Super Episode 108 (24 September 2017)

[Lionel]

Of course it would be in keeping with Freeza's character. However, the timing was of his eventual betrayal never had a determinable limit attached to itself. Freeza could have continued to take advantage of the alliance for some time if he wanted to yet he refused. Moreover, as my original post referenced, for Freeza to argue that you should never trust anyone sounds a bit shortsighted. Didn't he express a willingness to hinge the prospects of victory against the Super Saiyan on his father's contribution to the fight back during the Trunks arc of DBZ? It sounds awfully like Freeza was depending on another person to help him in his time of need. If Freeza was completely devoid of any notions of cooperation or mutual reliance then Cold shouldn't have been on that ship with Freeza.

[Master Xar]

Of course it would be in keeping with Freeza's character. However, the timing was of his eventual betrayal never had a determinable limit attached to itself. Freeza could have continued to take advantage of the alliance for some time if he wanted to yet he refused. Moreover, as my original post referenced, for Freeza to argue that you should never trust anyone sounds a bit shortsighted. Didn't he express a willingness to hinge the prospects of victory against the Super Saiyan on his father's contribution to the fight back during the Trunks arc of DBZ? It sounds awfully like Freeza was depending on another person to help him in his time of need. If Freeza was completely devoid of any notions of cooperation or mutual reliance then Cold shouldn't have been on that ship with Freeza.

I'd say Freeza is more willing to rely on people only if they prove themselves fairly useful, only fairly though, too useless, a hindrance, or too competent doesn't seem to fall under his tastes, Frost proved last episode that he is deviously cunning, dirty, and underhanded, on the too competent side of things, kinda like a certain prince saiyan on Namek that was a constant thorn in his side throughout the whole arc, it just goes to show he learned his lesson about underestimating those weaker than himself he could've found himself in a tight spot if he waited longer, who knows, in Frieza's perspective it's literally a counterpart of HIMSELF, he could betray him almost anywhere down the road before Freeza double crossed him, I'm sure this isn't the last we've seen of Frost, but for now he got outsmarted.

[Zagacious]

What does that have to do with it?

That Z is clearly a superior show, no matter what is your taste, the numbers proves otherwise.

Ehhhh it probably is better but not to the extent that most make it out to be where it's on a completely different level because it's definitely not.
Like I said I'm going through it again, I'm up to about episode 50 and yeah of course it's a good show but the sheer amount of filler in the thing is ridiculous, half of what I've seen is just filler, mostly poor filler as well like the Fake Namek episodes. Filler that creates inconsistencies later on like Piccolo destroying Goku's spaceship but later it was used to make the Capsule Spaceship.
It makes the pacing feel really slow. The fights in general aren't really as good because of the inferior animation that just makes them look like gifs a lot of the time. The music is a dreary and repetitive bore and I'm counting the episodes until the Faulconer soundtrack starts.

Is this like reverse nostalgia? Lol the filler in DBZ is world building for the most part, it doesn't feel like it's just there to pad out the length of time between meaningful events like the fillers in Super often do. The only gif-like animation is in Super, and small moments among very lengthy fights in DBZ, because the fights in DBZ are actually lengthy and not finished in a few minutes like the ones in Super. Super has no excuse for doing this when the fights are already extremely short. Super definitely has better characters, but the fights/action are almost always inferior to DBZ.

Both DBZ and DBS contain lengthy stare-downs and sometimes excessive talking during the fights, except DBZs fights are much much longer overall, all you have to do is look on YouTube and search a random DBZ fight vs a random DBS fight, the DBZ one is longer and has more action majority of the time.

Ugh, I just realized that even though this tournament is now more than 10 episodes in, only 19 minutes have passed in-universe, which means that the thing's not even halfway done yet. Don't tell me this tournament is going to go on for another 10+ episodes...

10 episodes? I expect the tournament to go on another 20 episodes at the least.

We still have 31 fighters left. Then whatever the final fights are, they are bound to go on at least 2-3 episodes or more.

Honestly most of them will probably be wasted now to focus on Goku vs Jiren, you could tell they were starting to rush things around the Android 17 vs Flower Girls episode by how easily people were starting to get eliminated. I would be surprised if we even get 10 more episodes that's actually about the tournament itself. I've been seeing hints of rushing things as fast as possible since even before that, but it really picked up then starting to erase almost entire universes in a single episode. Even in the Master Roshi episode( as awesome as it was ) 2 of the fighters he was against were pretty much wasted, you could even argue Ganos was wasted too but not as much as the other 2.

