Even though Super Saiyan 5 was completely fabricated with a now-famous piece of fan art, Dragon Ball basically made it canon and no one even noticed.

While the real-world legend of Super Saiyan 5 disappointingly proved to be non-canonical within the Dragon Ball saga, the seemingly godlike form was basically added to the series…and no one noticed.

Super Saiyan 5 originated as fan art drawn by artist David Montiel Franco. When the image made its rounds all over the internet in the late ‘90s-early 2000s, the current ongoing Dragon Ball anime was Dragon Ball GT which launched in 1996 in Japan, a series that introduced fans to Super Saiyan 4. Seemingly following the aesthetic of Super Saiyan 4, Super Saiyan 5 depicts the Saiyan (one who was later revealed to be an original character by Franco named Tablos) in a more primal form with long hair and fur covering most of his body. The form also gave the Saiyan white/silver hair.

Even though it is just a fan-made picture linked to a fake Dragon Ball series known as Dragon Ball AF, the Super Saiyan 5 image carries with it the promise of a power unlike anything fans had ever seen before. While Super Saiyan 5 ended up being something of a hoax, fans still basically got a version of the form in the current Dragon Ball storyline, or at least, the version fans imagined they would have gotten with the ‘real’ Super Saiyan 5. In Dragon Ball Super by Akira Toriyama and Toyotarou, Goku and Vegeta have unlocked godlike powers, not just with the incredibly powerful Super Saiyan Blue form, but power levels that only gods and angels have wielded before. Vegeta has reached a power used by Gods of Destruction known as Ultra Ego, but it’s Goku’s achievement that is truly notable as he basically made Super Saiyan 5 canon through his use of Ultra Instinct.

Like the power Super Saiyan 5 was imagined to have held, Ultra Instinct gives one the power that surpasses that of a god, proven true by Lord Beerus who hasn’t yet unlocked that particular ability himself. Plus, aesthetically, it’s not that far off. Rather than the Super Saiyan 4 style of long hair and fur Super Saiyan 5 is seemingly derived from, Ultra Instinct keeps Goku’s form relatively the same. However, just as Super Saiyan 5 turns a Saiyan’s hair white/silver, Ultra Instinct changes Goku’s hair to a similar color, albeit a bit more shiny/silvery than Super Saiyan 5’s more prominent white.

While there are similarities, the differences between Super Saiyan 5 and Ultra Instinct are enough to keep this comparison from being obvious, and even perhaps make the comparison flat out disagreeable. However, the essence of Ultra Instinct has proven to be the pinnacle of power, power that even gods struggle to access. When fans saw the Super Saiyan 5 fan art for the first time, the feeling it invoked gave one the impression that this was it, the final and most powerful form a Saiyan could accomplish. While there will assuredly be a power level even greater than Ultra Instinct in the future, as it stands, it is the end-all be-all for how powerful a character can be in the Dragon Ball universe, and that is enough to make it comparable with the fan-made legend of Super Saiyan 5.

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