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[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga ch.91-93

Last time, we covered the "prequel" story of Goten and Trunks adopting superhero identities and capturing Dr. Hedo. Now we get into the events of the DBS: Super Hero movie itself. I already liveblogged the movie extensively in September (here, here, here, here, and here), so for the manga adaptation I'll be focusing mainly on whatever changes Toyotaro made to the story.

First off, Chapter 91 opens with Piccolo picking up Pan from school, and when she talks about wanting to be a superhero like Goten and Trunks have been doing recently, Piccolo offers to train her just like he trained Gohan in Dragon Ball Z.

Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing we can expect from this adaptation. It's mostly a straight retelling of the movie, and the little extras that get added in don't really add much to the story. I mean, the movie established that Piccolo has picked up Pan from school in the past, but there was no need to show it. Also, the movie didn't really explain why Piccolo started training Pan, probably because it didn't need to. I think the manga pretty much proves my point, because it attempts to tackle the question, but only comes up with a fairly pat answer. She wanted to fly and shoot hand energy like Goten and Trunks, and so Piccolo offered to teach her and she said yes.

Then we get to this scene, where Krillin's boss in the West City P.D. holds a briefing on the Red Ribbon Army and their plans to recruit Dr. Hedo. This takes the place of the flashback montage that opened the movie, and it sucks.

That montage was awesome, and Toyotaro could have drawn his own version of it here, but instead he did this. We could be looking a Goku punching Tao Pai Pai, or 17 killing Dr. Gero, or Cell smirking like a boss, but instead we're in a boring conference room reading walls of text.

Look at this fucking page! It's awful! A lot of this one serves as a stand-in for Carmine's report to Magenta about Dr. Hedo. I get it, this is a lot of information to go through, and Toyotaro probably wanted to move on as quickly as possible, but part of what I loved about the movie was the way they showcased the characters and visuals during the infodumping. Carmine's report is pretty dry in the movie, but Magenta's office is interesting to look at, and Carmine and Magenta themselves are visually compelling characters. While they talk about Hedo, Carmine shows off his video editing skills and Magenta keeps screwing up his snacks

This police briefing, however, sucks all the fun out of it. This place looks like a hotel conference room with hardwood floors. All of the cops look exactly the same, and why the hell are they wearing helmets and sunglasses indoors, anyway? Krillin's boss, Sergeant Nutz, has some potential, but she has nothing to do with this story, so featuring her so prominently here is just a waste of time.

What really irks me is that the next scene shows Carmine and Magenta talking about Dr. Hedo, just like in the movie, except there's not much for them to say because Krillin and Nutz already covered it all! That's really dumb! We have two scenes designed to set up the plot of the movie, and one of them was in the movie, and actually features the main antagonists. But Toyotaro chose to emphasize the other scene instead.

So the idea here is that the police are already aware of Magenta's scheme to revive the Red Ribbon Army, and they know he plans to recruit Dr. Hedo once he gets out of prison. They also know that Hedo had that disc containing data on Dr. Gero's bioweapon, although I don't see how they could know that, since Trunks couldn't access the data on the disc and it was destroyed before anyone else could try. Hedo told Krillin in Chapter 90 that he memorized the contents of the disc, but he never said what it was that he memorized. This also goes against the storyline in the movie. In the film, Magenta had Gero's data on Cell, and the reason he wanted Hedo was because his own scientists couldn't do anything with it.

Anyway, the police seem to know everything about the Red Ribbon Army already. The only thing they don't know is where the Red Ribbon base is, so they send Krillin to follow Magenta's limo and spy on him. So we get the limo scene from the movie, except Krillin's clinging to the side of the car the whole trip, and then Hedo spots him and sends his cyborg bee, Hatchimaru, to attack him.

The gag here is that Magenta and Carmine don't even know Krillin is out there, and Hedo doesn't particularly care. The scene plays out almost exactly like it does in the movie, but with Krillin spliced in like Jabba the Hut in the Star Wars Special Edition.

Of course, Krillin gets shaken off so the base's location remains a secret, so this whole bit is completely pointless. It's just so dumb. I assume Toyotaro needed to pad out the story for one reason or another, or maybe he just wanted to add some new details so he wouldn't get bored retelling a movie like this. But if this is the best he can come up with, why bother? So far, this manga keeps "expanding" on the movie by answering questions nobody asked, like "Why did Piccolo start training Pan?" or "Why didn't the authorities stop the Red Ribbon Army?" or "Why is Gamma 1's cape red?"

From here, it's a pretty faithful retelling of the movie, which kind of makes the "filler" scenes even more conspicuous. It's refreshing to see the actual story move along without all these pointless diversions. On the other hand, it's kind of dull, because I already covered the movie and there's nothing else to talk about here.

There is some extra stuff in the Gamma 2 vs. Piccolo fight. Piccolo loses an arm, but then he grows a new one and makes it all long to catch Gamma 2 off guard. It doesn't slow him down much, but it's something we didn't get in the movie. I do find it a bit strange how Gamma 2 notes Piccolo's regeneration ability like it's this new data to add to his files. Shouldn't the Red Ribbon Army have all of this intel programmed into Gamma 2 by now?

Moving on, when Piccolo infiltrates the Red Ribbon base, he gets stopped by his superiors, who remind "94" that he isn't assigned to this area, but another soldier offers to switch assignments so "94" can gain some valuable experience watching Hedo eat cookies.

Again, what is the point of this? We're just derailing the story so Toyotaro can waste a page explaining how Piccolo managed to get this far into the base. In the movie, nobody notices or cares that "94" is in the command center instead of the hangar. That's because they're all faceless, interchangeable henchmen. They wear masks and refer to each other by numbers, for crying out loud! This is why Piccolo disguised himself in the first place! If Toyotaro wrote Star Wars, he'd do a whole scene where Luke Skywalker has to rewrite the Death Star's duty roster just so "TK-421" can get reassigned to prison detail. Nobody cares!

Okay now this is more like it. We get to the part where no one can reach Goku and Vegeta because they're training on Beerus' planet, and so Toyotaro gives us a little more of the sparring match Goku and Broly had in the movie. It's not a lot, but this is the sort of thing filler is good for. Toyo also does a whole montage recap of the DBS: Broly film, which is perfectly serviceable, but it annoys me because it demonstrates that he could have done the same thing with the Red Ribbon Army flashback in Chapter 91, but instead he did the briefing scene with Sgt. Nutz. Ugh.

We see the same scene where Vegeta explains the importance of mental training, although when he talks about all of their recent opponents, he adds manga-only characters like Moro, Gas, and Black Frieza. And that's fine, although it's strange when he talks about Jiren and Black Frieza in the same breath like this. In the manga, Vegeta has gotten pretty good at "Ultra Ego", his answer to Goku's Ultra Instinct. And Goku's learned to tap into UI at will. So I'm pretty sure Jiren and Moro aren't really an issue for either of them anymore. I mean, the only reason Goku couldn't defeat Jiren by himself at the Tournament of Power was because he lacked experience using UI, and now he's much better at it.

The point I'm getting at is that in the manga, Vegeta doesn't need to do "mental training" to defeat Jiren because he's already surpassed him. And he might need it to surpass Broly and Black Frieza, but he speaks as though that's their secret, and he needs to learn how to do it himself. I'm pretty sure Broly isn't "relaxed" between attacks when he's using his full power. He was kind of freaking the fuck out back then. Black Frieza might have been doing something like that, but he only hit Vegeta once, so I'm not sure how he could be certain.

So then we move on to the part where Piccolo wishes for a power-up from Shenron, and we just skip the part where Dende upgrades Shenron to do that. The implication here is that DBS-manga Shenron always had the ability to make Orange Piccolo, and no one bothered to ask before. Kind of annoying.

Anyway, while Piccolo and Bulma are getting their...ahem... enhancements, Trunks sees them and calls Goten. They make plans to sneak out and play superheroes again, even though Goten's grounded and he really doesn't need to run up a bigger bill with his mom. I guess this is the throughline for Goten and Trunks in Dragon Ball Super. No matter what happens, Dragon Team tries to keep the boys out of it. It's not just Chi-Chi wanting Goten to study. Back in Resurrection F, Bulma tells the others that she doesn't want them fucking around during the battle with Frieza. And Vegeta ices them out of the tournaments with the other universes because he doesn't want them turning into Gotenks and being dorks the whole time. The Saiyaman X-1 and X-2 caper probably didn't do much to convince anyone that Goten and Trunks have matured.

But they still crave the excitement of being in the thick of things. They know the adults are trying to keep them out of it, and that just makes it more exciting. I suppose this is the legacy of the Buu Saga, where they had to get involved because there was no other choice, and they've had the bug for DBZ mayhem ever since, but their parents said no.

And maybe that's why Goku and Vegeta were so determined to train the boys in the End of Z episodes. Sometime after Super Hero, they came back home, heard about the Saiyamen costumes and the battle with Cell Max, and decided that they needed to be toughened up. Like, okay, you want to go fight bad guys like we do? Stop doing the poses and quit relying on fusion and learn how to do it right. And if the sparring sessions are too hard for you, you can always go back to doing your homework like your mom wanted."

That's why Goten's so frustrated in DBZ 289. He just wants to go on dates or screw around, but his only options are a) homework and b) fight for-ev-er *clap clap clap-clap-clap*.

And now that I think about it, this is where GT dropped the ball with Goten, because he doesn't really seem to have gained anything from that. Hitting the books and getting hit by Goku should have made him a bit more serious about his life, but instead he's just constantly talking to girls on the phone, because that was the only thing GT's writers seemed to think of for him to do.

I mean, they kind of got it right with Trunks, who went into GT with a lot of responsibility and skills. He didn't enjoy his position, but you could tell he'd grown a lot as a person since the end of DBZ.

So yeah, maybe I'm beginning to appreciate Big Goten more than I did before, but this newfound perspective still doesn't do much for this part of the manga. There's just a lot of nothing happening here, and throwing more Krillin, Goten, and Trunks at it doesn't help matters.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga Ch. 94-96

We're still reading the Super Hero adaptation! It's not great!

Things continue pretty much like they did in the movie, although it's a little awkward how Chapter 94 opens with Pan waiting to get picked up from school, just like she was in Chapter 91, because Toyotaro wanted to show Piccolo doing a "normal" kindergarten pickup as a prelude to the story. And that might have seemed like a good idea on paper. You know, contrast a routine encounter with the zany scene we got in the movie. The problem is that it undermines the zany scene when we finally get to it. The whole point is that a "normal" version isn't that interesting to see, which is why they didn't show Gohan cooking breakfast or Dr. Hedo brushing his teeth in the movie.

Anyway, you read chapter 91 and it feels like they skipped to the middle of the movie because Pan's waiting at kindergarten. Then you get to Chapter 94 and you see Pan waiting at kindergarten again and think the story is starting over. Or was it preschool? The manga version has a sign over the property that reads "kindergarten", but Pan's only three so I don't know. Piccolo knocked her into a bunch of rocks earlier in the day, and now he's taking her home with a layover at Red Ribbon HQ, so the point of all of this is that nothing is really ever "normal" with Dragon Ball.

Back to the manga, Toyotaro drags out this scene by having a cop take notice of the Red Ribbon aircraft, but he immediately decides it's okay once he finds out it's for Mr. Satan's granddaughter. This might be the same cop who helped Goku find Bulma's house for the first time in the original Red Ribbon Army Saga, but I'm not interested in looking it up.

So once again, Toyotaro seems determined to cram in new material to this story, but it's always designed to be as dull as possible, answering questions no one asked. Why didn't Piccolo get a ticket for the aircraft being parked on the street? For the zero people who were concerned about this, Toyotaro heroically includes a traffic cop whose sole purpose is to remind us that it doesn't actually matter.

Chapter 94 continues up to the first leg of the Gohan/Gamma 1 fight. There's some changes to the fight choreography, but I'm not gonna do a side-by-side analysis or anything. It pretty much has to be different because of the medium involved. I'm pretty sure Gohan firing a Kamehameha is new, as is Gamma 1 shooting at him to counterattack. But I could be wrong.

While Gohan powers up to his Ultimate/Mystic/Elder Kai Unlock form, Krillin's family is just getting out of the movie theater where they watched Cleangod 2. I mentioned this scene before, but now that we're here, this is Teen Marron's only appearance in Dragon Ball Super, and here's the big pitch for the character: She's a huge fan of Cleangod. Just like Goten! And Trunks. And... Dr. Hedo. I'm not impressed.

Krillin senses Gohan fighting, then he gets a call from Police HQ.

For some reason, Krillin runs off and hides while he takes the call? Are people not supposed to know he's a cop? Everyone keeps staring at him the whole time, so if he's trying to keep this a secret, he's doing a lousy job of it. Also, when 18 asks him who he's talking to, she doesn't seem to believe his answer, so she insists on tagging along with him. Does... 18 not know Krillin's a cop? What is going on here?

The dumbest part of all of this is that Nutz is calling Krillin to tell him about the battle at the Red Ribbon Army base. Remember how she had Krillin follow Magenta and Hedo in Chapter 91? Because they knew Magenta had a secret base but they didn't know where it was? And then Krillin lost them before he could find it?

Okay, so apparently the police had suspected that it was in that crater lake, camouflaged by a hologram. In fact, they've suspected this for so long that they've been monitoring the lake with cameras, and when Gohan went ultimate he disrupted the hologram and revealed the base. Now they want Krillin to reconnoiter the area before they send in a bunch of guys.

This is just really dumb. I mean, if the police suspected the base was inside the lake, why didn't they just send Krillin to check it out in the first place? He could have gone there months ago, and if it was just a lake, the worst thing that would have happened is he'd get wet. But if it was a secret mercenary base, he could have just snuck in and out as easily as Piccolo did in this story. It would have been even easier, since Krillin's less conspicuous than Piccolo, and the Red Ribbon wouldn't have had Hedo's androids for support. Hell, Krillin could have taken out the entire base by himself, and all they had to do was send him to the lake that they were already monitoring.

Also, why is it the West City Police Department's job to bust the Red Ribbon Army? Isn't that a job for the Royal Military? None of this makes any sense. I mean, the purpose is to add more Krillin content to the story, but it's so forced that it becomes nonsensical. The movie makes so much more sense without the police involved at all. Again, it's another question that no one asked. "Why didn't the police find the Red Ribbon Army's hidden base?" Because it's a hidden base, that's why not!

Toyotaro seems almost desperate to give these fictional cops a chance to save face. Well they were trying very hard to locate the base, but they just couldn't find it before Piccolo did. Except his depiction of their efforts just makes them look worse. Sergeant Nutz seems to know everything about the Red Ribbon Army. She knew Magenta was secretly rebuilding it, she knew he was planning to contact Dr. Hedo, and when he would do it. She was even pretty sure where the Red Ribbon base was. Yet despite all this inside information, she still couldn't figure out how to respond to it.

All of this makes it look like a set up to explain Krillin showing up at the end of the movie, except, no, that's not what happens. He shows up at the end because Bulma calls him and tells him what's happening. Toyotaro saw the movie and thought: "No! That's not enough! We need three reasons for Krillin to go to the lake!"

1. He senses Gohan's ki from the battle. 2. Sgt. Nutz calls him and tells him to go check out the base. 3. Bulma calls him and tells him Piccolo is at the base.

Is that enough? Does Krillin have sufficient motivation to go yet? I'm not sure, let's throw in some more reasons.

4. Krillin is visited by the ghost of the pirates from that underwater cave. The ghost tells him that the Red Ribbon stole his treasure and hid it in the lake, so he pleads with Krillin to recover it so the pirates can rest in peace. 5. Marron really wants to check out the crater lake, becuase Cleangod 2 had a scene that was filmed there. 6. Vegeta briefly pops in using his manga-only Instant Transmission. He asks Krillin to check on a three-layer cake he ordered from the bakery, but Krillin mishears him and thinks he said "crater lake". 7. The Supreme Kai of Time deputizes Krillin into the Time Patrol and informs him of a temporal anomaly at the crater lake. 8. Krillin was going there anyway because it's on his way home.

Back to the fight, not much is different, although there's a brief moment where Piccolo coaches Gohan before they resume fighting their respective opponents. This is kind of redundant, because they both already understood they were fighting androids, and they're already in their strongest forms (as far as they know), so Piccolo is just stating the obvious here. At least he isn't telepathically summoning Krillin to get his butt over here. Piccolo actually trusts the plot of this movie.

The Gammas aren't quite as powerful in this version, so 2 has to give a little assist to 1, then they consider double-teaming Piccolo to improve their chances. This doesn't last long, though, since it's not like Gohan was just going to stand there and let Piccolo get beat down.

At Capsule Corp, Bulma starts assembling a squad to help Piccolo, and is surprised to learn that Trunks already knows about Dr. Hedo. She asks him why he never mentioned any of this before, and finally, finally, Toyotaro has come up with a question someone might have actually asked. Why didn't Trunks tell Bulma about all of this? Because he would have gotten in trouble for playing superhero, and also because Bulma wouldn't have taken his story seriously even if he had said anything.

So Bulma admits that she goofed, but now she ungrounds Trunks (and Goten, since he just showed up), and she wants them to join Piccolo in battle.

But she immediately regrets it, because Goten and Trunks can't pinpoint Piccolo's location with their ki senses. And this is Big Goten in a nutshell. The boys are eager to get in on the action, but they lack the skill and focus to be effective. They're basically the opposite of what Gohan was in his childhood. Gohan was constantly caught between adventure and study, and he ended up excelling in both things. But Goten and Trunks really don't get pushed hard in either direction. They don't have much motivation to study, and they're not very good at adventure stuff either. Bulma's giving them a chance to be heroes and they're blowing it.

Anyway, she calls Piccolo, and when he doesn't answer, she calls Krillin, which is the canonical reason they all show up together at the end of the story.

Oh, and here's an awesome shot of Cell Max. I can't stress this enough: The art in this thing is tremendous, but the writing is just dull as can be. Everything's either a rerun or a pointless filler scene.

When Cell Max crawls out to fight all the good guys, Goten and Trunks offer to give Piccolo and Gohan a breather, and they switch to their Saiyaman X-1 and X-2 suits. Pan's into it, but everyone else find it dumb. I guess Marron should have come along and maybe she'd enjoy this...

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga ch.97-99

Cell Max is running wild, but don't worry, because Goten and Trunks are here to pad the story give Piccolo and Gohan a breather.

To be fair, the boys do a little better once they turn Super Saiyan, which kind of begs the question of why they didn't just turn Super Saiyan from the start. This page's sole purpose is to have the Gammas notice their "resemblance" to Saiyaman X-1 and X-2. This would be annoying enough even if they did look alike, but they don't. Look at them! Trunks and Goten have tights and some sort of Stormtrooper midriff thing going on. The Gammas are wearing jodhpurs and bellhop jackets. And Goten and Trunks' color schemes are clearly reversed from one to the other. The Gammas match perfectly except for their red and blue capes.

The only real similarities here are the numbers on their costumes, and the fact that there are two of them. Oh, and Gamma 1 has a red cape, and Goten has a red cape. Eerie! What are the odds of two superheroes having red capes? You almost never see that. I mean, there's Superman, Thor, Great Saiyaman, Dr. Strange, Spawn, Great Saiyaman 2, the Scarlet Witch, Supergirl, Great Saiyaman 3, Power Girl, Steel, but other than those characters, I can't think of anyone else!

