DRAGON BALL SUPER: A Massive Review

this video is brought to you by kamikoto knives Dragon Ball Super's rumored return is on the horizon but it's also a show that's got a lot of criticism over the years and not just for me from its humble and troubled Beginnings in development all the way to its somewhat ill-conceived plot elements towards the end it's no wonder Dragon Ball super has made a name for itself as one of the most controversial Dragon Ball properties in circulation but I ask is it as bad as people say or is it better nowadays in light of the recent films and manga Arc Super's fan base has grown and gone from strength to strength and seeing as I've shared my detailed and comprehensive thoughts on both Dragon Ball and GT respectively I think it's only fair that I share my in-depth and detailed thoughts on the show that effectively kick-started this channel everyone I hope you're ready because here's my take on Akira toriyama's most controversial Series this is my massive review for Dragon Ball super [Music] all right so because this is a beefy boy I figured like all the other massive Dragon Ball Reviews I've done I'll break this monster up into its clearly defined story arcs Battle of Gods and Resurrection F the two adapted films the universe 6 tournament arc our first Glimpse at new material in Super's anime the Future Trunks or Goku black are arguably the most popular Arc in the series and finally the universe survival Arc with the tournament of power the series is Big finale sounds simple enough right so let's dive into first and foremost the most troubled arcs in all of the series Battle of God's end Resurrection f having grown up with this series when it was announced that the Dragon Ball anime would finally be returning to our screens with none other than Akira Toriyama at the helm the excitement within me was bubbling to the surface like nothing else I'd get to see Goku and all the guys again Count Me In but it turned out that the first two arcs are remix of the movie 's told through a series instead of a film like they were written to be I'm sure this won't have any negative side effects at all so let's kick things off Battle of Gods episode 1. as First episodes go this really is a mixed bag I distinctly remember liking it back in the day and while there are aspects to it that are nice specifically Goku's interactions with Goten Mr Satan at the end and maybe some introductions to beerus the vast majority of this episode is spent avoiding the plot entirely it's like they're trying to spend as much time as they can reintroducing characters without any real reason as to why like there's literally a scene where Videl gives Gohan a book and Piccolo is seen staring at them from atop a roof like why the most important thing Piccolo does in this Arc is play Bingo but by far the worst aspect of this particular episode is the mini story that takes place within it Trunks and Goten looking for a birthday gift further down it doesn't feel like a part of anything and distinctly feels like a waste of time and it's only episode one with that said the ending to this episode I really enjoyed the compositing and the color used so it has that going for it episode two this episode deals with Vegeta mostly while the last episode featured a lot of reintroductions to various characters that don't add much to the story the character of focus I thought was Goku who began and ended that very episode it served to provide reason and context as to why Goku was training on King Kai's Planet the place where we find him at the beginning of Battle of Gods and so providing a reason for him to be there was a nice inclusion that added to the story or at least enriched it Goku receives money therefore he gets to go to King Kai's because Chichi allows him but this episode covers Vegeta mostly and while admittedly cute it doesn't provide for the character the same setup it did for Goku in the episode prior it's pretty much just him chilling out with his family on vacation nothing more before flying off in a huff like you'd expect him to it does plop him into the gravity chamber at the end like he was at the beginning of the battle of God's movie so at least they're getting into place albeit in a clunky Way episode 3. it's at this point I realize I still know all the Japanese lyrics to chozetsu Dynamic the first theme song to Dragon Ball super reminding me I've watched way too much of this show in this episode beers way back to his Homeworld with whis rambling about the Super Saiyan God dream he had the other night in addition to this the festivities for bulma's party start getting underway there's not really much to report here other than it is an entirely different location to that of the battle of God's movie The Party taking place on a cruise ship instead of the briefs compound Goku on the other hand is still on King Kai's Planet but he's wearing this lovely jogging suit while they do this really terrible run animation for way way way too long this is the first indication of something serious to follow the animation in this show is about to tank and it only gets worse from here the best part of this episode is during the bathhouse scene with beerus when whis introduces him to the man that defeated Frieza much to beerus's surprise and we see some nice reanimated scenes of Goku and Frieza on Namek it's pretty neat episode 4. I hate this episode I hate it I hate it so so very much I'm not sure if I hate it because I'm not a fan of the characters the writing or the fact that I know this entire episode is largely a massive waste of time but I assume it's a combination of the aforementioned beerus is on his way to King Kai's to confront Goku which is fine but nothing to write home about King Kai is stressing out and bulma's party is happening all the while Trunks and Goten check out the prizes for the various games at his mom's party this is when we catch up with the peel off gang they are fishing for food the boat is broken and they see bulma's ship passing man what a coincidence they get chased by a shark or something eat some food and look for the Dragon Balls we do get some training scenes with Vegeta and a much less visually impressive Kamehameha Recreation from the Battle of God's film before beerus and whis are Drive bringing the episode to a close episode 5. I can't begin to describe to you all the joy that this episode makes me feel but first a little history the funny thing about this episode is that when it aired the animation caused the world to point the finger and laugh at the show I mean it was awful entirely down to a decision made by management to give the show a super short pre-production window and so after they did to their credit but what they didn't count on was that I would go out of my way to preserve history and keep the originally uncorrected episode that aired in 2015 on my hard drive for years waiting for this very day to come so enjoy this uncorrected air date footage this is the first action heavy episode of the series 2 which for an action Shonen isn't exactly a good sign the entire episode deals with Goku's battle with beers on his search for the Super Saiyan God which needless to say doesn't go too well for Goku cycling through forms that resemble Super Saiyan 1 2 and eventually three which to the episode's credit has a nice kind of Animation in that form towards the end my favorite part of this fight however was this Frame I love this drawing it's like a freeze frame during one of those old action movies where you pause at just the right time to see their stunt double or something only on this particular occasion Goku's don't double grins with those vacant and blinking eyes into your so may he be immortalized forever the episode ends proper as Vegeta is alerted to Goku's defeat and beerus's impending arrival episode 6. this episode is a bit of fun but again I'm not the biggest fan Vegeta kicks off the episode while staring angrily in his hand before eventually finding he's in the company of beerus the Destroyer who is there again to look for the Super Saiyan God Vegeta enjoys a nice little flashback to his childhood that involves beerus after falling to the floor this sets up the president for Vegeta to have a mental block with fighting beerus the party itself continues Vegeta stresses out makes takoyaki which by the way are delicious Goten and Trunks have a water gun fight followed by yet more Vegeta nervous breakdowns the big action sequence in this episode comes as Vegeta fights a giant squid and beerus takes out Majin Buu over a disagreement involving pudding main point beerus is mad despite Vegeta's best efforts so it's time to fight episode 7. this is obviously another fighting heavy episode Majin Buu Vegeta Gotenks Piccolo Tien 18 and even Gohan throw caution to the wind and given to go clashing with the god of the beerus himself is in a hurry to blow up the planet and leave but we seems too distracted by the sushi on offered right as Vegeta is in the same position as his father before him Bulma intervenes and slaps Barris right in the face hold up I think it's quite funny here that she of all people is the first person to land a blow on beerus however taken aback by this beerus sends Bulma flying across the deck with a single slap of his own causing Vegeta to explode with anger again this isn't nearly as visually interesting as the film's version but it's at the very least more interesting than the rest of the episode and the majority of this show so far episode 8. I hate this episode the fight between Barris and Vegeta is average and not regular average Dragon Ball super average and the firing of that garlic gun always looks awful but that fight isn't what makes me hate this episode oh no it's that a large chunk of it is spent watching the Antics that surround a game of rock paper scissors with oolong yes I'm serious spoiler alert beerus wins and begins charging his blast but Goku's here running down the top of the ship like a goof he presents the idea of using Shenron to help the situation bringing the Super Saiyan God there for beerus episode 9. at this point you might have realized that the story is moving so goddamn slowly and not in a good way expanding ideas introducing new elements that adds more tension and depth to the story no no I'm talking about the addition of mindless Meandering useless scenes that serve no purpose Beyond bloating a story that was designed for a film not a series a film in this episode we are dealing with a portion of the story that took place an hour into the film's run time you know the part where Gohan learns that his wife is pregnant which allows him to do the ritual for the Super Saiyan God yeah that part meaning it's taken nine weeks to get to this part of the story and if you're talking about raw time spent combined with all nine episodes they've stretched that first hour of the film to over three hours in the anime and I feel every agonizing second of it but who cares Super Saiyan God is here yeah hey episode 10 Jokes Aside this Arc isn't all bad and it does eventually start to show some of its upsides once the fight between Goku and beerus gets underway on the Aesthetics front it's not impressive or anything but the artwork and character likeness has improved greatly this episode also moves much more than perhaps any of the other episodes that came before it with perhaps episode 5 being an exception though the art for that was well inspirational as you know one aspect of the fight within Battle of Gods I thought lacked in my opinion was the same thing I thought lacked in almost any of the Dragon Ball movie fights how the story builds up the spectacle of the battle for me a fight in Dragon Ball is difficult to make feel epic and Grand when it's only 15 or 20 minutes long within a film the best battles in Dragon Ball have been long and for me I only get that Dragon Ball fight feel when the fight trickles in episode after episode and in this one Goku starts to get a handle on the Super Saiyan God's power and it's a fun watching all on honesty episode 11 this episode continues the trend of the last episode this time improving the animation introducing more movement and some wonderful character acting supervised by totally animator naoke Tate the choreography is also more ambitious than the last with the action greatly ramping up as Goku struggles to keep up with the increased level of intensity beerus has introduced to the conflict as he elevates the contest to the stratosphere he also plays soccer with an energy ball just like in Dragon Ball Fighters This episode comes to a close with beerus stabbing Goku in the Torso sending him lifelessly Falling Towards the Earth but in true Goku fashion he finds the strength to Soldier on in the face of certain Doom next episode and this is where the show pulls a Dragon Ball super and disappoints me yet again so you know the way I was complimenting the last few episodes for their artwork and their ability to naturally build tension well this one sort of throws all of that out the window and replaces it with 90 more screaming doing nothing and executing the exact same move over and over and over and over again again this episode makes me bored and angry at the exact same time which is a weird combination of emotions I'm riled up but I'm not interested enough to do anything about it so anyway Goku and beerus didn't like the last couple of episodes and so they decide to Coast on this one by screaming and clashing fists again and again also the animator put Goku's arm on backwards to block this chop from Barris I hate this episode episode 13. so we've made it to the penultimate episode of The Arc thank God as the fight rages on from story perspective very little happens Mr Satan tries to bargain with whis to no success and as Goku and beerus continue to fight Goku loses his God form however despite this Goku doesn't notice that he continues to push Bears despite the loss of that form what is interesting about this episode is not necessarily the story but that this is one of the only episodes in the entire Series where tadayoshi yamamuro the character designer of the entire series decided to command the look of this particular episode he pretty much redraws over every single piece of Animation in this one correcting the character likenesses this is why every character looks perfectly on model more so than perhaps any other episode in this Arc episode 14. in this episode everything comes to a close pretty much the same way it did in the Battle of God's film for the most part interestingly enough the same animator That animated this in Dragon Ball super Broly Rio onashi animated the opening sequence of this episode's fight between Goku and beerus flying and fighting through the water Goku puts up one final struggle does well but ultimately cannot deal with beerus before neutralizing his blast and impressing the God of destruction this inspires beerus to spare the Earth well that and he really liked the food much to the relief of Goku and the others oh also before I forget you remember in the Battle of God's movie where Goku suddenly becomes overcome by a mysterious Super Saiyan God powered to stop beerus's blast you know demonstrating that he can control the Super Saiyan God power without ritual do you know that thing that shows Barris he's worth keeping around well yeah forget that in super Goku just punches the blast I'm serious he literally punches the energy blast that's all it took apparently cool My overall thoughts on this season are probably the worst review I could give anything it's meh cards are fine but not spectacular others are downright boring and bad bits are dotted throughout it's the most unremarkable I've seen Dragon Ball in a long while safe poorly executed and boring except for this part but little did I know what was to come around the next Corner watching this next Arc from start to finish for the very first time almost broke me it's time for Resurrection episode 15. Chichi tells Goku to get to work Satan commands is adoring public with Tales of how he defeated beerus as a Super Saiyan no less and Aliens show up that want to challenge him yeah this actually happens thankfully Goku is nearby when this commotion surfaces and Satan begs him to deal with the Alien Invaders Goku agrees but before he gets the chance to fight Chichi and Piccolo are nearby and that's what Goku delivers the best joke I've seen produced by Dragon Ball Goku basically wants to get away from Chichi here and he knows that he can't just fly in front of everybody to get away from her and so he asks Mr Satan to punch him away this is what happens wow [Music] 10 out of 10 best episode ever vital skill and it's something I actually enjoy a lot but there is nothing worse than inadequate tools for the job good sharp knives are essential not just for ease of use but also safety and kamikoto have really delivered with their range of high quality Japanese steel knives they come in this stunning Ashwood box which is wonderful for some heavy duty storage but also makes for a remarkably looking Christmas gift definitely something to keep in mind with the holidays coming up by the way now I am not the best chef in the world as I'm sure you can see as I chop up these vegetables for this gravy I'm making but that clearly doesn't mean they're not fit for pros these Japanese steel knives are used by Michelin star chefs all over the world thanks to kamikoto's awesome quality control each knife is individually inspected and comes with a lifetime guarantee it's actually kind of crazy just how sharp they actually are they really glide through just about anything which not only looks impressive but definitely makes me feel much more secure when cooking there's nothing quite as scary as trying to push a blunt knife through a hard vegetable and worrying about it slipping you definitely won't run into that issue with these bad boys that's for sure they really do look and feel premium each of these things goes through a 19-step process that takes several years from start to finish to complete kamikoto is running a massive Black Friday sale right now too so it's the perfect time to pick up a set they've also been kind enough to offer you guys an extra fifty dollars off any purchase with the discount code totally not Mark so head over to kamikoto.com forward slash totally not marked to help support the channel episode 16. The Next Episode kicks off with some very nostalgic very classic Dragon Ball Z Art and animation unfortunately the animator shuichi isaki only worked on a single episode during Dragon Ball Super's run but it is cool to see his work here nonetheless this episode deals with how Vegeta convinces whis to take him as his pupil now one of the aspects I do actually adore from these first two seasons was the time and effort taken to link both arcs of this story together seamlessly instead of picking up right where the resurrection F movie does with Goku Vegeta already in weeks's training it offers new content that helps set the scene and I love every minute of it also Vegeta struggling to cook as well as his Dynamic with Bulma is always fun to see episode 17. the last few episodes and this one included spends a ton of time focusing on the comedic aspect of Dragon Ball and honestly I'm here for it to a degree while I love the scene where Goku finds out that Vegeta has been training with weeks for months and burst through the wall hilariously I really don't like how childish and [ __ ] at Goku is in the second half of the episode bogging we least while he's eating to train him I think this is the first indication of stupid super Goku in the series and unfortunately it's gonna be a trend from here on out needless to say Goku convinces whis to train him and so together they make their way to beerus's world for what is still to this day one of my absolute favorite episodes in all of Dragon Ball super episode 18. I love everything about this episode the animation the character acting the facial expressions the fun the lore the story it's so fun and it's so Dragon Ball I'm a huge fan of training episodes in anime in general some of my most fond memories from Dragon Ball back in the day was being in awe at the concept of snake way alone of seeing King Kai's world and all of that and so when the time came for Dragon Ball super to take a