#pybara

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super manga Ch.55-58

What a bunch of grap.

Okay, so last time, Whis went to talk to the Grand Minister about Merus.  Turns out Merus is an angel, just like they are, and that’s why he’s been so secretive about his abilities.  The problem is that angels are forbidden from taking sides in mortal affairs. They have to be impartial in all things.  Beyond this, however, there’s no restrictions on what they can and can’t do.  So the Grand Minister allowed Merus to join the Galactic Patrol, since it was a way for him to learn about mortals, but he’s clearly developed a bias from his time with the organization.  He hasn’t violated the rule yet, but he’s come extremely close. Whis asks permission to deal with Merus himself, and the Grand Minister allows him to proceed.

So Whis shows up at the end of Merus and Goku’s training, when they’re preparing to fight each other at full power.  That’s a bridge too far.  Whis has trained Goku himself, obviously, but an actual battle goes against what the angels are supposed to be about.  Also, Whis knows that Merus was planning to join the battle against Moro on Earth.  With the cat out of the bag, Merus agrees to go with Whis, leaving Goku on his own.

Which would be okay, except Goku has to take Merus’ ship back to Earth, and he doesn’t know how to navigate.

Meanwhile, Vegeta has completed the first stage of his training on Yardrat, and Pybara is ready to show Vegeta how to apply what he’s learned. 

But before they can start, Yardrat is attacked by Moro’s scouts, led by a Zarbon knockoff.   Vegeta defeats him with ease, and he’s astonished by how much his power has increased, simply from learning how to balance his body and ki in the Yardratti way.

By now, Moro’s henchmen have reached Earth, but Vegeta still refuses to go back there, since he hasn’t learned a technique that will even the odds against Moro.  Pybara agrees to skip Instant Transmission and show him something more useful for this situation, but he still doesn’t have much time to work with.

Meanwhile, the Z-Fighters have prepared for Moro’s invasion... just like they did in Resurrection F.  This arc is just one callback after another.  I can see why fans were so hard on Toyotaro while this thing was being published.  Merus seems to be the only original idea in this whole story, and we’ve just learned that he’s been forbidden from interfering, so what good is he?

Oh, and Majin Buu’s still fucking asleep.  Keep in mind he fell asleep right before the Tournament of Power started, and didn’t wake up until well into this arc, and then he fell asleep again right after he fought Moro.  And now it looks like he’s on track to sleep through the rest of this arc. 

So Seven Three goes after Gohan and Piccolo and he uses his copy ability on both of them, so he can match their powers completely.  This would seem to negate all the training they did leading up to this battle, except Seven-Three can only use one guy’s power set at a time.  So he can be as powerful as Piccolo or Gohan, but he has to fight Piccolo and Gohan at the same time, and they know a bunch of combo attacks that he can’t handle. 

So Seven Three uses his trump card, which is to use the powers he copied from Moro, except this time 17 and 18 join the battle, and Seven Three can’t drain their ki because they don’t have any.  Well, why doesn’t Seven Three just use Moro’s other abilities?  Like how he made his allies stronger, or the way he could beat the shit out of Goku and Vegeta?   Moro couldn’t drain Buu’s energy either, but he beat him just fine, so why can’t Seven Three defeat 17 and 18?

Here’s a bonus comic about Frieza’s whole deal during this Moro business.  He decides he’s just gonna stay out of this one.  I’m so glad we wasted two pages to explain that Frieza’s not going to do anything.  Maybe we could have a two page comic about how Yajirobe’s decided to sit this one out.  Or a comic about Bulma’s mom staying home to water the plants.

Seriously, fuck this Moro Saga.  We started with this whole bit about how Buu was the key to victory, and that went nowhere, then Merus’ dad made him quit the story early, and now Frieza’s just popping in to tell us he doesn’t give a shit.  Oh, and Moro keeps holding back because he doesn’t see any of the good guys as a threat, so most of the fighting in this arc has been pointless.

So Moro’s group splits up to loot the Earth of its treasures before Moro consumes its life energy.  This means the Z-Fighters have to split up and tackle the henchmen.  Yamcha fights some guys, Master Roshi takes on some girl henchmen, and Tien and Chiaotzu get stuck with an Auta Magetta knockoff.  His species are vulnerable to insults, but Tien doesn’t know how to dis people, so Chiaotzu does it for him.  Excuse me, but Tien was insulting people all the time during the 22nd Budokai.  He was a colossal dick back then.  Sure, he became all polite and proper, but it’s not like he forgot how to be a raging asshole.

Finally, Moro steps in to handle things himself, and Goku shows up soon after, when he gets close enough to Earth to sense Krillin charging his ki.  He prepares to fight Moro, but Moro empowers one of his goons more and more, in order to force Goku to show more of his true power. 

