In this form, I'm just a bit more dangerous...

Son Gohan (孫悟飯 Son Gohan) is the elder son of the Dragon Ball series' primary protagonist Goku and his wife Chi-Chi, and the older brother of Goten. He is named after Goku's adoptive grandfather, Gohan.

Despite being a hybrid between Saiyan (father) and Human (mother), Gohan lacks a passion for fighting, unlike his father Goku, and prefers to do so only when the need to defend his loved ones arises. However, much like his father, he possesses a friendly and confident attitude, but can be a little naïve and shy. Like his mother, he’s studious and adventurous, but also inherited a streak of sometimes-quick temper. Ultimately, Gohan is fiercely devoted to protecting his friends and family and fights alongside the Dragon Team in the defense of Earth for much of his life.

As a Super Saiyan 4 (スーパーサイヤ人４ Sūpā Saiya-jin Fō), Gohan experiences considerable changes in his personality and appearance. The Super Saiyan 4 form first appeared in Dragon Ball GT and was later expanded upon in Dragon Ball Heroes. The form—usually abbreviated to SS4—is a different branch of Saiyan transformation from the earlier Super Saiyan forms, separate from the Dragon Ball Z canon (Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan 2, Super Saiyan 3) and the Dragon Ball Super canon (Super Saiyan God, Super Saiyan Blue).

NOTE — This is an alternate version for greatestpotential, which pulls Gohan from the Majin Buu saga of Dragon Ball Z. Information on Gohan’s normal appearance and personality are found there, as well as a summary of his powers and his permissions, stats, and preferences. For potential fight threads, Gohan’s normal abilities are insanely increased as a Super Saiyan 4. And since this is Dragon Ball, I’m not even going to remotely try to quantify the power jumps.


Saiyans (サイヤ人 Saiya-jin, lit. "People of the Saiya") are a race of extraterrestrials in the Dragon Ball anime and manga and its adaptive sequels, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Super. Saiyans are outwardly very similar to human-type earthlings, except for their monkey-like tails. The Saiyans are a naturally aggressive warrior race who strive to be the strongest in the universe but are driven to near extinction before the start of the series, leaving only a handful of pureblood members left, and all resulting half breeds.

Saiyans possess the ability to undergo different transformations to enhance their power, ranging from natural causes to induced-by-training changes. Super Saiyan 4 is one of the many transformations they can take on and is a fusion of two different transformations: Great Ape and Super Saiyan.

A Saiyan’s tail allows him or her to look at a full moon or full planetary body (sunlight reflected from a planet) and undergo a metamorphosis into a giant ape beast with tremendous power, the Great Ape. When transformed, a Saiyan will generally lose most, if not all, control of themselves, akin to a berserker. Their aggressiveness reaches its peak and causes them to lose all rationality to primal instinct, becoming even more powerful and going on destructive rampages. Removing either the moon or the tail causes the Saiyan to revert to their normal form, losing the size and power boost.

Through intense training, and often fueled by intense emotion, Saiyans can drastically augment their speed, strength, and energy though Super Saiyan transforms, giving unbelievable enhancements to their normal abilities. Saiyans possess several Super Saiyan transformations, each different in appearance and the power they provide. For the majority of the Super Saiyan forms, the Saiyan’s muscle mass increases slightly, their irises turn bluish-green and their hair turns golden in color. Running out of energy or being rendered unconscious causes the transformation to wear off, removing the benefits.

The only way a Saiyan can attain the Super Saiyan 4 transformation is if they become a Golden Great Ape, a combination of Great Ape and Super Saiyan, and subsequently regain conscious control over the form. Upon doing so, the Saiyan shrinks down into a far more humanoid appearance but is gifted with the primal power of the Golden Great Ape’s greater offensive capacities and further intensified rage. This rage usually manifests in a calm, clever mind, but causes the Saiyan to become very cold and aggressive, sometimes even losing some of their rationality.


As a 1/2 Saiyan-1/2 Human teenage hybrid, Gohan is physically comparable to human-type earthlings, but due to his Super Saiyan 4 transformation, he changes from his normal appearance. He grows from his normal height of 176 cm (5'9") to a more imposing 183 cm (6'), and his increase in muscularity takes him from his normal weight of 61 kg (134 lbs.) to a strapping 73 kg (161 lbs.).

As Saiyans naturally grow stronger as they mature, and Gohan’s conditioned his body with intense training, he sports a very muscular and well-defined build, with bulging arm and leg muscles, noticeably broad shoulders and narrow waist, and a powerfully-sculpted torso with pronounced pectoral and abdominal muscles. Conversely, despite his defined body, Gohan retains a very athletic physique, with lithe limbs and streamlined shape, keeping with his excellent speed, agility, and flexibility. Gohan takes after his father in appearance, including Goku's facial features such as his eyebrows, eyes, and jaw. However, he has his mother, Chi-chi’s, light peach complexion, and, like his parents, is considered quite handsome by others.

Apart from the increase in body size, Gohan’s SS4 transformation also gives him some very noticeable physical changes that reflect his primal side. Most obvious is the short coat of scarlet-red fur covering his body. His fur has a soft, rich texture and follows the contours of his physique closely, not obscuring the lines of his muscles, but does leave his head, neck, chest, upper stomach, hands, and feet bare. On his wrists and ankles, his fur stops in a small flare right above his hands and feet, but comes to a smoother, more-abrupt end rimming the outlines of his neck, chest, and stomach muscles. Hearkening back to his primitive Saiyan roots, Gohan possesses a long monkey-like tail extending from his body just at the base of his tailbone. His tail is covered in the same scarlet-red fur as his body and is prehensile and strong enough to double as a fifth limb as he needs.

