Dragon Ball Daima

Episode 16

With how much of a mixed bag the last episode was on the action front, I was kinda hoping we'd get something cool this week to make up for it. Unfortunately I can't say that panned out, as the goal of rescuing Dende from King Gomah's clutches ends up being a little more anti-climatic than I would have preferred. Instead, most of what we get here just feels like set-up for the finale, and while a lot of what's on the horizon looks promising, it leaves this episode feeling like a bit of a slog.

First, we've got our showdown with the Gendarmerie Force, who try blocking the way to King Gomah's castle. Given how badly these guys have been overestimating their chances against Goku and the others, it goes without saying that the punchline here was them getting curb stomped, but the results were even more one-sided than I expected. The “fight” is mostly just these guys trying to show off their tricks while Vegeta either dispatches them with minimal effort or sends their attacks back at them. It's certainly a better display of power than what we got last week, but it kind of goes too far in the opposite direction. Sure, these guys were probably never going to be too much more than a joke, but I was kinda hoping we'd get to see them pose more of a threat, or at least lose in a funnier way. While the sequence is certainly intended to be funny, it's a bit too dragged out for the jokes to land as well as they're meant to, and it doesn't help that the animation here feels conservative compared to some of the other fights we've gotten. I did at least get a few laughs out of these guys taking their defeat in total stride and offering to share their potato chips with Goku as a sign of good faith, but on the whole, it's not one of the show's stronger moments.

Sadly, for as underwhelming the Gendarmerie Force ended up being, the confrontation with Degesu actually ends up being worse. The whole thing mostly amounts to him holding Baby Dende hostage and gloating about his actual plans of wanting to claim the throne of the Demon Realm for himself, only to go down from a sneak attack by Panzy and Glorio. I wasn't expecting a whole lot from Degesu as a fighter given how much of this show he's spent cozying up to King Gomah, but I was at least expecting him to be able to throw a punch. Just like the bit with the Gendarmerie Force, it could have worked if the execution was a little funnier, but the scene is similarly dragged out, and it kills a lot of the humor. Honestly, a lot of this episode felt like it was trying to pad out the runtime, and both scenes would have benefited from being shorter. As is, it's not terrible, but it feels like a bit of a letdown.

Thankfully not all hope is lost, as we do get a couple of moments that seem like they could make the next few episodes a bit more exciting. For one thing, the female Majin from last week who duped Hybis and sadly turns out not to be Degesu in disguise, shows up in front of King Gomah just in time to get paid for offering up the Third Eye. However, while she'd very much like to take her money and run, King Gomah needs someone to actually insert the eye into his head, and it's funny seeing him desperately trying to talk her into it, since she's too grossed out to put her hands on the thing. The allure of more money ends up being enough to convince her, and now that King Gomah's gotten a power-up, I'm looking forward to seeing if he'll get to be an actual threat, or just a bigger nuisance.

We also get one final bit of mystery when Goku and the others decide to obtain the last Dragon Ball, only to learn that Dr. Arinsu and her Majin kids have gotten to it first. That all more or less or less checks out, but what doesn't is Glorio's reaction to seeing that Dr. Arinsu has obtained the last Dragon Ball. Given that he's been working for her this whole time, this should all be going according to plan, but the fact that he seems genuinely disturbed says otherwise. Not only that, but despite having ample opportunity to slip away from the gang and deliver the last ball to Dr. Arinsu, he not only follows them into King Gomah's castle, but goes out of the way to help them save Dende from Degesu. All this implies that Glorio's allegiance to Dr. Arinsu isn't as clear cut as we thought, and his actual motives are once again a total mystery. At this stage I'm not expecting him to reveal himself as the true villain of the series or anything, but it's always possible that he might be getting his real orders from someone else. It's possible it could even be Neva, considering how similarly mysterious his own aid of Goku and the others has been. Whether or not any of this plays out that way is hard to say, but it's at least nice to have something to speculate about again. Regardless, it seems like we'll have to wait until next week to see if any of this results in some quality payoff, and after how slow this week's episode was, I'm hoping the trade-off here was worth it.

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Dragon Ball Daima is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.