swing at this with whis I was so damn ready this is the episode I watched more times than any other episode in Dragon Ball super I'm I'm not kidding I know I'm in the minority on this one but this was honestly such a fun watch dealing with the weird and crazy training techniques of whis the Dynamics between Goku Vegeta and times beerus all the wild Vegeta dealing with his own insecurities surrounding the situation if you haven't seen it check it out it works as a great Standalone episode 2 and to think this was made by the same guy who worked on episode 5. it goes to show time restraints were the cause and not the Talent episode 19. this episode covers pretty much the beginning of the Resurrection F movie following the freezer Force Reviving their Fallen leader as well as a little bit of training with Goku and Vegeta but again nothing nearly as interesting or as new as the previous episodes in all there's really not much to write home about here it's pretty much the same as the movie only retold in worse quality and while I like the theme that plays while Frieza is revived in Dragon Ball super the tune that blasted my eardrums in the film was Next Level hype in comparison episode 20. as I've said in this review time and again the story rarely deviates much if at all in any meaningful way from the original but this time it is different you see in the movie Frieza kills taguma but in this he just blasts him a bunch he'll be used to stall later don't you worry something of genuine interest as though is the moment Vegeta and Goku unlock Super Saiyan blue is actually shown on screen though in a nebulous sort of anticlimactic way sort of fitting for Super Saiyan blue if you ask me but I'll address that later there's some more Antics with Jocko a new character from the galactic Patrol he warns everyone that Frieza is on his way by showing off his drawing skills this was almost the thumbnail for the video I kid you not but that's everything in this episode oh Krillin gets a haircut before giving Master roshi a piggyback to the action and look it's 10 Shin hunt episode 21. so the scene is set and all the Earth's Defenders are there Krillin roshi tenshinan Gohan and Piccolo everything is pretty much the exact same except remember the way taguma didn't kick the bucket earlier well his character can now be used to waste even more time turns out he was frieza's training partner during his prep for Goku and because of that training taguma claims to have gotten incredibly powerful and while this is explained to us Goten and Trunks make their way to the action episode 22. the episode kicks off as talking about rips off Piccolo's arm causing Gohan to intervene when out of nowhere go tank shows off and head butts him in the groin I wish I was kidding always good to undercut the tension of a supposedly dire situation with a ball joke because gotenk's joke is now over he conveniently spits up into Goten and Trunks once again and no we don't see anything more from them for the rest of the story I'm glad this scene happened it was clearly very important and because the episode is full of things that literally come out of nowhere the namekian fraud of the captain Guinea was trapped inside shows up write something on the floor taguma reads it and Ginyu switches bodies with taguma what in the name of God is happening as talking as can you talk about is powering up we cut back to Vegeta and Goku as they are training in this special room designed to help them control their key like a god or something we then return to the action as Gohan is going Toe to Toe with Ginyu until he completely overpowers him using Super Saiyan Frieza takes this moment to interject plaster and Gohan with blast after blast sizing him up for the final blow when Yep this actually happens again and I really hate it there's no emotional weight to it and it feels cheap and recycled they can play all the sad music they want I do not understand the purpose of this scene and I do not care episode 23 this one pretty much brings a story back in line with the resurrection F movie minus Piccolo's corpse Goku and Vegeta get out of that Dimension they were training in Gohan Powers up to Max looking all sorts of scrawny and Goku finally reaches the battlefield in time to deflect a blast along with Vegeta who shows up to show Ginyu the door in other words the episode is saying okay everybody out it's time for act three we gotta get back on schedule next episode 24. these episodes Absolutely suck and now episode 27 the final episode of the okay fine I'll go back and talk about them episode 24 25 and 26 are absolutely brutal to get through especially when they first aired but even if you're talking about the remaster that corrected a lot of that downright terrible artwork the animation is still embarrassingly poor again I'm not lumping the blame onto the animators here they are the victims during this time period the stat behind each episode would receive copious amounts of ridicule and scrutiny from online and the local public completely undeserved mind you simply because people didn't understand the time restraints the brass at toei put on their schedules some episodes during this time period had to be completed in six weeks less than half of the time a normal episode should have to be created all of that aside however the episodes demonstrate Dragon Ball super at their most visually uninterested flat compositions unimaginative choreography and ridiculously boring back and forth between Frieza and Goku these three episodes demonstrated exactly why recreating the films was a boring idea sitting through this solid hour of bad super episodes was unbearable to say the least if you don't believe me check them out for yourself episode 27 okay we're finally here episode 27 and the final episode of The Arc and it's actually all right it's not amazing and it's not really better than the film in many regards but in one way it actually is I felt during the film I was waiting for Vegeta to finally get his hands on Frieza and what he did it was amazing and cathartic but it was over way way too soon in this they actually allow him to school and style and Frieza for a little while longer it's nice but again the majority of the episode is nothing to write home about outside of that one instance oh also the music that plays when Frieza blows up the planet is terribly suited to the moment it's not sad it's not even disastrous it's a track that would be better suited to the reveal of a Super Saiyan God sort of an uplifting ethereal track and when bulma's cries of Anguish over the loss of her family ring through that uplifting number there's the worst sense of Music misplacement it just feels so wrong and that describes a lot of the music throughout these first seasons of Dragon Ball super supplied by Sumitomo the composer for this series now he is a great composer I mean he created the soundtrack for Dragon Ball super Broly and that has some of my favorite music to be supplied for Dragon Ball in a long long time unfortunately for Dragon Ball super the music met the same fate as the animation as the pre-production window given to the series was far far too short to create a solid artistic vision and a solid Musical soundtrack and that pretty much concludes Dragon Ball Super's rehashed retellings of the Battle of Gods and Resurrection f movies yikes I can on some level understand the creative team's desire to remake the films it is extremely important for the viewers at home to understand and know why a purple cat monster is eating food next to a flamboyant blue Hollister model but on the other hand the material they added absolutely did not justify the 14 episodes dedicated to each of these individual sagas for long expanses of these arcs so much of it was incredibly boring and so many of the gags didn't work for me with that said there are some bright spots to these 27 episodes that I did enjoy as I said I did like how they linked these two sagas together and episode 18 is always a treasure gem in this ocean of mediocrity but overall the first two arcs I genuinely believe could have been skipped in favor of the films that do a much better job save for perhaps the first few episodes of the Resurrection F Saga and now that we have the movie adaptation arcs out of the way it's finally time to transition into something a lot more interesting in my opinion and that is Super's third official Arc the universe 6 tournament Arc foreign for me to say that the Recreations of the Battle of Gods of Resurrection F films didn't exactly set the world on fire but instead Towing animation and Dragon Ball Super's reputations across the entire world you simply couldn't escape it plastered on every Forum on every social media that would mention Dragon Ball super the memes were unavoidable fans clearly were not happy we were tired of remix we wanted something new and boy did we not know anything about how the animation industry worked back then things needless to say were not going all that well for Dragon Ball super then enter the universe 6 tournament Arc let's see how this goes episode 28 the episode itself kicks off as Goku and Vegeta are training on beerus's world under whis seen doing 50 000 one thumb one arm handstand push-ups while wearing incredibly heavy clothing out of nowhere a blast crashes in the surrounding Forest waking up in angry beerus that begins attacking Goku and Vegeta who as we previously established can barely move it turns out beerus's brother Champa Who We Are told is fat in a number of different and creative ways desires to challenge his brother to a food competition Champa much like beerus with his seventh universe is Universe 6's God of destruction having gathered the most delicious food his Universe had to offer beerus brings some delicious food from Earth to combat Universe 6's best efforts Goku calls Champa fat once again reinforcing this to us in case we forgot in the last 6 minutes and universe 7 wins the food competition thanks to some cup noodles Champa because of this desires to locate his universe's Earth for their food but finds out that it has long since been destroyed during this Exposition we find out a host of information regarding the universe's in Dragon Ball super and how they work each Universe has a sister universe that they share a ton of similarities with totaling 12 universes in all each one governed by an Angel and God of destruction Pearson Champa began to squabble leading to their respective attendance having to step in to stop the conflict Champa then suggests that since they can't fight each other they should host a tournament between their respective universes a 5v5 tournament where the winner stays on to face the next with the winner receiving the Super Dragon Balls beerus agrees and so Begins the arc I actually found this opening to be pretty good again not amazing but it hit all the marks introduced and established two vital characters the plot of the coming episodes and I'm always down for a good tournament so bring it on episode 29 beerus decides to leave it up to Goku Vegeta to figure out who their remaining teammates would be for Universe 7 with one caveat the captain is to be a mysterious Warrior of beerus's choosing who is according to him much stronger than Goku we fast forward to Earth where Bulma hits beerus again establishes a plan to use the Earth's Dragon Balls to find the Super Dragon Balls before Champa does all the while he and vados are off creating the tournament grounds however Shenron doesn't know where the last remaining Super Dragon Ball is thus Bulma is forced to create a Super Dragon Ball radar that she makes with ease by the way and hey she has a sister I guess using her sister titus's contacts Jaco and Bulma now make out a plan to search for the super dragon balls while Goku and Vegeta find teammates it's a nice little episode establishing the stakes and unpacking all the setup of the prior episode for us to better understand what the consequences are within the world episode 30. this episode is trash I'm not even going to spend much time on it it's just a crappy recap episode of the last two episodes and maybe a little bit of the other stuff but I'm serious the point is Goku and Vegeta recruit Piccolo and boo done next episode 31. this episode is really weird I mean I like it but I also don't so let me explain the episode is centered around the antics of Bulma and Jaco the galactic patrol officer as they pursue an individual called zuno that by Jaco's own description can answer any question asked of him he's sort of an all-knowing being and don't worry I'll address that in a second but once they arrive they realize that they require an appointment an appointment that they don't have and the appointment waiting list is quite long so it's a good thing that the person ahead of Jocko in the line was a low-life criminal that takes one of the servants hostage Jaco incapacitates the criminal with ease nabbing his place in line wow that's convenient and once inside they gave the big zun man some smooches bulma's official cup sizes revealed and zuno answers bulma's question about the Super Dragon Balls I thought this episode was funny and interesting in parts and really forced and lazy in others I enjoyed the mains with which Bulma and Jaco gain access to the question room but I hated that there just happened to be a criminal there before like what are the odds of that actually happening additionally I like the idea of Bulma taking the initiative to think of a way that she can gain the upper hand without Force like the others do showing that she is an active character in her own right that will do what she can to protect the Earth too but the fact that there is a plot device McGuffin character that knows everything is absolutely ridiculous and is horrendously lazy he was literally created to teach us about the Super Dragon Balls nothing else well we did get the cup size but who the hell cares about that because the tournament is starting in the next episode episode 32. what can I say I'm a simple man I hear a tournament is coming and I get excited this episode does contain the star of the tournament sort of but it also has a whole bunch of setup but it's fun setup so I dig it the episode kicks off with Goku and Vegeta inside the room of spirit in time or hyperbolic Time Chamber depending on your persuasion as they train for three years upon exiting said room or chamber both Vegeta and Goku have beards and stink like nothing else so that's fun whis has prepared a cube transporter to carry the combatants and The Spectators to the area Champa and fattos have created the tournament grounds within they meet monaka the strongest in Universe 7 apparently and Goku punches him in the face what a weird thing to do to someone you just met they arrive at the tournament grounds meet the competitors and take a test to make sure they aren't mindless Goku scrapes by with a pass and Majin Buu falls asleep entirely already the team of universe 7 is down to just four Fighters Goku Piccolo Vegeta and of course monaka who beers and CIS goes last Goku opts to fight first against the Xi Jinping looking character named botamo and a penguin alien sings the national anthem of the universe ending the episode episode 33. okay so we didn't get much action in the last episode but in this one we get the conclusion to two fights count them two fights Goku versus the president of China is up first and Goku gets off to a rough start but mostly due to him not having digested his food from the trip over properly he starts warping up doing some squats and jogging as he Dodges botamo's blasts he eventually warms up and starts going on the offensive but quickly realizes that this isn't going to be as straightforward as he once anticipated butamo you see has the ability to absorb a seemingly infinite amount of physical punishment without any damage sustained to himself however with that revealed the means with which Goku can defeat him becomes clear Judo throwing the bear out of bounds the winner of the first fight is Goku and so Goku moves on to the next round to fight Universe 6's second combatant Frost who looks like Frieza only you know but blue and apparently not evil in fact he has a reputation in Universe 6 as being a very good person according to Kaaba the Saiyan from Universe 6 Frost is a peacekeeper in his Universe acting on behalf of the week that can't defend themselves however once he starts fighting with Goku it becomes clear that he can't keep up with the Saiyan especially after assuming his super saying for it which came much to come a surprise as he has never seen that form before apparently without seemingly trying he puts frost on the back foot catching his initial attacks effortlessly beating him to a pulp causing his legs to buckle and Shake beneath him Goku requests a frost to quit but he refuses moving in for one more punch which again is blocked by Goku without much effort but this time something's wrong Goku Falls weary and frost capitalizes on this by knocking the sand out of bounds Goku is eliminated now that's what I call a cliffhanger Episode 34 Frost has eliminated Son Goku much to paris's dismay and so next up is Piccolo Piccolo begins dodging Frost initial attacks opting to immediately charge his Macan Coast to Poe or special beam Cannon depending on your persuasion through clever movements the utilization of some defensive techniques and a long underutilizability of his to stretch his arms Piccolo restrains Frost as he readies himself to release his finishing attack when suddenly as Frost moves his arm Piccolo 2 becomes weary and drowsy creating an opening for frost to take out Piccolo completely incapacitating him it seems the Frost has won the match however this time Jocko has an objection armed with fantastic eyesight he noticed that Frost much like during his fight with Goku has broken the rules utilizing a Barb on his wrist coated in a fast acting neurotoxin this is considered cheating and so both Piccolo and Goku are reinstated and it turns out Frost is actually Super Evil and in fact causes the war as he acts as a peacekeeper for once this is revealed Vegeta insists that Piccolo stands aside for him to fight Frost which he does without complaint next up Vegeta vs Frost I still don't understand why Piccolo is eliminated now for opting to switch places with Vegeta but whatever episode 35 this episode like many of the others that came before it deals with quite a lot it feels like and to be honest this entire Arc has paced itself rather well I think maybe one or two episodes were a little slow and one episode was entirely recapped but the vast majority has been quite good at staggering its plot points and story beats effectively in this episode episode Vegeta eliminates Frost with one lonely punch Frost tries to steal the tournament earnings while the next match is being set up hit intervenes however and incapacitates frost turns out hits rather strong who knew before the next fight begins Champa creates a new rule the next match will take place within a large box of sorts anyway it becomes clear as to why he does this as the match pushes forward while magetta the third fighter from Universe 6 can't fly he is incredibly strong and gives off tons of steam causing the arena to warm up dramatically with Super Saiyan alone not working for Vegeta and the air running out in the arena how will he deal with this new foe episode 36 Vegeta getting desperate throws everything at this tin Titan only to have it either be thrown back in his face or for it to have little to no effect at all gallic guns punches kicks and evasive maneuvers having achieved little to nothing for the same other than a very close almost lost by way of wring out causing Vegeta to lose his temper forcing him to use the most powerful technique in his Arsenal the final Flash the charge here is honestly quite nostalgic taking a lot of cues and visuals from the original one in the cell Saga the lightning surrounding the Saiyan spreads far and wide as it envelops the entire planet they are fighting on cutting up the land and Arena floor like butter Vegeta readies his blast takes aim and fires it towards magetta who to everyone's surprise takes it like a champ Vegeta then follows us up with a massive punch and some insults which honestly affected him much more than