Gohan has the hallmark spiky black hair almost all Saiyans possess and wears his in a shorter style that stands on end in a spiky formation, with a single bang hanging over the right side of his forehead and reaching just below his eye. However, thanks to the SS4 transformation, Gohan’s hair lengthens at the back and becomes wilder, extending down his back to his waist via a relatively well-kept mane of thick spikes, and draping two long pointed bangs of hair down both sides of his neck to rest on his collar and upper chest. Additionally, Gohan’s black eyes change to defined golden-yellow irises and black pupils like his father’s, and he possesses a crimson shadow trim around his eyes and over his eyelids, giving his normally-gentle visage a very fierce and penetrating expression.

Clothing-wise, Gohan goes bare-chested, forgoing anything on his upper half save for the blue wristbands his mentor Piccolo provided for him. On his lower body, he wears baggy, purple silk pants like Piccolo’s, and holds them up with a blue obi, a belt of cloth wrapped several times around his waist. Finally, he wears the same style of brown, pointed shoes as Piccolo, again mirroring his comfort in wearing clothing of Namekian origin. Granted, while Gohan can normally wear whatever he wants, upon transforming into this form, his upper clothes are shredded by the transformation and flung off, leaving him just in whatever lower clothing he was wearing, making his Namekian clothing a more logical choice for normal wear as a Super Saiyan 4. That said, alternate clothes he might end up wearing—at least the lower halves—are his school uniform (brown pants and black belt/shoes), his Great Saiyaman costume (black bodysuit and white boots), or his father’s fighting gi (orange pants and blue obi/boots). Considering his wristbands, clothing on his wrists or hands tends to get spared, including watches and gloves.


As a Super Saiyan 4, Gohan’s personality changes thanks to the nature of the transformation. His previous kindness and caring are suppressed in the face of internal rage, manifesting in a very cold and aggressive attitude. He speaks quieter than normal, his tone is serious, and his facial expression becomes very stern, intense, and focused, if not normally seen as angry. Due to the anger the form requires, his temper can be triggered quickly if someone or something important to him is threatened, and he tends not to hold back on his opponents.

This stems from Gohan’s previous habit of becoming arrogant, cocky, and vengeful once he reaches a new height of strength, something his SS4 form exacerbates. For example, he shows a good deal of enjoyment in his superiority over his opponents and expresses smug satisfaction when overpowering them, taunting his enemies with challenging poses and smirking when they’re unable to defend against him. Similarly, he becomes ruthless enough to press an assault even if his opponent is struggling or retreating and shows a ready eagerness to kill someone who’s injured or killed someone he loves. While it’s a tossup between whether he’ll attempt to end a fight as fast as possible or whether he’ll drag it out to torture his opponent, it usually comes down to why he’s fighting in the first place.

Beyond his arrogance, Gohan tends to become “drunk” on his power and not think as clearly, sometimes even losing some of his rationality in the process. Since the SS4 form increases a Saiyan’s primal nature, Gohan can lose control of himself and thus have trouble controlling his power properly. Case in point, to eliminate an opponent, Gohan fired a full-powered Kamehameha at them, heedless that the Earth was directly behind his opponent. The attack required the full power of Goku's x10 Kamehameha and Vegeta's Final Shine Attack combined to overcome it and prevent the Earth’s destruction. Similarly, though he may be willing to listen to someone at first, if he feels the information isn’t important or applicable to him, he’s likely to ignore their words and make his own decision regardless or in spite of any assistance or helpful advice.

However, the negative side effects of Gohan’s SS4 transformation aren’t permanent. His cold aggression, arrogance, and irrational behaviors can checked by his family and friends, most frequently by people he respects or loves. After the almost-world-destroying event mentioned above, Goku quickly called his son out on his mistake and gave him a short lecture on the dangers of losing control like that. Gohan instantly showed embarrassment over the incident and apologized for the trouble, calming down shortly after. Similarly, he’s not above being called off on an assault, as Gogeta was able to make him halt his pressure by simply telling him to wait. Considering Gogeta’s power and Gohan’s respect for his father and Vegeta, the interruption made him stay his hand. Regardless of the damage his negative traits cause, Gohan is mature enough to accept the blame (sometimes too much) and deal with the consequences of his actions he’s responsible for.

After recovering from the initial change into a SS4, Gohan normally takes quick control of himself and mellows the majority of the personality changes. When he’s not being influenced by his primal side, SS4 Gohan behaves mostly the same as his untransformed self, showing a calm and clever mind capable of formulating plans, working together with others, and functioning as a skilled team leader. His kindness and caring nature return and he’s quick to protect his family and friends from danger, possessing a truly pure and gentle heart. He still retains his interest in knowledge, adventure, and academics and is eager to learn new subjects and explore things, from reading books to listening to scholastic lectures and seeing new sights when he’s breaking from studying or training.

Due to his pure heart, Gohan can be shy when it comes to things he’s uncomfortable with or lacks understanding of, but thanks to his mother’s influence, is respectful towards his superiors and has good manners around others. However he can be at times just as oblivious as his father and other friends when it comes to romance or physical affection thanks to his naïve-but-good-natured personality. Though he doesn’t like fighting much and despises senseless violence, Gohan truthfully loves martial arts and enjoys fighting as a sport. It is also clearly obvious that he enjoys his superhuman powers but keeps a low profile due to his humble nature and not wanting to deal with the fame and attention that would come with it. All in all, though he still retains a slightly quieter and more serious attitude, once the primal SS4 coldness wears off, Gohan’s back to normal.