Goku vs. Naruto: Who Would Win & Why?
Martial arts and fighting is an essential element of a lot of anime series. Some of them are lesser-known, while others are among the most important works in the genre. The latter group includes both Naruto and Dragon Ball, two of the most popular anime series in history; both of them are members of the “Big Four”. Now, in this article, we are not going to compare the two series, bur rather their two protagonists – Son Goku of Dragon Ball, and Naruto Uzumaki of Naruto – in order to tell you which character is stronger.
Due to his enormous potential and incredible feats, Son Goku would be able to defeat Naruto Uzumaki in a direct clash of these martial arts titans. Son Goku is an actual god and he grows stronger with each fight, whereas Naruto’s powers are limited by his inherent humanity. Goku is also more experienced, and has fought and defeated enemies much stronger than Naruto. This is why Goku wins this one.
The rest of the article is going to be all about comparing the protagonists of Dragon Ball and Naruto. You’re going to find out who Son Goku and Naruto Uzumaki are, as well as what their exact powers and abilities are. In the end, based on what we have presented earlier, we’re going to give our final verdict on who is stronger. It’s promising to be a fun story so keep reading until the end!
Goku vs Naruto Power Levels
We are going to compare the powers and abilities of our two protagonists before we give our final verdict.
Son Goku’s Powers
In terms of pure powers, we can state that Son Goku has become a true Saiyan god as the series progressed. He doesn’t have any superpowers like some other superheroes, but he can utilize his physique and his fighting skills in such a way that he truly does seem superhuman.
He is a constantly evolving character that upgrades his skills and potential after each big challenge, becoming more powerful after every fight. In that aspect, his potential is practically unlimited and it is safe to assume – although, we have to reiterate that, there is no hard evidence for this – that his potential is night infinite.
When it comes to speed, well, we don’t actually know how fast Goku is. We know he’s fast. His reflexes are brilliant and he can, indeed, move really fast. But how fast is he, exactly? We haven’t a clue.
If we consult Dragon Ball Super, where Goku’s powers have become almost absurdly big, and compare his speed to the general speed of the Dragon Ball Z characters, we could assume that he’s become the fastest character in the series.
The sad thing is – we have absolutely no proof of this and this brings us to the verifiability issue mentioned above. This is one of such unverified (or even unverifiable) assumptions that you can freely interpret.
In terms of endurance, Son Goku is an exceptional fighter who doesn’t get tired and gets better after every fight. Son Goku is a trained martial artist so he is automatically exceptional in hand-to-hand combat; he doesn’t actually rely on his strength and on his powers, but rather on his skills and complex fighting techniques.
His Saiyan physique also enables him to last very long in a fight, so long that it is questionable whether he can get tired at all, but this is also one of the unproven assumptions open to interpretation. He also grows after each battle and becomes stronger, which also makes him more durable after each fight.
He is not immortal, though, which is something we thought was worth mentioning at this point.
Finally, we’d like to confirm that Goku doesn’t really have any known weaknesses in the classical sense. Sure, he can be beaten, but there is no secret weapon you could use in a fight against him. If you’re a better fighter, you’ll win; if not, there’s really no “cheat code” you could use.
Naruto’s Powers
Naruto is quite an interesting character, as he started off as a very inept and weak ninja (shinobi), only being able to master the completely useless Sexy Technique. On the other hand, with time, Naruto not only mastered more complex techniques but also became – as most think – the most powerful shinobi in history.
At the height of his abilities, he was able to face and defeat some of the most powerful fighters in the franchise. He also has massive reserves of very strong chakra, which are activated gradually as the anime progresses.
As for his jinchūriki transformations, Naruto also gradually enhanced his skills, but for most of the time, he only used half of Kurama (the Nine-Tailed Beast) during his transformations, meaning that he only used half of his full potential. Now let us see how the official databooks list his powers:
| Databook | Ninjutsu | Taijutsu | Genjutsu | Intelligence | Strength | Speed | Stamina | Hand seals | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First | 2 | 1.5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 14.5 |
| Second | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1.5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 18.5 |
| Third | 4 | 3.5 | 2 | 3 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 5 | 1.5 | 26 |
If looking exclusively at the numbers, Naruto isn’t the strongest character in Naruto; in fact, even Sasuke’s numbers are higher than his as per the official databooks. Yet, Naruto was able to defeat not only Sasuke but every other foe that appeared throughout the franchise, thereby showing just how powerful he really was.
Naruto is certainly the most powerful and most skilled shinobi from the whole franchise and there is certainly no doubt that he has grown since his debut to become a formidable foe for anyone who faces him.
Who Would Win: Naruto or Goku?
Now, Naruto and Son Goku have never fought each other and since the manga writers aren’t all that keen on inter-universe crossovers, they probably never will (perhaps in a video game, since they’re known to have such events, but that’s not really credible).
The problem here is that the worlds of Dragon Ball and Naruto are still quite different when it comes to the execution of some fundamental concepts, which makes it difficult to fully compare these two in a completely objective way.
It is rather difficult to compare Naruto’s numbers (see above) with Goku’s skills, and not just because a lot of Goku’s skills are just interpretations of what he could do, rather than actual demonstrations of the limitless potential he has.
So, how to compare them properly? Well, if we analyze the three groups we did with Goku and compare them to Naruto’s numbers, we can clearly see that Naruto doesn’t really do all that well against Goku, save for their endurance.
Goku’s powers are a couple of levels above Naruto’s, despite Naruto’s command over the Nine-Tailed Beast. The Nine-Tailed Beast is Naruto’s strongest weapon, but even it couldn’t do much against Goku’s Saiyan powers.
Goku was able to defeat actual gods in the recent iterations of the manga, despite not being a god himself, and even earlier he was able to defeat the likes of Piccolo and Frieza, both of which were more powerful than any other character. It is worth mentioning that Goku was not even close to his full potential at the time.
Their techniques, which is a related issue, are on a high level and both are masters when it comes to their respective worlds. The only issue is that Goku’s techniques seem to be far superior to Naruto’s.
The speed is also an interesting factor, but Naruto wasn’t really the fastest character in his world, while we have some indications that Goku became the fastest one in his world. This is why we think that Goku triumphs in terms of speed as well. Their endurance, though, is something they share and we believe that they could both last equally long in a fight.
The only issue Naruto would have here is that Son Goku gets stronger as the fight progresses, which means – the longer the fight, the less chance he has to win.
And with this, we can conclude our brief analysis. Based on the four most important categories, we have concluded that Goku would be able to defeat Naruto in a fight.
It would not be an easy fight, for sure, and it would probably last long, but in the end, due to his superiority in practically every category, Son Goku would be declared winner in this ultimate clash of the two best martial artists in the world of manga and anime.
