In the Dragon Ball anime, the villain Fused Zamasu displayed an intriguing transformation known as "mutation" during his climactic battle with Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks. This grotesque change granted Zamasu increased size, strength, and durability, allowing him to hold his own against powerful opponents like Super Saiyan Blue Vegito. Despite gaining power, the mutation came at the cost of Zamasu's fragile mental state deteriorating further.

Zamasu underwent this monstrous transformation to achieve even greater strength in the hopes of overpowering his Saiyan opponents once and for all. However, it was ultimately a manifestation of his unstable emotional state and a downward spiral into madness. While the mutation boosted Zamasu's physical abilities, it did not alleviate his deteriorating immortality or insanity. Let's take a deeper look at this monstrous transformation - what it does, how Zamasu achieves it, and its role within the story.

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What is Mutation?

Mutation is classified as a type of "Giant Form" that warps and enlarges a user's body. While some characters like Piccolo or the Serpent Demon Clan can willingly achieve giant stature, Fused Zamasu's mutation was an unintentional and disfiguring change to his physique. Mutation granted Zamasu a monstrous new appearance and increased physical abilities at the cost of his mental stability. This mutation marked a radical departure from Fused Zamasu's usual graceful and reserved demeanor, warping him into a deranged shadow of his former self.

Zamasu's Distorted Physique

When Fused Zamasu activated his Mutation ability, it drastically altered his physical appearance. His entire right half became corrupted and enlarged into a massive purple, fluid-like mass. Additionally, his right iris turned purple while his right sclera, or the white part of the eye, became yellow. These disfigurations showed the breakdown of order and balance within his fused body. It also granted him a substantial boost in both bulk and overall size. His height noticeably increased as his muscle mass expanded abnormally. Even his aura was disrupted by the transformation, changing to match the hue of Goku Black's Super Saiyan Rosé state rather than its original white color.

Upon powering up further in his battle against Vegito Blue, Fused Zamasu's mutated right side grew even more grotesquely exaggerated. His muscles ballooned tremendously, enabling him to tower over Vegito at more than double the height. His aura also evolved again, with the inner purple glow within his Rosé coloring brightening intensely like Future Zamasu's energy. In total, Mutation reconstructed half of Zamasu's physique into a hulking, discolored mass that reflected the disarray within his psyche and soul.

How Zamasu Achieved His Monstrous Power

Gowasu, Zamasu's former master, provides insight into what drove the mutation. As only half of Fused Zamasu comes from the immortal Zamasu's soul, the other half from Goku Black's Saiyan body, an imbalance existed. Zamasu's intense hatred of mortals and emotional turmoil caused this imbalance to break his body down. The mutation could thus represent the physical manifestation of Zamasu's unstable inner emotions.

After being damaged in battle by Goku's Kamehameha and kicks, Zamasu purposefully triggers the mutation. He strikes himself with divine light, transforming a power boost. With Vegito posing a serious threat, this new power was necessary to keep fighting. The mutation wasn't a natural evolution so much as a self-inflicted corruption driven by Zamasu's psychological fractures.

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Augmented Mutation's Abilities

Mutated Zamasu gained enormous increases to his already overwhelming might. His brawn expanded tremendously, allowing him to fight on par with Super Saiyan Blue Vegito's speed and strength. Even after emotional turmoil caused his instability to spike, enlarging his entire body further, Zamasu nearly kept up through brute force alone. Most notably, Mutation massively enhanced his resistance. He withstood Vegito's Final Kamehameha, a technique stated numerous times to be universally destructive. He also survived Vegito's immensely powerful Savage Strike. This allowed Zamasu to outlast Vegito's fusion time limit, a testament to how drastically Mutation bolstered his resilience.

Additionally, Zamasu's waning immortality received a significant boost from the transformation as well. Though heavily injured by Vegito and later Future Trunks, Zamasu's formidable healing and longevity factors kept him mobilized and fighting. Even with his psyche crumbling into madness, Zamasu was formidable enough through mutated rage and resilience alone to challenge both Saiyan/Namek hybrid Future Trunks enhanced by Super Saiyan Rage and Spirit Bomb empowerment. Ultimately, only the combined assault of Trunks' newly enhanced Sword of Hope was able to fully destroy Zamasu's physical being.

Role in the Final Battle

Zamasu's activation of Mutation directly led to one of the climactic final battles in all of Dragon Ball. Realizing Zamasu posed too immense a threat after tapping further power, Goku and Vegeta were forced to perform the Fusion Dance and become Vegito once more. This set the stage for an epic showdown between order and chaos - the balanced, calculated might of Vegito against Zamasu's disrupted yet Herculean strength in his aberrant mutated state.

Even Vegito's ultimate finishing attacks could not overcome Zamasu's invigorated immortality due to Mutation before the Potara fusion wore off. After defusing, Goku and Vegeta were helpless in their base forms against the enraged, nearing-insanity Zamasu. This desperate scenario is what compelled Future Trunks to achieve a new heightened Super Saiyan form and develop his game-changing Light Sword technique. Ultimately, it was these factors together that allowed Trunks to finally liberate his timeline once and for all by destroying the eternal threat of Fused Zamasu, mutation and all.

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Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball is a franchise by Akira Toriyama which follows the adventures of Goku, a powerful warrior who protects the earth with his group of friends. A recent title from the series is Dragon Ball: The Breakers, an action style game where 7 players have to survive being hunted by the Raider.

Created by

Akira Toriyama

First TV Show

Dragon Ball (1986)

Latest TV Show

Dragon Ball Super

Upcoming TV Shows

Dragon Ball DAIMA

First Episode Air Date

February 26, 1986