So these 13 episodes mostly deal with Goku recruiting his troops to form the 10 strongest people from Universe 7, as well as some scenes devoted to the introduction of other big players from the other universes. And, of course, the much-spoiled big 'twist' that happens in the last couple of episodes at the end of this stretch, which I was unfortunately spoiled thanks to, y'know, the internet not even trying to keep it a secret. Yeah, we get Resurrection F redux, which in my opinion is honestly done relatively... okay-ish? I personally think the 13 episodes ended up running for a bit way too long and it could've been easily compressed to half of its length, especially since the opening and ending makes it no secret who the ten Universe 7 fighters are... although kudos for them for running a version of 'Limit Break x Survivor' with Majin Buu in place of Freeza for the majority of the arcs before the Freeza twist was revealed.
Oh, by the way... I'm spelling Freeza with two e's instead of Frieza because apparently the official English spelling as shown to us by the show is just that, written as 'FREEZA' in the hilarious little sketchy-sketch drawing shown in the animation. I mean, it doesn't honestly matter either way, but I've always liked Freeza better because it kind of tells you how to pronounce his name without having to get confused whether it's "freeze" or "fries".Anyway... I honestly enjoyed some of these episodes a whole lot, especially those that focused on Gohan, Freeza and Krillin. But on the other hand, there were definitely a bit way too much padding and unnecessary two-parters, and some flagrant inconsistency about the power level of Super Saiyan Blue in particular. While I can overlook (read: don't care about) the intricacies of power levels, the show has more or less been somewhat-kinda consistent, but here Blue ends up somehow matching... Krillin? Roshi? Tien? And Android 17 and Freeza both suddenly get immense power-ups that don't particularly make sense beyond a blatant 'roll with it, kay?' from the writers. Handwaving power ups is one thing, but the biggest sin of this arc is not making them believable. "Training off-screen" and "hiding their powers" doesn't just cut it when you don't show any of them doing so in DBZ or in these few episodes... and, hell, considering how so many people abused the Room of Space/Time during the Cell and Buu arcs, I honestly am surprised that they didn't use that as an excuse to how Tien or Roshi got stronger.
Like, I get that they want to hype up the human characters, but at the same time it does seem unbelievable for them to reach that level when they can barely keep up with Super Saiyan 1 like three in-universe years ago. We don't get any real believable training with Kaioshin activating Ultimate-Roshi or whatever, or some sort of Guru-style unlocking of hidden potential, and in the actual tournament (spoiling a couple of episodes forward) they don't actually show off that much power. But eh, we'll discuss each case as we go. To keep it simple, I'm once more dividing things up per episode and mini-arcs...
A criticism I have for the entire mini-arc as a whole is that I really, really wish they don't end every episode with the same CGI shots of the Grand Priest telekinetically building the arena. Honestly, after like 5 episodes ending like this I just skip to the next one every time that goddamn CGI arena shows up. Oh, and especially around episodes, oh, around 85-ish to 92-ish, we just have constant cutaways to Beerus stress-eating and stress-sleeping, while Shin and Whis are just going all "oh, silly Beerus" which honestly gets absolutely grating due to how repetitive it is.
Episode 83: Mostly a cooldown episode between the tournament exhibition and Goku's quest for new fighters. We get some absolutely adorable Vegeta's tsundere-daddy moments, like him being worried about Bulma trying to use gym balls to help for the childbirth, or Vegeta walking around thinking of a 'proper' Saiyan name (and suggest Eschalot, which is hilarious) and generally refusing to budge until his daughter is born. Aww, Vegeta! And, of course, because of the foregone conclusion of the Z ending, Bra (or Bulla) is born, with instant-teleportation birth via Whis... and when Yamcha and Satan accidentally makes Bra cry, Vegeta turns Super Saiyan Blue in the background and it's so fucking adorable. Honestly, everything surrounding Vegeta and Bra is just fucking cute.We also get the revelation from Shin and Whis that there are only 28 planets with life-forms in Universe 7 and... wow, did Freeza and Beerus really fuck up that many planets? Considering the sheer amount of alien races we've seen, did the Freeza Army really fuck up the world all that much? This does give us the excuse of limiting the Universe 7 choices to the ones we know (Goku hilariously suggests Monaka, and Goku quickly overrules Gotenks), and we get a bit of a neat little mind-battle between Krillin and Basil. Whis also establishes the fact that Senzu beans are forbidden. A lot of this episode is honestly just discussion, to be honest... and we get the absolutely hilarious joke of Yamcha overhearing the Tournament of Power and trying to 'play it cool' before Goku invites him. Oh, Yamcha. The showmakers are acutely aware of Yamcha's status as a memetic loser and I absolutely love it.
