English Dub Review: Dragonball Super “Thanks for Waiting, Lord Beerus; At Last, Super Saiyan God Is Born!”

The “Battle of the Gods” begins!

Spoilers Below

In the previous episode, Beerus was about to destroy earth over a petty game of “Rock Paper Scissors” only for Goku to make a grandiose return and come up with a solution that promises to Satisfy Beerus so Earth can be spared. And what’s Goku’s solution? use the Dragonballs to summon the Eternal Dragon “Shenron” and bring fourth a “Super Saiyan God”.

After getting the Dragonballs, Goku successfully summons Shenron, but when Lord Beerus is mentioned out loud, Shenron reacts hilariously startled to Beerus’ presence holding him in high regard because he’s royalty to him. Shenron quickly & awkwardly explains that the specifics of a Super Saiyan God isn’t a person, but a ritualistic process that can only be achieved when you have “5 Saiyans of a righteous heart channel their power into one” and then after sharing this important info, Shenron disappears saying that he hopes to meet Beerus again someday.

Everyone starts to calculate how many Saiyan’s are on the ship with them (also counting the half Saiyan’s such as Gohan, Goten & Trunks) but Piccolo questions whether or not Vegeta is righteous enough only for Master Roshi to point out he’s really cleaned up his act. As they perform the ritual nothing happens and Whis realizes the specifics require “5 Saiyan’s” meaning they need 6 in total. In other words, they’re one Saiyan short because it takes 5 to be the energy source and one to be the receiver.

Just when Beerus is about to aim a blast towards them and by extension the earth for not getting what he wants, Gohan’s wife Videl jumps in asking “Will a Quarter Saiyan do?” which shocks everyone because, at that very moment, she just revealed that she’s pregnant!

It’s a cute & heartwarming moment and even when I saw it in Battle of the Gods, I still laughed when Goku simple-mindedly asks “Does that mean I’m a grandfather?” Yes, Goku… yes it does. Gohan suggests for their baby be the 5th Saiyan needed and Beerus demands them to get it over with. As all 5 people hold hands and grab Goku’s back, Vegeta is mildly annoyed that it has to be Goku to receive the energy but Goku assures him that if this works, he’ll be the next receiver.

Between the serious moments, there are random scenes of the Pilaf Gang witnessing this from a distance with Pila pointing out to his subordinates that he was right the whole time about Dragonballs actually being there and they decide to go back to the ship.

The last few minutes the Ritual begins to work with all 5 Saiyans covered in a glowing gold aura including Videl’s belly accompanied by epic operatic music thundering in the background and the sky begins to swirl clouds around them and the weather begins to change around the ship as well with golden clouds with Dende, along with the two gods detecting a divine energy beaming down on Goku covering him in a glowing aura and the episode ends with Goku now covered in a glowing red-aura with red eyes, slimmed down muscles, maroon hair and a darker tan line indicating that it actually worked.

Overview

Tonight we finally see the first appearance of the legendary Super Saiyan God in DB Super. As most hardcore fans already know, this part of the series goes hand-in-hand with the DBZ animated film “Battle of Gods” but it’s good to see how they decided to present it all in a half-hour instead of dragging it with lots of filler.

Shenron was easily one of the highlights this episode. Usually, the Eternal Dragon always had very little dialogue whenever he appeared, but this time when Goku merely mentions Beerus, that name alone puts Shenron on high alert and politely apologizes for not noticing him sooner. This further cemented Beerus into the Dragonball Mythos because he’s an Individual that not only Shenron knows about but shows proper decorum towards.

In the duration of this episode, Beerus has a side-convo with Whis discussing the Dragonballs as It reveals that he mostly knew them under the name “Wish-Orbs” but didn’t know they were also called Dragonballs, nor did he know that Earth had their own until this very moment but percieved them to be “bigger”.

There was zero action in this episode, but it excelled when it revealed Videl’s pregnancy and showed Goku reaching this transformation, Though, in “Battle of the Gods”, Goku has openly expressed that he doesn’t particularly like this “God” power because he can’t reach this level of power by himself.