English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Super “With Great Joy! The Fighting Freak Saiyans’ Battle Rejoined!!”

Saiyan class is now in session.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

With Cabba’s elimination from the tournament, the focus of the match moves to Goku who is facing none other than Caulifla, who wishes to fight him in order to gain more power. She demands that Goku teach her how to get to Super Saiyan Three, since without that kind of power she has no chance of surviving in the tournament. Goku plays it coy, however, and tells her that she’ll have to fight him to learn Super Saiyan Three, and that he can’t show it to her right now because of how weakened he is from his fight with Jiren.

Caulifla immediately goes Super Saiyan and starts going after Goku, but despite their differences in power level, Goku is more than able to hold his own against her. Her attacks, though technically more powerful, keep missing against Goku’s superior martial artistry. His ability to maintain distance and stay ahead of Caulifla’s attacks makes him superior in the fight even though he’s in a weakened state.

As the fight continues, Goku continues warming up and eventually goes Super Saiyan 2 against Caulifla. Meanwhile, in the stands, the gods speculate about who will win, and Champa explains his strategy of having his fighters just survive instead of trying to beat all the other fighters. Down on the ground, Caulifla continues to demonstrate her strength as a fighter by quickly picking up the ropes of every increase in strength Goku ascends to. The audience is amazed at Caulifla, who gets seemingly stronger with each attack.

Kale, watching from a distance, decides to join in on the fight and aid her friend against Goku. As the two work together, Kale’s confidence grows exponentially, and the two prove to be a powerful fighting duo. Almost as a reward, Goku shows them what Super Saiyan Three looks like before reverting back to SS2. Inspired by seeing this display of awesome power, Kale pushes herself to her “Legendary Super Saiyan” level, which she’s unable to control.

Our Take:

We’ve been getting some really intense episodes here on Dragon Ball Super the fast few weeks. Each one seems to take a character to a new level or progress a character conflict in a dramatic way. It’s wonderful to watch and great to see a show continuously do so well week after week. That being said, however, some episodes just don’t quite hit the mark, even when they’re coming in a string of winners. This is one of those episodes. Not bad, not insulting, but something that just feels like an aside from the intense battles we’ve been getting previously. The fight between Goku and Caulifla just doesn’t have that much meat to it, and while I like the concept and some of the ideas at play, I never felt like Goku was in much danger during it.

The whole idea behind this episode is a sort of “Super Saiyan classroom”, where Goku raises Caulifla’s confidence like a good sensei by dueling her. This allows us to get a look at Caulifla’s ambitions and see more of her in conflict with the main character. Theoretically, this would work well, but in execution, it just has the air of “filler” about it. I like to see Caulifla and Kale getting to bond together as comrades and building up their strength further, but the method of getting there is just lacking. Too much of this episode relies on quick cuts of Goku and Caulifla trading blows and then switching to the audience to hear a reaction. The fight itself is so insubstantial because Goku’s power level is “hampered” until the plot needs it to upgrade. There’s no way Goku is going to lose here, and after the intense battle he had with Jiren that reminded us of Goku’s mortality, that’s quite a shame.

Without a good fight to really draw the viewer in, the episode resorts to some pretty old-school tactics to fill time. Lots of power-up sequences, reaction shots and screaming to give the illusion of intensity when the actual fight is just a touch hollow. There’s still the consistent level of quality you’ve come to expect from Dragon Ball Super which makes it entertaining for the fans, but this episode really should have sped things along. There was some potential here for an episode that really elevated Caulifla and Kale, but that shot was missed, if only by a few inches. Still worth watching if you’re keeping up with the show, just not anything to write home about.