Episode 84: This is the Krillin episode! Goku tries to recruit both Krillin and Android 18, and ends up making up a story about getting 10 million zeni as the tournament prize... and honestly, I'm not sure why we need Goku to lie about it. Because each episode probably has a minimal action requirement, we get a Gohan-Krillin sparring match, although at least Gohan doesn't use Super Saiyan. Krillin shows off the Solar Flare x100, which is neat (18 calmly giving Marron and Goku sunglasses in the background is hilarious). But then Goku ends up wanting to challenge Krillin to a fight, and even goes Super Saiyan Blue... and that's where the power scaling goes all wonky. Like, I can get a bit of a suspension of disbelief where Krillin is the strongest human and is powerful enough to beat up Freeza goons or outmaneuver Gohan with Solar Flare, but... really? Super Saiyan Blue? The fight is at least very well animated, with some neat Kienzans and Kamehamehas and at least Krillin's Kamehameha fails to hold up against Goku's. Again, I really feel that this episode didn't need to last this long, and maybe just pick one of the two fights? The episode ends with Goku acknowledging that the likes of Krillin, 18 and Gohan are better suited for the battle royale rules, and Goku buggering off to find 17. Still, it's a neat payoff for Krillin's slow character arc throughout most of Super. 
Episode 85: Goku meets buff Buu! It's a bit of a fake-out as, well, everyone knows Majin Buu gets replaced by Freeza around 5 or 6 episodes later, but it's still a neat little episode for those who don't google stuff in the internet, as Goku stumbles upon Majin Buu training wtih Mr. Satan... and Buu has unlocked a new form! He's buff! And we get a brief Goku-vs-Buu sparring match, where Buu uses his plastic arm to ring-out Goku, which is pretty neat. Honestly, it's just such a shame that Buu doesn't actually get to show up in the Universal Survival Saga, and I'm just hoping this is another Gohan situation and this is just a little build-up to Buu being useful in the future. He then buggers off to meet adult!Dende and Mr. Popo on the Lookout.
This is also the first episode in this arc where we see the other universes, which is neat. It's a pretty intro-dumpy scene, where the other Kaioshins have a meeting, and Universe 7 ends up being the black sheep no one likes. Khai (U-11, the Pride Trooper one) is confident, Roh is still an asshole, Ea (U-3, he has glasses) is all 'oh brains are better' and Pell (U-2) is all 'muscles are better!' and... it's honestly pretty banal since none of the Kaioshins other than Gowasu (who we already know from the previous arc) and Ea have any distinctive designs, but it's still a neat scene to watch anyway. Far more interesting is the god of destruction meeting, called by Champa, for the simple reason that the gods of destruction are far easier to tell apart. Vados actually points out how the lower level universes only have a chance of survival thanks to Goku. You go, Vados. You're cool. Champa then decides to summon Cabba to find more Saiyans, and he basically needs to find five more people to fill up his squad of ten.
We also get to see Universe 11, with Toppo in a business suit drinking at a bar, which is far, far more hilarious than it should be. We get to see another member of the 
Episode 86-87: I'm going to lump these two episodes together because it's just the Goku-recruits-Android-17 storyline... and I honestly don't think we needed two episodes for it. It's cool that the show recognizes that Goku has never, ever met Android 17 at all, being absent and recovering from his heart disease during the whole 17-18-rampage section of the Androids Saga, and arriving only after Cell has absorbed Android 17... but honestly, did they really need to make it a two-parter? 17's apathy at the concept of universal deletion is a nice maturity after his previous portrayal as a rebel, and his nature-loving park ranger job is a neat callback to his deceased brother Android 16, but at the same time I felt that it was too convenient that some space poachers decide to show up so that Goku can help out Android 17. What is this, a video game recruitment mission? Still, 17 is cool. He apparently has a wife and kids! Aww, 17.17 also shows off that he's as powerful to match Super Saiyan Blue Goku... and it's... a bit more believable than Krillin, I guess? The way it's presented is pretty blah, though, especially since Goku has fought Majin Buu, Beerus, Zamasu and Golden Freeza in-between the Cell arc and the present day, and we don't even get any real explanation about 17's power up beyond "I trained off-screen". Although he does show off that cool force-field ability. Also there's a slight bit of continuity error about how 17 remembered the Buu saga... wasn't there a wish made for that and everything? It's this pair of episodes that has the most padding back-and-forth with the cast waiting at Capsule Corporation, which drags my opinion down about this episode.
