Episode 46 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on June 5, 2016, wraps up the Pot-au-feu adventure and, with it, the Universe 6 Saga. Goku takes on the duplicate Vegeta in an even duel while the real Vegeta slowly fades away. Once again, the most unlikely hero saves the day. In the final scene, a familiar face heralds the next saga.
Summary
Goku and the copy are evenly matched, and Vegeta, reduced to a spectator, gets annoyed first with Goku for fighting poorly, then with the copy for the same reason. Finally he snaps and tries to hit the duplicate, but his fist passes right through. So he demands the best from both: his copy has to beat Goku, and Goku must not lose to his copy. Nobody can tell whose side he is on. The two decide to end it and go Super Saiyan Blue. To buy time, Potage gives Vegeta the water's seal to keep in his mouth: it is the pacifier. Jaco tries to snap a photo, but his phone is dead.
Potage finally remembers a detail from a hundred years ago: destroying the core inside the main body will weaken all the copies. The main body was the duplicate Gryll, beaten by the copy earlier, but the ooze is no longer where it fell. It is lurking nearby and attacks the group, trying to absorb Trunks and Goten while ignoring Jaco, who takes offense. Trunks runs to his father, now almost invisible, and the ooze follows. Vegeta throws himself in front of his son.
Just then Monaka, out cold until now, wakes up and accidentally steps on the ooze's tail, crushing the core. The copy warps and Goku destroys it with a Kamehameha. Vegeta returns to normal and Potage seals the water away again. Back on Earth, Goku is impressed by Monaka's feat, and Vegeta learns to his horror that he spent the whole time sucking on a pacifier: he would rather have died. Goku replies that then they could never have fought again, and the two promise each other a rematch. Meanwhile, in a ruined future, an adult Trunks flees from something.
Our take
The conclusion of the Pot-au-feu arc is the best of its three episodes. Vegeta cheering for both sides, unable to bear watching himself lose, is a comic idea that says a lot about him, and the pacifier gag is its perfect counterpoint.
Monaka saving the day by stepping on a core by accident is a consistent end to his running joke, even if the trick is starting to wear thin. The last few seconds, though, abruptly change the tone: the devastated future and Trunks's return announce a much darker story.
Trivia
- Written by Yoshifumi Fukushima and directed by Masanori Satō, with animation direction by Yoshitaka Yashima.
- It drew a 5.9% rating in Japan.
- Videl points out that even Pan has outgrown her pacifier, adding to Vegeta's embarrassment.
- Only the final scene with Future Trunks has a counterpart in Toyotarō's manga, in the opening pages of chapter 14.
- It is the last episode of the Universe 6 Saga.
Did you know? When Trunks scolds him for not mentioning the core sooner, Potage blames his age: it is hard, he says, to remember details from a hundred years ago.
Characters
- Goku, Vegeta, the duplicate Vegeta, Trunks, Goten and Future Trunks
- Monaka, Jaco and Potage
- Bulma, Chi-Chi and Videl