South Galaxy, mostly from the anime. In the manga, the South Kaio brags to North Kaio about his pupil Papoi, apparently the strongest fighter from the South Galaxy, but he quickly loses confidence that Papoi is a match for Goku (in the anime we get to actually see Papoi). In DBZ movie 13, Tapion’s home planet of Konats is said to be located in the South Galaxy, which is unfortunately also the galaxy Broli is said to destroy in DBZ movie 8. In the Afterlife Tournament filler, Olibu says that the South Galaxy must be very peaceful, since the Southern warrior Catepy’s special attack is to simply tickle people.

There are numerous inhabited planets throughout the DB universe (Toriyama says Freeza himself ruled hundreds), and therefore countless races to go along with them. As in any good space opera, virtually all sentient species we see are humanoid. In fact, the term “human” (ningen in Japanese) itself is used as a catch-all term for all the universe’s races, and not just Earthlings: Vegeta refers to regular Saiyans as human (in contrast to their Oozaru form), and Ginyu describes himself as the kind of human who can control his battle power. Many races throughout the universe transform: some for camouflage, some to conserve energy, and some as plot devices to keep the story’s escalation of power going on forever and ever. Zarbon identifies himself and Freeza as belonging to this final group, which he describes as “transforming-type aliens”. According to Ginyu, races that are able to raise and lower their battle power at will without transforming are quite rare.

There doesn’t appear to be any universe-wide form of government, but there are interplanetary organizations like Freeza’s real estate company (and both Freeza and Vegeta aspired to rule the entire universe). Daizenshuu 7 says that there is a universal police force, but that it doesn’t have the military power to oppose Freeza or the Saiyans (this may be based on Dr. Slump, where Arale and friends spend a few chapters helping out some space police officers). The background information on Tullece’s henchmen Amond says that he was originally a galactic criminal imprisoned by the space police on Planet Nutts. In GT, the Planet Pital functions as one big hospital serving patients from many different planets, implying some sort of interplanetary cooperation. Also in GT is Loodism, an interplanetary religion ultimately revealed to be a giant scam for gathering energy to feed Baby.

All races throughout the universe speak a standard language: in the original it’s Japanese (though presumably it wouldn’t be called this in the DB world, since Japan itself doesn’t really exist there), and then it becomes whatever language the DB series is translated into. It’s even spoken on Earth, despite Earth having no relations with other planets. Even the gods are shown speaking this among themselves, and so do beings from the Demon World like Dabra. You don’t get much more universal than that. Still, despite the existence of this standard language, there are also planets with their own native languages, such as Namekian. In the anime, Sauzer’s background information says that he knows over 7,000 languages, so anime-wise there must be at least that many languages throughout the universe. Despite that fact that aliens and Earthlings speak the same spoken language, they seem to have completely different alphabets and numeric systems (just try reading an unconverted scouter).

Not much is known about the history of the galaxy; the only bits we really do know center on who destroyed what. 5 million years ago, Majin Boo destroyed hundreds of planets in the space of only a few years, before being sealed away. Daizenshuu 7’s timeline says that the Legendary Super Saiyan ravaged the universe 1,000 years ago. 500 years ago, Planet Namek was devastated by a weather anomaly, and almost all of the Namekians were wiped out. And more recently, in Age 737 (12 years before DB begins), Planet Vegeta was destroyed by Freeza. In DBZ movie 9, Bojack and his crew were said to have rampaged throughout the universe before being sealed away by the 4 Kaio at the edge of the universe.

II. The Demon Realm
魔界/Makai
Translation: demon world, demon realm
AKA: 悪魔界/akumakai (“Devil Realm”), 暗黒魔界/ankoku-makai (“Demon Realm of Darkness”)
Other Names: the Underworld, the Netherworld, the Spirit World (all various fansubs)

The Demon Realm is the lower half of the living world, a dimension that exists on the reverse side of the universe. It’s not to be confused with Hell, which exists in the afterlife. According to Daizenshuu 7, it’s a chaotic place where magic has more influence than science. The Kaio/shin themselves don’t really understand the Demon Realm, as not even the gods’ eyes can reach it. As a result, not much is known about it other then that it is the home of evil life-forms. Records still survive of these life-forms interfering with the peace of the universe’s planets. In fact, one of the factors in the nations of the DB Earth unifying into a single world state was to guard against this threat from the Demon Realm.

Like the universe with its division between the four cardinal directions, the Demon Realm is divided into several different spatial areas, though it’s unknown how many there are or what these divisions are based on. Either way, all these areas are unified under the rule of Dabra, the king of the Demon Realm and far and away its strongest resident, according to Kaioshin. Or at least they were, until Dabra was brainwashed by the wizard Babidi into becoming his servant. Dabra’s been working for Babidi for at least the last 300 years, and it’s not known who if anyone has taken control of the Demon Realm in Dabra’s absence.

