Dragon Ball Super: Battle of Gods Arc (Episodes 1 -14)

So the first two big arcs of Dragon Ball Super, the long-awaited sequel to the quintessential shonen anime/manga juggernaut Dragon Ball Z, is based on the two 'canon' movies Battle of Gods and Resurrection F (I reviewed both movies in the past), retelling the plotlines of the two movies in the form of anime. The stories boil down to essentially being the same, but I ended up checking it out anyway while playing Pokemon to see what it's all about. And, well, Dragon Ball Super's version is far more... sparsely paced, and I personally am not 100% sure why they don't actually just reuse some of the very crisp animation from the movies  instead of redoing it (and sometimes somewhat failing to match up to the epicness of the movie scenes). I suppose the strange and wacky world of copyrights prevents them from really reusing actual animation frames from the movie as they had wanted to.

We also get a couple of more 'filler' episodes to establish the state of the world in the post-DBZ timeframe, but honestly it's mostly harmless fluff that actually in my opinion worked for the betterment of the storytelling and pacing of the Super version of the movie. The story is essentially the same, just retold in a more complete, 'expanded version', so I'll briefly talk about the major changes and my opinions on them, since I've already reviewed the story as a whole -- and my opinions are mostly the same. It's a neat little buildup to the new corner of the Dragon Ball universe with gods of destruction and shit, and both Beerus and Whis are very interesting and less violent villains that are a neat departure from the savage world-conquering Piccolos, Vegetas, Friezas, Cells and Buus.

The Animation:
Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way, yeah? Dragon Ball Super doesn't quite have the same level of crisp animation that the movie version of Battle of Gods do. In fact, when we actually do get to the final Super Saiyan God fighting against Beerus, a good chunk of it ends up feeling very much disappointing. It doesn't feel outright unwatchable-levels of bad (we'll get to the Golden Frieza arc for that) but it's still pretty... unimpressive. We don't actually get any jarring CGI scenes, but at the same time none of it end up being quite as spectacular or to 'wow' me as it probably should. In particular, my favourite sequence in Battle of Gods with Goku and Beerus fighting in that random underwater cave with rippling water all around them has been adapted out, which is a shame. There are a fair amount of bleh looking frames, and that's saying something considering that I'm not that nitpicky about my anime. The fact that it's a weekly anime comes with certain understanding of the quality of animation (and it going to be long-running does mean that it'll never reach movie or One Punch Man levels of prettiness). It's unfortunate, but it's a necessary evil, I suppose.


Characters:

One of the bigger changes that Super made is slight changes in the characterizations of the three main characters -- Goku, Vegeta and Beerus. Sure, what ends up happening is still more or less similar enough between movie and anime, but the addition of extra scenes or the differing execution of others makes a more wholesome character arc for all three main characters throughout the 14-episode arc.

Goku: Goku spends most of the arc absent, being in King Kai's dimension, but the first 'filler' episode fills out him trying to really work hard as a family man moving tractors and shit. The interaction with Mr. Satan (who gives him a lot of money) does help bridge him finally ending up at King Kai's dimension, and helps to allay the often-criticized flaw in Goku's character where he seems to be a distant father and husband. Here Goku acknowledges that all this farming shit is something he doesn't like, and he wants to fight more, but he also puts his family first before fighting, and it's not until he actually has a way to solve their monetary problems that he goes off to train. The rest of his character remains relatively similar, with him being beaten down by Beerus in King Kai's dimension and then showing up as the Super-Saiyajin-God and battling with Beerus, but the added emphasis of how he and Beerus enjoy the fight so, so much adds a fair bit to the story.

Vegeta: Vegeta gets to go on a vacation with Bulma and Trunks, and it kills him inside very visibly, but he still humours his family enough to go around and shop and eat giant octopi, and it really works to show how much Vegeta has softened up over the Buu arc -- where he went through perhaps his greatest bout of character development. Vegeta is still a massive prick, but that scene of vulnerability and bonding with his family is amazingly heartwarming, and is the sort of filler scene that works out in spite of it being filler... it's just so charming. Vegeta also stops his day of training and shows up at Bulma's cruise boat before he even knows that Beerus is coming, which is a neat bit of heartwarmingness in and of its own. We also get a far more detailed 'moment of despair' moment from Vegeta where we ratchet up his increasing panic at the high-strung God of Destruction's arrival on Earth, and the minor change of Vegeta's flashback in that he's not just a helpless bystander when he saw his father being bullied by Beerus and actually attempts to charge Beerus is a subtle but very powerful change. Vegeta's panic and eventual screaming anger when Beerus slaps Bulma is definitely far more well-earned thanks to the pacing of Super, although we'll talk about pacing later below. 