Then they all pose together and attack Cell Max in concert. It looks impressive, but their quadruple-team fails to do any damage. The Gammas acknowledge that Cell Max is still getting used to moving around in his body, so he's not fighting as effectively as he will be later in the story. So that's why Goten and Trunks can do this well without actually hurting their opponent. And that's fair.

What doesn't make a lot of sense is the Gammas' role in this part of the battle. Of everyone involved in this battle, they alone understand the danger Cell Max poses to the world, because Dr. Hedo told them about Max's powers. That's why they went in first when Cell Max first emerged. They knew they had to shut him down as quickly as possible. And they're not rusty like Goten and Trunks, or unfamiliar with their bodies like Cell Max. If there's a window of opportunity here for Goten and Trunks to fight Cell Max without looking outclassed, then you'd think the Gammas would use this chance to target Max's head and finish him off.

Of course, they can't actually do that, since that's not what happened in the movie, but that's the problem I have with all of this. Toyotaro keeps shoehorning Goten and Trunks into this story, and their scenes tend to interfere with the plot instead of adding to it. The Gammas have a cool gimmick and aesthetic with the super hero thing. It works. They don't need two more characters aping that look right beside them. At best it's redundant, and at worst it just cramps their style. It'd be like if Frieza had a teen sidekick following him around repeating everything he says. It would kill his whole vibe.

Okay, so once Goten and Trunks fuse into Gotenks, the battle plays out mostly like it did in the movie, but there's one part that got changed up and it caused some controversy in the fandom. Remember how Pan almost got killed, and Krillin called out to her and told her to fly, and then she managed to fly for the first time?

So in the manga, Pan has the same moment, except she doesn't take flight. Instead...

In this version, Krillin just flies over and grabs her. And that makes sense. Why would he just assume she can fly on her own? Why not just zip over and get her? However, this kills the character arc Pan had in the movie. She started the film wishing she could do more advanced training, but Piccolo won't let her because she can't fly yet. Then in this scene, she does fly, and when the movie ends she shows Piccolo and he proudly agrees to start giving her the advanced lessons.

Fans didn't like this version, because Toyotaro appeared to be saying "no" to something the fans enjoyed in the movie. Krillin doesn't need a hero moment in this scene because he gets a couple of hero moments when he helps fight Cell Max. He saves 18 and distracts Cell Max with a solar flare. Krillin's fine. So it sure looks like Toyotaro just scrapped Pan's big moment for no discernible reason. This happened in Chapter 97.

Hey, check out this cool shot of Orange Piccolo fighting Cell Max.

Right, back to what I was saying.

So in Chapter 98, Toyotaro redeems himself by having Pan fly for the first time, just in a later part of the battle. When Big Orange Piccolo gives the last senzu bean to Gohan in the movie, Gohan just eats it and that's it. But in the manga, Cell Max attacks Piccolo and knocks it out of his hand. No one can catch it, until Pan goes after it and follows it over a ledge. Gohan's worried, but then it turns out she can fly now so she was never in danger, and she gets to help him this way.

Is it better than the movie? I can see a case for this version, but one thing that bugs me is that it seems a bit contrived for Pan to notice the senzu bean and be able to follow it through the air the way she did. I believe she could and would catch it for her dad. That's fine. But I'm not sure she would understand the need from where she was sitting in Bulma's aircraft.

For that matter, I don't know that it makes sense for Pan to understand what a senzu bean is, or why Gohan would need one so badly. Someone might have explained it to her at some point, but Pan's only three years old. I wouldn't expect her to know everything about everything.

Anyway, it goes to show how much can change from one chapter to another. People were mad about Chapter 97, but only because they didn't have 98 right there in front of them to show them it wasn't that big a deal. This is one major reason why I don't like to read the manga as it publishes.

From here, well, I think I'm just down to cool shots of the fight with Cell Max.

I don't think much is different here, but the art is cool, and this is one of my favorite parts of the movie.

I think this is a manga-only bit. Cell Max works over Piccolo with ki blasts, and it looks like Piccolo blows up, which triggers Gohan's Beast form, but then later it turns out Gamma 1 was protecting Piccolo with his force field, which allowed him to withstand the blast.

Also, when Cell Max tries to use his wings to escape the attack Gohan has planned, Toyotaro has Gamma 1, Krillin, and 18 cut off his wings. Not sure we needed this, but sure, it gives those characters one more chance to shine.

And then Piccolo holds Cell Max down and pleads with Gohan to take the shot, and that's the end of chapter 99.

And that gets me all caught up. Now I just have to wait for Chapter 100, which is supposed to drop on December 20. Hopefully, it'll wrap up the Super Hero adaptation, but I wouldn't put it past Toyotaro to drag this thing out another three chapters with some sort of press conference featuring Sergeant Nutz, Saiyaman X-1 and X-2, and Cleangod.

There's been talk of a big surprise twist or something in chapter 100, but I'm not holding my breath. Usually when this franchise has a big announcement, it's about the date for some actual announcement later, and that announcement usually turns out to be something the fans kind of already heard about anyway. "Yes, we will be releasing a Chapter 101" is the sort of thing I would expect them to "announce" in chapter 100.

It would be cool if Chapter 100 ended with Black Frieza showing up and killing Vegeta or something major like that. Or, I don't know, maybe Goten and Trunks turn evil. Those would be shocking developments, but I doubt this manga would go that far. We'll just have to see...

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga Ch. 77-80

When I first read this, I was pissed because I’m sick of Vegeta just knowing everything that happened to every Saiyan before they were wiped out.  I mean, he was a kid back then, how would he know Goku’s dad? 

Then I finally remembered Vegeta grew up with Goku’s brother, and it suddenly made sense. 

Okay, so let’s back up a bit and go over why Granolah wants revenge in the first place.  About forty-odd years ago the Cerealians were invaded by Frieza’s forces, including a lot of Saiyans.  I think they showed some other aliens in Frieza uniforms, but it’s mainly Saiyans using Oozaru forms.  The Cerealians managed to neutralize the giant ape business, but the Saiyans were still strong enough to kill them all.  There was also a small community of Namekians living on the planet Cereal, and they all died as well.  There were only two survivors: The Namekian Monaito, who inherited the Cerealian Dragon Balls from the village elder, and Granolah, who found refuge in a building with his mother. 

However, Granolah and his mom were discovered by a Saiyan named Bardock.  He probably would have killed them on sight, except they happened to remind him of...

His wife and newborn son, whom he saw recently before this mission.  Turns out Bardock was the one who came up with the name “Kakarot.”

So instead of killing the two Cerealians, Bardock tells the rest of his squad that he’s going to stay behind to take out any survivors.  Then he scans the area and locates Monaito.  He then takes Granolah and his mom to Monaito and asks him to take them in.  Then he leaves, or he tries to, anyway.

Afterwards, Granolah grew up craving revenge on the Saiyans and Frieza, and he must have had no memory of Bardock’s act of mercy.  Monaito’s known all along, and he kept it a secret this whole time, but he’s telling Granolah now because he wants him to stop his attack on Goku and Vegeta.  And as he explains all this, he notices that Goku bears a striking resemblance to Bardock, and that’s when Vegeta explains that Bardock was Goku’s father. 

But wait, if Bardock saved Granolah’s mother, then who killed her?  Ah, well you see...

Shortly after Bardock saved those guys, the Heeters showed up.  They worked as planet brokers under Frieza, so once Planet Cereal was vacant, they started making plans to sell it to the Sugarians.  Naturally, they planned to overcharge the Sugurians and give Frieza a modest cut. 

But then they happened across Bardock, Monaito, Granolah and his mom, and Bardock had to pretend that he was preparing to take Monaito prisoner to cover his tracks.  Elec then shot Granolah’s mom just to simplify things.  This infuriated Bardock, who then attacked the Heeters, which led to a fight with Gas.  Bardock won that day, although Monaito didn’t get to see that part, for some reason.

So why didn’t Monaito tell Granolah about the Heeters?  Why didn’t he say anything when Granolah started working for them? 

Because Monaito knew he’d go off on some half-baked revenge scheme and get himself killed.  This is probably why Monaito allowed Granolah to believe it was the Saiyans who did it, because once Frieza destroyed their home planet, there was no one for Granolah to go after, and he seemed to understand that Frieza was too strong.  But that backfired on Monaito, because once Granolah found out about Frieza returning and some Saiyans still being alive, he... went off on some half-baked revenge scheme. 

Anyway, Elec knew Granolah had talent, and since he never knew about the whole murdered-his-mom thing, Elec thought he could recruit him for his organization.  After that, Monaito couldn’t tell him the truth, because Elec would kill them both.

Anyway, while all this exposition is happening, the Heeters find the Cerealian Dragon Balls and make their wish...

... which is basically the same wish Granolah made at the beginning of this arc, only they asked for Gas to become the strongest warrior in the universe.  And since the wish was granted, that means Gas must be even stronger than Granolah is.

So they fight, and Granolah gets his ass kicked.  Gas’ whole deal is that he uses energy constructs, sort of like Green Lantern but without the ring.  This isn’t a new power he got, it’s something he’s always been able to do, and through much of this battle, he tries to win with the power he had before Elec made the wish. 

Goku comes up with a plan to handle Gas.  He wants Vegeta to eat his senzu bean and fight with Ultra Ego again, but Vegeta left the bean in his armor, which he took off while fighting Granolah.  So first he has to go find it, and Goku will try to hold Gas off in the meantime. 

But Vegeta gives the senzu bean to Granolah instead, insisting that he’s the one who wants revenge on these guys, so it should be him who settles things. 

On his way to fight Gas, Granolah makes up with Oatmeel and puts him back on, assuring the computer than they’re a team.  Awww.

So this is just Gas vs. Granolah, with Goku and Vegeta reduced to spectators.  It’s an interesting choice to say the least.  Gas should have the advantage on power, but Granolah stays competitive for a few reasons.

1) Gas doesn’t want to use his full strength, because he thinks he should be able to win with the power he had before the wish.  That doesn’t work, so he eventually relents and uses his full power, but he wastes a lot of valuable time and energy this way.

2) Gas hasn’t fought much at all in this arc, mainly because Elec always wanted to keep him in reserve as a last resort. We know he fought Bardock decades ago (and lost), so he’s clearly gotten a lot stronger, even without that wish to beef him up, but he lacks experience with this power.  Granolah had the same problem when he fought Goku and Vegeta, but now he’s got the advantage, because he... just got done fighting Goku and Vegeta.  If he can beat those two, he can hold his own against Gas.

3) Granolah has his Cerelian perception, which makes his attacks far more precise than anything Gas can do.  

It’s also possible that Gas’s heart just isn’t in this.  He seems distant from the priorities of the other Heeters.  When he has difficulty fighting, Elec removes the headband of teeth from his head.  The other Heeter wear these like necklaces, and apparently they’re not decoaritive.  Somehow they restrain their powers, and if you remove them, they become stronger, but also go berserk.  Wonder Woman’s bracelets used to work this way.  If she lost them, she’d go apeshit and kick everyone’s ass.

According to Monaito, the same thing happened when Bardock fought Gas forty years ago.  Gas took off his headband thing and transformed into a gonzo monster.  Bardock won somehow, but Gas is far more powerful now, and this time he attacks everybody.  But Elec isn’t worried, because if Gas is truly the strongest in the universe now, then he ought to be able to regain control over himself.

And that’s exactly what he does.  Not sure how he got his clothes back after he hulked out of them, but maybe the dragon gave him the Clothes Beam technique along with all the other upgrades. 

And this brings me to the end of volume 18 of Dragon Ball Super.  Volume 19 won’t be published in English until September, and I don’t want to wait that long, so I guess I’ll have to find the next several chapters elsewhere. So hopefully I can pick this up tomorrow...

Oh, right, Bardock. 

So, Bardock showing up in this arc caused a lot of agitation in the fandom.  I think this was mostly because of lingering frustration with Dragon Ball Minus retconning all the Bardock lore from the 1990 TV special.  That, and there’s also a lot of Bardock Fatigue in the fandom, because the franchise has been shoehorning Bardock into every video game and merchandise possible.  For many, working him into the DBS manga was just another crass marketing ploy. 

Also, chapter 77 marks the moment when Goku finally learns about his father, which is a big deal for the character, but a milestone like that is always going to be controversial, because there will be fans who think the series was better off when Goku didn’t know.  It’s like when Clark Kent told Lois he was really Superman.  You can’t unring that bell. 

I... don’t particularly care about any of that.  For my part, Bardock’s a cool character, and I don’t mind seeing him or his cute wife.  Anything Toei or Shueisha does with Goku’s parents is a fair play in my book.  It’s no different from having Tien or Android 17 show up.  But there seems to be this special status that’s been assigned to Bardock, where he’s either too cool or too overexposed, and that makes him off-limits.  Well, I don’t buy into made-up rules like that. 

I get the sense that there’s this edgelord contingent of the fandom that wouldn’t accept any version of Bardock short of him murdering Granolah’s mom and eating Monaito’s face or something.  I don’t understand these fans, because the “Father of Goku” special is just Bardock getting the shit kicked out of him from start to finish.  Tooru kicks him in the head, then he goes to Planet Meat and Dodoria beats him up, then he flies to Planet Vegeta and dies to Frieza.  How is this guy a badass?  Because he dominated Dodoria’s goon squad?  Well Guldo could one-shot all of them, so why isn’t everyone fawning over Guldo then?

People got mad because Bardock said “tummy”, which isn’t a very badass word to use.  You never hear Guldo say “tummy”, and he’s hard as nails.  My thing is, if you imagine Sonny Strait delivering the line in that cool voice he uses, it sounds a lot more natural.  Yeah, if he said it in the Krillin voice, it’d be goofy, which is why he doesn’t use the same voice for both characters. 

I’d chalk it up to a translation issue, really.  I mean, it’s probably accurate, but the people at Viz should have used different wording.  Sometimes you have to punch up the dialogue, make it sound more like something Guldo would say. 

The point I’m trying to make is that Bardock isn’t some sacred cow, and he’s also not a third rail that the franchise is forbidden from using.  Dragon Ball Super brought back the Mafuba and the Grand Supreme Kai and the guy Zarbon kicked on Namek.  Of course they were going to do something with Bardock.  I’m more surprised that they didn’t just have him time travel to present-day Earth and live in Goku’s house for a while. 

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Movie 1: Broly (2/3)

Well, enough of that flashback stuff. Let's move on to the present.

So after the destruction of Planet Vegeta, uh all of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball Super happened. This is kind of a weak point for this movie, because it's story is rooted in Goku's origin tale, but the climax takes place when Goku's a middle-aged man, so a lot of lore has happened in between. There's a similar thing going on when Raditz and Frieza show up in DBZ, and when Broly made his debut in the 1993 film, but Goku was 24-30 in those stories, so it wasn't quite as big a strain.

The thing is, the stuff we had to skip over was extremely important, and the movie simply can't go over all of it. If someone who knew nothing about Dragon Ball watched this thing, they would probably think that this is a story about Goku and Vegeta trying to avenge their people by defeating Frieza, except that already got dealt with in 1991. Goku, Vegeta, and Frieza have each been killed and resurrected... twice. This movie doesn't have time to explain all their baggage, much less how Goku and Vegeta became pals. So no one even tries to fill in the audience on who this big purple cat man is. You either saw Battle of Gods or you just have to roll with it.

And you know what? Good. No one was there to explain Ox King or Mr. Popo to me when I first got into this thing. I've been watching this stuff for a quarter century, and I still don't know what the fuck Tien's third eye is all about. Context is for the weak.

Anyway, this scene takes place on a private island Bulma bought some time ago. She had a resort built here so Goku and Vegeta could spar without damaging West City. And the food is good, so Beerus and Whis tagged along, although neither of them really have any impact on the plot at all. Whis asks Goku why he wants to get stronger, and Goku explains that he's feeling inspired after the recent Tournament of Power arc from the tail end of the DBS anime. Vegeta, on the other hand, is only concerned with Frieza, who was restored to life during that storyline. Frieza's more powerful than ever before, and Vegeta expects him to get even stronger and menace the Earth again.

Sure enough, Bulma gets a call from Trunks as Capsule Corp, who informs them that Bulma's collection of Dragon Balls and the Dragon Radar have been stolen by goons wearing Frieza Force uniforms. But the joke's on them, because Bulma only had six of the Dragon Balls collected. The seventh is on the Ice Continent, so they know exactly where to go to intercept the thieves. Beerus doesn't want to tag along for the trip, so Bulma leaves her infant daughter Bulla with Beerus.

So what was Bulma planning to wish for? She admits that she was going to ask Shenron to make her look five years younger. Why only five? Because if she got too young all at once, people would think she had work done.

So what does Frieza plan to wish for? Immortality was what he wanted on Namek, but not this time. No he only wants to grow about five centimeters taller. Why not just use his second or third forms to be tall? Because he wants to be taller in any of his forms. Why only five centimeters? Because he wants it to seem like he's still growing.

I've never been too happy about this gag. I mean, it's a good gag, but I liked it better the first time, when Commander Red planned to use the Dragon Balls to make himself taller. It does add some complexity to Frieza's character, though, since he's not just stubbornly trying the exact same routine that got him wrecked on Namek, and then killed on Earth, and then re-killed on Earth again.

This time, he's not trying to take the Dragon Balls by force, because he knows Goku and Vegeta are too powerful to challenge head-on. So he's using stealth instead. The minions he sent to Earth are weaker guys, which mean Goku and Vegeta wouldn't sense their ki. And it seems like Frieza's plan is to just sneak down to Earth, make the wish, and head out before anyone can stop them.

And he's not pursuing the same wish he had twenty-odd years ago. Really, Frieza was never that interested in immortality in the first place. He only decided to wish for that because it was the one thing he didn't already have. But now he's been dead twice over, and that's given him a new perspective on life and death, and he seems to think being unable to die would be similar to the unending torment he experienced in hell. Neither does he seek an invincible body. I'm not sure Shenron could give him greater strength, but Frieza feels that would take all the fun out of "the game". If nothing else, it's interesting to see Frieza consider this at all. Back in the Namek Saga, he never thought about wishing for greater power, because he believed he already was the strongest in the universe. Now that he knows otherwise, he seems fairly content with that.

Meanwhile, we meet the last two players in this drama, Leemo and Cheelai. They're operatives in the Frieza Force, but they're not warriors. Leemo's been with the Frieza Force from the beginning, and Cheelai's a recent recruit, having joined up to avoid the consequences of stealing a Galactic Patrol ship. Their orders are to find more warriors to join the Frieza Force, since their ranks are pretty threadbare. Remember, when Frieza destroyed the Saiyans, they made up half of his fighting force. The other half was still quite formidable, but all of his best troops ended up getting killed during Frieza's disastrous invasion of Namek. Then Frieza came back and tried to attach Earth in Resurrection F, and he brought like a thousand soldiers with him, and those guys all got killed as well.

As Cheelai observes, Frieza is down to women and old men like herself and Leemo. There just aren't many warriors available in the universe these days, because all the good talent got killed off a long time ago. As they discuss this, Leemo picks up a distress signal from Planet Vampa. Thinking their might be a reward for it, they head over to answer the call, and find...

