Dragon Ball Super 124 Review: Dyspo-sed

Dragon Ball Super, Episode 124: The Fiercely Overwhelming Assault! Gohan's Last Stand!!

Hoo, I just finished from a huge, huge high of reviewing the entirety of Dragon Ball Super, and while I did watch the last two episodes as they came out, this is going to be the first Super episode that I review on its lonesome. Which isn't going to last very long with the show going on seemingly indefinite hiatus with episode 131 or thereabouts, but I actually have something prepared that's going to be Dragon Ball related for the foreseeable future. (No, it's not GT)

But while I'm all bubbly and happy about the franchise as a whole, what with my recent binge-watch and binge-review of Dragon Ball Super and my generally positive attitude towards it, plus playing through the story mode of Xenoverse 2, I do have to admit when an episode's not particularly up to scratch. And this one is one of those episodes. 

Granted, it's hard to keep up the high-octane pace that the Vegeta/Goku-vs-Jiren fight has been for the past two episodes. We got a couple of cursory blow-trading, Vegeta and Goku do a combined Final Flash/Kamehameha thing to bury Jiren in rubble, and we did get a ccool shot of Jiren rising out of it... but that fight felt more like it's just trying to fill up one-third of the episode's screentime. 

Because the main fight here is Dyspo fighting Freeza, and it's... it's not particularly impressive. Dyspo's gimmick of being super-fast doesn't really lead to anything particularly memorable, the constant usage of the ATATATATATA scenes are a bit too much. Freeza gets to stop dicking around in this episode and actually go Golden and shock the shit out of Dyspo with his sheer power level, it's kind of a given that the bunny  superhero's about to meet his end in the tournament. Freeza also tries to pull off a "hey, let me work with you to beat up Universe 7, but you wish me back, mmmmkay?" deal that he tried to pull off with Roh's agent and Frost, but it's honestly nowhere as well-executed or as exciting as it was in those two times. We also kind of get a failed opportunity with a lack of "I AM A PRIDE TROOPER, VILE VILLAIN!" style of dialogue.

Oh, and the Golden Freeza transformation is recycled, but it's a short and well-animated transformation sequence, so I don't mind it as much. 

I did find it rather surprising, however, that this isn't where Freeza just one-shots Dyspo... and we get the revelation that Dyspo has his own power-up mode called "Super Maximum Light Speed Mode". Really, Dyspo? No "Justice" or "Pride" somewhere in there? For shame. And they... well, they basically repeat the same thing, except this time it's faster than even the Kami-Pad's slow motion function can follow. Gohan ends up jumping in to help out Freeza, leading to a tag-team between the two, but Dyspo's power-up mode was delivered in such an underwhelming way that things like Anilaza ends up being far more interesting. Freeza ends up creating a laser cage for Gohan and Dyspo to fight in, but... Freeza... randomly "loses his grip"? Causing Gohan to choke-hold Dyspo, and for Freeza to ring them both out?

It's not the worst exit for Gohan, as he gets a far more dignified one than Piccolo and Tien Shinhan did, but it still leaves me with a weird taste in my mouth. We don't really get a proper payoff to Gohan's character arc in this tournament saga, and while he does really feel like a badass in the short while that he fights Dyspo, I still feel that as a character development tool it's still a bit hit-and-miss. The way that Freeza loses his grip could've been a lot better, too, by simply utilizing Toppo in interrupting Freeza's death-cage and having a resolution to the 17/Gohan deal they had last episode. I dunno. It's a pretty underwhelming episode in both action and character. It's not bad, it's just... bland.