Hogan Reviews

Sometimes films can be great ways to tell stories but other times you’re left wanting a bit more behind the characters and story, and in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero’s case… I wasn’t really left with that feeling. Hey-ho, I also wasn’t going to say no to this Manga version adding a larger focus on Trunks and Goten as teenagers as a prologue, and the extra couple of chapters worth of epilogue was good fun too, but the actual adaptation in the middle was nearly entirely just that: a straight adaptation. Obviously now that Akira Toriyama has passed the manga has gone on hiatus with no idea whether Toyotarou will continue the series without his idol’s story guidance it might be the end of the series entirely, and in that sense it does end on a very pleasant note. Let’s take a look!

As mentioned the opening three chapters are an extra prologue to the movie focusing on Trunks and Goten “doing a Gohan” and living our their regular teenage school lives while also fighting crime in transforming super hero suits hidden in their watches, dubbing themselves “Saiyaman X-1 and X-2” though spouting dialogue based on their favourite hero franchise “Clean God”. It’s honestly a lot of fun seeing them do normal things like play computer games, hang out with their school friends (all of whom are named after school utensils like Gohan’s friends were, oddly…) and even Trunks trying to ask Mai out on a date several times was good wholesome fun, even if the mental age gap is still weird. The other half of the prologue shines a little more light on the backstory of Dr. Hedo, the man responsible for the Gamma androids and Cell Max in the film who starts off behind bars, this shows him creating the Alpha and Beta line of androids and how he winds up in prison in the first place.

Trunks being a bit of a dick by getting his best friend’s hopes up and then guilting him out of it.

Following some clues about malfunctioning Capsule Corp droids Goten and Trunks arrive at a spooky mansion and have to fight off some Alpha droids, who aren’t actually droids rather they’re reanimated corpses. Not only do they handily defeat them but Trunks takes a data disc created by Hedo’s grandfather Dr. Gero for good measure. This leads Hedo to try to track them down, using their school uniform as a clue he inserts one of his Beta androids into their school to find them out, and eventually thanks to Goten casually lifting a car to retrieve a ball they’re found out. To Hedo’s surprise though Goten and Trunks also casually take out his Beta series of androids as well, but later at the school dance Hedo manages to get the data disc back despite nearly being caught and arrested by Mai (who has been following him via Capsule Corp) and Krillin (who is now a police officer, if you’ll remember!) Goten, Trunks and Krillin follow Hedo back to his lab, take out a “Dinodroid” and Hedo is arrested. He remarks how he’s already memorised the disc and is looking forward to creating the ultimate androids when he gets free…

The ultimate team up you can only see in the Manga version!

So that all sets up the Super Hero film adaptation. As I said it’s pretty much a straight 1-to-1 retelling: Hedo is hired by the resurrected Red Ribbon Army, creates Gamma 1 and 2, Piccolo finds them out after a fight with one of the Gammas, Piccolo and Gohan end up at the base fighting the Gammas while a young Pan looks on, Goten and Trunks arrive with Krillin and Bulma, Cell Max is unleashed, Piccolo achieves a new form via a Dragon Ball wish and Gohan attains the “Beast” transformation that gives him enough power to take out Cell Max. The only real changes are Krillin following the Red Ribbon Army guys on a motorbike early on, Vegeta and Goku still have their sparing match (that Vegeta wins!) in front of Broly but here Vegeta name drops Moro, Gas and Black Frieza as people who were stronger than him, all three are manga-exclusive so that’s no shocker but still needed to be mentioned, and finally Goten and Trunks fight Cell Max with their Saiyaman X-1 and X-2 outfits for a while before failing to fuse properly and ending up as fat Gotenks.

What’s most interesting is what comes after the movie adaptation, but I’ll get to that in the spoiler section. Overall I did enjoy the prologue with teen Goten and Trunks, it was quite the breath of fresh air after the combat heavy Granolah arc, but the monthly chapters of pretty much 1-to-1 Super Hero adaptation became a slog to get through. Again, the final three chapters were really fun as well and do end the arc, and possibly the manga itself, on a very pleasing high note. As usual Toyotarou’s artwork is top notch, which helps!

Overall Thoughts:

Orange Piccolo (or um, black and white Piccolo I guess?) has his monster showdown with Cell Max. Got to love that artwork!

The actual Super Hero part of this manga arc is rather dull once you’ve seen the movie, especially being released monthly, but I really enjoyed the prologue and epilogue either side of it, and those combined with great artwork means I enjoyed this a lot, overall.

After the events of the film Carmine, one of the heavies of the Red Ribbon Army, is shown to have survived and he tricks the Saiyaman X’s into helping him take out a great evil, but that “great evil” turns out to be Gohan, much to Goten and Trunks’ shock. Meanwhile on Beerus’ planet Goku and Vegeta are still sparring with Broly, who is still having a hard time controlling his power. As Gohan gets angry with the Red Ribbon guys Goku senses his Ki and heads to Earth to meet his son and asks for a sparring match against his new Beast Form. Gohan agrees and Goku takes him, Goten, Trunks and amusingly the Carmine and his Red Ribbon lacky all to Beerus’ planet. There Goku uses Ultra Instinct and Gohan turns Beast and the two have a battle, thrilling Broly and giving Vegeta more to think about (he is now remarkably calm about people being stronger than him…)

Goku (Ultra) Instinctively dodges Beast Gohan, but does later get hit when Gohan increases his power further, which takes even Beerus and Whis by surprise.

Eventually Goku calls it off and asks Gohan to fight Broly instead, and as they fight Broly begins to get a better grasp of his power, seeing how Gohan channels his rage being similar to his issue. Eventually everyone gets in on the action, including Goten and Trunks (after another failed fusion gag… one of these days we’ll get Teen Gotenks…) until they’re all tired out. Everyone (minus Beerus, Whis and Broly, obviously) decides to head back home to Earth and there Goku momentarily forgets his own granddaughter to the shock of everyone, only to then have a play fight with her, exchange heart-warming smiles and the everyone flies off into the horizon. The last few pages have no dialogue at all, which makes me wonder if the ending was a last minute thing and Toyotarou didn’t want to write his own script, the guy idolizes Toriyama so much I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t feel he was up to it without the man himself around (obviously the chapter’s release was too close to his death, but he was reportedly ill for a month or so before he passed…) Either way, it’s a really nice send off, it that’s indeed what it ends up being.