English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Super “An Unexpectedly Uphill Battle! Vegeta’s Great Blast of Fury!”

Mah Saiyan Pride!

Overview (Spoilers)

The battle between Vegeta and Magetto heats up! I’m sorry. I know the pun is bad, but I had to. Magetta keeps pumping heat out of his body, and the confined ring holds that heat in. At first, Beerus protests. Unfortunately, there is a small gap under the barrier to allow for ventilation. It’s just not a match for Magetto. Vegeta jumps back into the fight, charging his Galick Gun, but is caught off guard by a broad magma blast, followed by a powerful strike while his defenses are down. This knocks him outside the ring, and everyone believes he is out! Strangely, He stands frozen in place. The ref jumps down to look at where the saiyan is standing. He landed on a broken chunk of the arena floor! This means that he is technically still inside the ring! His pride is crushed because he got off on a technicality, and it looks like he’s losing his cool. He unleashes a rage-filled burst of power, but this is not a berserk move. No, this is very calculated. He realizes he can’t touch the outer barrier, but the barrier is what is making this heat so hellish. So he shatters the barrier with his chi. Now able to breathe and cool off, he musters the power to put Magetta in his place… in the loser’s circle. The enemy only has two fighters left, and Cabba is up next!

Courtesy: Funimation

Here we get to see the full power of the Universe 6 Metalman race. The only way that he had a chance was with that barrier, which makes me wonder, why was it that Champa recruited him in the first place? Is it just that Champa likes to play dirty? Two of the fighters on his team were ones that were only a challenge due to the ring. In open combat, Magetta and Botamo would be no contest. Frost was vastly underpowered, even in his final form, and only won using poison needles. We know that Hit will be tough, based on what we’ve seen of his technique, but I’m concerned that Cabba won’t be much of a battle. Consider, neither of the Saiyans has had to go beyond Super level 1 this entire tournament. If Buu had been in the tournament and gone first, this entire thing would probably be over by now.

I’d like to bring up just how integrated the ref is with the play arena. His eyes are networked with video screens, and his antenna seems to give him a connection to unseen judges. Who is this guy, an alien android with super wifi in his antenna? He also looks a lot like Buu, though without the spiracles, and with bigger eyes. Could this race have been the basis for the Majin, or are they the devolved form? In one of the games, it is mentioned the Majin had their own planet before Buu. Then again, that was a game, and not canon.

Our Take

Despite the enemy being relatively weak, the fight ended up being exciting. There were constant reversals of Vegeta’s fortunes and multiple near-misses that kept you wondering if he was going to win or not. The choice to have him nearly ring out by the barrier, then by ground, was a great way to increase desperation, without things getting repetitive. After he narrowly avoids getting slammed into the barrier, you expect him to pull off a miraculous flight save, and nearly dodge the ground. Instead, we (and all those watching the fight) are led to believe he did, in fact, ring out. This ramps up the drama, but is quickly reversed by revealing something nobody but Vegeta and the ref could know, and only doing so after the commercial break.

The animation of the episode was pretty darn good. Though there were occasional errors in Vegeta’s face, the rest of the episode was smooth and crisp. The use of effects kept the inside of the arena looking hot through most of the battle, using steam and distortion. The shattering of the barrier was cool, and the direction of this scene made it feel bigger than it was. We get to see many of the fighters dodging or catching the shards, with Hit’s catch being the most impressive. The textures they spread out over the barrier as it started to break was a nice touch. It made it look as if bits of glass were creating shallow divots in the glass, even though it was just a fog-like effect.

The Funimation dub has always done a good job with changing the dialogue to match a Western audience. Here was no exception. Vados and Whis had their lines changed the most, and it helped considerably. In the original, Whis calls Vegeta out for insulting Magetta, saying it was going overboard. In the English, Whis comments that the win was due to the put-down, but doesn’t seem to judge Vegeta for doing so. Vados outright calls Champa stupid for believing Vegeta was just going berserk. The voice acting isn’t really anything astonishing, although it again seems the Whis and Vados got the better end of the deal here. The two of them get quite a few lines in this episode, and it alternates between snarking their superiors and being calm and collected. Ian Sinclair and Caitlin Glass seem like they might enjoy these characters, and it feels almost like they are perpetually holding back a giggle.

SCORE

Summary

So, we have an episode with good action, and exciting turnabouts, with great animation, and real improvements during the dubbing scripts. I give this episode eight shards of the ring to stand on out of ten.

8.0/10