Anime Spotlight #22: Dragon Ball 2Super 1Hero

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

Dragon Ball fan.

Not to be confused with the Dragon Ball Super anime and manga, or Super Dragon Ball Heroes (a video game, web anime, and several manga series), Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is the first fully 3D-animated movie in the franchise. Like the better Dragon Ball movies, it's good but has its problems. Like the Super anime, its best moments involve slice-of-life character development and deliberate fight choreography. And like the franchise I poked fun at in the title of this post, it's a movie about family.

Following a narrated flashback through Goku's history with the Red Ribbon Army, we're introduced to Dr. Hedo, a tokusatsu-obsessed child genius who was sent to prison for grave desecration and using cyborg zombies to staff his chain of convenience stores (which we don't learn until the prequel arc in the manga).

Upon being released from prison, Hedo blows up the prison with a grenade he had in his pocket (this and Hedo's super hero costume and wrist-mounted drone-piloting array, as well as the fact that he does this act of terror unopposed, raise many security concerns about the facility and draw Hedo's self-identified hero status into question), and is picked up by Magenta (son of Commander Red from the old Red Ribbon Army Arc) and his assistant, Carmine, who bribe Hedo into designing Androids for them by offering an unlimited supply of Double Stuf Oreos (original product, do not steal) and funds for Hedo's research. Despite Hedo spying on them with Chekov's Bee and claiming to have done thorough research on them (so he knows the Red Ribbon Army is still operating in secret, and he has a small grudge against them for brainwashing his grandparents--Dr. Gero/Android 20 and Vomi/Android 21), this works, and he buys into Carmine's Fox News narrative about Capsule Corp conspiring with Demon King Piccolo, the Saiyans, the Freiza Force, and Cell (who was created by Hedo's own grandfather) to profit off of a long-term alien invasion scheme.

Meanwhile, Piccolo is busy training Pan and chauffeuring her to school while Gohan is holed up in the Satan family mansion, researching Super-Saiyan ants. Yes, Super-Saiyan ants. I suddenly want a fan animation of Son Gohan and Hank Pym sharing an ant-related geekout session....

Also, Beerus perves out over Chelai when Goku and Vegeta bring her, Lemo, and Broly to Beerus' planet for training and ice cream.

This might come as a disappointment, as this has no real bearing on the plot, other than that subversive comedy relief prevents them from getting involved when Piccolo gets attacked by one of Hedo's Ultraman-inspired Gamma Androids. So with Goku and Vegeta not being available, Piccolo gets the bright idea to sneak into the Red Ribbon base, and later put Pan in fake danger to draw out Gohan's "higher limits" that we haven't seen or heard of since the pre-Tournament Of Power recruitment episodes. Also, Piccolo takes a page out of the manga's Granolah Arc by having Dende give Shenron's statue a Holy Water bath so he can wish to get stronger, "plus a little extra."

This power handout (as much of a cheat as Ultimate or Super-Saiyan God, and almost as poorly explained as Super-Saiyan Blue, Super-Saiyan Rose', Super-Saiyan Rage, Berserker Super-Saiyan, "Mastered" Ultra Instinct, Blue Evolution, or any of Broly's transformations from his Super-era movie) gives Piccolo a form on par with Gohan's Ultimate (but is easier to identify because there's actually a consistent visual change), as well as "Orange Piccolo," a form that makes him orange (duh), muscular, and draws a tree on his back.

The tree emblem could have been tied to a more interesting power origin than "pour water on a statue and make a wish" (like maybe canonizing the Tree Of Might lore somehow?), but instead, Piccolo is able to instantly leapfrog most mortal levels in the Universe by wishing on a planet-level Dragon. This was stupid writing in the Granolah Arc, and it's stupid here. What's more, the form is little more than a callback to Perfect Cell's debut (Orange Piccolo just no-selling the Gammas' punches like Cell did with Vegeta), and shortly gets outclassed by the final boss of the film because Gohan needs a new action figure, too.

This is a sign of the biggest and most cited problem with Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero; it heavily relies on trying to recapture moments from the Cell Saga in DBZ. 

• Red Ribbon are the villains.
• The Androids are siblings.
• Piccolo goes to Earth's Guardian for more power.
• Cell is the final boss.
• Gohan gets a new form through anger and kills Cell.

We've seen it all before, done with more buildup and better thematic weight. Even before I knew there was an original Dragon Ball, I could accept that Red Ribbon was a legitimate threat to the world, and there was drama and character and a vengeful mastermind with an ultimate weapon and a legion of backup plans. Here, it's just nostalgia, comedy, thinly-veiled child endangerment, and incompetence masquerading as something "new."

That said, this movie is a treat to look at. The tender moments between Piccolo and Pan made me smile, the establishing shots were gorgeous, the fight in the rain near the end was like Akira Toriyama, Zack Snyder, and the Wachowskis had a cinematography baby (with just the right amount of anime glasses badassery humor), Hedo's redemption arc was satisfying, and watching everyone contribute to the defeat of a kaiju-sized, rampaging Cell variant, including the human fighters, civilians, Androids, and Goten and Trunks (who were finally allowed to grow up after spending half of DBZ and all of the Super anime as children, but still can't escape being a comedy-relief fusion), was satisfying in a franchise where they usually serve as cheerleaders and exposition dumps for Goku and Vegeta.

I don't grade things in Anime Spotlight posts, so even though this is also kind of a Just the Ticket post, I won't give a letter grade to this movie, either. As an original concept with thematic weight and a story that makes perfect sense, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero fails pretty hard. But it looks so good (especially for the first fully CGI production in the franchise) and has such good character and humor and easy-to-follow fight choreography (this aided in many respects by the slower pace of the animation method) that I highly recommend just turning your critical mind off and letting yourself have a big, dumb dose of feelgood fun.

In other Dragon Ball news, I have been working on a Bardock side-story that takes place in the "What If GOKU Was NEVER BORN?" continuity. I like how it's going, and I plan to have it ready to post within the next two weeks.

I hope you enjoyed "Dragon Week," and I look forward to seeing the usual likes, comments, follows, ad clicks, and view increases as you visit me on Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook for the latest news on my content.

Ticketmaster,

Animeister, and

Dragon Ball fan,

Out.