If you have told me things were going to end up like this two episodes ago, When Goku showed up having apparently mastered Ultra Instinct, I’d have thought you were joking. But I suppose this is Super Dragon Ball Heroes; where nothing makes a lick of sense and you just need to enjoy the pretty lights.
We begin with Goku getting sliced and diced by the Crystal Sorcerer Lagss, while simultaneously, Vegeta in his Super Saiyan Blue “Evolution” form seems to be making short work of the Tuffle fusion Kamioren. Last time, this machine mutant seemed able to at least partially stand up to whatever Ultra Instinct Goku was serving, now they’re getting made short work of by Vegeta… I really shouldn’t think too hard about this…
The fighting continues on three fronts. Trunks intervenes to assist Goku, Vegeta Final Flash’s Kamioren so hard they defuse and Jiren continues to beat the crap out of a continuously regenerating Zamasu. This is half the episode and hardly warrants commenting on any further.
Suddenly, our evil mastermind; Hearts, decides he’s bored and wants to get involved himself. Sending Lagss away to Universe 3 to assist Cumber, like he needs any help against those dudes. Thus she zips away, apparently harbouring the power to just traverse universes. Seems useful.
Hearts also seems to be a magically empowered villain as he employs some sort of gravity manipulation ability to restrain Goku, Trunks and Vegeta simultaneously, without much of a sweat. Proceeding to then read Goku’s mind and reveal that his ultra instinct power from earlier was “imperfected”. Well duh. Then the guy is cocky enough to say he intends to draw out the power again and then wipe the floor with Goku at his best.
Can’t knock the guy’s confidence. But overconfidence in Dragon Ball is a one way street to punch town. However, the bus makes an unscheduled stop en route, as Shin shows up to exfiltrate the Saiyans, presumably to universe 7. Zamasu recognises Shin as the Supreme Kai of Universe 7 and Hearts announces that that’ll be their next stop then.
They make sure to gimp out Jiren by trapping him in a box before he could contribute literally anything to this entire series.
Then we cut to a hidden jungle base on an undisclosed location. And we discover Fu is still around, leaning back in his chair and still taking credit for everything that’s going on, claiming everything is still happening according to his Keikaku.
Then Meta-Cooler.
Let’s hope he contributes a little more to events than Golden Cooler did.
This episode really felt like a transitional one. Nothing really interesting or of consequence happened. The dominoes were all set up for the heroes to have their big comeback, and then everything went suddenly and catastrophically sideways for no real reason beyond the writer’s wanting a change in setting.
I could give or take this episode, nothing especially noteworthy went on honestly. But my biggest take away from this arc so far is Hearts and his gang of pretty henchmen. Usual fare in Dragon Ball is to have a single big bad and a bunch of fodder henchmen, with the leader being the main threat. So far, it seems like all of Heart’s team are pretty formidable opponents, and they all have a wide array of powers to differentiate them, from possession, to immortality to glass magic to being Cumber. Although this might all be moot by the time the story ends and they’ve been made short work of.
Goku’s use of Ultra Instinct was a big old tease that went nowhere and our deity powered heroes proved no match for the weird selection of powers held by the villainous team. It’s going to take some high caliber shenanigans to get our heroes out of this mess. And I’ll be the one to go and say it: WEN BROLY?!
A Richard Wood Text Adventure 