According to Toriyama in the recent Super Exciting Guides, the Demon Realm has its own special gods called Makaio and Makaioshin (“Kings of the Demon Realm” and “Gods of the Kings of the Demon Realm”, respectively). They’re the antitheses of the Kaio and Kaioshin, and govern evil. Whenever one of the Shinjin (the special race that Kaio and Kaioshin are selected from) is born with an evil heart, they leave the Shinjin’s planet and go to be with the Makaio. However, it’s unknown whether the Makaio/shin themselves are selected from among these delinquent Shinjin, or whether they are beings who have always existed in the Demon Realm and simply ally themselves with evil Shinjin. It’s also not known whether Dabra himself was a Makaio/shin, or if he was simply a political ruler of the Demon Realm rather than a god (like the difference between the Earth’s World King and its God). At any rate, Toriyama says that currently the power of the Kaioshin is greater than that of the Makaioshin.

In the manga we never officially see the Demon Realm, but when Gohan and Dabra are fighting Babidi teleports them to some different world, one of rocky plains and blood-red water. Since Babidi transported his other henchmen Pui Pui and Yakon to their respective home worlds during their fights with Goku and co., it seems likely that this is the Demon Realm. Also, when Dabra dies Enma Daio sends him to Heaven on the reasoning that he’d be happy to go to Hell. This implies that Hell and the Demon Realm are similar, and in fact the place where Gohan and Dabra fight does somewhat resemble Hell as seen in the anime. Also, the two realms are positioned similarly in their respective worlds: Hell at the bottom of the afterlife, and the Demon Realm at the bottom of the living world.

The Demon Realm also figures into the anime filler showing Goku’s journeys while training for the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai, made years before the Demon Realm was ever mentioned in the manga (though “Demon World” is a fairly generic term that pops up in lots of manga and anime, so it’s use here is probably a coincidence). In DB episode 81, Goku visits a village being attacked nightly by beings from the Demon Realm. In another premonition of things to come, the inhabitants of the Demon Realm are called majin in this episode, with females being called majo, literally “demon woman” but generally used to mean “witch”. These fiends are coming from the Demon Realm Gate, a portal linking the living world to the afterlife, and located in a cave connected with the Demon Realm. This portal is only supposed to be used by grim reapers, who are authorized to do so by Enma Daio and God (mentioned in yet another bit of unintentional foreshadowing).

A Demon Realm martial artist named Shura jams a cursed sword into the gate to keep it open, allowing him and his fellow fiends to come and go freely between the Earth and Demon Realm. Eventually Goku manages to set all this right, mostly by grabbing a princess Shura had kidnapped and running away very fast. This filler version of the Demon Realm has several inconsistencies between the Demon Realm that later figures in the Boo arc (such as the Demon Realm apparently being part of the afterlife), but it’s still a neat little side story.

Click here to jump down to the God Hierarchy post.

Click here for "On the 4 Galaxies", an offshoot of this thread.
Last edited by Herms on Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:10 am, edited 8 times in total.
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Re: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the DB Galaxy

Post by Bussani » Fri Sep 18, 2009 6:32 am

Great thread, Herms! I have to admit, these things are some of my favorite parts of Dragon Ball. I probably like the 'Z' half of the story best just because of it all.
Herms wrote:Then when Elder Kaioshin gives his life to Goku, he doesn’t even disappear, but just pops right back up again with a halo over his head. This is probably because he died in the Kaioshin Realm, which is a special place beyond either the living world or afterlife, and also maybe because his top-god status means he doesn’t have to go receive judgment from Enma, at least not right away.
It might be worth me noting that Goku, Kaio, Bubbles and (if he had died) supposedly Cell's soul weren't automatically sent to Enma when they died in the afterlife, either. It seemed like they had to make their way to him on their own. Elder Kaioshin was probably in the same boat. I guess the Kaioshin realm is, like you said, beyond the natural order of life and death; almost like it's its own afterlife.

It makes me wonder if Goku could have just committed suicide there, to overcome the limits of using SSJ3 while alive. :shock:
Also, some of this body making happens pretty fast. When Goku, Kaio, and Bubbles die from Cell’s self-destruction (presumably destroying their bodies), they’re all seen with shiny new bodies shortly afterwards. Kaio can materialize objects from nothing, so was he able to whip them up new bodies, even as just a spirit?
I've never even thought about this one. Interesting thought.
Heaven is said to be as wide as the entire universe itself
Sounds like a point against the 'macrocosm' ball being completely to scale. Coupled with what Toriyama said about it being to make the universe 'easier to understand' for himself and the fans, I still think it's a metaphor, rather than the literal shape of everything.
The manga says that those sent to Hell are eventually reborn as new life-forms, but it’s not clear what ultimately happens to those in Heaven. Do they just stay there forever, or are they eventually reincarnated as well? The DB afterlife seems to be mostly based on the Buddhist conception of the afterlife, and in that souls in Heaven are reborn after they use up all the good karma that they accumulated in life, so maybe that’s what it’s like in DB Heaven too? If only the people in Hell are reincarnated, wouldn’t that mean that everyone in the living world is a reincarnation of some evil jerk? That’d be kind of weird.
Hm, I didn't know that about Buddhist Heaven. Maybe it is like that.