Beerus: Beerus is a huger dick than he was in Battle of Gods, and I think it's a change that while making him far less likable, is perhaps to the betterment of the story. It's clear that Beerus is going to be a major player going forwards in subsequent arc, and we can't have him just 'defrost' that quickly. Actually showing Beerus destroying half a planet in the first episode out of being displeased with a dessert is definitely a great way to highlight the true nature of the God of Destruction (in the movie he just ki-blasts a random planet to show off his power, but this is so much more reflective of his character). And he's portrayed as far more high-strung than his movie counterpart. Whereas Movie!Beerus treats the kids with a 'kids-will-be-kids' mindset, here one of the events that nearly got him to blow up the Earth was kid Trunks and Goten shooting him with water pistols. He's also relatively less polite and far more egoistical than his movie counterpart (his interactions with King Kai and Vegeta are particularly more jackass here), and part of it is because of the voice acting. Beerus's minute-long rant to Gotenks about how he never got to taste pudding doesn't feel ha-ha hilarious but oh-man-dude-is-crazy unsettling. The way that he slaps Bulma is also far more deliberate. Like, Beerus in the movie slapping Bulma and knocking her aside is portrayed as more of a reflex slap, whereas here he actually took the time to stop, glare (and have Vegeta scream NOOOO like five times) and deliberately, slowly bitch-slap Bulma. Beerus is also far less 'oh-ho this is so much fun, good chap!' in the final battle against SSG Goku, and ends up feeling more of a reflection of Goku and gets a bit more hot-blooded. Yet he's still playful and ends up taking a liking to the Earth-bound people, as he actually stops the fight at one point and tells Goku to bring it a bit further away from Earth when they see that Bulma's ship of spectators was damaged. So yeah, he's not that jackass'd. 

Also perhaps the biggest change is that Beerus apparently uses 100% power in the final battle against Goku, and Dragon Ball Super omits the detail that he's lying and he barely used 10%. I guess it's a bit of an adaptational nerf to Beerus because we're going to be seeing other Gods of Destruction in the future? We'll see. 

Other characters that are generally improved with the roomier spacing include Gohan, which will build up to his storyline in the Golden Frieza arc. Whis also gets a lot more scenes where we highlight his eccentricity and his role as a more neutral figure that somewhat helps out the Z-fighters, and Mr. Satan, unexpectedly, gets far more role that expands on his nature as the 'face' of the saviour of Earth... yet he also is friends with Goku, Vegeta and the others, enough to even acknowledge that he's a fraud and gives away the large amount of money to Goku in the very first episode. 

Major Extra Scenes:
We'll rapid-fire through this in rough order of the differences, and I'll talk about whether it improved the story or not.