any of his attacks ever did leading to the universe 6 fighter getting knocked out of bounds the match is over Vegeta is the Victor and Ugg comes the next opponent for him the Saiyan from Universe 6 Kaaba episode 37. in this episode we get introduced to one of my favorite Dynamics to develop from Dragon Ball super period and it all starts here the match begins Vegeta and Kaba soon discover that they are pretty well matched in their base form however the situation for Kaaba becomes clear when he reveals he has never heard of a Super Saiyan and cannot change into one and in the middle of the fight he requests Vegeta to teach him this appears to enrage the prince as he explodes into Super Saiyan knocking Kaaba for a loop with a single blow like frost before him he batters and bruises the boy before grabbing him by the Scruff of his neck looking straight into his eyes promising to destroy his home and his family with all of this in the back of kaaba's mind it incites a dramatic transformation within it he's done it he's achieved the Legendary Super Saiyan form and as he explores his new powers and strength the Saiyan Prince Vegeta cracks a smile apparently this had been his plan the entire time this was training comma he tells him to keep pushing himself to never accept his limit and to let the difference between Vegeta and himself fuel his efforts Vegeta transforms into Super Saiyan blue shocking Kaaba yet again the reflection of Vegeta in his eyes vanishes from kaaba's View and before he even registers his disappearance Kaaba Falls the floor defeated Vegeta's last words never forget this pain it's a great episode and wonderfully establishes a story and role for Vegeta to assume as a teacher for the Next Generation but there's no time for celebration because Vegeta has steamrolled through three of universe 6's team now remains their Ace in the Hole their final fighter hit the Assassin episode 38 alrighty so this episode and the next are sort of where all the best action and business occurs in the arc but despite the next episode having everyone's favorite moment I genuinely feel this episode is the best one and we get a rare shot of some blood too which if we are talking about modern Dragon Ball is really rare the episode kicks things off with Vegeta now on his fourth opponent hit the final contestant from Universe 6 the Bell Rings The Ref shouts Hajime and Vegeta burst into Super Saiyan blue now this is something I thought was kind of weird Vegeta actually comments on the weak stance it assumes from the very beginning but Vegeta is standing like this arms down front facing with his face exposed leaning forward not only is this a terrible fighting stance on a fundamental level by Vegeta but this is also the first time I've ever seen him take a stance like this in this series at the first sign of movement hit zooms into action Vegeta remarking that he's very fast before taking a knuckle to the mouth instead of taking things slowly Vegeta launches forward before once again being swatted to the side with a strike to his neck the fight progresses much like this more and more blows Landon Vegeta as he continues to lose power to hit remarking to himself that he can't seem to see his movements at all and so he devises a plan he allows hit to land a strike on him but this time he catches the punch once he absorbs it this catches even the incredible hit off guard and now with the assassins grasp he can no longer die Vegeta falls to the floor lifeless hit is the winner as the match wraps up Goku and Jaco discuss hit and his movement with Jocko someone who prides himself on his ability to see remarks that it's like hit completely disappears while he's attacking the king of the galactic Patrol who is also there sorry I sort of glanced over that part at the beginning he says that it could be a technique known as the time skip a technique that skips segments of time up to 0.1 seconds allowing the wielder to attack unseen Goku then makes his way over to the starting point passing Vegeta on his way he asks if he has any advice for him Vegeta doesn't have any apparently whis at this time has the knowledge necessary to give Goku an advantage here or to at least level the playing field but he sees this as training reassuring beerus in a joking manner that they still have Universe 7's strongest fighter monaka waiting in the wings monaka it's revealed is a fraud without being aware of this Goku is Universe 7's Last Hope the fight begins yeah this is all in the the same Episode by the way there really is a lot in this one it's definitely an underrated episode I think because of its proximity to the next episode it goes on to ask Goku why he hasn't transformed Goku explains that he doesn't and he wants to save his stamina for later the attacks from Goku come from a number of different angles all while evading and faking shots all to no avail hit at this point recommends that he give up as taking so many hits to his vital areas could end very poorly for him Goku smirks and refuses because apparently he's found an opening Goku launches forward moves to strike but instead blocks anticipating his technique once blocked switching again to offensive Goku swings his fist towards the time skipping assassin grazing his cheek with his knuckle and look purple blood spoiled in this episode we are Goku attacks again anticipates the attack blocks it and anticipates where he'll move once again Landing his second consecutive unanswered blow the two go on to explain that they will start taking things seriously from this point on ending the episode episode 39. this episode is pretty much all action kicking things off off in Super Saiyan blue we see hits perspective of attack for the first time as he is once again taken off guard by Goku only this time he lands Square on his back attack after attack Goku is getting the better of the Assassin couple this with some wonderfully unmodel artwork and you have yourself some great scenes it does some sort of fake power-up explains that he's not like Goku and the others and can't just power up by screaming and we'll just have to improve on the Fly using his own abilities and he does just that increasing the scope of his time skip longer and longer because of this Improvement Goku is knocked to the floor once again with another heavy series of attacks struggling to his feet he reveals that he has to resort to his secret weapon a technique not yet perfected that runs with a massive risk now where have I heard that before that's freaking right my absolute favorite move in all of Dragon Ball has made a guest appearance in Dragon Ball super as the big finish to the battle I'm obligated to like this as a result I can totally see why this is a lot of people's favorite moment I mean how could you not it's incredibly exciting don't not spectacularly built up to by any means but not bad either I suppose the aspect of this that I really enjoyed was how I wasn't expecting it and how it sort of made sense to couple it with Super Saiyan blue given how we know that farm works I remember seeing this for the first time at like 1am lying in bed trying to contain my excitement the entire arena is enveloped in the red glow of the Kaio cave Goku is too fast and explodes from the arena Landing a clean strike against the freshly powered up hit he charges and fires his Kamehameha at hit ending the episode quite the finale episode 40. oh but wait it's uh it's not the finale Goku and hit go back and forth a bit longer but it's obvious that the best part of the fighting is over really eventually Goku's body starts giving him trouble before he chooses to Forfeit the match entirely refusing to act as a pawn for beerus and Champa besides now it's monaka's turn he gets to watch him fight it recognizes his sacrifice and repays his debt to Goku by throwing the match against monaka too Universe 7 is the winner monaka the Victor Champa is extremely angry and threatens to destroy his losing team that he created but it's cut short as some tiny figure flanked by some tall gentleman arrive on the stage beerus and Champa look worried episode 41 it's revealed that this is Lord Zeno he's pretty much the superior tibera Champa and everyone really including the Angels Goku being Goku walks up to Zeno and Strikes up a conversation Zeno actually really likes him then a reprimands beerus and Champa before announcing that he did really like this tournament and that he would hold a tournament similar to this in the future after that it's time to make the wish in the Super Dragon Balls apparently the last one that they were looking for was the very Planet they were fighting on the dragon is called forth and look it looks embarrassingly bad like like really poor clip art kind of bad it looks awful and the wish is made whatever beerus wishes that champa's Universe Got Its Earth back it was the sweet wish whatever and that's Dragon Ball Super's third Arc just when things were at their worst Dragon Ball super delivered some of its best well maybe that's going a little too far I mean the animation largely was okay not spectacular the story was very by the books despite some moments of genuine interest here and there it is a million miles better than the first arcs but why don't I have better things to say about this one well despite me really getting a kick out of the Kaioken moment the fight between Goku and hit is really lazy I thought the beginning is by far the best part watching Goku feel out the situation trying to figure it out but the second half is just move after move coming out of seemingly nowhere to even or flip the odds in favor of the next fighter hit just randomly gets better I mean I I don't get anything out of that it's not interesting also it's a tournament Arc that didn't have a resolution a final winner well I mean it sort of did I mean Morocco but come on is that how you want to end this yes I hear the comment section screams let's not forget that this is less than a third of the way through the series for what awaits us after this is the wickedly popular and massively confusing Goku black Ark Dragon Ball Super's Goku blacker it doesn't make any sense not an ounce milliliter or whatever your preferred unit of measurement is and I emphasize this because this Arc broke my brain now I'm not gonna lie to you guys this is gonna test our relationship more than that one episode of Dragon Ball super where Barry Khan tries to convince Videl that her good boy Gohan was cheating on her with actual photographic evidence and yes that actually happens but more importantly I need you guys to be my Videl on this one during this video I might say some things that you might disagree with but through all of this I will try to explain myself as best I can and that I love you I need you to look at this picture of me kissing Goku black I understand that I'm doing this not because I want to God no no I'm kissing Goku black because I have to for us I'm doing this for us now this point I'm aware that this is starting to look like I'm stalling and that's because you're right while I do remember enjoying this Arc of the show I'm also keenly aware that it doesn't make a single ounce of sense and I fear that my second trip around the block might tip me over the edge but again I do this for us so hold on there were a number of Filler episodes that took place between this Arc and the last five episodes in total to be exact They Don't Really connect anything and could easily be cut without any consequence to the continuity but because I know you're going to ask my opinion on them here it is super fast episode 42 totally fine somewhat fun episode where we get a rematch between Goku and beerus sort of it's some Slice of Life harmless fun to help unwind after the tournament nothing major episode 43 this is a really weird episode that introduces what I thought was at the time a new mechanic Goku losing control of his key due to his use of Super Saiyan blue in tandem with the Kaioken technique but it turned out to be a once-off never again having consequence in the rest of the series today despite Goku using that exact same tandem technique a number of times thereafter episodes 44 45 and 46 this fillerack is something that I thought could have been quite good actually but was only okay really at the end of the day the first episode is largely set up and boring the second episode is interesting getting to see Vegeta deal with the loss of his power and the third is a really underwhelming rematch of the Goku vs Vegeta fight overall I thought these were mostly boring and nothing to write home about okay it's time for black [Music] episode 47 this is the best first episode to any Arc of any Dragon Ball anything I have ever seen ever this might also be the single most interesting and compelling Dragon Ball villain introduction to show once again has ever unveiled at least to me all the parts are there opening effectively and fast by setting the scene establishing the hero and the current objective remaining undetected by a shadowy figure in the sky trunks's reality really can seem to catch a break here and it's not even five minutes in then his mom dies in a really tragic way right in front of him before he's given the responsibility to flee to the Past once again to search for help we then get introduced to Mai oh my similar in age now to trunks their relationship is also given time to breathe as they eat cat food again showing how dire the situation is for their timeline once again trunks this time with my runs into the shadowy figure in the sky on their way back to the time machine Mai is taken out but not really and finally the shadowy figure is revealed okay though for real when this episode first aired literally everyone had that face on ironically episode 48 the best part episode are its beginning and end clearly it's beginning my trunks is still delivered by the looming threat of Goku book and so is forced into direct conflict once again this is a great continuation from the previous episode keeping the tone and the drama intact trunks manages to distract Goku black long enough to peace out from that timeline and land himself into the present main timeline we are familiar with leaving GB all kinds of confused some stuff with Trunks and Goten in school takes place future Trump's arrives causing everyone to wig out and everyone dashes to the rescue he zaptive energy and out cold Goku gets some beans corn and yajirobi are playing limbo and Trunks wakes up next episode 49 okay so this fight it doesn't actually happen unless you mean this fight that's totally unrelated and happens like 10 minutes later in which case yes that absolutely happens trunks is brought up to speed he even explains how he dealt with Majin Buu which is a nice touch I think before going on to explain the whole evil Goku Stitch his timeline has been dealing with how almost all of humanity has been destroyed and that they are in a pretty desperate situation beerus and whis are not too happy about this time manipulation which honestly doesn't tell me anything other than that the writers needed a way for bears and whis to not get involved with trunks's timeline which again if I'm being perfectly honest is probably the most straightforward thing they did during this Arc oh and Goku black discovers that trunks escape to another time before following him and showing up at the end of this episode in the present clue hanger episode 50. I really like this episode and it's so pretty this episode is supervised by yuichi karasawa and I just think it looks pretty okay but like most things I have my issues with it I'll get all the bad out of the way first it's clear that the writers didn't put a ton of care into getting Goku and Goku black into the same space for their first encounter it's explained that Goku black followed the tear in Time trunks's Time Machine left behind and I'm like okay but then he gets pulled back in time because the tear is closing or something like what look just say it you wanted Goku and Goku black to fight and this was the only way you could make it work while also keeping them apart but whatever aside from that the fight between Goku black and Goku has some seriously polished and crisp artwork while also showcasing some really interesting and fun fight choreography it also stands in direct contrast with the rest of the arc which spoiler alert is completely shrouded in darkness like 90 of the time before piecing out black destroys trunks's time machine for some reason I thought he wanted trunks to be destroyed why would he get rid of his only way to the Future to be fair that is a minor nitpick and maybe black made a last minute decision not a big deal thankfully though once everything calms down Bulma reveals that she kept the extra time machine cell used during the cell's Saga that's a really cool throwback and one that really does a fantastic job at linking the past with the present of super in fact I'd go as far as to say that it's the best callback to the past so far easily I don't think I would ever have even thought of that episode 51. Mai is an older lady trapped inside a kid body whose best friends are a dog and a small Gremlin man to me her having a thing with trunks is weird and I can't shake that also this episode is total filler and completely boring Goku goes off the train in King Kai's beerus and whis are suspicious of the key given off by Goku black and the evil boy's plans are late to Bear next episode 52 another filler nothing episode that I found insanely boring which is weird because the beginning of the ACT did such a great job of sucking me in and getting the tension going much like the last episode Bulma is still working on the time machine repairing it what follows honestly it doesn't really impact anything it could be removed and nothing would change trunks tracks down Gohan to meet up they eat ice cream and have dinner go on having ice cream before dinner if you're a fan of Gohan and enjoy this interaction I get it but I personally found it to be a pointless distraction and very boring when trunks returns home from his day of debauchery with dragon Ball's bad boy he finds out that beerus whis and Goku are traveling to another Universe to investigate the mysterious key of Goku Black episode 53 I actually really really like this episode it's mostly talking but does have some action a decent chunk of comedy with stupid super Goku but more importantly deals with introduces and establishes the foundational motivations for one of the most important characters in The Arc zamasu the individual next in line to be the Supreme Kai of universe 10. there's a nice exchange between gowasu the current Supreme Kai of universe 10 and his pupil zamasu who upon entering the scene presents tea to his master kuasu explains that the tea is a reflection of his pure heart and as a result will taste wonderful with the focus on the teacup itself zamasu goes on to ask owasu questions regarding Mankind's deservedness of their watchful eye this conflicted Outlook in zamasu's head also clouds the tea glasses drink thinking and he notices this I thought that was a really nice inclusion there's a whole mess of stupid super Goku being annoying that I'm choosing to ignore and Skip because I hate it the fight between zamasu and Goku is actually interesting and fun albeit short facilitating An Elegant way for beerus and wheeze to better understand who black really is episode 54. there are a bunch of episodes that happen after the initial story beats are ironed out that really feel like padding trunks chilling out my in the peel off gang doing various things and now more waiting around while Bulma adds the finishing touches to The Time Machine thankfully though in this episode we finally get something at least a little bit interesting we haven't really as I've yet had a chance to see Vegeta and Trunks interact much since he returned and so if nothing else this scene needed to take place Vegeta spars with trunks testing his abilities introducing trunks of Super Saiyan blue and finally instilling within him the desire to always strive to be stronger the episode itself ends proper as zamasu's disillusionment Arc continues to spiral out of control his master gowasu seeing this decides to show zamasu the time rings how to use them and decides to bring the young Kai into the future of a particular