Princes of the Universe
In the seventh century, at the dawn of the Tang dynasty, the monk Xuanzang made a fateful journey from his native China to India to recover—and then translate—an extensive collection of Buddhist scriptures. His voyage, recorded in a contemporary travel narrative, became the basis of Wu Cheng’en’s fantastical sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West, where the monk is accompanied by three supernatural escorts—a monkey, a pig, and a sand… thing—the most famous of which is the monkey, Sun Wukong. In Japan, Sun Wukong became Son Goku, and the novel’s cultural impact led to the creation of innumerable adaptations, homages, and parodies, including a certain manga and its anime adaptation. Xuanzang stepping outside of China was the small flutter of the butterfly’s wing that produced the hurricane—519 chapters collected in 42 manga volumes, four anime series consisting of 639 episodes, and 21 feature films, not counting TV specials, unauthorized adaptations, and corporate back-alley abortions, totaling over 9000—that is Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball.
It would require a special kind of recluse to have never heard of Dragon Ball, but one could be forgiven for knowing little about its actual content. By the time it had made its own journey west, from Japanese to American televisions (specifically, the second series, Dragon Ball Z), it had become completely severed from its literary roots. The reconstituted premise is as follows: The titular objects, the seven Dragon BallZ, are plot coupons that will grant their owners a wish from the mystical dragon Shenron. While this could, in theory, be a Tarkovsky-esque exploration of the dark desires of the human heart, it is more about spiky-haired dudebros and turbaned Martians doing battle with genderqueer Mewtwos on alien planets.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, the second film to come out of the Dragon Ball Super series (itself a direct continuation of Dragon Ball Z), does not deviate from this established formula, but it has something of a split personality. As it begins, it assumes the viewer does not know a damned thing about Dragon Ball and introduces us to the Red Ribbon Army, an evil organization dismantled by Son Goku in the original Dragon Ball series, and the Androids (the French dub I watched calls them Cyborgs; true believers call them Artificial Humans), creations of the Red Ribbon refugee Dr. Gero, who terrorized our heroes during an entire arc of Dragon Ball Z. The extended prologue also mentions Cell, a legacy villain who, until now, is among the few members of the Dragon Ball rogues’ gallery to have never been redeemed or killed, revived, and then killed again. The plot, such as it is, is simple: Magenta, a descendant of Commander Red (and torchbearer of the Dragon Ball tradition of characters with dumb, thematically linked names), and Dr. Hedo, a descendant of Dr. Gero, have re-established the Red Ribbon Army, built two new Androids—Gamma 1 and Gamma 2—and are in the process of reviving Cell, all for the sake of revenge.
As it progresses, the film abandons all pretense at handholding and becomes a strictly “for the fans” proposition. The first clue is that Goku, the main character, barely appears. It instead focuses on Goku’s son Gohan (a spiky-haired dudebro) and Gohan’s mentor Piccolo (a turbaned Martian). Goku is in the film, but his segment, continuing plot threads from the previous Dragon Ball Super movie, is so vestigial to the main plot of this movie that it honestly should have been cut. If you wander into the theatre without a doctorate in Dragon Ball—which I suspect was the case for the majority of Americans who inexplicably sent this to #1 at the domestic box office—expect to be confused as hell. This is also true of the extended final fight against the two Gammas and “Cell Max.” The crew on hand for this fight includes not only Gohan and Piccolo but Bulma, Pan, Goten, Trunks, Android 18, and Krillin. If you do not have a mental image associated with each and every one of these names, RUN. This movie has literally nothing to offer you.
Although it is steeped in series tradition, Dragon Ball Super Duper Hero also marks at least one important first. It is the first movie in the series to use a new animation technique, a hybrid of 2D and 3D animation. It is not the only film to go down this path. Studio 4°C’s Poupelle of Chimney Town (2020) did something similar. You don’t see it very often, and for good reason—it looks terrible. “PlayStation 2 cutscene” is, I think, the term the kids are using these days (specifically, a cut scene from the likes of Dark Cloud 2 or Wild Arms 3). The major liability is the parts that don’t move. This usually means the hair, but since it’s been gelled up to Everest proportions or hidden under headgear, it’s less of a problem here. But the muscles! The muscles look like they have been drawn on with a Sharpie marker. They never move!