So many people kept saying "Just wait, X character will get their showing, the tournament just started!" and then it never happens and they get eliminated after a 1-2 minute battle, if even that long, People are still staying that now as if there's tons of episodes left but I really don't see it based on the pace they're going and how many characters have been wasted.

[PsionicWarrior]

I'm sure this isn't the last we've seen of Frost, but for now he got outsmarted.

Well, he did get erased by Zeno first hand lol
I never liked him anyway, there is only room for one Freeza IMHO

[Tombstone1988]

It's a shame King Ryu wasn't the writer on this episode. He tends to be more consistent.

I mean, he did write episode 100, which is easily the most polarizing episode this tournament. When it comes to this arc, I'd say Toshio has been the most consistent.

Kinda fishy that this episode has more pages in this weekly thread than the ep 107 even though that one was considered better.

To be fair, a decent portion of the discussion here has been power-scaling grievances, something we could do with a lot less of in these episode threads.

Not to mention that complaints and negativity garner more attention and comments from people than positive things. The more people like something, the less they'll have to say about it because they liked it and felt satisfied.

This is a Dragon Ball product; whether you like it or not, power scaling is always gonna be a topic of discussion.

I agree on your second point here. When it comes to discussion, there's always more activity when something is bad/controversial as opposed to good/consistent. Episodes that are a mixed bag, like episode 100, often get the most discussion because opinions are going to differ the most.

[CJStriker_CBR]

Goku's introductory bout with Ribrianne was terribly generic, in my opinion. Nothing much stood out about it -- just your typical collision flurries, shockwaves, and one size fits all energy projectiles. The attitude of Ribriranne doesn't really appeal to me and thus far I've found her combat "skills" to be monotonous at best. Her pheromone chemical blanket episodes back was more compelling as it explored a dynamic of combat which you don't usually see in Dragon Ball. All of the appraisement from the non-participating universes seems unwarranted when you realise that they should have recalled Goku's transformations during the exhibition matches. Ribrianne distinguished herself sometime back for successfully opposing a Super Saiyan and disrupting #17's barrier. However, none of what she has done is enough to offset the apparent echelon of power in this tournament. Ribrianne is the topmost line of defence for Universe 2. Once she's been eliminated that will be it for U2 unless something unexpected happens with their remaining participants. Oh, and on the matter of subdued power exertions, I subscribe to the theory of both fighters intentionally limiting themselves for arbitrary reasons. Goku wishes to test his capabilities against an opponent whom he deems worthy while Ribrianne is trying to validate the quintessence of her motivations, love; whatever that means. It's unfortunate to say but such an element might be more provocative to the viewership if it wasn't already predictably linked to something as ridiculously trite as romantic love. If the studio attempted to embellish Ribrianne's backstory by revealing family members, perhaps a sibling, friend or parent whom she had a particularly close attachment to, her tangents about love's significance might carry more respectability to itself; as it stands, we know she's just fulfilling the trappings of the magic girl genre of anime/manga.

Got to say that was an Impressive breakdown review of the whole of the battle and the episode overall Lionel!

I like your expanded Vocabulary in the uses of words like quintessence, echelon and monotonous too add an expanded definition towards the subjects and events your where talking about in each part of your review, nicely done. Also, sorry for cutting your reviews short in quotes like that, I just wanted for my post now to just focus on that part of the review and cutting it down helps others know easier what I am focusing on.

I think your right, while Ribrianne/Brianne IMO has begun to gain a nice and steady growing fanbase, it would help her allot as you said if we had more backstory to her, her personality, history, why she believes what she does. That would make more, even me, have more of a personal connect towards who she was and why she fights with Love the way she fights with it. However I think while it be nice to have that info during the ToP, Toei will not do that or not to much if we are lucky cause it would be off-putting to the action and pacing of the main point of the arc, the fighting.

Other Animes like Bleach would do this, would stop the fight and go into a long and Dragged out backstory as to why someone fights the way they do or why this rival is a rival. While it is good to do that, during the action and for to long it derails the action story to much and that is why I am not to much upset we don't be more Backstory on Ribrianne/Brianne in this arc. I think any starting backstory would start to come into play in the post ToP episodes and the next arc which I feel Ribrianne/Brianne will play a part it.

