Episode 44 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on May 22, 2016, opens a short three-part adventure that is entirely original to the anime. Trunks and Goten stow away in Monaka's space delivery truck for fun and end up on Planet Pot-au-feu, where a gang of criminals is about to unleash a power sealed away for a century.
Summary
On a distant world, an old panda-like alien is practicing kung fu when intruders arrive. Back on Earth, Monaka delivers more space sweets to Bulma, who asks him to help with an experiment. The delivery man still has a drop-off on Pot-au-feu but agrees. Trunks and Goten find the truck open and poke around the packages, from a sword to a doll that inflates to enormous size. The cargo door shuts, and when Monaka takes off he does not notice them. The two arrive half frozen.
The alien is Potage, an old friend of Monaka's, who is bringing him a space martial arts monthly. The intruders show up, purple aliens determined to seize the planet's "dormant power". Potage strikes impressive poses but is no match for them, and during the fight he loses, without noticing, a pacifier he wears around his neck. Trunks and Goten drive the attackers off, but their leader picks up the pacifier and captures Monaka, who fainted from fright. It is the key to a seal: behind it, in some ruins, lies the "Superhuman Water", said to multiply the drinker's power a hundredfold. Potage swears it does not exist and that whoever breaks the seal will be swallowed up. The leader opens it anyway, and screams.
On Capsule Corporation's security cameras, Bulma finds out where the boys went and asks Jaco to fetch them. The patrolman is busy hunting Gryll, a wanted criminal of the Sautéan race, but Bulma persuades him with blackmail: she knows he defaced a photo of the Galactic King. Vegeta goes with him. A recovered Goku is training with King Kai, because Whis has disappeared and he cannot reach Beerus's planet. On Pot-au-feu, Vegeta makes short work of Gryll's henchmen, who melt into a purple liquid. The liquid mass engulfs him, spits him out drained of power and takes his shape: a copy of Vegeta.
Our take
After a whole tournament, a miniature space adventure is a welcome break. The episode recaptures the spirit of the early series, with two kids getting into trouble out of curiosity and a wacky planet full of characters named after food, and does it with a light touch.
Its weakness is pacing: the first half lingers too long on the trip and the gags, and the real threat only arrives at the end. But the duplicate-Vegeta twist is effective and leaves the episode hanging at just the right moment.
Trivia
- Written by Yoshifumi Fukushima and directed by Kazuya Karasawa, with animation direction by Yūichi Karasawa, Yui Kinoshita and Tomoko Kusunoki.
- It drew a 5.2% rating in Japan.
- The names come from French cooking: pot-au-feu is a beef stew, potage a soup, the Sautéans come from sauté, and Gryll from "grill".
- On the truck's radio, a letter is read from a space delivery man whose pen name is "Grand Ponta" and who loves packages marked fragile: almost certainly Monaka, who explained that nickname back in Episode 32.
- It is an anime-original episode with no counterpart in Toyotarō's manga.
Did you know? The blue liquid from Bulma's experiment, which Monaka helps with in this episode, makes a surprise return in the Future Trunks Saga: it turns out to be time machine fuel.