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Moro is the latest big bad to join Dragon Ball’s cast of powerful villains, many of whom he takes a lot after.
While the Dragon Ball Super anime may have ended in 2018, a manga series by franchise creator Akira Toriyama and longtime collaborator Toyotarou has continued the story beyond the anime’s conclusion. The first major story arc beyond the Tournament of Power introduced the sinister villain Moro, an enemy that was sealed away for millions of years before breaking out and starting a rampage to add to his strength by draining entire planets of their raw energy. A formidable opponent for Goku and Vegeta, Moro represented a change of pace from many of the antagonists previously seen in Dragon Ball Super while subtly combining elements of what made many prior Dragon Ball villains to memorable.
The idea of a villain that once rampaged at a virtually unstoppable clip millions of years in the past before being magically sealed away was a trope first established in the non-canon Dragon Ball Z film Bojack Unbound. This would be revisited and expanded upon with Majin Buu, in the main DBZ series, as a villain who killed untold millions across the cosmos before being sealed away by the Supreme Kai. The nature of Moro’s ancient defeat and lengthy imprisonment is not the only tie he has with Majin Buu, as Majin Buu’s initial masters, Bibidi and Babidi, were both magical villains, as opposed to physical powerhouses, just like Moro when he is first introduced in the Dragon Ball Super manga.
Moro’s primary method of strengthening himself is another longtime Dragon Ball trope, with the villain absorbing the energy of others to add to his own power. Androids 19 and 20 were the first major antagonists seen relying on this technique, though Cell and Majin Buu would employ similar strategies, as would Dragon Ball GT villains Baby and Super Android 17. In addition to increasing his physical power through absorption, Moro displayed strong telekinetic abilities, with the Ginyu Force’s Guldo among the most prominent prior enemy that relied on telekinetic attacks.
The villain’s first skirmish against the Z Fighters is set on New Namek as he scours the planet for Dragon Balls, mirroring the Z Fighters’ first encounter with Frieza on the original Planet Namek under similar circumstances. And rather than plotting to use the Dragon Balls to gain immortality like Garlic, Jr., Vegeta or Frieza, Moro instead uses the Namekian Eternal Dragon Porunga to wish for his magical powers to be completely restored, echoing the eponymous villain of the non-canon film Lord Slug, with Slug using the Dragon Balls to restore himself to his physical prime shortly after arriving on Earth.
All of this isn’t to say that Moro isn’t an impressive and compelling villain in his own right; Moro’s vendetta against the Z Fighters is exactly what brought Dragon Ball Super out of dependency on its anime counterpart and proved there were still plenty of stories left to tell. Instead, Moro draws from several familiar tropes from across the entire history of the Dragon Ball franchise to create a truly ruthless antagonist and remind the heroes that there are ancient evil threats constantly vying for supremacy in the universe. Moro is no copycat but a synthesis of what makes Dragon Ball antagonists so great while forging a new future for Dragon Ball Super out of the shadow of the anime.
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