Paragus! Also a bunch of alien monsters. Fortunately, Paragus isn't alone...

They also find Broly on Vampa, and he's all grown up and stronger than ever. Their scouters measure Paragus' power level at 4200, which isn't too impressive these days, but it's way better than anything the Frieza Force has at the moment. And Broly's power is too high for the scouters to measure, so they definitely want him to come along. On the way to Frieza's ship, Cheelai feeds Broly rations and takes a liking to the big guy.

When the four of them report to Frieza, Paragus explains that he had to cut off Broly's tail because of the frequent full moons on Vampa, which cause Broly to lose control of himself as a giant ape. Occasionally, Broly still loses control of himself anyway, but Paragus can rein him in using...

... a shock collar, which he can activate with a remote control. Leemo and Cheelai are horrified to learn of this, but not so horrified that they turn down the generous reward Frieza gives them for their discovery.

Now, one thing that always bugged me about this movie is that Frieza immediately starts making plans to use Broly against Goku and Vegeta. He wasn't planning to attack them this time around, but now that he has Broly on his team, it seems much more favorable. Later, when the fighting starts, Frieza is disappointed to find that Broly can't transform into a Super Saiyan, but why would he expect Broly to be able to do any of that? Sure he's a Saiyan, but Goku and Vegeta have mastered power levels far, far beyond what other Saiyans have ever dreamed possible.

But I keep forgetting that Frieza can sense ki these days, the same way Goku can. Back in the Namek Saga, Frieza had to rely on scouters like the rest of his goons, but when he trained to become Golden Frieza in Res F, he learned to sense energy. So when he sizes up Broly, he's not just guessing at how strong this guy is. He can actually perceive the untapped potential in Broly's body, and he seems to recognize that Broly would be capable of giving Goku and Vegeta a hard time. So it makes sense.

Anyway, Paragus is happy to cooperate, since he still despises King Vegeta for what happened, and he's down to attack Prince Vegeta to even the score. And Broly has to do whatever Paragus wants or he gets another shock.

Later, Cheelai tries to get to know Broly better, but Paragus forbids Broly from speaking. While they argue over this, another henchman tries to drunkenly hit on Cheelai. I really like how Leemo tries to defuse the situation here. He's not a fighter, so it suits his character that he'd try to employ a nonviolent solution, like offering to buy this guy a drink. Being a noncombatant in the Frieza Force, he's probably grown accustomed to swimming with the sharks like this. But it doesn't work, and then Broly steps up to use a non-nonviolent solution, which is violence.

But Paragus doesn't want to offend his host, so he gives Broly another shock. Cheelai confronts him over this, and while she chews him out, she swipes his remote control. Then Paragus gets summoned to talk with Frieza. While he's gone, Cheelai destroys the remote, and they listen to Broly tell the story of his green fur wrap.

It's a pretty simple story. The closest thing Broly had to a friend on Vampa was one of the large green creatures on the planet. Paragus used the creature to train Broly, goading it to attack, and then having Broly dodge it. But over time, the creature became accustomed to Broly, and they became pals. But Paragus wanted the creature to be hostile, so he shot its ear off with a laser pistol to piss it off. Ever since, Broly has kept the ear and wears it as a memento of their friendship.

I like how easily Cheelai and Leemo sympathize with Broly in this movie. They're not good guys at all. Cheelai's an opportunistic thief, and Leemo's a cog in Frieza's evil empire. But they're not heartless, and Broly's story is so tragic and innocent that you can't help but feel for the guy. Leemo compares Paragus to his own rotten father, so you can tell that he can relate to what Broly is going through. And Cheelai can tell when someone's being used. Paragus can dress it up all he likes, but he's just using Broly's power to serve his own selfish interests.

Moving on, Frieza's team on Earth have located the seventh Dragon Ball, and Frieza's fleet moves in to join them for the wish-making. But Bulma, Goku, and Vegeta get their first. They probably would have arrived sooner, but Bulma wanted to stop somewhere to buy cold-weather gear. Let's just take a moment to admire her safety-yellow snowsuit. She looks like a baby duck in this thing and it's great.

Frieza confronts Goku and Vegeta and introduces Paragus and Broly. I never really noticed these guardsmen who stand by while Frieza steps out of the ship. Paragus should have gotten one of those uniforms, since that pink shower curtain he's wearing looks dumb as hell.

I mean, look at Goku. Bulma got him a sweet blue coat and he looks like a million bucks. He tries to convince Paragus and Broly to get along as fellow Saiyans, but that doesn't get him anywhere. You'd think he'd know better by now.

So Broly's rarin' to go, and Frieza sees no reason to make him wait, and it's on. Broly attacks Vegeta, and that brings us to the final leg of this movie, which we'll cover next time.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (3/5)

"What are any of us doing here? We're not even in this movie!"

So the Red Ribbon Army is trying to stage a comeback with a fresh crop of new androids, and Goku isn't around to stop them, because he's on Beerus' planet training with Vegeta and Broly. While Piccolo figures out what to do without them, the movie just goes ahead and shows us what Goku is up to. For about ten minutes.

I'm pretty sure this part of the movie is a concession to Goku's fans. Let's face it, the people love Goku, and to do a Dragon Ball movie with no Goku at all would be a risky proposition, no matter how good that movie is. Looking back at the old DBZ films, Movies 9, 10, and 11 were mostly Goku-free, but he still put in a brief appearance in each one. But those are also regarded as some of the worst entries in the series, and I don't think that's a coincidence.

Now, I'm a fan of Dragon Ball in general, so the idea of a Piccolo and Gohan movie is not only appealing to me, but I'd say it's long overdue. I'd take a Yamcha/Tien movie any day. Or a Launch standalone film. I sat through GT, so it'd take a lot to keep me out of the theater. But Toei's trying to run a business here, and they can't just depend on die-hards like me to bring in the ticket revenue. So I'm sure the decision to focus on Piccolo was a controversial one in the home office. But they probably reached a compromise by giving Goku a decent chunk of screentime as a make-good.

One thing that makes this movie so good is that they don't just toss out a character for the sake of having them in the movie. They actually take a moment to show what that character is doing these days, even if it doesn't affect the plot that much. That's important, because it lets the viewer come away feeling like they got something out of the cameo they just saw. For example, we've seen Goku and Vegeta on Beerus' planet before. This is nothing new, but this time Goku's trying to help Broly control his power. And Vegeta's trying to meditate so he can learn how to imitate Jiren's power. Goku doesn't really understand his approach, which goes to show that Vegeta's trying to push beyond the scope of the training they've done on Beerus's planet before now. Gohan is studying ants, Videl has her combat sports class, Piccolo's a homeowner, etc.

Compare this to Battle of Gods, for example. Now BoG's a good movie, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the characters who appear in the film are utterly wasted. Tien shows up but he looks and acts exactly the same as he did the last several times we've seen him. Then he shows up in Resurrection F and nothing's changed either. He says he left Chiaotzu and Yamcha behind for the big fight, but would it matter either way? If they showed up, they wouldn't do anything new with those guys either.

The trick is to not just put Ox King in your movie, but to have him mention something that he's gotten up to lately, something Ox King fans can mull over later. "Oh, hey, remember how Ox King said he was going back to school to get a sociology degree?" You can sink your teeth into that, even if that's the only thing that you find out about from him. It's a lot better than "It's Bulma's birthday, and one of the guests is Ox King, a character who certainly exists."

Let's talk about Vegeta's revelation in this movie, since it caused some commotion among the fans. Goku complains that Vegeta had just been sitting still lately, which he thinks is a waste of time. Vegeta explains that he's been studying the way Jiren fought during the Tournament of Power. While he dominated Goku and Vegeta--sometimes both at once-- Vegeta is certain that Jiren isn't that much stronger than they are. What made Jiren so tough to deal with was that he was completely relaxed until the very moment he chose to strike, which allowed him to put all of his power into those brief offensive moments. But since Vegeta can't do that himself, he's trying to train his mind to conceptualize it before he tries to make his body learn how.

So a lot of fans saw this and concluded that the studio hates Goku, or they think Goku's an idiot, or that the studio is stupid for failing to remember that Goku has meditated before in the past. There has always been a subset of the fanbase that tries to turn everything into a Manichean conflict between Goku and Vegeta. In this case, if Vegeta figures something out before Goku does, then it means that Toei or Shueisha or Akira Toriyama himself must hate Goku.

This is stupid on the face of it, because Akira Toriyama literally created the character and he's credited with the screenplay for this movie. If he truly despised Goku, why would he even have Goku in the movie at all? He could have killed him off a long time ago. Why even make a Dragon Ball movie when he could have been working on some Dr. Slump project instead?

All this scene is... and I promise you, it's nothing more to it..., is a exploration of what the boys are doing on Beerus' planet. They train here, of course. We've seen that before, but why are they training here? Well, they need to receive instructions and guidance from Whis, and this is where Whis lives. Okay, and why is Whis so important to the process? Why can't they just stay on Earth and spar like they used to do? Because that only gets them so far. They need to learn new ways of thinking in order to surpass the level they're already at.

And what does that mean exactly? Well, they can't just do a million pushups. It doesn't work that way. There's other things they have to figure out, and that requires them to think of things they hadn't thought of before. And Whis is already beyond them in terms of power, so he knows things that they're still struggling to grasp. But Whis can't just spell it out for them. He can describe what they need to do, but it's still up to Goku and Vegeta to understand and internalize it.

And that's what they're doing here. They're basically brainstorming ways to get stronger. This time, Vegeta had an idea, and he's following it to see where it leads. Whis approves, so he seems to be on the right track. Tomorrow, maybe Goku will have another good idea, and so on.

But it's not always going to be one or the other who has the breakthrough. And it would be stupid for them both to have the same idea at the same time, just so the partisan fans won't feel slighted. Goku seems to think he can get a lot out of working with Broly, but that hasn't paid off just yet. It might prove more productive than what Vegeta is working on at the moment, but there's only one way to find out.

As far as Goku failing to recognize the value of meditation, well, he's had to re-learn that lesson several times. People will point to the time he meditated in Otherworld, or the time he meditated during his training with Mr. Popo, but they forget that this sort of focus and concentration was part of his training with Master Roshi as well. Whis scolded both Goku and Vegeta on this point when they first trained with him in Resurrection F. We can draw one of two conclusions here.

Goku's quest for greater strength is a flat circle. He just keeps re-discovering the same fundamentals, making a big gain in power, and then forgetting how he achieved that improvement.

Akira Toriyama is recycling the same martial arts hokum over and over again, because he only needs to show the characters working for greater strength. He does not need to design a genuine and internally consistent system for fantasy martial arts, any more than the writers of Star Trek need to explain how dilithium crystals make the ship go.

Anyway, Whis proposes a Goku/Broly/Vegeta three-way match, but no one wants Broly to fight in case he flips out and wrecks the entire planet. Then Beerus wakes up and finds out he has new houseguests. Goku explains that this is a good place to hide Broly from Frieza, and before Beerus can object, he meets Lemo and samples his cooking. It's good, so Beerus decides he can stay. Then Cheelai walks by with a bag full of loot she stole from Beerus' home. But Beerus decides he likes Cheelai's looks, so he agrees to let her stay too. So that's decided.

I've also seen some fans gripe about how Cheelai didn't spend much time with Broly in this movie, and Beerus' crush on Cheelai muddies the waters further. Look, none of these characters got a lot of screen time in this movie. This scene could be cut entirely and you wouldn't miss a thing. Half of it is Goku sparring with Vegeta, so of course Broly and Cheelai weren't going to have a whirlwind romance in this thing.

All I know for certain is that Cheelai walked by Broly and went out of her way to say he was "looking good", which is a lot more than she complimented anyone else on this planet. I mean, she's stealing Beerus' stuff, which ought to tell you how much she's into his lanky purple ass.

Moving on, Whis still wants to do that sparring match, if only so Broly can learn to appreciate a high-level battle with the fighters maintaining control of their powers. But Goku wants to eat first and so they stop for lunch.

And yeah, then this movie up and decides to give us Goku/Vegeta III, just like that. I don't want to oversell it, but it's an excellent fight. Whis sets the ground rules to that transformations and ki blasts are forbidden, so in a lot of ways this looks a lot like the kind of battle they might have had at the 25th Budokai before Babidi's henchmen got involved. We only get to see a few minutes of it, but they're so evenly matched that the fight takes a really long time to settle, so maybe it's just as well.

Beerus notes that Vegeta's moves have changed in an almost imperceptible way, due to his recent meditation training. Still, he loses interest in the fight and decides to get ice cream while the boys slug it out. I'm pretty sure Cheelai never cared in the first place, but Broly is enthralled with this action. He's getting to watch two of the greatest Saiyans ever put on a clinic, and he's soaking it up like a sponge.

But the important thing, at least as far as this movie goes, is that Beerus tosses an empty ice cream carton onto Whis' staff, so no one notice it flashing when Bulma tries to call him.

Which means Piccolo's on his own, at least for the time being. He gets the news from Bulma while he's picking up some senzu beans from Korin. The situation looks pretty bad, since Piccolo estimates that the Gammas' power is roughly on par with Goku and Vegeta's. And Dr. Hedo might know 17 and 18's weak spots, so they might not be able to help either. There is Majin Buu, though...

.... ha ha ha! No, did you think this one was going to be any different? Buu's sleeping through this crisis too. Seriously, why did they keep him alive at the end of the Buu Saga if no one had any plans to use him for anything?

So what about Gohan? That's what Korin asks, but Piccolo just says they can't count on Gohan right now, which... ouch.

But Piccolo does have one other idea, and so he flies up to see Dende on the Lookout and asks him to draw out his hidden power. See, the Kami of Planet Namek, Grand Elder Guru, was able to power up Krillin and Gohan way back in the day. Now, Dende is the Kami of Earth, so Piccolo figures Dende could do the same for him.

Only, no, it doesn't work that way. Turns out a Dragon-Type Namekian has to reach a certain age before they can use that sort of ability, and Dende's too young. On the other hand, Dende suggests using the Dragon Balls to solve the problem. They could simply wish away the Red Ribbon Army, but Piccolo doesn't care for that idea. Okay, well what about using Shenron to draw out Piccolo's hidden power? Can Shenron do that? Dende's like "gimme a minute."

So Dende wheels out the cart with the model of Shenron on it, and he powers a flask of water on the model. This makes it glow, and somehow upgrades Shenron so that he can grant a wish to draw out a person's hidden powers. Piccolo remarks that he had no idea any of this was possible when he was Kami. To be fair, when Piccolo was Kami, he didn't even know he was a Namekian, so there's a lot of stuff he was out of the loop for.

Now all Piccolo needs is the Dragon Balls, but Dende tells him that Bulma probably has them already. Ever since Frieza came back, Bulma's been gathering up the Dragon Balls every year, using the wishes up so that they'll be inactive in case any bad guys try to use them. Piccolo calls to ask her and yes, she has the whole set. In the dub, he asks her how many she has and she's like "Oh, uh.... All of them?!" I can't be sure, but I think that's a reference to the "All of them?" line from the dub of Dragon Ball, when Piccolo tried to zap Goku, but he missed all his vital organs. Anyway, Piccolo tells her to hang on to the balls until he gets there.

So they summon Shenron and it works. Piccolo gets stronger, and the Dragon promises that he threw in "a little extra".

That still leaves two wishes to use, so Bulma asks for a nicer ass and slightly longer eyelashes. Then she realizes -- too late-- that they could have wished to bring Goku and Vegeta back to Earth. Whoops.

"Shenron, I wish for you to bring Goku and Vegeta to Earth, so that they might bear witness to all this junk within my trunk."

So Piccolo returns to the Red Ribbon base and just walks right back to the line of soldiers there in Magenta's command room. They're still talking, and Piccolo tells the other soldiers he had to go potty. No one suspects a thing.

Magenta's trying to figure out what to do next. He'd like to target Goku and Vegeta, but no one knows where they are. Mr. Satan is too risky, since no one seems to know what his powers are, exactly. Then Carmine suggests Gohan be the next target. His intel says that it was Gohan who defeated Cell, and he has lots of spy footage of Piccolo going to his house to visit, which suggests that Gohan is a "shadow boss" in Bulma's organization. Magenta likes the idea of taking Gohan out, but he doesn't want Red Ribbon guys operating in the city, since it's too soon to reveal their presence to the wider public.

But if they could kidnap Gohan's daughter and lure him to the Red Ribbon base, then they could fight him on their own turf. Carmine finds that to be a good idea, as it would improve troop morale. Magenta orders a two-man team go to fetch Pan, and Piccolo volunteers, saying that he lives in the same neighborhood and knows Pan's face, because she's the granddaughter of Mr. Satan.

Dr. Hedo objects to the kidnapping angle, but Magenta tells him to mind his own business. Hmmm...

So Piccolo will be picking up Pan from preschool after all, just a bit later than planned. I don't know why Pan can't just run home by herself. She made it all the way here from Piccolo's house, didn't she?

One thing I like about this scene is how there's one other kid here who gets picked up, and that kid's mom apologizes for being late, so it's pretty clear that it's well after 1pm. Pan's been here a while. Her teacher assures here that someone will show up soon, but Pan's still kind of disappointed.

The other Red Ribbon soldier sent to do the kidnapping thinks this will be easy, so he just walks right up to Pan and tells her his mom sent him, but she demolishes him with a single blow.

Then Piccolo reveals himself and Pan recognizes him by his ki and calms down. The teacher already knows Piccolo, so she's cool with him, and Piccolo explains that this was all a security drill arranged by Mr. Satan. Now, in the dub, Piccolo addresses the teacher as "Janet", implying that he knows her as well as she knows him, and I think this is what led to the genesis of the Piccolo/Janet ship. I don't have a lot to say about it that hasn't already been said, but I'm all for Piccolo and Janet getting together. Janet's a fine foxy lady, and Piccolo's reputation speaks for itself.

Of course, Piccolo now has to fly the Red Ribbon airship back to base. He's a pretty crappy pilot, but he manages. I like to think Janet is still impressed, though. "Wow," she thinks as he flies away, crashing into a billboard. "Is there anything he can't do?"

Piccolo's plan is pretty simple. He explains the situation to Pan, and convinces her to play along with the kidnapping. When Gohan shows up to rescue her, he'll kick everyone's ass and that'll take care of everything. Actually, that sounds a little half-baked to me. Piccolo got a power up from Shenron, but is that enough? Anyway, they bring Pan to the base and take a video of her acting scared, then Magenta sends Piccolo and the other guy back to the city to show it to Gohan. Wait, why is that Namekian chair back there? What's that about.

Well, it doesn't matter because Pan sees some cookies and she's like "Don't mind if I do!" but then...

Carmine takes the plate away! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

You suck, Carmine!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Pan would probably attack him right there, except Piccolo's behind him trying to calm her down.

So Piccolo and 15 go to Gohan's house, and Piccolo takes him to the window since he knows Gohan won't answer the door. Notably, Gohan doesn't recognize Piccolo through his disguise, even though Pan saw through it immediately. Also, Gohan hasn't bothered to change out of the clothes Piccolo put him in this morning. Those must be fascinating ants he's working on.

15 shows Gohan the video of Pan and RIP the windowsill.

He turns Super Saiyan and scares the shit out of 15, who promises Pan will be fine if he just returns with him to the base. Gohan gets so mad he makes a crater in the ground...

