Dragon Ball Super 128 Review: Thank You, Spoiler Title

Dragon Ball Super, Episode 128: Noble Pride to the End! Vegeta Falls!

Gee, thank you so much, you jackass title, for spoiling the big event that happens here. It's actually not an episode that I'm particularly fond of, to be honest. It's got all the problems that the Universal Survival Arc has always had, but I don't think the moments shown to us in this episode make up for it. Vegeta's desperate last stand and flashbacking to Bulma and Cabba feels robbed of impact because two episodes ago we just had a far more effective showcase of that same scene and a re-enactment of the Final Explosion attack when Vegeta was fighting Toppo. Kudos to the voice actor for really making Vegeta's desperation and resolution feel genuine, but the combination of the over-reliance of flashbacks and the fact that we've already had Vegeta flashing back to Cabba and his own family in the past makes this episode feel a bit more like it probably should've happened in the previous episode, or have this whole sequence take part alongside 17's knockout -- hell, it probably would've flowed better, with Vegeta and 17 being knocked out together while they buffed Goku of sorts. I dunno.

And Vegeta just failing to do damage to Jiren while in his base form while not dying or getting knocked out with a single punch from Jiren really stretches the suspension of disbelief for how much I'm willing to handwave away in terms of power levels... although I guess it could just be Jiren doing so out of respect? Eh. The episode is just a long, long extended sequence of Vegeta wailing on Jiren and repeating the same lines of dialogue over and over before Jiren finally knocks him out, and it doesn't feel as dramatic as it should've been. Like, the voice-acting is great and the blackened eye is a neat touch, but otherwise it doesn't hit me with the same impact as Vegeta versus Toppo a few weeks ago. It doesn't actually make me angry like Piccolo's knockout (and to a lesser extent Gohan's) but it definitely is a wasted opportunity. Also wasted is the cries of Vegito/Gogeta fans who wanted a fused form to be the one to beat Jiren up, which isn't something I've even considered before Vegeta's knockout this week.

We did get Vegeta crying and giving that last ball of energy to Goku, which is neat, but not particularly groundbreaking either. Again, a lot of why the scenes even work is Ryo Horikawa's immensely amazing voice acting in this episode, and the relatively solid character arc for Vegeta in him being a team player... but otherwise it all feels like a whole chunk of "seen that a couple weeks ago". Like, it's not bad, but I really felt underwhelmed at times.

And then the rest of the episode is just Goku fighting Jiren, and being pushed to the edge, before activating Ultra Instinct again... and about time, too. Honestly, the whole episode felt more like padding than anything. Vegeta's drop-out could've been neatly integrated into the previous episode, Goku could activate Ultra Instinct in the beginning of the next, and honestly, this episode felt truly superfluous. Goku gets to punch Jiren and make him look shocked, but, again, it's nowhere near the epic levels of Goku's first usage of Ultra Instinct in 110 or Vegeta activating Beyond-Blue to punch Jiren in 124 or whenever... it's just really formulaic, and doesn't elicit much emotion from me but indifference and a quickly-fading hope that this arc of Super will end satisfyingly. Like, I'm not asking for much -- I'm just asking for a climax that's more beyond "Goku punches Jiren with his new form, Jiren falls". That's going to be neat to watch either way, but that will also feel generic. Overall, despite my negative vibes, it's not a bad episode, it's just a deeply flawed one. 

At least Iwan (Inwe?) gets a bunch of dialogue. Love that furball.