Dragon Ball Super: Hit, Saiyaman & Krillin Mini-Arcs [Episodes 68 - 76]

So after the huge mental drain that is the Future Trunks Saga, we go through a smattering of light-hearted episodes and three two-parter mini-arcs that I'll breeze through quickly.

Episode 68: It's a cooldown episode that starts off with Bulma trying to recreate her time machine despite Beerus's warnings otherwise. Meanwhile, Goku gathers the dragon balls to finally resurrect King Kai back to life (a running gag throughout all previous arcs of Super)... but poor Goku ends up being waylaid by everyone else, who interrupts his wishes. Bulma by telling Goku to gather some plot device for her time machine, as well as Oolong, Roshi, Android 18, Pilaf, Goten and Kid Trunks who all want their own wishes. (We have the original Shenlong scene in Dragon Ball reanimated and it's beautiful). Everyone steps down when Gohan shows up asking for Shenlong to cure Pan from some Saiyan disease. We get the hilarity of Bulma fulfilling everyone else's wishes with the power of money -- Android 18 is amazing in all these scenes with her sass, by the way -- but Beerus shows up, blows up Bulma's lab and the crystal, and Shenlong can't stay for that long and ends up dissipating before Goku has the chance to wish King Kai back to life. Oh, poor King Kai.

Episode 69: Arale crossover episode! I never watched an episode of Dr. Slump in my life, and only know of Arale from fighting games. It's pretty hilarious, though, from Goku with hair gel to the Spirit Food Bomb to Vegeta realizing, and I quote, that "I'm fighting a gag manga character! Physics don't work on her!" in response to Arale breaking the Earth in half to Vegeta and Goku's expression when they accidentally behead Arale (she got better) to poop. It's a fun little episode that ends with Beerus showing up, killing off the Dr. Slump villain with the same HAKAI he used to kill Zamasu, stomping her foot to knock Arale back to her senses... it's all just fun fluff, ending with Vegeta still in a suit hanging from the tree branch because rule of funny.

Episode 70: The baseball episode. Like the Dr. Slump episode, this one is pretty funny. Champa challenges Beerus to baseball because he wants to visit Universe 7's food stocks (doesn't he have an Earth of his own?) and it's... it would be pointless if it isn't so goddamned funny. From Yamcha suddenly getting the spotlight because he is amazing at baseball, to nobody realizing how to play the game (Vegeta and Goku's simultaneous "EEEEH" when they realize they aren't supposed to hit and knock people out with the balls) and just seeing Champa, Whis and Vados in baseball suits... oh, and we get to see Magetta, Cabba and Botamo again, which is neat! I like them. And, of course, we end with Yamcha in the memetic 'killed by a Saibaman' corpse even as he wins. Oh, Yamcha. Even when you win, you lose. I really want to be kinda angry at this filler episode, but it's so fun taht I can't.

Episodes 71-72: The Hit Arc:
So these string of mini-arcs feel more like the feel of the more simple chapters that old-school Dragon Ball used to have before Dragon Ball Z turned everything into a huge, huge epic, and I'm fine with this. The first two-parter we got is the long-awaited rematch with Hit and it's... it's okay. It's not spectacular, and the fight is decently animated. Hit has gained some new powers including creating his own timey-wimey dimension and to unleash invisible punches, but the episodes try too hard with the whole "OH MAH GOD SOMEONE KILLED GOKU!" whuddunit question but Hit is also prominently featured throughout the episode so it's pretty obvious. It's pretty funny, I think, but completely in-character for Goku to hire Hit to assassinate himself just to get a rematch with Hit. I did think that the episode was stretched out a bit more than it should, especially the Gohan-and-Goten-tailing-Goku moments, and Champa and Vados delivering unnecessary exposition. The Goku is dead cliffhanger is also resolved almost immediately and I'm not sure what that is for. Still, the two-parter is decently done, and provides some neat buildup to the Universe Survival arc as Beerus and Champa both note that things are building up to the eventual confrontation with the other universes and they need their aces to be more powerful (poor Vegeta).

It's... it's a serviceable arc, but I don't really have that much emotion for this one. Hit's a cool character with a cool gimmick and a rivalry with Goku, but he's also relatively flat. It's nice to give him a fair bit of focus to himself, though, which I assume we won't get as much when we go to the Universe Tournament saga.

Episodes 73-74: The Great Saiyaman Arc:
Finally, Gohan gets some screentime! Poor Gohan has been relegated to the background throughout the entirety of Super, but the Future Trunks saga gave him a very neat and plausible exit strategy by showing just how happy he is with being a family man and a non-combatant, and that's pretty touching. Here, though, we get a fun excuse plot for Gohan to embrace his fighting roots again. Gohan gets accidentally roped into being a stuntman for jackass douchebag A-list actor primadonna Barry Khan, who sadly doesn't have the decency to die by the end of the two-parter. Barry is pissed off that Videl is immune to his douchebag flirtings (even though she's, y'know, a married woman with a visible husband and child). Gohan gets a job as a stuntman, for the simple reason that he wants Pan to have something to see of her daddy, and Barry hatches the plan to have the female lead of the movie, Cocoa, try and 'seduce' Gohan. Gohan, of course, is a straight-up nice dude who doesn't even respond to any of Cocoa's attempts to flirt with him -- if anything, Cocoa falls for Gohan.


