English Dub Review: Dragonball Super Ep.4: Bid for the Dragon Balls! Pilaf and Crew’s Impossible Mission!

Another filler episode but actually funny.

Spoilers Below

In episode 4 of DB Super, we see King Kai still paranoid as fuck regarding the oncoming presence of Beerus & Whis heading towards his planet. And much like Grand-Kai and Kibito-Kai, He’s also scared shitless at the idea of Goku meeting the Beerus & Whis to the point that He tries to distract Goku as much as possible, but that’s pretty much the only solution he has in his mind.

We then cut to Bulma and the rest of the gang at her birthday in the cruise ship. We also get confirmation that the birthday bingo tournament’s first prize are all seven Dragon Balls Which turn out to be hidden underneath the cruise ship with only Trunks & Goten knowing where they’re hidden (the other prizes include a Pagoda castle and even a private Jet). Trunks bypasses the security countermeasures just to show Goten that they are legitimately here but that leads to our next scene.

After that, we get to see The Pilaf Gang which consists of the classic original Dragonball villains: Emperor Pilaf, Mai, and the Ninja-dog Shu only the three are small children but it’s refreshing to see them for the first time in DB Super. The Pilaf gang are currently stuck on a small island as Pilaf is fishing while the other two are digging up for some random treasure. Their luck seems hopeless until Pilaf discovers the Dragon Balls are nearby as he has a Dragon Radar of his own with him.

The trio decides to leave the island in hopes of finding the Dragon Balls and to also get some more food. Their journey starts off dangerous at first because a shark starts attacking them. However, they manage to be close to Bulma’s cruise ship and when Trunks & Goten take notice, they kindly help them up on board.

Pilaf’s gang introduces themselves to Goten & Trunks and they say they are hungry. Luckily for them, it’s Bulma’s birthday party which has high-quality catering. Goten and Trunks go off to get them plates. Surprisingly, Pilaf has yet to find the Dragon Balls as the episode’s title implies but we don’t see much of them after that,

We get a brief moment of seeing Vegeta in his intensive gravity training once again at home while An understandably pissed-off Bulma is on the phone yelling at him on why he isn’t attending. This episode assumes Vegeta isn’t going to the party, but knowing this is sort-of a retelling to the DBZ movie “Battle of Gods”, you’ll know he’ll be there at some point.

The last part of the episode shows King Kai attempting to explain to Goku about Lord Beerus and hides him inside his half-broken house. Beerus & Whis are set to arrive and he doesn’t want the two to know of Goku’s presence and the episode finally ends with Goku peeking at a small glimpse of Lord Beerus & Whis and all King Kai can do is react with extreme terror.

Our Take

So only now is Goku even discovering who Beerus is. It’s funny that it not only speaks to the simplicity of the “Battle of Gods” storyline. But the main plot at its core was simply about Goku testing his strength against the God of destruction, rather than a typical “Good Vs Evil” story. It is interesting to see comical attempts King Kai makes to properly explain Beerus, further about and the balance of creation & destruction. In many ways, this paints Lord Beerus less as a standard villain, and more as a force of nature who’s petty attitude is equal to the Greek Gods, and can only be met by an individual like Goku. While it’s explained in the animated film “Battle of the Gods” why the Pilaf gang are reduced to being small children in the most recent DBZ films, it’s never explained to the audience why they are this way unless you actually have seen the films.

The childish and fun chemistry of Trunks & Goten as characters not only further elevated the humor in combination with the Pilaf gang but also gave off a sense of wonder that often gave me flashbacks to the classic DB storylines but in a good way. Sadly, Trunks & Goten should know better than to go messing with something of this magnitude.

Overall, while episode 4 didn’t advance the plot any further, its mostly the fault of series creator Akira Toriyama because at this point he’s just retreading plot-points to this altered retelling of his 2014 DBZ film “Battle of Gods” but what that film failed to do because of its short running time is at least compensated by focusing more on the side/supporting characters with the end result still being fun to watch. Now that Beerus & Whis are at King Kai’s house-planet, I predict that shit’s gonna get real in episode 5.