Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

While Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero's focus on characters besides Goku and Vegeta as well as it's expansion of the lore is welcome, it lacks the oomf of the prior and more action focused Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Will many hardcore Dragon Ball fans love it anyways? Most likely... Let's start with one of the biggest changes with this movie, and that's the new animation style. After it's new CG animation style was unveiled, I think a lot of people were tentatively waiting for this new instalment in the film series with baited breath. As trailers and more footage slowly rolled out, I think many peoplesgripes with the new style softened, and after seeing and entire film in this new style, I think it definitely worked (though I don't know if I'd want this as some new standard moving forward). Generally speaking, the new art style really pops and allows for some fun character animation, especially more varied and interesting character animation while characters are idle. Yajirobi eating some food while Piccolo and Korin talk, Pan spinning and walking around with big exaggerated steps and Gamma 2 striking ridiculous poses are just some of the moments that stood out to me where this new style really allowed the characters to pop and showcase more personality than ever before. Other scenes like Piccolo and Pan speaking to each other underneath a tree felt very immersive with the way lighting and shadows were handled, with spots of light breaching through the trees branches onto Piccolo and tracking accurately. The action itself was a little more hit and miss on this front. Depending the the battle or how it was choreographed, this new style could definitely match the more epic battles like in Broly, but more often than not fell flat. One moment that really stood out as a highlight of this new styles potential was a battle between Goku and Vegeta, where the CG and cel shaded style was blended together in a way that seemed seamless. In other action scene however, I felt like there was an over reliance on effects as well as 3D camerwork. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but overall most of the fights felt like they had less impact as well as creativity in the way they were animated and presented. Unfortunately, speaking of battles, while there were quite a few of them scattered throughout the film...they were generally over pretty quickly and didn't feel very high stakes. There are also new transformations, but with how they're worked into the battles, felt lacking, and as exciting as they were to see, weren't capitalized on. Obviously it's very exciting to see a fan favourite character achieve a new form after so many years, but then when they use a single attack and revert back to their previous form, it's definitely a bit deflating. The film begins with a fairly long explanation and set up for the new Red Ribbon villains that, while long, I was actually pretty on board. It was an interesting expansion of the lore, and an aspect of the lore important all the way back to Dragon Ball, but one that we rarely see or hear about these days. Speaking of, we actually get a really cool 2D animated segment of Dragon Ball Goku attacking the Red Ribbon Army that looks really nice. On this front, whenever a flashback is shown in the film it's done in 2D art and I thought this was an interesting touch. It conveys a sort of contrast between the new and the old which worked well with the drastically different art styles. I also enjoyed the way that the Red Ribbon Army was portrayed using propaganda to trick people into seeing their views on Capsule Corp and the Z Warriors feats. I liked the set up fine, and the new villain characters worked well enough (while by no means being interesting enough to steal the show). Where I felt the film really dropped the ball was with it's main big baddy hinted at from the start of the film. When mentioned, I got excited at the possibilities, but the execution was pretty crap. Where it could have been done in a very exciting and thematic way given the characters that were involved, the villain is reduced to a giant rampaging monster with a weak design. On top of that, I felt the final big character moment/transformation was really forced and poorly handled. Sure it was cool, but a few different decisions directorially could have had a huge impact on how the scene played out. Overall, the action worked fine enough, but also really didn't blow me away like with Broly, and many scenes were over too quickly. On a more positive note, I've always found the character work in these films to be fun and that continues here. While this film was advertised as a Gohan and Piccolo joint, it's really Piccolo who steals the show. He's upset at Gohan's lack of training and uses situations throughout the film to try and push him to unlock more power. He's also the main driving force of the film as far as uncovering the villains plans and also preparing their own counter attack. A fan favourite character who was definitely handled well. Gohan on the other hand is, alright...He's there and is given a big moment at the end but generally, he's just there. All in all, while it might sound like I'm being very critical of the film, at the same time i enjoyed it well enough. The character bits and humour sprinkled throughout somewhat made up for a pretty weak final battle and the new characters and lore introduced were fun. I definitely don't see this film making waves like Broly did, but if you're a Dragon Ball fan you're probably going to be checking this out and enjoying it on some level regardless.