So Goku finally obliges by using Ultra Instinct.  Specifically, he uses the incomplete version he had when he first discovered the ability.  Goku calls this “Ultra Instinct Sign”, like it’s some distinct thing separate from the complete version of UI.  That’s like saying half a cup of coffee is the “initial stage” of a full cup of coffee. 

The manga has been doing this crap all along, and I think I’m finally getting tired of it.  Toyotaro really, really likes showing off all of Goku’s forms, and now there’s so many of them that it’s becoming very cumbersome to go through them all.  Super Saiyan 3 and Super Saiyan God pretty much became obsolete once Super Saiyan Blue was available, but Toyotaro seems to feel obligated to cycle through all of them whether it’s justified or not.  Likewise, why would Goku ever bother using “Ultra Instinct Sign” when he knows how to use full-on Ultra Instinct?  This wasn’t an intermediate power-up, it was Goku discovering a power and not knowing how to use it.

Anyway, we’re about halfway through this arc, and I guess we’re officially in the final battle, so maybe things will get better from here, but I’m not optimistic.  Everything that led up to this moment has been a giant waste of time.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga Ch. 59-63

Kind of wish this were ending for real, you know what I mean?

So after a lot of false starts and pointless runarounds, it finally comes down to Goku vs. Moro on Earth.  Goku’s been training with Merus to master his Ultra Instinct power, but the best he can manage is the “Ultra Instinct Sign” thing that he used to defeat Kefla in the anime.  Merus proposed a strategy where Goku relied on this incomplete UI, so Goku’s trying to fight carefully so as not to wear out his stamina, so he can use this ability as long as possible. 

And that seems to be all he needs at first.  Moro can’t touch Goku, and he can’t even drain his energy, because Goku is moving so fast that he’s dodging the energy drain effect.  But there’s just one problem: Moro hasn’t been using his full power.  He’s consumed a lot of planets since Goku saw him last, and he had no reason to show off his increased strength until now.

So Goku abandons Merus’ strategy and gambles everything on a more direct approach.  Instead of conserving his power, Goku uses his full strength, thinking he can still out-power Moro.  He just needs to finish him off quickly before his Ultra Instinct runs out.

While all of this has been going on, Vegeta is still on Yardrat, because he only just finished mastering the technique he came here to learn.  He doesn’t like cutting it this close, but since he can still sense Moro on Earth, he figures it’s not too late.  Once he’s finally ready, he asks Elder Pybara to teleport him to Earth, but Pybara says he can’t as Yardratti are forbidden from interplanetary teleportation. The fuck?  Also, Pybara says that they can only use it to go to someone they’ve met before.  The fuck?

So now Vegeta has to learn Instant Transmission on top of whatever he learned to use against Moro.  And this is bullshit, because even though I can buy Vegeta mastering all these Yardrat tricks in record time, it doesn’t add anything to the story.  Why not just have Pybara teleport him to Earth? 

Eventually, Pybara decided to break the rule and just teleport Vegeta after all, but then he thinks he’s finally figured it out.  Also, Goku got beaten up to the point where his UI form has worn off, so Vegeta can sense his energy again to lock on to his position. 

Wait, so how is Goku not dead during all of this?  Well, 17 and 18 pitch in, and since Moro can’t absorb their energy, they can hold him off for a little while.  I mean, it kind of makes sense in a post-Tournament-of-Power scenario that Piccolo, Gohan, Krillin, Tien, Roshi, and 17 and 18 could hang with an opponent like Moro.  They don’t have to beat him, but they ought to be able to keep him good and frustrated, just like Jiren.  But this arc doesn’t really play into that idea, at least not to my satisfaction.

All right, so Vegeta finally arrives, and he basically declares that he never intends to use Instant Transmission again.  What the fuck? The last few adventures he’s been on have involved teleporting across outer space or whatever, and he hates holding Goku’s hand in order to do it.  You’d think he’d be thrilled to be able to teleport under his own power.  Even if he hates teleportation on principle, he’s an idiot if he thinks he’ll never need to try this again, so why wouldn’t he perfect his technique so he can do it properly?

It’s like this whole thing was contrived to get Vegeta back to Earth as quickly as possible, and also show that he can do Instant Transmission, but at the same time, Toyotaro wanted to walk that back, because not doing Instrant Transmission is kind of a Vegeta trademark.  Personally, I don’t give a shit if Vegeta can do Instant Transmission or not, but if you’re going to write a manga story where he learns how, then you need to commit to that decision.   Toyotaro is trying to have it both ways, and I really don’t understand that, since the whole point of this Yardrat subplot was so Vegeta could learn a different cool technique anyway.  He doesn’t need Instant Transmission, so it would have been simpler to just have Pybara teleport him to Earth.  Fuck this story.

