Meanwhile, 17 continues to face off against Toppo. Well, by face off against, I mean run away from. With only six minutes left in the tournament, he plans to just run out the clock. It's not a bad idea and he does effectively stall the pride trooper for a little while, but it isn't long before Toppo has him in the tradtional beam struggle. You'd think that 17 would have the advantage, what with the infinite energy, but he still looks like he's going to come out on the losing end of it.
Had it not been for the intervention of Frieza, the artificial human could very well have been eliminated. The tyrant really does know how to make an entrance. He's just as fun to watch as he boasts and taunts Toppo as he always is. The fact that Toppo can only stand there and take Frieza's potshots (of both the verbal and finger beam variety) only makes it that much tougher for the stalwart hero.
When all is said and done, Toppo says screw it and takes the offer to become a god of destruction. Now, this was established a while back, so it isn't pulled completely out of nowhere. Still, I have to say it doesn't sit well with me. If gods of destruction are allowed to partake, why bother recruiting mortals? Sure, Jiren is stronger than his god of destruction, but he's still a mortal being. It just seems like cheating. Oddly, nobody raises this issue. Then again, given the fact that the twin omni-kings are quite pleased with this development, it likely would have fallen on deaf ears anyway.
While everybody else is shocked (even Goku and Vegeta stop a second to wonder just what's happening over there) both Frieza and 17 remain unfazed by this development. 17 is just naturally stoic, but Frieza remembers easily overcoming the destruction powers when universe 9's assassins tried to use it on him.
Frieza's normally a cocky bastich, but his past experience just makes him all the more assured that this ascension is not a problem. Suffice it to say, it is. The revelation is almost played comically as Frieza keeps repeating that it's no match for him as it slowly overwhelms him.
It was nice to see "Desperate Assault" make a return. I'm kind of surprised that it took this long, but it really worked well here and hammered in the hopelessness of the new situation. To Frieza's credit, he fares better than Zamasu (though Toppo likely held back so as not to be eliminated), but he's still taken out of his golden form and barely conscious. Toppo throws some of Frieza's taunts back at him before completely knocking him out.
While Toppo may have intended to eliminate Frieza from the tournament, he doesn't. He kicks Frieza's lifeless body, and it comes close to falling out of the ring, but it manages to fall just short. You'd think Toppo would have been a bit more thorough, or at least made sure that his kick was hard enough.
A part of me wishes that Frieza had been eliminated. Yeah, keeping him around allows us to see what his big plan regarding getting the wish is, but it would have also shaken up the status quo as universe 7's numbers advantage would dwindle.
I suppose having him unconscious allows us to get the best of both worlds. As it is, 17 is now facing off against the ascended god by himself. 17's attacks don't work and Toppo's new power is too much for 17's defenses to handle. The episode ends with another beam struggle between the two. Considering how he fared against Toppo as a mortal, one can't imagine that it's going to end well. The next episode's teaser piqued my interest as Vegeta will apparently leave Goku to face Jiren alone while he goes to confront the god of destruction.
This was another solid episode. Showing us how tough Toppo is has been working a lot better than just having characters talk about it while all of his battles go down off screen. It's a shame we never really saw Frieza and 17 interact or attempt to engage their opponent at the same time, but the "take turns" approach did allow for some nice balance and gave Toppo a chance to interact with both of them individually.
While 17's "run out the clock" strategy would seem sound, the fact that all of this goes down in a minute shows that it might not be that effective in this situation. What "plan B" is remains to be seen.
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