... and the house starts to list down into the hole. But Piccolo doesn't mind because his plan is working. Gohan's back in a fighting mood and he can clobber the Gammas!

Or can he...?

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (2/5)

This line might just encapsulate the entire movie. "Yeah, sorry, folks. They made me the star of the movie this time, so it probably won't be as good. Why are you all cheering? Did Goku walk by or something?"

Last time, we set up the main villains of the story. Now, it's six months later, and we find Piccolo sparring with Pan near his house. Yeah, Piccolo has a house now. I remember when they revealed the house in an early promotion for the movie, and everyone was nuts about it. Piccolo has a house! What's inside? Look, he has a mailbox! What kind of mail does he get? What a time to be alive.

So Pan is three years old, according to this movie, so I think the idea here is that this is set just before the 25th Budokai and the finale of Dragon Ball Z. So Super Hero represents a turning point for the franchise. Up to now, every story told under the Dragon Ball Super brand has been set during the ten-year-gap between DBZ Episodes 288 and 289. But now we're at the end, which means the next movie, anime, or manga arc has to make a big decision:

A) Set the story after the 25th Budokai, and work around Goku's decision to train Uub at his home village.

B) Ignore the "End of Z" continuity altogether and just keep trucking along like it doesn't matter.

C) Just keep telling stories in the small time interval between Super Hero and the 25th Budokai and hope no one calls attention to it.

D) Jump back to the beginning of the ten-year-gap and tell stories out of chronological order.

I think A or B is the most likely option, since they wouldn't have jumped this far forward in time for Super Hero if they were worried about staying inside the ten-year-gap. I also suspect that they'll try to respect the "End of Z" lore, if only because they've mentioned Uub a few times in the DBS anime, and Uub actually had a cameo appearance in the manga.

But no matter what happens, Things Are Going To Be Very Different. In theory, Toei/Shueisha can do just about anything with the franchise now. They could kill Bulma, or give Majin Buu a whole new transformation. I guess they could try to steer the storyline towards the events depicted in Dragon Ball GT, but I'm pretty sure that ship sailed when they turned the Pilaf Gang into children. The point is that anything is on the table.

But back to the matter at hand. Pan's whole deal now is that she trains with Piccolo at his house every morning, then runs off to attend preschool until 1pm. Piccolo thinks she's showing great promise as a martial artist, even more than Gohan did when Piccolo first trained him, and Gohan was a year older back then. Pan thinks that qualifies her to learn how to shoot energy blasts like Goten and Trunks, but Piccolo says she has to master the fundamentals first, which means Pan has to learn how to fly, among other things.

This is Pan's character arc for the movie. She's not a major player in this story, but she still has an obstacle to overcome, and by the end of the movie, she succeeds. This is a big leap forward from the Pan we saw in GT, who remained static through the entire series. I guess she sort of learned a life lesson in the TV Special, but she was 110 in that story, so I think the implication is that GT Pan was a bossy twerp for a full century, which isn't exactly satisfying.

The weird thing is that we saw Pan fly all the time when she was a baby. In the DBS anime Baby Pan flew out into space, and she'd float around the house and such. I guess she forgot how to do it, or it got harder as she grew up and gained some weight.

Pan asks if it's true that her dad (Gohan) could be even stronger than her grandfather (Goku) if he tried. Piccolo says that used to be true but he isn't so sure anymore. Pan says she's never seen Gohan in action, and Piccolo explains that he hasn't had to fight, but if the need arises, Gohan will fight when necessary. Then he sends her off to preschool. A short time later, he gets a phone call from Pan's mom, Videl.

Okay, so let's unpack all of this. Piccolo has a cell phone, but he just leaves it in his house while he's training outside, because his Namekian hearing can pick up the ringtone from hundreds of yards away. Also, he holds it like a weirdo, dangling it from his fingers like he found it at a crime scene. Also, the case looks like a cartoon character. This is Penenko, an in-world fictional character that seems to be very popular. Its like a cross between a penguin and a cat, and it has a green tie like Yogi Bear, which I think is a classy touch.

As for Videl, she needs Piccolo to swing by the preschool this afternoon to pick up Pan. This is because Videl teaches a combat sports class, and they're having a tournament today, so she can't make it. As for Gohan, he's too busy working on a scientific presentation, and he hasn't come out of his study in days. Piccolo is annoyed with this, but he agrees to pick Pan up. Videl offers to buy him lunch, but he reminds her he doesn't eat food, so Videl considers buying him a Penenko plushie instead. Piccolo doesn't want one, though, because he already has a pile of them in his house. Presumably those plushies represent a whole bunch of past favors he's done for Gohan and Videl.

Okay, more importantly, let's talk about Videl. This is her only appearance in the movie, save for a still image in the closing credits where she comes home to find the house has been damaged. Still, this conversation tells us a lot about what Videl's been doing ever since she and Gohan got out of school. She's teaching a "combat sports class". This makes sense to me, as she must have given up the vigilante work around the time she was pregnant with Pan. But teaching students how to fight would be easier for her, since she could set her own schedule and arrange for the students to train independently when she's not available. It's the perfect career for the new mom with a talent for whippin' ass.

The thing is, Videl's not just any martial artist. She knows basic ki techniques, but besides that, she's the daughter of a world famous celebrity buttkicker, and she earned a reputation of her own as a crimefighter. So this can't just be any old "combat sports" class. I mean, they're participating in a tournament for goodness sakes.

So this is my Videl headcanon: She's teaching people to fight crime. And not just any crime, but the rocket-launcher-weilding maniacs she used to fight when she was in high school. Videl stepped away from that life to focus on her family, but she's still got one foot in that world. It started as a self-defense class for women, and then she decided she could show them more advanced techniques, until eventually she had a cool stable of badasses.

The tournament she's talking about isn't some fun little romp, although to her it would be, and it's barely beneath Piccolo's notice. But to everyone else, it's some kind of hardcore mixed-martial-arts event. Videl brings her students in and they're all wearing kick-ass uniforms to represent their school. What kind of uniforms? Here's a hint:

GTH. That's the name of Videl's dojo. The Go To Hell Combat Club, so-named because you have to go to hell to learn the combat style of Mr. Satan's daughter. Imagine going to some indy wrestling show and instead of wrestlers out comes a bunch of MMA guys all dressed like Pan from this movie. It probably looks cooler on grown adults, which is why Pan likes to wear it.

So what's Videl wearing when she leads her squad to the competition? Oh, we already know the answer to that question, because we saw her return home from the tournament.

I mean, it makes so much sense when you think about it. remember, we saw Videl wearing regular clothes when she called Piccolo. She must have changed into her Battle of Gods red-devil dress specifically for the tournament. She might have a different outfit for fighting, but this is what she wears when she's in the corner for her students. She's like a sexy ECW manager, which explains the red leather dress, black tights and white go-go boots. She's so over-the-top with this thing that it makes the Great Saiyawoman outfit look dull by comparison, because she's trying to get over this image of smash-mouth combat supremacy. It's the same reason Mr. Satan wears the cape.

This is a weird tangent, I know, but for so many years I've heard fans lament the way Videl was depicted in Dragon Ball Super, and they're absolutely right, but I'm a "yes and" kind of guy when it comes to this stuff. There's nothing wrong with having Videl be a housewife as long as it doesn't preclude some other, cooler lore from happening off-screen. And Super Hero seems to be holding out an olive branch to the fans. Yes, Videl has a life outside the home. She teaches martial arts, so she clearly hasn't given up fighting altogether. How and how much she fights is left to the viewers imagination, and I can imagine a lot.

Anyway, I need to commission some art of the GTH school looking cool. Videl's in the center of the group with a riding crop or something. Gohan's in the background with a snack tray. He made Chex Mix for the whole class because he's a sweetie.

Back to business, Piccolo decides to head for Gohan's house and confront him over this. He knows Gohan won't answer the door, so he just flies to the window of his study and scrapes the glass with his fingernail to get his attention. This fucking rules.

Gohan's working on a study of a newly discovered ant species that glows yellow when threatened, like a Super Saiyan. Piccolo isn't even a little impressed, but he agrees to pick Pan up from preschool anyway. He asks why Gohan never trains anymore, and Gohan gives the stock answer about how nothing bad will happen, and even if it does, Goku and Vegeta will surely deal with it. I mean, that is what happened in the last movie, but they cut it pretty close in Resurrection F. Piccolo uses his clothes-altering powers to make Gohan wear his old training outfit, but that's about all he does.

I don't really understand this constant back-and-forth about whether or not Gohan trains enough in DBS. Obviously, Gohan let himself go in Res F, and then Gohan asked Piccolo to train him again to get him back in fighting shape. Then they made it look like he'd slacked off again leading up to the Tournament of Power, except he did really, really well in that arc. And now it's like he's slacking off a third time.

I mean, there's time for that. We're talking about a five or six year period here. It just seems odd to me that no one mentions we've been through this cycle before. I think the disconnect is that Gohan trains, just not often enough to satisfy the likes of Piccolo or Vegeta. He'll stop training for months or years at a time, so that he can concentrate on his biology career, and then he whips himself into shape when he has the time. This movie pretty much confirms that pattern, but each time it comes up, the characters always act like we haven't been here before.

Gohan offers him another Penenko plushie as thanks for picking up Pan, and Piccolo insists that he never liked them. I think it is very likely that Gohan and Videl do this to him on purpose. I mean, Videl knew this tournament was coming up, and she could have made other arrangements, but this way Piccolo feels obligated to be involved with their family. If they just invited him over to things, he'd probably decline, but this way he feels like they need him and he can act all put-upon, but he still gets to spend more time with Pan and such. Also they might be trying to fix Piccolo up with Pan's teacher, but we'll get to that later.

So now Piccolo just has to get in as much training as he can until 1pm, right? Wrong, because as soon as he sits down to meditate, some new guy shows up and attacks him. He refuses to identify himself, but the Red Ribbon pack on his uniform pretty much gives it away. Plus, this guy has no ki signature, so he must be an android or cyborg like Gero's creations.

So they fight, and it doesn't go well for Piccolo. At one point he asks why he can see words appear whenever he gets his. I thought this was a cute fourth-wall-breaking joke, but in fact this new guy has a holographic projector that makes the comic book sound effects appear behind him.

The mysterious attacker only refers to himself as a super hero, and after he blows up the butte Piccolo is on, he flies back to his base, thinking Piccolo is vaporized. But Piccolo escaped unseen, and he decides to trail this guy and find out who he's working for.

This leads Piccolo to a secret base inside what I believe is a crater. It looks like the crater is full of lakewater, but it's actually a holographic illusion. Piccolo finds a goon in his size and swipes his uniform.

Inside, he finds the bad guy command center, where the new android reports to Magenta and Hedo. Piccolo learns that his name is Gamma, and there's actually two of them. Hedo already watched Gamma 2's attack on Piccolo via a remote feed from 2's eyes, and his only feedback is that 2 should have done a cool pose after killing Piccolo. Gamma 1 is more concerned that Piccolo might have survived because 2 was too sloppy to check for a body.

Sure enough, 1 reviews the footage and discovers evidence that Piccolo escaped. And since Magenta insisted that the Gamma's wear RR patches on their costumes, there's a real risk that Gamma 2 tipped their hand to the enemy. Gamma 2 isn't worried, though, because he still overpowered Piccolo, and the end goal is to defeat Dragon Team, so if this escalates the conflict, then so much the better.

And that pretty much sums up the Gammas' characters. They both play the superhero role they were designed to resemble, but 1 is more cautious and responsible, while 2 is more carefree and funloving. Earlier in the film, we see pictures of Hedo at some sort of autograph signing, and there's a character who looks almost exactly like the Gammas there, so I assume he designed his androids to look just like that character. Hedo doesn't seem too concerned with originality.

Carmine agrees with Gamma 1's concern. Their enemies have the combined power of Goku, Vegeta and Majin Buu, not to mention Mr. Satan. Apparently, the Red Ribbon Army still isn't clear on how powerful he is. If they find out about the Red Ribbon too soon, it could jeopardize everything, no matter how powerful the Gammas might be.

Hedo disagrees. Once he collects enough combat data from 1 and 2, he can simply upgrade them and create even more Gammas until they have enough power to tip the scales.

Apparently, Hedo doesn't think it would take very long to get more Gamma's manufactured, which is why they have these two booths already set up. This makes me wonder if Gamma 3 and 4 are already in there, just waiting for Hedo to activate them.

As for Magenta, all he wants to talk about is Hedo's other project-- Cell Max. This leads to a heated discussion over the value of the project.

Basically, Magenta considers Cell to be Gero's greatest creation, and while the RPC has Gero's notes on how to make Cell, they were too complex for anyone to reproduce the experiement. This isn't much of a surprise, since Gero never finished Cell the first time. When Gero learned that it would take decades to complete the work, he turned it over to his computer and moved on to working on his other plans. That computer never finished, because Krillin and Trunks destroyed it and the embryonic Cell back in DBZ Episode 145. However Magenta got the data on Cell, it must have been sent to him before then, but it would have only represented the earliest stages of the project. No wonder his own scientists couldn't get very far with it.

The only reason Magenta even considers it worth pursuing is because a completed Cell showed up to menace the world. Magenta thinks that Gero must have pulled it off somehow. What he doesn't know is that this Cell came from an alternate future where Gero's computer had time to complete the project. So Magenta knows what the finished Cell is capable of, but he doesn't have a complete recipe to make a new one.

But Dr. Hedo is even smarter than Gero, which is why Magneta hired him. The Gammas are fine machines and all, but what Magenta was really hoping for was that Hedo could take the notes on Cell and figure out how to build a new and improved model. And to his credit, Hedo was able to do that, but not completely. He created Cell Max's body and made him far more powerful than the original Cell, but he's still not done because his brain takes a long time to develop. I don't know if this is like a programming thing or Cell Max needs time for his brain matter to grow complex enough to support his mission.

At any rate, Magenta just wants to turn Cell Max loose right now, because he's so high on the prospect of unleashing such a powerful weapon. But Hedo warns him that they won't be able to control Cell Max the way he is now. If they activate him now, Cell Max might easily run wild and destroy the world, which defeats the purpose of using him in the first place.

Hedo's argument is that they don't even need Cell Max, so instead of wasting time on him, they should focus on the Gammas, who are more than powerful enough to carry out Magenta's plans. They can defeat Dragon Team, then the rest of the world will fall to the Red Ribbon Army, and then Magenta can reveal Cell Max to show off his power to the world. Magneta seems to buy into that idea, at least for now.

The thing is, we really don't know how long it would take for Hedo to finish Cell Max. It took Gero's computer decades to finish the original Cell, so maybe most of that time was spent developing his brain, and yet that Cell never did follow his programming completely. So maybe Cell Max would be uncontrollable too, no matter how much Hedo tinkered with him.

Then again, Hedo built the Gammas in just six months, so he's demonstrably smarter than Gero ever was. It's possible that he could finish Cell Max's brain in a matter of weeks and make him fully obedient. He just doesn't want to spend the time because it's busy work and Max doesn't look like a super hero, so he's not very motivated to complete the project. It kind of makes you wonder what Hedo could have accomplished if he'd given it his full attention.

Needless to say, all of this freaks Piccolo out, so he excuses himself and finds a quiet spot to make a phone call to Bulma. She tells him Vegeta has been away for three weeks now, training on Beerus' planet. And Goku went along with him, so they're both unavailable. Piccolo asks her if she can use that device Whis gave her to call him, and she says she'll see if she can reach them that way.

I just want to pause here to admire Bulma's yellow jumpsuit. This is definitely one of her hottest looks, perhaps because it's so workmanlike and unsexy. She just makes it look cool because she's Bulma. She just got done welding a quantum computer to a ham radio or something.

In the meantime, Piccolo leaves the RR base to go to Korin's Tower and get some senzu beans. He's still in the mindset that Goku and Vegeta will be the ones to take care of things, but he has to do as much as he can in the meantime to improve their chances.

As he flies through the holographic lake, we get a nice exterior shot of the base. So yeah, it does look like a couple of craters, although I'm not sure what the use was in disguising the inside when you can see all this stuff built up around the outside. I guess they have some sort of phony mining operation set up if anyone snoops around.

And that'll about do it for now. I've still got a couple of image spots for this post, so let's show off the photos on Gohan's desk. Pretty cool.

And here's a cool shot of Cell, since he came up in conversation.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super manga ch.84-86

“Hey, honey, I got the crap beat out of me.”

“Well don’t just stand there!  Go show the baby!”

“Oh yeah, good call.  Hey, son.  I got worked over pretty good.”

Currently, Goku and Vegeta are trying to stop Gas, who became nearly invincible thanks to a wish on the Dragon Balls.  Their only chance is that Bardock once fought Gas before, and as Goku listens to the audio recordings on Bardock’s old scouter, he suddenly has a recollection of his infancy on Planet Vegeta, up to and including the moment when his parents shot him into space. 

That scene is shown in here as well, but I think I like the above page the best, where baby Kakarot was just watching his mom putter around the house throughout the day.  He didn’t see much of his family while he was in the incubation tank, but he saw some, and now he finally remembers it. 

You might think the Bardock audio would be useless, since it didn’t provide any special insights into how to defeat Gas, past or present.  Bardock just hung in there and kept sluggin’ away until he won.  But that’s actually exactly what Goku needed to hear.  As Whis tried to explain to Goku earlier, the key to mastering Ultra Instinct is not to devise some cool new transformation, or to imitate Whis’ angelic calm.  Goku has to be himself so he can find his own path to Ultra Instinct mastery.  Hearing his father’s voice, talking about victory and survival above all else, that reminds Goku of who he is, and who he’s always been. 

And Vegeta needed to hear it too.  He had been trying to use Destruction energy like Beerus, who had advised Vegeta to cast aside his guilt over the sins of the Saiyan people.  Now he’s finally figured out how to do that properly.  Before, he was just acting like he no longer cared about the Saiyans’ crimes.  Now, he finally accepts that their crimes are not his responsibility. 

So when Gas finally returns to Planet Cereal to settle things, he finds Goku and Vegeta are ready for him.  This time, they fight him together, and their Ultra Instinct and Ultra Ego forms are much more focused than before.

Elec tells the Heeters that he expected something like this, and it doesn’t matter that these two power-ups gave Granolah some trouble, since Gas is stronger than Granolah.  But Goku and Vegeta don’t give a fuck.  Screw the odds, they just want to kick some ass. 

Let me skip a bunch of this fight.  I feel bad about doing that, since the action sequences are probably the best feature of Toyotaro’s art.  But I’m here to talk about the plot first and foremost.  Basically, Vegeta sets up a beam struggle with a big Hakai blast, and while Goku pushes it, Vegeta tries to flummox Gas at the same time.  It doesn’t quite work, but Vegeta still manages to hang in there, because Ultra Ego feeds on the damage Gas dishes out.  So it becomes a question of whether Gas can take down Vegeta before he surpasses Gas in power. 

Gas tries to solve that dilemma by killing him all at once, but good luck one-shotting Vegeta.  Of course, eventually Vegeta does fall, because Gas hits like a speeding truck, and Vegeta can only take so much punishment.  But while he’s fighting Gas, it gives Goku a chance to figure out how to optimize his UI.

