Shen Long (anime character)
From Dragon Ball Encyclopedia
Shen Long (シェンロン, Shenron; FUNimation "Shenron", Viz "Shenlong"; Literally meaning "God Dragon") is an Eternal Dragon from Planet Earth.
Contents
Biography
Shen Long is shown with the horns of a stag, sharp teeth, green scaly skin, red eyes, four toes on each foot, a long serpentine body (his tail takes up three-fourths of his length), long flowing whiskers, a long snout, crescent shaped nostrils, and flowing green hair on his cheeks. He is portrayed as an Eastern dragon, whose kind are benevolent and sacred in Oriental mythologies. Unlike the Western dragons with their large dorsal foldable wings on their backs, he has none. His kind are good at heart, but as a strong dragon, he has an aggressive temper and is impatient sometimes (for some reason more so than Porunga, the Namekian Dragon).
Shen Long can be summoned by gathering all seven of the Dragon Balls of Earth. Shen Long can bestow any wish as long as it does not exceed the power of his creator, who must be still alive, i.e. Kami/Piccolo or Dende. Multiple times in the Dragon Ball series, Shen Long has threatened to kill the summoner if they do did say a wish on time, or if they did not say a wish at all[citation needed] (although he has only attempted to kill someone in the The Tree of Might when Son Gohan's friend dragon, Icarus, tried to attack Shen Long). According to Son Goku, Shen Long cannot (or will not) grant the same wish more than once. The Dragon Balls cannot be used for one year after a wish is made, as they turn to stone after a wish is granted. The Earth Dragon Balls are relatively small, each about the size of a large orange.
The Shen Long of the Black Star Dragon Balls is red opposed to the Shen Long of Earth who is green. Unlike Polunga, Shen Long can only grant one wish per summoning until Dende upgraded him to grant two wishes.
Shen Long can wish back more than one person per wish provided that they (1) died less than a year ago, (2) died under a common circumstance, e.g. killed by a certain villain, and (3) have not already been wished back alive before. This is used to revive the victims of many villains, such as Piccolo Daimao and his men, Freeza and his men, and Cell.
During the King Piccolo Saga, after Piccolo Daimao used the Dragon Balls to regain his youth, he murdered Shen Long before he could disperse to prevent anyone else from using the Dragon Balls against him. After his defeat, however, Kami revived Shen Long to reward Goku for his valiant efforts against Piccolo Daimao. He had at first decided not to recreate them, as he originally had designed the Dragon Balls to encourage acts of bravery and give people a sense of hope and saw that the selfishness and greed of mankind had caused the Dragon Balls to be used in the exact opposite manner intended. It was only upon Goku displaying his undying love for his friends that he decided that there were, indeed, good people left in this world.
After Dende's remodeling, if a person only needed one wish then the Dragon Balls would scatter around the world in the same way as if someone had spoken both wishes. The Dragon Balls would only turn into stone for 4 months, however, allowing the finding of the Dragon Balls and summoning of the Shen Long eight months faster than usual. Using the Dragon Balls this way allowed only one wish the next time Shenron was summoned. Afterward, the Dragon Balls scattered and turned into stones for a whole year, the next time allowing the two wishes it normally granted.
In the manga, it was implied during the Buu Saga that Dende may have upgraded Shen Long during the seven years of peace, as Goku mentioned that they had two wishes left after they had wished for all of the people killed that day back to life. Piccolo Jr. replied that the immense amount of revivals during that time had consumed most of the Dragon Balls' power to the extent that it could only allow one more wish.
In Dragon Ball GT, an Evil Dragon known as Black Smoke Shen Long in the English dub was invocated from the cracked Dragon Balls (which were cracked because of Negative Energy) which emitted seven individual Evil Dragons. Goku, along with his family and friends, were significantly inconvenienced and had to battle them resulting in the Shadow Dragon Saga. After Goku and the other Z Warriors defeated the Evil Dragons, Shen Long appeared without being summoned. He healed Goku's wounds and granted one last wish before he was to leave Earth with Goku and the Dragon Balls in order to recuperate and teach Earth to stop relying on the Dragon Balls to solve their problems. One hundred years later, Shen Long presumably returned as the Four-Star Ball was seen.
Wishes
Non-grantable wishes
Shen Long can bestow any wish as long as it does not exceed the power of his creator, who must still be alive when he is summoned (i.e. Kami or Dende). He is unable to restore life to those that have died because of old age (but he can restore a person's youth), sickness or any other natural deaths. At the beginning of Dragon Ball Z, it is revealed that Shen Long cannot grant the same wish more than once, e.g. bringing back those from the dead that have been killed before, etc., and he also cannot grant a wish to defeat or kill a living being that surpasses the power of his creator. This means that the Dragon cannot kill an enemy that Kami or Dende themselves are incapable of killing.
Granted wishes
Before Dragon Ball
- An otherwise unknown character uses the Dragon Balls to become a king.[3] It is highly probable that the ramifications of this wish are still being felt to the present day, as the entire world is unified into one giant kingdom with regional provinces dotting the globe, as shown in the King Piccolo Saga.
Dragon Ball
- Oolong wishes for a pair of panties off a "hot babe" (though he just yelled the first thing that came to his mind as he was trying to stop Pilaf from making his own wish). Due to censorship issues, the English dubs changed this wish to "the world's most comfortable pair of underwear" (Brought forth Oceanus Shen Long in DBGT)
- Goku wishes for Upa's father Bora to be revived (Brought forth Haze Shen Long in DBGT).
- Piccolo Daimao wishes for his youth to be restored (Piccolo killed him shortly afterwards, he was later revived by Kami and Mr. Popo.) (Brought forth Nuova Shen Long in DBGT).
