ANIME

Dragon Ball Super impressions

I didn’t think I’d like Dragon Ball Super as much as I do.

The entire premise is pretty obnoxious. The god of destruction, Beerus, is travelling the universe destroying planets who’s culinary machinations do not meet his standards…

Goku, fresh off the defeat of Majin Buu, now has a job as a farmer, Vegeta is still trying to surpass Goku (he still says Kakarotto), and then you have the rest of the cast (I wrote that last part purposefully because that’s how it feels). Bulma actually has a larger role here than I thought she would, but perhaps I shouldn’t be that surprised given she’s been fairly essential since the original series; I suspect she’s one of Akira Toriyama’s favorite characters. The rest of the characters have been relegated to non-essential status, even Gohan (now married and expecting with Videl) who was the focal point of Dragonball Z until the end of the Cell Saga.

Despite my distaste for how most of the legacy characters are represented (even though it’s good to see them hang around), the action is solid, and the story arcs themselves aren’t terrible even if predictable. Opening up the story to the entire universe(s) for galactic battles turns out to be a good idea, and the idea of Goku Black even makes sense in this series.

On top of the already outrageous plot points and characters is the idea of the Super Saiyan God, and the Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (aka Super Saiya-jin Blue, which I prefer). I like the idea of all the Saiyans combining their power to help Goku reach god status for the first time, but the fact that this ceremony can be bypassed a few episodes later with SSGSS and makes vanilla SSG obsolete almost immediately is somewhat upsetting. I think I’m more upset that we don’t get to see the point when he and Vegeta achieve SSGSS and it just happens.

My favorite moment so far is when Vegeta helps Cabbe, the Saiyan from universe 6, achieve Super Saiyan status for the first time during the galactic tournament. In fact, Vegeta is now my favorite character due to his sharpness and newfound humanity even if his fierce pride remains.

The series still suffers from the occasional filler episode, but there has only been 1 recap episode so far, which is amazing for a long-running shonen series. I’m going to continue keeping up with the series, but shows like Re:Zero and Bungo Stray Dogs will be prioritized over it.

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