I always wondered if it was something like, Heaven is 'winning' the game of life. If you weren't good enough, you go to Hell, get reincarnated, and try again. Then you keep doing that until you get it right.

Final point; maybe you should include some of the maps as visual aids? Just tack them on at the bottom maybe.

Here's that fan one with the 'maikai' misspelling. Pretty nice apart from that.

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Post by caejones » Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:44 am

If only the evil get reincarnated, will everyone eventually make it into heaven over a few million or billion years, leaving the universe devoid of life?
... Eh, didn't think so. But it's an interesting idea...
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Post by Senzu_Bean » Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:55 am

Another awesome post, Herms! 8)

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Post by Innagadadavida » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:11 am

Haven't read the guide yet, but I just wanna say. Awesome title. I love Douglas Adams. The HHGG books are awesome.

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Post by Deep Thought » Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:24 am

I have to say that I really, really like the title of the thread.

Skimmed through it and it was a pretty good, through and well written read.

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Re: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the DB Galaxy

Post by Herms » Fri Sep 18, 2009 4:04 pm

Bussani wrote:Final point; maybe you should include some of the maps as visual aids? Just tack them on at the bottom maybe.
Yeah, I was hoping to get Hujio to help out on that, since the plan is to eventually make this into a section on Kanzentai. I'll just have to translate some song lyrics in return.
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Post by penguintruth » Fri Sep 18, 2009 6:15 pm

Why is it when all the villains escape Hell they immediately end up on Earth? Is Earth such an important planet that they just automatically end up there?
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Post by caejones » Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:07 pm

penguintruth wrote:Why is it when all the villains escape Hell they immediately end up on Earth? Is Earth such an important planet that they just automatically end up there?
If I may...
all of them, with a few exceptions (the Ginyu Force?) diedon Earth.

And that's mostly filler? Well, a movie andGT...
... But filler presented us with Mount Five Elementsas some sort of point of connection between the living and dead. Whatever that's worth. :?
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Post by Herms » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:33 am

penguintruth wrote:Why is it when all the villains escape Hell they immediately end up on Earth? Is Earth such an important planet that they just automatically end up there?
In movie 12 it's not explained, but as caejones said, most (but not all) of them died on Earth. In GT however, it's because the Earth itself was linked to Hell by the two No.17s, so that's naturally where all the dead bad guys popped out. And those are the only two instances of dead bad guys on Earth, aren't they?

@caejones: Man, I forgot to include the Mountain of Five Elements. Then there was that Demon Realm gate from the Shura episode too, which I believe was intended as a gateway to the afterlife for grim reapers to use.
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Post by penguintruth » Sat Sep 19, 2009 4:24 am

I guess that makes sense.

It would be pretty funny if they popped out of Hell onto random planets and had to find their way to Earth.

Some of them might still be lost by the time GT ends.
Kentai wrote:Son Gokuu is a fascinating character anyway, because he is - at face value, anyway - an idiot savant. The victim of violent head trauma as an infant [...] he's a simple bumpkin with a fair share of brain damage who's natural talents to work out what's wrong compensate for his broad lack of common sense. But he's also a fighter, through and through [...] he fight until he has, in no uncertain terms, beaten his enemy on terms they can both acknowledge. He doesn't want to kill anyone, or even prove that he can win... he just wants to know he can. He's an ineffably charming bastard who's manly leanings were really incendental, and yes, the fact that he was voiced by a squeaky woman made the combination perhaps all the more charming.


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Post by Herms » Thu Sep 24, 2009 6:44 am

I said that I was going to do the god system next, but I decided to do the universe and Demon Realm instead.

The Living World
この世/konoyo
Translation: this world (in contrast to “that world”, the afterlife)
AKA: 現世/gensei (“the present world”)

The living world is the lower half of the macrocosm. It’s perfectly sealed within opaque walls marked with strange patterns, in contrast to the transparent crystalline dome that covers the afterlife. The living world is split into two dimensions described as being like the two sides of a coin. The top half is the universe, overseen by the Kaio and Kaioshin, and run according to science (or what passes for it in the DB world). The bottom half is the Demon Realm, where magic has more sway than science, and where the evil Makaio and Makaioshin are gods. Despite the two dimensions being polar opposites like this, when beings from each one die, their spirit still travels to the afterlife with no distinction. There are apparently other dimensions that can be accessed from the living world (such as the Room of Spirit and Time, and Sugoroku Space in GT), but it’s unclear where they fit into the grand scheme of things.