- Reviving everyone killed by King Piccolo and his sons
Dragon Ball Z
- Saiyan Saga
- Turtle Hermit wishes for Goku to be revived (Brought forth Rage Shen Long in DBGT).
- Frieza Saga
- Mister Popo wishes for all those slain by Freeza and his Freeza's Force on Planet Namek to be revived. (Brought forth Syn Shen Long in DBGT.) This is the only wish that Shen Long does not know if he is able to grant.
- Cell Games Saga
- Yamucha wishes for all people killed by Cell and the other Artificial Humans to be revived.
- Kuririn wishes for the self-destruct bombs in Artificial Human No. 17 and Artificial Human No. 18 to be removed.
- Majin Buu Saga
- Bulma Brief wishes for all of the good people killed the day of the Tenkaichi Tournament to be revived. This results in Kibito being brought back to life along with the victims of the Tenkaichi Tournament. (Brought forth Naturon Shen Long in DBGT.)
- All memories of Majin Boo to be erased from the populace of Planet Earth save for the memories of the Z Warriors. (Brought forth Eis Shen Long in GT.)[4]
Dragon Ball GT
- Shadow Dragon Saga
- All of the people of Planet Earth who were killed after the doorway to Hell was opened (during the Super 17 Saga) to be brought back to life (Shen Long's last wish).
Films
- Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies
- Pansy's wish for the end to the Blood Rubies.
- Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure
- Goku's wish for the revival of Bora.
- Dragon Ball: The Path to Power
- Goku's wish for No. 8 to be rebuilt and the bomb within him removed.
- Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone
- Garlic Junior's wish for immortality.
- Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest
- Doctor Cochin's wish for Doctor Uiro to be released from his icy prison.
- Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might
- The wish to restore the forest.
- Dragon Ball Z: Lord Slug
- Slugg's wish for eternal youth.
- Dragon Ball Z: Broly: Second Coming
- Son Goten's wish to himself that his father be present. An image of Goku appears, however, he did not summon Shen Long, who acted on his own.
- Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn
- Shen Long appears, but no wish is made due to his inability to grant the one Gohan wants, leading to a somewhat comedic ending.
- Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon
- Hoy's wish for the abnormally sealed Music Box containing Tapion to be opened.
- As they say their goodbyes to Tapion, Goku and friends mention that they will summon Shen Long again to wish all the people back to life who had died in the battle against Hirudegarn. (This part of the conversation is only mentioned in the Japanese dub.)
- Dragonball: Evolution
Other media
Main article: Cross Epoch
- Crossover with One Piece
- Hercule wishes to become a king. After this, Shen Long invites his friends to his cave for a tea party during the one-year break.
- Dr. Slump
- Shen Long granted a wish for a tractor for the Penguin Village.
Voice actors
- Japanese dub: Kenji Utsumi (Originally) and Masaharu Satō (Onwards)
- Ocean Group dub: Don Brown
- FUNimation dub: Christopher R. Sabat
- Harmony Gold dub: Mike Reynolds (Movie 3)
- Latin American dub: Ismael Larumbe Sr.
- Portuguese dub: Ricardo Spínola
Trivia
- It is shown in Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai that Shen Long cannot grant wishes to someone he cannot understand.
- In Shin Budokai, it is shown that his power cannot cross dimensions, or timelines, (which contradicts what is said in regards to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber during the Fusion Saga). Fusion Reborn also hints at this when he states that he cannot grant the Z-Fighters wish to prevent the Dead from escaping Hell as it was a problem that originated within Other World and although he is capable of moving the dead souls back to their dimension they would just return.
- In Shin Budokai, it is shown that when someone is wished to a certain place for a certain purpose they cannot leave until it is finished, and forms of translocation like Instant Transmission do not work.
- In Shin Budokai, it is shown that he may leave after a certain amount of time if the person in question doesn't give the wish under a time limit.
- Although he is known as the "Eternal" Dragon, King Piccolo kills him after he wishes for eternal youth, although "Eternal" could simply mean he does not get old and die, but can still be killed.
- During the Namek Saga, when Freeza tells the Namekians about the story of the Dragon Balls which he had heard, the Dragon shown in his imagination is Shen Long even though Freeza had never seen him before.
- The Dragon Fist technique vastly resembles Shen Long himself.
- After the Cell Saga, Shen Long is able to grant two wishes. Yet, in Fusion Reborn, he can grant three wishes and in Wrath of the Dragon, he can grant only one (though this may be due to the Dragon granting the one wish in the Buu Saga to revive Vegeta's victims, but the other wish not being used so they could another wish in 4 months). It should be noted that the Japanese dub of Fusion Reborn mentioned two wishes, so the three wishes line was a dub error.
- In Dragonball: Evolution, Christopher Sabat is credited as the voice of Shen Long, however, whatever lines he may have had were not kept in the final cut of the movie.
- When Shen Long revives someone, they appear where their body is located and all injuries healed up. However, if the body was destroyed, the person will be revived in the exact same place he died, regardless if it doesn't exist anymore. This was why at first it was a problem to revive Kuririn and Goku (who was thought to be dead after Namek was destroyed), as reviving them would bring back to a planet that doesn't exist so they would have died in the vacuum of space. However, the souls can be moved to the Next World checking station and thus allowing the revived to appear where the dragon was summoned instead.
- Shen Long's original design changed over the course of the Dragon Ball timeline, as his underside changed from green to a more yellow or minilla color.
- There is a sort of plot/logic-hole concerning Shen Long and Kami: During the Vegeta Saga, it was revealed that Shen Long could not grant a wish that would kill Vegeta and Nappa before they arrived to Earth because his powers were limited to that of Kami's, suggesting that Shen Long could only accomplish what Kami could. If this were true, then Kami could also revive people from the dead, etc and there would be no need to gather the Dragon Balls to summon Shen Long.
