One mysterious piece of fanart dubbed "Super Saiyan 5" inspired a generation of artists and writers hopeful for another Dragon Ball series after GT.
A fan drawing of a a supposed Super Saiyan 5 led many fans to believe that the Dragon Ball franchise would continue beyond Dragon Ball GT years before the debut of Dragon Ball Super. In the late '90s towards the end of Dragon Ball GT, an image surfaced online detailing a silver haired Goku that looked like a cross between Super Saiyan 3 and Super Saiyan 4 and quickly took the internet by storm. This image was soon dubbed “Super Saiyan 5” by fans, who began speculating on what it meant. The truth is, of course, more complicated as Super Saiyan 5 never came and Dragon Ball went without a new series for another decade and a half until the release of Dragon Ball Super.
In the image of this supposed Super Saiyan 5, the letters "AF" were featured prominently in the corner, leading many fans to believe this meant a new series called Dragon Ball: After Future was coming after the end of GT. Others believed that this AF simply stood for April Fool’s and dismissed the image as an internet publicity stunt entirely. The truth of the matter is that this image actually came from a Spanish video game magazine called Hobby Consolas.
The most iconic Super Saiyan 5 most image came from a work of fan art submitted to Hobby Consolas by an individual named David Montiel Franco. This famous fan art was meant to be nothing more than that and the original intentions of the letters “AF” are unknown to this day. Though it was just fan art and not an official teaser like many Dragon Ball fans had hoped, this single Super Saiyan 5 image alone was enough to spawn countless fan spinoff mangas centered around ideas of what Dragon Ball AF could be. One of these spinoffs was illustrated by a pair of artists known as Young Jiji and Toyble, or Toyotaro as he came to be known later. This fan manga became so incredibly prominent that Toyotaro was eventually offered a job illustrating the Dragon Ball Super manga, proving that with enough hard work and passion dreams do come true.
The Super Saiyan 5 design featured by artist David Montiel Franco was also ahead of its time in terms of the power level color scheme. This form contained silver hair much like Super’s Mastered Ultra Instinct. Additionally, many of the spinoffs that featured this Super Saiyan 5 form indeed dealt with the concept of “primal instinct” awakened by delving deeper into one’s Saiyan roots. The idea of Super Saiyan 5 was also not entirely foreign to those working on Dragon Ball, as in the 55th episode of Dragon Ball GT’s English dub, Bulma references this hypothetical transformation, implying that with enough Blutz Waves, Vegeta may be able to tap into a “Super Saiyan 5.”
The cultural impact of this one piece of fan art is hard to put into words, as it undoubtedly inspired an entire generation of artists and writers during the infamous “Dragon Ball Drought” between the ending of Dragon Ball GT and the beginning of Dragon Ball Super. To this day there are thousands of pieces of fan art referencing this Super Saiyan 5 image. Though the reality of Super Saiyan 5 turned out to be no more than an internet urban legend, David Montiel Franco’s legendary art has truly held a place in every Dragon Ball fan’s heart for more than a decade.
More: Dragon Ball Proved One Saiyan Hero Could Destroy the Multiverse
