Dragon Ball Super tends to get a lot of flack from fans. Does it deserve it? Probably, but we’re not here to talk about that. Rather, we’re here to discuss one aspect Dragon Ball Super consistently gets right as a series: new characters. Time and time again, Dragon Ball Super brings new characters into the mix and they end up transitioning nicely into the main cast. It’s hard to imagine Dragon Ball as a whole without Beerus or Whis at this point. Introduced in the Universe 6 Tournament arc, Hit quickly became a fan favorite thanks to his time stopping abilities and cold, but respectful, attitude.

His rivalry with Goku defined a very specific portion of Dragon Ball Super’s run, and it serves as a reminder that Goku, and by extension Dragon Ball, is still growing. Hit is one of the most interesting characters in the franchise in large part due to the fact that he’s deliberately mysterious. He’s been a presence for nearly 100 episodes and we still don’t much about him. That is, if you don’t do your research of course. If you get digging, you can start to learn quite a bit about Hit. He’s mysterious, but not so mysterious where you can’t uncover his secrets.

25 Goku Is Terrified Of Hit

Goku is not a character who feels fear all that often. How could he be? From the very beginning of the series, he’s depicted as one of the strongest characters on Earth. Rather than finding seemingly overwhelming opponents terrifying, he sees them as a challenge worth conquering. Goku is a man who takes pride in his ability to tackle whatever comes at him head on. Which makes his few moments of genuine fear stand out all the more prominently within the series.

Raditz is the first character to shake Goku to his core, offering him an opponent he’d never experienced; Freeza was the second, overwhelming him with sheer stamina and power; and Hit was the third.

Even as late as Dragon Ball Super, Goku is still depicted as someone who can feel fear. He’s fought a God of Destruction and mastered God Ki, but Hit’s mere presence is enough to unsettle him beyond belief. Not only is Hit one of the most composed opponents Goku has ever faced, he has one of the most obscure abilities in the series: time skipping. It isn’t a time stop, it’s a full-on skip where Hit effectively leaps ahead a few seconds to counter you. That alone should be enough to strike fear into just about anyone.

24 Why Hit Wears A Coat

Hit’s coat is a fundamental part of his design and one of the more visually striking aspects of the character. No one in the series, before or after, really has an outfit that comes close to matching the specifics of Hit’s coat. When it comes down to it, it’s not just a prop or an aesthetic element, it plays an active role in how he fights and approaches his battles. By keeping his hands in his pockets, Hit can ensure his opponents never get a proper read on him, making him time skip harder to track. In the manga, though, the coat plays a secondary role. There's power under that coat.

While fighting Jiren in the manga's adaptation of the Tournament of Power, Hit removes the lower half of his coat in order to give him a greater maneuverability for the fight.

Given its bulky design, it goes without saying that removing it would end up letting Hit fight better, but it’s also possible the coat is something like a limiter for Hit.

Think back to late Dragon Ball/early Dragon Ball Z when Goku would take off weighted gear to give him an advantage in fights. It follows that same kind of logic.

23 Manga Hit Is Way Friendlier

One of the most interesting distinctions between the anime’s version of Hit and the manga’s version of HIt is how they both approach their relationship with, and towards, Goku. In the anime, Hit is your typical stoic rival. He clearly respects Goku to some degree, but he doesn’t really show it, at least not overtly. He’s standoffish and cold, and we’re meant to accept that as part of his aloofness. In a sense, it makes him a bit cooler to be so distant.

In the manga, Hit and Goku actually get along fairly well to the point where they almost seem like friends by the time the Tournament of Power rolls around.

Perhaps it’s because Goku is actually blatantly stronger than Hit in the manga, but Hit warms up to him fairly quickly. The two smile at one another, actually partake in banter appropriate for rivals, and even rib one another during the Tournament of Power. Hit even jokes with Goku that, of course, the Tournament of Power would be his fault. In the manga, Hit’s rivalry with Goku makes a lot more sense than in the anime simply based off how they interact with one another. He doesn’t come off nearly as cool, but he does feel more personable and that, arguably, gives him more of a personality.

22 Guldo Did It First

Hit’s a cool character and all, but you gotta give credit where credit is due. The man is simply not the first telekinesis user in the franchise. He’s not even the first person to use a time-based ability! That honor, instead, goes to the esteemed Guldo of the Ginyu Force. Guldo, otherwise more accurately known as Gurd, is the greenest member of Frieza's elite mercenary group. Short, stocky, and with seemingly no physical prowess whatsoever, Guldo gets by on his ability to stop time and lock his enemies in place. Sound familiar? It should, because the only thing separating Guldo and Hit is that one is purple. Pay respect to your forefathers.

