Battle On!

The die is cast, and the battle begins!

The Gendarmerie army lays siege to Goku and his friends, but they’ll need to find a way to break through if they have any hope of reaching the castle, where King Gomah lies waiting. The sheer number of Gendarmerie is pushing their child bodies to the limit! Just as the situation seems hopeless, the heroes receive a helping hand from a surprising source!

This is the beginning of the end, the climax is in motion, and things are heating up! Shockingly, we do still get some chunky exposition this episode, focusing on an ancient artifact called the “Third Eye.” It doesn’t slow the action down too much though, and every character has a moment to shine as they put the beatdown on the Gendarmerie, while trying to avoid their own beating. I felt like this episode was too slow, and felt like a bit of a drag, that at times strained my sense of believability. However the episode is saved by a rewarding conclusion that ensures this is an overall decent episode of Dragon Ball DAIMA.  

The following review contains spoilers for Episode 15 of Dragon Ball DAIMA.

Plot Summary

We begin in the thick of the action, as the Gendarmerie were alerted to the presence of the heroes at the end of last episode. While they are initially pinned down by gunfire from the Gendarmerie air force, a few well-placed blows take a couple ships out of the sky, and triggers a rout by the Gendarmerie’s vanguard. The landing battle won, Goku’s squad heads to the castle.

The main battle is delayed as we spend time with Degesu and Gomah, as they make a most shocking discovery. The “Third Eye,” a powerful ancient artifact used to grant strong magic to Majin kings, has been found! Even better, the foolish Hybis is using it as a belt buckle, entirely oblivious to the true meaning of the eyeball. As Gomah sends Degesu to retrieve it, we are pulled into an expositional scene. The narrator explains how the Third Eye ended up in the hands of Hybis, having been lost by King Dabura during the coup of his father.

Back with the heroes, the battle for Gomah’s castle begins in earnest as a truly unmanageable number of soldiers bear down upon Goku’s group. They can do nothing but try to survive, unable to make much of an impact against the Gendarmerie horde. By the time the tanks roll in, the heroes are completely outmatched and do their best to stay out of the line of fire. At this moment of hopelessness, help arrives. Bombs rain on the Gendarmerie from above, as King Kadam and his elite forces arrive. With the battle evened, it is not long before the Gendarmerie army is shattered, and Goku has a free pass into the castle.

Analysis

The battle is underway!

I do feel as though the opening act was not everything it could be. I wouldn’t go as far as to call this a bad episode, but it was a bit of a letdown. Thus far, DAIMA has excelled in battles against crowds, and it has been a real delight to see Goku or Vegeta deftly dispatch one combatant after another. While a battle against the Gendarmerie army seems like a chance for DAIMA to thrive, and there are a couple moments like that, unfortunately a lot of the episode is Goku and friends taking cover and getting shot at.

Of course that isn’t to say that I would prefer to see Goku and friends mollywhop the entire Gendarmerie army with no difficulty, but perhaps they could have had a bit more success before being completely pinned down and rescued. That being said, the climax with Kadam’s soldiers was wonderful, and seeing the group work together to clear the army was highly rewarding, with a few more of those group fight scenes that I love so much.

Another aspect that I can’t get out of my mind, that is hampering my enjoyment of this episode, is a long-running problem I’ve had with DAIMA (albeit one I haven’t found the perfect moment to talk about until now.) It feels like the show is inconsistent about the exact limitations brought upon by the child bodies the heroes are trapped in. It feels like their bodies are weak when the plot calls for it, and it is ignored otherwise. Sometimes their child bodies seem to rend them helpless, and other times it is like nothing has changed.

In this case, it feels odd that three of the baddest dudes around cannot make any headway against the Gendarmerie. I understand they have weapons, but I still can’t buy it. I watched Goku single-handedly dispatch an entire squadron of soldiers with his bare hands in the third episode. Heck, I watched Goku dismantle another entire army as an actual kid in Dragon Ball! I understand the Gendarmerie are probably much stronger than the Dragon Ball-era Red Ribbon Army, but Goku AND Vegeta being so helpless felt unrealistic.

The Third Eye exposition dump was odd, but I kinda liked the novelty of it. Straight-up pausing the show to have the narrator drop some lore is not something DAIMA has ever done, in fact it has been excellent at integrating lore dumps into the show naturally. Having a narrator literally pause the action to fill us in on how Hybis got the Third Eye was jarring, but I think it worked precisely because it hadn’t been done before.

It felt like a bit of flair that was exclusive to this moment, and if DAIMA can end without repeating it, I think this will remain a memorable part of the episode, for how out of left field it was. It was also really fun to see Dabura again. I’ve always felt like he was an underutilized character, so I will never say no to seeing flashbacks of him.

Final Score

I’ve been harsh on this episode, and truly I do not think it is one of DAIMA’s finest, but it is not a bad episode. Like so often in Dragon Ball DAIMA, I simply feel like it is not living up to the potential it has. I find many of the decisions to be perplexing, and they got in the way of the episode being truly great. There were plenty of good moments, like Goku annihilating a Gendarmerie ship with his power pole, or Hybis shutting down a wannabe seductress with his apathy. I loved Vegeta taking down a group of soldiers with nothing but pure martial arts. I just wish we could have gotten a bit more of that stuff.

Regardless, this is not a terrible start to DAIMA’s climax, simply a whelming one. I look forward to seeing the party push further into the castle, presumably to battle with the Gendarmerie special forces. We will see if my hunch from last week is correct, and they are all bark and no bite.  

How did you enjoy this episode of Dragon Ball DAIMA? Do you also feel like the episode struggled with pacing? Do you disagree? Let us know in the comments below!

Featured Image: Toei Animation

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