Genki Dama
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The Genki Dama (called the Spirit Bomb in English) is a fictional attack that appears in the Dragonball Z anime/manga series.
It was taught to Goku by King Kai while training with him in the afterlife. Essentially, the user gathers a huge amount of energy from all chosen surrounding living things, and conducts that energy into a massive, growing, very 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 (Frieza), he collects energy from the Namekian solar system. Even though it was powerful, it still wasn't strong enough to defeat Freeza.
The Spirit Bomb'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 Spirit Bomb powerful enough to defeat Kid Buu, though it needed to be combined with Goku's Super Saiyan 2 energy. Goku used a similar method to create a Spirit Bomb to destroy Omega Shenron, except in this case he gathered energy from every ally in the universe (with the help of King Kai).
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. Krillin 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 or soul. In the feature, Goku manages to channel the Spirit Bomb energy directly into himself while he is in his Super Saiyan form, supercharging his power, giving him a Spirit Bomb sized solar aura, and filling him with a straining fury.
Goku has used this attack on many occasions, most notably on Freeza, Majin Buu, and Omega Shenron. He also uses it numerous times throughout the Dragon Ball Z movies.
Cell stated that he was capable of using the Spirit Bomb, due to the fact that Goku's pure hearted cells are in his being. However, this ability is never shown.
The name is a pun on the Japanese word "Denki Gama" which means "electric rice cooker".
How to Gather the Energy
The user stands still and raises his hands to propel the energy as well as concentrate. Then, the user concentrates on gathering the energy. Once one has enough energy, the arms throw the energy ball, thus releasing the energy.Upon collision, not many can survive it or even hold it, with the exceptions of Vegeta and Freeza.
Vegeta survived it solely 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. Also it had so little energy that it only came from a few plants.
Goku lost most of the energy for the ball and the little that he had left was what Krillin hit him with. Frieza survived because Goku was not fully aware of Frieza's power that Freeza had the ability to transform into one more state of power. Also there was not enough life on Namek.
At that point in the battle Frieza was still concealing a significant portion of his power that is before the "final transformation" and as a result the Genki Dama was too weak. Further there wasn't enough life left in the Namek system to support a Genki Dama any stronger than what Goku gathered anyway.
The second Genki Dama succeeded though not directly, as Hercule was able to convince the Earth to share their energies with Son Goku. Though Super Buu reverted back to Kid Buu was able to push it back a bit, Goku's energies prevailed when his health came back, killing Kid Buu.
The final Genki Dama used the energy of the whole universe making it impossible to survive such power. How it wasn't able to destroy the Earth is of such question.
Flaws
The Genki-Dama has two 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 other 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 Dragonball Z chapter 122.Yamcha Controversy
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.
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