Thinking about how horrifically perfect Semi-Perfect Cell's voice is in the Japanese version. I don't tend to like lot of the original voices for the Dragon Ball series, but... Jesus Christ, this one is revoltingly on point. Makes me wanna run away every time I hear it. 11/10, really sells the pervert vibe.
A lot has been happening, it has been a tremendous amount to stress to deal with.. and that's putting it lightly.
Nothing prepared me for the passing of the forgetful king himself, Toriyama. It caused me to look inward and realize that many people I've met over the years, online and offline was through Dragon Ball.
One very special in particular being my wonderful partner, who I met not only on this hellscape website, but through DBZ.
@biomechanicalcicada x @thatredsaiyan 4 ever ;3
That man has gifted us something that without it? There maybe a chance we wouldn't be as far as we are right now. In art, writing, bettering ourselves at the gym, the list goes on.
So as I sit here at 5AM, shedding more and more tears for the man that motivated me with his creation to create my own things? I say again thank you, Toriyama. May your legacy carry on for as long as we are able to remember the amazing universes you've given to the world.
This arc is the drizzling shits. It’s easily the worst part of Dragon Ball Super, and it’s far, far worse than anything in Dragon Ball and DBZ. Is it worse than Dragon Ball GT?
You know, it might be. I would say it’s definitely as bad as GT, which makes it pretty vile. Part of the reason I’m rewatching this is to figure out the answer to that question, but... you know, life’s too short for this. I’m sitting here trying to compare the worst of the worst, trying to decide which turd sandwich is least appealing, and I feel like this isn’t a good use of my time.
I’m not gonna do the “Roaming Lake” bit like I did before. For a time, I considered comparing each episode of this arc to the best episode of GT, except I really can’t decide which one that is. I keep thinking back to that one where Goku said General Rildo was stronger than Majin Buu. That one seemed a little better than the others, but it was still an awful episode. I’m not sure I can compare these things properly.
I’m just gonna go through this thing, and point out similarities to GT as I find them, and we’ll see if we can figure out an answer when I get to the end. Okay? Okay.
So we’re in the Future Trunks Alternate Timeline, which hasn’t been seen since Dragon Ball Z Episode 194. I think several years have passed since Trunks defeated the Imperfect Cell of that world, but I’m not sure how long it’s been.
What is certain is that things have gotten much, much worse. This episode opens on Trunks sneaking through a ruined city while some shadowy villain keeps blowing it up. Then he makes it to some dingy secret laboratory, where Bulma is preparing just enough Time Machine Fuel for a one-way trip to the past.
Then their mysterious enemy barges in, destroys Bulma’s equipment, and then kills her. Trunks flees, knowing that he cannot save his mother, and the trip to the past is the only hope the world has left.
So that’s our first GT comparison: Killing off underutilized characters as a substitution for genuine drama. GT set up elaborate death scenes for Majin Buu, Piccolo, Krillin, and Android 17, which all fell flat because those characters barely got to do anything in GT anyway. Future Bulma is a really cool character who didn’t get a lot of screentime in the Androids/Cell saga of DBZ, so this whole arc could have been an opportunity to do more with her. Instead, they just kill her off five minutes into the first chapter of the story. And for what? To motivate Trunks?
I mean, let’s seriously think about this. If this was such a great idea, then why didn’t Toriyama have the Androids kill Future Bulma in the original Androids/Cell saga? Well, for one thing, that would be too fucking dark. Trunks had already lost his father and all the other Z-Warriors, and then finally Gohan. Killing off his mother would literally be overkill. More importantly, it mattered that there was someone waiting for him back home. Someone who believed in Goku and the others, and knew they could make things right.
We’ve barely gotten started, and I’m already pissed off. I know this is an easy thing to look past. So many characters in this world have already died, but it’s a big deal. One of the Zamasu Saga’s many, many sins is the way it tries to just repeat the Androids/Cell Saga, just as Dragon Ball GT tried to repeat story beats from past Dragon Ball stories. This arc is basically determined to hit the reset button on the whole dystopian future concept. All the rebuilding we saw in DBZ Episode 194 is erased. Trunks victory over the Androids and Cell is made irrelevant because of this new menace, and the only solution is another desperate time trip to get help from the past. At best, this arc can only be a warmed over retread of what we’ve seen before. But they already fell short of that pathetic goal when they made the mistake of killing off Future Bulma.
Back in the present day of the main timeline, Goku’s crops are ready for harvest, and he invites Piccolo to help him, since this is the sort of training he used to do with Krillin as a child.
Then Krillin shows up and mentions how Vegeta has gone back to Beerus’ planet to train, so Goku teleports after him so he won’t get left behind.
Then the boys all eat jumbo cups of instant ramen! This shot looks like the one of Goku, Toriko, and Luffy from that crossover special, and it turns my stomach. Just three goofy pals, eating a wacky snack together! Must be Dragon Ball Super!