I. The Universe
宇宙/Uchuu
Translation: the universe, space, outer space

The universe is the upper portion of the living world, and is the realm where Goku and the other main characters live and die. It’s the only portion of the DB world that even remotely resembles reality, being based off of the actual universe (or at least the universe as seen in countless sci-fi space operas like Star Wars). As such it consists of countless planets, stars, and other celestial bodies. Daizenshuu 7 explains that in the DB universe, a collection of planets forms a nebula, and a collection of nebulas forms a galaxy (in actual modern astronomy, nebula are collections of space dust and gas rather than planets, though the term was originally looser and included galaxies). There are four galaxies in the DB universe: north, south, east, and west.

These 4 galaxies serve as the governing areas for the gods, and so each one is overseen by the corresponding Kaio and Kaioshin. In fact, Daizenshuu 7 says that the “galaxies” of DB are merely administrational units used by the gods, and so there’s nothing stopping races from travelling from one galaxy to another, provided they have the technology to do so. So basically, these “galaxies” don’t have much reality as physical divisions, and are sort of like the boarders between countries. It’s not clear what significance the cardinal directions could have in space, but the map of the DB world shows what appear to be division lines between galaxies engraved into the living world’s outer walls, so that might have something to do with it.

The DB Earth is located on the outskirts of the North Galaxy, which Daizenshuu 7 says is home to many beautiful planets like it. Other than that though, there’s not much mention of what specific galaxies planets are located in. Planet Namek, however, is located somewhere outside the North Galaxy. During the end of the Freeza arc, North Kaio explains that he can’t do anything to help revive Goku or Kuririn because they died on Plant Namek, which is outside of his region. Some translations make it sound like Kaio is referring to the area of death as being outside his jurisdiction (it being Enma’s duty), but the word for “region” used, 地域/chi’iki, implies a physical region. What’s more, Bulma flat-out says shortly thereafter that Planet Namek is located outside of Kaio’s region, but this line is left out in Viz’s translation.

If Planet Namek isn’t located in the North Galaxy, where is it? The maps of the DB world that have planets labeled always show Earth and Namek as being on opposite sides of one of the galaxy-dividing lines etched into the macrocosm’s side, so going by that Namek would be in either the East or West Galaxy, but we can’t tell which from the map’s side-perspective. However, the Elder Kaioshin says that he warned the Namekians about using the dragonballs, and since he’s supposed to be the East Kaioshin of 15 generations ago, it would be logical for Namek to therefore be in his region. So overall I think the best guess is that Namek is located in the East Galaxy. The map of the DB world also shows Planet Vegeta and Planet Freeza No.79 as being with Namek on the other side of the galaxy-dividing line, so they’d probably be there as well.

Apart from that, there’s also a bit of information on the South Galaxy, mostly from the anime. In the manga, the South Kaio brags to North Kaio about his pupil Papoi, apparently the strongest fighter from the South Galaxy, but he quickly loses confidence that Papoi is a match for Goku (in the anime we get to actually see Papoi). In DBZ movie 13, Tapion’s home planet of Konats is said to be located in the South Galaxy, which is unfortunately also the galaxy Broli is said to destroy in DBZ movie 8. In the Afterlife Tournament filler, Olibu says that the South Galaxy must be very peaceful, since the Southern warrior Catepy’s special attack is to simply tickle people.

There are numerous inhabited planets throughout the DB universe (Toriyama says Freeza himself ruled hundreds), and therefore countless races to go along with them. As in any good space opera, virtually all sentient species we see are humanoid. In fact, the term “human” (ningen in Japanese) itself is used as a catch-all term for all the universe’s races, and not just Earthlings: Vegeta refers to regular Saiyans as human (in contrast to their Oozaru form), and Ginyu describes himself as the kind of human who can control his battle power. Many races throughout the universe transform: some for camouflage, some to conserve energy, and some as plot devices to keep the story’s escalation of power going on forever and ever. Zarbon identifies himself and Freeza as belonging to this final group, which he describes as “transforming-type aliens”. According to Ginyu, races that are able to raise and lower their battle power at will without transforming are quite rare.

There doesn’t appear to be any universe-wide form of government, but there are interplanetary organizations like Freeza’s real estate company (and both Freeza and Vegeta aspired to rule the entire universe). Daizenshuu 7 says that there is a universal police force, but that it doesn’t have the military power to oppose Freeza or the Saiyans (this may be based on Dr. Slump, where Arale and friends spend a few chapters helping out some space police officers). The background information on Tullece’s henchmen Amond says that he was originally a galactic criminal imprisoned by the space police on Planet Nutts. In GT, the Planet Pital functions as one big hospital serving patients from many different planets, implying some sort of interplanetary cooperation. Also in GT is Loodism, an interplanetary religion ultimately revealed to be a giant scam for gathering energy to feed Baby.