Oh, we also get an Uub reference, with Dende expositioning about Uub's birth to Goku. It's neat. I'm not a big fan of Uub, but it's a nice little callback to DBZ, and I definitely appreciate continuity.
Episode 88: Gohan and Piccolo are training! And it's neat that Piccolo just apparently straight-up goes "tournament, hell yeah, I'm in!" and doesn't make this an elaborate video-game-esque recruitment mission the way that everyone else does. Again, it's more talk about how Gohan really could've worked a lot better and enhanced his strength, and even with Gohan's current strength against the Universe 9 wolfmen, he's still a far cry from his 'ultimate' power that he exhibited during the Cell and Buu Sagas. And while the execution in earlier arcs of Super regarding Gohan's power level is a bit slipshod, this episode and the subsequent Gohan training are just so amazingly done. Even moreso, it's a neat callback to Piccolo training Gohan in the earlier days of DBZ, which is definitely a plus. Piccolo psycho-analyzes Gohan and tells him that he's way too eager, and he needs to focus on the fight and not the whole 'oh my god the universe's going to be destroyed' aspect, as well as noting that Gohan ends up being overconfident ever since Old Kai unlocks the Ultimate Gohan form. The training ends up going from Gohan entering Super Saiyan 2 and then to Ultimate Gohan, which is neat. We also get to see Piccolo use a dismembered arm to shoot a ki blast at Gohan from behind, which is fucking hilarious. Definitively a great episode, for the simple awesomeness of the Gohan/Piccolo training.This episode doesn't focus entirely on Piccolo and Gohan, whose training spans a couple of episodes. We've got Krillin and 18 sparring with adorable little Marron cheering them on (and the neighbours thinking this is domestic violence), more Yamcha hilarity, and more Beerus "hilarity". God, I love Beerus but he is a bit insufferable in these episodes, isn't he? Most importantly is that we get a follow-up on Cabba, who's off recruiting characters. We get this absolutely pointless scene of him going to some legless dude's house before being sent off to find his sister, Caulifla... who we won't really meet until the next episode.
Oh, and Vegeta changes Bra's diapers like it's some sort of super-awesome skill. Why is Vegeta so adorable?
Episode 89: It's perhaps one of the less impressive episode, although at least we check two names off the list: Tenshinhan and Muten Roshi. After a brief Oolong cameo, Goku flies to China or whenever to Tien's new Crane Dojo, where Tien and Roshi are teaching. A random female student, Yurin, is vengeful and wants to gain revenge over Tien because he... left... her... without saying goodbye? What? We get some Master Roshi pervert scenes (which is surprising, considering how much DBZ and DBS have toned down Roshi's perverseness compared to the original DB) with him carrying Yurin away, dressing her in a miniskirt and poking her butt, and Roshi gets kicked in the dick later on for his troubles. Yurin turns Tien's army of generic bald musclemen students into jiangshi (Chinese zombies) and this includes Roshi... who apparently has also been training offscreen and is as powerful as Tien. Goku kamehameha's Roshi, Chiaotzu distracts Yurin by lifting her skirt, and it all ends up with Tien and Roshi joining Goku and Yurin becoming a student of the Crane school. Easily my least favourite of the recruitment episodes, with Yurin being so unnecessary and so flat an antagonist that I honestly found myself somewhat bored. Plus, another example of messed-up power levels. At least we get to see Tien's hilarious four-arms Machamp ability, which I don't think we ever saw since Dragon Ball.In U6, Cabba meets up with Caulifla, who's... well, basically a punk gang leader (and could honestly be a protagonist of her own shonen series), and she doesn't think much of Cabba... but ends up being super-intrigued when Cabba tells her about the Super Saiyan ability.
