Dragon Ball Super (Part 4) Review

By now, you’re pretty much used to the Dragon Ball Super formula. To this point we’ve had 2 story arcs re-telling the recent movies, and one brand new story based around a tournament. This sounds good and all but then we hear of the next big arc: The return of Future Trunks in a story of what happened to him after he returned from the Cell Saga… So you pick up this release and you get… A filler arc and a preview of the next big thing.

Title: Dragon Ball Super Part 4
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Super Power, Martial Arts, Fantasy, Shounen
Details: 13 episodes
Release Date: August 18, 2018 (Australia)
Languages: English 5.1, Japanese 2.0
Subtitles: English subtitles
Number of Discs: 2 (DVD) | 2 (Bluray)
Runtime: 325.0 mins (25mins per episode)
Distributor: Madman Entertainment (DVD)(Bluray)
Special Features: An Interview with Sean Schemmel, Textless Opening & Closing Songs (BLURAY ONLY)
Rating: M15+: Mature themes and Animated Violence

Beginning with the finale to the Tournament between Universe 6 and Universe 7, we get the outcome of the final battle and the overall winner.

We then get introduced to the Kai of Kai’s, the biggest power in the Universe and of all time: Zenō, or the Lord of Everything. Having heard of the tournament between two Universes and the excitement it created, Zenō wants to hold another tournament between all of the Universes in existence, with the outcome leaving only one Universe alive. This means that all existence for any losing Universe will be wiped out (Yep, this kid does it before Thanos, and much worse.). All of this is to be done in order to cure Zenō of his endless boredom. So our heroes go back home to prepare for the upcoming Tournament of Power.

Back on Earth, the all powerful Monaka is outed as just a standard space delivery person. This leads to Trunks and Goten getting into Monaka’s delivery van and ending up on the planet Po-tau-feu, the location of a powerful liquid called “The Superhuman Water”. Upon getting their hands on the water, the kids unleach something far worse, and it’s up to Vegeta & Jaco to save them, only to end up needing to be saved themselves as the Superhuman Water ends up being a creature called Commeson, a being that can copy whomever it touches, leaving the original to die. So Vegeta get’s copied and it’s not up to Goku to save the day… Which he does because “Goku always wins lol”.

In the future, Trunks and Mai move around the wreck of a planet that they call home after the Android attack was eliminated. However this time the threat comes in a being that Trunks is all too familiar with… Goku.

After surviving an attack from Goku in his timeline, Trunks is able to a new version of the time machine he used in the Android/Cell saga to once again travel back in time to seek the help of his father Vegeta and Goku in order to combat this new threat, a being that is both friend and foe… Goku Black.

Again, as with previous version of Dragon Ball Super, I’ll only be dealing with new characters who appear in this part. While Vegeta, Goku, Future Trunks and Future Mai are all involved in this part of the series, they are excluded as everyone knows about these characters already thanks to their appearances in Dragon Ball Z & Dragon Ball Super so far.

Zenō
Voiced by: Satomi Kōrogi (Japanese) / Sarah Wiedenheft (English)
Zenō, referred to as the Lord of Everything, is the supreme deity of the twelve Dragon Ball universes, first introduced in Dragon Ball Super. Depicted as a childlike humanoid figure, Zenō ranks above all other mortals and gods in the series and has the power to erase entire universes from existence at will. He is served by a pair of identical-looking attendants and is advised by Grand Minister, an angelic being who resides at Zenō’s Palace and is the father of Whis and Vados. First appearing during the aftermath of the Tournament of Destroyers between Universes 6 and 7, Zenō is treated with utmost reverence and fear by the other gods and mortals. He is addressed by his subjects as Zenō-sama in original Japanese media, and Grand Zenō or the Omni-King in the English dub. Goku is a notable exception; he befriends and addresses Zenō in a casual manner (“Zen-chan” in the original Japanese, “Zenny” in the English dub), which is considered disrespectful and lacking in etiquette by most characters in the series. Part of the caution others have around Zenō comes from the fact that he acts and behaves like a child, destroying entire planets and universes out of amusement or dismay.

Zamasu
Voiced by: Shinichiro Miki (Japanese) / David Gray (English)
Originally an apprentice Supreme Kai from Universe 10, Zamasu first appears as Goku Black, an entity that resembles Son Goku and refers to himself as such, before being given the name “Goku Black” by Bulma. He wears a single Potara earring and a Time Ring, the latter of which allows him to travel between different timelines at will, and also protects him from being erased by temporal paradoxes. He wreaks havoc in Future Trunks’ timeline, bringing humanity to the brink of extinction. As he explains to Future Trunks, he has come to believe that utopia could only be achieved for the multiverse by bringing about the decimation of humanity and all other mortal beings, which he views as corrupt and violent.