This is probably meant to contrast the bubbly peacetime of Goku’s world with the living nightmare of Future Trunks’ world. They did this a lot in the Androids Saga too, except the contrast wasn’t quite so sharp. It worked in DBZ because things were kind of grim in the present day, but the characters still had hope because they could still fight and train. Trunks’ warning from the future was that they would be doomed to lose their next battle, and the conflicting themes of the arc were Goku’s defiant optimism versus the seeming inevitability of fate.
It worked in Dragon Ball Z because Dragon Ball Z was all about the world teetering on the brink of disaster, and the only thing holding the line was a bunch of guys shooting hand lasers in their pajamas. The only way to raise the stakes after Frieza was for a guy to come from the future and tell Goku he had already lost and the world was already doomed, so Goku could look him in the eye and say “I’m still going to try.”
It worked then because Z stands for the end, but not yet. Super stands for “let’s bring back some old IP and see if we can cobble together a sequel.” Super is Goku being a total goofball and Vegeta having a rod up his ass at all times, and nothing ever really matters because Beerus and Whis are always the strongest characters in the room, and they won’t let anything too serious happen because they enjoy eating Earth food too much.
While they eat, Goku talks up how much fun the Tournament of Power will be whenever it finally happens. This is the thing that makes the Zamasu Saga really stand out from GT, because at least GT never taunted me with the idea that something good would actually happen later. This whole Zamasu Arc just keeps gloating about the fact that the Tournament of Power can’t start until we get through this crap first.
“Tee hee! Fifty more episodes until something cool happens!”
Back in the future, Trunks makes his way to a bombed out apartment building, where he meets Mai, who is now an adult in this timeline. They share a can of meat, and talk about how Bulma died for this one-way trip to the past. Before she got killed, Bulma said there would be a chance for Trunks to return, but he doesn’t know what she meant.
Trunks has a cool flashback to some cool shit in Dragon Ball Z. The coolest shit, actually, since it’s mostly footage from the Cell Games. I miss Cell so much. He was the best.
So Trunks and Mai head to West City, where they plan to use the Time Machine in the wreckage of the Capsule Corp. building. Trunks believes that their enemy, “Black”, can track Trunks’ ki, so he has to suppress his powers and travel as discretely as possible.
And yet Black still tracks him down, just like how he followed Trunks to Bulma’s lab at the start of the episode. He puts up a fight, but if that were going to work, things wouldn’t have gotten this bad.
Mai tries to distract Black with a shotgun, and that... doesn’t work.
Trunks rushes to her side and declares that Black has killed her. So for those of you keeping score, Mai has “died” 1 time in this arc. This is stupid for a couple of reasons.
First, they just got done killing off Bulma. Killing Mai in the same episode is just redundant. I mean, they shouldn’t have killed either of them, but both is a step too far, and they killed them both in the same episode.
Second, Mai survives this, because they’re going to tease killing her again later in the arc. That’s how creatively bankrupt this shit is.
One of the defenses I see of Dragon Ball GT has to do with whether Akira Toriyama contributed to, or approved of the series. The logic is that you have to like it because his name is on it, and he provided some character designs and other art assets to the project. If it was bad, then he would have repudiated the whole thing from the start. Conversely, some GT critics use the lack of Toriyama’s involvement to justify hating the series. It sucks because Toriyama didn’t write it, end of discussion. Both of these arguments are stupid.
Because Toriyama did plot this Zamasu arc. I don’t know how detailed his notes were, but I’m pretty sure most of the shitty ideas in this thing were his. And even if they weren’t his, he didn’t do nearly enough to correct course. I respect Akira Toriyama a great deal, but this Zamasu arc makes him look like a hack.
The episode ends with a clear view of the main villain, and it’s an evil Goku wearing a black costume and a Potara earring. This probably would have been more of a shock if they hadn’t given away this character’s design in the opening credits.
This was a big deal in 2016, as the fandom was genuinely intrigued by the mystery of this new villain. Could it really be an evil Goku? How could it be, when the Goku of this world died of a heart virus decades ago? Maybe it’s a Saiyan lookalike, like Turles. Maybe a bad guy switched bodies with Goku, like Captain Ginyu. Maybe it’s an android designed to imitate Goku. Maybe it’s an evil future version of Goten! Wouldn’t that be wild?
I think there was some fringe theory that the heart virus that killed Goku somehow gained sentience and reanimated his corpse. Maybe I came up with that one. I can’t remember.
And the potara earring just raised further questions. Where’s the other earring? Where did he get that one from? The design of Goku Black was certainly good for making the audience ask questions. Everything about this guy’s look is a mystery.
Also, fans just liked the idea of an evil Goku, whether it was a corrupted Goku or just an impostor. One of the most popular legacies of this arc is the fan character “Chi-Chi Black”. I’m not sure where it originated, and I’m not sure there was ever a single concept to Chi-Chi Black. Sometimes she was the real Chi-Chi seduced to the dark side by Goku Black, and sometimes she was just an impostor using her likeness. I think the only consensus was that it would be cool to have a girl version.
But a mystery is only as good as its solution, and I’ve spent this whole post telling you how awful this saga is. That should tell you how impressed I am with the big reveal. The shot of Goku Black looking down at Trunks is probably the high water mark of this whole saga. One episode in and it’s all downhill from here.