race of Mortals on planet Barbary episode 55. so the point gowasu was trying to make forzamasu on planet barbary's future completely backfires and only reinforces the belief zamasu already held on too tightly now having seen his master shocked by the events that took place under his own control zamasu now has all the proof he needs to know that what he feels is in fact correct he must enact his plan to eradicate Humanity on the other side of things Zeno requests Goku to come over he wants to be friends with him apparently Zeno really likes him and decides to give Goku a button and not just any button a two-sided button that can bring Goku to Zeno or Zeno to Goku depending on which side he presses beerus naturally is terrified at the idea of this for obvious reasons the episode ends with Goku Vegeta and Trunks finally boarding the now finally repaired time machine and arriving in trunks's future however upon arrival they get attacked almost immediately by the Earth's remaining forces episode 56 hold your fire this may man isn't black what and people said Dragon Ball doesn't have social commentary for real though this episode is actually quite good and I really enjoyed it it's the first time the characters from Goku's timeline get to see trunks's affected future and man is it in a wreck we follow future Maya as Sheila is the resistance against Goku black before she leads trunks Goku and Vegeta through the catacombs and Subways they are forced to live in so few people remain Left Alive and she blames herself for not being strong enough or enough to protect them all Goku and everyone puts this insecurity to rest quickly thankfully these small character interactions felt very genuine and set the tone for the upcoming battles brilliantly this is what trunks is fighting for the little children soldiers and families all living in squalor and fear underneath the streets of their destroyed and tortured World Vegeta feels confident and ready leading in the challenge Goku black right away black arrives on the scene they fight leading to Black revealing his Ace and behold Super Saiyan Rose appears and Vegeta is taken out immediately because of course he is I guess someone has to act as the sacrificial lamb to create create the Cliffhanger for this episode episode action whether that's a good suggest we'll find out on a visual front first and for simple super has delivered so far supplied by natoshi Shira a fantastic action animator famous at this point for working on the original Dragon Ball Z anime and for supplying that awesome Cloud fight sequence between Goku and beerus in the Battle of Gods movie and no this will not be the last time we see his work in Dragon Ball super or even this Arc so get hyped for that but even taking that shortcut he supplied out the artwork Direction and and in part animation within this episode are largely far above the series average which is honestly a great sign from a story point of view this is where things start getting really silly though while Goku being able to keep up with black is somewhat believable trunks doing so is most certainly not someone who was being schooled by black in his base State while he was in Super Saiyan form should not be able to do what he's doing in this scene against a super powered Super Saiyan Rose Goku black it's ridiculous and makes zero sense even with his little rage boost which I wonder how many more of those we're gonna get they get defeated by black and zamasu but thankfully are rescued by yajirobi and Mai sending them back to the pass in a beaten Heat I guess it's back to the drawing board episode 58 zuno fills zamasu in on all that he needs to know about the super dragon balls and we'd cut back to the house where we see more stupid super Goku he forgot to bring the senzu beans that they prepared wait what he forgot yeah you know he forgot you know because Goku forces I mean senzu beans and blacks forces I sit back in my chair cringing again another moment where the writing staff had no idea how to create a scene without compromising either logic or character could you imagine the Goku who prepared for the Androids making this mistake the answer no episode 59 so in this episode beerus whis shin and Goku because he needs to be in almost every episode for some reason arrive in universe tend to try to figure out if zamasu is in fact Sinister they can't exactly reprimand him just yet as technically he hasn't done anything too wrong yet and so they need to test him for proof and they do pretty much just that samasu does the doongowasu Reese rewinds time and beerus akaism out of existence it's a cool scene punctuated beautifully by the score but there's not much to it in the way of narrative structure it's just cool to finally see beerus actually do something also beerus is convinced that this will fix all the timelines despite everyone knowing that that's not how time travel Works in Dragon Ball other than that in this episode trunks has a pep talk with trunks so that's weird albeit sort of cute episode 60. so the gang decided to go back to the future to see if the timeline has been miraculously fixed thanks to beerus can I just ask why are they going back nothing about them is different here they are just as strong and unprepared as they were before only this time they have senzu beans they were completely outmatched last time this is one of those moments in the anime that I think works far better in the manga now I am intentionally haven't mentioned the manga because I wanted to focus on the anime here primarily but for the sake of this point I'll use it as reference in the anime they go to the Future three times in the manga they go just twice once they fail they regroup and prepare as best they can before returning finally for the last time they didn't do this in the anime until the third time for some reason fool me once shame on you so they go back to the future and just when I thought they could make Goku's character any weirder they decide that he needed to have this bit of exposition foreign [Music] like he has two sons think about that how creepy is that well thankfully B and Z show up to save this awkward scene and Vegeta finally attacks episode 61 so it's revealed that zamasu is Immortal finally and that Goku black took out Goku already in a different timeline I'm not going to try to make sense of this tiny whimey stuff right now because it doesn't actually make any sense if you really think about it and I value what's left of my sanity right now we see zamasu and Goku Black Hog for a little too long but you know name a more iconic couple Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt eat your heart out it's revealed to Goku how black disposed of his family and him which leads to Goku getting all sorts of mad now don't get me wrong it is a cool scene but it's difficult for me to understand why he wouldn't be just as upset like that over bullmadine I guess because he has to have those hilarious scenes where he acts like an idiot around zamasu maybe what would Dragon Ball super do without that Goku black pulls a weird new move out of his butt I mean discovers new depths to his power and takes Goku out once again black starts posturing and gloating and making all sorts of evil noises as trunks looks on leading to trunks receiving his second unreasonable power boost of the Ark at least this time it looks cool episode 62. okay it doesn't look cool anymore it looks awful make it stop please make it stop okay so get this trunks on his own holds off a super powered Goku black and an immortal zamasu while Goku and Vegeta both Escape back to the past for a second time Goku literally starts laughing about how he punched himself to Chichi and Vegeta flies off to better himself before the next fight like he should have done the last time oh and actually okay Goku heads over to Master Roshi's to learn the mafuba which if I'm being completely honest is an ingenious way of dealing with an immortal villain that I personally had forgotten about episode 63 meanwhile in the future Mai decides that the best course of action that she should take is to shoot Goku black with a gun yep well that didn't work and oh look another unrealistic fight scene showing trunks acting way way more powerful than he should be if this story actually made sense but at least it looks pretty so black stabs trunks through the Torso with his energy blade and a few moments later trunks his back up on his feet smiling again that's neat want to share that power with the rest of the class trunks as soon as Vegeta Bulma and Goku arrive back in the future to help trunks black destroys the time machine immediately which is honestly a good idea okay look there's been silly moments in this show so far but they have a good plan right now with the mafuba and there's time to deliver a great third act so fingers crossed let's do this Goku and Vegeta start fighting black and zamosu Vegeta just wrecks black and it's really satisfying satisfying because you know how much it means for Vegeta to take revenge on the guy that defeated him personally and who ruined his son's life it's a great scene with some classic Vegeta one lighters episode 64. Vegeta continues to school on black until black blur is that Saiyans get their power through anger and then stabs his own hand to turn his energy sword into his Scythe just in case the Grim Reaper metaphor wasn't lost in any of us it's at this point Goku black turns into a ridiculous character crapping out new techniques without he even knowing what the hell is going on like it gets really silly well this is all happening trunks learns the MAF about in like a few moments and captures zamasu perfectly it turns out that Goku once again kind of forgot they aren't Fleet and euron's forces he forgot the damn seal for the motherboard to actually work I hate this Arc this was a great way for the story to dispose of immortal character and now it goes right down the toilet I guess it's time to go full marketing dummy mode now Fusion has joined the chat episode 65. now do you remember how much more powerful Vegeta was than Goku and Vegeta separately well I do and there's no earthly or Godly way that fusamasu should have any problem dispensing of either Goku Vegeta or Tran chunks even if they teamed up but whatever cool fight scenes gotta happen I guess and they don't know how to do that while making sense doesn't need father-son got a gun scene that's okay despite it not making any sense how they're holding zamasu back but that pales in comparison to how Goku alone holds his blast back power scaling matters this is just confusing and weird episode 66 this is the big Action episode and it feels like that in every sense of the word from the pacing to the tension to the set piece and even to the sense of desperation that builds up towards the end I don't think I even need to go over what happens in this episode you've all already seen it it looks visually very impressive and has some really nice ideas for techniques too like the final Kamehameha just a tasteful bit of fan service with that one but one aspect a lot of people seem to dislike about this episode was how they handled the diffusion of the two main characters Goku and Vegeta it's revealed in this episode that there is in fact a time limit for Mortals wearing these earrings this is my take on this scene this is not a red gun a rate con is a a change to a previously established rule this forever fusion with the earrings was once a rule yes but because Vegito defused in the boom Saga without any explanation the retcon doesn't happen in super it happens in The Bu Saga the only thing super did was offer an explanation for that diffusion so stop being babies about it I'm not defending this Arc by any means but I'm not going to criticize it over something it didn't do I'm genuinely trying to be fair here the fight as I said was fantastic but as I've explained the two defuse because tension needs to happen and Trunks hops in the final moments to make the save I love how the corruption Arc that zamasu has gone on has manifested visually in his appearance the choices he's made having left his face and body grotesque and disfigured he screams at trunks both menacingly and uncomposed it's a great position his character has ended up in Against The Virtuous hero of trunks and I can even make peace with fuse zamasu being weakened after his battle with Vegito or with him being emotionally compromised enough for trunks to make a difference here sort of but then this happens [Music] so trunks can do the Spirit Bomb with his sword despite never Having learned the move it never been foreshadowed or it even been mentioned a single time within the entire story within the black Universe 6 Resurrection F or Battle of Gods arcs okay this is so unbelievably dumb like it looks cool but it is a massive deus ex machina coming out of thin air to facilitate an ending the writing staff or Akira Toriyama didn't plan for it it's a truly awful ending episode 67 an arc that started with the best first episode I've ever seen now ends with the single worst ending I've ever seen literally every single character except for Mayan Trunks from that timeline dice remember those soldiers Den remember yajirobi and the other civilians dead remember those little children that started cheering for trunks first giving him the energy he needed to save the world well they're super dead I'm not even dead in the traditional Dragon Ball sense of the word where they effectively just go to a different part of the universe forever oh God no they are dead dead like they don't even nor can they ever exist anymore and why is this a problem well because it makes the entire and I mean entire Arc utterly painfully and irreversibly pointless so zamasu becomes the sky because he's Immortal and that's what Immortals do if they fuse with Immortal and get slice in half apparently Goku has the bright idea then to smash the Xena button and the little guy literally erase faces the entire universe so that's fun trunks then goes on to live with future my and Future Trunks in a timeline where the events of black never happened living with themselves and no one mentions why this is such a terrific existential nightmare and the Ark comes to a close everyone is weirdly happy and Trunks leaves crying as he looks at Gohan who played virtually no role in this Arc what's happening okay uh I've mentioned the story doesn't make sense numerous times during this video and I understand that a lot of people can look past that because things look cool so why does something not making sense stop someone like me from enjoying something well take this for an example imagine you have two men fighting on a log floating on a giant Lake it's just a regular lake with nothing special about it it's in the real world both can swim and suddenly one kicks the other in the water suddenly the man submerged in water without warning spontaneously catches fire and explodes this would be a bad ending because it breaks the rules of how we understood that scene should work a story works the same way if an ending breaks the established logic and rules put in place it feels nonsensical lazy and idiotic an example of a good piece of Storytelling was seen in episode 53 it's believable that beerus and Wiesel would recognize Black's key from zamasu's fight with Goku as it is an established part of how powers in the show work it also stands to reason zamasu wouldn't be on the defensive because he would have known knowledge of the events as he hasn't become evil yet so that works but this Arc is filled with a lot of really and I mean really stupid choices for the story not because they were choices made by dumb people far from it toei has shown that they can write compelling episodes time and again what is abundantly clear to me looking at the choices they have made however is that they are uncompromisingly focused on one thing Above All Else marketing they are not concerned about telling a compelling thought-provoking or well-written story first and foremost they're concerned with what will get the audience's excited via trailer the most Future Trunks does absolutely nothing in this except learn all the same lessons he did in the cell Saga in order to keep him relevant with the main cast and competent in the fight scenes he gets one absurd power boost after another climaxing in a finish that while delivered in favor of the right person and while appropriately visually striking it has carried out utilizing a technique with no prior foreshadowing established history or anything really it comes out of nowhere because the writers had nothing established for the character to carry out his big finish the original first Super Saiyan transformation with Goku and Namek against Frieza worked because it was foreshadowed the same for Goku teleporting sell away during the Cell Games the same for the Spirit Bomb against Vegeta these were all satisfying finishes utilizing techniques that had been clearly established prior to their use in their respective climaxes and if you don't believe me that marketing was the driving force for a lot of these decisions Vegito the fusion of Goku and Vegeta is supposed to wear a combination of clothes Goku and Vegeta were currently wearing before they threw the old bling on their ears but they ignore that in super because that's what vegito's toy is supposed to look like and they can change that Goku black and zamasu's existence didn't make any sense within the established logic of the show and I'm saying this now the Canon X explanation is wrong but to explain why believe me will require a long explanation because believe it or not it's stupidly complicated with so many moving Parts it's a wonder toei were able to Bluff their way through using it though it does explain why so many people don't notice that it doesn't make sense in the community it's way too convoluted to even figure out completely I fully intend on addressing and explaining why this particular Canon explanation is wrong but that will take an entire video and trust me this will be a long entirely separate video also the ending of the arc is I think the biggest slap in the face Dragon Ball has ever to this date delivered to its audience not only are there no consequences leading on from this Arc but the means with which they revert back to the status quo is insultingly lazy and disrespectful to the intelligence of the fans that diligently followed along week after week in addition to all of this scattered throughout our various sections of exposition and info delivered seemingly without any thought or care put into how it would affect the established World Goku has never killed what trumps can do a Spirit Bomb with his sword what everyone dies and nothing matters and I'm sad now what and those are my thoughts on the Goku black Arc it's mindless but it is visually fun so if you turn off your brain I'm sure there's plenty to enjoy I just happened to really not like it this time which finally brings us to the last of this massive review and in my opinion the most irritating and interesting I am of course talking about the universe survival Arc and Tournament of power yeah thank you all right so this is pretty much the same situation as the last episode Dragon Ball super likes to shove a bunch of random disconnected mini arcs and Standalone episodes sandwiched in between its main story points so I'm going to quickly go over these to get to the main entree but hey on the bright side I actually really liked some of these sort of kind of episode 68. this episode isn't one of those episodes that I actually kind of liked in fact I really didn't like it it centers around making a wish in the dragon balls are something Goku wants to Wish King Kai back and Bulma wants to wish for something else it's honestly one of the weaker episodes for me in all of the series episode 69 this I think is disliked more than liked by the vast majority of the fandom but I actually kind of liked it because it's just so weird it's like this strange self-aware but not really fever dream but also a crossover with Akira toriyama's two most successful manga properties also Goku gets a slick new hairstyle for like three seconds but yeah episode 70. this episode has the spirit of one of the most enjoyable Filler episodes in the original run of Dragon Ball