English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Super “Goku vs. Arale! An Off the Wall Battle Spells the End of the Earth”

Battle for Earth!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The episode begins by introducing us to the world of “Dr. Slump” within the town of “Penguin Village” and despite the people of this town being disproportionally short in size, the world of Dr. Slump supposedly shares the same universe as Dragonball along with its beloved character Arale. For those of you also unfamiliar with her, the manga she’s from is also a Toriyama creation from the early 80’s that’s purely played for laughs. But in a nutshell, Arale is a happy little robot girl, who has disproportional super strength, but the randomness of this entire episode will most likely leave you scratching your heads unless your a hardcore fan of Akira Toriyama’s other work’s outside of Dragonball. But after the fun little intro, Arale shows up home and is told by her father/scientist the titular Dr. Slump/Dr. Senbei that he’ll be going to “West City” to show off his biggest achievement, and tells Arale to look after the house before leaving. While this is going on, we see before us a different side to Goku, As this time he’s using hair gell and at the request of Chi Chi has been hired as a security guard for Hercule. Which is Ironic given that compared to the farming job he previously had, it goes about as well as you’d expect. The big event he’s being paid to be security for of course is a highly publicized event called the “World Invention Awards” and it makes sense that Bulma, Vegeta and Kid Trunks would also just happen to be there.

As Hercule is hosting the awards, It turns out that Dr. Senbei/Slump is partaking in this contest with an invention he made called the “Reality Machine #2 that’s capable of producing anything you want inside the Robot’s head through the power of desire & bullshit science but it has one of the most hilariously lazy robot designs I’ve ever seen. However, the real meat of this story begins when he’s interrupted by his longtime rival, Dr. Mashiroto, which according to Slump, Mashiroto is supposed to be Dead and even points this out with a decent fourth-wall breaking joke. Of course despite escaping from the afterlife as a Ghost, Mashiroto didn’t come alone, as he also brought Arale with him and has given the tiny powerful robot girl a special drug called “Playtime-X” that makes her more hyperactive & violent than usual, which motivates Vegeta to intercept her from doing any real harm with her chaotic antics, but Despite attaining SS-Blue status, even he gets his ass kicked and thrown in the sky Team Rocket-Style. Of course, Goku has to step in and take over. He doesn’t recognize Arale at first, but then finally remembers her as they may have crossed over in the original Dragon Ball Manga during Goku’s toddler years. The two have a fun battle, but it gets more dangerous when Arale wants Goku to up his power “100 times”.

While this is going on, the others figure out a solution to get rid of Dr. Mashiroto in order to undo Arale’s drug-induced hyperactivity which is more difficult than it sounds given that he’s a ghost who can’t be physically harmed, but Bulma comes up with a plan to use the Reality Machine to wish for the “most delicious thing on Earth” so Beerus can show up to eat it which takes the form of a brown ball that supposedly has all the great tastes of the world. And as Bulma predicted, works like clockwork as Whis and Beerus arrive on Earth and Dr. Mashiroto is annoyed he’s being interrupted. Beerus obliterate’s the ghost with absolute ease which reveals the extent of Beerus’s power displaying that even if you are a ghost, Beerus’s power can destroy both the body and soul. However afterward, the brown ball of multiple tastes, begins to take his toll on Beerus’s stomach resulting in him going back home with Whis and the episode ends when Arale is back to normal hoping to see Goku again someday, while we see what happens to Vegeta who of course isn’t dead, but expresses his disdain towards is current situation with one of the best 4th Wall Breaking lines ever.

Our Take

Damn this was a weird one! I had to do some degree or research when watching this episode just to know who the hell Dr. Slump or any of the characters were, but for a filler episode, the humor is where it shined the most as even the action scenes were mainly played for laughs despite them indirectly pissing off Vegeta fans. The fact both Goku & Arale kinda know each other makes sense even if most of the characters within Dr. Slump’s shared world seem inconsistently short compared to the tall characters of Dragonball in terms of scale.

While a Dr. Slump Anime exists, there hasn’t ever been a Dub for it. So I do hope Dr. Slump gains enough appeal for American fans to ask Funimation in making a localized Dub of Dr. Slump a reality. With shows like “Pop Team Epic” becoming huge, I feel that Dr. Slump’s random absurdist humor has potential to attract a new generation of fans even if the Manga itself originated in the 80’s.

Score
8.5/10