The fourteenth episode of Dragon Ball Super, broadcast in Japan on October 11, 2015, ends the duel with Beerus and with it the part of the series that retells the film Battle of Gods. Goku loses, but Earth survives anyway, for a reason few would have guessed.
Summary
Goku keeps fighting as a regular Super Saiyan and the battle drops from space down to the ocean. Beerus takes control: he cancels out Goku's Kamehameha and even seems to split into several bodies to hit him from all sides. Goku finds a second wind and drives him back up into space, but the effort drains him and he reverts to his base form. The god compliments him for forcing him to use so much strength, admits he almost regretted listening to his dream, and ends the fight with the same finger flick he started it with. Goku falls, burning up in the atmosphere, sees the faces of his friends and family and rises again, a Super Saiyan once more.
Beerus is outraged: why not let the duel end at such a perfect moment? Goku replies that he will not give up until he has hit him with every last scrap of energy. His Kamehameha and the god's small sphere merge into a huge, glowing star-like mass; Beerus hurls it at Goku, who manages to destroy it at the cost of everything he has left. This time he falls completely drained, and Vegeta catches him before he crashes onto the ship, grumbling that he lost despite the energy everyone gave him.
Beerus lands on deck and everyone braces for the worst. Mr. Satan's phone rings: it is Pizza, and the reporters, tired of waiting for the press conference, arrive by helicopter and start filming. Whis suggests going home, but the god remembers his promise: if he won, he would destroy Earth. He charges his attack, fires... and misses. He has fallen asleep on his feet. Whis explains that his master has gone soft from all the sleeping and anime, and that going all out without warming up wore him out. He thanks Goku for "playing" with him, advises everyone to stock up on pudding for the next visit and carries him off.
In space, Whis asks Beerus how long he plans to pretend to be asleep. The god swears he really did sleep, but admits to one lie: when he said he was fighting at one hundred percent, he was bluffing, to draw out Goku's true power. On Earth, Gohan officially tells his father that he and Videl are expecting, Goten congratulates Goku on being the second strongest in the universe, and Vegeta rejects a divine form that would only make him "second": he will surpass Goku, Beerus and the Super Saiyan God on his own. Piccolo, meanwhile, realizes Goku had been on the ship for a while, secretly watching everything. The Pilaf Gang rows off into the sunset, vowing that next time the Dragon Balls will be theirs.
Our take
The ending works because it turns the rules upside down. Goku does not win, Beerus destroys nothing, and the planet is saved by a god who would rather fake sleep than admit he has grown fond of these people. It is a far lighter conclusion than Dragon Ball Z ever gave us, and for that very reason it sets the tone for Super.
The best scene, though, is Vegeta turning down the Super Saiyan God out of pride: it is the seed of his entire arc in the series.
Trivia
- Written by King Ryū and directed by Morio Hatano, with Shūichirō Manabe and Kazuhiro Koyama as animation directors. It drew a 5.5% rating in Japan.
- In the film, Whis revealed that Beerus had used 70% of his strength; on TV the god himself admits he lied about the one hundred percent.
- The Japanese title ends with Kami to Kami, the film's Japanese title.
- The Spanish Wikipedia ends the saga here, with the end of the film's story; Toei's division extends it to episode 18.