Episode 90: Piccolo and Gohan decide to test out Gohan's newly-retrained power against Goku, asking Goku and a (very reluctant) Tien to engage in a 2-v-2. And honestly Tien barely does anything in that fight, and the 2-v-2 is a neat little rumble with, again, great animation. DBS definitely reached its groove ever since the Universe 6 saga. And... we get a 1-v-1 between Gohan and Goku, and there's really no real reason not to do it in the first place, isn't it? Gohan confirms that he doesn't have to deal with Super Saiyan forms anymore, and that Ultimate Gohan is his 'ultimate' form, which is neat -- I've always hoped that Gohan and Vegeta had some divergent growths as a warrior from Goku, and for Gohan it at least ends up being true. The fight between Gohan and Goku is pretty tense and brutal, ending with a kamehameha beam struggle. Goku even goes Kaioken-Super-Saiyan-Blue, and the clash ends up with Gohan losing... but it's honestly not a bad shot for Gohan, who manages to fight toe-to-toe with Goku. Goku's line about missing the best sparring partner ever and looking way too far out for a good fight is amazingly and unexpectedly poignant, and Goku nominating Gohan as leader of their universe's team is definitely well-deserved.You know what would be awesome, though? If Krillin and 17 didn't also force Goku to use Super Saiyan Blue. It's another symptom of the SSB being used way too much despite it supposedly being 'godlike' and super-powerful. Doesn't take away from the badassery of Gohan returning to his full glory, though.
We jump to Universe 10, Gowasu's universe, and the poor old man is just drinking tea without going "ZAMAHSS" every other scene. Rumsshi, the elephant god of destruction, shows up and... reveals that he has selected the 10 most powerful brute-strength people ever, and they're all protein-drinking muscleheads. I guess Universe 10 is the 'brawns' universe? Most of the non-U7, non-U6 universes do operate under a theme, and while it is somewhat unrealistic it is a neat shorthand for audiences. It also ends up being somewhat appropriate, isn't it, considering the whole point that Zamasu wanted to destroy mortals back in his arc being because he only sees brutish barbarians? No wonder he does that, apparently U-10 has nothing but brutish barbarians. (Also, the Angel in Universe 10, Cus, is an adorable excitable little girl!)
Episode 91: Montage episode! Thankfully it's not a clip-show, because clip-shows suck. It's framed by the Great Priest showing the two bored Zen'os (who are playing a jan-ken-pon game with head-whacking hammers) about what's going on. Universe 7's team is all assembled, with Vegeta training, and Gohan coming up a strategy with most of their members and the gods. Old Kai just remembers the 'Ultimate Potential' ritual now when there's only 4 hours left. Silly old man. Yamcha is still hoping for recruitment, but the one that shows up is Roshi, who borrows Pu'ar to help him train and eliminate his lecherousness. Oh, and Buu falls asleep, with Goku heading off to try and wake him up. Oh well.
We get to see all the universes... with Universe 9 (Trio De Dangers' universe) having a huge, huge trouble recruiting fighters, and apparently their universe being the lowest of the low ends up making sense. Word got out about the universal destruction, and the people are just randomly rioting, causing God of Destruction Sidra to eliminate an entire city of rioters out of disgust. Honestly, they're flat characters but I really feel bad for the frustrated Sidra and the nearly-crying Trio De Dangers.
Universe 6: Hit tracks down the runaway Frost, who tries to stab Hit with a poison point, but ends up recruiting him nonetheless for the simple reason that, y'know, Frost is pretty strong even if he's not as strong as Hit. Universe 11: we get another scene showing that the Pride Troopers are superheroes who will prioritize rescuing cats over meetings -- it did ran on for a bit too long, although we get to see Toppo in a suit again, which is neat. Universe 10: Gowasu apparently makes good on being a God-Tuber, which is easily the most hilarious thing ever, noting that his warriors (and adorable little Cus) dancing is going to get a lot of views.Universe 2: It's the first we see of the universe, and where U-11 is a tokusentai/superhero-themed universe, Universe 2 is apparently a magical girl universe, with a twist -- Brianne de Chaetau, seemingly the ace of the universe, transforms into a gonk, fat lump called Ribrianne. It's pretty hilarious, and Toei is actually pretty experienced with the magical girl genre. I'm not someone who watches a lot of those, but I have on good authority that this is a very loving homage to the genre.
