Episode 126 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on February 4, 2018 and titled Surpass Even a God! Vegeta's Sacrifice Strike! in Funimation's dub, is one of Vegeta's finest moments in the entire series. Against a Toppo who gave up everything to become a God of Destruction, the Saiyan prince proves you can win without giving up anything.
Summary
Android 17 refuses to quit in the face of Toppo's new powers. He hides among the rubble and even manages to bury Toppo under a collapse, but Toppo blasts his way out with destruction energy and bombards him. To avoid erasing him and getting disqualified, he charges an ordinary energy sphere, but Frieza reappears and blows it up. As payback for the beating he took, Frieza paralyzes Toppo and pelts him with boulders using telekinesis, without leaving a scratch.
Just as Toppo is about to throw them both out, the clash between Goku, Vegeta and Jiren reaches them. One of Jiren's blasts hits Frieza and Android 17 head-on, and the two Universe 11 teammates swap opponents with a single look: Toppo turns on Vegeta. He overwhelms him and erases his Final Flash with destruction energy. Vegeta points out that Toppo has gone from talking about "justice" to talking about "destruction". Toppo replies that a justice unable to protect his universe is worthless, and mocks the promise Vegeta made to Universe 6's Saiyans: unless he casts such nonsense aside, he will never win.
As Toppo's blast bears down on him, Vegeta thinks of what he cannot abandon: his family, Cabba and the others, his promise, his Saiyan pride. He pushes the attack back and goes on the offensive, while in the stands Belmod and Dyspo cannot believe their eyes. Vegeta promises an attack too powerful to be destroyed and starts gathering energy around himself. Piccolo recognizes it: it is the technique he sacrificed himself with against Majin Buu. Toppo answers with a giant sphere of destruction, but Vegeta's explosion overpowers it and engulfs him.
Toppo reappears in the stands, where Marcarita thanks him. Piccolo fears Vegeta has given his life again, but the prince is still there, in base form: with Super Saiyan Blue and beyond, he has grown strong enough for his body to survive the technique. Beerus warns, though, that he has used up almost everything. Android 17 also crawls out of the rubble, while Frieza is nowhere to be seen. Only Jiren is left, and he congratulates Vegeta on becoming so strong without casting anything aside, then begins to unleash his true power. Four minutes remain.
Our take
This episode sets two ideas of strength side by side, and does it with total clarity. Toppo reached a god's power by cutting ties with everything he was; Vegeta answers that he will cut nothing, and wins precisely because of it. It is the answer to the question that has followed him since the start of the tournament, and also a reply to Jiren, who will reveal in the next episode that he chose solitude.
The callback to the explosion against Majin Buu is the masterstroke. Back then, that gesture was a farewell, the only way for a repentant Vegeta to protect his family. Here it is the same technique, for the same family, but Vegeta survives: the most elegant possible way to show how far the character has come.
Trivia
- Written by Ayumu Hisao and directed by Takao Iwai, with Tsutomu Ono and Yasuhiro Namatame as animation directors.
- Against Toppo, Frieza uses paralysis and telekinesis, two powers dating back to the Namek days.
- In the manga, Toppo never becomes a God of Destruction and is eliminated because of Frieza, not Vegeta.