Volume 18 of the Dragon Ball Super manga, Bardock, Father of Goku, collects Chapters 77 to 80 and splits its attention between two eras. Most of it belongs to a flashback forty years in the making: the night the Frieza Force conquered Planet Cereal, and the low-class Saiyan warrior who chose to save two lives instead of finishing his mission. Around that story, the present-day war takes a darker turn, as the Heeters spend their own wish and produce a strongest warrior of their own.
What this volume collects
One long flashback and its present-day consequences fill the four chapters. Each chapter has its own guide in the complete chapter index:
- Chapter 77: Bardock, Father of Goku
- Chapter 78: Gas’s Wish
- Chapter 79: Gas vs. Granolah
- Chapter 80: Gas vs. Granolah, Part 2
The story inside
The flashback is the emotional core of the whole Granolah arc. Bardock, sent to Cereal as part of the invasion force, finds the Namekian Monaito and the child Granolah hiding from the slaughter — and instead of reporting them, he hides them, lies to his own comrades, and fights the young Heeter Gas to keep them safe. He even refuses the easy power Monaito’s Dragon Balls might offer, asking only that the wish be used for the Cerealians’ own sake. It reframes everything Granolah believed: the Saiyans were Frieza’s tools, not his executioners, and one of them is the reason he is alive at all. It also quietly explains Goku — the mercy and defiance his father showed here run straight through the series.
The present day offers no time to absorb any of it. While the Saiyans and Granolah were busy fighting each other, Elec collected Cereal’s Dragon Balls for himself and wished his younger brother Gas into the universe’s strongest warrior — the same wish Granolah made, paid for the same way. Gas arrives on the battlefield transformed, adult and merciless, and spends two chapters dismantling Granolah, the man he has resented since the night Bardock humiliated him. The volume ends with the fight still raging and the balance of the war completely overturned. Notice, too, how the flashback rhymes with the present: Bardock saved a child he was sent to conquer, and that child has grown into the man the Heeters’ wish now sends to kill everyone Bardock’s mercy spared.
Where it sits in the series
Volume 18 is the fourth volume of the Granolah the Survivor arc. It follows Volume 17, where Monaito’s arrival stopped the Saiyan–Granolah duel, and leads into Volume 19, where Goku hears his father’s voice for the first time and finds his own answer to Ultra Instinct. The full run is gathered in the volume index.
Editions and reading options
The Japanese edition was released on 4 April 2022, the English edition on 6 June 2023, and Japan’s full-colour digital edition on 4 July 2022; both ISBNs and the remaining bibliographic details appear in this page’s info panel. Our coloured edition guide explains the colour editions. The chapters here can be read officially in English through MANGA Plus, Shueisha’s own platform.