Dragon Ball Super

Episode 108

Universe 7 is down three members in the Tournament of Power, and as they move on up to fighting tougher and tougher opponents, they'll need all the help they can get. Even before the tournament officially began, we knew there had to be some kind of business between Frieza and his Universe 6 counterpart, Frost. Neither seemed as though they were in total allegiance to their home universes, and there was always that old wives tale to keep in mind: never leave two Ryusei Nakaos in the same room.

Of course, that's only what the show wants you to worry about. I was saying from day one that the thought of Frieza being forced to play nice was too much fun for them to ruin it with a scrub like Frost, and I'm happy to have been proven right. This episode spends a good chunk of time teasing the question, "has Frieza betrayed us?" as he fights with Gohan and threatens to take him out of the running. The twists are pretty heavily telegraphed, however, which results in a fairly weak episode. The idea is that Frieza and Frost have a truce, but it was all just part of Frieza's ploy to get the upper hand on Frost. The second we saw Krillin in the stands going "Oh no! Is Frieza attacking us for his own agenda?" it was pretty easy to tell where this plot was going.

Frost and Gohan's opponent Jimeze (a guy from the alt-world version of Yardrat where Goku got his Teleportation technique from all those years back) are the two faces getting knocked out this week, and other than the Frieza/Frost truce meeting its untimely demise, not much happens. The arc continues to be consistent and the action looks fine but these are some meatless bones. We're in the eye of the storm where we've got a handful of really enjoyable episodes behind us, and the big one-hour special coming up next where Goku will face off against Jiren. What this episode has to offer in the face of that is pretty much zilch.

There's so much disparity in the writing of the show, where it can be unbelievably on the ball one week and then have an episode like this where the suspense and mystery are so uninspired, as if it came from a completely different series. The Frost stuff was clearly set up from the beginning of the arc, and yet it sticks out like a sore thumb among all the more interesting stuff. It's like they know the cool episodes have to air on specific dates, so they fill out the rest of it by pulling a list of scenes they kinda wanted to do out of a hat. It certainly doesn't make for a whole episode's worth of content. Certain subplots just seem doomed from the start.

Super is on break next week as it takes turns with One Piece in airing hour-long specials. I'm interested to see if this kind of special is just two episodes in a trenchcoat pretending to be a big deal, or if they were planning this months ahead of time in an attempt to make something substantial. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Rating: C+

Dragon Ball Super is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Sam Leach records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw