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The Genki Dama (called the Spirit Bomb in English) is a fictional attack that appears in the Dragon Ball Z anime and manga series.

It was taught to Goku by North Kaio while training with him in the afterlife. Essentially, the user gathers a huge amount of energy from all chosen surrounding life forms, and conducts that energy into a massive, growing, bright sphere of incredible destructive power. Energy takes the visual form of sparkling, glittering wisps when adding to the mass. The creation of the attack promotes a calm breeze away from the bomb, which turns into a strong continuous gust (once reaching about 50 feet in diameter); the expelling of colorful bands or radiation of Northern Lights-esque aurora.

At first Goku only assembles the energy from non-human life (ie. plants and animals). While fighting Freeza, he collects energy from the Namekian solar system. Even though it was powerful, it still wasn't strong enough to defeat Freeza.

The Genki Dama's energy was greatly increased after Vegeta made a suggestion to Goku while fighting Majin Buu. He suggested that they have all the earthlings give Goku their energy for the bomb. All Human-like beings extended their arms and hands to the sky to offer their energy, and collapsed afterwards. This succeeded in making the Genki Dama powerful enough to defeat Kid Buu, though it needed to be combined with Goku's Super Saiyan energy.

Additionally, the user must be pure of heart to manipulate and gather the energy, otherwise the attack will backfire on them and hurt or even kill them. Kuririn reveals during the Dragonball Z feature Super Android 13 that Goku cannot gather the energy while in his Super Saiyan state. This is because the state of Super Saiyan is inherently malicious and taints the heart and soul. In the feature, Goku manages to channel the Genki Dama energy directly into himself while he is in his Super Saiyan form, supercharging his power, giving him a Genki Dama sized solar aura, and filling him with a straining fury.

Goku has used this attack on many occasions, most notably on Freeza and Majin Buu. He also uses it numerous times throughout the Dragon Ball Z movies against Dr. Wheelo, Turles and Lord Slug.

Cell stated that he was capable of using the Genki Dama, due to the fact that Goku's pure hearted cells are in his being. However, this ability is never shown. It should be noted that Cell's heart is not all pure due to the fact that his goal was to kill his challengers and destroy Earth. It is said that when the Genki Dama user's heart is tainted he can never perform the Genki Dama. When Goku transforms into a Super Saiyan he can't use the Genki Dama. Cell can use the Genki Dama in the Dragon Ball Z Budokai games and Budokai Tenkaichi. It is possible that Cell can use the Genki Dama because his heart is "pure," although rather than being pure like Goku's is, Cell's heart is pure evil.

The name is a pun on the Japanese word "Denki Gama" which means "electric rice cooker".

[edit] How to Gather the Energy

The user focuses and communes with the life around him, asking for its latent energy (also known as ki). This process takes some time, often several minutes, so if the opponent is not distracted or incapacitated during the process, it can fail. A Genki Dama can be dozens of feet in diameter, depending on the amount of energy gathered. Once the user has enough energy, he hurls the Genki Dama toward the foe, hopefully obliterating him, her, or it.

Only two villains have survived impact with a Genki Dama: Vegeta and Freeza. Vegeta survived it partly because as soon as Goku had formed the Ball Vegeta utilized the primary weakness of the move and knocked him unconscious with a Mouth Blast. This Genki Dama had comparatively little energy, evident by its tiny size. Goku lost most of the energy for the ball and the little that he had left was what Kuririn hit Vegeta with.

Freeza survived because Goku was not fully aware of Freeza's power; Freeza was withholding a final, more powerful "transformation" which was the 100% final form and a significant amount of energy. However, it is possible that there was not enough life left in the Namek system (which is evident) for Goku to form a sufficiently powerful Genki Dama to destroy Freeza, even had he known how powerful Freeza truly was.

The third Genki Dama succeeded in destroying Buu, largely due to the assistance of Hercule, who convinced the people of Earth to contribute their energy. This resulted in a Genki Dama of far greater size and power than had been seen before. Though Kid Buu was able to push it back a bit, Goku's energies prevailed when his health came back, and he transformed into a Super Saiyan to push the Genki Dama, killing Kid Buu.

A final Genki Dama is used in Dragonball GT against Omega Shenron. This was the most powerful of all, being made up not only of all the energy on Earth, but all the energy in the universe. Like the one used against Kid Buu, this one was successful.

[edit] Flaws

The Genki-Dama has three major flaws. One (and the one to be concerned about the most) is the time it takes to gather the energy. This can give time for the user's opponent to quickly counter attack and realize what the user is planning and dodge the attack. The second is the size. If the ball is too big, the Genki Dama could destroy the entire planet that it is on, as revealed by Goku in Dragon Ball Z chapter 122. The third one is that if the user misses their target, one will have a lot of diffculty finding energy for another Genki Dama.

[edit] Yamcha Controversy

Main article: Sōkidan

Some fans of the English dubbed series misheard Yamcha declaring his "Spirit Ball" attack as "Spirit Bomb". It was mistakenly believed by some that King Kai taught Yamcha's attack to Goku, although the original Japanese audio makes it clear that this is not the case, since the original name for this move is the "So-Ki-Dan" (Spinning Energy Bullet/Ball/Projectile). A popular point of disagreement, the misheard line led to some Internet participants to vehemently state that "Yamcha does NOT do the spirit bomb!". Still it remains uncleared if Yamcha (after his second training at King Kai's) learned this move.