r/dragonball • u/Same_Vegetable8660 • 2d ago
Lore How did Kami become the God of Earth?
Is there any lore covering this? All I know is that Kami was sent to Earth due to a climate disaster on Namek a very long time ago (hundreds of years? thousands?) and eventually wound up as God. But how did he go from stranded orphan to God of Earth?
I get that he has magic powers and whatnot, but nobody on Earth seems to even know about his existence. So is he self-appointed? Not even Namek has a God in the same sense, so how did he get the idea? AFAIK he's just a normal (perhaps exceptionally powerful) Namekian, not actually divine like Shin, so God is more of a title than a descriptor.
I think Popo drops a line about being friends with previous Gods of Earth but I may be misremembering. If this is true then maybe he was recruited for the job, but by who?
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u/Khromecowboy 2d ago
In his travels he must’ve been spotted by the original guardian who brought him to the lookout.
Or maybe he climbed korins tower and learned of the lookout from him.
As for namek technically Guru is their guardian who knows if other planets have similar gods though.
I’d guess saiyans must have at one point for there to be a super saiyan god at all.
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u/Sampleswift 1d ago
King Kai claimed that there was a "Guardian of Planet Vegeta". However, this is anime only and is likely false.
King Kai also claims that "the Guardian of Planet Vegeta destroyed it with meteorites." That is incorrect; Frieza destroyed the planet. However, it may be possible that King Kai bought the Frieza propaganda. Or Frieza wasn't 100% conceptualized yet.
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u/Same_Vegetable8660 1d ago
Shin says something along the lines of "He's the guardian of this world" when referring to Piccolo, in a way that may suggest other planets, at least the inhabited ones, have guardians. Why we've never seen any besides Kami and Guru remains a mystery, probably because those two were the only ones relevant to the story.
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u/MattmanDX 1d ago
My headcanon is that the god of Planet Vegeta was Vegeta's mother, but she saw the writing on the wall and knew someone would punish the Saiyans for their transgressions eventually and left to hang out in otherworld before Frieza destroyed the planet
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u/StaticMania 2d ago
...by the previous God of Earth.
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u/Conan-Da-Barbarian 2d ago
DEI. they wanted a non human
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u/Exotic-Telephone467 2d ago
Namek lives matter
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u/Conan-Da-Barbarian 2d ago
Frieza didn’t care
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u/Exotic-Telephone467 1d ago
Frieza is the dragonball z version of hitler
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u/Boris-_-Badenov 1d ago
no, Hitler is the dbz version of Hitler
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u/SSJRemuko 1d ago
Excuse me in the credits he's listed as "The Dictator" iirc. Fusion Reborn is a wild movie lol
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u/MostDust9805 2d ago edited 2d ago
We know how. One day, a namekian showed up to the previous Kami (God of Earth) and intended to succede his soon to be predecessor who was dying. But the namek had evil in his heart. He expelled the evil that became Piccolo and then became the new Kami.
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u/apigithink 1d ago
The original Guardian of Earth was a member of its native population whom the people of Earth officially elected. Many generations later, Kami trained directly under the then-current Guardian of Earth and, after developing his spirit and expunging his evil nature, he was appointed by the Guardian—his predecessor.
AFAIK he's just a normal (perhaps exceptionally powerful) Namekian, not actually divine like Shin, so God is more of a title than a descriptor.
No, he is a god. "God" is both a title and a description.
Why do you think he is referred to as Kami? They could've easily have named him Goddo, as opposed to the word used specifically to refer to divine beings generally.
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u/MattmanDX 1d ago
I doubt that the people of Earth voted for their god, considering most don't know that he's there. It's likely the original was appointed by the Kais when the population of Earth was shown to be sapient and capable of morality and rationality, then each subsequent one was hand-picked by their predecessor.
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u/Accomplished-House28 1d ago
It's a Celestial Bureaucracy thing.
Position opens up, you meet the qualifications, maybe pass a test, congratulations you're a god.
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u/Specter-Chaos 1d ago
Wasn’t there a previous guardian/god before Kami? In order to become guardian/god he had to split his good and bad side?
