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duhragonball · 1 year

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Dragon Ball Super 061

“Who are you?”

“I’m you, but stronger. Furthermore, I’m substantially more verbose, though you may find this difficult to accept.”

“Indeed, for I have amazed even myself on occasion with my propensity to ramble endlessly on a given topic. Though my diction flows like clear waters across a mountain stream, woe be to any who seek to quench their thirst for meaningful conversation, for I provide only minimal insight in the magnitude of verbiage I employ.”

“Yes, I quite agree! I have often noticed how my own thoughts and feelings seem quite trivial when diluted beneath the deluge of my interminable speech. Though I begin with a point I wish to make, I continue to belabor it, adding word after word, clause after clause, like a builder stacking bricks upon a great tower reaching up into the heavens. And yet, though the great temple is unmatched in splendor, the thought which it houses is so minuscule as to require only a tiny fraction of the space.”

“It is a remarkable similarity we share. Perhaps, it is a good omen. Yes, for if you are another iteration of myself, and we truly are of one mind in fact rather than spirit, then we both share the same dream of perfect justice for the entire universe. A world finally freed from the shackles of evil, released from the fuzzy handcuffs of corruption, and loosed from the kinky chastity belt of mortals, who stain the cosmos with a taint so profound it disgusts me to speak of it. And if our dream is to be fully realized, then what other outcome can there possibly be, save for a universe where only we two remain as its population? In such a divinely pristine creation, a creation restored to its rightful essence, our tendency to prattle endlessly will not be abnormal at all. For such holy voices as ours will be the only speech heard throughout the cosmos.”

“This is nice. I feel like we’re really vibing here. Do you want to go somewhere and get a coffee?”

“Oh, fuck yeah. All Gowasu ever let me drink in this stupid place is tea.”

Okay, so we’re fifteen episodes into this stupid saga, and we’re finally going to get the origin story of Goku Black. I probably need to write a separate thing where I compare the Zamasu Saga to GT, and I think what I need to do is like a side-by-side with the Baby Saga and the Shadow Dragons Saga, because those two arcs are the most similar to Zamasu’s whole storyline. I couldn’t decide which one would be more appropriate, so maybe a three-way thing to decide which is the worst. The point I’m getting at here is that no matter how bad and dumb the Omega Shenron fight got, at least he didn’t have a stupid secret identity on top of the rest of it.

Okay, so let me set the stage here. In Episode 59, Beerus destroyed Zamasu for attempting to assassinate the Supreme Kai of Universe 10. This action would have led to Zamasu securing Gowasu’s Time Ring, the Super Dragon Balls, and Goku Black. So Beerus believed that by destroying Zamasu before he could do all of that, then Trunks’ future world would be at peace.

That hope was shattered in Episode 59, because the next episode preview clearly showed that nothing had changed in Trunks’ world. And yet we still had to wade through Episode 60 to find out the long way. Lots of debate over how time travel works, and now we’re in Episode 61, and we’re still going over this shit. And the good guys will have to go back to tell Beerus he’s wrong, so we’re spending a lot of episodes on this one plot point.

So up until now, the good guys had believed that Zamasu had used the Super Dragon Balls to create Goku Black as a henchman, but that’s not it at all. Goku Black is Zamasu, having wished to swap bodies with the real Goku.

So who’s this green asshole who’s been helping him this whole time? Well, he’s Zamasu too. Specifically, he’s the Zamasu native to this timeline, just like Future Trunks and Future Mai and Future Yajirobe. When the “main” Zamasu successfully switched bodies with Goku, he used the Time Ring to travel to this alternate timeline, where he found his counterpart and recruited him for his plan.

Goku Black knew that this other Zamasu would share his frustrations with mortals, so he found him, killed his version of Gowasu, and explained what he wanted to do. Overcome with fulfillment, the other Zamasu embraced his alternate self.

All right, but that only explains how Future Zamasu got in on this bit. How can Goku Black be the same Zamasu that Beerus destroyed in Episode 59? Simple, it’s because of the Time Ring. At least, that’s what Goku Black says. The way he remembers it, no one was there to stop him the day he killed Gowasu. So he took the Time Ring, became Goku Black, recruited Future Zamasu, and made him indestructible.

