The fourth episode of Dragon Ball Super, broadcast in Japan on August 2, 2015, two weeks after the previous one, brings back the Pilaf Gang. The grand prize of Bulma's bingo tournament is a full set of Dragon Balls, and the emperor and his two henchmen will do anything to get on board. Meanwhile, King Kai tries and fails to keep Goku in the dark about Beerus.
Summary
As Beerus and Whis travel toward King Kai's planet, their host tries to talk Goku into going to Bulma's party. Goku only wants to train and starts to find all this insistence suspicious.
On the ship, the party is in full swing. Bulma is annoyed that Goku and Vegeta have not shown up, and even more so when Krillin asks how old she is turning. Android 18 can think of nothing but the prizes and has her sights set on second place, the castle. Below deck, Goten and Trunks run through the kitchens into the prize room; the secret top prize is protected by a security system Bulma invented herself. Trunks disables it by pulling the plug and shows his friend the treasure: all seven Dragon Balls.
On a tiny desert island, Pilaf is fishing while Shu and Mai dig for a treasure that refuses to turn up. Once the security system is off, the Dragon Radar shows the balls very close by; in his excitement Pilaf drops the radar into the sea and loses the fish too. Trunks switches the system back on and the balls vanish from the screen, but Pilaf is sure of what he saw and makes the others row toward the ship. The boat starts taking on water, a shark attacks, and the trio cling to the hull until Goten and Trunks lower a rope ladder. Once aboard, Pilaf swears not to touch any food so as not to give himself away, but hunger wins within minutes.
At Capsule Corporation, Vegeta is training at 150 times Earth's gravity, which no longer challenges him. A secretary interrupts with a call from Bulma, who chews him out over the phone for not showing up.
On King Kai's planet, Goku fires a Kamehameha that circles the planet and comes right back at him. He blocks it, but the impact knocks down the freshly painted house. Exasperated, King Kai lets slip that this obsession with getting stronger is exactly why Goku must not meet Beerus. Too late: he has to explain who the God of Destruction is and hide Goku inside, just as Beerus and Whis appear in a puff of smoke.
Our take
This episode is built almost entirely on anticipation, and it shows: Beerus' arrival, teased for two episodes, slips once again to the final seconds. The filler is the Pilaf Gang, whom Super turns from old-school villains into three lovable losers, always hungry and always late. The sinking boat sequence is pure slapstick in the spirit of the original Dragon Ball.
The Vegeta detail is more interesting, as he now finds 150 times gravity easy: the show is starting to measure how much the two Saiyans have grown since Buu. And King Kai giving himself away confirms that no secret survives long around Goku.
Trivia
- Written by Makoto Koyama and directed by Ryōta Nakamura, with Seizo Toma, known for his thick linework, as animation director. It drew a 6.3% rating in Japan.
- Makoto Koyama is the son of Takao Koyama, head writer of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. His only earlier credit in the franchise was the Episode of Bardock special.
- In the previous episode Whis estimated a twenty-six-minute trip, the length of an anime episode: sure enough, Beerus and Whis arrive right at the end of this one.
- The collapse of King Kai's house recalls Dragon Ball Z episode 194, when Goku accidentally wrecked it as soon as it was rebuilt.