All races throughout the universe speak a standard language: in the original it’s Japanese (though presumably it wouldn’t be called this in the DB world, since Japan itself doesn’t really exist there), and then it becomes whatever language the DB series is translated into. It’s even spoken on Earth, despite Earth having no relations with other planets. Even the gods are shown speaking this among themselves, and so do beings from the Demon World like Dabra. You don’t get much more universal than that. Still, despite the existence of this standard language, there are also planets with their own native languages, such as Namekian. In the anime, Sauzer’s background information says that he knows over 7,000 languages, so anime-wise there must be at least that many languages throughout the universe. Despite that fact that aliens and Earthlings speak the same spoken language, they seem to have completely different alphabets and numeric systems (just try reading an unconverted scouter).

Not much is known about the history of the galaxy; the only bits we really do know center on who destroyed what. 5 million years ago, Majin Boo destroyed hundreds of planets in the space of only a few years, before being sealed away. Daizenshuu 7’s timeline says that the Legendary Super Saiyan ravaged the universe 1,000 years ago. 500 years ago, Planet Namek was devastated by a weather anomaly, and almost all of the Namekians were wiped out. And more recently, in Age 737 (12 years before DB begins), Planet Vegeta was destroyed by Freeza. In DBZ movie 9, Bojack and his crew were said to have rampaged throughout the universe before being sealed away by the 4 Kaio at the edge of the universe.

II. The Demon Realm
魔界/Makai
Translation: demon world, demon realm
AKA: 悪魔界/akumakai (“Devil Realm”), 暗黒魔界/ankoku-makai (“Demon Realm of Darkness”)
Other Names: the Underworld, the Netherworld, the Spirit World (all various fansubs)

The Demon Realm is the lower half of the living world, a dimension that exists on the reverse side of the universe. It’s not to be confused with Hell, which exists in the afterlife. According to Daizenshuu 7, it’s a chaotic place where magic has more influence than science. The Kaio/shin themselves don’t really understand the Demon Realm, as not even the gods’ eyes can reach it. As a result, not much is known about it other then that it is the home of evil life-forms. Records still survive of these life-forms interfering with the peace of the universe’s planets. In fact, one of the factors in the nations of the DB Earth unifying into a single world state was to guard against this threat from the Demon Realm.

Like the universe with its division between the four cardinal directions, the Demon Realm is divided into several different spatial areas, though it’s unknown how many there are or what these divisions are based on. Either way, all these areas are unified under the rule of Dabra, the king of the Demon Realm and far and away its strongest resident, according to Kaioshin. Or at least they were, until Dabra was brainwashed by the wizard Babidi into becoming his servant. Dabra’s been working for Babidi for at least the last 300 years, and it’s not known who if anyone has taken control of the Demon Realm in Dabra’s absence.

According to Toriyama in the recent Super Exciting Guides, the Demon Realm has its own special gods called Makaio and Makaioshin (“Kings of the Demon Realm” and “Gods of the Kings of the Demon Realm”, respectively). They’re the antitheses of the Kaio and Kaioshin, and govern evil. Whenever one of the Shinjin (the special race that Kaio and Kaioshin are selected from) is born with an evil heart, they leave the Shinjin’s planet and go to be with the Makaio. However, it’s unknown whether the Makaio/shin themselves are selected from among these delinquent Shinjin, or whether they are beings who have always existed in the Demon Realm and simply ally themselves with evil Shinjin. It’s also not known whether Dabra himself was a Makaio/shin, or if he was simply a political ruler of the Demon Realm rather than a god (like the difference between the Earth’s World King and its God). At any rate, Toriyama says that currently the power of the Kaioshin is greater than that of the Makaioshin.

In the manga we never officially see the Demon Realm, but when Gohan and Dabra are fighting Babidi teleports them to some different world, one of rocky plains and blood-red water. Since Babidi transported his other henchmen Pui Pui and Yakon to their respective home worlds during their fights with Goku and co., it seems likely that this is the Demon Realm. Also, when Dabra dies Enma Daio sends him to Heaven on the reasoning that he’d be happy to go to Hell. This implies that Hell and the Demon Realm are similar, and in fact the place where Gohan and Dabra fight does somewhat resemble Hell as seen in the anime. Also, the two realms are positioned similarly in their respective worlds: Hell at the bottom of the afterlife, and the Demon Realm at the bottom of the living world.