I pulled up the subtitles for this, just to make sure there was no confusion, because this part has always irritated me. Beerus spent like an episode and a half insisting that his way would work, and that his divine status overruled the empirical evidence Trunks had witnessed over the years. So was Beerus just talking out his ass, or did he just overlook a detail?

The dub implies that the Time Ring protected him from the causality effects of getting destroyed in the past, but that doesn’t add up, because Zamasu wasn’t wearing it when Beerus destroyed him. But Goku Black is wearing the Ring now, and he has been for the past seventeen years.

I think that’s what the idea is supposed to be. Beerus’s whole argument was that he went to the Zamasu of a particular timeline, the only timeline where he met Goku and developed his obsession with Goku, and destroyed that Zamasu. In theory, this should have a “Marty McFly Effect”, erasing Goku Black from existence, no matter what he does in the future or which timeline he goes to. And because Beerus is a Hakaishin, this doesn’t create any new timelines, like when mortals change the past like Trunks has done.

Episode 61 seems to be suggesting that Beerus’ plan could have worked, except he didn’t know that the Time Ring protects the wielder from changes in his own history. I guess that property would make sense, because the Supreme Kai who uses the Time Ring would need a way to be able to observe and interact with future events without potentially creating new timelines. For example, Zamasu killed that Barbari warrior 1000 years from now. I’m pretty sure that change in future events isn’t “locked in” or anything, and if someone were to destroy Planet Barbari in the next thousand years, that wouldn’t create a second timeline where Barbari survived so that the one poor dope could get murdered by Zamasu on schedule.

And I guess it makes sense that Beerus failed to take the Time Ring’s powers into account, since only the Supreme Kai of each universe is authorized to own and use them. Zamasu never even heard of the Time Rings until recently, and he was supposed to be training to eventually assume the office of Supreme Kai. It figures that Beerus, a Destroyer, wouldn’t know everything about how the Time Rings work and what they do.

In short: If Beerus had any influence over the rules of time, it was canceled out by the Time Ring. And since Beerus only knew to destroy Zamasu because he saw Goku Black wearing a Time Ring, he can’t unring that bell. There must have been a version of Zamasu who successfully obtained the Ring and became Goku Black. Beerus cannot undo this. All he accomplished was to branch the timeline so that in one branch, Zamasu no longer exists.

In the other branch, Goku Black continued with his plan, as seen in this flashback. He used the Time Ring to jump ahead one year, gathered the Super Dragon Balls in Age 780, and wished to swap bodies with Goku.

This left Goku trapped in Zamasu’s body, and in this timeline, Goku has never met Zamasu, or even heard of the guy.

Then Goku Black teleported to Earth and killed the Goku of that timeline.

And he killed Chi-Chi and Goten too. No surprise there. After that, he went to the Universe 10 of Future Trunks’ alternate timeline, recruited the Zamasu native to that world, jumped ahead one more year with the Time Ring, and used the Super Dragon Balls a second time to give that Zamasu the indestructible body.

Then they went to the Future Trunks timeline and started carrying out their Project Zero Mortals thing. First they destroyed the Super Dragon Balls, then they started hunting down all the other gods in the twelve universes. This would ensure that there would be no one to stop them as they destroyed all other life in the universes. Wait, how the hell did they kill Jiren? And Broly?

Finally, the duo saved Earth for last, and they invaded one year before the events seen in Episode 47. Black says they’ve specifically reserved Earth for the grand finale, because they wanted to make the people there suffer the most out of everyone.

See, they thought about all this and decided that Earth is the root of all of this. Specifically, Trunks and his time machine, since his tinkering with history led to the creation of alternate timelines, which is what led to Zamasu being introduced to Goku in Episode 53, which resulted in Zamasu becoming Goku Black and kicking off Project Zero Mortals. So when you think about it that way, Trunks is responsible for all of this. If he had left well enough alone, Goku would have died of a heart virus and Zamasu would have never met him.

Actually, that doesn’t quite add up, but this post is running longer than I wanted, so I’ll try to explain what I mean later.

