Monday, August 8, 2016

'Dragon Ball Super' episode 54: 'He Who Carries Saiyan Blood - Trunks' Determination'

As the time machine's repairs near completion, the big confrontation with Black draws ever closer.  Despite having sizable reinforcements, Trunks is wary, as he knows that he still isn't powerful enough to defeat Black.  It's to the point where he can't even imagine a scenario where he wins in a one on one fight.

Lucky for him, Goku has gotten to the point where he can contend with the gods, which leaves Trunks rather shocked.  He begins to wonder if he even needs to fight.  This declaration really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as bringing them back as reinforcements always seemed like it was the plan.  It does get under Vegeta's skin, however, as he insists that they train.

Trunks gets to show off his SS2 form, but it isn't long before Vegeta upstages him by going Blue.  Technically, Trunks just asked his father to go to SS3, but that request seems to be ignored.  Granted, going to 3 would have still been enough to best his son, and people have been wanting to see Vegeta hit that stage for a while now (though I think it's safe to say that he can at this point,) but this shows Trunks what saiyans are really capable of.

Considering the copy Vegeta pummeled SS3 Gotenks without even needing to transform, it's not surprising to find out that Trunks gets his clock cleaned in this match up.  He does attempt a clever ploy, transforming to the bulkier form that failed against Cell in order to get Vegeta to drop his guard and charge in just as Trunks shrinks back down to his SS2 form so that he can land a surprise hit.  It doesn't work, but it was still not a bad tactic.

While that made for a decent action beat, the real meat of the episode comes from the more divine characters.  The scene where Whis relays to Trunks what they discovered about Zamasu was a decent exposition dump.  It relayed information that the viewer had already surmised, but considering Trunks isn't aware of any of this, it still feels natural.

Zamasu himself has a bit of an arc as he falls closer to the dark side.  He and his mentor discover a new "human-like" race of alien lizards that have evolved.  They're still fairly primitive (read: violent), which disgusts Zamasu, but Gowasu insists that they can grow.

Using the ring of time, they travel 1,000 years to the future, only to see that the species hasn't evolved much, lending more credence to Zamasu's stance that mortals are beyond saving.

Speaking of said ring, the nature of time travel does get elaborated on a bit.  Gowasu explains that any venture to the past creates a new green ring and signifies the creation of another timeline.  His dialogue suggests that Trunks' previous venture created one.  I was under the impression that the two timelines ran parallel, but it seems that his journey back is what caused the timeline to diverge and branch off into what we see.  It does actually come in handy given what we've learned about the multiverse in previous story arcs.  I, as well as many others I suspect, wondered just where Future Trunks fit in the 12 universes.  This gives us a fairly clear answer.

It's heavily implied that even if Zamasu isn't the villain now, he may go down that path and become one later on.  Given what we see here, it seems very likely.  That being said, I don't really see the threat.  He's a potential Supreme Kai, but it's already clear that he's no match for the likes of Goku or Vegeta.  Even Beerus notes the fact.  The only way I can see him presenting a viable threat is if he used the earrings to fuse with someone else.  They do get brought up here, so it is certainly a possibility.

Sadly, we don't cut back to the future.  As the time machine is basically done, I assume we're getting there soon, but it would have been nice to see what Black has been up to since we last saw him.  At the very least, you'd think the show would pick up on Future Mai still being alive, that particular thread has been left hanging for some time now.

Instead, this episode's cliffhanger seems focused on something entirely different as the Omni-King contacts Beerus and Whis, asking to speak to Goku.  They're stunned, but I don't see why.  He said before that he wanted to arrange a multiversal tournament, odds are he wants to consult Goku about it.  He had met Goku before and the saiyan was clearly excited at the prospect, so it's likely that he'd go to Goku to help put it together.

It's a tad underwhelming in all honesty.  If he was also trying to figure out the nature of Black, that would be something.  I suppose that's a possibility, but I'm fairly certain that the palaver will be tournament related.  I guess we'll find out next week.

Overall, this episode was OK.  It seems like things are starting to pick up a bit in terms of pacing.  I think that the time machine's repairs were a long time coming, but we got some interesting developments peppered in here and there.  Even Pilaf gets a chance to shine as he is able to write more effective computer code to help expedite the process of getting the time machine to work.  Bulma herself notes that he did a great job on it.  Considering he's frequently played for inept comic relief, it was nice to see him  get that moment in the spotlight.

















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