Dragon Ball has never been a franchise that’s afraid to go just a little bit out there. Like most manga and anime, it’s a festival of absurd fight scenes, flashy special attacks, laser beams, explosions, dramatic monologues, and ridiculous deus ex machinas. We wouldn’t have it any other way, either.

Over the course of the series’ long run, the storytelling has taken a backseat to all of this spectacle.  As dizzying as the plot of the average Dragon Ball story arc may be, though, fan theories have pushed things even further. Let’s take a look at some of the strangest theories the community has come up with (don’t be surprised when some of them prove to be correct, either).

Frieza Is A Child?

When it comes to Dragon Ball villains, Frieza is probably the most iconic of all. We’ve all seen the memes. However, it’s odd to think just how little we actually know about him.

The series doesn’t often trouble to detail the age of characters, and that’s an even more complex issue where Frieza’s concerned. According to a theory from Redditor Billogi, the infamous mutant may only be a child!

Yes, he can destroy entire planets with a casual gesture of his hand, an act probably just a shade beyond most infants. As the theory argues, though, he’s a member of a mutant, hybrid race, and there’s no telling what kind of longevity they may have. Couple this with his small stature (compared to his brother Frieza and father King Cold) and general childish tantrum-throwing nature, and this absurd theory may just carry some weight.

Goku And Frieza’s Battle On Namek Was In Slow-Motion

Speaking of the memes surrounding Frieza, one very popular one is based on the megalomaniacal mutant’s poor timekeeping. As he famously stated, Planet Namek would be destroyed in five minutes… except it wasn’t, because he then proceeded to engage in a super dramatic fistfight with Goku for several episodes.

To cut the guy some slack here, all of us use the timescale ‘five minutes’ to mean ‘you know, some time relatively soon.’ It’s not often meant literally. That’s neither here nor there, though, because a fascinating theory arose out of all this.

Redditor Newgrewshew believes that the epic clash actually did only take five minutes, but stretched over several episodes because we were watching in slow motion! Supposedly, these two all-powerful beings fight far too quickly for our feeble human eyes to follow, so the action was slowed all the way down for our benefit.

Goku Black Is Future Evil Goten?

Over the years, Dragon Ball has certainly dabbled in that most confusing of storytelling elements: time travel. As Doctor Who fans will know far too well, things start getting incredibly confusing when you mess with time. Characters’ pasts, presents, and futures become blurred, nobody’s quite who you thought they were anymore, and whole new realities come into existence.

During a Reddit discussion on Dragon Ball Super fan theories, the classic ‘Goku Black is Future Evil Goten’ thing reared its head again.

Quite how this would work out is a real mystery, considering everything we know about Zamasu, but still. That’d be a turn up for the darn books if ever there was one.

Dragon Ball GT’s Ending Created Super?

So, that Dragon Ball GT ending, huh? It first aired way back in 1997, and the fanbase still doesn’t quite know what the heck to make of it. What really happened to Goku there? When you get right down to it, there’s really no telling.

Of course, this could have been just what the creators were shooting for. It keeps us guessing, keeps the discussion flowing, keeps fans theorizing.

One particular theory has proven far too outlandish, though: that Dragon Ball GT directly created and tied into Dragon Ball Super. Yes, Goku was just as bewildered by the events of GT as everybody else, but that’s not exactly compelling evidence.

Frieza Was Born With His Phenomenal Powers

As we’ve already suggested, some of Dragon Ball’s most bizarre fan theories sometimes turn out to be right on the money. After all, logic and general sense-making don’t tend to be very high on the show’s list of priorities. You can see how these sorts of situations might occur, then.

One case in point would be the root of Frieza’s strength. Throughout the show’s run, we’ve seen Goku and his Saiyan friends put their bodies through the most punishing training routines, in order to keep up with their formidable foes. Meanwhile, villains like Frieza don’t really take the time to do that. As we’ve reported before, this led fans to assume that Frieza was, like Lady GaGa, born this way.

Quite how you’d be born with the ability to blast planets out of the sky with your pinky is never explained, but it turns out that Frieza’s absurd power do simply come naturally to him.

Hybrid Saiyans Are More Powerful?

If there’s one thing anime and manga fans just love to do, it’s engage in heated who’s more powerful than who debates. What with all the ridiculous feats of strength and dramatic battles showcased, it can be very tough to say.

As such, this next fan theory is a bit of a grey area.  As we’ve reported previously, there’s no official evidence in the show that hybrid Saiyans are stronger than pure Saiyans, but some fans persist in the claim. What about Trunks and Goten, they say, who are able to achieve the Super Saiyan form incredibly quickly? What about Goku himself?

If anything, it’s probably more a case of how hard you train than how much (or how little) Saiyan blood you have.

Speaking of Saiyan hybrids, the proud warrior race doesn’t tend to favor those sorts of inter-species relationships. Regardless, though, the resultant children do indeed seem to surpass other Saiyans in various respects. In the case of Goten, for instance, this may just be a result of plot necessity rather than any hybrid/pure Saiyan commentary.

It’s a curious thing, but some fans have concluded that humans and Saiyans are related in some way. Physically, the two races are very similar (we didn’t know the truth about Goku for some time), but it seems like a huge stretch and a major cosmic coincidence for them to be related.

Bulma Wished The Saiyan Saga Into Reality?

Dragon Ball, as we know, is a franchise loaded with all-powerful extra-terrestrials, mutant warriors and some of the most fearsome robots since Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies. With all of that in mind, you might doubt that we regular humans could have much of an impact in the show.

Bulma, in particular, is not about to defeat any supervillains single-handedly, but her tech savvy and support has turned the tide of several battles. On top of that, there’s a curious theory that Bulma made a Dragon Ball wish that kicked off the entire Saiyan Saga. Supposedly, her breakup with Yamcha caused her to seek the Dragon Balls and wish for a boyfriend. The result? Vegeta appeared, and… well, you know the rest.

Is the plausibility strong with this one? It is not. It’s a fun one to discuss, though.

Dr. Brief’s Android Wife?

Speaking of Bulma, here’s another fascinating theory you may not have considered (but will be entirely unable to forget once it’s brought to your attention): some Dragon Ball enthusiasts really believe that Bulma’s mom is an android!

Yes, this is the sort of thing that the brilliant Dr. Brief would be entirely capable of. Yes, Androids technically are capable of reproducing, as we explained; Android 18’s sad story attests to that. No, Panchy doesn’t seem to age a single second.

It’s one of those situations that believers can find tons and tons of corroborating ‘evidence’ for, but is just so fundamentally odd that it’ll never really stick.

Krillin Is The Most Powerful Being In The Dragon Ball World

Well, maybe that’s overselling him just a little. There are some incredible characters in this franchise, after all, with abilities that boggle the mind just to think about.

We’ve already snarked on mere humans’ strengths compared to those of Saiyans, but Krillin seems to be out to break all of those rules. There are some fans who will tell you that he’s the strongest around, but there’s a whole lot of mental gymnastics to do to reach that conclusion.

The argument is that he doesn’t need to transform into a Super Saiyan, a were-pig or anything else OTT to perform at the peak of his powers, but it’s a little tough to make that fly.