If you want to go even further back, Chaozu is the first real telekinesis user in the series meaning that both Guldo and Hit need to pay tribute to everyone’s favorite Chinese vampire.

While Chaozu can’t outright control time like his successors, he can freeze his enemies in place. In fact, that’s how he very nearly beats Krillin during the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai. He even uses the technique against Goku during the final match in order to help Tien Shinhan get a few free hits in. When it all comes down to it, Hit’s just a taller version of Chaozu.

21 Hit’s The Real Winner Of The Universe 6 Tournament

The Universe 6 Tournament arc’s ending has quite a bit of fun in trying to defy fan expectations. First, Hit totally obliterates Vegeta to the point where Goku has no clue what to do; second, Goku slowly figures out how to fight Hit and starts to counter him; third, Hit begins to try, overwhelming Goku; fourth, Goku mixes Kaioken with Super Saiyan Blue in an attempt to completely overpower Hit; fifth, Goku forfeits the match because he realizes it wouldn’t be a fair fight since Hit can’t go all out; sixth, Hit throws the fight to Monaka out of respect towards Son Goku; seven, Universe 7 wins.

There are a lot of layers at play with the tournament, but one thing is certain: Hit totally won. Although Goku pulls out Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken in an attempt to knock Hit out, he also realizes that anymore of Kaioken would likely destroy his body. In the event that Goku stayed in the fight and didn’t turn Kaioken off from Super Saiyan Blue, his heart would have either gave in or Hit would have beaten down a now worn out Goku. Realistically, there was just no way for Goku to win. Forfeiting to Monaka is nothing more than a pleasantry. Hit won.

20 Hit’s Mini Arc Is Filler

While the original Dragon Ball had no completely filler arcs, Dragon Ball Z made use of the concept on two separate occasions when it started to catch up with the manga. The first filler arc was the Garlic Junior saga. By the end of the Freeza fight, the anime was only mere weeks away from catching up with the manga. To stall and buy time, they developed a mini-arc based around DBZ’s first movie villain. The second, the Otherworld Budokai, occurred after the Call Games, allowing the manga to make some more progress while giving Goku as alternate exit following the Cell saga.

As an original product not adapting anything other than Toriyama’s outline, Dragon Ball Super doesn’t really have filler, at least not in the conventional sense. Filler in Super is more content that wasn’t written by Toriyama and has no bearing on the overall plot. Hit’s mini-arc, which takes place after the Goku Black arc just serves as a way to revisit Hit before the Tournament of Power. It likely only exists because Toei figured fans would want a better exit for Hit, especially since he and Goku don’t get to fight in the Tournament of Power.

19 We Still Don’t Know How Strong Hit Is

On that note, it’s worth mentioning that we still don’t really know how strong Hit is. Hit’s mini-arc showed us a Hit going all out, but that arc is also filler meaning its content should not be taken seriously in the slightest. As far as the actual narrative as per Akira Toriyama’s outline, Hi has never gotten a chance to show off his full power. In the Universe 6 Tournament arc, he holds back in both his fight with Vegeta and Goku. In the Tournament of Power, he tries a bit harder against Jiren, but the rules clearly state that a fighter cannot, by any means, end another participant's life forcing him to hold back yet again. He could be stronger than Jiren for all we know.

In the former tournament, this hardly matters since Goku ends up quitting upon realizing that he wasn’t getting a legitimate fight against Hit. In the latter tournament, though, Jiren ends up defeating Hit and knocking him out of the tournament a little over halfway through. Worth noting, Jiren doesn’t take out Hit easily by any means. Hit even comes dangerously close to taking out Jiren with his time freeze. If the Universe 6 Saiyans popped in to help Hit, they likely could have taken Jiren out.

18 Hit Has Never Gone All Out

To further expand on the Hit mini arc being filler and the fact we still don’t have an idea of how strong Hit is, it perhaps goes without saying that we haven’t gotten a chance to see Hit go all out. In Dragon Ball Super’s five arc run, Hit only appears in two: the Universe 6 Tournament arc, the first fully original arc in DBS; and the Universe Survival arc, DBS’ final arc. While the stakes and drama are very much different between both arcs, the Universe 6 tournament and Tournament of Power are, at their core, just regular tournament arcs.

Specifically, what this means is that Hit is forced to hold back in every single one of his canonical fights.