Episode 92: Yeah, Buu is asleep, and it's... it's very unfortunate. I'm not the biggest Buu fan out there, but he is an interesting character and all the buildup we've gotten throughout these last few episodes of Buu being a weird fighter is honestly pretty sad to not have any payoffs. Buu ends up hibernating for 2 months, something that Satan says has happened before, and attempts by Goku and Satan to wake up Buu ends up not happening. With only 3 hours left, everyone is panicking, and half of the U7 warriors is angry when they discover the whole 'universal destruction' thing that Goku keeps from them... but this argument ends up defused after a quick apology and a Beerus threat. It honestly makes me wonder why even bother with this plot point at all. Beerus' rage about why the Z-warriors destroyed the Freeza Force ends up having Goku go "OHHH YEAH FREEZA!" which, naturally, makes everyone go "buh-whaa?"
We get some more sights from other universes. We get Universe 11's superheroes doing their thing. Universe 3 and its robotic God of Destruction Mosco (whose beeps must be translated by his angel) and glasses McGee kaioshin Ea looking at a laboratory where they are 'modifying' robots, setting up these to be rivals to the Androids from Universe 7, with Nigrisshi being some sort of a cyborg, and super-weapon Narirama being apparently the most powerful modified robot. Universe 3, then, is our mixture of Gundam/Transformers/Chogokin genres.
Episode 93: Everyone, especially Vegeta, is highly opposed to Freeza joining the team, but both Goku and Whis note that they're severely outgunned, with Whis confirming that there is a mortal from another universe that can beat his universe's god of destruction... one that happened to be stronger than Beerus at that. (hint-hint-Jiren) Goku notes that they won't use the Dragon Balls to resurrect Freeza, but rather use the Fortuneteller Baba spell to bring Freeza back for 24 hours, the way that Goku did back in the Buu saga. Goku then buggers off to meet King Enma, to meet Freeza who had refused to repent. Freeza, still in that cocoon, gives Goku a condition -- to resurrect him, and even ends up stroking Goku's love for stronger enemies by noting how strong he can become. I did love how when Freeza acts all coy and tsundere Goku just goes "oh well, see ya!" Freeza ends up agreeing, and Goku returns to the mortal realm and off to Baba.
Meanwhile, in Universe 6, Caulifla and Cabba try to train Kale to use the Super Saiyan power, and Cabba's attempt to insult Kale ends up with Kale crying (oh the moeblob) and Caulifla and Cabba arguing. This sparks jealousy within Kale (this only stops being a lesbian love scene for the simple fact that Caulifla and Kale call each other by sibling titles) who then transforms into the Hulk, a gigantic, muscle-bound Super Saiyan with green hair, which is apparently a reference to the most popular movie-exclusive DBZ villain Broly... who is a character that I am utterly unfamiliar with other than the fact that he likes to show up in video games. It's neat that we have this twist, making Kale more than the one-note moe-blob that she was before. Kale absolutely fucks up Cabba until Caulifla manages to stop Kale by... transforming into Super Saiyan 2? Yeah, Universe 6 saiyans are just unlocking power-ups left and right, aren't they? I really wish they've done this in a longer amount of time, or maybe they unlock their powers when fighting Frost or some shit. I like that U6 has more powerful Saiyans especially considering how sorry Cabba was when he fought Universe 7 a couple of arcs ago (I like Cabba as a character, but he is a pretty bleh fighter back then) but I really wish their introduction has been handled better.In Universe 4, the god of destruction Quitela (the rat god) has been sending a spy, a green-skinned humanoid Ganos, to spy on Universe 7, and finds out that Beerus is planning to resurrect the dead. It does seem that Universe 4's gimmick is treachery and underhandedness, which ends up giving all the newly-introduced universes a gimmick of sorts.
Episode 94-95: These last two episodes mostly deal with Freeza's resurrection, and people claim that it's an 'apology from Toei' for fucking up the Resurrection F saga so badly. And, well, judging from Freeza's glorious transformation, the amazing animation and the Latin-chant soundtrack, it's definitely a visual and audio delight.
