The sixth episode of Dragon Ball Super, broadcast in Japan on August 16, 2015, brings Beerus to Bulma's birthday party. It belongs to Vegeta, who recognizes the God of Destruction as the being he once saw humiliate his father and spends the whole evening trying to keep him in a good mood. Until a pudding ruins everything.
Summary
On King Kai's planet, Goku has recovered thanks to a senzu bean and wants to rush to Earth, but the deity orders him to stay put. On the ship, meanwhile, everyone is having fun except Vegeta, who is anxiously waiting for Beerus. Just as he wonders where he has heard that name before, the god appears behind him. Vegeta lunges and collapses, paralyzed. Looking up at that face, he remembers: as a child he saw Beerus come to Planet Vegeta and plant a foot on King Vegeta's head for not showing enough respect. The boy tried to help his father and ended up frozen in place, just like now.
Beerus says he should have destroyed their planet back then and asks about the Super Saiyan God, but Vegeta knows as little as Goku. Then Bulma walks by: Beerus and Whis introduce themselves, explain that Vegeta has had too much to drink and let her show them around, with the prince crawling after them. Yamcha is far too casual with the god, and Krillin offers him "Russian roulette" takoyaki, with a single dumpling packed with wasabi. From Beerus' face, Vegeta is sure he got the spicy one and is already picturing Earth exploding; in fact the god picked a normal one and finds it delicious. The wasabi dumpling goes to Krillin.
The party goes on. The Pilaf Gang have eaten their fill, Goten and Trunks have a water-gun fight, Gohan and Videl gaze out to sea. Beerus watches the half-Saiyans and concludes none of them is the Super Saiyan God; he is about to leave when a squirt of water hits him square on. To calm him, Vegeta dives into the sea, surfaces with a giant octopus and starts making takoyaki with his own hands.
The god seems appeased. Whis tells him about a dessert called pudding, but when they go to try it they find that Majin Buu has grabbed every cup. Mr. Satan asks him to share, and Buu responds by licking them all one by one. Satan apologizes, but Beerus and Buu shove him aside and start fighting. The god dispatches Buu in an instant: disrespect is the one thing he never forgives. Vegeta realizes with horror that all his efforts were in vain.
Our take
This is one of the best episodes of the saga, because it strikes the right balance between comedy and tension. Vegeta swallowing his pride, cooking for a god and flinching at every joke his friends make is irresistible, and the memory of his humiliated father gives real weight to his fear. He is not just the prince playing the fool: he is a son who knows exactly what this guest is capable of.
The pudding gag is the same as in the film, but here it comes after a long build-up, and it lands harder precisely because we have watched Vegeta work so hard to prevent it.
Trivia
- Written by King Ryū and directed by Morio Hatano. It is the first Dragon Ball episode with several animation directors at once: Tatsuya Oka, Shūichirō Manabe and Hirokatsu Maruyama. It drew a 5.2% rating in Japan.
- Production was largely handled by Fūto Hirasawa's studio A-Line, in cooperation with Toei.
- In the film Battle of Gods, Vegeta distracted Beerus by singing the bingo song; on TV that becomes the octopus dive and the takoyaki.
- The line Beerus uses to startle Vegeta, asking why he should introduce himself to someone already dead, riffs on a famous Kenshiro line from Fist of the North Star.