The Demon Realm also figures into the anime filler showing Goku’s journeys while training for the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai, made years before the Demon Realm was ever mentioned in the manga (though “Demon World” is a fairly generic term that pops up in lots of manga and anime, so it’s use here is probably a coincidence). In DB episode 81, Goku visits a village being attacked nightly by beings from the Demon Realm. In another premonition of things to come, the inhabitants of the Demon Realm are called majin in this episode, with females being called majo, literally “demon woman” but generally used to mean “witch”. These fiends are coming from the Demon Realm Gate, a portal linking the living world to the afterlife, and located in a cave connected with the Demon Realm. This portal is only supposed to be used by grim reapers, who are authorized to do so by Enma Daio and God (mentioned in yet another bit of unintentional foreshadowing).

A Demon Realm martial artist named Shura jams a cursed sword into the gate to keep it open, allowing him and his fellow fiends to come and go freely between the Earth and Demon Realm. Eventually Goku manages to set all this right, mostly by grabbing a princess Shura had kidnapped and running away very fast. This filler version of the Demon Realm has several inconsistencies between the Demon Realm that later figures in the Boo arc (such as the Demon Realm apparently being part of the afterlife), but it’s still a neat little side story.
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Post by Herms » Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:32 am

The Gods of the DB World
DragonBall has its own unique theology, which is simultaneously strange, confusing, stupid, and amusing, just like DragonBall itself. But I’ll just focus on the “confusing” aspect of it. The original story itself leaves many things unclear, and then when you add in mistranslations, fan rumors, and the dub, it creates a really big mess. Let me try and straighten the whole thing out.

General
The most important thing to keep in mind is that in the DB world, being a god is essentially a job, and not an inherent state of being or anything. Each godly post centers around overseeing a certain segment of the DB world. The gods are not immortal, and so they require successors to replace them when they die. Like all jobs, there are certain abilities and requirements necessarily to qualify. For instance, the child of Katatz had to expel all the evil from his heart before he could become the God of Earth. A certain amount of power also seems to be necessary: Karin only allows the very strong to meet the Earth’s God, a necessary step in someone becoming God themselves, and Enma Daio trained under North Kaio. The North Kaio himself is a powerful martial artist, while each of the Kaioshin were strong enough to defeat Freeza in a single blow.

In addition, there are certain abilities that seem common among the gods: All gods seem to have some degree of clairvoyance: the God of Earth can see what’s happening on the Earth’s surface from his palace far above the clouds, Kaio can easily view things on other planets, and Elder Kaioshin can watch women bathing from all the way in the Kaioshin Realm. This ability is necessary for them to fulfill their duty of overseeing their various regions. Other psychic powers are also common: Kaio and Earth’s God can speak to people telepathically, while Karin and East Kaioshin can read minds. Kaio, East Kaioshin, and Elder Kaioshin have the ability to materialize objects from nothing. Finally, Earth’s God is able to travel freely between his temple and the afterlife, while Elder Kaioshin was able to travel to the living world while dead.

The DB gods are far from omnipotent though. Piccolo says that not even God can resurrect the dead; only the dragonballs can do that (Elder Kaioshin was however able to exchange his own life for Goku’s, killing himself buy bringing Goku back to life). Gods also lack the ability to interfere in the affairs of places outside their own region. That’s why North Kaio was unable to do anything to help wish Kuririn back to life when he died on Planet Namek, because Namek was outside of his own region. The gods’ biggest weakness is that exceptional beings like Freeza or Boo are able to greatly surpass them in power, forcing them to rely on other, nicer freaks like Goku and co. to protect the universe.

Religion in the DB World
The gods of the DB world don’t seem to have any desire for worshippers. They merely oversee people, and generally leave them to their own devices except in times of extreme crisis. As a result, regular Earthlings are completely unaware of the God of their planet, or of the Kaio, and even the God of Earth only knew of the Kaioshin through rumors. But certain religions do exist in the DB world. Namu invokes the Buddha’s name, and even refers to himself as a Buddhist, so some form of Buddhism must exist on DB Earth. And Upa imitates a cross to frighten the vampire Draculaman, so apparently there’s a form of Christianity as well.

There are also forms of religious belief among aliens as well. Daizenshuu 7 says that the Saiyans assigned a mythical, god-like status to the Super Saiyan. In the case of the Namekians, it says that they had Polunga (“God of Dreams” in Namekian) as their deity. But since Polunga was created by the Great Elder, that gave him a status above even Polunga, so all Namekian piety was directed at him. Still, this was more like filial piety shown to a parent than actual religion faith. In GT there are the Loodist, who worship the god Lood. They believed that by gathering energy for Lood, he would awaken and grant his followers whatever they desired. But in reality, Lood was just a machine mutant created by Doctor Mu to gather energy for Baby, and Loodism was a scam religion
created to further this goal.