Despite this, Dragon Ball Super Trouper Hero is inordinately proud of its animation, and the nonexistent camera loves to whip around its CGI models to show just how 3D everything is. There are some effective moments where this does look cool, especially when characters are flying (which is often), but many other moments—I am thinking especially of a car driving down a highway at the beginning—are less impressive.
You don’t walk into Dragon Ball blind. Apart from the animation, which put off even some diehard fans, what you get out of the movie depends on what you already think of the Dragon Ball franchise. During Dragon Ball Z’s initial run on American television from 1998 to 2003, it was the most popular program with males aged 9 to 24. For the entirety of this run—shoot, for the entire time that Dragon Ball Z was showing on American TV at all (until 2008)—I myself was a male between the ages of 9 and 24. Dragon Ball is not merely something from my past. It is my heritage. And I have never particularly liked it.
Part of it is Toriyama’s repetitive character designs, and while his work on the video games Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger are both iconic and formative parts of my childhood, the Dragon Ball cast, with their penchant for outsized shoulder pads, always struck me as just a little too silly. Most disappointing in this respect are the new movie’s villains. The two Androids are practically color palette swaps (Gamma 1 has one crest on his head; Gamma 2 has—wait for it—two). The human villain designs are uninspired and used for cheap gags. Magenta, the big boss, is a short, stocky man, while Dr. Hedo is a plump dork who is apparently paid in Oreos and/or Hydrox.
The worse problem by far pertains to story and pacing issues. Dragon Ball Super² Hero avoids the glacial pace of the show, where fights were drawn out over several episodes to prevent the anime from overtaking the source manga. The movie, by simply being a movie, deftly solves this problem. The fights are long, but at least they move. Nothing, however, could save this movie from the arbitrary plot developments endemic to Dragon Ball. One issue is the Dragon Balls themselves, which are typically used to reset the clock after mass casualty battles. They aren’t used that way here, but their short cameo in the film is one of the worst scenes, a pointless power-up segment that segues into fan service. The actual skills of the combatants, or the progression of the fights, depends more on how much runtime remains rather than any narrative logic. The main characters are badly outmatched until they aren’t. The distress of their family members/teammates is usually the impetus for transforming into pureblood Aryans (Piccolo can also Hulk out now, but since he is already green, he must choose another color) and pummeling the foe into oblivion. Villains are offered the choice of conversion or death.
The narrative, in general, is deeply broken. It begins with multiple feints at themes that never coalesce into anything significant. Dr. Hedo is obsessed with superheroes and imbues his Android creations with a sense of justice (hence the title). But this doesn’t really pan out, except to foreshadow an obvious plot point that has appeared a thousand times in Dragon Ball history. Another plot thread involves Piccolo’s concern that Gohan is neglecting both his daughter and his martial arts training in favor of his, uh, entomological studies. Gohan breaks out of this funk as soon as the plot demands it. This, at least, is revisited later, but it’s only so much boilerplate to get all of the necessary characters to the big battle, which is more or less the entire second half.
Contrary to what some reviews state, there is not much character development in this film (unless you count new powers, in which case there’s a lot). The characters are static, but this is not a shortcoming. It is almost certainly what is driving the film’s positive reception. Even though I have not watched an episode of Dragon Ball since about 1999, there was something a little heartening about seeing Piccolo, Gohan, and Bulma as older but basically unchanged. Piccolo was always a favorite, and it’s nice to have an entire movie revolve around him. There is also a genuinely funny character moment where he holds a cell phone like a Boomer:
The movie, then, is running on nostalgia fumes, and this includes its basic plot (old adversaries are back!) and the final opponent in the form of Cell. Cell Max physically resembles his older counterpart but is a rampaging monster lacking his forbear’s personality. The fear and trepidation that one is supposed to feel about the revival of Cell must be imported from their feelings about the original “Cell Saga.”
