Neo Ultra Mike
Creeping Shadow of "15000"+ Posts
And so Gohan, this person whom U6 haven’t met in the initial Tournament, barely knew at the Baseball game, and probably wasn’t given much info about in the 48 hours before the Tournament, will probably be viewed as their harbinger of doom by Universe 6.
To be fair even with the fusion of all the other various Namekians, Pilina and Saonel still weren't in the league of Kelfa... though Gohan in the manga was actually the one to take out Kelfa. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that since as mentioned before the manga is a lot different in the anime in how the Tournament of Power goes in a lot of places and yeah in the manga Gohan and Kelfa fought and both knocked each other out which took out Universe 6 from the tourney. Actually in the manga Kale/Kelfa did a lot more damage having taken out like at least 1/4 of the contestants on their own so that victory probably meant more in the manga. While here in a sense I consider this a good example of a team attack instead of just one directly responsible for the loss of team 6.
It’s not subtle that Universe 2 is a massive Magical Girl parody, but Dragon Ball has a long history of parodying other anime and genres. Android #8 in the original Dragon Ball was a massive Frankenstein parody/homage, but before him Goku actually fought another android who was very visually based off Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator series. But perhaps more famous are the Ginyu Force and Gohan’s stint as The Great Sayiaman is a parody of Sentai/Superheroes. If there’s one thing Akira Toriyama loves, it’s taking the piss out of other genres.
Which of course Toriyama was doing even BEFORE Dragon Ball with Dr. Slump. As Arale was a weird take on something like Astro Boy but more directly you had a character called Suppaman who yeah was a pretty direct Superman ripoff who actually appeared in the Dragon Ball episode that had Dr. Slump characters cross over.
Universe 6 is basically “What if Dragon Ball was remade as a modern anime.” Instead of the protagonist being a fully developed from the start wild child like Goku, the closest thing to a protagonist is Cabba who is much more like characters like Deku from MHA, a character who undergoes an arc, learning to get confidence in himself. And the Namekians, instead of being friendly peaceful aliens, are full blown as “The Other,” being quiet and completely alien. And much like how modern anime tend to find one concept for powering up and run with it, U6 takes the idea of Namekian fusion and follows it through to it’s natural extreme conclusion.
Also in modern animes actually trying to at least a bit more progressive in actually having female combatants into the narrative, Kale and Caluifa being the first female super sayians would also count as being more modern. Especially with the "les yay" shipping you can certainly read between the two... I guess Les yay shipping is something more common in modern cartoons then just modern anime but still.
universes left are... 11 is the Pride, 4 is the one Roshi took out that duck guy, and 3 is the one the dude Vegeta is fighting is from?
4 is the one with the Mouse ish God of Destruction whose fighters seem to be all about trickery (remember how Roshi also took out a female combantant trying to exploit her looks and someone using shadow manipulation in addition to that duck guy) and yeah Vegeta's fighting the guy from universe 3 which seems to be the universe of various machine people and cyborgs. So obviously we'll be focusing on them next and likely saving Universe 11 for last... well those of us who watched ahead knows what will happen but on a pure story telling level would make sense to make the most built up universe with the highest level fighters the last ones focused on right?
Mystic/Ultimate/Potential Unleashed is more powerful than SSJ3, without the energy drain. At present, Gohan had increased that power via meditation between episodes 88-90.
Again in the original Buu arc Mystic/Ultimate/Potential Unleashed Gohan was definitely stronger then Super Sayian 3 as he was the one who was suppose to take out Buu... but Toriyama didn't like that and thus wanted something different thus made up a bunch of convoluted nonsense to swap out Gohan for Goku, which makes the whole "was Mystic Gohan stronger then full power super Sayian 3 Goku at the time" kind of up for debate dependent on how strong you consider Kid/Pure Buu compared to Super Buu absorbing Gotenks or later Gohan. Now though Potential Unleashed Gohan is stronger then a Super Sayian 3... though hard to tell sometimes with how power scaling works or rather doesn't in this tourney.
You know my one disappointment with this episode is really considering there is a huge theme of team work throughout on each side (the Universe 2 trio taking the powers and prayers from their entire dimension to transform and have all of this ultimate power; the two Namekians absorbing all of their fellow warriors from Universe 6 which IMHO feels kind of like a last minute decision writing wise to justify them being the last of their universe as yeah since when did Namekian fusion take so long to work but ehhhh works well enough within the actual episode I suppose... oh and also Gohan and Piccolo tag team) it does feel weak to have just Goku defeat Universe 2. It should of been more a combined attack between Goku, 17 and 18. Seriously the Andriods even within this tourney have been stated to have infinite energy so couldn't they also help shoot blasts and combine theirs with Goku instead of just giving him another solo win especially showing them work together to fight previously? Otherwise though I actually really like this one. Yeah neither the Universe 2 trio or Universe 6 Namekians were interesting or relevant characters and honestly like them or not Kale and Califua/Rirebrenne were at least memorable but I do like them putting on this final stand in one last ditch effort to win. And I also like the focus on Piccolo realizing how the Namekians fused like he did and actually seeing Kami and Piccolo within him which... man that was something debated for like 20 years in the dragon ball community if there were still spirtual representations of the two within Piccolo at all that I'm so glad to now see confirmed to be true as I always believed that. Plus yeah as a huge Gohan fan glad to see him have this big team work moment with Piccolo finally pay off that's been building for episodes with the two taking out Universe 6's last two members together. And the finale of the universes was actually good in trying to keep in more positive spirits despite being wiped out in such a way. Really helps build up the feeling of loss such stakes at this should have especially yeah now that we're down to the final four universes and seeing how all that plays out... which will come across some more next time but still really solid ep despite like that one complaint I have about it.