for those of you out there that do not know what I'm talking about in Dragon Ball Z there was an episode most fans affection labeled as the driving episode why you ask because it was an episode about uh go driving what can I say the Dragon Ball Community we're a simple people point is the episode despite not having anything to do with the main story it didn't contradict pre-established mechanics or attempt to reintroduce anything meaningful it was just a great Slice of Life opportunity for real fun character interactions and comedy this episode in Dragon Ball super now affectionately labeled the baseball episode because they played baseball nailed it is just like its companion in the original anime it's just a whole mess of fun with loads of wonderful interactions and a surprisingly touching ending for Yamcha if you haven't seen it I highly recommend it it's one of my favorites episodes 71 and 72. okay so these two episodes are the first of three count them three entirely unrelated separate mini arcs as is the nature of these pre-arc Filler episodes anyways these first two episodes and their story are serviceable my interest was held fairly well throughout and unlike the Goku black Arc it had an ending that while not special doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out with the rusty Fork #progress essentially the first episode follows a Goku that is consistently looking behind his back paranoid that he's being followed leading to all sorts of hijacks but the climax of the first episode is a shocker it turns out hit has been given his name to assassinate and does just that sending a blow to Goku's chest stopping his heart thankfully though Goku has a contingency plan to bring him back to life which actually works shockingly in the second episode leading to their fight to continue with the final episode's conclusion revealing that Goku put the hit out on himself I actually am disappointed I didn't see that coming episode 73 and 74 a modern day Masterpiece of Dragon Ball storytelling acting as the debut for Dragon Ball's new leading man Barry Khan the victim of success he falls into a Chasm of his own Creation in the wake of a parasitic outbreak again this is Barry demonstrating his range as a performer and a character he becomes the tragic hero as the story comes to a close and the antagonist Gohan wins the day this two-part Shakespearean tragedy tells the incredibly yet devastating tale of hubris betrayal and deceit center around Dragon Ball's newest and most physically attractive new leading man Barry Khan it's two out of 10 Bad episode episode 75 and 76 off the back of an incredibly boring collection of episodes covering a weird parasitic relationship and I know I'm not over the loss of Barry as the focus character he did nothing wrong except light cheats stealing possibly spot something sinister but who Among Us is perfect [Applause] mini Arc is the best of the three and is honestly one of two on a number of this re-watch and it very well might contain some of my favorite character scenes to come out of Dragon Ball super and to think it all centers around Krillin it starts off as Goku instigates a reunion between Krillin himself and master roshi as they attempt to learn more from The Hermit however Brewing beneath the surface of Krillin is a palpable insecurity that if you know the character and aren't familiar with him has always been there really complimented by some understated music and gorgeous storyboarding it really drives home how isolated and small Krillin feels no pun intended especially when next to Goku coming to a head during a trip planned by Master roshi built to expose them to their greatest enemies of their past Krillin freezes and Goku takes action noticing this Goku tries to reassure him leading to Krillin exclaiming I'm not like you Goku I'm scared that was a genuinely great line as I got the feeling that while he said this he wishes he was more like Goku but this isn't the first time that he's thought of this that it's something he recognized about himself and he knew that no matter what he's never going to be Goku if you haven't seen it I highly recommend it it's more of lifting towards the end which is nice but those dramatic scenes towards the beginning are my favorite by far great mini Arc and that concludes the pre-universe survival Arc filler material not all bad in fact some of them were great so without further Ado let's dive into the main stuff episode 77 finally we are starting the ark and what I'll be discussing today can be divided up into three sections number one the setup number two the preliminary tournament and matches that come with that nonsense and number three the recruitment Arc itself the episode comes with some new visual updates and a brand new OP that is hopping I'm sorry I'm a big fan of the opaque the entire visual in art style is practically the exact same with some minor changes that make a significant difference I think all done in post two to desaturate the colors and to thicken up the lines overall a decent Improvement I think in addition to these new visuals in the episode we get a ton of setup in short some time has passed since the last dark that made me want to do bad things to my eyes and it Goku is going about his farming stopping Bandits and goes to meet Weiss and beerus for training yet again all before remembering zetto wanted to hold hold a tournament Goku then takes it upon himself to remind the little ticking time bombs yes no there's two one from the yated Future Trunks universe that makes me sad to think about yet that Universe well that Universal Zeno now bumps with this universe Zeno and Goku's meeting with them leads these little sociopaths to announce the torment of power requiring 10 representatives from each Universe to participate episode 78 in the space of one episode Goku has put the entire Multiverse at risk to effectively scratch an itch no I won't go as far as to suggest that Goku knew that this massive threat would happen in fact I'm certain he believes Zeno was nothing to be afraid of as every encounter he's had with the little guy up until now was pleasant sort of but even in that case I'm sure he didn't directly blame Zeno as he was reacting to something that could only be addressed that way or whatever point being I don't think it's as simple as saying Goku put the universe in danger now I can easily see the argument for it and in some ways I agree with it just not very strongly but anyway that's essentially the gist of this episode The Grand priest a character that looks feels and is sometimes shot in his Super Evil but totally isn't evil sort of way comes and reveals the stakes of the tournament of power touting that the universe is with the worst levels would participate in an elimination Battle Royal style match with the last Universe left standing earning a wish on the Super Dragon Balls oh and they will die that last part is important I actually really liked this episode as it does two things really well it gives us a long-term goal being the tournament of power and its ending as well as a short-term goal to look forward to right away this is tremendous for story pacing and takes the form of a preliminary contest between Universe 7 which happens to be the second worst ranked Universe by some Metric against the single worst ranked universe the ninth one we haven't seen yet Goku is instructed by beerus to take responsibility for finding two other fighters who make up the numbers for the preliminary Zeno Expo which he does in Gohan and Majin Buu who really hasn't done anything in super yet except eat pudding not share lose to beerus and sleep at really inopportune times also I love how Gohan reacts to Goku's news like any sane person would stressing and looking at Goku to take accountability it's at this point that they decide keeping the consequences of the tournament is Best Kept to themselves for some reason I don't know it's not like the Gang has a history of causing Mass hysteria they arrive at the grounds for the mini Face-Off against the representatives from Universe 9 three wolf-like Warriors known as the trio de donger take the Stage episode 79 first up is Majin Buu vs basil from the ninth universe and if I'm being honest this fight is fun as all hell it's by no means super dramatic or aesthetical but it's certainly not boring either there's some great character moments with Majin Buu and the action is complemented terrifically by the stretching and fluid animation style it's a refresh rushing episodes centered around Majin Buu it took 79 episodes to get here but they finally did something with them episode 80. next up Gohan vs lavender Gohan in this episode I was curious to see what they would actually do with it pitting him up against the crafting underhanded lavender seemed to me like the perfect compliment to Gohan's good boy demeanor and it was in a lot of ways both from an aesthetic and story perspective right from the get-go lavender removes the use of Gohan's Vision using his unique abilities there's honestly some great action here and it's benefited immensely by how simple the story of the battle was Gohan effectively has to use his intelligence and composure to find lavender he has to feel his presence and has to wait for the sounds he makes it's a very enjoyable and easy watch that ultimately ends in a draw episode 81 Goku vs Bergamo because of the way the last two matches have ended there isn't really any pressure on Goku as they can't really lose the match at this point Majin Buu won in Gohan Drew so thinking of it like that Universe 7 is very much in the driver's seat here and that's not to say it's a bad thing or that Goku should always be on the the back foot and he shouldn't but there's no tension in this fight as Goku proceeds to dominate the Intrigue in the prior matchups came from us not knowing how Majin Buu would battle against as we haven't really seen much from him and in the case of Gohan it was the interesting story he told in there with lavender but also again us not knowing how capable he would be against the universe 9 fighter but in the case of Goku we know he should be totally fine and he totally is so we are effectively just waiting for him to win it's not even played out in a way that lets us sit back and watch as Bergamo understands what he's gotten himself into either with Goku so I'm not really sure where the interest and entry for this fight was supposed to come from and part of me feels like toy animation knew this because toppo has a match with Goku set up right afterwards however all in all Goku's final match up against the final member of the ninth Universe was the weakest of the three I think quite obviously episode 82 while all the prelim matches have been happening the Supreme Kai of the 11th universe who is coincidentally or perhaps appropriately called Kai convinces the Thanos to allow his bodyguard to fight Goku is revealed to be a Dr Robotnik looking sort of character taking the stage to face off against Goku somewhat interestingly this guy has a unique moveset implementing a lot of techniques in the forms of various locks that dislocate Goku's shoulder but naturally Goku ignores the fact that this would render anyone's arm completely useless while dislocated and Yeats his way out of there before showing toppo some of his big girthy Power Super Saiyan blue Kaioken times whatever I don't know but we can't see any more of that fight because we gotta save it for the tournament of power next episode episode 83 so this is the beginning of the recruitment mini Arc within which is the greater Universe survival Arc yeah I know she A thick one Goku and KO travel back to capsicorp to outline a plan for Gathering the necessary Fighters monaka is of course naturally at the top of Goku's list but is quickly shot down by Barris leading to Goku and Gohan agreeing that themselves Vegeta Piccolo Majin Buu Krillin Android 18 and her brother and master roshi for some inexplicable reason are the individuals that should make up the first nine leaving one space free so first things first gotta go ask Vegeta who is having something of a nervous breakdown with Bulma just being super pregnant get it well Vegeta can focus on anything while his daughter is about to be born so whis Magic's the baby out of Bulma and they end up calling the kid bulla it's a cute episode and now Vegeta is on board episode 84. alrighty so right off the bat I really enjoy the idea of revisiting old relationships for the sake of recruitment in this story in this act specifically too as we are journeying to a tournament of power and we need to feel the best team we can whether or not they have been an active part of the story doesn't really much matter at this point in a convenient albeit unintentional way the nature of the recruitment feels appropriately desperate and slap Dash which honestly Works in a lot of ways for me and was the tone I assume they're going for additionally this episode is one of my favorites from a visual and choreographic perspective going on Goku venture to recruit Krillin in 18 for the tournament leading to Gohan challenging Krillin to Aspire just testing his power which I adore because Krillin wins with tactics rather than raw power I'm all about that nonsense in this match Krillin demonstrates a new technique he's developed it's like a super solar flare or taiocan or whatever your persuasion is Goku seeing this gets excited and so a contest between Goku and the Krill doc himself is set up atop a roof descending and choreography for both of these fights I enjoyed but more so the Goku fight patoshi higushide an incredible action animator demonstrates some of his fantastically imaginative battle choreography that you really just gotta check out to fully appreciate for yourself but then this happens Goku Super Saiyan blue Kamehameha vs Krillin this is sort of silly sure I mean it does have the built-in excuse that Goku is holding back but I mean how much is he holding back like all of this it's like what's the point of him being blue then just testing his resolve 18 gets involved leading to herself and Krillin Jordan and reminding Goku that this is a free-for-all not a one-on-one contest episode 85. this is the episode where we finally get more than one story running in tandem with the main plot Gohan and Goku decide to go their separate ways Gohan to train with and recruit pickles and Goku to head over to dende so that he can find Android 17 location on his way to 10 days Goku discovers Majin Buu or what's left of him after his sudden and dramatic weight loss transformation apparently he got all sight after the Expo and decided to get into the best shape he could thankfully he's a magical creature that has the excuse of using magic to lose weight otherwise I'd be wincing again but yeah looking good and their little tussle wasn't bad either Goku then finds his way up to 10 days also in this episode is some interactions between Gohan and Piccolo which I will have more to talk about on at a later point in this video we got some glimpses into the other Kaizen Destroyer gods of their universes discussing strats but it all boils down to nothing Champa however does tell Kaaba to recruit more Saiyans so that's neat this is also the first time we get to see jiren the strongest fighter from universe 11. cool episode 86 this is one of the prettiest episodes in all of Dragon Ball super the use of color outstanding storyboarding terrific background art which doesn't get enough praise and some brilliant animation by now kitate to put the cherry on the top it's a gorgeous episode and it all centers around Goku's recruiting of Android 17 who has started a family after the Cell Games and settled down as a park ranger of sorts protecting endangered animals on this island we get a nice fight between the two albeit and unrealistic one I think and we also get a small mention of Ube too I'm glad they did this great episode episode 87 this is part two to the last episode and it's really really weird and not really weird in a good way either let me explain while the last episode felt like Dragon Ball this one sort of felt more like an episode of Captain Planet and I didn't even see that show way before my time so these space posters show up because something has to convince 17 to fight in the tournament of power so why not space poachers anyway they steal this rare cow or something forcing Goku and 17 to pursue the baddies they foil their evil plans and saved the super rare cow all as well as 17 agrees to fight the tournament to power on the condition someone will protect his Island while he's away and so Goku puts Goten and Trunks to protect the cow and stuff episode 88 and we come to the Gohan episode well technically it's the Gohan and Piccolo episode but let's be real here toei doesn't give a rats behind about Piccolo now so I digress this is the Gohan episode and a lot of people will point to this as an important moment when it comes to the Revival or Resurgence of Gohan's character and it is but but not really let me explain my point of view here when Gohan is chosen by Goku to be a participant in his little Skirmish with the ninth Universe he was very much in civilian mode we've seen him start training again thanks to episode 30 which at the very least showed a marked improvement to the state he was in in the resurrection effort but let's not speak of that at this point point is Gohan has sort of been training semi-consistently but when this episode begins Piccolo remarks and I quote so this is your current level implying either Gohan hasn't been consistently training with Piccolo if at all and that this was Piccolo confirming to himself what Gohan's current output was capable of and he wasn't impressed then we get this interaction between Piccolo and Goku about Gohan Goku says that Gohan is out of practice further reinforcing the notion that Gohan hasn't been training much if at all since that one time we saw him train earlier in the series Piccolo agrees to join the tournament of power and also agrees to bring Gohan back up to speed but let's not let the large number of episodes that have elapsed since the tournament was announced distract us from the reality of the situation from the moment Grand priest announces the tournament of power they have a little over 40 hours to fuel the team and ready themselves and by the time Gohan and Piccolo have this interaction in episode 88 half of that time has already passed which brings me to my central argument as to why I don't like this for Gohan while him being involved in this is nice the cleanup for his character in this Arc is the literary equivalent of sweeping dust under the rug and they even try to hack him back to his time as a kid training under Piccolo with plenty of visual callbacks look it's a dinosaur and they're eating it like steak but the difference is that the young Gohan had a year to prepare himself for the same Invasion even then it wasn't enough but that was what it looked like to treat an important character with care and respect and let me tell you even if it's trying to tell us that this is all it takes to reawaken Gohan's power in super it's not in the slightest bit earned to me and doesn't do anything except devalue the power he once had one episode might be what Dragon Ball super is saying it takes to get back to this point but in reality it doesn't begin to scratch the surface if they were really concerned about bringing Gohan back into the fold and they'd have given him a build up gradually but they didn't because to them Gohan isn't worth that right now again I'm not saying you can't like this episode hell if you're a fan of the character I get it you can like it it's great but wouldn't you want something more substantial over something rushed and slap dash for the sake of plot something that's for the character and not for the character to serve an end point personally I would anyway that's my main takeaway from this episode along with her first glimpse of universe 6's additional Saiyans episode 89 episode we get a whole bunch of stuff it's Gonna Be by Queen the episode kicks off with ten shinhan in his dojo which is cool for his character to have done for himself it suits him too considering his background but the episode primarily acts as a mini episode centered around this girl with the unfortunate