Dragon Ball Super is starting to get the Z attitude back: lives on the line, an earth-shattering fight, and heroes rushing into action. On the Super scale, this was a totally killer episode, but some faults of the new series couldn’t be avoided. Fortunately that didn’t stop the super-saiyans from getting pissed off and dishing out the violence.
The main act was Goku vs Copy Vegeta (as the title implied), and it was a solid fight. There’s still a lot of reliance on faster-than-the-human-eye flashes, simple but brutal punches, kicks, and headbutts, and standard energy blasts, however that pattern developed long before DBS. Don’t go into this fight expecting to see new martial arts moves or special techniques, that shounen trademark was passed off to Naruto. That’s not to say this fight wasn’t awesome, because it was, and Copy Vegeta looked super sweet as a Super Saiyan God. Goku reveled in the chance to fight his rival to the death to save his friend!
Vegeta’s personality has been altered the least by this new series, so as he watches the fight, he’s torn between his two key characteristics: His pride and his rivalry with Goku. He ends up criticizing and coaching both combatants despite his predicament. To shut him up and to prolong his death, old Koala-man Potau gives him a magic pacifier to suck. So for the rest of the episode, Vegeta looked like Koenma from Yu Yu Hakusho. I was relieved when they revealed that the Saiyan-raised Prince had no idea what a pacifier was and would’ve rather died if he had.
My favorite part of this episode centered on Trunks. As the real Vegeta fades away, the sense of urgency and threat is truly felt through his son. Trunks shows actual character development by getting serious about a fight. No longer able to sit on the sidelines and cheer on Goku, he knows he has to do whatever it takes to save his father. So he steps up and takes initiative like a true hero, hunting down the Super Human Water’s core, much like Krillin or Gohan chasing down dragon balls, while Goku fought the Copy Vegeta. The concern for each other’s lives made for fantastic father-son drama in this episode.
There are still goofy parts like the pacifier, mainly due to Jaco and Monaka, but they’re not quite as painful as usual. Jaco tries to take pictures with his phone, then whines when the Super Human Water doesn’t attack him because he’s too weak. The even weaker Monaka ends up accidently saving the day, which was extremely disappointing. The deliveryman defeats the core Commeson by a simple misstep on its crystal heart. So I’m left asking why? Why couldn’t Trunks shatter it? Why didn’t Trunks and Goten fuse to crush the core? Why didn’t we have the main villain defeated by a main character? Why is Toriyama still clinging to these annoying comic relief characters that have no connection to the series primary characters? What’s the point of stealing glory away from our favorite fighters?!
Though it was short-lived, Potafue has been a great side arc for the series, and it looks like we’ve got more improvements on the way. After the credits roll, the preview for the next features Future Trunk’s return. A new menace called “Black” appears in the alternate timeline. All that we’ve seen of this new antagonist so far is a decimated city and a demonic silhouette engulfed in flames. I’m curious to know if this “Black” character has any connection to the old Red Ribbon Army. At any rate, it looks like we’re not wasting any time getting to the action of the next saga. Normally DBS drags us through a few shitty episodes full of food, babies, and goofing around, as payment for enjoying a good episode, but it looks like they’ll jump right into more mayhem next week!
thefletchzone 