Slight spoilers may 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.
Episode 74 was about wrapping up Gohan’s little filler of a side story revolving the Great Saiyan Man movie production, the egotistical actor Barry Kong and also finally finding out the true power of the alien parasite that Jaco is tracking on earth.
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
The pick up right where Episode 73 ended with Jaco firing his space ship’s giant cannon right at Gohan and Koko, thankfully the pair dodge the blast. Afterwards Jaco critiques Gohan’s choice of outfit and fills him in about the alien parasite that’s somewhere in town. Jaco informs him, that the parasite feeds off of the hate and rage of the host to get even stronger. The stronger it is, the stronger the power of the parasite will be. Gohan first says to get Goku and the others, but Jaco wants to keep it between him and Gohan instead and not let the whole universe know about it. Also Jaco blackmails Gohan into helping him due to Gohan being with Koko and not back home with Videl and Pan. Gohan easily agrees to it and flies Koko back to her apartment.
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
Once at Koko, Gohan helps her with her lines and we find out a bit more about her. Turns out that Koko’s music career is winding down and is blackmailed herself by Barry Kong to spy on Gohan and even make it seem like Gohan is having an affair with her. Barry even has the paparazzi stalking her apartment from an adjacent building — but the shades to Koko’s apartment are drawn. Koko reluctantly agrees to this in the flashback but instead of wanting Gohan to walk out the lobby door of her building in the early morning hours, she takes him to the roof and wants him to fly home instead. But before he can leave, she kisses him and in a panic Gohan jets off home. Unaware to either of them, Barry was waiting at another building and was stalking the roof, taking lots of pictures of Koko and Gohan, including the kiss!
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
Gohan makes it home super late and finds Videl is still awake and doesn’t think nothing is off with Gohan believing him to just have a long day filming the movie. Gohan is about to say more but then the doorbell rings and both wonder who could that be. Turns out it was Barry with the incriminating evidence against Gohan, Barry shows it all to the married couple but Videl wants none of it and tears up the pictures. She states that if something was up, Gohan will outright say it to her and hide nothing. She then kicks Barry out of her house and the egotistical actor marches back to his car. But unaware to him, the alien parasite was stalking him. It finally possesses a suitable host in Barry who then barges back into Gohan’s house transformed, shoves the saiyan away and then kidnaps Pan!
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
The transformed Barry then chooses the TV station in the middle of the city as the spot he’ll fight Gohan at, which they do. First the fight is pretty even but then Barry transforms into an ape like monster and gets the upper hand against Gohan for a bit. Gohan then turns the tide of the battle around, but Barry’s rage is growing and he transforms one last time into a giant Godzilla-like-monster and finally gets the advantage on our hero. Jaco also appears and is about to fire his giant gun from his space shift at Barry’s monstrous form but Gohan tells Jaco to stand down. He wants to be able to save Barry and not have to kill the actor.
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
By this time also, Videl makes it to the TV station to rescue Pan and then moments later Koko and the production crew come. Koko, starts being negative saying that Gohan can’t win but then Pan is confident and says that her husband will. The production crew on the other hand gets their cameras ready and start filming the whole fight — they believe that this fight can make the movie ten times better then what it is.
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
Barry eventually launches Gohan into the air and blasts him, sending him into the stratosphere. Gohan loses consciousness for a while but then hears the cries of both Videl and Pan, finally waking up and going Super Saiyan or as the film crew calls it, “Super Great Saiyan Man”. Gohan then files back to Barry and the two power up. But before Barry can fire Gohan launches a Super Great Saiyan Man Beam at Barry, basically a miniature-Kamehameha, that knocks the parasite off of Barry and freeing the actor.
Photo Source: Funimation/Toei Animation/Cartoon Network
Gohan goes back to his family and they embrace while Jaco quips that he never expected to end the day with the parasite captured and him holding a naked man aka Barry post-transformation. A day or two later, there’s a press conference for the movie itself with Hercule, Barry and Koko where Koko warns Barry that if he ever harasses or tries to out Gohan as the Great Saiyan Man that she will tell the whole world that he was the giant monster terrorizing the city.
At the very end of the episode, we find out that the Great Saiyan Man movie was a success as Gohan and the rest of his family Chi Chi, Goku and Goten too are walking out of the theater. Goten is an instant fan of the movie while Chi Chi asks Goku what he thought of it. He says he fell asleep halfway through it and that nothing beats being in a real fight. He instantly regrets his words and gets slapped by his wife. Elsewhere in space, Jaco is back at that ramen shop that started the last episode with and he’s sitting down having a meal. The parasite is safely contained and sitting in his ship, well that is until the glass on the containment device breaks. The episode suddenly ends.
For what’s it worth, for as much as this was a filler story this all honestly felt like a pilot story into a new series featuring just Gohan, Videl, Pan and even Jaco. Was it a bit melodramatic and a drastic change of pace compared to the rest of the Dragon Ball world, yes it was but it finally shined the spotlight on Gohan who is seriously one of the most forgotten characters in the entire run of Dragon Ball Super compared to his earlier years way back in Dragon Ball Z. So it was nice to see Gohan be the hero he was meant to be again.
My only grip with these past two episodes is Gohan’s constant need to protect this identity when all the other characters openly don’t and will free fight without anyone caring about who they are. But to be fair, this has always been my issue with Gohan. I just for once wished he can go back to be the badass that defeated Perfect Cell as a teen or went one on one with Super Buu when his potential was finally unlocked. My other more story centric issue was the fact that almost everyone had blackmailed each other by the end of the episode that I too felt blackmail by them.
Thankfully though, I think this was the last episode in this filler arc — unless the parasite shows up again next week — and we can finally get back to the main storyline of whatever the Zenos are planning that Beerus hinted at weeks ago during the mini-arc about Hit killing Goku.
Great Article! I actually watched this episode with my fiance and we loved it❤