Vegeta was so exhausted by the time he reached Hit that their fight was basically a freebie; Goku realized Hit wasn’t fighting for real and ended their fight; and Hit, despite seemingly marking Jiren, clearly didn’t try to assassinate him since it was a tournament, ultimately costing him the win for Universe 6. Maybe someday we’ll get to see Hit in a non-tournament setting and he’ll finally get a chance to fine. Or maybe we’ll just see him at the next tournament.

17 Hit’s More Dangerous Than Jiren

It’s a bold claim to make, but Hit genuinely is more dangerous than Jiren in almost every sense. Now, before you get all riled up over everybody’s favorite Pride Trooper who’s not Toppo, this isn’t to say that Hit is stronger than Jiren. When it comes to pure strength, Jiren is overwhelmingly the stronger of the two… but not to the point where Jiren would easily win in a real life battle independent of a tournament setting. Jiren can brute force his way through just about everything, but that’s all he can do. Hit, on the other hand, has a wide array of skills at his disposal. Assassins tend to be more dangerous than guys who just punch hard.

First of all, Hit is an assassin and a good one at that. He’s the most feared hitman in Universe 6 and it’s implied, through Toei mind you, that his services are even requested across the multiverse. Secondly, Hit can stop time. If someone marks you and Hit’s on the job, you’ll be down before you even know you’re being hunted. Lastly, Hit can lock you in place. Should you somehow discover Hit is on your trail, he can simply paralyze you without much effort. Jiren would just punch you really hard. Granted, it would hurt, but Hit being able to loom in the shadows is far more menacing.

16 Hit Has Never Tried A Day In His Life

What is it about Dragon Ball that draws lazy antagonists to it? Beerus spends most of his time sleeping; Freeza reveals he’s never trained a single day in his life; and Hit ends up revealing that he, similarly, has never tried a single day in his life. For the entirety of Hit’s absurdly long life, he’s never met an opponent he found worth trying against until he met Son Goku. In a sense, this pushes the “we’ve never seen Hit go all out” concept even further since it implies that Hit’s not even making use of his full potential, instead settling on what he has naturally.

This is almost exactly like the Golden Freeza situation except without the explicit fanservice. Freeza reached God levels in four months of training, but Hit is already God level. If he really dedicated himself to training, and dedicated himself in the way that Goku dedicates himself, he could potentially be unstoppable. He shows in his fight against Goku that he gain theoretically train and enhance his time stop so it’s entirely possible for him to just perpetually freeze time if he pushes himself far enough. Of course, that likely will never happen since it would eclipse Goku way too much and this is a series that tends not to linger on rivals.

15 Hit Would Have Won The Tournament Of Power

There are two specifics ways in which Hit would have, very easily, won the Tournament of Power for Universe 6. The first way would be if the Universe 6 Saiyans stepped in to help him fight Jiren. In Hit’s match against Jiren, he manages to catch him relatively off guard after Goku fails to defeat him while using Ultra Instinct. In their fight, Hit actually pushes Jiren right to the edge of the arena. There, he locks Jiren with paralysis. Although Jiren ultimately pushes through the lock, the Universe 6 Saiyans could have taken advantage of the time freeze and knocked Jiren off themselves. From there, Hit could just dominate everyone else. No Jiren means no Ultra Instinct which means Hit wins.

The second way Hit would win would be if Jiren simply did not participate in the tournament.

Without Jiren, Goku doesn’t turn Ultra Instinct; without Ultra Instinct, Hit can use his time-based abilities against Goku; without Goku, Universe 7 completely falls apart. In a worst-case scenario where Goku did manage to get Ultra Instinct, Caulifla and Kale could just fuse into Kefla and team up with Hit to beat him. In a Tournament of Power without Jiren, Universe 6 takes the win easily since no one else would be able to reasonably knock Hit off the arena.

14 Hit Is Goku’s Oldest Rival

Goku’s had quite a few rivals across the series. In the original Dragon Ball, he makes rivals out of: Yamcha, Krillin, Tien Shinhan, and Piccolo; in Dragon Ball Z, he continues his rivalry with Piccolo and develops a new one with Vegeta; by Dragon Ball Super, Goku’s rivalry with Vegeta is in full force, but he’s also developing a brand new rival with none other than Universe 6’s Hit. Where most of Goku’s rivals are around his age, save for Piccolo who’s significantly younger.

Hit is actually quite a bit older than Goku. In fact, he’s hundreds of years older.