reality of being named urine roshi acts like a weirdo and then Goku arrives okay look essentially this episode acts as a way for Goku to recruit Master roshi and even though this is considered the tension on episode he barely plays a role in it though he does get recruited by Goku so that's something in essence jiren is an underhanded person who winds up causing Mischief that gets rectified by the end the important takeaway here is that Master roshi and Tin shinhan are in the tournament now episode 90. this episode is one of those really well-boarded episodes where we get very interesting choreography backgrounds color and artwork it's a very pretty episode but I wish the story got more care than it actually did in the end the episode itself hinges on this confrontation between Goku and his son Gohan who has been training super duper hard for a super long time like at least a day and essentially he wants to prove to himself that he is enough to stand and fight with his father in the tournament he wants to test his abilities which honestly is cool but again he's been taking fighting seriously for like a little over a day now when you think about it like that it's hard to take this scene as seriously as super wants us to take it right now or at least that's how I felt when I watched it regardless if I was to assume that much much more went into building to this moment the episode works perfectly fine which means to me there's nothing wrong with the episode itself in isolation just its build up Gohan and Piccolo mozion upped attention Hanan Goku challenging them to a 2v2 match ultimately leading to Gohan pushing things super far to Manning that his father take it as seriously as he can which he does well sort of I mean he doesn't go all out like Kaioken times 20 or whatever that nonsense is but he does turn on the Jets enough for Gohan to push his limits ending in a nice father-son moment between the two characters it's genuinely really nice to see that and if I haven't stressed it enough already this episode is stunningly beautiful with maybe my favorite shot in the entire series and episode 91 at this point in the show all recruitment has been completed for Universe 7. Goku is training in the gravity chamber with whis Vegeta's screaming in the hyperbolic Time Chamber roshi is even trying to temper his desires and so on through the view of the zenos we get to see other universes assembling their Fighters too Universe 9 is having a lot of trouble finding anyone to field their team outside of the trio Universe 6 sees a Down and Out Frost feeling the effects of his reputation being ruined after the tournament in season three as he is recruited by hit for their team the episode effectively hops from Universe to Universe showing their key players but the main takeaway from this episode is one of the most irritating things to come out of this Arc Majin Buu is asleep again episode 92 I hate and I mean hey the excuse Majin Buu has to be taken out of the tournament but if it means we get someone better it's at least going to cushion the blow for me so Goku goes to Mr Satan's and completely fails of trying to wake up Majin Buu no surprise there give me something good toei once he gets back to the team Piccolo has revealed the truth about the tournament and its consequences to everyone causing them to feel understandably betrayed after learning that they were lied to Goku apologizes despite it really being Gohan's idea and everyone forgives him they're all in this together to The Bitter End more talking happens and then Goku is inspired to seek out a replacement someone far better than Majin Buu but far far worse at the same time freezing [Music] this episode also covers some more Antics from Universe 6. Kaaba tries to teach another Saiyan recruit from his home planet her name is cauliflower and he's trying to help her to turn Super Saiyan in a really really really weird way like he describes it as a tingly feeling in the back okay dude like please just stop making the legendary rage form of your people so incredibly lame anyway she learns to transform almost immediately thrilling I know you think if it was that easy so I'm saying out of their entire population or even history would have stumbled upon the form eventually I don't know stupid episode 93 so everyone questions or straight up refuses to involve someone like Frieza but Goku comes up with the great idea of utilizing fortune teller Baba's 24-hour return policy which would give Frieza enough time to participate but not Grant him life again it's a good plan if you ask me meanwhile in Universe 6 the Saiyans continue to prepare with Khalifa getting more and more Adept with her new form another Saiyan by the name of kale a Meek on assuming shy female Saiyan tries to learn the form too but fails time and again leading to a frustration crawling beneath the surface turning her into the green-haired Legendary Super Saiyan whatever I don't really know what to do with this information I suppose she's a wild card it's not uninteresting I just don't really care about the character yet we get more glimpses of other Universe preparing for the tournament while Universe 4's Destroyer katila is informed of universe 7's plan to revive Frieza and thus begins his plan to sabotage the initiative but who cares about that because right now we get my favorite scene maybe in all of the show I adore this interaction between Goku and Frieza it's tense there's this feeling in the air that something could go wrong at any moment with these two characters vying for the upper hand in this deal the use of color is brilliant and the cherry blossoms falling from the heavens representing rebirth are appropriately Sinister and that's not even mentioning masconazawa's performance here as Goku this is Goku at his best to me and he's appropriately serious and himself more importantly in this scene no stupid super Goku here folks the deal however is made Frieza will fight for Universe 7 but only on the condition that if they win he will get his life back appropriately targeting Goku's weak point I love it episode 94 to be perfectly honest this Arc of the show has been significantly better than a lot of what I'd seen before the Goku black Arc was entertaining very entertaining and I did enjoy it while it was on the air but as a complete story it left a lot to be desired but this Arc it's so simple that it's much easier to make sense of and therefore even when things like Majin Buu happen stuff like Frieza can completely reinvent the atmosphere surrounding an upcoming event like the tournament of power and if that wasn't all this episode had one of my absolute favorite moments in all of Dragon Ball not just super all of Dragon Ball and no I'm not talking about Frieza punching Goku in the god well yes that was a great moment it's not what I'm talking about so the episode kicks off as katila is storing more doo-doo with the ninth universe's God of destruction Sidra basically informing him about Frieza and inspiring him to work together with him to assign assassins to take Frieza out before he can take part aside from that Goku lets everyone back at bulma's Place know that he needs to go pick up Frieza from Baba and after he leaves 17 and the rest of the team start to arrive lovely great now time for my favorite part a moment I honestly missed the very first time I saw it but one that really brought a tear to my eye when I noticed it so the scene begins as Goku is waiting patiently outside of Baba's Palace for Frieza and it looks like he's just entertaining himself keeping busy with some sparring and he is but it's not just simple sparring Goku is reliving the specific fight he had against his grandpa Gohan the last time he saw him strike for strike jump for jump beat for beat what an absurdly touching and perfect Easter egg for those Among Us that would notice beautiful once that is over Frieza shows up finally and in a dramatic fashion with really pretty artwork too the two share a really fun character moment before they are ambushed by the Assassins sent by the other universes gods of Destruction this is such a fun situation for these two mortal enemies to be caught in together Goku knows that he needs to leave ASAP for the tournament but Frieza unable to restrain himself shoots one of them from the sky without a care in the world guess we're fighting her way out of here episode 95 and finally we get the most action-packed episode of this Arc so far and my God is it great the last three episodes have shown us Frieza not like Resurrection F did but at his most conniving and Sinister this is top tier Frieza without exaggeration slicing through the Assassins like butter sometimes literally and all with a smile on his face you can tell this is the most fun he's had in a very long time and I am here for it one of the minions was assigned the duty of delivering a specific special attack and energy blast given to them by Universe 9's God of destruction its literal Destroyer energy and it poses a real threat to both Goku and Frieza Frieza thinks he gets the upper hand on the blast but it finally reaches its Target and connects with Frieza Frieza is far stronger now than we ever gave him credit for he can overcome it and control it we're turning it to size disposing of its wielder with ease and then using it on an unprepared Goku this all feeds into the notion that Frieza is a complete and unpredictable wild card in this upcoming tournament that cannot be trusted using this moment of reprieve Frieza makes contact with Universe 9's Destroyer to negotiate Frieza it's clear is obviously not a man of his word and at the first chance he attempts to bargain Elsewhere for a better deal than Goku offered however the conversation is cut short by bears who blows the Blast away from Goku with ease much to Goku's relief there's clearly some tension that needs to be addressed between the two and so they have a quick scuffle in the moments they have left before they absolutely need to leave the fight isn't fantastic or anything but it's flashy and the artwork is spectacular supplied by naotoshi shida it's another wonderful addition to the series the two land massive shots on each other before Calling it Quits they make their way to the team it's time to travel to the world of void for the tournament of power man that concludes the recruitment Arc so what did I think honestly looking back over the sections of the show not having to wait week to week to week for another episode made it much much more enjoyable this time around no obviously I still have my issues I don't really like how the new Saiyans achieve their powers and I am massively unimpressed with how they just write out Majin Buu like that I have no issue with the staff not wanting any character to take part mind you but at least create a decent reason to exclude them you know maybe they are kidnapped or maybe they don't want to or maybe their powers are forbidden or something my point is anything but falling asleep is okay especially seeing as this isn't the first time they've used that excuse with this specific character the one minute aspect that made this somewhat tolerable for me was that the substitute was a much much more interesting character to me prior to learning Frieza was going to take a spot in the universe 7 team I never really cared all that much for the tournament I mean I was into to it sort of but when Frieza was added to the mix it created an entirely different vibe around the arc on top of that the episodes of Frieza had in this section are some of my absolute favorites from the entire series and that includes Dragon Ball Z from a visual perspective I thought that this Arc was really strong too long got her the days where Goku looked like a plastic figure melting under a magnifying glass now we get a consistently higher level of model correctness in addition to some of the best boarded episodes in this series to date with the Krillin episode the 17 recruitment episode and the battle between Goku and Gohan overall I thought this Arc did really well in establishing the stakes setting up the tournament and building Intrigue around the event well okay almost everything was taken care of foreign [Music] first up quick rundown of the team the team captain whatever that means is Gohan after intense training for a day and a half next Piccolo Krillin tension on Androids 18 and 17 Master roshi inexplicably Vegeta after a bunch of time in the chamber of Goku naturally and the wild card Frieza the rules eliminate the other universes participants by knocking them off the edge of the Arena oh also there's no flying you get disqualified by taking your life or by using enhancements so no poison for frost if everyone on the team is eliminated then the entire universe they represent and them get erased well that's sufficiently terrifying oh and also seeing as I have like 36 episodes to get through today I've decided to break these bad boys into groups of three starting with episodes 96 97 and 98 so let's Dive In unfortunately during the production of this Arc the original Japanese voice actor of Bulma hiromitsuru tragically passed away the last line she recorded for the show being everyone good luck we're counting on you I think it goes without saying that she will be deeply missed by millions around the world and that her impact on all of her lives cannot be understated the first episode itself deals with the Prelude to the tournament during which Goku actually has a brief interaction with jiren which effectively sets up Goku's goal for the entire tournament get to jiren and battle him in addition to that we also get jiren's first sentence it's short and reveals nothing such as the exposure jiren has received thus far in addition to this interaction we get a glimpse of Frieza meeting Frost for the very first time making a secret Alliance so it's gonna be interesting to see how that plays out later on and with those brief interactions shown to us the tournament gets underway and the chaos ensues and that's what I noticed a really weird decision that's made at the very beginning of the tournament where almost every character from Universe 7 that lasts the longest are the first to act alone now I can sort of see what they're trying to go for here the theme of this Arc is very clearly that of trust and teamwork and so starting from a position where they are not working as part of a team makes sense to build a Story upon going from not working as a team to then learning its value but in doing this you're throwing literally everyone else who actually does work as part of a team from the get-go under a bus which sort of flies in the face of the entire theme of this Arc and it's not like most of these guys do well in the tournament as a result of teamwork for very long either but I'm getting ahead of myself here as the tournament commences chaos ensues half of universe 7 remains in a tight huddle strategy which honestly is smart as the other universes do could out as the fighting ensues throughout the tournament Goku and Vegeta eventually are cornered by the ninth Universe before completely blowing them away with a series of attacks throughout the opening minutes of the event making Universe 9 the first to be eliminated from the tournament of power and ultimately erased from existence this establishes that the rules are 100 serious and the reality of that situation can be seen on everyone's faces still participating as they all take pause episodes 9 99 100 and 101 these are a fun collection of episodes the first deals with Krillin primarily as he along with Android 18 confront and eliminate Majora from Universe 4. it's a fun little episode climaxing in a feel-good Krillin moment but quickly takes a negative turn when he is blindsided by Frost and sent to the spectator's bench Krillin is the first fighter eliminated from Universe 7. after this cauliflood decides to confront Goku about wanting to learn how to turn Super Saiyan blue which Goku says is way too advanced for her and that she should instead focus on the other forms of Super Saiyan Goku in this moment sort of assumes a mentor type relationship with cauliflower and the two end up battling and having a lot of fun when they are going back and forth this however seems to really bother her friend sister pupil who is kale to cauliflower anyway she begins going berserk again in this weird green Super Saiyan form which to be perfectly honest is almost on par with the original Broly's motivation at least when it comes to Stakes I don't like sharing I don't like crying I swear if the Broly movie couple years ago didn't recreate the Broly character from scratch my head Cannon would be that in order to have the green hair as a Super Saiyan you have to be really stupid anyway she pretty much goes on her Rampage throughout the arena knocking around various Fighters eventually Landing herself in a position where Universal 11's most basic Fighters all start ganging up on her Goku and cauliflower forming a temporary alliance between the three eventually it becomes the case that Kailyn cauliflower are cornered and need then to rely on each other's power leading to kale actually learning how to control the power temporarily together the two young Saiyans combined their attacks in a blast that I swear looks like an ice cream I had when I was a kid and in doing so eliminating a bunch of fighters from the 11th Universe the episode itself ends proper with Goku giving the two girls time to recharge and regain their stamina after their clash with Universe 11. episodes 102 103 and 104. okay so no time to waste because Brienne literally everyone's favorite character makes her grand entrance and demonstration flanked by two other magical girl parodies together in this episode they pretty much end up trying to transform like a whole mess of times and don't get me wrong it's a cool transformation sequence but geez does this go on and on for the sake of a joke and saving time and animation Brienne eventually does get to transform into her ultimate stage ribrian your favorite character in mind and as I've said she is sort of a parody on the magical girl genre which I actually like and her design is hilarious too but that charm is gone soon after with the frequency with which she makes the same gags over and over and over although that's less of a problem with her and more of a common trait in Dragon Ball in general however the episode itself continues as ribrian goes on a rampage around the arena grossing on Vegeta and knocking out a bunch of no names 17 meanwhile is having a great fight with one of the other magical girl fighters called kakunsa the episode itself has some really imaginative fight sequences and some great artwork ending in 17 eliminating both her and vikal from Universe 2. later we see Gohan eliminating China's president leading to both he and Piccolo fighting the last two members of universe 10. ultimately winning that exchange and seating the Fate of that Universe Gohan looks at the last Fighter's locket with a picture of his family as the fighters and deities vanished Before Their Eyes Gohan Mourns as the 10th universe is eliminated and erased from existence the stakes are indeed high with Universe 10 now done for we then switch gears to another battle that is getting underway between hit and universe 11's dyspo he's joined by his Universe 11 teammate kunchi leading Goku to offer hits some backup utilizing his Super Saiyan God form for the first time since season 1 to match dyspo speed together they eliminate kunchi but dyspo does manage to retreat it's actually a fun little episode and it's always refreshing to see something like Super Saiyan God which up until this point had been criminally underused episode 105 106 and 107. okay so these episodes are really a mixed bag what is good one is really bad and another is actually really good so we're batting two for three here episode 105 pretty much focuses on and covers Master roji's fight with a duck and it's actually really touching more specifically this episode deals with Master Roshi's thoughts on his life his father philosophy and what he'll be leaving behind if he does go here and now while charging what seems to be one last Kamehameha from the originator of the technique we receive dialogue that effectively captures my love for an entire era of