I should really write about this in a separate post, but it seems like Goku is just sort of inventing a new form specifically for the way he plans to use Ultra Instinct here.  With the silver-haired form, he could use it well, but it only lasted so long, and he had to keep his emotions in check.  Now, he’s using this other version that looks pretty close to his base form, but he can use his turbulent emotions and Ultra Instinct at the same time.  And this freaks Gas out, not because of Goku’s methodology, but because the result has him looking a lot like Bardock did right before he kicked Gas’ ass forty years ago.

To be clear, Goku always looks like Bardock all the time.  The resemblance isn’t what got in Gas’ head.  It’s the confidence Goku found in this moment, where he’s totally in synch with who he is and what he’s trying to do. 

By contrast, Gas had some pride in himself as a warrior, but all he ever does is what Elec tells him to do, in the name of some grander agenda for the Heeters, which I doubt Elec has ever deigned to explain to him.  And that plan involved Gas surrendering his warrior pride to get a boost from the Dragon Balls, so his morale is shot, even if he won’t admit it. 

Sure, Gas may be stronger than Goku... no, wait, maybe he’s not.  As Goku fights, he seems to get just a teeny edge over Gas.  It’s not much, and it won’t last long, but it’s just like Vegeta warned Granolah earlier.  The rankings don’t mean much in the long run.  Strongest, second strongest, it all changes with the weather. 

But then Elec gives Gas another scolding/pep talk, and that reawakens Gas and he starts to fight even harder.  Also his body looks messed up.  Macki and Oil begin to get concerned, even as Gas seems to have Goku on the ropes.

But then Granolah shows up to make the save.  So somehow, Monaito managed to heal all three of them up during the 20 minutes while Gas was away.  That’s not hard to believe, except Monaito kept complaining about how he could heal people very fast, and now he seems to be improving. 

Anyway, Goku agrees to keep Gas busy while Granolah charges up his full power for a single attack.  You know the drill.

Goku has trouble, but fortunately, Vegeta gets a second win and helps buy more time.  Then Oil and Macki try to jump in but Monaito stops them... with the power of hypnotism!  Well, whatever works. 

But it still isn’t quite enough, so then Goku activates his Stand, or whatever that giant Goku thoughtform is supposed to be.  It’s the same thing he used against Moro, so I guess it makes sense.  Anyway, he grabs Gas and chucks him into the sky so Granolah can get a clear shot, and Oatmeel helps him aim, since his eyes are still hurt from before.  The power of teamwork!

Granolah fires, and it looks like one of those classic anime blasts where the bad guy disintegrates into nothing, but instead Gas falls back to the ground, and Granolah explains that he didn’t kill him, because he’s decided to forsake revenge.  Then he apologizes to Goku and Vegeta for the trouble he’s caused them, and it looks like that just about wraps things up....

... or does it?

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (5/5)

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA EXISTENCE IS TORMENT RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Okay, so we're now at the last leg of this movie, where everybody teams up to defeat Cell Max. Once Piccolo turned orange and convinced the Gammas that Magenta was evil, the Red Ribbon Army collapsed on the spot. Magenta went to activate Cell Max as a desperate counterattack, but he was killed by Dr. Hedo. However, Magenta still managed to get Cell Max started up before he died, and the first thing Cell Max does is smash up whatever's left of the Red Ribbon base.

It's not clear to me what happened to the rest of the bad guys in this movie. A lot of them probably fled when the battle turned against them, but it's a pretty big facility, and I doubt they all could have evacuated in time. Like, Carmine was knocked unconscious a few minutes ago, and I doubt anyone went to the trouble of getting him to safety before Cell Max showed up. I suppose he could have survived this, but it seems pretty unlikely.

So let's talk about Cell Max. Apparently when Dr. Gero came up with the idea of Cell, he forwarded all of his notes and design specifications to Magenta at Red Pharmaceutical Company. RPC tried to make use of the data after Gero's death, but they couldn't figure it out, probably because the real breakthroughs in Cell's creation were accomplished by Gero's computer in an alternate future. But Magenta knew the Original Cell could get the job done, so he wanted one of his own, and when he learned of Dr. Hedo he thought he finally had the man to make Cell Max a reality.

And Hedo delivered... mostly. Cell Max's body was completed first, but it was going to take a lot longer to develop his brain, and Hedo wasn't particularly eager to work on Cell Max because he liked the superheroic Gammas better. He warned Magenta not to use Cell Max, because he would just run wild and destroy the world Magenta wanted to conquer.

And you know, it's poetic that Magenta's last act was to release this mindless engine of destruction, because that's really all the Red Ribbon Army ever was. Magenta mocked Dr. Hedo's fixation on super heroes, but Magenta's fixation was on the Red Ribbon Army, a failed mercenary group brought down by its idiotic leader.

Red's story ended with his army destroyed, and then Black went on a lunatic rampage on what was left of the Red Ribbon base. Dr. Gero's story ended with his own androids turning on him, and then Cell activates and nearly destroys the world with little concern for Gero's agenda. And now Magenta lies dead in his own stronghold, while Cell Max goes on a rampage.

It always turns out the same way, but with Magenta, we shouldn't be too surprised, because he admired Red and Gero so much. He saw their spectacular failures and convinced himself that they almost won, and if he just gave it one more try, he could get it right this time. But instead, Magenta just wound up sharing their fate, because this is the only way it could ever end. The Red Ribbon Army isn't some noble cause. It's just a bunch of goons who push around innocent people. And the problem with the whole 'might-makes-right' philosophy is that sooner or later you run into someone mightier who pushes back. Commander Red ran into Goku. Dr. Gero ran into Vegeta and his own creations. Cell ran into Gohan.

And I guess Magenta's failure to understand that is what led him to idolize the original Cell so much. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous that he would have asked Dr. Hedo to make a new one. Hedo was a kid when Cell threatened to destroy the Earth, but Magenta ought to have remembered that broadcast. He must have understood that Cell wasn't loyal to the Red Ribbon cause. When he announced the Cell Games, he didn't say anything about sparing the RPC. But I think Magenta never considered any of this. He just knew that Cell was powerful and he wanted one. For men like Magenta, the power is the point. Whether or not you can control the power is a minor detail. It was probably more important to Magenta that he was the one who got to push the button, regardless of the consequences.

Okay, so I kind of got off-track. What is Cell Max, exactly? Well, Hedo's a much better scientist than Gero was, so he managed to take Gero's incomplete "recipe" and make a bigger, even more powerful version of Cell. The downside is that this version is dumb as a bag of hammers. He just stomps around and screams a lot. He seems to have a canny fighting skill behind all that bestial rage, but that's it. You won't find any of the smarmy taunting or mindgames that we used to see from the original Cell. This version might be more powerful, but it's not perfect.

To put it another way, Cell Max absolutely sucks, and I mean that as a compliment. This movie kind of needed a final boss to offset the morally conflicted Hedo and Gammas, and Cell Max makes a good choice for that role. We don't need a cunning, invincible super villain for the last 20 minutes of this movie. There just isn't time for that. What we need is a doomsday weapon unleashed by Magenta in a final act of spite. Magenta probably thought he was getting revenge with this last strike, but this is the good guys' chance to do the classic superhero bit where they have a misunderstanding, fight, and then team up to tackle the real threat.

Also, as a fan of Cell, I just like this novel way of bringing him back in the Dragon Ball Super era. We've already seen Frieza revived and Broly revamped for the canon. Bringing back Cell seemed like a very obvious play, except it's a really dumb idea. Cell was a failure. He took on the whole world and lost, dying alone in a barren waste. Most of the world had no idea who he was or where he came from, and he didn't have flunkies who would wish him back to life the way Sorbet brought back Frieza. It makes much, much more sense that a character like Magenta would rather build a new Cell than bother with the original. And this only emphasizes Cell's inhumanity. He's not a villain, he's a weapon, to be discarded and replaced when he becomes obsolete. Is the new model better? That all depends on how many targets it can hit.

Broadly speaking, Cell Max loos like Semiperfect Cell from DBZ. The same bulky proportions, the same fish lips, etc. The difference is that Cell Max still has wings, which were curiously absent from Semiperfect Cell. Also, Cell Max is unique for his naughty red color, and his tail comes out of his butt like Frieza's, instead of sticking out from between his shoulder blades. Oh, and his feet look like hiking boots.

Also, the end of his tail isn't a stinger. It's like this club-looking thing that can shoot hot pink lasers. I've seen fans draw Cell Max in a "perfect form", which mostly looks like the Original Cell with Cell Max's red and green colorations, and it's interesting to look at, but it kind of misses the point. Cell Max isn't designed to absorb something else and achieve a completed form. This is as good as it gets for Cell Max. I mean, Dr. Hedo seemed to think he would be smarter and easier to control with time, but we really have no way to be sure of that, do we?

All right, let me try to get on with the plot here. The Gammas immediately attack Cell Max, not only because of their heroic natures, but because they know how dangerous Cell Max is. Piccolo leads the Z-Fighters to help out, and the Gammas explain that they need to aim for Max's head, because Dr. Hedo added a weak spot there. If you blast through his cranium, it'll trigger an explosion powerful enough to destroy Max's cells, but even the "weak spot" is still pretty damn strong. Also Cell Max is quite the artful dodger, so it takes a while for anyone to land a blow. Piccolo manages to pull it off, but the attack isn't powerful enough to be effective.

"RAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH EVERYTHING HURTS SO MUCH! WHAT AM I? WHY AM I? AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

As Cell Max destroys more of the base, the ground starts to give way under Pan's feet, and she can't make it to the safety of Bulma's airship. Krillin tells her to fly, but we know she can't do that yet. But she tries really hard and finally learns to fly! I guess she just needed the right motivation. Piccolo reminded her of her Saiyan blood at the start of the movie, and he was trying to reassure her, but Saiyan power isn't just a blessing, it's something you earn through turmoil and hardship. Maybe Pan had to be in deadly peril for her to make this next leap forward. It's like how Gohan was when he clobbered Raditz.

Back at the fight, everyone realizes they need to attack with greater intensity to stop Cell Max, so Goten and Trunks do a Fusion. But they fuck it up and turn into Fat Gotenks. He can't even turn Super Saiyan, but Gotenks is no quitter, so he charges in anyway, and manages to headbutt Cell hard enough to crack his exoskeleton. I guess they're doing chip damage to his head? Like Piccolo hit him pretty damn hard earlier, and now this, so they must be making some progress, right? Anyway, Piccolo praises this moment as the first time a failed Fusion actually does something useful.

Speaking of this, remember how Goten and Trunks had two different opportunities to use Fusion in GT, and they just... didn't do it for no good reason, even though it would have been awesome and cool? Remember how GT had no idea what to do with Piccolo, so they just killed him off and made him live in Hell? Remember how GT fucking sucked, and this movie does the opposite of those things and it's hella rad? I don't know, I just thought I should point that out.

At this point, Gamma 2 decides to go for broke, and he asks everyone else to keep Cell busy while he readies a strike onto his noggin, basically what Gotenks did, only with more power behind it. Gamma 1 is upset about this, but 2 tells him he needs to protect Dr. Hedo, who's still alive in the rubble. "Now who's being sloppy?" 2 asks 1. Because he didn't check his sensors to make sure Hedo was okay, you see.

So they all fight, but then 18 almost gets hit, when...

Kienzan, motherfucker! First rule of being a Cell, dipshit, you're gonna have to go through Krillin.

Solar Flare! Oh! Ohhhhhhhh! Krillin is the MVP once again!

So this sets up Cell Max perfectly for Gamma 2's attack, and he comes straight down... into Max's left forearm, because he managed to block it just in time. But to 2's credit, he keeps pushing, and seems to smash through anyway...

But it's no good. Cell Max's left arm falls off, and it looks like much of his body has been turned to ash, but he's still alive. Enraged, he tries to stomp on Gamma 2, but Piccolo won't have it and he ORANGES UP. As he pushes back on Max's foot, Krillin shows up to help, and tells Piccolo to grow his body, just like he did when he fought Goku at the 23rd World Tournament. I love how Krillin doesn't just tell him this, he helps push back on Max's foot while he talks. Krillin's the real superhero here.

Piccolo's like "Oh yeah, I forgot I can do that," which annoyed some fans. I get it, it's kind of silly that he would forget a thing like this, but it was a long time ago, and it didn't work on Goku at all, so I can understand how he might have forgotten about this ability. Also, it's pretty sweet how Piccolo has so many cool powers that even he has trouble keeping them straight. He's forgotten more about being awesome than we'll ever know.

And while this does give him some much-needed leverage against Cell Max, getting big like this doesn't make him stronger, so they're not much better off than they were before. Piccolo still has plan though. he gives Gohan the senzu bean he brought with him and tells Gohan to eat it. He means to keep Cell Max busy and hopefully Gohan will get enough power built up to deliver a killing blow.

So for a while, they have a good old fashion Big Boy Wrassle, but the tide quickly shifts in favor of Cell Max. Gohan still isn't ready, so Krillin leads a desperate charge to distract Max and give Piccolo a chance. But they all get taken out, and it ends up being all in Piccolo's hands again. He refuses to quit, and does everything he can to hold Max down.

And when it looks like Piccolo is finally beaten, something snaps in Gohan, and we get....

Gohan Beast! Well, they don't call it that in this movie, but that's the name for it, apparently. I remember when the movie premiered in Japan, and I kept seeing trending tags on Twitter for "Orange Piccolo", "Cell Max" and "Gohan Blanco", and thinking "What the hell happens in this movie?"

So... Gohan Beast. Basically it's like the moment where he went SSJ2 for the first time, stacked on top of Mystic Gohan. At least, that's how I see it. Remember, Goku's plan at the Cell Games was to get Gohan as powerful as he could possibly get as a Super Saiyan, so that whenever Gohan tapped into his "hidden power", it would push him into some higher form. Back then, it was SSJ2, but now, he's at his current maximum level, then he sees a good friend in dire straights, and it's pushed him into some new level. And it looks a lot like his SSJ2 form from when he was a kid, but with white or silver hair this time, and red lightning, I guess. Anyway, some people hate this form, but I don't mind it one bit. If Gohan's snapping and kicking ass, I don't care what he looks like. If he turned into a rodeo clown in this scene, I'd still be marking out.

Cell Max punches Gohan and he's like "Naw. Naw." Then he kicks the shit out of Max and starts preparing his attack. Max does his own big energy move, but Gohan doesn't give a fuck because he's in his edgy mode now. Blast that Linkin Park music, because we're doin' it.

Of course, Gohan still needs to get a clear shot, but Piccolo's not out of this yet. He just remembered another cool power he has: Stretchy Arms! Get fucked, Cell Max!

And how will Gohan capitalize on this moment? Three words: Special Beam Cannon! Hell yeah! No wonder Gohan transformed. He had to build up a lot of power just to set up this technique, so seeing Piccolo get wrecked during the charge-up must have really put him over the edge.

And that's it. Cell Max explodes, everyone gets clear of the blast, and the good guys win. Piccolo asks Gohan how he learned to do the Special Beam Cannon, and Gohan explains that he trained on it in secret. A ha! You see, Piccolo? You thought Gohan was slacking off in his training, but he was actually working on things you didn't even know about!

And this sums up the Piccolo's character arc in this movie. Piccolo tries so hard to get someone else to take the lead in this film. When he can't raise Goku or Vegeta, he starts scheming to traumatize Gohan and make him fired up enough to become the big hero. And yet, in the end, Piccolo was the big hero of this movie. He was so busy trying to get someone else to handle things that he couldn't see it. But he was the one who infiltrated the enemy base, he was the one who got the cool new power up, he was the one who flipped the Gammas, and he came up with the plan to beat Cell Max. Sure, his plan was to get Gohan to fire the kill shot, but what was that kill shot? Piccolo's signature techique, which Gohan learned on his own, simply because Piccolo was such a great role model and mentor to him over all these years.

Unfortunately, Gamma 2 died in his attack on Cell Max. He used up all his energy in that move, which apparently causes his entire body to disintegrate. Piccolo consoles Hedo by observing that 2's stunt significantly weakened Cell Max's attacks, making it possible for the rest of them to finish what Gamma 2 started. "He was a real superhero", Piccolo says, which is probably as great an honor as Gamma 2 could have hoped for.

Hedo admits that he basically knew what Magenta was all about, but he played along anyway in order to get the money for his research. But with Gamma 2's death, he now realizes the error of his ways. Gamma 2 didn't do anything wrong, but he was the one who paid for Hedo's reckless alliance with the Red Ribbon. He offers to turn himself in to the authorities, but Krillin objects to this, saying the authorities can't handle someone like Hedo. Remember, this movie opened with him getting out of prison, and everyone was relieved to see him go.

Instead, Piccolo suggests they all overlook this incident, and Hedo asks Bulma if he can work for her now. She's impressed with his bulletproof skin treatment, and thinks she can find a place for him in their cosmetics business. And Gamma 1 can be some sort of security guard. Fair enough.

So that about wraps things up, except for one last bit of business. Pan pulls Piccolo aside to show off how she learned to fly during the battle. She swoops around and everything, and Piccolo proudly tells her that she'll begin the next phase of her training tomorrow. Hooray!

Then we get a post-credits scene where it turns out Goku and Vegeta have been fighting this entire time, and they're finally at the end of their evenly-matched bout. They're so exhausted that they can barely move, but Vegeta manages to kind of gently shove Goku with his fist, knocking him over and earning the victory. Then he falls over as he celebrates. Goku's fine with it because he's a class act, naturally.

As for the spectators, Beerus fell asleep during the fight, and Whis almost forgot he was supposed to be officiating. Cheelai sat through the whole thing, but she was bored the whole time. She looks to Broly for solidarity, but he and Lemo were moved to manly tears at this epic combat spectacle. "Men!" Cheelai says. Look, if you and Broly are gonna be a thing, Cheelai, you have to respect his interests. I'm just glad Broly has something like this to get passionate about. In the last movie he was so repressed and timid. It's great that Whis put on this no-transforming no-ki-blast fight specifically for Broly's benefit, and he seems to have gotten a lot out of it. And it's kind of cute how Cheelai couldn't care less, but she's way off the mark. This was great.

And that's it for Super Hero. I was worried I'd run out of image space for this post, but somehow I managed to get it all in under 30 images. Let me see how many I have left...

Yeah, this was a cool shot of Gohan Beast, or Beast Gohan, or whatever you want to call it.

Nice simultaneous punch with Cell Max and Piccolo. The eternal struggle between red and orange.

Yeah, I forgot to talk about 18's yoga pants and shorter haircut. Some people hate this look, but this is peak 18 in my book. Krillin's a lucky man, I tell you what.

D'awwwww...

"RAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH SOMEONE PLEASE LET ME DIE RAAAAAAAHHHHHHH--Oh! Oh, that's much better. Thank you. Well, I'd better start exploding then. Raaah."

Wow I had a lot of image space left, didn't I? I thought this was going to be a lot tougher than it was.

Well, anyway, this was a fantastic movie. It was so great that I was kind of stressing out about how to cover it properly, but now that it's over I feel pretty good about the whole thing. I don't know if they'll make another Dragon Ball movie. It makes sense, considering how much money this one made, but you never can tell. All I know is that I'm pretty excited for whatever they do next.

And yeah, that's all I've got for this movie, but we're not done with Super Hero just yet. No, now I need to cover the manga adaptation of this movie, and if my calculations are correct, that should be wrapping up next week, so that's some excellent timing there. I will see you then!

