English Dub Review: Dragonball Super “Despair Redux! The Return of the Evil Emperor, Frieza!”

Are you ready to trip and fall on your face down memory lane?

Spoilers Below

Commander Sorbet is the new leader of the Frieza Army. This was once a force that ruled most of the galaxy with an iron fist. After Lord Frieza, his two head lackeys, and the Ginyu force were all wiped out in the span of about a week by some Sayajins, many of the world’s his army held rebelled. The remaining forces began to fight among themselves for control. Sorbet’s faction is all that is left, and even they have been mostly wiped out. His plan to restore the Army’s power? Find the Dragonballs and resurrect Frieza! Since they can’t find New Namek, Earth’s Dragonballs are the only option. Fortunately for them, someone has already gathered most of the balls, Emperor Pilaf and his two henchmen. Who are they, you ask? Oh, that’s cute. I remember when Pilaf was the big villain of this show. How the not-so-mighty have fallen.

Sorbet co-opts the Dragonballs and makes his wish… And the Dragon advises against it. Prior to his death, Frieza was cubed and roasted. Not a problem, modern regeneration tech could still handle it. Oh, well. Wish granted. And it’s raining Frieza bits. Fortunately, before Sorbet can make use of his other three wishes, Pilaf’s henchmen jump in with inane wishes of their own, preventing the Frieza Army from growing any stronger. All the same, with Frieza back, the balance of power in the galaxy might just change! I guess.

I really hate to say it, this episode was kinda boring. I mean, it was pretty great to have an episode that was all about older stories coming back, but everything that happened was ho-hum. Other than the plot above, we got a scene of Piccolo babysitting and Whis giving advice to Goku and Vegeta. That’s it. You had a half an hour and that’s all I get? Probably could have re-cut that to be about half an episode in length. Then again, this is a franchise that seems to pride itself on drawing things out beyond the realms of reason or good taste. Wake me up when the posturing is done. Oh, and can we talk about the fact that there shouldn’t be any point to Frieza coming back? Modern Goku could flick him into deatomization. No flashy fight scenes, no elaborate, hair-raising transformations. Flick, split, go home, take a nap.

On that note, let’s talk about art and animation…. Of nothing. Yeah, not much is shown here. Half of the sparring with Whis looked like stock footage, and the other half was pretty low-key combat animation. The rest of the episode didn’t really show any amazing work, all the corners were cut. The voice acting was… Dragonball-ish, so I couldn’t fault it there. I just found it a little strange how every time Frieza talked, it sounded like someone different was acting as him. This may have been because the “vintage” footage was using its old audio, but there sounded to be a difference between modern Frieza in hell (or is that HFIL? Hahah) and Frieza restored. All in all, this episode was a disappointment, where the best part of it was the appeal to nostalgia. On that, I have to rate it five balls for wishing out of ten.