Dragon Ball in just a few short lines and it was most definitely enough to squeeze a few tears for me too after this roshi falls lifelessly to the floor spurring Goku on to completely forget about the fight he's having and engaging in right now to rush to his side Goku somehow miraculously brings roshi back to life through some unknown power and once the old guy starts to stir Goku quickly reverts back to being his innocent self the same way he was in early Dragon Ball it's a tender moment and honestly it worked really effectively for me the next episode however is one that primarily deals with a sniper and 10 shinon who barely manages to eliminate a single person Bad episode it's okay look it's really not my thing personally it really lacked any sense of suspense and honestly felt out of place amidst the rest of this tournament so moving on episode 107 has some really strong storyboarding when I first saw Frost receiving instruction from Champa at his Palace on what his plan of action should be for it to subtly Fade Into the tournament arena in a flash of lightning I knew I was in for a treat here it was seamless and Brilliant also within this episode this weird Blue Water fighter majikayo causes dyspo trouble until Jared finally does something and eliminates the potentially dangerous fighter with little effort so that's pretty cool anyways Frost begins fighting Master roshi who is struggling against him because of course he is but get this Frost is suddenly put on the back foot by roshi which is at least to me hilariously unrealistic but at least it's not for long and without prior warning roshi bursts out the mafaba technique on Frost I keep getting surprised by that thing however roshi is very much at his limit and doesn't possess enough strength to execute the move flawlessly resulting in Frost's Escape completely taken aback by this the universe 6 fighter quickly formulates a cunning clan that involves getting the attention of Vegeta firing an attack towards the same who blocks it with ease investigating the situation Vegeta rushes in only to be suddenly attacked by an old rival negative who's defending Frost now armed with earplugs but get it now has no obvious weakness in an effort to help Vegeta Master roshi uses the mafaba once again but this time Frost redirects it and uses it on Vegeta instead all this time he was waiting for this opportunity seating Vegeta away in a vial Frost seems to have gotten his revenge on the Saiyan prince turning his attention once again back to roshi Frost releases a barrage of blasts during which roshi manages to throw a tiny undetectable blast that meets his Mark breaking the vile unleashing Vegeta and his wrath exploding forth from the prison in a blue flash of light after this Frost like the smoke bombs away like a 60s cartoon villain and Vegeta knocks megetta out of the ring much like he did the last time Vegeta respects roshi after this but advises him to take stock of the situation and to eliminate himself now before something terrible happens episode 108 109 and and 110 the special in episode 108 the alliance freezer made with frost at the tournament's beginning rears its ugly hit go on his scene struggling with the yard drive from the second Universe when Frieza comes in and takes control of the situation easily as Gohan's backup but then Frost joins The Fray changing the dynamic entirely Frieza and he seem to have come to some sort of understanding which ultimately leads to Frieza needing to fight Gohan to prove his loyalty to frost Frieza plays along and transforms getting what seems to be the upper hand on Gohan in essence portraying his own Universe eventually knocking Gohan to the side with a brief break from the action Frieza talks to frost unloading advice unto him as if he wore his mentor figure the final piece of advice that he unloads onto him though not to trust anyone knocking him out of the ring much to Frost's surprise he had been pulling his punches this entire time with Gohan who had also been in on this charade but who cares about that because now we've got the real meat and potatoes and I'm not saying that because I'm from Ireland I'm saying that because this is when the action gets turned up to 11. you see episodes 109 and 110 are the installments that made up the hour-long TV special that aired together when broadcast in Japan it covers the end of Goku's battle with ribrian which is really well animated and the first fight Goku has with jiren throughout the series jiren has barely been seen to move but this is where Goku forces jiren to move like literally the dude won't move unless Goku makes him it's a really fun scene that escalates very quickly from the get-go and there's tension because we want to know how Goku matches up to this wall that jiren poses cycling through his base form Super Saiyan 1 and 2 Super Saiyan God which actually butches his head a smidge Super Saiyan blue and even Super Saiyan blue Kaioken times 20 without any success unless you consider making him move a success in which case got him their fight in this Kaioken variation of the Super Saiyan blue form is my favorite in this exchange Goku being flunked The Arena floor only to explode back into jiren's face it's pretty great to see there's also a gorgeous tracking shot of the two as they fight around the arena passing all the other Fighters give me a great sense of scale to the actual occasion things however become dire as Goku exhausts pretty much every technique and option at his disposal well all except one the Spirit Bomb which happens to have my favorite accompanying track of the entire series and that's only the first half yeah you heard me right this is only the first half and that first half ends as jiren forces the Spirit Bomb back onto Goku who seemingly gets destroyed in the explosion it's honestly a crazy sight to behold as the second half begins everyone is left in awe after what's transpired when suddenly [Music] Goku erupts from the floor presenting to us the best transformation sequence in this series not Super Saiyan God or blooper Saiyan Ultra Instinct has been hinted at since episode 5 when Goku's body acted without him against beerus this is what I call a transformation that has been built upon and given the correct occasion and man is the fight that follows impressive we see Goku dodged during the attacks with little difficulty and the action supplied by toei's finest is spectacular in this one special we get Rio onoshie yuya Takahashi nauket and even some notoshi shida covering the end of the fight as Goku charges with one final attack towards jiren before unfortunately running out of juice at the last moment before being cast aside with ease by the Monstrous Universe 11 Warrior the ending of the episode also is a brilliant callback role reversal with Frieza offering up his energy to Goku very reminiscent of what Goku did for him unnamik episode 111 112 and 113. so this episode pretty much covers the after math of Goku's fight with jiren Goku himself is entirely spent and needs to recuperate his energy levels again with a nice rest while this is all transpiring it directs his attention towards jiren as the two begin battling in doing so hit breaks out a ton of interesting unpredictable moves against jiren but none of them seem to work or have that much of an effect at all though I must say it is fun to watch the two of them discover the depths of each other's abilities first hand it's also nice to get longer stretches where we are exposed to jiren more eventually hit manages to restrain jiren in another dimension or something with this new technique he's been developing but even that isn't enough and with a dominating attack jiren eliminates hit in just two episodes jiren has destroyed two of the strongest contestants of the tournament and yet we still know very little about jiren's personality next up is pretty much for all intents and purposes a setup episode Piccolo and Gohan start fighting the universe 6 namekians Kama becomes Super Saiyan 2 after being saved and given a pep talk by Vegeta a drained Goku has trouble with some robots but Kali flying kale removed them from the equation essentially this episode is all about Universe 6 and universe 7's relationship oh and uh Frieza eliminates Kaaba too and to be perfectly honest I'm very disappointed with what little they did with kava's character moving on episode 113 is pretty much all about the fight between Goku and the remaining Universe 6 Saiyans really since hit was their leader it has since been eliminated Khalifa wants to learn how to turn Super Saiyan 3 to take charge of her situation for her universe and so Goku begins fighting her I actually really enjoyed this interaction since Goku is redlining when it comes to energy levels he's forced to rely on his martial arts knowledge while it is base form as he regains his stamina slowly he worked his way back up through the Super Saiyan forms as kale rejoins the party and as soon as their teamwork starts to get the better of Goku he bursts in Super Saiyan 3 easily overpowering them before reverting back to Super Saiyan 2. he still doesn't have enough stamina to show them everything he's capable of just yet kale on the other hand who now seems to be in control of her green-haired Super Saiyan form tries to push herself farther into the depths of her power however in doing so she loses herself once again ending the episode oh and by the way ever since hit was eliminated jiren's been sleeping oh I I mean meditating episode 114 115 and 116. taking up right from where the previous left off Kayla's about to go berserk once again but cauliflower once again brings her back from the brink and together they take on Goku now armed with even more Firepower the fight is honestly really pretty in places with Gorgeous artwork from yuyatakahashi and even some comedic moments with Frieza and the Power Ranger guy animated by yuichi karasawa one of the principal animators from episode 50 that I also loved so much as the action begins to ramp up Goku is able to use his God form to great effect against the two young Saiyans eventually cornering them and forcing their hand to use their trump card Fusion enter [Music] her design is honestly my favorite of these new Saiyans introduced in the modern generation of Dragon Ball and as the fight progresses it becomes obvious that Goku won't stand a chance against her if he remains in his God form and so to remain competitive he uses Super Saiyan blue leading kefla to respond in kind by turning super saiyan herself things are ties and a little tough for Goku in places but clever uses of the Kaioken technique keep it from losing too many of the exchanges but that can only last so long Goku is still feeding the effects of the prior battles and eventually is sent flying to the ground with two well-placed kicks from Kepler leading to once again a surge of dormant energy Brewing from deep within Goku Ultra Instinct has joined the chat let's hope this timer sticks around long enough to make a difference the re-reveal of ultra instinct is once again getting fantastic treatment in the series built up to and demonstrated using appropriate Framing and on model artwork and honestly what follows is some of the most fun fight sequences sporting solid animation and choreography facilitating the single best finish to any Dragon Ball fight I have ever seen ever ever in my life I mean it I cannot begin to describe how much I love that Kamehameha grind that would make Tony Hawk proud performed by Goku when he was seemingly out of options to dodge against kefla's ice cream attack I quite literally didn't expect it in the slightest and after that devastating attack from Goku Khalifa and kale are eliminated leaving just two Warriors remaining from their Universe in the tournament and oh Jared is awake again neat episodes 117 wood 18 and 119. the next episode covers rubian's battle with Android 18 and eventually 17 as they both work together to eliminate her after assuming a massive new form the action is honestly spectacular with cool pieces of Animation supplied by Rio on a sheet The Following episode however covers the remaining two fights from Universe 6. tunameckians have taken the absorption ability explained during The nomik Saga to never before seen Heights the two of them now represent their entire namekian race from Universe 6. it's a really cool and great idea that lends a lot of credibility to these two utilize a ritual established ages and ages ago in the story all the while this is happening the Androids give Goku some assistance against the last three fighters from universe 2. as he is once again completely drained after his Tango with the ultra Instinct form however what follows in this episode is easily my favorite Gohan fight in the entire series of Dragon Ball super it demonstrates his cam demeanor extremely well as he despite Piccolo losing his cool finds the resolve to not only pick up Piccolo's slack but also formulate a plan of counter-attack he tells Piccolo that while he takes on the two Universe 6 nemekians he should charge as mcconko sapo or special beam Cannon depending on your persuasion Gohan seems to have bought him enough time but even that charge isn't enough to pierce the hide of these Universe 6 Warriors resulting in a counter-attack leading to Piccolo's fainting it's at this point we are greeted with my personal visual highlight of the episode standing on either side of Piccolo in a void of darkness is the spirit of Kami and nail the Kami Spirit points in front of Piccolo leading him to come to his senses as he notices Gohan taking an attack the same way he did for Gohan when he was a child during the Saiyan Saga Gohan still the backbone of the assault presses the attack on the two Universe 6 Fighters giving Piccolo ample time to charge his mcconko sapo as wood warrior gets dangerously close to attacking Gohan the young Saiyan refuses to Flinch having Limitless trust in his mentor Piccolo makes the save this time and together they eliminate the last of universe 6 at the exact same time Goku and the Androids eliminate Universe 2. two entire universes have been eliminated in this episode and what an episode it was the parallels between this and the collection of moments during the Saiyan Saga are not a coincidence the once terrified child unable to stick to a plan always dependent on others to protect him has become a confident intelligent and tenacious warrior with boundless trust in his allies I loved this episode and to cap it all off there's a very bittersweet ending as beerus sees his brother vanished before his eyes unfortunately what follows this Stellar show is something of a gimmick episode following the remaining fighters from Universe 7 struggling to find eliminate too hard to see adversaries and while they do eliminate them both eventually Piccolo is also eliminated rather unceremoniously episodes 120 121 and 122 the episode kicks off with Gohan wanting to give his father and Vegeta a break from fighting and to take on the robots from Universe 3 alone as things get a little more hairy the Androids join in and eventually Goku and Vegeta do too it's nice getting to see Gohan act with some sort of agency instead of him reacting to situations that befall him that is a change to Gohan in this Arc that is most notable to me and one that I don't see brought up in conversation nearly enough the next episode begins and all the robots joined to create an organic looking creature called anilaza hey look I don't make up the rules I just review them but is any laza classed as a fourth separate fighter or is it just one big new one and if that's the case then doesn't it count as the 11th member of their I don't know anyways Android 18 is saved by Goku and eventually sacrifices herself for her brother so that he can remain in the tournament 18 is therefore related which means that Universe 7 is now down to five Fighters [Music] I want to also make a note that all this time jiren has stood and said almost nothing there's even been scenes where his teammates ask him questions and he still says nothing his meme level commitment to this silent tough guy routine is hilarious he slept I mean meditated in six episodes and since waking up he has literally stood silently not fighting mind you not doing anything for seven episodes thankfully though episode 122 puts an end to that trend for jiren as well as doing a fantastic job in setting up the scene at the very beginning with only two universes remaining it's almost framed like a western close-ups to the gloves hair and ears of various characters showing the Stillness and calmness before the storm of conflict to come is strikingly effective Universe 11 and universe 7 are all that remain three from Universe 11 in jiren dyspo and toppo and in Universe 7 Goku Frieza Android 17 Gohan and Vegeta remain and while the focus is on everyone at the beginning it most certainly is episode and yuya Takahashi animates too so that's always great kicking things off as the battle between Goku and jiren quickly becomes a battle that involves Vegeta demonstrating how he differs as a fighter to Goku while all this is going on we see Frieza vs dyspo as well as toppo vs Gohan at 17. Vegeta begins scuffling with jiren throwing blow after blow Landing summon even getting the trash talk a bit in response however jiren bulldozes through a gallicon and almost knocks Vegeta out of bounds however always defiant he once again stands before the Titan of universe 11 armed with one last Massive Attack to test him with a Super Saiyan blue full powered Final Flash and it is awesome containing within it a determination within Vegeta to not Chase Goku any longer but to blaze his own path to power and to find his own way of surpassing it and while that is nice and while that is a beautiful sentiment it doesn't work out leading to Vegeta getting trapped in a Vortex explosion ball or something by Jaren pointers Vegeta he's down for the count episodes 123 124 and 125. the battle continues as Goku fights jiren again in blue but this time tries to implement strategy either by setting landmine type energy attacks or by slicing off the arena beneath them using the same attack Krillin used against him in the earlier Arc great callback coupled with the Instant Transmission I loved it it looks like jiren is done for when [Music] physics be damned like okay I don't understand if flying doesn't work then why does this and this isn't just an isolated incident either there have been countless moments during this tournament where combatants might as well have been flying he shouldn't survive this anyways the episode ends with Vegeta rejoining the fight pushing himself to newer Bluer Heights I present blooper Saiyan God blooper saying a blue honestly the compositing around this new Vegeta form is too much for me there are so many light effects Sparkles and CGI fluff added in post-production I can honestly barely make out what's happening in terms of fight choreography Frieza meanwhile tries to make a deal with dyspo to play for his team if they resurrect him with the Super Dragon Balls dyspo someone intelligently refuses and Frieza transforms into his Golden State watching Frieza act as he would have during The namik Saga is honestly fantastic and super interesting he never does more than he needs to and thinks about every single move he makes and he's always ready with a terrifying one letter here and there too that is while he's in control and dyspo it seems he can turn the Jets up even more as we see him pushing Frieza to the edge of the Arena about to be eliminated Gohan makes the save leading to a short but poignant and great interaction between the two of them Gohan is serious and me likey the two fight and struggle against dyspo leading to Gohan needing to sacrifice himself for dyspo's elimination both are knocked out as a result now only toppo and jiren remain for the 11th universe and for the seventh Goku Frieza Vegeta and 17 remain and what follows this episode is probably one of the strongest episodes in the tournament I think in terms of character and it's very fun so Justice lag Mick Eggman is fighting 17 who's finding some success with his inexhaustible energy reserves proving to be much more of a problem to toppo than he first anticipated however he does find his opening and launches a