[duhragonball]

Super Dragon Ball Heroes 33-36

I don’t think I’ve ever related to Goku more than I do right now.

We’re now in the “New Space-Time War” arc of Super Dragon Ball Heroes.  The previous arc saw Fu become the King of the Demon Realm and create his own universe, and nobody really stopped him, so I assume this arc will just keep following that plotline.  My main question is this:  What was the Old Space-Time War?  Or does “New Space-Time” refer to the new universe Fu created?

This arc is only eight episodes, and I’m only four episode in and it’s a complete trainwreck.  Every few seconds someone else shows up and it’s either a mystery man in disguise, or a surprise cameo, or some other damn thing that doesn’t make any sense.  We open with this dude looking out over the uninhabited Earth in the New Universe, but he doesn’t actually do anything.

Not far away, Goku is being chased through the empty West City by two spaceships. As he runs, he gets a message from Tokitoki City, where Trunks explains to him that Goku is currently inside the new universe Fu created, but it’s just a bad copy of Universe 7, which is why it has the same Earth and the same West City, but no people.

And somehow, the new universe and U7 are connected somehow.  When Goku’s pursuers shoot at a nearby building, the same building in the real West City experiences the same damage. 

As Trunks mulls this over, Xeno Pan tends to Xeno Goten and Xeno Gohan.  So these four characters must have escaped the Universe Tree somehow.  Since Goku was fused with Vegeta before he arrived in the new universe, it stands to reason that Vegeta is also in the new universe.  That just leaves Xeno Goku and Xeno Vegeta unaccounted for.

This is dumb as hell.  These two haven’t done jack shit in this whole series, so I don’t know why we’re wasting screen-time on them.

It turns out Cooler and Frieza were in those ships that were chasing Goku.  When Goku flees the city to find a place to regroup, they ditch the ships and chase after him with their own power.  But then some mysterious force stops them in their tracks and it’s...

... Hearts, who died in Episode 19.  He explains that he was freed from Hell by Demigra, although he doesn’t seem to know who Demigra is.  Hearts wants to team up with Goku to oppose Fu, since Hearts disapproves of the way Fu has been using the Universe Seed.  Goku isn’t convinced, but he doesn’t have much choice, since Frieza and Cooler are still after him. 

Goku manages to overwhelm Golden Frieza with Ultra Instinct, while Hearts seems to fight evenly with Golden Metal Cooler.  I was going to point out that Hearts used to be a lot stronger than this, but he was using the Universe Seed to amplify his powers, so I guess it makes sense for him to be weaker now.

Then someone throws red Dragon Balls at Frieza and Cooler, and they get turned into rampaging maniacs.  When Demigra released Hearts, he told him about this.  They’re called “Dark Dragon Balls” and they can be used to turn warriors into berserkers.  But before Goku and Hearts can deal with that...

... Broly shows up and attacks everyone, because of course he does.   

This doesn’t bother the guy who threw the Dark Dragon Balls, though, since he only seems to want the fight to continue.  If Broly wants to jump in uninvited, that’s fine with him. 

Then the other mystery man that we saw before shows up and removes the Dark Dragon Balls from Frieza and Cooler, then he challenges Broly, and leads him away from Goku and Hearts.  Goku asks Hearts who that guy is, and Hearts says that he tried to read his mind, but he couldn’t.

The Crimson Masked Saiyan withdraws as well, and Hearts gives Goku a senzu bean.  He found it on this Earth, but since it restores Goku’s strength and stamina, he concludes that the copies of objects work the same way they do in the real world.  So Hearts believes that the Dragon Balls of this Earth will work as well.  He already has one of them, and Goku knows how to find the rest.

He finds the Dragon Radar in the Capsule Corp. building, but when he turns it on, he gets a reading from a second Dragon Ball directly overhead.  I guess this is a different planet, but up here we find the Crimson Masked Saiyan forcing Vegeta, Cumber, and Turles to fight each other.

Vegeta’s been getting his ass kicked, because Cumber was always a handful, and Turles has eaten so much Tree of Might fruit that he’s got Radditz hair now. 

Goku and Hearts show up to save Vegeta, and the Crimson Masked Saiyan turns Super Saiyan Pink, which immediately gives away that he’s just Goku Black.  Why the mask, then?

While the Gokus fight, Turles infuses Vegeta with evil power and tries to convince him to be evil.  I guess he and Cumber are in cahoots now?  I don’t understand this.

Vegeta struggles against this energy, and he has a flashback montage of various key moments like when he killed Nappa and massacred that Namekian villiage, and when he died to Frieza and watched Goku fight Kid Buu.   At last he goes into action, and Turles realises that Vegeta has somehow taken control of this “evil” power. 

He whoops Turles’ ass and explains that evil is not the true nature of the Saiyans.  Rather, the true nature of their people is to keep fighting, and to strive for greater strength.  Cumber sees Vegeta riding high and he wants to take him on...

So Vegeta whoops Cumber’s ass too.  Hell yeah!  It’s about time they gave Vegeta a hero moment in this series. 

Vegeta Galick Guns Cumber and his mask falls off.  Cumber salutes Vegeta for turning the evil aura into his own power without succumbing to its corruption, and then he passes out.  Fuck yeah!

Vegeta tells Turles to get stronger and challenge him again sometime if he’s got the stones.  I think that challenge is open to Cumber too, but he’s too busy sleeping off the last beating he took.

But Black has defeated Goku, and when Vegeta turns his attention to him, he learns Black’s backstory.  Of course, the Goku Black we know fused with the other Zamasu and their merged form was erased by Grand Zeno, then they somehow came back to life and got killed by Hearts.  This Goku Black is different.  He’s from some other timeline or dimension or whatever, and Fu found him before he could go on to be defeated and warned him of his fate. 

To avoid that impending defeat, this Goku Black traveled through different timelines, defeating one Goku after another.  The Goku he’s beaten just now is his 100th victory, and he declares that he now has achieved complete mastery of his body.

Vegeta tries to stop him, but his new power-up quits on him, and Black observes that he hasn’t fully mastered it yet.  But before Black can take advantage of this...

“Bitch, you thought--”

Yeah, Goku’s back in Ultra Instinct, and he just demolishes Black.  This web anime has a lot of flaws, but I’ll give it credit for doing what Dragon Ball Super was too cowardly to do.  SDBH actually lets good guys clobber the shit out of Zamasu and Black.  And it’s incredibly satisfying to watch, because one of the things that made the Zamasu Saga so shitty was that Goku and the others would attack and attack and Black and Zamasu would just no-sell all of it and keep smirking like assholes.  Not in Super Dragon Ball Heroes, though.  Jiren beats up Zamasu, Hearts kills Zamasu, and not Goku eats Black’s lunch with Ultra Instinct.

So Black withdraws, realizing that if this Goku can improve, then he must still have some work to do before he’s ready to carry on with his agenda.  But to dispense with the others, he fires a blast at the planet to destroy it... wait, is that the Vengeance Cannon?  Fuck you, Goku Black, that’s a Luffa move!  I’ll sue!  I’ll sue every Kai in Universe 10, you plagiarizing piece of shit!

Hearts picks up Cumber because he still wants to work with the guy, so all four them can escaper together, except Goku can’t teleport because there’s no ki signatures for him to lock on to.  Remember, this universe is uninhabited, so there’s almost no one around.  But then--!

Awwww yeah!

Awwwwwwwwwww yeeeeeeeeeeeeah!  It’s Cell, everybody!  This is automatically the best arc in the series!

Black tries to kill them before Cell can do anything, but Turles blindsides him first, and it looks like Black kills Turles, but while he’s busy doing that, Cell gets everyone out of there.

So back on... Earth, I guess?  The uninhabited Earth in this New Universe, I mean.  Cell explains that the same guy who freed Hearts from Hell also freed Cell.  I guess Demigra arranged all of this to get Goku some reinforcements for the battle against Fu.  All I know for certain about Demigra’s role in this is that he’s opposed to Mechikabura’s Dark Empire, and so he would be equally opposed to Towa’s plot to revive the Dark Empire with Fu as Mechikabura’s successor.  As to why he would turn to Cell for help, well... Demigra’s got excellent taste, what else can I say?

Look at how pissed these two idiots are.  “Tell us why you saved us, Cell!” When Hearts offered to team up with Goku, he was confused, but accepted his help.  When he recruited Frieza for the Tournament of Power, Goku was at least cordial with the guy.  But Cell?  Fuck all that.  They hate Cell, and they should.  Cell kicked both their asses, and he killed Goku and then he killed Vegeta’s son.  He’s not some guy you can work with like Frieza.  Cell’s a weapon, and all he does is pick targets to attack.  All he cares about is how much fun he’ll have in the process.   Goku and Vegeta see this guy and they know he can’t be trusted.

Goku’s like “You want to throw down, is that it?” and Cell doesn’t reject that possibility.  Oh, he’ll get to that, but first he needs to explain some stuff, I guess, but before he can do that...

... Well, I guess some other asshole shows up, but we don’t even get to see this one, so I guess we’ll have to wait until next time to find out what’s going on.  That’s okay, because Cell’s back, everyone.  

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 070

Time for a baseball episode (derogatory).

Sigh... All right, let’s just get through this.  So Champa contacts Beerus and proposes a friendly game of baseball to build “good relations between Universe 6  and 7.”  I’m pretty sure the assemlbed teams represent the only people in either universe that are aware of the other universe.  

Some issues with this premise:

1) Champa is only doing this as a pretense to go to Earth and enjoy its delicious cuisine.   This seems pointless, as Universe 6′s own Earth was restored in Episode 41.   Beerus specifically wished for this so that Champa could enjoy Earth food whenever he liked.   Did he forget about this, or does U6′s Earth food just suck?   Or maybe the U6 Earthlings destroyed themselves all over again?  I mean, the Super Dragon Balls could bring them back to life, but that doesn’t resolve whatever they were fighting over when they died.

2) Champa can’t even field a whole team, so Vegeta and Goten switch sides to make it fair.  Maybe they should have organized a Pickleball tournament instead.

3) Only three characters in this cartoon know how to play baseball, and two of them are the umpires.  Everyone keeps fucking around and/or trying to hurt one another, because it’s a Dragon Ball cartoon and that’s how they all roll. 

Let me just focus on Yamcha here, because he’s the only character who manages to look cool in all of this.  Goku manages to strike out Champa, then Yamcha takes over pitching and strikes out two more batters.  Then he’s the first at bat, and Vegeta beans him because he thinks the object is to incapacitate the opposing team.   So Yamcha gets a free trip to first base. 

Then he steals second and third because Champa doesn’t understand the rules well enough to stop him.  At one point he throws the ball at Yamcha to cut him off, and apparently that’s illegal.   I thought you could do that, but now that I think about it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Then Beerus and Champa start fighting above the field, and Whis and Vados have to stop them before it destroys the entire universe.  Destroyer Gods fighting is supposed to be a serious taboo, just like time travel.  Funny how Beerus destroyed Bulma’s lab, but he gets to keep his hands.

Anyway, Whis and Vados call off the rest of the game due to the Destroyers’ poor sportsmanship, so we didn’t even get a full inning into this nonsense.  Champa is horrified to learn that the game is a tie, but it’s not.  Universe 7 wins, because...

... While Beerus and Whis were fighting, and all the other players were cowering in terror, Yamcha managed to steal home plate.  So U7 wins, 1-0. 

This whole episode is played up like a backhanded compliment to Yamcha.  He perserveres through the whole episode to win the game, and everyone congratulates him for it, but there’s also a lot of dunking on Yamcha too.  Like “Way to go, Yamcha, I guess you’re not completely useless after all!” That sort of thing.

Also, this whole “Yamcha loves this because he used to be a major leaguer” thing kind of contradicts the very episode of DBZ that this is referring to.  Yeah, Yamcha was the star player for the Taitans in Age 761, but he also found the game boring as hell, and he only did it for the money. 

Sure, he’s had 18 years to change his mind about the game, and I suspect he’s mostly into this because it’s a chance to look cool in front of the others, but this episode is still kind of a let-down for me.  There was a baseball issue of the Tenchi Muyo! comic, there was a baseball episode of Deep Space Nine, there was a baseball episode of Transformers, etc. etc.  This is the literal definition of a trope shows use to blow off an episode.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga ch.88-90

The 2023 Dragon Ball Apocrypa Liveblog concludes with the DBS manga's adaptation of the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero motion picture.

First up, we have this three-chapter prologue/prequel thing starring Goten and Trunks in their lankey teen bodies. It's well-made, but I'm not impressed. Find out the reason why... inside!

Okay, as the image above shows, this is all about the boys' playing superheroes while they're in high school... just like Gohan did way back in Dragon Ball Z. The main difference seems to be that there's two of them doing it this time, and their motives are a little more frivolous. Gohan came up with Great Saiayaman because he just couldn't help but foil crimes, and the costume allowed him to save the day without giving away his identity. Goten and Trunks also want to keep a low profile, but they mostly seem to be doing this shtick because they're on a superhero kick lately. They call themselves "Saiyaman X1 and X2", but their act mainly imitates their hero, Cleangod, who has a franchise of movies, video games, and so forth.

The added wrinkle is that they're also trying to keep this thing a secret from their families, as Bulma and Chi-Chi wouldn't approve of the boys screwing around like this when they should be studying. I guess it was okay when Gohan did it, but times have changed, and Trunks in particular isn't doing so hot on his report cards.

That does keep things mildly interesting. For example, you'd expect the boys to use costume changing watches like Great Saiyaman had, except they don't want Bulma to find out. So Trunks asks Pilaf to make them instead, and Pilaf can't make them as quickly, so Trunks doesn't get his until chapter 88 is half-over, and Goten's isn't ready until chapter 89. And you know, it probably would make things a lot simpler for Goten and Trunks to avoid the Saiyaman stuff altogether if they don't want their moms to find out, since they've seen this trick before. But they're doing it anyway, I guess because they're just that deep into the Cleangod fandom.

However, this still feels like a retread of a storyline we've already seen. Reading this, I feel like I've gotten too old for Dragon Ball. I know that isn't true. I'm looking forward to whatever happens in Chapter 101 onward, and Daima seems promising, even if it wasn't what I had in mind. There's always something interesting around the corner... but I see stories like this one that are more interested in rehashing older material, and it just feels tired and stale. Younger fans may not mind at all, but I see this and wonder if all we have left is just rehashing ideas we've already seen before.

Besides all of that, I'm not a big fan of high school stories, and there's a healthy dose of Trumai... and let's just get this out of the way before we go any further: I'm not that interested in the whole "next generation" thing.

I know there's a lot of fans who really dig the whole idea of exploring what happens to Goten, Trunks, Marron, Uub, Bulla, and Pan. I respect that, but I've never been very invested in any of them. I liked what we got out of them in DBZ, but that's about it. Let me kind of single out Goten so I can discuss this more easily. For the sake of argument, let's just call the "next generation" concept "Big Goten", since it features the teenage or adult version of the character, as opposed to the little guy in the Buu Saga and most of Super. Trunks, Marron, and the rest can be lumped into this, but it's easier to just refer to one character.

Basically, this 3-chapter arc is probably the best "Big Goten" story by default. Your other options are the End of Z episodes which barely do anything with him, or that one GT episode where he fights Baby and gets possessed. Or the Super Hero movie, where he's barely in it.

And yet, we have this 3-chapter arc, and Goten's basically playing sidekick to Trunks. That's not a huge problem in itself. You'd expect these two to be side-by-side, but it's mainly a Trunks story. He's trying to get Mai to go out with him, but she's part of the Pilaf gang living at Capsule Corp, and they have to be useful or Bulma will kick them out. So she's too busy repairing these "helper robots" that malfunctioned recently. Trunks thinks he can investigate the case as Saiyaman X-1 and get Mai the weekend off so she can date him. Goten's just sort of along for the ride. He enjoys the superhero bit, and he likes goofing off with Trunks, so it's all good.

And honestly, you could probably switch these two around and have Goten be the one trying to solve crimes to go on a date, while Trunks is the supportive wingman. But that's the problem. We have this one story, and they both kind of have to share it, and it really doesn't matter which one of them gets the lead.

Like, in this arc, we learn a little more about Teen Trunks. He's not doing well scholastically, he lacks Bulma's talent with computers or science, and... he's still carrying a torch for Mai for some reason. Oh, and he's afraid of ghosts now. It's not much to go on, but at least he gets something. All we find out about Goten in this thing is that he likes Cleangod, just like Trunks. Oh, and Teen Marron has a brief appearance where it turns out she really likes Cleangod too. Also several of Goten and Trunks' classmates enjoy Cleangod. And Dr. Hedo likes Cleangod. You know, that's how you develop your characters, right? You make them all like the same thing.

The point I'm getting at is that for years I've heard that Big Goten is this untapped well of great story ideas and this arc finally gets around to that and... it's pretty underwhelming. That's the big idea? Superheroes? Again? It worked for Gohan because it was a fresh idea when he did it. And it worked for Dr. Hedo because it helped set him apart from Dr. Gero. But all it does for Goten and Trunks is give them another set of clothes. Trunks is still pining for Mai and Goten is still just happy to be here. It's not enough. It's not nearly enough.

So let's move on. The boys head into town one night to investigate the Helper Robots that are mysteriously disappearing. Turns out they've been hijacked by Dr. Hedo's Alpha series androids. Strictly speaking, the Alphas are just corpses stolen from a morgue, reanimated with cybernetics. Remember those goons working at the convenience store in the beginning of Super Hero? Well this is the same group of guys. Hedo's problem is that he's fare more brilliant than Gero ever was, but he lacks the resources and funding to make the kinds of androids that he wants to make. The Alphas are functional, but only just. Their brains are defective, and you can probably only steal so many bodies from the morgue before the cops get wise to you. So Hedo's big idea is to hijack the Helper Robots and use them to manufacture sushi packages for profit. He could build something more efficient for this, but this will have to do until he gets the cash.

Oh, I forgot to talk about how Pilaf built the Helper bots. I'm not clear on what they do, but there's a lot of them in the city, and apparently Pilaf pitched the idea to Bulma and she okayed it. At first I was surprised to read this, but then I remembered that Pilaf had his own Dragon Radar way back in the day. It wasn't as sophisticated as Bulma's, but it goes to show that Pilaf knows his way around technology. This isn't some new thing they slapped onto his character, like Trunks suddenly being afraid of ghosts.

For a second, it looks like Goten and Trunks are discovered by the Alphas, but it turns out Trunks' pals from school have snuck into the production floor, and they're the ones who get discovered, so Trunks has to go in and save them. Except his superhero wristwatch malfunctions, so Goten has to take out the lights to cover for him.

Trunks cleans house, even defeating Alpha 12, who was the strongest guy on Hedo's team. When Hedo himself arrives to find his base wrecked, his only clue is that it was trashed by someone who goes to "Blue Hal" High School. It's a major setback for Hedo, but what really upsets him is that Trunks took an important disc from his safe. Hedo wants to recover it above all else. Ironically, Trunks isn't even that concerned about the disc, since all he really cares about is disrupting whatever Hedo was doing to the Helper Robots. That way he can get his date with Mai, except it won't. Even more ironically, Mai still has to work on Saturday night, because she and the Pilaf Gang have to repair all the Helper Robots Trunks smashed in Hedo's base. Whoops!