So I think I’ve covered all of the backstory stuff. Now let’s talk about the fighting in this episode. It sucks. Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks got their asses beat the last time they came here, and the only thing that’s changed is that they remembered to bring some senzu beans. Not that it matters, because the baddies quickly overwhelm Vegeta and Trunks, and corner Goku. They tell him the bit about how Goku Black killed Chi-Chi and Goten in his origin story, and Black stabs his hand-energy sword through Zamasu and into Goku while they talk about this.

And that gets Goku all fired up, so he raises his power and starts going on a tear. Okay, so there’s a difference of opinion on this scene.

On the one hand, you could say: Hey, cool, Goku’s had all he can stands, and he can’t stands no more, and he’s gonna kick some ass because he loves his wife and kids. I can’t dispute that. This is a factually accurate statement.

However, on the other hand, this scene is dumb as hell, because Goku’s powering up while he’s got an energy beam sticking through his liver. Remember when Vegeta got stabbed this way and it didn’t kill him, but it kind of took him out of the fight for several minutes? Then he got up, went Blue, and fired a Final Flash anyway? Then he passed out until he got a senzu bean later? Yeah, well, that was really fucking stupid, and now we have Goku doing the same bullshit, only faster. He doesn’t even wait around for Black to pull out the beam.

Also, what exactly did Goku do to turn the tables here? He was already in his strongest form, so what has he powered up to? He’s just Super Saiyan Blue Goku With a Hole In His Liver, and somehow that makes him stronger than he was before, when he didn’t have a hole there.

Like, he’s a house of fire in this scene, and it looks cool, I won’t dispute that. It’s kind of nice watching him dominate Black and Zamasu like this... except...

Black just suddenly decides it’s time to start winning again, and he turns the tables on Goku without even trying hard.

So why is this hurting Goku when the gaping hole in his torso didn’t? Also, is one of those beams going in his dick? Why doesn’t Goku just power out of this like he did before? He’s still mad about Chi-Chi and Goten, isn’t he?

See, this is why this saga sucks. They tried to do this “Power Awakened by Rage” thing like they used to do in DBZ. Toddler Gohan vs. Raditz, Goku turning Super Saiyan for the first time on Namek, Gohan turning Super Saiyan 2 against Cell. These are all classic moments, and this episode tries to borrow some of that magic.

Except it’s all wrong. Toddler Gohan ran out of gas pretty quickly, but he still hurt Raditz enough for the others to finish him. They didn’t just have Raditz instantly recover from all the damage that headbutt did to him. And Super Saiyan 2 Gohan didn’t just start getting his ass kicked when it was convenient to the plot. He never stopped being angry at Cell, and his power never wavered. Cell got stronger, but not strong enough to prevent him from getting his just desserts.

Here, I think the idea is that Goku Black provoked Goku on purpose, then allowed Goku to pummel him a while, because somehow that helps Goku Black get stronger, like he claimed back in Episode 49. So I guess he was just toying with Goku? Which kind of makes Goku look like a total geek here.

But the rotten cherry on top of this moldy sundae is Goku screaming at them before he attacks. “’Cause now I’m mad! I’m really really mad!”

Seriously? That’s what they came up with? “I’m really really mad!”?

I mean, why stop there? Why not have Goku shout “I’m really really really mad!”? It’s pathetic. I forgot what he said in the subtitles, but I’m pretty sure it was equally unimpressive.

Okay, so after they take out Goku, they move on to Vegeta and Trunks, and that’s when they try to make this out to be all Trunks’ fault. And this makes Trunks mad. In fact, it might make him--dare I say it-- really really mad.

In fact, the way everyone’s reacting, it’s like Trunks has never been this mad before. He may have surpassed a level of anger beyond really really mad. Can it be?

Trunks has ascended to becoming really really really really mad! Like, these guys killed his mom and destroyed his whole world. They also attacked his girlfriend several times. But when they said a bunch of dumb stuff about time travel, that’s what pushed Trunks over the edge.

So the episode ends on this new power-up, so I guess this is the one we’re expected to take seriously, but it’s a little difficult to care when we just saw Goku do the exact same thing and get his ass kicked. I mean, Trunks’ form looks like something new, sort of? But even if it were legit, they completely undermined this story beat with the whole Goku thing they did.

Okay, enough of Episode 61. Let’s try to push forward.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #goku #vegeta #trunks #zamasu #goku black #yajirobe #chi chi #goten #beerus #frieza #fuck the zamasu saga forever

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