Episode 66 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on November 13, 2016 and titled Showdown! The Miraculous Power of Unyielding Warriors in Funimation's dub, is the final reckoning with Merged Zamasu. Vegito returns, for the first time as a Super Saiyan Blue, but the decisive blow is not his: it belongs to Trunks, who gathers the energy of the survivors and turns it into a sword.
Summary
Goku's Kamehameha holds, gives ground, then punches through Zamasu's energy sphere. The explosion disfigures the god: the right half of his face and his right arm turn swollen and purple. Goku attacks at close range, Zamasu grabs his leg, and Goku answers with the Kaio-ken, shattering the halo behind his enemy before collapsing, spent. The wounds, however, do not heal, and Gowasu works out why: Future Zamasu was immortal, Black was not. The mortal half is unbalancing the immortal one.
Exploiting that will take an even stronger attack. Goku suggests fusing with Vegeta using Shin's Potara earrings. Vegeta swore never to do it again, but there is no alternative. Goku wonders why the fusion wore off on its own against Majin Buu, and Gowasu explains that for anyone who is not a Supreme Kai, the effect lasts one hour. Vegeta is almost relieved: he only has to endure being Goku for sixty minutes. Vegito is born, powers up to Super Saiyan Blue and dubs himself "Vegito Blue."
At first Vegito dominates, then Zamasu floors him; as the god closes in with his energy blade, Vegito runs him through with an even longer one. Zamasu is no longer immortal, he says, because part of Goku is inside him. But that is exactly what the god wanted: to absorb Goku, the symbol of the gods' failures, and atone for the sins of mortals. Zamasu weeps, and his right side keeps swelling into something monstrous. Gowasu sees his pupil's contradictions in that grotesque form.
Bulma arrives in the repaired time machine with Mai, Haru and Maki, who returns Trunks' broken sword. He forms a blade of energy in place of the missing steel and flies off. Vegito, meanwhile, fires a Final Kamehameha, Zamasu survives it and, worse, the fusion breaks long before the hour is up: too much power spent. Trunks steps in and blocks the god's blade. Zamasu mocks him, but Trunks answers that helping one another to survive is what it means to be human. Energy from Yajirobe, the children and the refugees flows into his sword, joined by Goku and Vegeta. With a single stroke, Trunks cuts Zamasu in half.
Our take
It is the saga's most spectacular episode and the one that best sums up its theme. Vegito Blue is the promised fan service, and it delivers, but the series is smart enough not to give him the win. The final blow comes from Trunks and ordinary people, the very mortals Zamasu despises: the clearest possible answer to his philosophy.
Zamasu's monstrous transformation is a strong visual idea. The god who wanted to purify the world becomes grotesque precisely because he has absorbed what he hates, and he weeps without understanding why. It is one of the few moments in which the show tries to give its villain a tragic soul.
Trivia
- Written by Atsuhiro Tomioka and directed by Morio Hatano; it drew a 6.6% rating.
- Vegito had not appeared since the battle against Super Buu, and he still wears the same outfit.
- The one-hour rule contradicts Old Kai's claim in Dragon Ball Z that Potara fusion is permanent.
- Like the previous episode, it reuses music from Dragon Ball Kai.
Did you know? Trunks' sword, powered by everyone's energy, works on the same idea as Goku's Spirit Bomb: in the very next episode Goku himself makes the comparison.
Characters
- Goku, Vegeta, Vegito and Future Trunks
- Merged Zamasu
- Gowasu and Shin
- Bulma, Future Mai, Haru, Maki and Future Yajirobe