Later, Trunks tries to use Bulma's computer to access the data on the disc he took from Hedo's sushi packaging shop. He briefly sees information related to Cell, but he doesn't recognize its significance, probably because he only knows Cell from hearing about it through his family. Anyway, the disc gives the computer a virus, which Bulla removes because that's her big character defining moment in this story. She's basically a carbon copy of Kid Bulma from the Jaco manga, but at least she's not another Cleangod fan.

Anyway, Bulma had decided to start sending Mai to school along with Trunks. Apparently she realized it might be awkward if anyone noticed Mai working for Capsule Corp. and not going to school. This just now came up? I mean, the Pilaf Gang have been here for a few years at least. If anything, it would have been more awkward when Mai was younger, right? I mean, I get it, this is just a way to get Mai involved in the story, but still...

There's also another new student in Trunks' class: Baytah. Trunks' friend Rulah takes an immediate liking to him, but this is pretty clearly a new android created by Dr. Hedo. The Alpha series was no match for Saiyaman X-1, so he created a new Beta class to infiltrate Blue Hal High School and find out who X-1 really is. Beta begins to suspect Trunks, since he displays some above-average performance on the basketball court, but he can't find a way to prove it without giving himself away.

So here we have this weird scene where they're getting soup for lunch, and Trunks is sad that he can't get extra. Then Beta pretends to trip or something, and throws his soup into the air. I guess the idea was that Trunks would have to use super powers to dodge it, or he'd get it all over his nice school clothes. But instead Trunks just sort of shifts to one side and the soup miraculously lands in his bowl. And he's happy because he gets extra soup? How does it all fit in one bowl, though? Is the lunch lady only filling them up halfway? This whole bit is really contrived, is what I'm trying to say.

Somewhere along the way, Mai figures it out and explains it to Trunks, so they know Beta is looking for Saiyaman X-1. So he knows to be careful about showing off his powers, but Goten just picks up a truck during recess to get a tennis ball back for his classmates. See, Trunks, this is how you get the ladies. Mai is like 55 years old. She doesn't care, but if you pick up a truck or two, all these teenage girls will go wild. Right now, these two girls are thinking about how much they wish they were trucks, being held in Goten's mightly-yet-gentle hand.

Anyway, now Beta is convinced that Goten is the one he's after, and Hedo tells him to attack and get the disc.

So Beta reveals he has a goofy superhero suit of his own, but Goten can't fight seriously because he doesn't have a transformation watch yet. Fortunately, Trunks does, so he shows up as X-1 and quickly slips Goten the new watch Pilaf must have made last night.

I'm not thrilled with Beta's design, but I like the concept. Faced with both Saiyamen, he deploys Beta 2, which is a robotic exosuit that can separate and fight in two modules. The Betas are here for the disc, but neither Goten or Trunks has it. Mai does, because Trunks gave her his bag while he ran off to pee or whatever excuse he had to switch costumes.

So Trunks has to save Mai from the Betas, and as he catches her, she briefly mistakes him for Future Trunks, the only version of Trunks Mai seems to have any interest in. The Saiyamen clean house, and the day is saved. Trunks very nearly tells Mai that he was X-1 all along, but Goten stops him before he can spill the beans in front of the whole school.

Okay, but what's the point? I mean, Goten just lifted a truck with one hand a minute ago? More importantly, Great Saiyaman was revealed to be Goten about ten years earlier. Not that I expect these students to remember that, but that's my point: Gohan was worried about everyone finding out he had super powers, and in the end no one cared.

I mean, there's still the matter of not wanting Bulma and Chi-Chi to find out what they're up to, but that sort of doesn't matter? I mean, the moms just want their kids to study more and screw around less. It doesn't really matter if they're playing superhero or going fishing. Their moms know they aren't studying, because they've got the report cards to prove it.

Back at Hedo's (other) base, he realizes he underestimated the Saiyamen, and realizes that he'll have to build even better androids to defeat them. And he's taken a liking to the Saiyamen's costumes, particularly their capes, so the implication here is that the Gammas' designs were inspired by Goten and Trunks' antics in this story.

Later, we finally get to that convenience store we saw briefly in Super Hero. Hedo still needs money, especially if he plans to build something to defeat the Saiyamen, so he puts three of his Alphas to work at the "Mammal Mart". It's Krillin who makes the bust, and for some reason Mai is there too.

Despite his lofty plans for better androids, the best Hedo can manage is to send more Beta series androids after Goten and Trunks. Beta 7 looks like an Elvis impersonator, and he intercepts Goten's school bus, but Goten changes into X-2 and beats him. Apparently this sort of thing has been going on for a while now.

Mai takes Goten aside and reveals to him that they're being watched by a tiny spy-robot. After the Beta-1 incident at school, Mai investigated and learned that Dr. Hedo is a famous scientist in the area, and she believes he's behind all of this. Apparently he's already figured out Goten and Trunks are the Saiyamen, since he's been sending Beta androids to harass them.

Mai's plan is to defeat Hedo by using the school dance to lure him into a trap. The organizers have arranged for a live appearance by Cleangod at the dance, which... seems kind of odd for a high school dance, but nothing about this super-hero business really makes any sense to me.

Like, okay... I've been a comic book fan for over thirty years. I just read a bunch of Golden Age Captain Americas a few months ago. I think I know the genre pretty well, and nothing Dragon Ball Super does with the concept really rings true to me.

In the first place, the Dragon Ball characters are already superheroes. I went from Batman to Superman to Marvel to Dragon Ball Z, and it was a pretty smooth transition. I never stopped liking the other stuff that came before, so it's not like my tastes changed all that much. I just see DBZ as a natural extension of the same stuff I liked in Marvel and DC.

It made sense when Gohan became Great Saiyaman because the only trope he hadn't done yet was the secret identity thing, and the only reason it had never come up before was that he'd never needed one before then. Once he got into high school, he suddenly had friends he wanted to keep secrets from, so he did the same thing Clark Kent did in 1938.

But then you have Goten and Trunks doing it because they think it's neat, and they're fans of Cleangod, who is a fictional character to them. And this is probably because Hedo was doing the same bit in the movie, where he would wear a costume and do the poses because he was imitating other fictional superheroes. So the idea seems to be less about the superhero genre as I know it, and more of this ironic "Let's be comic book nerds and do cosplay, and also we have super powers so we can do more than just pose in the suits."

Which... fine, I guess. The thing is, I don't understand the fascination with Cleangod. I mean, it makes sense for Hedo to be an enormous fanboy, because he's a nerdy scientist. I'm a nerdy scientist, so I can relate. He wants Cleangod's autograph, and I'm running an anime blog in my late 40's.

But Goten and Trunks are not nerds. Neither, it seems, are most of their classmates. They all seem like fairly normal teens, mostly interested in dates and school stuff and snooping around abandoned factories or whatever. But this high school dance is going to feature a live appearance by a man in a superhero costume. That's the sort of thing a circus would do to get small children to show up.

Is this an ironic thing? Like, did Goten and Trunks start out thinking Cleangod was cringy kidstuff, and they just kept getting deeper into the fandom until they started liking it for real? Is that what's happening?

Sorry, I was explaining Mai's plan. Okay, so Cleangod will be doing a meet-and-greet at a high school dance party. Okay. Dr. Hedo is a huge mark for Cleangod, so Mai is certain he will crash the party just to meet Cleangod and get his autograph. And she plans to be there when he does, so she can shut him down once and for all.

And she gets to go to this dance, because she's attending with...

...Trunks. He wanted to ask her to this thing, but she asked him instead, so he's all a-flutter over this, never realizing that she's just using him to get at Hedo. Except.... she's attending this school now. She doesn't need a date to get in. Hedo is the one who has to find some way to get access to the building, because he's not a student.

I like Mai's armor in this scene, although it really never comes into play. Also, Trunks brought Hedo's disc with him, because.... I have no idea. Maybe he doesn't want to risk losing it?

As expected, Hedo does show up for this thing, and I guess it's because Beta-1 is still registered as a student? I'm more confused about this signing event in the middle of a dance floor. This just feels like a hot mess. Trunks and Hedo bond over their mutual love of Cleangod... wait, I thought Trunks was excited about getting to go on a date with Mai? Priorities, Trunks!

Anyway, Hedo confides to Trunks that he had a Cleangod autograph before, but it was stolen, so he's here to get another one. Hold on, doesn't Hedo know Trunks is X-1? I mean, he was sending androids after Goten, so he must know he's X-2, right?

Mai tries to get Hedo, but then Beta shows up, and Rulah explains that he got back into the school, so she asked him to the dance. I really like Rulah. She doesn't know what's going on, but there's a new boy in town and she's gonna make time with him. She's like an Archie character.

Then the cops show up. Yeah, just draw your guns in a big crowd of children, Krillin, that makes a ton of sense.

Hedo uses a smokebomb to escape and everyone chases after him. By the time Cleangod comes out to make his big appearance, everyone is gone except Mai, who isn't impressed. That's the thing I can't square with all of this. The running gag seems to be that superheroes are both cool and uncool at the same time. People were lining up to see this guy, but the punchline is that he totally sucks? I guess? Characters will praise Goten and Trunks' costumes and then later characters will call them corny.

Like, which is it? That's the thing about superhero comics, at least from my perspective. In the real world, you either think Batman's awesome or he's a giant dork in a fursuit. Fine. But in the Batman mythos, just about everyone takes him seriously because he's a mysterious badass. I get it, Cleangod's basically Adam West working car-shows in the 1970's, but Saiyaman X-1 and X-2 are the real thing. They fought robots in the middle of the football field in front of everyone. I mean, no one called Goten corny when he lifted that truck.

Oh, by the way, Dr. Hedo's jalopy is awesome.

Krillin (reluctantly) brings Goten and Trunks along to chase down Hedo, and he fills them in on the situation. The cops have been after Hedo because they think the Red Ribbon Army is trying to stage a comback and they want to contact him. That.... doesn't quite square with the movie, but we'll talk about that later.

Anyway, they get to Hedo's (third?) base and he's got a dinosaur android to stop them. This is the biggest, strongest one he's made so far, but it's still not very sophisticated, simply because Hedo lacks the resources to build anything better.

It gives the Bio-Broly Buster Crew a little trouble, but Krillin disables it with a kienzan, and then Goten and Trunks take it out with a double-team move. And Hedo's going to jail.

So what about that disc? Turns out it never mattered. Hedo memorized all the information on it a long time ago, so the disc itself had no value to him. What he wanted was the case, which contained, in addition to the disc, his prized Cleangod autograph. Remember? The one he told Trunks got stolen? They didn't know it at the time, but Trunks was the one who stole it in Chapter 88.

And that's really dumb, because Trunks did try to investigate the disc in Chapter 89. He didn't get very far, but he still had to open the case it was in, so you'd think he would have noticed the Cleangod autograph inside. I mean, another character might not have paid any attention to it, but Trunks is a huge fan of Cleangod himself.

And if Hedo truly had no use for the disc, why didn't he throw it away a long time ago? In this scene, he says he discarded it, but he must have only done that in the last few minutes, before Krillin showed up to arrest him, since Trunks had the disc before the dance. This whole thing is supposed to be clever, but it's kind of dumb.

Anyway, this whole caper explains how Hedo got sentenced to prison at the beginning of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. He could have been given a longer sentence, but according to this story, he agreed to return some of the Alphas back to the families of the corpses he built them out of. This is supposed to be funny, but it's just kind of bizarre. Like, are we saying Hedo resurrected the corpses? I thought the idea was he just used a dead body to build Alpha 12. But this seems to suggest Alpha 12 remembers his former existence. That's kind of fucked up.

Like I said at the beginning, there's a lot that is well done here. Toyotaro's art is on-point as usual, and there's some great action scene with Goten and Trunks. I think the big highlight of the arc were all of the side characters we see at their school, like Rulah and the others. Trunks' math teacher looked pretty cool. The problem is that they were never going to be the focus of this or any other story. It's taken years for Toei or Shueisha to do anything with Goten or Trunks, so their pals may never see the light of day again.

And that's what disappoints me about this arc, because it may have been the one chance of getting a good teen Goten and Trunks arc, and they blew it on this. Did we really need a backstory on Hedo's prison sentence? Did anyone leave the theater not understanding why he was in jail? Was anyone confused as to how he came up with the designs for Gamma 1 and 2's costumes? No. We didn't need this.

One of these days, there will be an official Big Goten story that gets it right. But this ain't it, chief.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga ch. 27-29

“Welp, this tournament of power’s not gonna instigate itself!”

I’ve been impressed with Toyotaro’s leaner, meaner versions of the Universe 6 and Zamasu sagas, so I was hoping he would work the same magic on the build-up to the Tournament of Power.  Unfortunately, I’m a bit disappointed.  I think Episodes 68-96 anime took way too long to get there, but Chapters 27-32 of the manga seem to go too quickly.  I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, as there’s a lot of middle ground between 29 anime episodes and six manga chapters. 

So you know the drill.  I’m going to highlight stuff that the manga did differently, starting with this Beerus/Vegeta rematch that happens right before Goku goes to Beerus’ planet and reminds Zeno of the tournament he promised. 

This always struck me as a plot dangler from the anime, because we see Goku and Vegeta get a lot stronger over the course of DBS, and yet we never find out if they‘ve improved enough to match Beerus.  Sure, Beerus clobbered them both in Battle of Gods, but now they know how to do Super Saiyan Blue.  Well, in this chapter, Beerus scoffs at the idea that the Saiyans will ever be his rivals, and the Oracle Fish insists that it’s true, so he challenges Vegeta to see what progress he’s made.

And the answer is “not enough”, though Vegeta does a lot better than he did the last time he fought Beerus, so there’s no shame in it. 

Of course, this doesn’t take into account Goku’s Super Saiyan Blue Kaio-ken level, but that doesn’t exist in the manga.  Instead we have this “Completed” Super Saiyan Blue form, where Goku learned how to perfect the transformation.  Vegeta reveals he can do the same thing in this chapter, but it’s still not enough. 

We also get this scene in Grand Zenos’ Palace where they discuss the problem of too many universes before Goku arrives.  The Zenos are playing some sort of game involving the universes, and they each note how there’s too many of them, and since the mortals aren’t developing much in most of the universes, there’s little point in observing them all.  So they contemplate erasing eight universes, and that’s when Goku shows up to talk about the tournament.

So we get a bunch of scenes where the gods are summoned to Zeno’s palace for the announcement.  In particular, I’m confused by this one of Sidra and Roh discussing the destruction of a planet.  Unlike Beerus, Sidrah seems to take the job very seriously, and he carefully calculates the pros and cons of his decision before acting. Also, Roh seems very interested in the process.   This would be weird enough, but in the anime, these two are shown to be a lot more craven and opportunistic.  So I’m not sure what to take from this.

At the palace, the Grand Minister asks about the extra guy in the Universe 11 contingent, and Belmod introduces Toppo as his apprentice, as he plans to retire soon.  In the anime, Toppo is introduced as Khai’s bodyguard, and I’m pretty sure the “Candidate God of Destruction” thing will get brought up later, but it’s strange that they didn’t explain it in his debut. 

I guess I’ll talk about it here, since this seems to be the first time it gets brought up.  Beerus and Whis have hinted at the idea of Goku or Vegeta training to take Beerus’ place someday, but the Saiyans don’t seem interested in the job, so it never goes anywhere.  With Toppo, we have confirmation that mortals can be promoted to the rank of Hakaishin, which implies that Belmod and all the other Destroyers were once mortals themselves. 

So the Grand Minister announces the Tournament, but the Zeno from the destroyed timeline doesn’t know what a martial arts match is like, so we get the Zeno Expo.  But in this version, it’s a battle royale of all the Destroyers. 

It starts out as an 11-on-1 fight against Beerus, partly because they blame him for Goku getting them into this mess, and also they’re still sore at him for the trouble he caused long ago.  According to Whis, Zeno held a hide-and-seek tournament, and Beerus fell asleep during it and ruined the whole thing.  The others managed to calm Zeno down, but they’ve resented Beerus for it ever since.

But Beerus does surprisingly well, and soon enough, the other Destroyers begin to turn on one another in an effort to win.

Oh, and here’s this bonus comic where Trunks decides to return to his own timeline, or at least an altered version of it.  This doesn’t make a lot of sense, given how this was Whis’ idea, and Trunks wouldn’t have considered this on his own.

Back to the rumble, a bunch of stuff happens, and it’s hard to keep track of any of it, which is probably by design, since not even the Zenos can follow any of this.

So the Grand Minister calls off the match and disqualifies everyone.  Zeno nearly abandons the Tournament idea altogether, when Goku asks him to give it another chance, since mortal battles won’t be anything like that. 

Fortunately, there’s a mortal in the house who can face off with Goku, and this gives the Zenos a chance to road test some new rules.  No weapons, no killing, and no flying.  Apparently these are all for the sake of making the action more fun for the Zenos to watch.  I don’t get the no-flying thing, but the Tournament of Power was a great time, so I guess the Zenos know what they’re doing.   I mean, you don’t become the Kings of Everything without knowing a thing or two.

Goku transforms, which excites the Zenos, so they want to see all of Goku’s transformations.  He goes to Super Saiyan 2, which is always a treat to see, but the Zenos aren’t thrilled with this one, so Goku has to go to Super Saiyan 3 right away.  Look, Zenos, you may be all powerful, but Super Saiyan 2 Goku kicks ass.  Maybe you’ll understand when you’re older.

Soon enough Goku ramps up to Super Saiyan God, and all the Destroyers are impressed to see him fighting at that level.  Wait, if they’re fighting at the same level, then how is this any easier for the Zenos to follow?

Goku tries to polish Toppo off by turning Super Saiyan Blue, but Toppo takes him to Dick Kick City first, and wins the match by ring-out. 

So yeah, Toppo wins clean.  How about that?

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga Ch.100

Yes, Cheelai, we have finally reached the end of the 2023 Dragon Ball Apocrypha Liveblog, but in particular, we've also finally reached the end of the seemingly endless manga adaptation of the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero movie.

And yeah, this seems like an anticlimactic place to close out the year, but that's kind of how this entire liveblog has been, when you get down to it. I've had fun going through all this stuff, but there's a reason I'm referring to it all as "apocryphal". The Tournament of Power is a lot of fun, and the two DBS feature films are instant classics, but none of it really feels essential to Dragon Ball. From the OAVs to GT to Super, the main theme here is "Hey, remember Dragon Ball? Let's make more of that!" Everything ends up being a sequel or a callback or an easter-eggy kind of deal. And that's not the worst thing that can happen to a franchise, but it's probably fitting that we're closing out on the final chapter of a comic book adaptation of a movie that serves as a sequel to the Android arc that was a continuation of the Red Ribbon Army arc.

Chapter 100 just retells the last several minutes of the Super Hero movie, and I already went over the film, so let's just concentrate on how the manga depicts it differently. We'll start with Gohan's right arm, which got some heat a few days ago when the previews came out.

I refuse to dogpile on Toyotaro, since he's a far better artist than I'll ever be, and I've genuinely enjoyed his art through this entire read-through, even when the writing has been bad. That said... yeah, Gohan's arm looks kind of weird. Maybe while Gohan was teaching himself the Special Beam Cannon, he learned how to do Piccolo's stretchy arm thing too.

