English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Super “Hope!! Redux – Awaken In The Present, Trunks!”

Nice trunks.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

So in a series of shocking twists, an evil version of Goku from a dystopian future nicknamed “Goku Black”, has not only murdered most of humanity, along with future Bulma, and we’re also left to assume that Future Mai is dead along with her. Trunks, however, tries to take him on by going Super Saiyan. The strangest part of the battle itself is the bizarre way Black even talks to Trunks as if he’s a completely different creature because Black keeps gloating about his superiority along with his desire to wipe out the Saiyan race which left me wondering if this individual is a completely different person. Otherwise, why the fuck would Goku want to commit genocide on the human race, let alone what’s left of his own? Thankfully, Trunks has a small advantage since Black doesn’t know shit about the Time Machine and proceeds to cause a distraction after finding his sword and sneaks into the Lab. And much like the Time Machine in the Cell Saga, the design while large in scale is still only big enough to accommodate one person and escapes before Black can get a lock on him.

Compared to the last episode, the plot-structure of switching between two different time periods is downplayed once Future Trunks shows up, and the spot he landed just happens to be in front of Bulma’s place while Kid-Trunks is being homeschooled with the Pilaf gang as his classmates. In the aftermath of the Time Machine reaching its destination, Future Trunks is safe, yet exhausted. Upon investigating, Kid Trunks is both very puzzled & shocked at the events that unfold after seeing his older self inside. After the teacher notices the Capsule Corp logo on the machine, They contact Bulma who’s quick to recognize the individual, but Kid Trunks being weirded out just from the mere presence of his future self is understandable since as far as I can tell, nobody has told him about the shit that went down during the Cell Saga as he was still just a baby during that time.

When we finally reach the third act, Bulma proceeds to contact Whis to get Goku and Vegeta over right away, but in order for them to return to Earth, Kid Trunks needs to power up his energy so that Goku can home in on it with his instant transmission technique which was a new trick Goku learned in the previous episode. While it briefly cuts to the future with Goku Black determined to find Future Trunks, the remaining running time is spent in the present as Beerus & Whis decide to tag along with Goku & Vegeta out of curiosity. But after Goku returns from getting Senzu Beans at Korin’s place to heal Future Trunks, the episode ends on an intense cliffhanger when Future Trunks wakes up and see’s Goku, but doesn’t react the way anyone expected…

Our Take

Another damn-good episode! Outside of a brand new intro that visually revealed some new characters with possible relevance to the plot, I don’t know what else to expect since the way Future Trunks reacted to seeing Goku at the end gave me one hell of a jump scare.

https://youtu.be/3YfoyIHSPk0

Aside from Future Trunks going back, I’m still compelled enough to keep watching since the mystery of Goku Black is the only other selling point that series creator Akira Toriyama seems to have up his sleeve, and that’s a good thing.