English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Daima “Degesu”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Goku and the gang infiltrate Gomah’s castle, but Degesu makes one last attempt to flee with baby Dende as a hostage. Meanwhile, Gomah gets ahold of the Third Eye and gains its power.

OUR TAKE

Dragon Ball Daima is down to its final five episodes, but unfortunately we’ve hit another pretty weak one. UN-unfortunately, if you count that as a word, this is the last really weak episode of the series (the last four have some weak spots but pretty much work overall, we’ll get to that). While it continues to carry the fun Toriyama energy that the series has maintained, it also has to balance what seemed like they would be major payoffs for plot points that back to the start of the series, which it decisively does not. Remember that this whole mess started not just with the characters getting turned into children, but also Dende (now a baby) getting kidnapped by Gomah and Degesu, who is one of Shin’s newly revealed siblings. For an episode this late in the game with his name as the title, one might expect that this would be an episode focusing mainly, if not solely, on Degesu, his motivations, his backstory or key moments from it with Shin and Arinsu, or at the very least some grand enough send off for this character as he is cleared from the board. But we don’t really get ANY of that, save for the reveal that he too wants to be the Supreme Demon King. He stole his look from Shin and his plans from Arinsu, wow he really IS the youngest sibling.

So yeah, the title character of the episode, one of the key antagonists of this series, ends up getting sent off with what is effectively a wet fart, but it doesn’t stop there. The Kirkland Ginyu Force, the Gendarmerie, also get soundly beaten, but not by any of the other Daima characters who might make for a more even and interesting fight, but by Vegeta. And look, I know that Vegeta is often the one to fight the weaker opponents to make way for Goku to get the win, but even this feels far below him, especially when Piccolo is right there and has barely gotten anything to do. The only reason this doesn’t score below a five is that I mostly enjoyed what came before and I know I’ll mostly enjoy what comes next, but I cannot deny that this just not good. But now that Degesu’s done, that leaves Arinsu, Kuu, and Duu, who the group will begin to face next time, and Gomah, who has now obtained the power of the Third Eye and looks like he just got his head placed on Jiren from Super’s body. Look, the rest of this series isn’t going to be the best it could have been, but I still say stick around because there’s plenty of fun left to be had. And even if it’s not, you’ve come this far, so you might as well hang in there.