I do think it's pretty dumb how chuds on Twitter will nitpick Toyotaro's art as though the original Dragon Ball manga was some kind of showcase of photorealistic anatomy. I've been a fan of this thing for a quarter-century now, and the key to loving Dragon Ball is to make peace with the fact that it's fundamentally goofy and stupid. Sometimes a guy's arm gets drawn longer than his other arm. Sometimes characters scream so loud that their jaws unhinge like when a snake swallows an egg whole. Bulma wasted a wish on the Dragon Balls to make her ass look hotter, because if she didn't, then Frieza would come back and use the wish to make himself taller. Goku grew his tail back by having a guy tug on his ass with a pair of pliers. This show was always a hot mess, so don't blame Toyotaro. It was like this when he got here.

Anyway, Cell Max tries to block the Special Beam Cannon like he did in the movie, but Gohan has a harder time punching through, so in this version Goten and Trunks jump in to distract Cell and give Gohan a boost. In the movie, they were still Gotenks until after the fight ended, but in this version the battle must have taken a little longer, since they de-fused a little earlier.

Of course, this is just a way for Toyotaro to show off the Great Saiyaman X-1 and X-2 costumes one more time. It's kind of pointless, because all of the added Goten and Trunks scenes in this arc have been pointless. Also, Trunks' pose looks really awkward here. He looks like he got sawed in half, and both halves are still kind of flying forward in the same direction, but he's no longer connected.

I will say that I'm grateful for this final appearance of X-1 and X-2, because it gives me a chance to critique their outfits one last time. I hate the superhero undies they wear over their tights. They look baggy and puffy for some reason, which make it look like Goten and Trunks are wearing diapers. I'm pretty sure that's the exact opposite of what the boys were going for.

I mean, the outfits aren't that bad, but what irritates me is how Toyotaro keeps showing them off like this is the coolest thing going on in this story. The designs are presented like they somehow connect all these different things. Goten and Trunks were inspired by Cleangod, and they named their personas after Great Siayaman, and then Dr. Hedo saw them and supposedly based the Gammas' costumes off their look. Except X-1 and X-2 don't actually look anything like Great Saiyaman, or Cleangod, or the Gammas. It's just frustrating.

Anyway, we get the same bit about cosmetic skin alteration from the movie, except Gotenks has already separated in this version, so Bulma can address Goten and Trunks separately.

I also like this part after Pan shows off her flying ability. This segued into the credits of the movie, but here we see Gohan calling out for her to stay closer to the ground. It's pretty cute, since it kind of calls back to when Gohan was a timid child way back in the early days of DBZ. Now he's older and braver, but I bet when he sees Pan up so high in the air he thinks about how scared he was whenever he was up really high.

Meanwhile, some Red Ribbon goons have survived the battle and appear to be slowly getting away. This is nice because I noticed these guys escorting Carmine to safety in one of the previous chapters, and I've always wondered if any of the Red Ribbon guys made it out of the base alive. Pan knocked Carmine out, so it seemed reasonable to assume that he was vaporized during the Cell Max battle. Actually, in the movie, it looked like the entire crater was flattened, but here it looks like the destruction stayed confined to that area.

Anyway, the implication is that Carmine will return to Red Pharmaceutical and try to figure out his next move, but it seems unlikely that he could be much of a threat. Magenta's dead, the base is destroyed, and a bunch of their soldiers either died or deserted in this battle. Remember, even with the base and all those soldiers, Magenta still wasn't ready to make a big move. Dr. Hedo's androids were supposed to be his game-changing weapon, and now Hedo's turned against the Red Ribbon, so what can Carmine possibly do from here?

We get some additional material of the Goku/Vegeta fight in the movie. In the post-credits scene, they were practically moving in slow-motion and we only got to see the final blow. Here, we see Goku and Vegeta each land one last punch before the one that ends it all. These boys look all rowdy and badass and it's great.

When Whis finally responds to Bulma's messages, we get this cute shot of everyone sleeping in the back of her aircraft. Gohan talks about taking her to the amusement park, which seems kind of random, but it occurred to me that this might be setting up some filler story for Chapter 101. Like Gohan and Pan go to the amusement park for the day, and Carmine tries to kill them or something to avenge the Red Ribbon Army. That probably wouldn't be a bad idea, although I really don't want that to happen, because it sounds similar to the "Hedo vs. Goten and Trunks" stuff we had in Chapters 88-90. Everyone thinks Toyotaro has been champing at the bit to get done with this arc so he can return to his Black Frieza business, but for all we know he's been enjoying this whole bit, and he'll blow the next six months on filler stories with Goten and Trunks goofing around with Sgt. Nutz.

Anyway, this is the last page and this was the last little bit of the movie too, so Toyotaro has definitely run out of movie to adapt. Also, Bulma looks really cute on this page, so I wanted to add that to the record.

So that pretty much wraps things up, except for one minor detail. Where's the big twist?

I ran across this last month when I was checking to see if Chapter 99 would wrap up the arc or not. CBR.com did an article entitled "Dragon Ball Super Chapter 100's 'Unbelievable' Twist to Lead to "'Crazy Developments'" The story stems from comments made by V-Jump editor Victory Uchida, who was hyping DBS chapters 99 and 100 while appearing in an unboxing video for some reason.

The video is in Japanese, so I can't just pull out direct quotes from the man, so maybe this was all some big misunderstanding. Maybe it was a mistranslation, maybe Uchida got confused and was referring to material that wouldn't see print until Chapter 101. Or maybe he was just doing a standard hype job for his publication without thinking about what was actually in the magazine. After all, how can Chapter 100 have an "unbelievable twist" when it's doing a shot-for-shot repeat of a year-old movie?

So I assumed this meant there would be some sort of epilogue scene in the final pages, designed to set up the next arc. Sort of like how the last chapter of the Tournament of Power arc had the scene where the Galactic Patrol kidnaps Majin Buu. But Chapter 100 had no such thing. No Black Frieza, no Cell Max suddenly turning the tables on Gohan to win the movie, no mysterious appearance from Purple Turles or Red Bojack. Not even a lousy cameo from Platinum Cooler.

Does this make Victory Uchida an unreliable source of information? Or has he simply been misunderstood? I feel like his ridiculous yellow wig/hat thing kind of holds the answer to that question.

Anyway, the ultimate fate of Dragon Ball Super lies in Chapter 101 and beyond, but those stories will be printed in 2024, which means they fall outside the scope of this liveblog. So unless Toei or Shueisha has a new movie or anime coming out in the next eleven days, I'm done. This has been the 2023 Dragon Ball Apocrypha Liveblog. Good night, everybody!

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 090

“Hey you.  Let’s fight.”

“Them’s fightin’ words!”

All right, so Piccolo has finished drilling Gohan and they both seem confident that he’s back to his full strength.  But Piccolo wants to test that out and he only knows one way to do that: Clobbering Goku.  So they arrange a little 2v2 match on top of a mesa, with Tournament of Power rules.

Roshi and Chiaotzu bear witness.  You know, nobody ever brought up having Chiaotzu on the team.  Sure he’s got a terrible win-loss record, but who’s to say he hasn’t been training like a maniac this whole time?  If all these other characters can stand up to Super Saiyan Blue now, maybe Chiaotzu can smoke all their asses.

Nice shot of the Milky Way.  Well, North Galaxy.  Whatever.  It’s pretty, is what I’m trying to say.

So it’s a 2-on-2 match, but Tien pretty quickly ceases to be a factor.  Gohan’s a house of fire, and he’s mainly gunning for Goku, but he and Piccolo have coordinated their attacks, while Goku and Tien haven’t seen each other in months. 

So while Goku fights Gohan, he tells Tien to focus on Piccolo, who’s currently charging up for some big attack.  Tien goes for Ki Ko Ho, but Gohan has it scouted.  He shoots an attack that sets off an explosion in front of Tien, spoiling his aim.

Then Gohan lures Goku into the range of Piccolo’s attack, which turns out to be the explosive wave he used way back in the 23rd Budokai.  It engulfs the whole mesa, which is bad for their opponents since the mesa is the ring.

And Goku seems to weather the storm okay, but that just leaves him wide open for a heavy punch from Gohan.  See what I mean about how they coordinated their attacks?

At this point the entire mesa is a crater, and Tien asks everyone to stop fighting.  But Gohan wants more, so he challenges Goku to a one-on-one fight.  Goku agrees.

Meanwhile... oh fuck, it’s Gowasu.  Way to suck all the life out of the party, Episode 90.  Okay, so he’s supposed to choose a team for Universe 10, except he’s so overwhelmed by the task that he’s paralyzed with doubt.  Also he’s still reeling from that whole business with Zamasu. 

Then Rumsshi, the Destroyer for U10, shows up and criticizes him for overthinking the problem.  The key is not to use your head, but to use your body to choose a team.  What the hell does that mean?

Then he reveals that he already went out and recruited a team while Gowasu was sweating it out.  Well, why didn’t he just tell him that in the first place?  Of course, this reveal is kind of stupid when nine of these guys are wearing robes so you can’t see them.  Although I don’t know why the leader is disrobed since we don’t know anything about him, either.

Rumsshi says the theme to this group is muscle, but I seem to recall one of these fighters was a scrawnly little lady with butterfly wings.  Still they all drink protein shakes to prove their jock credentials.  Gowasu isn’t convinced, but since he couldn’t make any decisions himself, there really isn’t any choice.  That sums up Gowasu pretty well.

Now that that’s over, let’s get back to.... Super Saiyan 2 Goku?  Awwww yeah.  I’d like to think he’s using this form to open as a sort of tribute to Gohan, who pioneered the form, but I’m probably reading too much into it. 

I love this whole episode, but I especially love this fight.  There’s not a lot to say about it, since it’s just Goku and Gohan hitting each other very hard.  But this is very satisfying for a lot of reasons.  When Goku came back for the 25th Budokai, Gohan was looking forward to fighting his dad in the ring, and then Majin Buu happened and it all fell through.  So now we’re finally getting that payoff. 

Goku has the edge here, as he seems to take more initiative.  For example, he uses Instant Transmission to ping-pong Gohan around some buttes, which obscures Gohan’s line of sight long enough for Goku to set up a Kamehameha.  But Gohan just turns and fires his own right on the spot.  So it’s like he’s taking Goku’s best tactics and matching them with raw power. 

However, Goku slips away from the beam struggle and blindsides Gohan before he can react, which is pretty slick. 

And yet Gohan is still able to keep Goku at bay.  Each time Goku out-finesses him, Gohan just drops another hurtin’ bomb.

Mmmph!

Damn!

Meanwhile, Vegeta can sense this from all the way in West City, and he likes it a lot.  I’m sure he’s looking forward to the day when he can fight his own kids in a match like this. 

Gohan challenges Goku to fight him with his full power, so Goku goes Blue, but Gohan wants everything, so...

Super Saiyan Blue Kaio-ken it is. 

So they have this big collision in mid-air, and they do the anime thing where they show both guys immediately after they collide, and then one of them passes out.

Gohan manages to throw one more punch, but he runs out of gas before his fist can connect.  He’s done.

Goku lets him fall for a bit, then teleports to catch him. 

And everyone’s all smiles and Gohan’s satisfied that he impressed his dad.  Very nice, very cool and good.

Aw, and there’s the martial arts bow.  This is so heartwarming. 

And before we sign off, Goku announces that he’s chosen a team captain for Universe 7, and it’s Gohan. 

Some hearty thumbs-ups are exchanged and it’s smiles all around. 

Oh, and they’re still putting the ring together.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super manga ch.87

Ruh-roh.

So last time it looked like the good guys had finally defeated Gas.  They didn’t kill him, but everyone seems satisfied that he’s beaten.  Monaito goes to heal Granolah and it turns out he’s gotten much faster about it.  Seems that Goku and Vegeta weren’t the only ones who got stronger in all of this. 

But it turns out Gas won’t go down that easily.  He recovers from Granolah’s finisher, but he looks like a desiccated corpse now, and he doesn’t even seem to notice.  So the fight continues, and even when Goku does serious damage to his arm, it doesn’t even slow him down.  Vegeta likens it to a curse.  Gas must be the strongest in the universe because of the wish.  No matter how much damage he takes, he can’t weaken, no matter what, until he finally dies. 

This horrifies Oil and Macki, who were already concerned about the toll this was taking on Gas’ body.  But Elec still doesn’t care.  At last, Gas sees his reflection and finally realizes he’s dying.  Elec tells him to hurry up and finish the good guys off, because any minute now, he will... wait, who’s he?

It’s Frieza!  And he just got done watching Iron Man movies! 

So yeah, now we finally see what Elec was trying to do here.  When Granolah first came to him asking for Frieza’s location, and he told them how he used the Cerealian Dragon Balls to wish for supreme strength, Elec lured Goku and Vegeta to Cereal to eliminate Granolah.  While the fought, the Heeters found the Cerealian Dragon Balls and wished for Gas to become the strongest in the universe. 

At the time, it just seemed like the Heeters were just looking to bump off Granolah so that they could proceed with their plans to eliminate Frieza on their own terms, but now we see that Elec had contacted Frieza to arrange a meeting on Cereal, so that Gas could assassinate him when he arrived. 

And Elec’s plan could still work.  I mean, Gas hasn’t gotten rid of Goku, Vegeta, or Granolah yet, but he’s still alive, and he can still kill Frieza.  After all, he’s the strongest in the univer--

Oh. 

Oh my.

So yeah, Frieza just one-shotted Gas, and that makes things very awkward for Elec, who wasn’t planning past this moment.  Frieza calmly explains that he’s been aware of Elec’s scheming for decades, and he allowed him to play his intel games for the benefit of his own organization.  He also tells Elec that he’s known all along that the weakest of the four Heeters is Elec.  Then he kills Elec, which is kind of a formality at this point.

So how the hell did Frieza defeat Gas so easily?  The dragon made him the strongest in the universe, right?  Frieza explains that he just recently got out of a Hyperbolic Time Chamber that he found on one of his conquered planets.  While inside of it, he did ten years’ worth of training.  During that time, Frieza became far more powerful, and when Gas’ wish was made, Frieza wasn’t in the universe to be taken into account. 

Okay, one small problem with all of that.  Gas has only been the strongest in the universe for a fairly short time now.  I mean, most of this arc has taken place in a single day on Planet Cereal.  Maybe a few hours at most have passed since Gas got his ultimate strength.  So Frieza must have stepped out of the Time Chamber, then got in his spaceship and hauled ass to planet Cereal in that short span of time. 

I mean, it’s plausible, sure.  Maybe Frieza’s ship is really, really fast, or his Hyperbolic Time Chamber just happens to be on a planet very close to Cereal.  Or maybe he’s got the entrance to the chamber built into his ship.  That’d be pretty cool. Drink some space wine, head down to Deck Seven and step into your own private Hyperbolic Time Chamber for a decade or two.

I’m just wondering if maybe Toriyama and Toyotaro got mixed up somewhere.  It would make a lot more sense if Frieza surpassed Granolah this way, since Granolah made his wish a month or two ago.  But he took out Gas like it was nothing, so the only way that makes sense would be if Frieza was in the Time Chamber on this same day.  Or maybe Elec’s wish was worded differently.  He might have asked the Dragon to make Gas stronger than Granolah, thinking that there was no semantic difference.  Well, it’s not worth quibbling over.

Anyway, Frieza’s motives should be obvious.  He was outclassed in Resurrection F, and then again in the Tournament of Power, and then again in the Broly movie.  Frieza wanted a way to get back on top, so he used the Time Chamber to close the gap, and he developed a new form: Black Frieza.  It’s... just Golden Frieza but with a charcoal color scheme instead of gold. 

So now we’re back to basics, with Goku and Vegeta fighting Frieza again, only with new ultimate forms.  Well, this could lead to--

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

So yeah, Frieza beat Ultra Instinct Goku and Ultra Ego Vegeta, at the same time, with one blow.  He doesn’t even bother to finish them off, which is kind of a nice touch, since he’s already demonstrated that they’re no threat to him.  When they recover, they find Granolah tending to Monaito, who was fatally wounded when Gas came back for that final round.  But then Whis shows up and heals Monaito as a special favor.  He’s come to pick up the boys because Beerus needs technical support for making instant noodles again. 

And... that’s the end of the arc.  I was kind of surprised, because I was pretty sure Granolah died at the end of this thing, but no, he and Monaito are fine.  The surviving Heeters, Oil and Macki, take jobs on Frieza’s spaceship crew.  Goku has a souvenir from his bio-dad.  Granolah and Monaito plan to use the Dragon Balls one last time to repair the damage to Planet Cereal, and then Monaito intends to deactivate the Dragon Balls for good. 

Curiously, Granolah still has his incredible power and shortened lifespan.  I would have expected that to get reversed somehow.  I mean, Vegeta’s offering him a rematch, which is pretty standard for Dragon Ball, except Granolah only has three years left to live.  I assume Toyotaro plans to use him again in a future story, but with all the timeskips we see in DBS, will Granolah still be alive by then?  Well, that’s Toyo’s problem.  I’m sure he’ll come up with something. 

Of course, the big plot dangler from this chapter is the looming threat of Black Frieza.  Sooner or later, Goku and Vegeta will meet him again, and Frieza won’t be so merciful.  None of this is mentioned in the Super Hero film, but presumably the boys were training specifically to deal with the Black Frieza threat.  That’s probably also why they brought Broly’s group to Beerus’ planet.  In the movie, they said it was so Frieza wouldn’t find them, and that makes more sense if you know about Black Frieza, since Golden Frieza was no match for Broly. 

I’m a pretty hardcore Cell fan, so I hate to give Frieza any credit, but I have to admit that this chapter might be the coolest Frieza stuff I’ve seen in a long time.  For years, I’ve maintained that bringing back Frieza in 2015 wasn’t worth it.  Resurrection F wasn’t that good, and the character hasn’t done anything since that justifies bringing him back.  But now, at least we have the promise of something that will actually live up to the hype.  Golden Frieza was basically on the same level as Super Saiyan Blue, but this new Black Frieza is in a league of his own.  Here, we finally see Frieza returned to his original status, far beyond all the other characters. 

And it seems like Frieza has finally learned from his past mistakes.  He’s not blindly charging in for revenge, or leaving things to his subordinates.  It’s the same character, but he’s changed, and not just in terms of color or power.  This isn’t the same Frieza from 2015 or 1990.  And that’s what matters here, because if you’re going to bring back a classic character, you have to do something new with him.  Like how Goku finally got to remember his parents after all this time.  Whatever happens next, he’ll never be quite the same, but you have to give him moments like that, because if he never grows or changes, then there’s no point in telling new stories about him. 

This was a very good arc.  In a way, the Moro and Granolah sagas compliment each other well, because the Granolah arc demonstrates exactly what was wrong with the Moro arc, and the Moro arc shows what the Granolah arc did right.  It’s hard to imagine these were both written by the same creative team, but there it is.  I’m definitely feeling a lot more optimistic for the future of this comic.  Of course, the next several chapters are an adaptation of the Super Hero movie, which is a bold step backwards, but hopefully after that’s over they’ll let Toyotaro cut loose. 

So that wraps up my coverage of the DBS manga.  But I’ve still got some more material for the liveblog, so stay tuned...