The Serie dragon ball has introduced a variety of amazing techniques over the years, but among all of them, the Fusion It is undoubtedly one of the most popular. The excitement of seeing two different characters merge to form a new fighter with a unique appearance, personality and greatly enhanced Power Level is always captivating. Additionally, the poses and movements used in Fusion Dance are iconic in their own right.although some characters like Trunks have expressed concerns about the technique’s cool factor.
In the original series, Goten and Trunks master the Fusion technique and use it to combine into Gotenks, an incredibly powerful fighter who even managed to take on the fearsome Majin Buu. Fusion between two humans in the real world can be difficult to understand, but when it comes to these two half-saiyans, what could be happening when they fuse? For answers, the publisher of the Dragon Ball Official Website contacted the Professor Naoki Wadaa specialist in cellular engineering at the Graduate School of Technology, Industrial, and Social Sciences at Tokushima University.
Professor Wada, who was the first person in the world to successfully achieve partial fusion of a human cell with a plant cellshared some amazing insights when asked about the mechanisms that could be behind the Fusion in Dragon Ball:
- To begin with, what phenomenon does the term “fusion” refer to?
- Professor Wada (hereinafter Wada): There are many ways to look at fusion, but in terms of cell fusion, it is when two cells join together and become one. Cell fusion occurs in nature, and a simple example is reproduction. During reproduction, a sperm fertilizes an egg. That’s fusion.
- Additionally, certain types of muscle and bone cells fuse to form large cells in the human body. If we talk in terms of microorganisms, yeast is a good example of fusion. Yeast is a single-celled organism, but it reproduces by fusing two different types of cells.
- It seems like mergers are happening all around us. Professor Wada, what originally attracted you to this field?
- Wada: Personally, I am more interested in artificial fusion than that which occurs in nature. I wonder if it is possible to get closer to some of the fundamental structures of life by artificially causing phenomena that do not occur in nature.
- As for the world of Dragon Ball, I’m interested in the ecology of Planet Namek. After all, Namekians are also masters of fusion.
- In Dragon Ball, fusion is an ability where two warriors merge and become one super-powered fighter. Given what is known about cellular engineering, what do you think happens when these characters fuse?
- Wada: Well, first of all, fusion in the natural world occurs when both parties to the fusion are single-celled. I don’t think there has ever been a case where two multicellular organisms have fused the way Trunks and Goten do.
- There is something called “grafting” that some may have heard of before. Grafting is a technique that joins two plants into one. But instead of just mixing the entire two floors together, they are joined together so that the top comes from the 1st floor and the bottom comes from the 2nd floor.
- When I thought about how two distinct individuals like Goten and Trunks could combine into one like they do when they merge into Gotenks, I came up with two hypotheses for how it could happen.
- Really? Which are?
- Wada: My first hypothesis was that the cells of the two individuals mixed completely without actually fusing. But in that case, I think the fused individual would have mosaic-like results in terms of color and so on. For example, in terms of eye color, the new individual should have a mix of Goten’s black eyes and Trunks’ blue eyes. But Gotenks’ eyes are completely black, so that hypothesis wouldn’t work.
- Wada: Since that is the case, the only other option is cell fusion. But it’s hard to imagine that two individuals can completely fuse, so I came up with the “glued zygote theory.”
- Oh! Could you tell us a little more about that theory?
- Wada: Dragon Ball fusion involves a process where each person touches the other’s fingers after making a single move, and then a burst of light occurs. At that instant, the two attempting to fuse each return to their single-celled zygote (or fertilized egg) state, and then the two zygotes fuse to become a single fused cell, which then grows rapidly, becoming a single individual.
- This seems ridiculous in the case of humans, but it seems possible that a single individual could exist with the genetic information of two people. The three processes “return to the zygote”, “fusion” and “growth into human form” occur instantly.
- One of the conditions for a Fusion to be successful is that the Ki of both fighters has to be exactly the same, so that can also influence the process. By the way, when two people are combined into one through a fusion, the fused person is immensely more powerful than either party. Is that true for fusion in the real world as well?
- Wada: In the plant world there is something called heterosis. When two parent plants are crossed to create a hybrid, the result is a seed that is better than the original parents. By combining two plants with totally different characteristics, the advantage is that the new plant can sometimes gain properties from one that the other did not originally have.
- However, as a general rule, species that are more closely related tend to interbreed more successfully. It’s easier to keep things with similar DNA.
- So since Goten and Trunks are both half-Saiyan, they were a good couple in that sense.
Fountain: Official site