massive attack towards 17 but at the last moment right before 17 was about to be overwhelmed Frieza finds himself in the right place at the right time unable to defend himself while holding back 17's blast Frieza begins trash talking toppo taunting him and firing blast after blast at the pride trooper and this is exactly what Frieza would do it's very much a cat playing with his food right now but alas the play must end and end it most certainly does sandwiching toppo between both his and 17's attacks however unluckily for Frieza moments before he was to knock toppo off the stage the downed Warrior stands to his feet once again and assumes the power of a God of destruction so that's less than ideal for Frieza in this instance but it does contain a nice callback to the moment Frieza control the Destroyer energy but this time it doesn't work out though I'm not sure what stopped it from completely destroying Frieza oh well the fight with toppo now a God of destruction fighting 17 resumes leading to a similar instance where 17 is on the verge of defeat when standing atop a rocky Oak crop reminiscent of his surprise return on Namek Frieza defiantly blusters at toppo leading to the near elimination on the fourth last member of universe 7. Frieza is now out cold inches from elimination there's some terrific expressions in this episode some wonderful animation to boost and I thoroughly enjoyed it all episodes 126 127 and 128 the Fight Continues as toppo gets 17 into a position of elimination for the third time when Frieza stops it again MVP of the tournament don't at me I swear tapa must think this guy's a cockroach or something because he is not going away at all meanwhile the fighting between jiren Goku and Vegeta gets too close to the action of Frieza and 17 causing topple to start fighting Vegeta in jiren's place in short they fight Vegeta gets beaten down and is forced to recall his pass to get a surge of inspiration to defy the odds and overcome toppo leading to a recreation of Vegeta's sacrifice in the buark I do not like this at all so Vegeta crawls out of the Creator he sacrificed himself in with a few scratches and less clothes cool so Vegeta 17 and Goku all team up against jiren who brushes them all off without much difficulty at all throughout this entire tournament jiren has said nothing of substance done extremely little and even spent a large portion of the tournament sleeping and watching others fight he has been this emotionless Terminator type character that literally acts not as a character but as a plot device an obstacle for the heroes of universe 7 to overcome but here we are five episodes from the finish line and we get and I'm not kidding here a tragic cliche Naruto backstory for jiren when I first saw this I burst out crying with laughter anyway 17 calls BS getting on jiren's nerves to such an extent that he ends up sacrificing himself to give Goku and Vegeta the best chance to recover man people really like sacrificing themselves in this show Goku Still Remains on the floor but Vegeta stands defiantly albeit with zero energy left episode 128 is pretty much wall-to-wall Vegeta with a little bit of Goku at the end Vegeta is being beaten to a pulp by jiren over and over and over again this was storyboarded and heavily corrected by the series character designer tarioshiya Memorial I mentioned during my battle of God's review that he worked on the art for episode 13 as well the artwork similar to that episode is very on modeled albeit on the safe side when it comes to its posing Dragon Ball characters sure do love to hold their shoulders don't they regardless Vegeta keeps getting up again and again to face jiren with the final time he does coming from his lucky boot catching him on a piece of random debris while he's unconscious and that's the second time his boots and a random piece of debris have saved him in this series despite getting up one last time Vegeta ends up falling off the stage leaving Goku alone with jiren but not before giving him all of his remaining energy Goku tries to make this as much of a contest as he can using the last of his and Vegeta's energy but alas it's still not even remotely enough to test or push jiren leading to once again a beaten and weakened Goku on the brink of losing the entire tournament when something starts to happen Ultra Instinct kicks in one more time leading to the first major or significant strike jiren has taken and if that face is anything to go by then we are most certainly in for a treat episodes 129 130 and 131 these final three chapters are the Holy Trinity of Dragon Ball super providing payoff to every substantial thing they did in this Arc and show with each episode in my opinion being better than the last so how did they go Goku and jiren continue fighting in the air because who cares of flying is banned and Goku ends up taking a massive Blow from jiren who through Goku whose last two times using the form has already studied and understood its movements well enough to successfully land a shot on this unhittable new form of Goku's Vegeta gives Goku a pep talk from the sidelines ordering Goku 2 and I quote step into the Realms of the Gods and defeat jiren Kakarot hearing this Goku rise himself yet again explosions envelop the arena as yuichikarasawa another wonderful action animator provides some great artwork and animation for the fight to help it feel as big as it deserves to be however this desperate flurry doesn't last long and as fast as it started jiren has Goku once again pressed down to the ground and this is when we start to notice something an energy building a sense of stability and offense bubbling within Goku all this time Goku's Ultra Instinct form had been unrefined an unstable mainly defensive form however for someone to truly perfect Ultra instinct to master it they must also be able to attack without thinking simultaneously taking one last deep breath accepting the power surging within him Goku left out a massive Roar as what looks like a galaxy of light surrounds and flows through him jiren acknowledges and smiles meeting Goku's power output from Atop The High Ground respect is now something jiren has for Goku taking aim jiren fires the largest attack the tournament has yet seen towards the Saiyan that while currently surging with power is still on a flimsy foothold inches from defeat the attack is fired the sound effects blast accompanied by The Roaring soundtrack when quiet appearing behind jiren holding in his hand the Blaster and sent to him stands Goku shrouded in a phantom white glow similar to how he appeared behind him last only this time he lands consecutive blows while dodging at the exact same time he has mastered offense as well as defense this is mastered Ultra Instinct and what follows this unveiling is the single biggest fight in Dragon Ball super without exaggeration this is the most well animated episode of Dragon Ball and that includes Dragon Ball Z with it being the treasure gem it is online and all it's honestly wonderful to see a show that started off as rough as it did rise up to be the single best demonstration of Animation in the Dragon Ball episodic series as a whole with that said there isn't much Happening Here in terms of writing or story but there is a nice moment where Goku straight up says that he isn't a hero for justice but takes issue when someone attacks his friends and family but outside of that it's just spectacular fight choreography with every major action effects animator working on it in some capacity ending on a cliffhanger with Goku's body rejecting mastered Ultra instinct to the point of almost ending him there and then Goku is done and a swerve I both did and didn't see coming Frieza is still in play but also 17 what the final episode is in my opinion the best episode of the series by far without question supplying the most meaningful action of the show providing the best musical score inclusions and delivering some of my absolute favorite lines of not just this series but the entire Series so let's check it out this final episode can be broken up into its Prelude or pre-climax the climax itself and finally the conclusion but it's what helps link some of these parts that I find most interesting throughout this Arc itself it has been following the three-act structure and by all means we are well within the third act now but this singular episode adheres to its own self-contained three-act structure to perhaps more effectively and closely than any other episode in this Arc thus far acting not only as the series and Arc climaxes but also the climax to this episode's singular Journey creating a moment all the more intense and potent for it one of the most interesting aspects of this final episode here is that Goku really isn't the main character of it he's definitely a major player but actually acts as more of a chekhov's gun than the focused character in this episode in reality in this episode characters like Frieza and even jiren are the focus and main characters of the finish each undergoing their own hero's journey accepting the call to action transforming themselves at toning for what they have done and coming out the other end different jiren in that he receives a new outlook on life and Frieza in that he gets a brand new one but anyway I don't want to get lost in the weeds of the hero's journey and this is a video first and foremost about me reviewing the series I'm just a really big fan of this finish and I need you guys to know first off that there is much more going on in this episode under the hood than maybe you might have realized the episode itself begins as a weekend jiren has to contend with Android 17 and Frieza two characters he thought had been eliminated despite this he quickly accepts the call to action and fights them Frieza takes the lead against the purple brute but what's interesting is that the entire episode centers around the main theme of The Arc and that is trust from the very first opening line of the episode the exact theme is mentioned trust by both Frieza and jiren in their first exchange and that is most definitely not a coincidence despite this both he and Frieza reject the notion of trust and so begin doing battle relying on their own strength to get the job done Frieza begins taunting jiren about how he isn't the Invincible fighter he thought he once was and that he isn't intimidated by him in the slightest this position frees his character finds himself in is so interesting to me flirting with the idea of fighting for good but always finding a reason to make it about himself very much in the scenario he is playing the role of an anti-hero the same way Vegeta was while fighting the guinyu force on Namek as Frieza and jiren were fighting and crashing through the floor we got an awesome establishing shot that really demonstrates the scale of the battle ahead offering us perspective of where Android 17 is right now relative to them which becomes important later Frieza is using every single weapon he has against jiren including his intellect it's extremely compelling stuff the scene even manages to pull off a swerve two in its short time with us jiren Rises to the taunt of Frieza stepping on his tail beginning to Pummel his body like a punching bag looking for this reaction however Frieza uses his telekinesis to crush during between two Boulders before giving way to 17's attack having successfully flanked into the correct position taking both Frieza and jiren off guard the Android surrounds himself and jiren with a strong barrier before creating a massive explosion around the final fighter from the 11th universe as the Smoke Clears jiren falls to his knees down for the count Frieza walks up to 17 saying you certainly went all out to stop him didn't you to which 17 responds by saying even if I failed I knew it'd be fine if you were still here 17 at this moment has put all of his trust in Frieza and hearing this all Frieza can do is scoff at the idea and sarcastically quip before moving on to finish jiren off Frieza at this point much like jiren still is has no trust in anyone crushed by the weight of his defeat at the hands of Goku and now even Frieza jiren kneels because he has been mentally defeated but cutting through the silence topple shouts out to his Fallen comrade as Frieza teases that his friend is obnoxious jiren replies I have no friends toppo continues to criticize jiren's old way of doing things training for his pride while trusting no one tapa rejects all of this and in the face of certain destruction puts all of his and universe 11's trust still in jiren's resolve with this jiren finally begins to understand what trust is in himself and in others finding the mental resolve to pick himself up exploding with new reserves of energy this forces Frieza back once standing alone like he is most comfortable doing he is forced to stand behind the shield of an ally that moments ago put his trust in him and there's tons of symbolism here Frieza by necessity needed for his own Survival sake to stand behind 17's defenses but also needed to strip himself of his gaudy golden facade to help The Shield's Integrity meaning the shield only works if Frieza trusts 17 with his energy kicking and screaming at 17 to not tell him what to do it's obvious that he is still trying to reject the notion of relying completely on others this loss of his golden form also communicates tension to us the audience for reasons that are abundantly obvious they are about to run out of energy The Shield is buckling and cracking it's about to give way when [Music] this moment this freaking moment on a fundamental narrative Visual and even musical level works and I don't use this word often perfectly and what follows is my favorite scene in this episode in this series and maybe even Dragon Ball Goku by some miracle stands alongside his teammates one last time formulating a plan of action 17 is to take care of backup while he and Frieza deal with jiren Frieza clearly still doesn't feel comfortable with this teasing Goku are you sure you don't want to stay back too Goku sees through this issue Frieza has immediate shouting his name reprimanding his foolish thought process at such a dire point in the contest confronting Frieza for the first time about this side of himself forcing him to see reason Goku in this moment is showing the true strength of his character and it's been like this since the very beginning of Dragon Ball the flat art character that shows the truth to those trapped in the line he says we have all gone well beyond our limits already if we don't work together and fight Universal 7 is going to be erased Goku then turns his Focus to jiren a changed fighter partially thanks to him but also his teammates Goku begins to Marvel at the level of strength this fighter has been able to muster and that's when the most important piece of dialogue cuts through the air without being provoked Frieza says you haven't forgotten about your promise to resurrect me have you Goku responds somewhat confused Frieza I'm asking if you still remember he screams at Goku so long as you don't break your promise I'll keep mine you know that better than anyone don't you that line was not something Frieza was expecting but in that one solitary line it suddenly gives Frieza pause for thought recontextualizing everything he understood about what transpired on nemec Frieza never trusted anyone not his forces his father and most certainly not Goku after he begged him to spare his life and to give him energy what made that scene dynamic as powerful as it was wasn't simply the spectacle of the event but also the story about how Frieza defeated himself then and there while begging on that planet not for a second did Frieza ever consider trusting anyone that at the first opportunity he's given he would destroy Goku there and then and we all know how that played out now faced with that explanation in the closing moments of the tournament Frieza is forced to swallow his pride except that Goku in this instance might be onto something and regardless of whether or not he agrees with him at this moment he has to trust him he's not going to make the same mistake he did on Namek this is the best dialogue Exchange in all of super no question and for the first time in the history of this show both Frieza and Goku fight unconditionally side by side as a team for the sake of their home and it is amazing showcasing a phenomenal storyboard by The Genius megumi ishitani who if I'm being honest deserves an entire video of her own and in addition to that the bombastic animation supplied by the incomparable yuya Takahashi really puts the cherry on top of this battle and what a battle showcasing teamwork Maneuvers by both Goku and Frieza coming in with a flying knee to jiren's face making the save for Goku at the beginning getting a boost from Goku later off the wall and then Goku returned the favor to Frieza making the save as the guitar solo slashes through the action with him fading in and out of his Super Saiyan form which if I'm being completely honest is a damn cool Visual and what caps off the end of tournament jiren saying this so this is trust Universe 7's power jiren acknowledges that trust is a powerful trait to have and not a weakness this episode man this episode I adore it the rest of the episode is tidy up on the details of the aftermath of the tournament 17 uses the balls to revive the Fallen universes and Frieza loses his Halo and gains a life once again oh also a really fun visual Easter egg actually happens right after Frieza gets his life back Frieza teases whis are you sure about this I don't intend to stop my evil ways we then cut to Goku surrounded by Gohan Piccolo Krillin Vegeta basically everyone who was around on Namek that's a really nice touch the gang then goes home both Goku and Vegeta tease us about the future while assuming their classic poses from their Gorge battle and that's Dragon Ball Super's Tournament of power it's surprisingly easy and enjoyable to watch as a binging experience I will however say that I recall people complaining about the pacing when it was on the air week to week which is a justifiable criticism too I believe there are some very slow and uneventful episodes and spots in the ark and if you're not interested in the character that gets the screen time that particular week then you're out of luck and got away until next week to roll the dice again I mean there's a reason why I grouped these by the three instead of reviewing them individually but in saying that I love tournament darks and I love them as much as I do not because of the action that comes with them but because they act as a wonderful way to bring characters and subsequently their emotional Journeys into conflict with each other leading to those emotional Journeys in a lot of ways finding their resolutions and I think for the most part the universe survival Arc did that and was for me the strongest out in the entire series had by a long long shot perhaps my biggest issue with The Arc can be seen with characters like jiren and even Vegeta who could have had much more of an impact on the story had they been handled better and perhaps even the whole tournament could have been made slightly more cohesive looking back at it now but overall re-watching this left me with honestly more positive than negatives to talk about and I'm genuinely happy for that the music in Parts I believe was used masterfully well and didn't know there's a little less well in fact going through this series again has inspired me to study Dragon Ball's music more and to be honest I'm very excited to share with you all what I found and notice about this series is music a lot of you have written to me privately and publicly on Twitter Instagram and YouTube reprimanded me for what I have had to say about the show you love and to that I say I love the show too I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing and talking about this show Dragon Ball if I didn't love it I hope you guys enjoyed this trip down memory lane and I will see you all next week in the next video thank you so much for watching foreign [Music]

Channel: Totally Not Mark

Views: 1,282,363

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Id: 9l-EpJ2TsgM

Length: 147min 57sec (8877 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 26 2022