Dragon Ball Super manga Ch.55-58
What a bunch of grap.
Okay, so last time, Whis went to talk to the Grand Minister about Merus. Turns out Merus is an angel, just like they are, and that’s why he’s been so secretive about his abilities. The problem is that angels are forbidden from taking sides in mortal affairs. They have to be impartial in all things. Beyond this, however, there’s no restrictions on what they can and can’t do. So the Grand Minister allowed Merus to join the Galactic Patrol, since it was a way for him to learn about mortals, but he’s clearly developed a bias from his time with the organization. He hasn’t violated the rule yet, but he’s come extremely close. Whis asks permission to deal with Merus himself, and the Grand Minister allows him to proceed.
So Whis shows up at the end of Merus and Goku’s training, when they’re preparing to fight each other at full power. That’s a bridge too far. Whis has trained Goku himself, obviously, but an actual battle goes against what the angels are supposed to be about. Also, Whis knows that Merus was planning to join the battle against Moro on Earth. With the cat out of the bag, Merus agrees to go with Whis, leaving Goku on his own.
Which would be okay, except Goku has to take Merus’ ship back to Earth, and he doesn’t know how to navigate.
Meanwhile, Vegeta has completed the first stage of his training on Yardrat, and Pybara is ready to show Vegeta how to apply what he’s learned.
But before they can start, Yardrat is attacked by Moro’s scouts, led by a Zarbon knockoff. Vegeta defeats him with ease, and he’s astonished by how much his power has increased, simply from learning how to balance his body and ki in the Yardratti way.
By now, Moro’s henchmen have reached Earth, but Vegeta still refuses to go back there, since he hasn’t learned a technique that will even the odds against Moro. Pybara agrees to skip Instant Transmission and show him something more useful for this situation, but he still doesn’t have much time to work with.
Meanwhile, the Z-Fighters have prepared for Moro’s invasion... just like they did in Resurrection F. This arc is just one callback after another. I can see why fans were so hard on Toyotaro while this thing was being published. Merus seems to be the only original idea in this whole story, and we’ve just learned that he’s been forbidden from interfering, so what good is he?
Oh, and Majin Buu’s still fucking asleep. Keep in mind he fell asleep right before the Tournament of Power started, and didn’t wake up until well into this arc, and then he fell asleep again right after he fought Moro. And now it looks like he’s on track to sleep through the rest of this arc.
So Seven Three goes after Gohan and Piccolo and he uses his copy ability on both of them, so he can match their powers completely. This would seem to negate all the training they did leading up to this battle, except Seven-Three can only use one guy’s power set at a time. So he can be as powerful as Piccolo or Gohan, but he has to fight Piccolo and Gohan at the same time, and they know a bunch of combo attacks that he can’t handle.
So Seven Three uses his trump card, which is to use the powers he copied from Moro, except this time 17 and 18 join the battle, and Seven Three can’t drain their ki because they don’t have any. Well, why doesn’t Seven Three just use Moro’s other abilities? Like how he made his allies stronger, or the way he could beat the shit out of Goku and Vegeta? Moro couldn’t drain Buu’s energy either, but he beat him just fine, so why can’t Seven Three defeat 17 and 18?
Here’s a bonus comic about Frieza’s whole deal during this Moro business. He decides he’s just gonna stay out of this one. I’m so glad we wasted two pages to explain that Frieza’s not going to do anything. Maybe we could have a two page comic about how Yajirobe’s decided to sit this one out. Or a comic about Bulma’s mom staying home to water the plants.
Seriously, fuck this Moro Saga. We started with this whole bit about how Buu was the key to victory, and that went nowhere, then Merus’ dad made him quit the story early, and now Frieza’s just popping in to tell us he doesn’t give a shit. Oh, and Moro keeps holding back because he doesn’t see any of the good guys as a threat, so most of the fighting in this arc has been pointless.
So Moro’s group splits up to loot the Earth of its treasures before Moro consumes its life energy. This means the Z-Fighters have to split up and tackle the henchmen. Yamcha fights some guys, Master Roshi takes on some girl henchmen, and Tien and Chiaotzu get stuck with an Auta Magetta knockoff. His species are vulnerable to insults, but Tien doesn’t know how to dis people, so Chiaotzu does it for him. Excuse me, but Tien was insulting people all the time during the 22nd Budokai. He was a colossal dick back then. Sure, he became all polite and proper, but it’s not like he forgot how to be a raging asshole.
Finally, Moro steps in to handle things himself, and Goku shows up soon after, when he gets close enough to Earth to sense Krillin charging his ki. He prepares to fight Moro, but Moro empowers one of his goons more and more, in order to force Goku to show more of his true power.
So Goku finally obliges by using Ultra Instinct. Specifically, he uses the incomplete version he had when he first discovered the ability. Goku calls this “Ultra Instinct Sign”, like it’s some distinct thing separate from the complete version of UI. That’s like saying half a cup of coffee is the “initial stage” of a full cup of coffee.
The manga has been doing this crap all along, and I think I’m finally getting tired of it. Toyotaro really, really likes showing off all of Goku’s forms, and now there’s so many of them that it’s becoming very cumbersome to go through them all. Super Saiyan 3 and Super Saiyan God pretty much became obsolete once Super Saiyan Blue was available, but Toyotaro seems to feel obligated to cycle through all of them whether it’s justified or not. Likewise, why would Goku ever bother using “Ultra Instinct Sign” when he knows how to use full-on Ultra Instinct? This wasn’t an intermediate power-up, it was Goku discovering a power and not knowing how to use it.
Anyway, we’re about halfway through this arc, and I guess we’re officially in the final battle, so maybe things will get better from here, but I’m not optimistic. Everything that led up to this moment has been a giant waste of time.
