English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Super “I Will Defend the World! Trunks’ Furious Burst of Super Power!“

We’re super!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

As Trunks unleashes a level of untapped rage, along with a Super Saiyan form that has eerily similar visual traits to the classic DBZ villain “Broly”, along with a blue crackling aura. Future Trunks looks like he has the advantage over Goku Black at one point, Sadly, it feels the new form is not as powerful as we initially thought. Black and Zamasu get the upper hand making the battle unfair. As the fight continues, Future Trunks urges both Goku and Vegeta to return to the past in order to find out a solution to take out Black & Zamasu once and for all. Bulma arrives with the Time Machine and the group escape. But of course, Black isn’t worried as he knows they”ll return at some point, while Future Trunks is still in the middle of fighting both of them with Mai being entrusted with the Senzu beans. Back at the present, everyone thinks the future is at peace due to the presumed absence of Future Trunks, including Beerus at first, but Bulma being the ballsy one who’s always stood up to him, calls Beerus out on the fact that even after wiping out Zamasu 3 episodes ago, that the future is still a bleak, dystopian shit-hole and his actions did nothing at all, while Future Trunks is still out there attempting to hold his own against the terrible two.

As Vegeta fills everyone in with a status report, especially in regards to the big twist that who they’ve been fighting for quite some time is basically two different versions of Zamasu that co-exist, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to defeat them. Beerus backs off a bit and realizes that there are multiple timelines, but feels the need to mention that the present timeline should be safe stating this timeline’s version of Zamasu is dead. Beerus being the petty jerk that he often is, of course, feels no obligation with the excuse that the other timelines aren’t his responsibility and he and Whis leave. Sure the other gods are dead in Future Trunks’ shit-hole timeline, but to him the present is safe and he’s no longer needed. I can see why they did this from a writing standpoint. In theory, It’d be a much shorter storyline if Beerus had to fight every battle for the protagonists all of the time and given the fickle nature of Beerus, it would simply be too easy. At some point, there is a comedic scene where Chi-Chi and Gohan express legit concern for not hearing back from Goku as neither of them knows what’s happening during the course of this plot which is understandable.

Eventually, those who are out of the loop do get filled in on what’s happening as confusing as all of it sounds while Bulma explains that the Time Machine will be operational again in roughly “12 hours”. Thankfully, Piccolo comes with a solution to beat Black & Zamasu in the form of a mystical object called the “Evil Containment Wave“. It’s an excellent call-back to the classic Dragonball series but in a nutshell, it’s a technique that will imprison people forever sort-of like a genie lamp but permanent. In theory, it’s easily the best plan, with Goku visiting Roshi for answers and it does spend a good portion of the episode with a comedic montage of Goku practicing on Roshi’s pet Turtle, but the containment Jar also needs to be sealed with a lid along with a special talisman to actually be effective. Roshi, of course, offers to make the talisman for Goku and hopes that as a reward, Goku will bring him some “Smoking young hotties”. Meanwhile, Beerus and Whis travel to Universe 10 explaining to Gowasu what’s actually going on. They inform him that the future still remains unchanged, but cannot travel through time to wipe out these other Zamasu’s since the rules dictate that Gods aren’t supposed to travel through time, but the episode ends when Gowasu decides to help the two stop Zamasu as he views making him his apprentice was his “Grave Mistake” due to the recent chain of events that have taken place.

Our Take

Another strong episode, although I have no idea if Trunks is capable of holding his own long enough to withstand Zamasu and Black for at least 12 hours. While the action scenes through the rest of the episode were lacking after they traveled back in time, the story progression more than makes up for it. It was also very nice to see them bringing back an old technique as a solution to defeat the two genocidal a-holes.

Despite Trunks being at a disadvantage at the moment, You gotta give him credit, because, by the time Goku and Vegeta get back, he’ll have been fighting Black and Zamasu, solo, for half a day. That’s well beyond anything either Goku or Vegeta was able to do.