Now, I’ve been pretty hard on the Moro arc, but I will offer some positives about this thing.  The art has been on-point all along.  Moro’s got a cool design, and the action scenes are impactful.  Toyotaro has the skills that pay the bills, whether the haters want to admit it or not.  Also, I’ve noticed Vegeta is a lot sassier in this arc than in previous ones.  I approve of this. 

As to the fight itself, Vegeta starts off in Super Saiyan Blue, which ought to be no match for Moro at this level, and Moro seems to have the upper hand at first.  But every time Moro touches Vegeta, he loses some of the power he’s stolen from all those dead aliens.  That’s because Vegeta has learned the Spirit Fission technique, which is a Yardratti move that dissolves absorbed or fused ki.  For example, Vegeta claims that he can undo the fusion of Piccolo with Nail and Kami, which is an intriguing thought.  I guess if Super Buu ate Gotenks right now, Vegeta could one-shot him and separate him back into Kid Buu, the Kais, and Goten and Trunks. 

Meanwhile, all the dead Namekians come back to life?  What?  Bulma asks how that’s possible, since Moro absorbed their life force months ago.  Esca thinks it’s because the Dragon Balls on New Namek somehow preserved their bodies? Okay, come on.  Seriously?  Why is this page even in the story?  Why do the Namekians need to be revived in this moment anyway?  They were just going to use the Dragon Balls to revive everyone anyway. 

I mean, that’s a ridiculous explanation, because the Namekian Dragon Balls were deactivated when Moori was killed, and even if they were somehow still functional, they’ve never been established to have that sort of ability.  But more importantly, why is Toyotaro tossing out a bullshit explanation for this in the first place?  The revived Namekians don’t actually do anything at this juncture, so why bother with this at all?

So Vegeta clobbers Moro until he weakens to the level he was at when he first broke out of prison, I guess.  Then Vegeta asks Jaco if he should kill him.  What?  What? 

So Moro manages to slip away and escape to his spaceship, where he finds Seven Three and swallows him whole, absorbing his body and becoming...

... this guy!  Okay, so this is a major downgrade in design, but at least now I understand the context of it.  The idea is to combine Moro’s body with Seven Three’s, but the result ends up being shittier than the individual designs.  Plotwise, it makes sense, because it seemed weird that Moro would allow Seven Three to keep a copy of Moro’s powers.  But it turns out Moro wanted it this way because if he lost his powers for some reason, he could just eat Seven Three and get them all back.  Also, Moro now has the ability to copy other people’s powers, so that’s a thing. 

Vegeta isn’t too worried, since he can just Spirit Fission Moro all over again, except he’s lost the element of surprise.  Moro can just avoid his blows and not lose any of his strength.

Goku, Piccolo, and Gohan managed to do a cool trick to hold Moro in place long enough for a Kamehameha, but it doesn’t work and Moro punches a hole in Goku.  I really hate when they do this spot with characters who can’t regenerate or survive these kinds of wounds.  If you did this to Cell, then fine, because Cell could grow back, and if Goku was about to die after this scene, then you could do it to him.  But instead he’s just going to get healed up again and be just fine.  It’s dumb.

So then Merus jumps back in, even though we’ve established that he’s forbidden from interfering in mortal affairs.  Whis warned him against fighting Moro as he planned, and yet, Whis has curiously taken his eyes off the guy while all of this is going on. 

Moro doesn’t know Merus is an angel, and Goku seems to be the only one who understands what’s going on.  He pleads with Merus to stand down, since he’ll cease to exist if he keeps fighting with his angelic powers.  And that’s Merus’ whole plan.  Goku needs to use the complete Ultra Instinct to win this thing, and Merus thinks he can get Goku to reach that level by sacrificing himself in the battle with Moro.  So either Goku can rise to the occasion, or he’ll be forced to watch Merus disappear.

And I mean literally, because Merus starts to fade out as he fights more seriously.  I thought the Grand Minister was going to execute him or something, but apparently this whole thing is automatic.

So then Merus uses the last of his, uh... existence... to destroy the crystals in Moro’s body that came from Seven Three’s copy ability.  They were in Seven Three’s head before, but now there’s one on Moro’s forehead, and one in each palm.  Anyway, Moro tried to copy Merus’ powers, but Merus cut off that hand before it could take effect.  He smashes the other two crystals  and then disappears once and for all.

And we’ll call it there.  Next time we’ll go through the “epic” finale of the Moro Saga. 

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[flojo67]

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