The one unambiguously positive thing I can say in the film’s favor is that its advertising is utterly guileless. This movie is exactly the one promised by the trailer. Whether that’s a good thing or not is entirely up to the viewer.
Gavin McDowell is a Hoosier by birth and French by adoption. He received his doctorate in “Languages, History, and Literature of the Ancient World from the Beginning until Late Antiquity” and is currently investigating Aramaic translations of the Bible. He is supremely unqualified to talk about film. For more of his unprovoked movie opinions, see his Letterboxd account.
It would require a special kind of recluse to have never heard of Dragon Ball, but one could be forgiven for knowing little about its actual content. By the time it had made its own journey west, from Japanese to American televisions (specifically, the second series, Dragon Ball Z), it had become completely severed from its literary roots. The reconstituted premise is as follows: The titular objects, the seven Dragon BallZ, are plot coupons that will grant their owners a wish from the mystical dragon Shenron. While this could, in theory, be a Tarkovsky-esque exploration of the dark desires of the human heart, it is more about spiky-haired dudebros and turbaned Martians doing battle with genderqueer Mewtwos on alien planets.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, the second film to come out of the Dragon Ball Super series (itself a direct continuation of Dragon Ball Z), does not deviate from this established formula, but it has something of a split personality. As it begins, it assumes the viewer does not know a damned thing about Dragon Ball and introduces us to the Red Ribbon Army, an evil organization dismantled by Son Goku in the original Dragon Ball series, and the Androids (the French dub I watched calls them Cyborgs; true believers call them Artificial Humans), creations of the Red Ribbon refugee Dr. Gero, who terrorized our heroes during an entire arc of Dragon Ball Z. The extended prologue also mentions Cell, a legacy villain who, until now, is among the few members of the Dragon Ball rogues’ gallery to have never been redeemed or killed, revived, and then killed again. The plot, such as it is, is simple: Magenta, a descendant of Commander Red (and torchbearer of the Dragon Ball tradition of characters with dumb, thematically linked names), and Dr. Hedo, a descendant of Dr. Gero, have re-established the Red Ribbon Army, built two new Androids—Gamma 1 and Gamma 2—and are in the process of reviving Cell, all for the sake of revenge.
As it progresses, the film abandons all pretense at handholding and becomes a strictly “for the fans” proposition. The first clue is that Goku, the main character, barely appears. It instead focuses on Goku’s son Gohan (a spiky-haired dudebro) and Gohan’s mentor Piccolo (a turbaned Martian). Goku is in the film, but his segment, continuing plot threads from the previous Dragon Ball Super movie, is so vestigial to the main plot of this movie that it honestly should have been cut. If you wander into the theatre without a doctorate in Dragon Ball—which I suspect was the case for the majority of Americans who inexplicably sent this to #1 at the domestic box office—expect to be confused as hell. This is also true of the extended final fight against the two Gammas and “Cell Max.” The crew on hand for this fight includes not only Gohan and Piccolo but Bulma, Pan, Goten, Trunks, Android 18, and Krillin. If you do not have a mental image associated with each and every one of these names, RUN. This movie has literally nothing to offer you.
Although it is steeped in series tradition, Dragon Ball Super Duper Hero also marks at least one important first. It is the first movie in the series to use a new animation technique, a hybrid of 2D and 3D animation. It is not the only film to go down this path. Studio 4°C’s Poupelle of Chimney Town (2020) did something similar. You don’t see it very often, and for good reason—it looks terrible. “PlayStation 2 cutscene” is, I think, the term the kids are using these days (specifically, a cut scene from the likes of Dark Cloud 2 or Wild Arms 3). The major liability is the parts that don’t move. This usually means the hair, but since it’s been gelled up to Everest proportions or hidden under headgear, it’s less of a problem here. But the muscles! The muscles look like they have been drawn on with a Sharpie marker. They never move!
Despite this, Dragon Ball Super Trouper Hero is inordinately proud of its animation, and the nonexistent camera loves to whip around its CGI models to show just how 3D everything is. There are some effective moments where this does look cool, especially when characters are flying (which is often), but many other moments—I am thinking especially of a car driving down a highway at the beginning—are less impressive.