Types of Gods

Planetary Gods
These are the gods in charge of monitoring individual planets. The first god we ever see in DragonBall is one of these, the God of Earth. As Daizenshuu 7 explains, the gods of each planet are selected from among the sentient life-forms of that planet. Attendants from the afterlife are dispatched to assist these gods picked from among the natives (Karin and Mister Popo are two such attendants). The purpose of this system is to oversee and protect the sentient life-forms of each planet, and more importantly, to hasten the racial development of immature sentient species, guiding them towards the greatest happiness. The attendants sent from the afterlife are only permitted to act in a subservient role to the planet’s god, on the idea that a species’ fate ought to be entrusted to the species itself.

Enma Daio
Enma Daio is judge of the dead, determining if they go to Heaven or Hell. He also approves exceptional dead people to keep their bodies and train under a Kaio, and oversees the process of reincarnation. Based on the daizenshuu god charts, Enma outranks the planetary gods but is lower on the hierarchy than the Kaio (you can also see this in the series to an extent, in the levels of politeness they use when talking to and about each other). He is a figure from Buddhism and Hinduism (where he’s known as Yama), making him the only DB god based on an actual religious figure. In the anime, there are other gods involved in life and death besides Enma, but more on that later.

The Kaio
The Kings of Worlds, they stand above all the gods of the universe, and collectively watch over the entire universe from the afterlife. There are 4 Kaio to oversee the universe’s 4 galaxies: North, South, East, and West. In addition to overseeing their region, the Kaio also train exceptional dead martial artists who have been allowed to keep their bodies in the afterlife. Above the 4 Kaio of the cardinal directions is the Dai-Kaio, the Great King of Worlds, who serves as their leader. He oversees the entire universe, and is the afterlife’s most important inhabitant. As Toriyama explains in the recent Super Exciting Guide, Kaio are chosen from the members of a certain race called the Shinjin, which means “Core People”. They are called this because they are born from inside the fruit of the Kaiju (World-Tree) which grows on Planet Kai-Shin (World-Core), similar to Momotaro. Kai-Shin is a planet located in an unknown part of the macrocosm, and is like a larger version of the planets that each Kaio live on. There are about 80 Shinjin living on Kai-Shin, and they spend their days living peacefully, studying various topics in a large castle. When one of the Kaio dies, a replacement is chosen from among the Shinjin by lottery. But Shinjin live for about 75,000 years, so this doesn’t happen too often. Toriyama says that the Shinjin have no gender, though all of them have some male or female characteristics. North Kaio’s planet is at over 100 million years old, which means that the Shinjin have been doing this whole “Kaio” gig for at least as long.

The Kaioshin
The Gods of the Kaio, who stand above even the Kaio. They are the gods to the gods, and oversee not merely the universe, but also the afterlife where the Kaio themselves live. In addition to this wider scope, they are also far more powerful than the Kaio: while North Kaio was weaker than Nappa, East Kaioshin says that each of the Kaioshin were strong enough to defeat Freeza himself with a single blow. Daizenshuu 7 says that the Kaioshin interfere in the affairs of both the living world and afterlife in the case of important events that will decide the DB world’s fate. For each of the 5 Kaio, there is a corresponding Kaioshin: like with the Kaio, the 4 Kaioshin of the cardinal directions oversee the 4 galaxies (and presumably 4 quadrants of the afterlife), while the Dai-Kaioshin oversees the entire universe and afterlife. The Kaioshin are assisted by a being called Kibito.

To allow them to oversee both the afterlife and living world, the Kaioshin live in the unoriginally named Kaioshin Realm, which is located outside the macrocosm, and revolves around it like a moon. The Kaioshin’s greatest treasure is the Potara earrings, which allow them to fuse with others to obtain even greater power. Potara fusion is permanent, and the power-up gained is greater than the Metamorian Fusion dance. It’s not really known what Kibito, where he came from, or if there are or were any more like him. Kibito’s main duty seems to be using his Kai-Kai technique to teleport the Kaioshin from planet to planet.

Kaioshin are only chosen from among Shinjin born from golden Kaiju fruit, which is particularly rare. 5 million years before the beginning of DB, Boo killed the North and West Kaioshin, and absorbed the South Kaioshin and Dai-Kaioshin. Despite this, so far these missing Kaioshin have not been replaced, leaving the East Kaioshin as the sole highest god in the DB world for millennia. This may be because no new golden Kaiju fruit have grown in all these years. Eventually however, an older East Kaioshin from 15 generations ago is unsealed, and possibly took over as the new Dai-Kaioshn. It seems that the golden fruit Shinjin have a much longer lifespan than regular Shinjin, since East Kaioshin has lived for 5 million years, while regular Shinjin have a lifespan of only 75,000 years. All of the Kaioshin seen in both the manga and anime have Mohawks, which officially makes them the coolest of all possible deities.