In a blink and you miss it moment during the Universe 6 Tournament arc, it’s revealed that Hit is roughly 1,000 years old. It’s a fact that’s not really dwelled on by the cast, but it’s one that speaks volume to the level of danger he presents for Goku. Hit isn’t just absurdly strong, he has centuries of experience to draw from. Goku’s rivals have always grown alongside him to the point where even Yamcha was once equally matched with Goku. Hit, however, is already at a massive advantage. He isn’t growing alongside Goku, he’s already grown and knows how to fight.

13 Manga Hit Is A Pushover

It’s always a give and take when it comes to the Dragon Ball Super manga. On one hand, Hit in the manga is super friendly and seems to genuinely get along with Goku to the point where he comes off a far more dynamic character. On the other hand, he’s a total pushover who Goku easily overpowers and barely makes a dent against Jiren in the Tournament of Power. Compare manga Hit to anime Hit who legitimately comes off like a genuine monster at times. Nobody knows how strong he really is which makes him all the more imposing.

Hit can barely compete with Super Saiyan God Goku in the manga. 

To give you an idea of how comparatively weak manga Hit is, Goku never uses Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken against him because he never needs to. Simply using regular Super Saiyan Blue is enough to push Hit back. In fact, Goku even ends up using every single Super Saiyan form against Hit just to test him. When he gets to Blue, Goku’s basically earned the win. Of course, he still quits because he realizes Hit isn’t going all out, but Goku was never in any danger of losing like in the anime. Heck, even Vegeta would have beaten Hit in the manga if he didn’t use Super Saiyan Blue earlier and drain his stamina.

12 Hit’s “Transformations”

Although Hit doesn’t have what most fans accept as conventional transformations, he does have access to two “pseudo” transformations that act as more than just typical power ups. In the anime, when Goku starts to overwhelm Hit, the latter develops a new state of being known by fans as “Awoken.” While Awoken, Hit is able to develop his time skipping abilities further through a technique called Pure Progress. The more Hit fights a stronger foe, the more his abilities begin to develop so long as he’s in his Awoken state. While he doesn’t have access to Awoken in the manga, he does have a similar unnamed form.

In the manga, rather than tapping into an Awoken state to utilize Pure Progress, Hit simply powers in a Super Saiyan esque manner that boosts his core strength. It doesn’t change his appearance or anything of that sort, but it does boost him up enough where he’s able to fight on par with Goku. Granted, he’s able to fight on par with a Super Saiyan God Goku and not Super Saiyan Blue. Remember how I said Hit was a pushover in the manga? We weren’t really done there. Even with a transformation, Hit can’t compete in the manga. Now that’s just sad.

11 Hit Loves McDonald’s

You know what’s not sad, though? The juicy taste of a McDonald’s hamburger fed to you by none other than Ronald McDonald’s biggest fan: Hit, Universe 6’s most feared assassin. If you’re trying to think back on Dragon Ball Super to find a single instance where Hit eats at McDonald’s or even just interacts with a hamburger, I suggest you stop because you aren’t going to find one. Hit’s love of McDonald’s doesn’t come from the anime, rather it comes from everyone’s favorite style of marketing: cross-promotion.

In Japan, McDonald’s released an exclusive Hit card for Dragon Ball Heroes. Hit's loving it. 

If you’re unfamiliar, which you likely are considering DBH’s relative obscurity, Dragon Ball Heroes is a Japanese arcade game where you use physical trading cards to build up a party that you then insert into the arcade cabinet. McDonald’s, always the fan of incentivizing income, offered a fairly decent Hit card at certain chains. If you got your hands on the Hit card, you basically got a strong party member at the cost of a cheeseburger. Sadly, Dragon Ball Heroes isn’t available in the West whatsoever and it doesn’t look like Japan has any interest in bringing it over. If you want to play Heroes you’re going to have to make a trip to Japan.

10 Dragon Ball’s Finest Boxer

If you’re watching a martial arts anime or reading a martial arts manga, chances are you’re doing so for the fight choreography and emphasis on the inner workings of the martial arts. Doubly so if you’re reading or watching Dragon Ball, a series so ingrained in its martial arts aesthetic that it would be wrong to call it anything other than a full-fledged Wuxia narrative. Of course, with a franchise that’s spanned this long, it’s only natural for it to dip into some other fighting styles. Enter Hit. He’s not your traditional martial artist in the slightest. Rather, he’s a boxer.

His fighting style is up close, quick, and fist based. Although many characters fight with their fists, Hit does so exclusively, even using a boxing stance paired with the appropriate side steps to fight both Goku and Vegeta in the Universe 6 tournament. As far as arc antagonists go, Hit is one of the more unique when it comes to core combat. That said, Hit actually isn’t the first boxer in the series nor is he the first one Goku fights. All the way back in the 22nd Budokai, Goku fights and defeats Panput, a Muay Thai kickboxer. Granted, he’s a different type of boxer, but it’s worth noting that Toriyama was already trying to play with different fighting styles just two years into the manga’s serialization.