But let's talk about the episode itself. Quitela manages to manipulate Universe 9's Sidra and that jackass Roh to sending assassins to end Freeza, highlighting Universe 9's brutish dumbness and Universe 4's deviousness, setting up these two as the universes you love-to-hate compared to how we're far more attached to 11's heroism and 6's established characters.
Everyone else thinks it's a bad idea, but honestly there's no one else to pick from (no Yamcha!) and it's hilarious that in Gohan's strategy board, Freeza is represented with a shitty crayon drawing. Vegeta trying to explain about Freeza being 'good' to Trunks is coupled with the most hilarious "ARGGG WHY AM I DEFENDING FREEZA" as an internal monologue. Goku also sends Goten and Trunks away to 17's animal island, as part of their deal. We get a hilariously awkward reunion between 18, 17 and Krillin, and even more hilariously, 17 accidentally calling Marron 'Maron'... which is the name of Krillin's anime-exclusive ex. Ha!Goku and Baba bring Freeza back, and naturally the first thing the two rivals do is punch each other in the gut. Yeah, Freeza isn't going to be friendly the way that Vegeta, the androids or Piccolo are after their heel-face-turn. Freeza and Goku moth make it clear that they're still enemies, which is definitely appreciated. I don't think Freeza is the sort of character that can be redeemed the way that Goku's other buddies are, and he's way too iconic as a villain to be redeemed that way. Sidra's assassins show up, however, and surround them. And then Freeza transforms into the mighty Golden Freeza form, and we get some neat Goku/Freeza/random mook fights. I think this is the first blatant death in DBS, too? Working under different censorship laws than DBZ (you can notice this by how bloodless and near-deathless DBS has been) it's definitely a surprise, with Freeza callously finger-beaming everyone.
Freeza, apparently, is in the same 'trained off-screen' camp as Android 17, Roshi, Piccolo and Tien, and has trained his ki control and mental fortitude while stuck in hell, which... um... yeah? I don't buy it at all, and it's honestly quite bullshit. But at least they somewhat handwave it away, with the Golden Freeza form being far more long-lasting and the dude being far more in control of his transformation... and, well, it's not like he's using it for long-term while fighting the mooks so I'm handwaving it as Freeza talking out of his ass. There's honestly some huge hoops that the writers are jumping through to get to this point, and yet it's still not as bad as the original Golden Freeza arc.Apparently Sidra gives the leader of the assassins (an unnamed bulldog-man) a ball of his destruction energy, telling them to use it against Goku or Freeza, which is the same 'Hakai' skill that will completely obliterate the spirit and soul of anything in existence. However, he fails to sneak behind Freeza... and manages to land the ball of destruction. Freeza nearly gets annihilated (and I expect Beerus and Whis to arrive and bail him out) but he turns out to have surpassed that and has enough power to compress the ball of destruction down and escape it. Holy shit indeed.
While Goku is monologuing, however, Freeza launches the ball of destruction energy at Goku, which is, y'know, some instant betrayal, ostensibly to 'train' Goku. Freeza uses the assassins' communicators to contact Roh and Sidra, wanting to join Universe 9's team in exchange for eliminating Universe 7's Goku, which shocks both gods that such a vile person exists. And while it does call into question why Goku still thinks it's a good idea, it's not like they have much choice at this point, and Freeza proves to be so entertaining that I honestly don't mind. Beerus and Whis do show up at this point, frees Goku from the destruction energy (Goku makes a good sport out of it and notes that it's his fault for forgetting what a scumbag Freeza is), and Beerus and Whis play host to a brief scrabble between the two to vent out their frustrations. It would be such a waste of screentime if it wasn't so gloriously animated. In any case, their fight ends up a draw, and Freeza decides to play ball while plotting to kill Goku and to play the gods._________________________________________________________
And... and that's it for the recruitment episodes! It definitely ran for a bit longer than it should, with some episodes being pretty weak and unnecessary, and while I did grow to like Caulifla, Kale and Freeza's inclusion, the way they're handled in these string of episodes are definitely questionable. Still, the episodes themselves are definitely entertaining -- although I admit that part of it is because I watched a lot of these in a single sitting. I imagine waiting for multiple months for just buildup and constant cutaways to filler scenes of Beerus making shitty jokes or sitting through the rough three-week patch of the Android 17/Roshi/Tien episodes would be annoying... but as a whole? It's neat.
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