English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Super “A Challenge from Champa! This Time, a Baseball Game!!”

Was this filler-episode a Home-Run?

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

The episode begins when Beerus’s obnoxious & obese twin-brother Champa contacts Beerus and challenges him to a game of baseball as a way of reconciling Universes Six and Seven. The baseball game is arranged to be held on Universe Seven’s Earth. Champa explains to Vados that he intends to use the game as an opportunity to steal food from Earth. As the game begins, Goku isn’t quite successful as a pitcher for Beerus’s Universe 7 team due to his lack of experience leading to a grand spectacle of comedic setpieces of Goku & Vegeta not knowing any better when it comes to baseball.

However, classic Dragonball character Yamcha despite being the butt of jokes for the past few years in the series, for once has a moment to shine here due to his experience playing baseball and gives the Universe Seven team an advantage. That is until It’s Yamcha’s turn you bat which results in him being injured several times over the course of the game by Vegeta, as both him and Goten are playing on Champa’s Universe 6 Team just to even the number of players out. When both Beerus & Champa get into a brotherly argument, it almost results in destroying the planet with Whis and Vados having to intervene and call the game off.

In the near-disastrous aftermath, Vados then reveals that Yamcha, despite his injuries, made it to home plate and scored a run before the game was called off, thereby winning the game for Universe 7. I should also point out that the way he’s laying on the ground is a reference to DBZ where he died in the exact same pose on the ground during the Saiyan Saga (which for some reason became the subject of memes & parodies). When Champa and his team return to Universe 6, the episode ends on a comedic note as it turns out that Champa hilariously forgot his goal from earlier, as he has already become obsessed with training to prepare for a rematch.

Our Take

I’m not much of a sports guy, but I’m fully aware of Japan’s love for baseball as it’s been parodied and referenced in various forms of Japanese pop culture & fiction. I also find it funny that Both Goku and Vegeta, despite all their years living on earth, didn’t know that baseball isn’t a full-contact sport. As per usual, we have a long way to go before we get to the newest DB Super Saga/Storyline given Toriyama’s track-record of inserting a small lot of filler between each one.

At least this delivered in terms of laughs & entertainment value by having martial artists & otherworldly creatures duke it out in a sports game which at first, sounds like the paper-thin plot to Space Jam. But unlike that movie, this episode doesn’t make real sports athletes or Looney Tune characters the primary focus, and only succeeds the most as comedic filler.