For the 100th episode of Dragon Ball Super, you'd think the show would do something a bit special. In a way, yes. The 100th episode is where we finally get to see Kale aka the female Broly in action in the Tournament of Power.
Now just a quick crash course for those not up to speed, the current arc of Dragon Ball Super has Goku and his companions engaged in a battle royale against warriors from other universes, where the last team members that survive has their universe spared from erasure by the Omni-Kings.
In the highlights of this episode, Caulifla, the fighting genius of Universe 6, finally faces Goku and demands that he teaches her the Super Saiyan Blue form, in return to activate it and take on Goku at full strength. To show that she's serious, she goes Super Saiyan, but with bigger muscles. This is similar to the form Trunks used back in Dragon Ball Z against Cell. Goku of course notes the weaknesses of Cauliflas's form and demonstrates Super Saiyan 2. Caulifla naturally fangirls over this and Goku's more than happy to teach her the form, much to Beerus's chagrin.
I think I can speak for everyone that in this brief encounter, Goku and Caulifla would make quite a couple if Goku never married Chichi. The two are just kindred spirits as Caulifla is more than eager to learn on how to become stronger and take on stronger opponents. You could say that Caulifia is Goku's true counterpart of Universe 6. Or to put it another way, Caulifla is a gender bent Goku as Fionna is to Finn in Adventure Time.
Unfortunately, this goody-goody relationship between the two is making Kale jealous, who at this point is unable to transform into a Super Saiyan at will and can only do so in extreme anger. While the show never addresses it, I'll put it out there and say Caulifla and Kale are a lesbian couple. subtly speaking. This is because the two share opposite personalities that draws them both together - Caulifla is what anime and manga fans call a 'Tsundere', where she shows off as being a bully, but is actually a kinder person on the inside. Evangelion's Asuka Langley-Soryu popularized that particular character trait. Kale on the other hand is a 'Yandere', which is the opposite of a Tsundere character. She appears shy and timid, but if you want to live up to old age, don't ever screw with her.
So when Kale sees Caulifla and Goku, no pun intended, 'hit it off', Kale's Yandere trait kicks in and transforms into a Super Saiyan with only one thing in her mind - kill Son Goku.
For fans of the character Broly, who only appears in the non-canon Dragon Ball Z movies, Kale is without a doubt his counterpart in Dragon Ball Super, quite literally. Furthermore, Kale has shown in this episode that she is far more powerful than Broly could ever be. This may upset some Broly fans who in their mind still places Broly as the most powerful of all the Super Saiyans, including Goku. Nevertheless, Kale has such unprecedented power that she forces Goku to go Super Saiyan Blue and throw a Kamehameha. But Kale just walks through it without a flinch.
As expected, some fans argue that Goku isn't even using the SSB form at full power and actually lowered the power of his Kamehameha as a way of 'testing' Kale's power. I've made a video months ago about that subject, which you can find in the video description if you want my detailed opinion on that. But my short reply is, given that the fate of Universe 7 is at stake, Goku is in no position to 'test' someone's power. If Goku were to lower his guard and power at this point, he will be pushed out of the ring, and in the past few episodes, he was very much close to that.
That said, it is true Goku is trying to conserve as much of his energy as possible. Whis has stated that as powerful as the Super Saiyan Blue form is, it eats up quite an amount of stamina. And since healing items like Senzu Beans are forbidden in the tournament, Goku as much as possible, has to avoid using the SSB form until the final stretch. Otherwise, Goku would be too worn out in the closing moments. However, Goku has been forced to use this form a number of times already the past few weeks, and has to use that form yet again to avoid being pushed out by Kale.
As exciting as the highlights of this episode may be, I am actually quite disappointed. For the 100th episode, I was expecting Toei to at least feature what we would call 'Sakuga', which are moments in which the overall animation in one scene or another is done with incredible detail. Toei has done this with Goku Black in the Future Trunks arc. But for this episode, you don't get any Sakuga and instead have moments of bad character design and animation. Not as terrible as the infamous episode 5, or what we see with Goku and Golden Frieza, but it is there and is quite noticeable.
Another reason I didn't like this is the writing and direction of this episode. Kale has Goku at her mercy and the latter's only option at that point is to go Super Saiyan Blue + Kaioh-ken, if not his yet to be revealed new power-up. Instead, Kale tosses Goku aside and rains a barrage of Ki blasts over the entire ring, destroying much of the place before looking for Goku again. Piccolo explains that Kale is losing control of her powers, but doesn't really appear that way and is more of Toei having trouble with Kale's rampage while making sure Goku doesn't get beaten up or eliminated in the process. Time constraints may also play a role as the show doesn't get season breaks and Toei has little time to polish things up.
And what is perhaps the most disappointing part, as Kale's shows off more of her power, Jiren steps in and knocks her out in one shot. All of a sudden Jiren shows he is far more powerful than Goku has ever faced previously and is eager to fight him right away, this is despite his beat up by Kale. The latter wasn't eliminated, but is out cold.
What I'm saying is that I want Kale to be around for a few episodes and engaged in multiple battles against other characters before finally getting eliminated. Sure, she wasn't pushed out, but it feels so anti-climactic that Jiren takes her out easily with one shot, and that's not even him at his full power. So at this point Kale's time is done and is no longer relevant because now we have Jiren who, based on this performance, can take out everyone else with very little effort.
On that note, I wanna go back to the part where fans are saying "Goku isn't taking Kale seriously" when he went SSB. So Goku threw a Kamehameha and Kale was unaffected, but when Kale is hit by Jiren's attack, she was knocked out. It's clear Jiren wasn't attacking Kale at full power. So if Jiren had no trouble taking out Kale with a small portion of his power, why did Goku struggle? If Goku is as strong as fans say he is, then Goku should have no problems in handling Kale even if he used a small portion of his power as a Super Saiyan Blue as fans claim him to be. That is not the case. Kale was going Berserk and Goku had to take her seriously if he wants to stay in the game. Goku didn't turn SSB to test Kale's strength, he used it because Kale is about to do some serious damage to him.
Kale wants Goku dead, so there is no reason for her to be holding back. Even Hit has mentioned that Kale would be disqualified if she kills Goku and Caulifia is trying to calm her down. Was Goku holding back with Broly when the latter wants him dead? Of course not. Was Goku holding back in his SSB form when he took on Frieza's Golden Form for the first time? No. In fact, in the TV version of DBS, Goku has said that he is keeping his guard up on Frieza rather than be excited for their rematch. Why? Because Goku knows Frieza is not someone he should take lightly. So he must fight Frieza at full strength. Same when he faced Merged Zamasu, and same when the Trio de Dangers are using their ultimate attack, and the same when Kale was out for his blood. Never mind the crappy writing from Toei.
If I am to describe this episode, it's like watching an episode of WWE RAW where they hype up the next big feud between their biggest stars, and though it has its moments, in the end, you spent 2-3 hours of watching a WWE program for virtually nothing at all. You'd complain about it, but Vince McMahon doesn't care as long as his shows are always at full house, high ratings on TV or online, people buying their merchandise, and saying New Japan Pro Wrestling is total crap, despite the contrary NJPW is a far better product. Same thing with Toei's handling of DBS. They don't care how bad it is as long as it's a ratings hit in Japan, more people buy the merchandise, and the fanbase thinking it's the greatest anime of all time that everything else is pile of bullsh--.
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