Fair warning: i watched this with my girlfriend in the OG japanese without subs and i know NOTHING about dragon ball, i just wanted to spend time with her and she LOVES dragon ball Also, spoilers. Aight so first piccolo being a loveable grandpa to pan was so frickin cute, and that kid can kick ass, holy lord, what an excellent teacher he makes. RIP to carmine and the John cena-looking RR guy lol pan wrecked their asses Piccolo also looks damn good in RR uniform, 👌 nice When Gamma 2 comes in and they wreck his [piccolo's] brooding mountain, which was like bro. Where are yougonna sit and brood now, you destroyed it. You gonna sit on the ground like a normie now? Gamma 2 is also such a nut, i love him. And then he does the "goofy character sacrifices themselves for the greater good" trope and gets thanos snapped for it and just. Damn. What a good boy. What a funky lil man. Treasured bastard. I love him. magenta having an oreo dispenser in his car is what i hope the future looks like. I dont even have a car and im jealous. He also only smokes like half his cigars before lighting new ones, cmon bro. its nice that they showed what goku and vegeta were doing to explain why they werent there, and why no one could reach them. Just dudes being bros, fighting each other on an alien planet for the enjoyment of a cat god. Yknow. Normal dragon ball stuff. I like that they followed piccolo and gohan more than goku and vegeta in this, it feels like a nice break. Made it more of a father/son bonding movie than a "shoot 'em up, all action all the time, raaaaah lasers" movie yknow. Thats nice. The new transformations are kinda okay - piccolo got "handsome squidward-ed" and gohan kinda looks like dr stone mixed with an artichoke. Though im told thats just normal dragon ball stuff? I dont really get the point of the big boss being cell (but not really? Still confused) but like. Angry. Hes also HUGE which im not sure if thats new, or...? Why tf was RR trynna bring him back anyway? Make a new villain or something. Be creative. Again, we watched without subs so im missing TONS of context and knowledge bc I know nothing about this series lol. Fight scenes were okay, lots of flying around and shooting and yelling. Im told this is also just normal dragon ball stuff. The vid we watched was one of those 'sneaky phone videos in the theatre' so im sure the music was great but we couldnt hear it. Neat movie. Gonna watch it again later when subs come out so i understand whats going on.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was incredible. I was concerned because of CGI animation, but it becomes almost unnoticable after the initial 10 minutes or so. The fighting is very good throughout. The action scenes are very well choreographed and the music is also decent. The fanservice is legit perfect. They did Piccolo and Gohan justice and they also did justice to every other character that appears in this. I legit had a huge smile on my face from start to finish. I went in expecting nothing extraordinary but I was blown away this shit legit made my day. Highly recommend it 9/10

The CGI animation, an attempt to save money since the studio knows a lot of people are going to watch it no matter how cheap it looks, is definitely going to be a turnoff for most who liked the far more polished look of the Broly film. It is not terrible but having to get used to that after 25 years of being 2D ain’t easy. And the animators knew that, since whenever there is a flashback to previous events, they keep it in 2D since they know people will be pissed if they saw nostalgic moments in a completely different style. Anyways, assuming that isnot a problem for you and you expect to see 2 hours worth of non-stop action, which is what Dragonball has become after plot and characters became an afterthought, be prepared for a very long and overall dull buildup. There’s a lot of talking in the first half of the movie since the bad guys keep flashing back to previous events and plotting their next move. Nobody watches or cares about such things in a Dragonball movie. Once that is over the bad guys create two androids that magically match in power Gohan and Piccolo. Don’t ask why, it was already a stretch to have androids with more power than a Super Saiyan back in the Android Saga. The Red Ribbon can simply collect data and create androids that are as powerful as the current heroes with no cap. Go figure. The fight between the heroes and the new androids is tensionless since nothing feels like it’s at stake. The world doesn’t look like it’s in any danger and even Pan fools around when she gets kidnapped just for motivating her daddy to try harder. The final boss ends up being a buffed up Cell. Don’t get too excited, because he’s in his second form and completely mindless compared to his predecessor. The battle is eventually won with the heroes getting new transformations (Piccolo turns yellowish, Gohan gets longer silver hair for protecting a daughter that was never in any real danger). How unfortunate that they couldn’t do that in previous arcs when the world was in actual danger. It’s not like they were training non-stop since that event; the power ups were done automatically with no training. Then the villains turn allies because it’s a show for kids. As for the power houses of the show, Goku and Vegeta spend the whole movie at Beerus’ place, training along with Broly. And don’t expect something to come out of all that, they are not doing anything and they conveniently never find out about what happens on Earth. Essentially they were filler. Man, can you imagine not finding out about when Frieza attacked? Earth would be gone because they were careless. And that was several arcs ago. Goku and Vegeta are a thousand times more powerful since that time and yet they are less careful. What an amazing character development; they become more and more stupid. Oh, and Broly is now a doormat. A complete soyboy. That pseudo-Cell they were fighting was acting like Broly more than Broly was acting like himself. Here’s the actual problem with the movie. It was made to look like that Dokan gacha game. Its gamers will appreciate it far more than plain watchers. The plot is nothing to bother thinking about, the new power ups are lazy, and there’s not much to get from it besides an excuse for more units in the gacha game. It’s an overall bellow average movie in a franchise that is way beyond its prime and runs purely on milking nostalgia. Said nostalgia won’t even look nice from here on since it won’t even be 2D. Dragonball of today is a mutated zombie that doesn’t resemble the show we all grew up with in the 90s. There is no blood anymore, energy blasts don’t kill anyone anymore, nobody is an angry macho man anymore; they are all friendly soyboys, and now everyone looks like a polygon gacha unit. Fuck that shit.

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