Dragon Ball Super

Good fuck, only 28 planets have sentient life in an entire universe!? Holy shit. Between Buu, the Saiyans, Freeza, and Beerus universe 7 has been absolutely fucked. No wonder they have such a low ranking.

Really good episode this week. Krillin's new technique is pretty cool, and gives him a plausible way to defeat enemies who are way stronger than him, as seen in his match with Gohan.

Not just that, but his tactics while fighting Goku, such as faking him out with a solar flare, serves as a strong reminder that Krillin is a very experienced and skilled fighter despite his lack of raw power.

I do think its a bit silly that Goku used his Blue form on Krillin given that even his regular Super Saiyan power level should put him many, MANY leagues above Krillin. But I get what the episode was going for. Goku was testing Krillin, seeing how he would respond to facing such an overwhelmingly superior opponent.

I thought it was really cool and sweet when 18 jumped in to help her husband. These two really are partners, and if you mess with one you better be ready to deal with the other.

I also love that it seems like Goku was actually a bit nervous when 18 was interrogating him about the money. Goku may be vastly superior in terms of power, but there are few who can withstand a death glare from 18.

Overall this was a fun and heartwarming episode that provided solid character development for both Gohan and Krillin, as well as some solid action, even if some bits stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit.

What is the song that plays at around the 5:35 mark (+/- 2 minutes ... video I'm watching doesn't have the intro), just after Krillin tightens his belt and says "okay" as he's about to fight Gohan. It goes like boom-boom-tish (tic-toc-tic-toc) x2, hoooonk. I hear that particular part in a lot of things, I think I originally heard it in the Tenchu ninja assassin game . I'm guessing it must be a traditional japanese theatre song or something.

Listen to 23:36-23:44... EXACTLY THE SAME. It must be something culturally important or blatant plagiarism .

Caulifla, female saiyan fighter. Intriguing

Interesting episode with zombie Roshi. Wonder if Yurin will be a one episode pony.

Get the feeling this episode foreshadows that Gohan might take up some new form in the future, beyond or parallel to Goku's most powerful. Kind of annoyed that you had all these episodes of Goku and Vegeta training under Beerus, and other characters don't seem to have earnt their power leaps.

Not much to say except... Curious what Oolong meant by "puff puff", in regards to Master Roshi. It sounds potentially disturbing given the context. Also, from universe 2, magical princess inflation transformation fetishists ahoy? Not really sure if it fits the DB aesthetic, but whatever.

Interested in the robot, Narirama. Tingly back Super Saiyan transformation... okay? Find the look of the Universe 6 Saiyans interesting though, like some kind of contemporary style (ie: how I would imagine DB if it was made today ). Also, Frieza returning again? WTF.

Holy shit, Kale and her legendary super saiyan transformation, aka female Broly. There seems to be foreshadowing of yet another Frieza saga in future? Hope not .

These past two episodes have managed to make me interested in Frieza again. I still hope whatever he has planned fails in this tournament, and that the writers put the character to rest. The newly revealed no flight rule completely changes how I imagined this tournament looking too.

Really like how polished the animation looks. Whoever handles the animation for episodes like this one are good. Hasn't always been top quality in the series. I know they generally get at least a few groups to do the animation, so episodes can be produced as quick as possible, but some are crap.

As for the actual episode story. Hoorah, the tournament finally starts, and two people are out already. I'm going to guess that Goku's universe suffers severe losses quickly at some stage. That would be my preference anyway, for story tension purposes. I wonder how many episodes the tournament will go on for. How long will "100 taks" (48 minutes ) last? . If this one sets the example of roughly two lost per episode then, that's quite a lot of episodes to go .

Well, that proceeded quickly.

Still, based on how many episodes Frieza's "five minutes" lasted way back in the day, "48 minutes" sounds fucking terrifying.

I think they recognize that they shouldn't drag stuff out that long anymore, though. I do expect it to be at least 20 episodes, though.

Anyway, this one was good. We finally saw precisely what happens when a universe is defeated, and it was precisely as advertised. Sucks both to be them and to cause it to happen to them.

I'm guessing if Universe 7 wins, their wish will be for all the erased universes to come back.

