Episode 100 was a very "love it or hate it" episode when it comes to the second half, as the massive Broly tribute dominated that part of the episode. If we assume a score of 5/10 is about average, Episode 100 having a current aggregate score a little above that makes pretty good sense in my mind. Some people are gonna love the tribute, others are gonna hate it, and the scores balance out for about an average ranking. The two current scores that currently stick out the most to me are those for episodes 101 and 102.
Episode 101 was an episode that I remembered being generally well-received in the episode discussion thread (consensus seemed to be "pretty good, better than last week's episode at least"). Currently, the episode has just as many "below average" scores (less than a 5/10) as episode 100. I had assumed I was in the minority in thinking it was one of the weaker episodes of the arc due to its weaker writing and me putting a higher personal emphasis on the show's writing. Guess this is a good lesson for me in not making assumptions.
Episode 102 also stands out to me for almost the opposite reason. I remember vividly people saying that this was another "love it or hate it" episode due to the nature of the first half of the episode. Speaking personally, the second half of the episode was definitely enjoyable, but the first half was just... it was so slow. There was tons of re-used animation, the action was minimal, and most of the writing consisted of poking fun at magical girl tropes. I admittedly don't have a lot of experience with that genre. I've never seen PreCure (I believe that's what it's called), but I remember Sailor Moon from it airing on Toonami, and I hated Sailor Moon. The comedy for episode 102 just didn't click with me. More than that, though, having an entire half on an episode devoted to satire/parody in a tournament for the
Universal Survival Arc felt like a massive tonal shift to me. We're in the middle of determining the fates of billions, perhaps trillions of sentient lifeforms across 8 universes; it just doesn't seem like the right time for a bunch of gags. Anyway, I don't know if it's because I remember the "love it or hate it" responses too vividly or initial reactions have mellowed or I'm just a crazy person that places too much emphasis on narrative tone (Maybe it's all three?), but I guess the high score sort of surprised me. This is another good lesson for me in that different people have different tastes and enjoy different things.
Final thoughts for this post: I've really enjoyed all these reviews as they've definitely given me some better insight into both Super and the community. People, particularly stubborn old mules like myself, can definitely get locked into a narrow mindset when viewing or discussing a show like Super. Getting to see different perspectives and broaden that mindset is always interesting to me, in that regard. So props to all of you!
"If you notice this and understand that it's flawed and just don't let it bother you, that's perfectly fine. But enjoying a flawed movie and calling a movie flawless are two completely different things."
-Adam from YourMovieSucksDOTorg
(Replace "movie" with "DBS episode" and that's pretty much my thoughts in regards to DBS critique)