• Old Kai & Kibito Kai: They get a lot more screentime in this throughout multiple episodes as commentators and... I'm sorry. They're just annoying and don't add much, and essentially just parrots what everyone else says, feeling far more like padding compared to the Earth-bound cast. Bad change.
• The Pilaf Gang: The shipping between Mai and... was it Trunks or Goten? Is essentially gone, and they have a far, far reduced  role. They still show up on the party and befriend the kids and have some antics, but they are far less annoying than they were in the movies, and end up feeling like a funnier set of side characters compared to the Kais. Good change. 
• Goku working in a farm: as mentioned above, very charming and shows off Goku's civilian life, showing off his actually being a parent to Goten and not turning him into a 100%-fighty-fight-meathead. Good change.
• Mr. Satan giving Goku money: Very, very heartwarming, and really highlights why Mr. Satan ends up being more heroic than a fraud. I've never liked Satan while going through DBZ beyond the fact that he's hammy, but here I actually end up liking him. Good change. 
• Trunks and Goten's gift: I would've liked it better if it was shorter, but this all ends up going way, way too long and the snake fight wasn't interesting. This scene also ends up coming in the first episode that already had very little going on, and felt far more filler-y than anything else in this arc. Bad change. 
• Vegeta's family trip: As mentioned above, very, very heartwarming and shows the depths of love Vegeta really has for his family while not downplaying his dickishness. Good change.
• Bulma's birthday party location: It's on a ship instead of a city, which probably makes animating the backgrounds easier. Doesn't really matter, honestly.
• Goku vs Beerus, the First Battle: It's a small change, but having Goku go from Super Saiyan to Super Saiyan 2 to Super Saiyan 3 instead of just skipping to the final form while fighting Beerus for the first time is pretty cool, even if it's just kind of filler. I also very much appreciate Goku's added line that not even his fusion form with Vegeta might stand up a chance against Beerus, where in the movie it seems like they just kinda forgot all about it. 
• Beerus on the party: It's played up to a far more dread-inducing level compared to the movie, and we get far more scenes of things that befall Beerus. Events happen differently, with Krillin showing up with a Roulette-wasabi Takoyaki, Yamcha slapping Beerus on the back (oh Yamcha) and Vegeta's big embarrassing moment being an elaborately hammy TAKOYAKIIII sequence instead of BINGOOOO but it's mostly all fun and well-done. I'm torn, because I really like Vegeta's bingo dance, but I can't say that any of the changes they made are actually bad.
• Beerus vs Majin Buu: I've always thought it was weird that Majin Buu, potentially the strongest being on Earth, doesn't actually get to fight that much in Battle of Gods, simply getting swung around tossed away by Beerus in like a single shot. Here Majin Buu gets to blast out of the water like two times throughout the episode when the conflict finally happens. He still gets worf'd by Beerus, but it feels so much more organic that Majin Buu doesn't get taken out that quickly. Good change.
• Beerus vs Piccolo, 18, Tien & Gohan: On the other hand, while Beerus fighting Buu and Gotenks are particularly expanded or remain relatively the same length, Piccolo, Android 18 and Tenshinhan just get blasted aside by a power-up aura from Beerus, whereas the movie features a far more intricate one-shot-takedown sequence using chopsticks. Bad change.  
• Oolong Rock-Paper-Scissors Game: This is absolutely unnecessary, isn't it? It's not even funny, and takes up so many screentime. I giggled a bit when Beerus notes that Oolong's the one who looks the closest to Buu, but it's still otherwise a bad change. 
• Videl is pregnant: Where it's brushed aside in the movie after a few lines of "wait, what?" here we have Gohan and Satan properly act as what a husband and father would in that situation, which is a joyful freak-out. In fact, Beerus even lampshades this with a "get on with it!" because they took a fairly long time to talk about Videl's pregnancy. Good change.
• Super Saiyan God Ritual: It's far more intricate with a lot of orchestral music in Super and a particularly elaborate sequence of the heavens itself opening as Goku ascends and becomes a Super Saiyan God, and it does make the power up feel as badass as when Goku first becomes the Legendary Super Saiyan on Namek so many years ago. It's a lengthening of a scene that really should've been a bit longer in the first place. Good change.
• The Final Fight: I'm of split opinions on this one. On one hand, the Kais noting that if Beerus and Goku clashed so many times will destroy the Earth with the blast wave is a cool idea, and Beerus letting Goku get used to his 'God' power-up form is pretty neat. But the fact that we keep cutting away to the blast waves reaching Earth, or the Kais or random reporters commenting on the destruction waves, ends up being kind of bland. I'm also not sure if we needed to show how everyone clambers up into Bulma's ship to see the fight and then get immediately knocked down back to Earth. Also, the fight is less visually impressive and lasts perhaps a half-episode longer than it should.

Overall, though, the anime adaptation does end up expanding the Beerus story in a way that helps to tell the story and adds a few more decent moments for our characters. There are some filler scenes that are particularly egregious, like Oolong's rock-paper-scissors game or the hunt for the mystical spring water of youth or Mr. Satan's press secretaries and all that jazz, but for the most part the changes are either unobtrusive or actually work for the better of the story. The overall story is more or less the same, but I do feel like they took more time to flesh out some concepts and explain some things better than they did in the movie. The same plot holes of how apparently not even Vegeta, Prince of All Saiyans, know about the Super Saiyan God ritual (and apparently no one used it when Planet Vegeta was subjugated by Frieza's space horde) are still around, but eh. It's overall a still enjoyable 14 episodes, and I'm particularly fond of the first two that helps to showcase the 'slice of life' that Goku and Vegeta go through. It's just so neat to see what our heroes do in a daily basis when they're not off saving the world.

Pacing:
The pacing is probably something that... is a bit take-it-or-leave-it. I went through the entire 14 episodes of the Beerus saga (plus a bit of the Golden Frieza arc) in a single sitting, but back in 2015 it took more than 3 months to get through a single two-hour movie, and that was probably where a lot of the ill-will towards the series came from. Although if we didn't come with the knowledge of watching the two movies beforehand it's actually pretty decent. I do question why we don't just chop up the 'Battle of Gods' and 'Resurrection F' movies up into like 7 episodes each with some added 'exposition' scenes and the training scenes in between the two movie retelling arcs... but eh. Overall  may forgive some of the pacing issues for the simple fact that I'm watching through a lot of it in a single go.

I'm not sure if this is the format that I'll review future arcs of Dragon Ball Super -- reviewing Battle of Gods and Resurrection F will take a fair bit of waffling around for the simple fact that I'm comparing it to their movie forms, but eh. We'll see how things go from here on out.

Overall, did we really need 20+ episodes to retell the plotlines of two movies? Maybe not, but in a way I'm actually glad that we did, and that we actually took the time to tell those stories in a more well-paced way. Again, what would be ideal is to perhaps use the actual movie and add in the extra scenes and all, but eh, what could've been. Stay tuned for my review of the Resurrection F arc (or 'Golden Frieza arc', alternately) coming soon.