I also have to echo the sentiment about retiring Frieza, though this storyline has made him interesting again. When he finally does bite the dust again, though, for fuck's sake, let Vegeta do it this time.

Krillin owned: +1. Very little happened in that episode besides that, besides a few losses from other universes .

as in, idk, going to "next lvl" seems relatively easy now, just some power of love here, few months training there, that kinda thing. Beerus is also not great, I mean he's got no motivation or evil plotting or whatever about him. Not convincing, especially considering they're mates now or something. Which happens to most enemies in the series, mind you (Vegeta, Android(s), etc; Frieza and co are the only exception so far.

so, idk .

I find Kale's character in her normal form quite grating and one dimensional, such a caricature, so it was good to finally see her transform and take Goku's SSB Kamehameha like it was nothing. To see Jiren KO Kale with little effort, and look to be facing off with Goku who got beaten by Kale so easily, is going to take some good writing to make the battle come off as believable . I still take issue with these SS powers by the saiyans of the alien universe not being earnt, but whatever. Having said that, I was amused that when Kale went to attack Vuon, it immediately skipped to Zen-Oh pressing the button confirming he was a goner.

future!trunks stuff. They really need to stahp with the time travel shenanigans, beacause the second anything starts with that it becomes a clusterfuck of paradoxes and shit . So okay,
the timeline with Zamasu traveling to the future and merge with future!Zamasu and whatnot gets confusing, and then all of existence is erased, so woo all was in vein -
I mean what's the difference between a timeline where Zamasu took over all of existence and where it doesn't exist at all?

And then the only survivors of that timeline (future!trunks and future!mai) go to another timeline (with Whis? Not sure about that, they did say he / Beerus weren't going to do time travel (besides the three minute reverse which apparently is okay and doesn't create a Time Ring? Or does it? idk), but maybe I'm confused. Anyway they travel to another future just before Zamasu goes over 9000 to idk, have a foursome with their own alternate selves. I mean fuck, just idk what. They'll probably make a return later on for even more fucked up timeline and universe fuckery. IDK

Also it got a bit repetitive - they went back and forth in history several times to fight,
lose, go back, eat (seriously it's either fighting or eating in this show), back to the future, fight, lose, go back, eat, back to the future, etc. Oh and there's Zamasu delivering yet another variation of his "mortals are trash" speech for the umpteenth time (someone do a count, I cba). At least they interrupted it once by Goku and co ignoring it.

ANYWAY, lots of complaints, but I did really notice they improved the fight animation / choreography and shit in this arc, no more lazy three-frame animations that try and make it look like they're doing a lot, no more lazy "omg they're moving too fast to follow" shit. I hope they keep it up.

I don't think it'd be that hard to make Goku vs Jiren believable. Even without taking the kaio-ken into consideration, Goku is notorious for holding back. It'd be very easy and believable to handwave away his poor preformance against Kale as being a result of simply not fighting at full power.

... lol @ 39 minutes to go. I find the Universe 2 Sailor Moon knockoffs pretty corny, and I'm aware that's probably their intention, but I wish the show would get on with it . I liked how Android 17 is developing. I find it interesting for a battle royale, most ring-outs have happened as a result of Goku and company. Earlier on in the tournament there were all these explosions in the background, which is supposed to convince us a lot of action is happening, but nope . That and you still have characters making their grand entrances . I suppose we're technically only a few minutes in, but that's no excuse for it, given everyone has the same perception of time there. Don't mind my nitpicking .

Well, I almost hated episode 102. The first half was honestly kind of a chore to sit through. Like, the whole transformation sequence was just so long, and sure it was kinda funny when 17 interrupted it, but that just lead to them repeating the whole thing. This just feels like a cheap tactic to extend the episodes run time without actually having to animate more scenes.

Vegeta's little fight was underwhelming. Given that Vegeta vs Ribrianne is featured in the opening I kind of expected it to be more than some brief skirmish that lasted maybe a minute

That being said, 17 saved the episode. His whole demeanor while battling the U2 contestants was great, and watching these characters just get wrecked after most of the episode was wasted on their nonsense was really satisfying.

Next week seems to be a Gohan episode, so I'm pretty excited about that. This arc has done a lot to build Gohan back up, now its time to see what they do with him.