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[WIP] Dakkori - The Angel in Training!
With Merus now a mortal, another angel had the opportunity to live among mortals and learn about the universe they may serve in the future.
Dakkori is a young angel, similar to Merus. She is similar to her siblings of being amoral but finds mortals amusing. She enjoys mortal foods though her combinations would make chefs cringe and cry. (Who puts chocolate sauce on hot dogs...??)
She has been following the rules given of not interfering with mortal affairs and has been more taken this as a vacation. Her God of Destruction (in training) is Sogu. She's been active in Xeno!Trunk's timeline.
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Dragon Ball Super Manga ch.51-54
Dragon Ball fans will read a comic like this and be like “It’s about time they let the supporting characters do something for a change!” even when “something” is “getting clobbered by henchmen.”
So last time, Moro defeated everyone on New Namek and consumed the planet’s life force. Goku, Meerus, and Majin Buu narrowly escaped via Instant Transmission, while Vegeta hitched a ride on Merus’ GP ship, then hijacked it and made the pilot take him to Planet Yardrat.
Moro doesn’t particularly care what the good guys do from here, since he no longer sees them as a threat. He’s content to let them run loose in the universe until he’s ready to consume their power. In the meantime, he’s got his army of escaped space crooks, and he sends them to find worlds with plenty of ki energy for him to eat. Their first target is Zoon, the homeworld of Pui Pui and a bunch of crewmen from Babidi’s spaceship. The criminals loot the planet of its treasures, then Moro shows up to devour its energy. Then they move on to the next world.
However, this particular group of crooks is only feigning loyalty to Moro, so when they scout a planet, they just loot it and tell the others that it was a dry well. Then they get the bright idea to loot Earth, since they heard that it has a supply of “blue aurum” or “sky gold”, a precious metal used for spaceship propulsion.
Meanwhile, Goku spars with Merus because he’s curious about Merus’ powers. There’s a special training room in GP headquarters, but it’s not reinforced to handle Goku beyond Super Saiyan 3. Nonetheless, Goku is satisfied that Merus has powers and abilities that he doesn’t understand, which means Merus might be able to train him, which could help him refine his control over Ultra Instinct. Goku thinks UI could turn the tide against Moro, except he doesn’t know how to activate Ultra Instinct at will. Merus agrees, and takes Goku to a Hyperbolic Time Chamber where three days pass on the inside for every one day on the outside. The time dilation isn’t as great as the Chamber on Earth, but Merus is only interested in using it because he can cut loose in there without anyone knowing about it.
Meanwhile, Vegeta meets the Yardratti master who taught Goku Instant Transmission, a guy named Pybara. The Yardratti look different in this comic because I guess Toyotaro wasn’t sold on how they looked in the anime, but he still included the anime design, and wrote a throwaway line about how there’s multiple types of Yardratti.
Anyway, in DBZ, Goku said that they knew lots of neat techniques, but Pybara explains here that they really only deal in a single study-- Ki Control-- which can be applied in a multitude of ways: Teleportation, duplication, size changing, etc.
While Goku and Vegeta train, the Galactic Patrol struggles to deal with the unfolding crisis. They send Jaco to Earth to deputize more fighters into the Patrol. What he doesn’t know is that Piccolo has already caught the bunch who came to loot the Earth of its sky gold, and he failed to stop them from sending out a distress signal to Moro.
I think I’m up to Volume 11 of the manga. It ends with a bonus comic where Goku and Vegeta explain the plot of the Broly movie to Meerus.
Jaco briefs Dragon Team on the group of criminals Moro sent to investigate the first group’s disappearance. Moro doesn’t particularly care about the first group, but he figures if they got captured on Earth then, there must be some decent power there worth absorbing. Jaco knows the next group, but in particular, he’s concerned about an android called Seven Three. He has a copy ability that he activates by grabbing a victim by the neck. Once he does that, he can imitate the victims entire moveset for thirty minutes. They’re supposed to be ten days away by spaceship, but Seven Three last used his copy power on a planet of Sonic the Hedgehog guys, and it turns out they can make warp portals, so he arrives early.
So Seven Three manages to copy Piccolo’s powers, which forces Piccolo into a veritable stalemate. Then Gohan shows up and turns the tide, because he’s more powerful than Piccolo and he knows Piccolo’s moves so well. Seven Three tries a Hellzone Grenade on Gohan and he just slips out of is and catches Seven Three unaware.
Gohan manages to get the upper hand, but before he can finish Seven Three off, he switches powers. Turns out he can save power-sets that he copied earlier, and one of them was Moro’s. So now Gohan has to fight a guy with all of Moro’s abilities, and Moro made short work of Goku and Vegeta.
But the real Moro learns that Earth is where Goku and Vegeta came from, and that they’ll return eventually, and Moro decides he’d rather postpone the attack on Earth until then. So he orders his goons with withdraw and plans to return two months later. This is relayed to Merus, and then to Goku.
Meanwhile, Whis visits his father, the Grand Minister, and asks about Merus. Apparently he’s not what he seems, or something. I... sort of don’t care, to be honest.
This arc is really all over the place. The basic conflict is overly simplistic: Moro wants to eat all life energy in the universe and no one is powerful enough to stop him. And yet we have all these subplots going on, most of which don’t really matter in the long run. The fight on Earth was pointless, since Moro has nothing to win or lose, and then he just calls off the battle so he can do it again later. The whole thing with Majin Buu apparently went nowhere. I liked the idea of calling back to the Grand Supreme Kai, but none of it actually mattered. Now we’ve got this whole mystery surrounding Merus, but what difference does it make? He can’t beat Moro, and if he’s a double-agent, it doesn’t matter, because Moro has no need for such things.
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