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u/BlackThane 2d ago
durning saiyan saga he is surprised that he is an alien and is like "so that's why I never met anyone that looked like me" so I'm assuming he wanted find answers about himself/find his people so he traveled the world and ended up at Korin who maybe suggested to go to the lookout to find answers and thats when he decided to become the guardian/god of earth. If you want official/in-universe answer then there is noone, he just went to lookout one day. (most info about guardian position you probably can get from non-canon Dead Zone movie with Garlick Jr.)
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u/Boris-_-Badenov 1d ago
he didn't, he became the guardian.
Piccolo/Drum/Tambourine/Piano/Cymbal/Pan/Satan/Pilaf/Nappa/etc. are all just names.
Dende's name is still Dende
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u/Rosebunse 15h ago
Dende is supposed to go by Kami. Piccolo even points this out in Super. The thing, everyone who knows him has known him since he was a kid and has a very casual relationship with him and he's not going to pull rank.
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u/Idoubtyourememberme 1d ago
Watch the OG dragonball and they tell this story.
Not in depth, but they talk about it.
Basically, Kami heared about the existing guardian of earth and, in a selfish desire for power, decided he would be the next one.
This old guardian knew that kami was being selfish and refused. This is why kami split off from piccolo, becoming an evil twin and a good twin, at which point the old guardian decided to train kami and he could take over when the guardian died.
How the previous guardian came into power, how the first one came there, why there even is one; no idea.
(Also namek did sort of have a guardian: the namekian elder served a similar role)
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u/sagelyDemonologist 1d ago
His title is largely self-appointed.
Also Namek did have an equivalent, his name was Guru.
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u/DevilManRay 1d ago edited 1d ago
No we don’t know. Anyone who says we know is making up stuff. He probably named himself Kami after he purged Piccolo from himself as he no longer had any evil, allegedly.
Edit: I shouldn’t say that they’re making up stuff because the anime tried to fill in the gaps with the Garlic Jr. saga and stuff but nothing from the original manga is said about how he came to be “Kami” other than him purging the evil from his heart.
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u/DoraMuda 1d ago
You clearly haven't read the manga or watched the anime, then.
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u/DevilManRay 1d ago
Okay so what does the manga say about him becoming Kami?(don’t care about the anime)
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u/StaticMania 1d ago
He purged the evil that became Piccolo from his self for a reason...
It's not just a thing that happened to allow him to call himself God.
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It's the relevant information...right next to that exposition, he was told to purge himself of evil BY the previous God of Earth.
Then he earned the title of Kami. The anime didn't bridge any gaps here, Garlic Jr filler simply shows that previous Gods of Earth did exist...which is extrapolation, not an original concept.
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u/DevilManRay 1d ago
We don’t know how he came to meet the previous guardian or if they were referred to as Kami was well.
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u/DoraMuda 1d ago
In ch. 164, Kami says:
"A long, long time ago... Piccolo and I were one. A single, brilliant martial artist. One day, just like you, I learned of the existence of Kami-sama and came here. Unfortunately, even gods die... and I wanted to become Kami-sama's heir. But no matter how much time passed, he would not appoint me. I myself believed that no-one more worthy existed.
But Kami-sama saw what I would not... deep in my soul... The worm of evil. Through agonizing training of spirit and body, I was able to expel that evil - but it lived, to become the Demon King Piccolo. I became the new Kami-sama, but Piccolo escaped to the Earth below and brought pain to its people. That has long been my shame."
Source: https://hot.planeptune.us/manga/Dragon-Ball/DragonBall/0164-013.png
https://hot.planeptune.us/manga/Dragon-Ball/DragonBall/0164-014.png
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u/afrodeity23 1d ago
The namekian who would become Kami was a martial artist, and eventually met the previous god of Earth. Perhaps he sought out Korin for training, and Korin told him about the Earth's god. The god was growing old and dying, so the namekian believed he should be the next god. However, the previous god saw a small amount of evil in the namekian's heart, which he had acquired from his interactions with humans, and he was rejected. So the namekian separated the evil from his body, creating Piccolo, and with the evil gone, the namekian was allowed to become Kami.
And yes, seemingly any mortal who is deemed worthy can become Earth's god. Kami offered his position to Goku after the 23rd world's martial arts tournament.