So while I feel you and others and myself I want it to, to have more backstory on Ribrianne/Brianne, this is just not the arc to do it. We may get some small amounts during the battle and that be good like the flashback in 107 of Frost and Champa but I don't know if that will happen with Ribrianne/Brianne, we have to see.

Overall I think Toei is keeping many new characters to the basics and will slowing build them up as time goes on. They want us to have a Grand Into towards the basics of who they basically are, believe and what they can do.

I agree with you to, the only theory I got about WHY this was a base form fight was so Goku can test his new opponent and Ribrianne/Brianne was also in some ways doing the same. Toei likes to do these seemingly long dance fights to get more action out of characters, which is cool it was a good fight IMO, but lacking cause I know Goku needs to go higher to give Ribrianne/Brianne more of a challenge and to complement as you said what we know about her power already.

I do feel Ribrianne/Brianne will be in this till the very end and be the last one of Universe 2 in the ToP at the very least and we are likely to get more levels of power from her as well, the preview of the special already is showing something like that with the butterfly transformation, but I don't think that will be the end of her power leveling. We have to wait and see.

Nice talking with you Lionel!

[Asura]

Ehhhh it probably is better but not to the extent that most make it out to be where it's on a completely different level because it's definitely not.

Like I said I'm going through it again, I'm up to about episode 50 and yeah of course it's a good show but the sheer amount of filler in the thing is ridiculous, half of what I've seen is just filler, mostly poor filler as well like the Fake Namek episodes. Filler that creates inconsistencies later on like Piccolo destroying Goku's spaceship but later it was used to make the Capsule Spaceship.

It makes the pacing feel really slow. The fights in general aren't really as good because of the inferior animation that just makes them look like gifs a lot of the time. The music is a dreary and repetitive bore and I'm counting the episodes until the Faulconer soundtrack starts.

Why not just watch Kai? Also, what do you mean you're counting the episodes until the Faulconer soundtrack starts? If you're watching the original english dub via orange bricks or something then the Faulconer soundtrack is on there since episode 1.

There is Kai but my comparison was specifically to Dragon Ball Z.

And yes I am watching the orange bricks but the Faulconer score does not actually start until episode 67 or 68.

Oh, my bad then, last time I watched the orange bricks with the Faulconer dub was... I don't even know how long ago, but I still thought it was there from the beginning, oh well.

Z is a product of its time, there were a lot of animes with 200+ episodes that would drag on and on. Personally I don't think I could ever go back and watch Z, Kai is just better in every way IMO, at least from an english dub stand point.

[Master Xar]

I'm sure this isn't the last we've seen of Frost, but for now he got outsmarted.

Well, he did get erased by Zeno first hand lol
I never liked him anyway, there is only room for one Freeza IMHO

Nah, I feel like they've set up too much with a lot of these characters to just kill them off and leave it at that, they say a lot of "if we meet again" later down the road, like Planet Sadal, the U6 Namekians, U11 pride trooper dynamic and the other GoD, Jimez, Obuni, I feel like if anything the fighters and their respective gods will manage to walk out of this alive, only their respective universes are destroyed. It goes into an ending theory I had discussed that I find to be the best way to end the arc.

1.) Have the losers come back, but their universe is destroyed.
2.) They work out a deal
3.) if the other loser universes can show potential of raising their mortal levels to match the top universes, then and only then will Zeno or Grand Priest give them their universes back
4.) every universe can get their own arc developing them, earn their universes back, and we can explore said universe in a future arc.
5.) BUT mix up the formula so each universe earning their spot back doesn't get repetitive.

[dbzfan7]

How exactly do you come back when you're erased completely. There is no soul, body, or anything. They don't exist in any form no more? Super Dragon Balls I guess....but even still.

[CJStriker_CBR]

How exactly do you come back when you're erased completely. There is no soul, body, or anything. They don't exist in any form no more? Super Dragon Balls I guess....but even still.

That is a Good Question, I am sure if they do this they will show why, but if I had to Guess the only idea I can think of right now is ~~~~~ TIME-REVERSAL!

You ask for the Flow of all that is to flow backwards/Reverse to the way it was just an hour or more ago before the ToP started yet keep who is in the void aware of the reversal.

That is my main idea right now.

[Boo Machine]

The Super Dragonballs are said to have no limits. So if they wish for someone who was wiped from existence, soul, body, etc., to come back, then that is probably well within their power, no matter how outlandish it may sound to us. That's kind of the entire point of having no limit. You can wish for literally anything.

