Dragon Ball: Goku’s Kill Count Revealed!

Son Goku is not only the protagonist of the Dragon Ball and its breakout character, he is undoubtedly one of the most popular anime and manga characters in history. We have written about Goku on more than one occasion here on Ficion Horizon, and among the topics we’ve covered was the number of times he’s died in the series. In this article, we are going to do the opposite, as we are going to tell you about the characters Goku has killed over the course of the series. This article will, thus, analyze Goku’s kill count and bring you all the relevant information you need to know.

Goku is not a killer per se, but he has killed

As we’ve said above, Son Goku is not only the trademark character of Dragon Ball, he is one of the most recognizable anime and manga characters in history. His cultural and historical significance is truly amazing, and the character has been around for so long that we can actually confirm that he has become a cultural icon in the meantime.

And while Goku is undoubtedly a hero, his story is not that heroic. He was sent to his current home planet as a baby to destroy it, but was raised by Grandpa Gohan to be a good kid; sadly, he ended up killing Grandpa Gohan later when he accidentally transformed into the Great Ape. He does embody heroic ideals, that cannot be denied, and he represents values that can be considered as right and righteous. But, there is an issue.

Over the course of the series, Goku has killed more than once. Sometimes, he would kill other characters by accident (like Grandpa Gohan), but in a lot of cases, he had to kill because his opponents forced him to. Piccolo and Frieza are good examples of this, as there was absolutely no other way; had he left them alive, they would have caused even more chaos.

So, we can confirm that Goku has killed, but despite that, he still remains a hero in the series and an embodiment of heroic ideals. As far as the number of characters he’s killed is concerned, we have to say the following. By all means, Goku has probably killed thousands, if not millions of people in total; this includes many unnamed characters who died as collateral victims of his fights, which tended to cause a lot of destruction or included, in fact, the destruction of celestial objects that were essential to sustain life somewhere. This means that the precise number of his victims is impossible to determine unless Toriyama actually gives a canon number.

On the other hand, the series has shown a substantial number of solo situations where Goku killed a character or characters, and this is a number we can determine. Based on this data, we can confirm that Goku’s total kill count is – 60+. We might have missed someone during our research, but we think that this number is more or less correct.

Goku’s solo kill count

In this section, we are going to list the characters Goku killed over the course of the series. We are going to give you the names, grouping them based on the series. As we’ve explained above, this is not a complete list as it does not include unnamed characters and collateral victims, but we think we’ve managed to list all the confirmed kills from the series here.

Dragon Ball (15+)

Dragon Ball Z (7)

• Future Frieza and Future King Cold (alternative timeline)
• Kid Buu
• King Kai, Bubbles, Gregory
• Yakon

Dragon Ball Super (3)

• Copy-Vegeta
• Frieza 
• Moro

Dragon Ball GT (14)

Movies (21)

And this is more or less it. We have grouped and listed the characters based on the works in which Goku killed them in. Based on this, we have also come up with a rough number that is, more, or less correct. As you can see, the only issue was with the number of the Red Ribbon Army soldiers Goku killed, since there were a lot of them, but the exact number is unknown. This is why we couldn’t give you an exact number, so we listed his kill count as being 60+, with the “+” being a reference to the unknown number of Red Ribbon Army soldiers.

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