Episode 47 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on June 12, 2016, opens the Future Trunks Saga with a sharp change in tone. On one side is the present, with Goku harvesting vegetables; on the other, a future reduced to rubble, where Trunks flees from an enemy who kills his mother and who, at the end, reveals himself with Goku's face.
Summary
In a ruined city, an adult Trunks reaches Bulma's small lab. His mother shows him a container of liquid: after a year of work, she has gathered enough energy for a single one-way trip through time. Before they can leave, a dark figure attacks the lab. Everything is destroyed and Bulma is killed, while Trunks escapes, vowing to save their world.
In the present, Goku gets Piccolo to help with the harvest by passing it off as training, the way Master Roshi did with him as a boy. When Krillin lets slip that Vegeta has gone to train with Whis, Goku teleports to Beerus's planet, leaving Krillin to finish the job. He gives Beerus a head of lettuce, then, over cups of ramen, listens as Whis and Beerus talk about Zeno: he does not fight, but he can erase anything with a gesture. There were once eighteen universes, and he wiped out six of them. Instead of worrying, Goku can only think about the tournament to come.
In the future, Trunks meets up with Mai, who in his timeline is an adult and a fighter. He tells her about Bulma's death and about the enemy, "Black", who can now sense his energy. Mai offers him a can of food, their small luxury, and he insists she eat it herself. The plan is to go back seventeen years, to West City, where Trunks has allies. Bulma had hinted there would be a way to return, though he does not know what it is. On the way, the dark figure catches up. Mai sacrifices herself to distract him and is struck down, and Trunks finds her lying there, apparently dead. He turns to face the enemy. He looks exactly like Goku, dressed in black, with a single green earring.
Our take
After months of tournaments and comedy, Super rediscovers drama. The opening scene, with Bulma's death shown bluntly, makes it immediately clear that this saga plays in a different key, and cross-cutting between the carefree present and the devastated future heightens the contrast.
The final reveal is one of the best cliffhangers in the series: Goku's face on the enemy's body is a simple, unsettling image. Mai deserves a mention too, turned from comic sidekick into a brave adult: a change that gives Trunks's story new depth.
Trivia
- Written by Atsuhiro Tomioka, who scripts the saga's first episodes, and directed by Kōhei Hatano, with storyboards by Hiroyuki Kakudō and animation direction by Naoki Tate and Osamu Ishikawa.
- It drew an 8.4% rating in Japan, the highest of Episodes 28 to 53.
- The cat that approaches Mai looks a lot like Dr. Brief's.
- The matching part of Toyotarō's manga is chapter 14.
- Funimation's dub of this episode aired on Toonami on January 20, 2018.
Did you know? Black greets Trunks with "at long last": for the whole episode the enemy remains a shadow, and his face only appears in the very last shot.