Episode 48 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on June 19, 2016, brings Future Trunks back to the past, just as in the days of the Androids. But this time he arrives wounded and shaken, and the first face he sees when he wakes up is that of his worst enemy: Goku.
Summary
Standing over Mai's body, Black asks Trunks whether he is done saying goodbye. Trunks reasons that the enemy left the Capsule Corporation building intact, so he must know nothing about the time machine. He turns Super Saiyan but is quickly beaten. By throwing his sword like a boomerang and firing a Masenko, though, he sets off an explosion and reaches the machine. Black mistakes it for an airplane and arrives a moment too late: Trunks vanishes into the past, leaving the enemy baffled at how a Saiyan could disappear without a trace.
In the present, young Trunks goes to school with Pilaf, Shu and Mai. Pilaf solves a math problem for him with an explanation the teacher calls old-mannish, and Mai, to her companions' scandal, takes Trunks by the hand. At lunchtime, the time machine materializes at Capsule Corporation. Bulma reads "HOPE!!" on its side and understands. Seeing a young man who looks exactly like Trunks, the Pilaf Gang suspect he is Bulma's secret love child, much to young Trunks's horror.
Bulma contacts Whis with a communicator: Goku and Vegeta are on Beerus's planet. With no senzu beans on hand, Goku has to come back to Earth and then teleport to Korin. To be found from so far away, he asks young Trunks to power up as much as he can. Beerus and Whis, intrigued, tag along. At Korin Tower, Goku finds Korin and Yajirobe playing limbo and takes all the beans he needs. In the future, Black keeps searching for Trunks, determined to find him no matter what. At Capsule Corporation the senzu works: Trunks opens his eyes, sees Goku's face, relives his memories of Black in a flash and lunges at him.
Our take
The episode thrives on the contrast between two worlds. Trunks's escape is desperate and well staged, the young man using everything he has, sword and Masenko included, just to buy a few seconds. The present, meanwhile, is a school comedy, with Pilaf and his gang, back in child form, serving as a chorus.
The ending is the strongest part. The idea that Goku's face, a symbol of hope throughout the series, has become a source of trauma for Trunks is a powerful reversal, and his instinctive attack gives the saga a bitter edge Super had not shown before.
Trivia
- Written by Atsuhiro Tomioka and directed by Ryōta Nakamura, with animation direction by Masahiro Naoi and Masahiro Shimanuki.
- It drew a 6.1% rating in Japan.
- The Japanese title includes the English word "HOPE!!", the same word painted on Trunks's time machine.
- The matching part of Toyotarō's manga falls between chapters 14 and 15.
- Funimation's dub of this episode aired on Toonami on January 27, 2018.
Did you know? Black looks at the time machine and thinks it is an airplane: the detail that lets Trunks escape. Trunks was counting on exactly that: if the enemy had spared Capsule Corporation, he could not know what it was hiding.