Super Episode #71-72 Should Be Inspiration for Future Dragon Ball

[JulieYBM]

God, I kind of love these pre-Tournament of Power episodes. Episode #71-72 serve as this nice little two-parter that follows up on Gokuu's desire to fight Hit again after the Universe Six arc and I think that these episodes really are so close to being good. I enjoyed build-up to the confrontation between Gokuu and Hit and getting to see Gokuu in his daily life, which I feel like would have been a lot more hard-hitting if the production wasn't duct-taped together like it was. A series with a better aesthetic could have leaned so much more heavily into the moody atmosphere that these two episodes were aiming for. I really like the use of silence and sound effects early on in Episiode #71 as Gokuu is paying extra attention to his ki sensing. The rainy planet that Hit is completing a job on is a nice touch, too. It feels kind of Blade Runner-esque?

I wish these two episodes could have gotten a director's cut with better animation and directing from the ground-up, because in terms of just straight-up fun, they're really fun.

Anyone else like these two episodes? I was going to check the old discussion threads for them, but I think that they were lost in a server thing at some point, because I just didn't see them in the archives.

[Chuquita]

I remember the Blade Runner-esque planet! (Even though I've never seen Blade Runner) I wish for interesting scenery like that in DB.

Were these the episodes where Goku's on a swing at one point? The animation on that scene was harsh, but I enjoyed the concept because swinging on a swing is something I hadn't seen Goku do before and it was fun.

Even if my episode review post here is gone, I still have whatever I drew that week and whatever gifs and screenshots I made.
...
So I looked at what I did and here's thoughts based on my research:
-Yes those were the episodes with Goku on the swing.
-I have a post that id's the laundry on that makeshift line
-Goku does a ninja run from his kitchen in 71.
-Goten calls Saiyaman's outfit "lame". Gohan is saddened by this.
-Vegeta is jealous of Hit thinking Goku was having more fun fighting him then Vegeta.


So.... what this mostly does is make me miss the chaos that was Super's anime.

I feel like I enjoyed eps 71 and 72 based on what I've got leftover from them. So yes, I'd be happy with more DB stuff like this.

[JulieYBM]

Structurally, these episodes really do nail that sort of 'complete story' feeling that feels so different from Daima.

I was thinking about it some more and it occured to me that the scene where Gokuu revives himself with a ki blast that flew up into space and then fell on him was later reused during Dragon Ball Super Episodes #109-110 when Gokuu fell into his own Genki-dama. It's a nice callback of sorts!

There's also a scene where Goten is concerned for Gokuu and the two share a little dialogue that I feel like really adds something that you wouldn't normally see in something that Toriyama wrote. I think #71-72 writer Yoshitaka Toshio's willingness to go there adds some grounding to the story, even if the episode could probably go further at adding to the tension. It makes me wish that scenes like this could be used as the basis for later scenes to actually progress characters a little bit.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

I was so excited when it was announced that Hit was after Goku, as there was so much potential for great character development for Hit and everyone else. You could have had the regular cast scrambling to find who put a price on Goku's head, while Hit himself be conflicted between his job as an assassin and his new friendship with Goku. That would've made an amazing arc if done right. It's such a shame Toei didn't expand on that concept with Toriyama instead of dedicating 50+ episodes to that boring Tournament of Power.

[Zephyr]

And most importantly, Goku putting the hit on himself is a very Goku thing to do (with a new twist), and it was very funny.

[super michael]

And most importantly, Goku putting the hit on himself is a very Goku thing to do (with a new twist), and it was very funny.

That is very true, Goku likes to test his skills and powers against others at their best. In U6 Vs U7 Hit couldn't use all his skills, since killing wasn't allowed. We got to see how Goku family lives their life.

[Magnificent Ponta]

I actually just watched these episodes the other day. I love the premise of Goku taking a hit out on himself (and I would happily read a whole tankobon of short stories all sharing the premise of 'Goku does something highly reckless and self-imperilling to get a good challenge during an otherwise peaceful time on Earth'), so I do have a soft spot for it.

The hook at the top of the first episode is really good, and it works well to fuel the slightly more tense tone in the early part of the first episode while Goku is doing ordinary things with a difference. The pacing of plot elements getting progressively revealed until the confrontation brings everything back in a tidy loop to where we were at the start (a "ring structure", I suppose) is very effective. Great set-up, top marks.

But the second episode isn't nearly as good, and lets it all down, for me, despite the neat way Goku manages to get out of being assassinated, and some nice touches (like the various changes of scenery during the fight giving us different vibes). It's great that we get payoff for Goku being intrigued at what Hit's true assassin capabilities are during the Universe 6 Tournament and finding out directly, but on the other hand, by the end of this story I'm none the wiser about what Hit's doing here that is any more impressively assassin-y than what he does in a tournament context (particularly since he will go on to re-use all of it at different points in the very-not-kill-y Tournament of Power).

I also don't exactly love the fact that there's utterly nonsensical explanations for it all dropped leadenly into the middle of the fight, undermining the premise of what Hit was doing at the last tournament as it does ("he's not really stopping time, he's skipping time" - the whole point was that he was stopping time and doing stuff to his opponent during the interval), which we really didn't need, and it's also totally unclear to me how it is that Goku actually overcomes it all in the end. It just ends up looking like another handwavy case of "He drew out his opponent's power, and then defeated him with an even greater super-power!" That kind of dealie is always a bit of a let-down, but it's doubly so in a story that did such a good job of seeding a proper feeling of intrigue.

So yeah, love the premise, the first episode is really good, but the second doesn't seem to be thought through enough to give a really satisfying conclusion to the great beginning.

[JulieYBM]

Yeah, I do like the "taking a hit out on yourself" element of it all. I really do think that if these episodes would have benefitted from more gestation time.

I forgot that the next handful of episodes were also character-centric two-parters (Gohan, Kuririn). If I can find the time, I'm going to go and re-watch those, just to see how well they tie into the forthcoming Tournament of Power. The basic episode summaries feel a lot like the staff were trying to laydown some tracks to lead into what they would later explore in the Tournament of Power arc itself.