Before I go into the episode, it's best for me to write a bit about Dr. Slump, as most of the Dragon Ball fanbase (especially those in the West), are not too familiar with it. Dr. Slump is an earlier work by Toriyama that became a major hit prior to writing Dragon Ball and is about the title character (real name Sembei Norimaki) who created an android named Arale to become his helper, which results into a series of misadventures for the little android. An anime adaption was made in the 80s, with a remake in the 90s. Arale has made a number of appearances throughout the Dragon Ball franchise, her first appearance was in the original series where she aids Goku in defeating Mercenary Tao (Tao Pai Pai).
It's worth noting that Dr. Slump, throughout its entire run, has always been a comedy series, whereas Dragon Ball started off as an adventure series before becoming an action series from Dragon Ball Z onwards. Dr. Slump also has its own set of lore completely separate from the Dragon Ball mythology. This is unlike Jaco The Galactic Patrolman, which is officially a spin-off of the Dragon Ball series as it's set in the same world.
In other words, because of Arale being made intentionally as a gag character, she has the advantage of beating down anyone in the Dragon Ball franchise for that simple reason.
Now that you got an idea about Dr. Slump. It makes watching this week's episode of Dragon Ball Super a little more sense. The episode has Dr. Slump beating Bulma at a Science Award for creating what Senbei calls a "Reality Making Machine Mk II", which is an anthropomorphic rice cooker who can materialize anything a person desires.
As Sembei celebrates his award, his old rival, Dr. Mashirito, who was killed back in the original manga, came back as a ghost to instill his revenge - by making a potion that increases Arale's playfulness by a hundred fold. This causes Arale to wreak havoc even to a point that she literally splits the Earth into two by simply knocking on the ground.
Vegeta is called in to defeat Arale, and much of this episode has Vegeta in the wrong end of the stick, as he gets pummeled quite humorously by Arale. This leaves Goku going Super Saiyan Blue against Arale, which cause worry as the two fighting would destroy Earth (even though Arale split it into two earlier). Taking cues from the final parts of the Kid Buu arc, Bulma uses a camera to address the worldwide audience to think of the most delicious food in the world at Senbei's invention to create a food that would get Beerus's attention. Beerus arrives and vaporizes Mashirito and is about to do the same towards Arale have it not for the food he ate being too much even for him to handle. The potion that affects Arale eventually wears off and everyone heads home, except for Vegeta, who is stuck in a branch somewhere.
I give this episode a 50/50 or 3 out of 5. On the one hand, it is more of a Dr. Slump episode than a Dragon Ball episode. As such, I was laughing a lot at the comedy and seeing poor Vegeta gets a mouthful of Arale's antics. My biggest disappointment is her fight with Goku, as other than a stalemate in Ki blasts, not much really happened. I really wanted to see Goku and Arale go all out, just to see how Arale can trump Goku at his full potential. Another disappointment is Beerus, who's only there briefly and almost instantaneously knocks away Arale and is on the verge of destroying her totally and easily had it not been for his diarrhea. I would have really preferred that Arale and Beerus get it on, for the simple reason this is more of a Dr. Slump episode. Sadly, but understandably, this was cut short due to the runtime.
It's a good episode and I enjoyed it for the laughs, but I really wish it was written and executed better. I highly doubt this episode will be featured in the Toyotaro manga as it is a stand-alone episode. In any event, it is good to see Arale again, and I encourage any Dragon Ball fan out there to check out Dr. Slump and see what placed Toriyama on the map.
As a fan of both show ( Dr.Slump and DB) and read both manga as a kid ( the shows is not localized in my country) , I'm glad this episode was created for whose have nostagila with both show.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if this is a Dr. Slump episode because the characters in Slump are not fully introduced and just appear in the intro. They only shown the main characters in Dr.Slump having a little interact with DBS casts because it is a DBS serie anyway.
But as you said, it is true that the time for this episode is too short and the characters in both shows didn't have enough screen time to interacts to each other.
I think maybe because this is only a 1 crossover/filler episode between to the main arch in DBS so this episode got a limited of time (yet, the animation even got limited-budget like ) to explains everything about Dr.Slump and this leads to eveyone's confusion (most countries not aware of Dr.Slump since the show is not localized except Japan).
And this is my negative point of this episode.I know Dr,Slumps is a gag series and things didn't make sense but that didn't mean there is no story. And then, the timeline in Dr.Slump actually did continue.At the begining of Dr.Slump is focus on Senbei's inventions and Arale's story but later of the series, Senbei's family have a kid and other fictional chapters keeps appear later on.They even shown the futures of characters ( but also kind of an excuse chapter to let the author ended the series on later volumes ). So when this episode 69 appears with the intro, I was susprised the characters in Dr.Slump are still the same and it is not ages at all. I guess maybe this is just crossovers episode so it is not related to the main story of both Dr.slump and DB so things didn't make sense at all but its kinda pissing me off.
Since DBS kinda getting back to the author's roots ( comedy.gags related), I wish if he finished DBS, and he can still have enough strenght. He could continues D.Slump and continues with their timeline. The shows have too much potential if have more actions realted like given character developments to Arale and more powers/villians to her.
One more thing, I don'n know why they don't shown the Tsun's family in the intro, they are my favorite casts in Dr.Slump and the material arts/actions from them kinda made me remind of original DB with all the material arts/actions related.
But overall, I'm glad that this episode was created so people can be aware of Dr.Slumps and other works from the author beside DB.
But if they make it as crossovers, I wish they should make a long episode speical or TV shows to let both of characters in both two show have more screentime and interactions.