English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Super “The Time Has Come! To The Null Realm With The Universes On The Line!”

It’s showtime.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

It’s nearly time for the Tournament of Power to begin, as all the fighters from all the universes are gathered and ready to do battle for the survival of their very universe. Before the tournament begins, though, Zeno summons all the gods of destruction to survey the tournament grounds. In order to test the ground’s structural strength, three of the destruction gods fight with each other to see which of them is stronger. They’re able to make some good dents in the stage’s brickwork, but they’re commanded after to fix the fighting arena themselves.

Back on Earth, Goku returns to his friends with Frieza in tow, which immediately puts all of the Universe 7 fighters on edge. Despite their reservations, they accept Frieza’s involvement in this tournament and the necessity of his help. Supreme Kai then explains the rules to everyone. He explains how the Tournament of Power is a “Battle Royale” style tournament, one where the last team standing takes the tournament victory.

With that, Supreme Kai teleports everyone to the Null Realm, where they witness the incredible stage that has been made for the tournament. Once there, they start to get acquainted with the other universes, in particular with Universe 6, who has a counterpart Frieza that immediately starts to scheme with the Universe 7 Frieza. Everyone is nervous to see the other universes, but one fighter blows them all away, an alien-looking warrior from Universe 11. His aura of power intimidates everyone present and makes him the one to beat.

With that, the tournament is set to begin, Zeno makes a quick announcement about how excited he is for the tournament, leaving all the Universe’s warriors to prepare for the battle ahead.

Our Take:

It’s been quite a few weeks since the start of this prolific arc in the story of Dragon Ball Super. And now, at long last, it looks like things are finally getting on their way. Like many of the episodes before this, the sole purpose of this showing of DBS is to build more tension and suspense for the Tournament of Power while foreshadowing some of the conflicts that are to come. In that sense, this episode falls a little bit short, because it doesn’t seem to use its time that wisely. Not a whole lot happens here, though what does happen is pretty interesting in its own right. It’s not a great episode, especially when compared to what’s come a few weeks before, but it’s still enjoyable.

The biggest issue here is probably the fight at the beginning of the episode between all the different gods of destruction. These characters are not developed enough to earn an emotional response from me, and the fight is too short to be exciting. It seems like that sequence is just there to pad things out a little bit. However, if they had used that time to build out the relationship between Universe 7 and the other universes. That sequence really should have been the bread and butter of the episode.

The conflict is well-established here, though, and I particularly enjoyed the two Friezas getting together to scheme against everyone else. That’s a fun relationship I think will yield great moments in the story in the future. Other than that, there just isn’t a whole lot to say about this episode that isn’t totally obvious. It doesn’t through any curveballs at you, it doesn’t have any new developments that are exciting or unexpected, it mostly just continues the plot a little bit further and gets us to where we need to go. That being said, though, its consistent with its characters and takes advantage of the goodwill the show has built up so far. The strength of this episode directly corresponds to the investment we already have in its cast. If it were a worse show, this episode would weigh a lot heavier, but because of what comes before it, it holds up pretty well.

Score
7/10