You don’t walk into Dragon Ball blind. Apart from the animation, which put off even some diehard fans, what you get out of the movie depends on what you already think of the Dragon Ball franchise. During Dragon Ball Z’s initial run on American television from 1998 to 2003, it was the most popular program with males aged 9 to 24. For the entirety of this run—shoot, for the entire time that Dragon Ball Z was showing on American TV at all (until 2008)—I myself was a male between the ages of 9 and 24. Dragon Ball is not merely something from my past. It is my heritage. And I have never particularly liked it.
Part of it is Toriyama’s repetitive character designs, and while his work on the video games Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger are both iconic and formative parts of my childhood, the Dragon Ball cast, with their penchant for outsized shoulder pads, always struck me as just a little too silly. Most disappointing in this respect are the new movie’s villains. The two Androids are practically color palette swaps (Gamma 1 has one crest on his head; Gamma 2 has—wait for it—two). The human villain designs are uninspired and used for cheap gags. Magenta, the big boss, is a short, stocky man, while Dr. Hedo is a plump dork who is apparently paid in Oreos and/or Hydrox.
The worse problem by far pertains to story and pacing issues. Dragon Ball Super² Hero avoids the glacial pace of the show, where fights were drawn out over several episodes to prevent the anime from overtaking the source manga. The movie, by simply being a movie, deftly solves this problem. The fights are long, but at least they move. Nothing, however, could save this movie from the arbitrary plot developments endemic to Dragon Ball. One issue is the Dragon Balls themselves, which are typically used to reset the clock after mass casualty battles. They aren’t used that way here, but their short cameo in the film is one of the worst scenes, a pointless power-up segment that segues into fan service. The actual skills of the combatants, or the progression of the fights, depends more on how much runtime remains rather than any narrative logic. The main characters are badly outmatched until they aren’t. The distress of their family members/teammates is usually the impetus for transforming into pureblood Aryans (Piccolo can also Hulk out now, but since he is already green, he must choose another color) and pummeling the foe into oblivion. Villains are offered the choice of conversion or death.
The narrative, in general, is deeply broken. It begins with multiple feints at themes that never coalesce into anything significant. Dr. Hedo is obsessed with superheroes and imbues his Android creations with a sense of justice (hence the title). But this doesn’t really pan out, except to foreshadow an obvious plot point that has appeared a thousand times in Dragon Ball history. Another plot thread involves Piccolo’s concern that Gohan is neglecting both his daughter and his martial arts training in favor of his, uh, entomological studies. Gohan breaks out of this funk as soon as the plot demands it. This, at least, is revisited later, but it’s only so much boilerplate to get all of the necessary characters to the big battle, which is more or less the entire second half.
Contrary to what some reviews state, there is not much character development in this film (unless you count new powers, in which case there’s a lot). The characters are static, but this is not a shortcoming. It is almost certainly what is driving the film’s positive reception. Even though I have not watched an episode of Dragon Ball since about 1999, there was something a little heartening about seeing Piccolo, Gohan, and Bulma as older but basically unchanged. Piccolo was always a favorite, and it’s nice to have an entire movie revolve around him. There is also a genuinely funny character moment where he holds a cell phone like a Boomer:
The movie, then, is running on nostalgia fumes, and this includes its basic plot (old adversaries are back!) and the final opponent in the form of Cell. Cell Max physically resembles his older counterpart but is a rampaging monster lacking his forbear’s personality. The fear and trepidation that one is supposed to feel about the revival of Cell must be imported from their feelings about the original “Cell Saga.”
The one unambiguously positive thing I can say in the film’s favor is that its advertising is utterly guileless. This movie is exactly the one promised by the trailer. Whether that’s a good thing or not is entirely up to the viewer.
Gavin McDowell is a Hoosier by birth and French by adoption. He received his doctorate in “Languages, History, and Literature of the Ancient World from the Beginning until Late Antiquity” and is currently investigating Aramaic translations of the Bible. He is supremely unqualified to talk about film. For more of his unprovoked movie opinions, see his Letterboxd account.
Categories: animation, japanese cinema
