Dragon Ball: Who Is Uub?

A new character was introduced at the very end of the Majin Buu Saga of Dragon Ball Z, a young boy named Uub, who we come to learn is one of the martial arts pupils of none other than the franchise protagonist, Son Goku. When Goku defeated Kid Buu with the Super Spirit Bomb on the Supreme Kai’s planet, he asked the demon to come back someday as someone good, and apparently that little wish came true.

The result was Uub, a human and the eldest of five children born in a small village on an unnamed tropical island. Just who exactly is Uub, and how could his further inclusion add an interesting new element to the developing narrative of Dragon Ball Super?

The End of the Buu Saga

Goku’s Parting Words to Kid Buu

To recap, Uub is the reincarnation of Kid Buu, the purest form of Majin Buu, which is pure, distilled evil. Unlike the previously introduced forms of Majin Buu, there is no bargaining with Kid Buu because, in this form, Buu is no longer an individual capable of reason on any level, he is a kind of evil that has never been encountered before. Kid Buu is the purest and original form of the entity known as Majin Buu, with the fat and childlike version that became friends with Hercule being the result of Kid Buu’s absorption of the Grand Supreme Kai aeons beore the events of Dragon Ball. Kid Buu is completely irrational, a beast driven purely by violence and destructive impulse, so much so that he would destroy himself in the process, simply regenerating and continuing his destruction elsewhere. After the fat Buu expelled evil from himself, it coalesced into a skinny Buu that went onto to absorb the other, forming “Super” Buu, a tall, skinny and intelligent Buu capable of complex speech and rationality, even before absorbing Piccolo, Goten and Trunks (as Gotenks), Gohan and countless others before Goku and Vegeta intervened.

However, by removing all these other parties, they unknowingly released the truest, most evil version of Buu, the original monster from time immemorial. The fight against this Buu was intense, and despite saving all those who were absorbed by Buu, Kid Buu obliterated the entire Earth, with the final battle taking place on the Supreme Kai’s Planet. Luckily, Dende was among the survivors, and using Porunga, he and Kibito Kai wish back all those who were killed from Majin Vegeta’s rampage at the World Tournament to date, and then through Hercule’s worldwide influence, they were able to get energy for a Super Spirit Bomb powered with energy from the entire Earth. During this climactic final attack, Goku tells Kid Buu that he hopes that he’ll come back as a good guy so they can fight again someday. According to Goku, it appears that this small wish was granted by King Yemma, who presides over the Otherworld Check-In Station and decides who goes to Heaven or HFIL.

Kid Buu’s Reincarnation

Uub Made His First Super Appearance During the Moro Arc

In Dragon Ball Z, Uub is introduced in the same episode as Gohan’s daughter, Pan, who was reintroduced in the Dragon Ball Super canon during the Battle of Gods movie. The episode titled “Granddaughter Pan” is set ten years after the defeat of Buu, and Goku explains that Uub is actually the reincarnation of Buu. However, unlike Buu, Uub is pure of heart, and capable of riding the Flying Nimbus like Goku. He initially has a timid personality, but as he trains with Goku, he becomes a confident fighter. Because he is Goku’s student, Uub is also a member of the Turtle Hermit School, and featured a bit in the anime-only Dragon Ball GT, in which he merged with Majin Buu and became a more powerful, and perhaps, complete version of himself dubbed “Majuub”, a portmanteau of “Majin” and “Uub.

The name “Uub” is simply “Buu” backwards, which further illustrates the fact that he is a good reincarnation of the demon. While he has limited appearances in Dragon Ball Super, Uub has been mentioned a few times: once during the Universe 6 and 7 tournament, and again during the Universe Survival Saga. Uub also appears during the conclusion of the Moro arc, when Goku gathered energy from the galaxy in order to defeat the tyrant, which is thematically significant because it’s like the recurrence of the defeat of Kid Buu (the event that made Uub’s existence a possibility), and the fact that Moro is a threat that the Grand Supreme Kai; the individual absorbed by Kid Buu that gave rise to the current iteration of Majin Buu, sealed away at great cost to himself millions of years ago, making Uub’s contribution like the Grand Supreme Kai putting away Moro a second time.

The Potential of Uub’s Character

Could He Become a Valuable Fighter Going Forward?

The biggest reason why we have barely seen Uub in Dragon Ball Super is simply because he is still much too young, but his martial arts talent has been noted by Dende, who is the Guardian of Earth, and Goku himself. In Dragon Ball GT, he jumped into the fight against various foes, but he got folded in pretty much every fight he got into, even after becoming Majuub, which isn’t the kind of trajectory that fits Uub’s incredible origins. There’s also the fact that Uub mirrors Piccolo in the sense that he is the reiteration of a devastatingly evil foe that took everything out of Goku to defeat, and in Piccolo’s case, that return wasn’t intially the heel-turn that it turned out to be, but Uub could be another villain-turned-ally and have immense levels of impact on lore like the aforementioned and perhaps even like Vegeta.

Hopefully, the Dragon Ball Super story will find value in Uub’s character and perhaps even make him into a worthy ally of Pan’s in future installments of the franchise, should any ever arise. The fact that he is the reincarnation of one of the most powerful entities that has ever existed in the Dragon Ball omniverse, one that has been feared for aeons, should be an incredible head start for his development as a combatant, and would be even cooler if his rise came alongside the return of Gohan as a fighter capable of defending the Earth even if Goku and Vegeta are absent. Only time will tell.

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Dragon Ball Z

Dragon Ball Z is a Japanese anime series produced by Toei Animation and a sequel to the 1986 Dragon Ball series. It continues the adventures of Son Goku as an adult while also paralleling the life of his son Gohan. Son Goku typically defends the Earth from villains like Vegeta, Frieza, Cell, and Majin Buu. The series is followed by Dragon Ball GT and then Dragon Ball Super.