If it helps you can just call them the "Don't think about it too hard, it just works" balls.

[dbzfan7]

How exactly do you come back when you're erased completely. There is no soul, body, or anything. They don't exist in any form no more? Super Dragon Balls I guess....but even still.

That is a Good Question, I am sure if they do this they will show why, but if I had to Guess the only idea I can think of right now is ~~~~~ TIME-REVERSAL!

You ask for the Flow of all that is to flow backwards/Reverse to the way it was just an hour or more ago before the ToP started yet keep who is in the void aware of the reversal.

That is my main idea right now.

Might be the best option if they go that route....but even then I hope not personally. Just adds more weight to the series if they don't come back. Or if they do, at least limit the amount of universes saved perhaps.

The Super Dragonballs are said to have no limits. So if they wish for someone who was wiped from existence, soul, body, etc., to come back, then that is probably well within their power, no matter how outlandish it may sound to us. That's kind of the entire point of having no limit. You can wish for literally anything.

I still find it hard to believe, but if the balls can kill even the God's of Destruction, then by previous information, surely that means Zarama I think his name was, must be above even them perhaps. Not sure how you bring back literally nothing at all from nothingness, but maybe that's just me not wanting it to be possible more than that it can be.

[Boo Machine]

It's not from nothingness because they're never truly gone. They live on in our hearts.

[dbzfan7]

It's not from nothingness because they're never truly gone. They live on in our hearts.

Well Gowasu....poor guy went through the Zamasu trauma, then never got a chance to redeem himself. But other than him.....they don't live in my heart. Good riddance

[Bullza]

Is this like reverse nostalgia? Lol the filler in DBZ is world building for the most part, it doesn't feel like it's just there to pad out the length of time between meaningful events like the fillers in Super often do. The only gif-like animation is in Super, and small moments among very lengthy fights in DBZ, because the fights in DBZ are actually lengthy and not finished in a few minutes like the ones in Super. Super has no excuse for doing this when the fights are already extremely short. Super definitely has better characters, but the fights/action are almost always inferior to DBZ.

Both DBZ and DBS contain lengthy stare-downs and sometimes excessive talking during the fights, except DBZs fights are much much longer overall, all you have to do is look on YouTube and search a random DBZ fight vs a random DBS fight, the DBZ one is longer and has more action majority of the time.

No the padding comes down to all the drawn out scenes, like Goku fighting Frieza for an entire 20 episodes, one single fight that was the same length as the entire Future Trunks saga in Super. The stare downs, the attacks like Vegeta's Final Flash taking almost 5 minutes, them waiting for the dust to clear etc. Super doesn't have anything nearly as bad as that, the pacing is a lot better in Super.

It does have a lot of short fights but at least they sort of get on with it and they're animated pretty well. Goku's fight with Gohan wasn't that long but it was just non stop action which you didn't get so much with Z.

The filler probably did add quite a bit more to Z than it does Super that's true and it did improve by the Android saga but still about 45% of the entire show was just filler. In comparison Super is 15% filler and whereas Z had it's canon and filler content merged together, Super keeps them separate making them very easy to simply skip over.

[Melee_Sovereign]

I don't think the erased universes/characters will be wished back with the Super Dragon Balls. Not because I don't think they're capable of it (because in all likelihood, they are), but simply because I don't think Zeno or the Grand Priest will allow it.

The thing is, a wish to Super Shenron has to be spoken in the Language of the Gods. I don't think the winner of the ToP will actually get to make the wish themselves directly. Rather, he or she will state what his/her wish is, and the Grand Priest will speak the wish on the winner's behalf. And if that's the case, he's not gonna speak a wish he or Zeno doesn't approve of. After all, why would they approve of a wish that completely goes against Zeno's will, and completely negates the reason why they even had the tournament? And even if the winner does get to make the wish directly (somehow), there's literally nothing stopping Zeno from just re-erasing the universes that were wished back.

[PsionicWarrior]

No the padding comes down to all the drawn out scenes, like Goku fighting Frieza for an entire 20 episodes, one single fight that was the same length as the entire Future Trunks saga in Super. The stare downs, the attacks like Vegeta's Final Flash taking almost 5 minutes, them waiting for the dust to clear etc. Super doesn't have anything nearly as bad as that, the pacing is a lot better in Super.

