Episode 52 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on July 17, 2016, is one of the tenderest episodes of the series. Future Trunks, who lost Gohan to the Androids in his own world, visits this era's Gohan and finds a very different person from the one he remembers.
Summary
At Capsule Corporation, Bulma works on the time machine with the Pilaf Gang's help, while young Trunks tries and fails to impress Mai. Vegeta trains furiously in the gravity room, thinking about what Black did to his family in the future, and Whis uses his staff to rewatch Goku's fight with Black. Trunks, unable to sleep, goes down to the lab. Bulma has figured out the fuel: the same blue liquid she created recently, the day Monaka helped her. Filling the tank will take a day, whereas in the future it took a year.
Outside, Piccolo and Krillin are filling in the craters left by the battle. Piccolo warns Trunks not to think of taking Gohan to the future: he has become a scholar and his fighting days are over. Trunks is delighted instead, because his master's dream has come true. In his future Gohan taught him to fight and died against the Androids before Trunks could thank him. Krillin suggests he do it now. Trunks flies to the university, the same one that is a ruin in his world, and waits by the entrance. When Gohan comes out, Trunks barely recognizes him: he can no longer sense the power of old.
Gohan buys him an ice cream at his favorite stand and invites him home. There Trunks meets Videl, Mr. Satan, who assumes he is famous in the future too, and little Pan, who squirts milk from her bottle in his face and then flies off, chased by Gohan dressed as the Great Saiyaman. Satan shows him a video of his exploits against "alien invaders", and Trunks babysits Pan with disastrous results. On the swings, watching Gohan play with his daughter, Trunks realizes he never saw such a happy expression on his face. Flying back, he understands what he is fighting for. At Capsule Corporation he learns that Goku, Beerus and Whis have left for Universe 10, where someone has energy like Black's. Far away, a green-skinned Supreme Kai pushes a tea cart.
Our take
An episode without fights that is worth more than many battles. The bond between Trunks and Gohan, only hinted at in the alternate-future stories, gets an emotional conclusion here: the pupil thanking his lost master in his own way, and discovering that in another time that man got the life he deserved.
The pace is slow but never empty, and the comic touches, from Satan's bragging to Pan's flight, lighten the mood without spoiling the underlying melancholy. The final shot, a green Supreme Kai with a tea cart, is a small, well-placed chill.
Trivia
- Written by Yoshifumi Fukushima and directed by Kazuya Karasawa, with animation direction by Yoshitaka Yashima.
- It drew a 5.0% rating in Japan.
- The blue liquid that powers the time machine is the one from the experiment in Episode 44, which Monaka helped with.
- After Trunks leaves, Videl wonders why he came from the future at all: Gohan forgot to ask.
- Funimation's dub of this episode aired on Toonami on February 24, 2018.
Did you know? There is a one-week gap between this episode and the next: Fuji TV did not air a new Dragon Ball Super episode on July 24, 2016, and Episode 53 aired on July 31.