Episode 129 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on March 4, 2018 and titled A Transcendent Limit Break! Autonomous Ultra Instinct Mastered! in Funimation's dub, is the destination of the transformation born in episode 110. With no allies left and no way to recover, Goku truly stops thinking, and his body reaches the perfect form: silver hair and silver eyes.
Summary
Goku has awakened Ultra Instinct for the third time, and Whis warns that this is his last chance: breaking his limits up to the level of the gods wears down the body, and nobody is left to help him. The problem is the same one he had against Kefla: when he decides to attack, he thinks, and thinking jams the instinct. He tries the trick of charging a Kamehameha while dodging, but Jiren, who has studied him, blocks it with a small ki sphere and counters. Goku saves himself by using the flow of his own wave as a shield.
Belmod is calm: an incomplete Ultra Instinct only delays the inevitable. It is Vegeta who answers him from the stands: if he calls it incomplete, there must be something beyond it, and the Saiyans have done nothing but break their limits all tournament long. Shaken, Belmod orders Jiren to ring Goku out at once. Vegeta reminds his rival that he has entrusted him with his promise to Cabba and with Saiyan pride: he cannot lose.
Goku breathes deeply. At first nothing seems to change, but Whis reassures everyone: the Saiyan is focusing purely on the fight, every worry is fading, and his ki keeps rising. The heat he gives off reaches the stands. Jiren pins him on a floating rock under an endless barrage of punches that crumbles the ground; Piccolo and the others fear the worst, and Beerus tells everyone to shut up and watch. Then sparks start flying between their fists: Goku is shifting from defense to offense. A blow to the chest drives Jiren back, and a white aura lights up the arena.
Jiren realizes he must answer and concentrates all his ki into a sphere that he hurls at Goku. A moment later the Saiyan is behind him, holding the sphere in his hand, and crushes it. He dodges, strikes and overwhelms his opponent, while the Grand Minister calls it a super turn of events. Beerus and Whis have no doubt: Goku has reached the completed Ultra Instinct. When the light fades, his hair has turned as silver as his eyes.
Our take
After nineteen episodes of waiting, the series keeps its promise, and does it smartly. The transformation comes not with a scream but with a breath, and the episode is built almost entirely on Goku's silence: he does not speak a line until he shouts the Kamehameha. Everyone else does the talking: Whis explaining, Belmod fretting, Vegeta raising the stakes on his rival's behalf.
It is also the episode that resolves the technical problem opened against Kefla. Goku has not learned a new trick; he has stopped looking for one, and the perfect form grows out of that. The moment he appears behind Jiren holding his energy sphere is one of the strongest images in all of Dragon Ball Super.
Trivia
- Written by Atsuhiro Tomioka and directed by Masato Mitsuka, with Hirotaka Nii, Kōji Nashizawa and Yūichi Karasawa as animation directors. It drew a 5.5% rating in Japan.
- Akira Toriyama's design for Mastered Ultra Instinct Goku was revealed on February 21, 2018, less than two weeks before broadcast, in V-Jump and in announcements for the games Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and Super Dragon Ball Heroes.
- The Japanese title contains "Chōzetsu" and "Genkai Toppa", the words that open the titles of the series' two opening themes.
- The form is covered on our Super Saiyan transformations page.
Characters
- Goku and Jiren
- Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, Tien and Master Roshi
- Belmod, Khai, Toppo and Marcarita
- The gods of the exempt universes
- Beerus, Whis, the Grand Minister and the two Zenos