English Dub Review: Dragon Ball Super “A State of Emergency! Failure to Reach Ten Members!!”

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The competitors for the fate of Universe 7 are nearly assembled, save for one minor issue. Buu has decided to take a nap, meaning he won’t be ready to compete for two months. Mr. Satan offers to take up Buu’s position until he remembers that the level of competition in this tournament will be far above his own.

Meanwhile, the other universes assemble their own warriors complete with their own drama. Universe 3 assembles itself an ultra-powerful cybernetic warrior, while Top, in his universe, asks for help assembling his own team.

Back on Earth, the warriors of Universe 7 warm up and gather around to get ready for the tournament. Vegeta finishes his training in the hyperbolic time chamber just in time to meet up with the others, who have just discovered that Goku’s tournament isn’t for a cash prize as previously thought. Krillin confronts Goku about his lying to everyone, but the two make up and Krillin decides to still enter the tourney. Bulma, in the interest of keeping everyone together, also offers to pay the cash prize Goku promised to the winner of the tournament.

Beerus, unimpressed the Z Warriors’ laid-back attitude, scolds everyone for getting them into this situation after defeating the Frieza army. That comment gives Goku a great idea for the tenth warrior, none other than the alien overlord himself, Frieza.

Our Take:

We’re just drumming along with Dragon Ball Super here, a show that, despite the goodwill I have towards it and the decent amounts of entertainment its delivered week by week, doesn’t do a whole lot to keep me interested this week in particular. I’m looking forward to seeing how everything works out once the tournament actually starts, but for now, the tournament has mostly just been used to keep the plot moving along so we can assemble a new cast of old characters to make this the arc to end all arcs.

It’s a great premise and an idea I’ve no doubt will yield fruit, but what point is there in dragging it out longer with these episodes that feel like they’re at least 50% filler. Not every episode needs to be a heart-pumping adrenaline rush, but this episode, in particular, spends way too much time with the other universes when it needs to be focusing more on the main cast. The other characters in other universes are fine, but there’s no need to hear about their story’s now; they could easily be written later.

What’s going to keep someone entertained while watching this is their response to the dialogue and the jokes. I thought, as usual, that the writing, voice acting, and general quality of character interaction is still pretty stellar. This keeps the show enjoyable even when there’s not much action going on. Master Roshi has some funny bits, as do the other Z warriors and gods who are always going at each other despite being on the same team. For drama, I enjoyed Krillin’s confrontation of Goku, I’m glad the secret got out instead of having that hang over Goku’s head for the entire season. I’m sure that would have gotten old really fast.

The stage is nearly set, but Goku has one more essential member of the squad to go recruit, someone no one in DBZ could have ever imagined. But will Goku’s allying with former enemies give him the edge he needs to take on the Tournament of Power? And will having Frieza on the team add an extra dimension of conflict that’s much needed in this show? Find out next week on Dragon Ball Super.