Well that's mostly a matter of opinion, personally I liked the pacing in Z better. It might have been lengthy at times but it allowed for great buildup and tensions crescendos that Super lacks severely, imo. I understand in modern times everything has to go faster and faster, my little sister for instance can't watch a 3mns youtube video because "it's too long" lol

[Master Xar]

How exactly do you come back when you're erased completely. There is no soul, body, or anything. They don't exist in any form no more? Super Dragon Balls I guess....but even still.

1.) Super Dragonballs though it's arguable that Zeno outranks them.
2.) Zeno himself could very well be able to bring them back, if he can get rid of them, he can very well bring them back if he wished to, at least likely he could, possibly only in the state they were when they were originally erased, but I wouldn't be surprised if he could bring them back in any way.

If someone chose the right words they can maybe get the fighters and gods back, but their universes are done that was the point of the tournament

[Kinokima]

No the padding comes down to all the drawn out scenes, like Goku fighting Frieza for an entire 20 episodes, one single fight that was the same length as the entire Future Trunks saga in Super. The stare downs, the attacks like Vegeta's Final Flash taking almost 5 minutes, them waiting for the dust to clear etc. Super doesn't have anything nearly as bad as that, the pacing is a lot better in Super.

Well that's mostly a matter of opinion, personally I liked the pacing in Z better. It might have been lengthy at times but it allowed for great buildup and tensions crescendos that Super lacks severely, imo. I understand in modern times everything has to go faster and faster, my little sister for instance can't watch a 3mns youtube video because "it's too long" lol

I actually agree with both of you. I definitely think DBZ could extend things too long especially when you count filler. And yeah the 5 minute Goku VS Freeza fight was ridiculous in my opinion. In fact I just rewatched the Vegito Vs Super Buu fights and even that felt too long for me.

But I also agree at times Super's fights can be over too quickly to really make the audience feel any real sense of danger or suspense. This isn't always the case. I thought the U6 Tournament battles that lasted about an episode: Vegeta Vs Magetta and Goku vs Hit felt just about right.

But in the TOP I've noticed that we don't even get an entire episode dedicated to a fight and usually you are lucky to get 1/2 an episode. This does feel a bit too quick to me. Maybe as less fighters remain we will start getting longer fights is my hope. I think one episode for most fights should be fine or maybe 2 for more important ones.

[Bullza]

Well that's mostly a matter of opinion, personally I liked the pacing in Z better. It might have been lengthy at times but it allowed for great buildup and tensions crescendos that Super lacks severely, imo. I understand in modern times everything has to go faster and faster, my little sister for instance can't watch a 3mns youtube video because "it's too long" lol

I actually agree with both of you. I definitely think DBZ could extend things too long especially when you count filler. And yeah the 5 minute Goku VS Freeza fight was ridiculous in my opinion. In fact I just rewatched the Vegito Vs Super Buu fights and even that felt too long for me.

But I also agree at times Super's fights can be over too quickly to really make the audience feel any real sense of danger or suspense. This isn't always the case. I thought the U6 Tournament battles that lasted about an episode: Vegeta Vs Magetta and Goku vs Hit felt just about right.

But in the TOP I've noticed that we don't even get an entire episode dedicated to a fight and usually you are lucky to get 1/2 an episode. This does feel a bit too quick to me. Maybe as less fighters remain we will start getting longer fights is my hope. I think one episode for most fights should be fine or maybe 2 for more important ones.

I do think it depends a lot on personal opinion. Its true that some of these things did build up tension in Z quite a bit, I actually thought the Final Flash scene was really bad ass. It did lead to those jokes about "How many Saiyans does it take to screw in a lightbulb" though. i definitely wouldn't want the same thing to happen in Super.

It's probably because Z is done and you can watch the entire thing at your own pace but with Super being once a week and us all looking forward to seeing it and talking about it, I'd be pretty annoyed to wait a whole week only for half the episode to be them standing their staring at each other.

The fights have been pretty short in this saga up to yet, it makes sense to me considering how many there are and how most of them aren't important, it makes it fast paced and hectic which
feels like a battle royal, I'm sure they will get to the longer fights eventually. The longest fight in Super is Goku and Beerus at 5 episodes. Then the battle with Frieza and the final battle with Black/Zamasu/Merged Zamasu were 4 episodes. It wouldn't really need any more than something like that.