9 Hit Starts Super’s Favorite Trend

Dragon Ball Super has this really bad habit of making the series win even though they lose. Or maybe it’s the other way around, where the heroes lose when they honestly just straight up win. Regardless of how you perceive the pattern, it’s undeniable that this is, indeed, a pattern. The Universe Survival arc notably avoids it by allowing Universe 7 to win outright, but the previous arcs all have cute little “twists” to keep them from being predictable as if predictability is somehow inherently bad when it comes to storytelling. The kicker? It all started with Hit.

The line between winning and losing was blurred with Hit. Goku losing to Beerus in Battle of Gods was refreshing. Just about every Dragon Ball Z movie up to that point had Goku pulling a win out of nowhere at the end, but Goku actually loses here and it’s not even close. It even ties into the series’ core themes, leaving the audience with something to think about. Resurrection F has Freeza getting his revenge with Whis’ turning back time so Goku can save the day. A bit odd and lacking narratively, but it fits the themes overall themes of failure. With the Universe 6 tournament, Goku just forfeits his match with Hit, making it clear that Super isn’t interested in conventional arc endings.

8 Hit’s English Actor Was Recast

Recasts aren’t really unusual for Dragon Ball’s dub historically, but it’s not really something you’d expect coming from modern Funimation. Dragon Ball Kai had a few recasts, but Kai’s entire purpose was to offer a version of Dragon Ball Z that was more accurate to the manga and, in the English dub’s case, actually accurate to the series as a whole. Recasts there were obviously going to happen since Funimation’s original dub was horribly miscast. Going into the Super era, though, it seems weird to recast actors. That said, that’s exactly what happened to Hit.

Since Xenoverse 2 came out before the English dub of Dragon Ball Super managed to cover the Universe 6 Tournament arc, Hit had to cast in English, but couldn’t audition with the material he’d actually be covering in the anime. Aaron Roberts ended up playing Hit in Xenoverse 2, but was not brought over for the anime likely because Funimation didn’t have much of a say in his casting, at least not as specifically as they’d like. When it came time for Hit to be in the anime, Roberts was replaced Matthew Mercer who will also be taking over all of Roberts’ responsibilities as Hit.

7 What’s In A Name? Hit/Hitto

Names in Dragon Ball have almost always followed some kind of naming conventions. Saiyans are named after vegetables; Namekians are named after snails; and Piccolo’s children are named after instruments. Other characters, who don’t fall into groupings, tend to just take on a name associated to either their role in the story or a simple pun that sums them up nicely without really giving them away. In Hit’s case, he actually has one of the simpler to understand names in the series. Hitto, as he’s called in Japanese, clearly translates over as Hit which ends up playing into two of his major aspects. To quote Champa, "Hit! Nice hit!"

The first, Hitto works as a play on words of hitman. Hit is an assassin, a hitman in other words, and he takes care of “hits” that his clients put on other people. The second, Hit’s fighting style is heavily based off of traditional boxing. His main style of attacking is hitting hard and fast with his fists. It’s as basic as a “hit” can get. Compared to other characters, Hit’s name is incredibly simple. Taking that into account, English speaking fans can get a sense of how Japanese fans feel when they figure out a name pun that relies heavily on Japanese wordplay.

6 Dragon Ball’s Fifth Assassin

Hit being an assassin is one of the core parts to his character, to the point where it’s one his only defining features in the anime. If you’re gonna talk about Hit, chances are you’re going to talk about him as an assassin. With that in mind, though, he’s not actually the first assassin we see in Dragon Ball. In actuality, he’s the fifth. Who are the other four? They all appeared in the original Dragon Ball, believe it or not, and in a very close proximity to one another.

The four other assassins are the four members of the Crane School.

Tao Pai Pai, Tien Shinhan, Chaozu, and Tsuru Sen’nin are Dragon Ball’s original four assassins. People often forget, but Tien Shinhan and Chaozu were legitimate villains when they first appeared. They were assassins in training and were more than willing to turn the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai into a violent battle royale where they would push their opponents to the life’s edge. Roshi ends up converting them into proper martial artists, but not until they’ve already been assassins for quite some time per the backstory. Hit’s defining feature is being an assassin, but he’s far from Dragon Ball’s first, or most iconic, assassin. That honor goes to Tao Pai Pai.