Barry then shows up in Gohan and Videl's house with a 'nya ha ha your husband is a cheater, he kissed Cocoa!' and Videl just calmly rips up the photographs, sparing us the cliched anime plot of romantic misunderstanding and I just have so much respect for Videl at this point. "There must be an explanation. Please leave our house, you miserable man with no self-esteem." Barry tries to bully his way but, y'know, Gohan's a Saiyan and he does a cool supersonic boom thing to put the fear of god into Barry Khan. And I really love that neither Gohan nor Videl actually go the obvious way of, say, smashing Barry's car to intimidate him -- they're above that. And it's just so unexpectedly mature and so well-written.

Of course Barry gets possessed by a weird... parasite... creature called Watagashi, who escaped from "super elite" Jaco's custody. Gohan/Saiyaman helped Krillin beat up the two punks from the Buu arc that briefly get possessed by Watagashi, but it possesses Barry, and turns him into a giant monster. We get a very cheesy but well-done love power-up from Pan and Videl, allowing Gohan to beat Watagashi-Barry. The directors film this and works it into the movie, which is a big hit. It's still an episode where Gohan is weaker than what he should be, but it balances  Gohan's life as a family man, his alter-ego of Great Saiyaman and his relationship with Videl very well. It perhaps could've been done in a single episode, but eh. It's fine for me and they're doubling down on the Gohan-as-a-father-who-fights, contrasting him drastically from Goku, who tends to prioritize fighting over fatherhood.

Episodes 75-76: The Goku/Krillin Arc:
Oh man, what a great nostalgia bomb this is! There are so many callbacks to the old-school original Dragon Ball it hurts. Goku is looking for a sparring partner, but everyone's busy. We do get a brief sparring match between Goku and Gohan. I'm sorry, Goku and the Great Saiyaman... which shows that while neither are in their full power, at least Gohan can fight on par with Goku when they're both in Super Saiyan forms. Cool!

We end up returning to Krillin, who is a character I gained so much appreciation for after watching Dragon Ball Z Abridged (highly recommended for anyone who is a Dragon Ball fan, by the way). And Krillin's status as one of the series' most notorious jobber is brought up. While on a shoot out, Krillin gets hit by a bullet and needs to be bandaged... and in a setting where bullets shouldn't even work, it kind of shows that Krillin has rusted a lot. Android 18 sees this and delivers a bit of a tough love moment, going "I didn't fall in love with a weakling. Go and train!" It's obvious from later scenes that she means no malice out of it and is just egging Krillin on, but you can just see poor Krillin's can't-catch-up mentality that was built up very well from that one episode back in season 2 of Super. Add that to his daughter Marron innocently saying that she "doesn't want a weak daddy", Krillin and Goku goes off to Master Roshi to train again. And while Krillin accepts that he can never fight all those fancy Super Saiyajin forms, he is outclassed by even regular Goku, and Roshi ends up enlisting the aid of Fortuneteller Baba (hey! Haven't seen you in a while) to create a magical forest.

The magical forest manifests all of their greatest enemies -- Frieza, Cell, Super Buu, the Ginyu Force, Vegeta, Nappa, Demon King Piccolo, Dabura, Raditz... and Tambourine. We then realize that this is Roshi telling Krillin to embrace his fears, and we get a painful, painful re-enactment (with gorgeous new animation) as Krillin is reduced to screaming and running away, remembering his many deaths at the hands of Tambourine, Frieza, Buu and Dabura. Krillin gets separated by Goku and tells Goku off for enjoying the fighting a bit too much... and then Goku realizes that these illusions only get stronger if you fight them. And Krillin ends up facing his fears, conquering them and defeating the illusions, and even saving Goku from an illusion of Super Shenlong. I did like the little callback to the Kinto'un, and how Goku can't power up without killing the Kinto'un, which means that Krillin gets to be the hero. It's a cool bit for Krillin and develops his character a fair ton, and I'm definitely a big fan of this very nostalgia-driven mini-arc. It ends with Krillin shaving his head once more, embracing his martial artist roots... which is very convenient because the next big arc is going to include multiple fighters.

Overall, it's a neat handful of episodes both funny and semi-serious. And the biggest thing in my favour is that I don't know that any of these is coming, so it's a treat to suddenly boot up a crossover episode, or a Hit rematch, or a very well-written Krillin arc... it comes like a genuine surprise, and is actually far nicer to tell smaller stories in-between bigger arcs, making Super feel pretty rich and give attention to characters like Hit and Krillin where they might not be able to do so organically in the upcoming Universal Survival arc (or the previous Future Trunks arc). The next episode kick-starts the Universe Survival arc, which is... well, massive, to say the least. I think I'll actually split reviewing that arc into multiple parts.