English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Super “Ah, the Uncertainty! A Universe Despairs!”

This week: Goku fights some furry boys.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The tournament continues where last week left off: Goku has been surrounded by the warriors of Universe 9 and needs to defeat the cunning warriors of that universe by himself. Goku is up to the task, but the Universe 9 trio of warriors that revealed themselves in the exhibition match is also quite capable. By combining their powers together, they’re able to keep Goku on his toes, especially since the powerful Saiyan needs to preserve his fighting stamina for the rest of the tournament.

Meanwhile, in another part of the arena, Frieza is having his own fun. He notices that Goku is having quite a good time with his fight, so he decides to pick another hapless fighter to be his “Plaything.” Using his finger beam, he kills the warrior without a second thought.

Goku’s fight continues in Goku’s favor, since he’s been able to create a ki shield that is able to neutralize the poison that gave Gohan such a hard time during his battle with Universe 9. However, Goku being outnumbered is proving to be quite the hamper on his abilities. Vegeta then arrives just in time to give Goku a hand.

By going Super Saiyan, the two of them are able to defeat the Universe 9 warriors one by one until there’s only the main three left. With their opponents on the edge, Goku and Vegeta unleash their powerful energy attacks to knock them off the ledge, which renders Universe 9 a loser in the Tournament of Power. This means, of course, that Universe 9 is defeated and immediately erased from existence. A grim reminder of the stakes that this tournament has.

Our Take:

This is the first episode of the Tournament of Power that feels like we’ve gotten to the real “meat” of the arc. Naturally, it follows Goku, who as always is the powerhouse of the series in all his scenes. To that end, having him outnumbered by Universe 9 was a good way to raise the stakes on the fight and make Goku appear to be actually threatened. Of course, the Trio is less perilous to fight since Goku has managed to come up with some countermeasures against them, but their battle still carries a good amount of tension. The Universe 9 warriors are basically mooks, but even mooks can be threatening in great numbers, and it speaks to their strength that Vegeta had to show up to bail Goku out of his fight.

Yet, I don’t think that this fight has really gotten to the level of quality that I expect from a flagship shounen action series. There’s still something lacking here. Perhaps its just the mundane nature of Universe 9 or the fact that we’ve already fought Universe 9 before, but I still want to see some fights that really excite the imagination. There are some fundamental issues with the Tournament of Power that is becoming a little more clear, with one of those being the flat setting. The arena they’re on, while functional, doesn’t grab attention as some other shounen setpieces have. Without terrain or story elements to add a little more spice to the fights here, it’s going to be entirely up to the creativity of the matchups and the quality of the animation. To that end, there is still much work to be done here.

The “Dragon Ball” franchise has always been very dependent on the quality of its emotional confrontations and fight scenes to keep viewer interest. No doubt, after several hundred episodes, it becomes harder and harder to inspire the same kind of viewer interest that classic arcs like the “Cell Games” once invoked. That’s not to say that we need to compare every bit of an arc to the “Cell Games”, but I do have high hopes for this arc and I’m not entirely sure they’re being met at this point. There’s still a lot more to go, we’ve barely even seen the other Z warriors fight after all, but what we’ve seen so far is not enough to catch my eye. Still, this is a functional episode. It’s decently entertaining and carries us along to hopefully greater things.