The Makaio and Makaioshin
Recently revealed by Toriyama in the SEG, these are the gods of the Demon Realm (which, according to D7, not even the gods' eyes can reach). They are the antithesis of the Kaio and Kaioshin, and govern evil. Currently however, Toriyama says, the Kaioshin's power is greater than that of the Makaioshin. When an evil Shinjin is born, they leave Planet Kai-Shin and go to the Demon Realm to be with the Makaio. However, it is not actually known if Makaio/shin themselves are selected from among these evil Shinjin, or if they are beings native to the Demon Realm, and the evil Shinjin are simply their allies. It is also not know if Dabra was a Makaio/shin. Though his title "King of the Demon Realm" has the same meaning as "Makaio", Toriyama doesn't say whether he is one or not. He could simply be a political ruler of the Demon Realm and not its god, just as the King of Earth is different from the God of Earth. It's also not known how many Makaio/shin there are, how they are choosen for their posts, or really anything else about them. Will more be revealed about them in the future, perhaps by way of DragonBall Online? I dunno, maybe.

Filler Gods
In the Bashosen filler arc at the end of the original DB anime, a goddess named Annin is shown as the guardian of the Furnace of Eight Divinations, which connects the living world to the afterlife. If the furnace's flame were to be put out, then the living world would be thrown into chaos (and to make matters worse, re-lighting the furnace's fire takes 2,000 years). Annin has been doing this job for over 10,000 year (she's a bit sensitive about her age), and recently the dead Grandpa Gohan has begun helping her. A hole in the furnace has caused its flames to surround Mt. Fry-Pan, so Goku and Chi Chi has to go to Annin to get the whole mess sorted out. Annin and her furnace are located on the Mountain of Five Elements, which may be based on a similiar place that appears in Journey to the West.

The Demon Realm filler episode set before the 22 Tenkaichi Budoukai is notable for mentioning Enma Daio and God long before the make their appearance in the main story, but in addition to them it mentions shinigami, death gods equivalent to grim reapers. Enma and God give them permission to use the Demon Realm Gate that connects the living world to the afterlife. I still haven't actually seen this episode, so I don't know if there's any more to them than that.

In the filler episode where Kaio explains the history of the Saiyans, he claims that Planet Vegeta was destroyed when its God caused a huge meteor to collide with the planet. This ties into Raditz's explanation that Planet Vegeta had been destroyed by a meteor impact. Presumably Planet Vegeta would have had a god of its own, but of course we later learn that it was really Freeza who destroyed the planet, and that the meteor story was just a lie he spread to cover up this fact. Was Kaio misinformed like everyone else, or was he just trying to not reveal Freeza's existence to Goku? Well, it's just filler anyway.

In the Garlic Jr. filler arc, Earth's God travels deep into the bowels of his temple and encounters the spirits of the Earth's previous gods. They don't like him trespassing on their turf, and are kind of ticked that an alien like him got to be god, so they shock the crap out of him until the story was been sufficiently stretched out.

In DBZ movie 13, Tapion says that "God" gave him a magic sword and flute with the power to seal the monster Hildegarn away. Presumably this would be Planet Konats's God, though it's left kind of vague.

And Above That?
Who created the DB world? We don't know. I think at this point some sort of creation story for the DB world is what I'd be most interested in seeing in the future. Maybe Toriyama could make one up for some future guidebook. But until that happens, the closest thing we have is that Toriyama himself is included in Daizenshuu 7's character dictionary, due to his brief appearance in the Boo arc. It describes him as the ultimate ruler of the DB world, and a gentleman far, fa~ar greater than even the Kaioshin.
Last edited by Herms on Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Bussani » Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:58 am

Speaking of the God of Planet Vegeta...can you imagine a Saiyan God? I mean, do all Gods have to be pure hearted, or is that just an Earth thing? I'd imagine Planet Vegeta would have slim pickings.

PS: You keep misspelling 'psychic' as 'physic'. ^^;

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Post by Herms » Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:13 am

Bussani wrote:Speaking of the God of Planet Vegeta...can you imagine a Saiyan God? I mean, do all Gods have to be pure hearted, or is that just an Earth thing? I'd imagine Planet Vegeta would have slim pickings.
He could be a Tsufuru too, I suppse. They seemed to be a nice bunch. But that does remind me of something I forgot to mention: Daizenshuu 7's explanation says that the afterlife beings sent to each planet usually become the god's attendant rather than the actual god, which implies that sometimes they actually will become the god, possibly when the planet has no worthy canidates.
PS: You keep misspelling 'psychic' as 'physic'. ^^;
Whoops, thanks.
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Post by caejones » Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:25 am

Herms wrote: He could be a Tsufuru too, I suppse. They seemed to be a nice bunch. But that does remind me of something I forgot to mention: Daizenshuu 7's explanation says that the afterlife beings sent to each planet usually become the god's attendant rather than the actual god, which implies that sometimes they actually will become the god, possibly when the planet has no worthy canidates.

So between Nappa and Freeza... and Imperfect Cell and the coming of Dende...
... Mr. Popo? :shock:
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