Goku Black
Voiced by: Masako Nozawa (Japanese) / Sean Schemmel (English)
A version of Goku that has been taken over by Zamasu. As he possesses Goku’s body, Black is able to perform most of Goku’s abilities, especially his signature move, the Black Kamehameha and his teleportation skill Instant Transmission, taught by the inhabitants of the planet Yardrat. Grown unbelievably strong from his fight with Goku, Black learned more of Goku’s fighting style and has become a Super Saiyan Rosé, his version of Super Saiyan which the hair is pink because of his status as a god. This form allows Black to perform a variety of unusual techniques, among them the creation of scythes and Ki swords that are thrown to the opponent to create a crack towards other realities, which in turn can be used to create clones of himself. It is stated by Trunks that Black was already able to become a Super Saiyan but had gotten the power where he simply did not need the form.

Commeson / Duplicate Gryll / Duplicate Vegeta
Commeson Voiced by: No Voice Recorded
Duplicate Gryll Voiced by: Kōhei Fukuhara (Japanese) / Brian Olvera (English)
Duplicate Vegeta Voiced by: Ryō Horikawa (ep. 44), Masakazu Morita (ep. 45-46) (Japanese) / Brian Drummond (English)
Commeson is a liquid weapon, taking the form of a dense, purple goo, created by the inhabitants of Planet Potaufeu for the planet’s self-defense against invaders. It has a universe-wide reputation of being called Superhuman Water, able to increase the power of its drinkers a thousand-fold, however, this was proven false. Commeson has an endless absorption capacity, being able to keep absorbing the powers of enemies and creating exact copies of them. Commeson is able to not just absorb a person’s powers, but also their will, and their spirit. When Vegeta was absorbed by Commeson and a copy of him was created, cloned Vegeta was hesitant on attacking Trunks, Vegeta’s son, referred to Goku as Kakarot, and shared the original Vegeta’s hate for being controlled (which caused Copy-Vegeta to betray cloned Gryll and attack him for constantly giving him orders). Cloned Vegeta also shared Vegeta’s taste for a good battle, as he was prepared to fight Goku to the death, not interested in absorbing his powers. 

To be honest, for the first time since I’ve been reviewing Dragon Ball Super on this site I’m having a hard time finding something good to say about the show. I hate filler arcs with a passion and this whole Copy-Vegeta arc that takes up the majority of this release is just that, a pain in the ass filler arc. If there is something nice to say about it, it’s that we got to see the return of Brian Drummond as Copy-Vegeta. For those unaware Brian was the voice of Vegeta in the Oceans dub of Dragon Ball Z before Funimation got the license and handed the role to Chris Sabat who has been Vegeta ever since. To hear the two voice actors doing their take on the same character is interesting and amusing to hear from a fan perspective. Outside of one episode, the whole thing falls flat till we get to the last 6 episode when we get to the proper meat of the series over all: The Goku Black arc. However even that is ruined because we only get the beginning of the arc and the episodes end just as things get interesting and the mystery is starting to get solved. We do however get a small look into the relationship between Trunks and Mai, something that has been in the shadows but slowly building in Dragon Ball Super overall. But we will get more of that in the next release too.

What I found the most annoying about Dragon Ball Super Part 4 is that it is very misleading. Seriously, unless you know your episode numbering, you’d be forgiven if you thought that you were buying the Goku Black Saga. Instead you’re getting the end of the previous Tournament arc, a boring filler arc, and the beginning of an actual exciting story that cuts off before it begins to get good. Even the cover (which you can see at the beginning of this review) features Trunks, making the illusion even worse. Frankly I’m pissed off at anyone who spent their money, especially the $60 that this release is charged for in Australia, on this release. You got ripped off here. Sorry to say that but I’m staying honest here.

Outside of the packaging and episode count issues, there is still the usual problem that comes with mass produced shows like Dragon Ball: The animation quality takes nose-dives from time to time into some ungodly into bad scenes at times. It would have been nice if there was a bit of extra time taken to clean up some of these problems with the animation for a high quality release like Bluray where things like that can be seen at 100 times worse than the TV broadcast. But nope, let’s just get the show out as soon as possible while the show is still profitable.

Dragon Ball Super Part 4 is one of those “You don’t need it, but you do” releases. If this was just the Copy-Vegeta filler arc than I would outright say skip this release and just go right to the Goku Black Saga in the next one, but since Funimation decided to put the end of the previous Tournament Arc and the beginning of the Goku Black Arc into this release, you’re going to need to buy this if you want the full scope of the upcoming excellent saga. Personally seeing things like this happen makes me angry and annoyed that companies are allowed to do things like this to the fanbase. I don’t even blame Madman Entertainment either as they are the company just bringing this to Australian shores. They don’t make the sets, just transcode the releases and fix the menus for local sale. This is a Funimation cash grab pure and simple.

©BIRD STUDIO/SHUEISHA, TOEI ANIMATION
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