Spoilers will be talked about below, so please be sure to watch the latest episode before reading on! This review is based off of the dub version of Super that currently airs on Toonami.
We made it everyone, we’re finally at the end of Dragon Ball Super’s dubbed run on Toonami! I decided to do something special for the occasion and actually write up a recap/review for both episodes 130 and 131. So without further ado, lets get into it one last time!
In episode 130, Goku finally achieved his Mastered Ultra Instinct form and was easily able to break Jiren down, both physically and mentally. Goku was able to finally get under Jiren’s skin and crack his pride apart that the Pride Trooper had carefully built up over the years. This wasn’t easy though, cause at first Jiren was unleashing his full energy at Goku and it was truly a battle between the gods as the gods and angels in the stands looked on. But once Jiren was broken by Goku, it was just a simple matter of Goku delivering the knock out blow and tossing Jiren off the side. However, with such power that Goku achieved, it came at a grave cost!
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
Being that Goku is a mortal using an ability that only gods can achieve, the Master Ultra Instinct, his body had burned out at the wrong time. This reverted Goku back to his base form and he laid in a heap in front of a defeated Jiren, who then got up and blasted Goku off the stage! All was not lost though as a reemergence of Frieza and even, Android 17 showed up to blast Goku back onto a platform!
Episode 130 ends with Frieza and Android 17 about to take on a depleted Jiren, as Goku is out cold somewhere in the broken Tournament of Power ground, with only seconds to spare until the end of it all!
Now this all brings us to the dramatic conclusion of Dragon Ball Super, with Episode 131! Here we dive right into the episode without any opening video. We just simply get a recap of the previous events mentioned above and an episode title card. The episode itself is divided into two halves, one is the actual final fight and the other is the aftermath of said fight.
First, it’s Frieza and Android 17 against Jiren, who at this point is mentally broken and no longer a powerhouse he once was. This gives the edge to Frieza and 17 as they take the fight to Jiren, and actually have him on the ropes. It’s only once Top gives a motivational speech from the stands to Jiren, that Jiren finally snaps out of it and starts unleashing his full power. This then becomes too much for 17 and Frieza to handle, which leads Goku into joining in and telling 17 to hang back.
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
After reaching a truce between the two, Frieza and Goku double team against Jiren for the first time and start fighting in sync with one another. To the point where this overwhelms Jiren and both Frieza and Goku deliver a knockout punch. Which in turn sends Jiren, Frieza and Goku out of the ring and back into the stands eliminating them from the Tournament of Power and leaving 17 as the sole survivor!
In the stands, Goku tells Jiren that one day he hopes to face him again as Jiren and the rest of Universe 11 are erased from existence by the Omni-Kings. It’s at this point that the Grand Minister announce that 17 and the rest of Universe 7 are the winners, as he brings forth the Super Dragon Balls and summon’s it’s Grand Dragon.
17 finally makes his wish, but it’s not for the cruise boat that he mentions way back a bunch of episodes ago. Instead he wishes for all the universes that were erased to come back to existence instead and this wish is given to him. It is here, that we cut to all the different universes like 11th where Jiren seeks to build trust with his partners and hopefully make friends like Goku has; and to the 6th where Cabba and the others come back to life and Champa looks up into the sky thanking Beerus for bringing them back.
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
Back on the Univrerse 7 side of things. Everyone makes their way to the tournament floor and congratulates 17 on wining and making the right wish to bring everyone back. It is here that the Grand Minister mentions that everything that occurred is what was foretold by the Omni-King, to Beerus and the other gods. They then asked, what if the Omni-King’s are wrong and someone had not made the wish to bring back the other universes, to which the Grand Minister said that such a wish will be condemned and the Omni-Kings would have erased all of existence!
We then return to Frieza, who is reminding Goku that he wants to get wished back to life and that the Saiyan will need to uphold his bargain. But then suddenly Whis, interjects and actually brings Frieza back to life and fully healed! This surprises everyone, but Frieza even with his new lease on life still says that he won’t be turning good and will still continue his wicked ways. To which Goku says that if he does try anything, he and the others will stop him again.
From here, everyone returns back to their own universes as the universe 7 team — minus Frieza — celebrate Vegeta’s daughter’s birth back at Capsule Corp. Everything is going well and everyone is having a good time, until something happens between Goku and Vegeta causing them to buttheads and they fly off into the sky to spar. Here Vegeta tries to force Goku to enter Ultra Instinct, but Goku says that he can’t achieve it anymore ever since the Tournament of Power ended. Up in space though, Frieza is amassing his Frieza Force again and is most likely planning to conquer a bunch of planets once more. Finally we cut back to a rocky, mountainous range where Goku and Vegeta land after sparing in the sky, they strike they’re iconic pose that they once did many years ago in the Saiyan Saga as Dragon Ball Super ends.
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
While I briefly went over it, Epsidoe 130 was a real feast for the eyes as we saw Goku and Jiren really throwing out the kitchen sink to stop each other. The fight was fast and hard and is everything you wanted a Dragon Ball fight to be. But we didn’t really have much in the way of story, besides the fact that Jiren’s pride was the underlying theme, which eventually lead to his downfall. With Episode 131, while solid in the first half with the actual fight against Jiren and the furious synergy that Goku and Frieza had together, it was the second half of the episode that felt a bit more rushed then usual. We didn’t get to spend time with a bunch of the staple of Dragon Ball characters like Goten and Trunks and instead just got clips of them in the closing montage. Also it was weird how Goku and Frieza reached a truce that quickly over a span of 48 minutes in the Tournament, especially in this final episode, when they’ve spend a lifetime trying to kill each other. Sadly the ending of Super felt rushed when it would have been nice to spend a little bit more time with all of the characters before the credits started rolling.
Being that this is the final Dragon Ball Super review of mine, I just wanted to give a special shout out to everyone who has been coming back week after week for my thoughts on Dragon Ball Super. While Super’s story is over, there is still a bunch more Dragon Ball stuff to sink you teeth into. Like the movie Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which picks up right after the events of Super. And even the manga itself which is covering things well beyond both the Super anime and Broly movie did. Then there’s also the realm of video games too that are giving fresh new stories in the world of Dragon Ball, like Dragon Ball FighterZ, Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Dragon Ball Super Heroes and the soon to be released Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot! While the anime of Super is over, it’s still a great time to be a Dragon Ball fan.
Until next time, everyone. See ya!
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
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