After Dragon Ball Super went off the air earlier this year, fans wondered what the next adventure would be from the franchise. Combined with the death of Bulma’s Japanese voice actress, Hiromi Tsuru, the future of the show looked uncertain. Fortunately, there’s Super Dragon Ball Heroes, a new promotional series based on the similarly named, Japan-only arcade game. We watched the first three episodes, and we can tell you right now that this anime gets crazy (in a good way). Really fast.
An Unexpected Journey
The story begins on Beerus’s planet where Goku and Vegeta are training with Whis. Mai from the Future Trunks arc in Super suddenly runs toward them in a panic, saying that Future Trunks vanished mysteriously. The group has no more than a few seconds to react to the news when an enigmatic man in glasses appears. Claiming to be Trunks’s friend, the man identifies himself as Fu and explains the situation. Trunks is currently on the Prison Planet where the most dangerous criminals in the universe are being held. Fu disappears, and although our heroes are suspicious of the man’s motives, Goku, Vegeta, Mai have no choice but to travel to the planet in search of their companion.
Once they arrive, they encounter another version of Goku dressed in red and black and carrying a bo. Within seconds, the second Goku transforms into the ape-like Super Saiyan 4 form last seen in Dragon Ball GT. He and the original Goku, who immediately goes Super Saiyan Blue, start fighting one another. A couple Kamehamehas later, Fu appears in front of them, and the two Gokus realize they’re on the same side. Fu gloats in stereotypical villain fashion, revealing that the Prison Planet is actually a testing ground he created. He gathered together the strongest warriors across time and space so they could battle against one another forever, and the only way to escape is to gather seven dragon balls. However, each ball is held by a dangerous prisoner.
After Fu disappears (again) and the Gokus part ways, the scene switches to Trunks. After being freed from his holding cell, he encounters Cooler hovering high above him, demanding he hand over a Dragon Ball. The episode ends with Fu sitting at his control terminal, ready to begin the experiment while glancing at a heavily chained “Evil Saiyan.”
Unchained Evil
In the second and third episodes, it doesn’t take long for the Evil Saiyan, Cumber, to break free from his cell and find Goku, Vegeta, and Mai. Mai does her best “Bulma on Planet Namek” impression and hides behind some rocks, while Goku attacks Cumber head on. When Goku gets close to the dark power emanating from his enemy, he gets possessed and starts going after Vegeta instead.
It doesn’t take long before Trunks shows up to lend a hand, and surprisingly, Cooler is helping him, too (for now). Cooler opts to fight Goku, and then just decides to transform into a golden form just like Frieza did in Super and knock some sense into him with a giant energy blast. In the meantime, Trunks fights Cumber, but when the young Saiyan gets into trouble, Goku and Vegeta have no choice but to use the Potara earrings that Mai conveniently brought along with her. After fusing and becoming Vegito, the battle rages on until Cumber creates an artificial sun with his power and transforms into his giant ape form. Then, time runs out.
Crazy, right?
Heroes in a Half Tale
The action and story is definitely faster paced compared to Dragon Ball Z and Super. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. With each episode of Heroes only nine minutes long, they have to cut out most of the battle fluff and overly long dramatic pauses. It’s like watching the series on fast-forward, and as one who remembers the five minutes it took planet Namek to blow up, it’s refreshing. That said, the speedy pace does rob viewers of some of the dramatic build-up; one barely has time be excited over one cool transformation or character when the next one shows up moments later. They could conceivably slow things down by half, taking six episodes instead of three to get through the same amount of story, and it would probably be ideal.
Speaking of the story, the canonicity of Heroes is unclear. Though, seeing as how it’s based on an arcade game where players can use trading cards to pit their favorite characters against one another, it’s pretty safe to say that it isn’t. That’s fine since it does take some of the events of Dragon Ball Super into account. For example, it uses the golden form transformation for Frieza’s brother. Goku’s knows Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken x10 but not the obscenely powerful Ultra Instinct form. Unfortunately, it still feels that Super Saiyan Blue isn’t as powerful as the mythology originally made it out to be, which is disappointing, but that’s neither here nor there.
The Fight Continues
Overall, I’m happy with what I’m seeing with the Super Dragon Ball Heroes anime so far. The length of the promotional series is unknown with only four announced episodes so far. Even if that’s all there is, it’s great seeing the series back on our screens for a little while longer.