Hogan Reviews

The time has come once again to look at another “story arc” in the web series Super Dragon Ball Heroes, which as a reminder exists purely to promote the Super Dragon Ball Heroes arcade game and its collectable cards. Why do I bother? I don’t know, there’s some fun to be had wondering what Dragon Ball character is going to be randomly appearing next but other than that (and the fact I started so I feel compelled to continue) I have no idea why I put myself through it… Oh well, let’s take a look!

We pick up from the end of the previous story with Goku in an entirely new universe that’s identical to the Universe 7 we know but devoid of life, well, that is apart from Frieza and Metal Cooler who randomly arrive to assault our protagonist. “Xeno Trunks” informs Goku that destruction in that universe is happening to the equivalent buildings in the real one while the antagonist from two arcs ago, Hearts, appears and assists Goku, revealing that Demigra had sent him there from Hell to help as his fellow demon Fu has abused his power by creating this universe. Sure, why not? Frieza and Metal Cooler turn Golden and then a short while later they’re given evil-tainted Dragon Balls straight from the finale of GT to give them a further boost by our mysterious new masked Goku-haired antagonist. This plan fails due to the arrival of original Z Broly and yet another mysterious masked figure. Goku and Hearts decide to gather this universe’s Dragon Balls and wish themselves free.

Don’t forget to eat your fruit kids, look what it’s done for Turles!

We then cut to the Planet Vegeta which is randomly hanging in the air above Earth, where Vegeta, Turles and Cumber are fighting, the latter two saying how their Prince has lost his edge due to allowing compassion into his soul. Oddly there is a really great moment here when Turles, who has beefed up and grown out his hair due to over-eating Tree of Might fruit, falls to Vegeta and smiles, saying maybe going back to being a low-ranked Saiyan won’t be so bad under this Prince, which receives a smile back from Vegeta. How odd that a throw-away Z movie villain from decades ago should get an interesting character beat in a 2023 promotional advert anime… We then get the reveal that the mysterious masked villain is actually an alternate version of Goku Black, complete with Super Saiyan Rosé form, who has fought countless alternate copies of the actual Goku in order to master his body. Everyone fights for a bit before the planet is destroyed, everyone escapes thanks to Cell, who has also been brought out of Hell by Demigra (well, apart from Turles who tried to help Vegeta by attacking Black and was seemingly killed for it, the Turles redemption continues?).

Goku, Vegeta, Hearts, Cumber and Cell are soon joined by Gohan, Krillin and Androids 17 and 18 who were all transported to this universe by the group of Majins Salsa and Putine as well as Demon Shurum, all who are allies of Demigra (the latter being the one who freed Hearts and Cell from Hell). They take Goku and Vegeta to a Room of Spirit and Time to train while the mysterious masked man takes on Goku Black. In classic Super Dragon Ball Heroes fashion a group of past Z movie/GT enemies arrive, with the “mysterious” Dr. W revealing himself as Dr. Wheelo (well… yeah.) and transforming into a human-sized version of his mech suit from Movie 2 which is actually an interesting new design for once! … He’s defeated swiftly almost entirely off-screen while his allies are never mentioned again (that’s twice now Super 17 has been shafted!) but hey-ho. The mysterious masked man turns out to be a Saiyan, and a Saiyan with Goku’s voice actress no less (Masako Nozawa is doing over-time between two Gokus, Goku Black, Turles and this guy!) but he is defeated by Black before escaping upon the arrival of Goku and Vegeta, now all powered up. Black summons Ii-Shenron (or Omega Shenron, if you will) via a scroll but Hearts and Cumber take him on to give our heroes a chance.

This was literally the one screenshot I could capture that features Wheelo’s new form as the other brief appearances he was moving too fast… Fitting, I suppose…

The fight goes just how you’d expect given SDBH’s love of fusing Goku and Vegeta as Black transforms into what looks like Super Saiyan 3 Rosé and has the upper hand until our heroes fuse into Gogeta and get the win, shattering his mask which turns him to dust for… um, some reason. The mysterious Saiyan arrives with the Dragon Balls and wishes everyone back to where they were, which means Goku and Vegeta are suddenly back at the Universe Tree, where a young Fu awaits…

I guess I’ll get to the finale in the spoiler section, not that the plot is… really existing, but there you go. As for what happened to Cell or any other character? Pfft. They’ll appear when they need more cards.

Overall Thoughts:

Goku Black gets a new form / card moments before defeat. Still though: new card, that’s all that’s important!

The Space-Time War arc, which sounds really cool but is actually nothing like what happens, is another case of “bit of a laugh for fans but otherwise its poorly animated and throws plot out the window in favour of introducing as many characters and new forms it can to push card sales”. Same old, same old… *shrugs* I’ll no doubt watch the next arc though…

The youthful Fu reveals he escaped the “Time Labyrinth” by fusing with evil bird Doki-Doki while Goku and Vegeta are joined by Xeno Goku and Xeno Vegeta, who have similarly left the labyrinth. After a brief SSJ4 Broly interruption that ends with Cumber and Hearts appearing, you won’t be surprised to hear that Goku and Vegeta fuse to form Gogeta while the Xenos do the same and create Xeno Gogeta in order to take on Fu. Their foe’s power is such that he splits them back into their individual people and prepares to end things by teleporting the two Vegetas away but the Supreme Kai of Time arrives and puts up a barrier. She uses her powers to allow the two Gokus to sync their powers and fire a combined blast (so no Goku-Goku fusion I’m afraid!)

Screenshots so far have had a Saiyan that looks like Goku, a God in Goku’s body and Goku’s son, so let’s end with TWO actual Gokus!

The blast works but Fu starts to absorb the Tree’s energy, so Goku goes into the Spirit Bomb stance and absorbs it himself, giving him the power to defeat Fu once and for all and watch as he fades away alongside the Tree itself. The Kai of Time repairs the damage to the multiverse and all seems like it will go back to normal… but we then get a little cliffhanger of the mysterious masked man being revealed to be Bardock, who reports to a brand new female alien character… What a load bollocks. Hooray!