Episode 69 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on December 4, 2016 and titled Goku vs. Arale! An Off-the-Wall Battle Spells the End of the Earth?! in Funimation's dub, is an open crossover with Dr. Slump, Akira Toriyama's other great hit. Arale Norimaki crosses paths with Goku again nearly thirty years after their first meeting on screen, and she brings cartoon logic with her, where strength is irrelevant and anything goes.
Summary
It is an ordinary day in Penguin Village: Arale greets everyone and wrecks the police car as usual. Senbei leaves for West City without her, because he is a finalist for the World Invention Award, hosted by Mr. Satan. Bulma, Vegeta and Trunks are in the audience, while Goku works security at the entrance, a part-time job Satan arranged, and gets bored immediately.
Senbei wins with the Reality Machine Mark 2, a sort of robotic pot that creates whatever the user imagines; its first output is a dirty magazine. Then a voice from the wings starts chanting "rejected, rejected": it is Dr. Mashirito, Senbei's old nemesis, back from Hell as a ghost. He has given Arale and the two Gatchans a drug that makes them a hundred times more eager to play. Mr. Satan tries "playing" with her and goes flying, then asks Vegeta for help.
Vegeta soon realizes he is facing a gag character, for whom the normal rules do not apply. He shouts "Look, a UFO!" and sucker-punches her: Arale's head flies off, but she simply puts it back on. Then she splits the Earth in half and headbutts him into the far distance. That headbutt jogs Goku's memory: he and Arale recognize each other and start a playful fight, Goku in Super Saiyan Blue, Arale with her "N'cha" cannon against his Kamehameha.
Arale announces her next shot will be a hundred times stronger. Bulma wants to call Beerus, but Whis does not dare wake him. Senbei and Trunks try to stop Mashirito, who is a ghost after all; then, to distract Arale, the machine produces some poop. Bulma asks viewers watching on TV to imagine the most delicious food possible: the pot creates a small dark ball that wakes Beerus on the far side of space. The god arrives, erases Mashirito, gulps down the ball and gets ready to destroy Arale too, but a sudden stomachache sends him home. Arale waves goodbye to Goku, promising a rematch. Vegeta, dangling from a branch on the other side of the planet, swears never to fight a gag character again.
Our take
It is one of Super's funniest episodes, and it works because it explains nothing. Arale does not have a power level, she has a different physics, and Vegeta figuring that out midway through becomes the perfect meta commentary. The show laughs at itself without malice.
For Dr. Slump fans the details are a gift: the Gatchans eating the building, Mashirito, the village itself. For everyone else it is a brisk comedy with a classic cartoon ending. The poop gag in a wish-granting machine is pure Penguin Village.
Trivia
- Written by King Ryū and directed by Hideki Hiroshima; its 7.1% rating is among the saga's highest.
- It is Dr. Mashirito's first appearance in a Dragon Ball anime, and Beerus destroys even his ghost.
- Goku and Arale first met during the Red Ribbon Army arc, in episodes 55-57 of Dragon Ball.
- Vegeta's final line echoes his cameo in the gag manga Nekomajin, where he vowed never to appear in that kind of story again.
Did you know? Mashirito is a caricature of Kazuhiko Torishima, the editor who discovered Toriyama; in the episode, Senbei even checks a volume of Dr. Slump to confirm he died.