Raditz, the evil brother of Goku who was introduced in the very first episode of Dragon Ball Z, has proven to represent one of the most badass entrances in the history of the franchise. That long rockstar hair, Saiyan armor, and cocky attitude all made Raditz a very interesting character, not to mention the fact that he’s directly related to the main character of the franchise.
Goku’s brother tried to destroy the Earth. He kidnapped Gohan when Goku’s son was just a 4-year-old boy. Raditz even brutally beat down his younger brother, Goku. In other words, Goku had no chance but to do everything he could to take down Raditz. After a few episodes, Raditz dies after Goku and Piccolo team up to take him down. Since those times, we never get to see a significant appearance of Goku’s evil brother in the franchise, and that’s sad.
We’ve spoken in a previous article about why Raditz needs to return in future Dragon Ball content: anime, movies, manga, etc. But will that really happen? Unfortunately or not, the evil Saiyan most likely won’t return in Dragon Ball, and we’ll immediately explain why.
The pressure is huge to bring back a powerful Raditz
It would make no freaking sense to bring back Raditz in a future Dragon Ball movie or in the Dragon Ball Daima anime, for instance, only for the character to be easily overpowered. The writers need to somehow make him much stronger than he was in early Dragon Ball Z, as he needs to be at least a bit close to Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, and the others in terms of power. The introduction of Raditz in Dragon Ball Z was way too badass to make him look weak in the future of the franchise. This may be one of the reasons why Goku’s brother might never come back, as he needs to look powerful enough, and there seems to be no compelling scenario to make it happen.
However, it was clearly stated in early Dragon Ball Z that Raditz was a weakling compared to Vegeta and Nappa. However, Goku’s brother was still vastly more powerful than the Z warriors at that point.
When was Raditz present in Dragon Ball after his death
We got to see a much younger version of Raditz back in the “Dragon Ball Super: Broly” movie that came out in 2018, but only for him to have a short dialogue with Vegeta. At that point, Goku’s brother was a child or a teenager, and he didn’t get involved in any fights. Apart from that short appearance, we could also see Raditz as a child in the Granolah arc of the Dragon Ball Super Manga, where Goku’s brother was seen playing with a beetle. It was surprising to see this surprisingly sensitive side of the evil Saiyan. However, both his appearances in the Broly movie and in the Dragon Ball Super manga referred to periods when Raditz was much younger than he was when he was first introduced to the franchise in early Dragon Ball Z.
However, Raditz appeared in Super Dragon Ball Heroes for just a few minutes as he fought Turles, but that show is just a promotional anime to promote a video game, which means that we can’t actually take it seriously. Either way, Raditz became Super Saiyan 3 in this anime and could only be seen for a few short seconds. What a bummer!
Who knows, perhaps Raditz has been busy all along training his Saiyan armor off in the Other World during the Frieza Saga, Cell Saga, Majin Buu Saga, the Tournament of Power, and so on. Maybe he’s busy becoming stronger, and he’ll come back one day stronger than anyone could have anticipated. Only time will tell for sure, but either way, Goku’s brother deserves a lot more credit than he has received so far in the franchise.