Dragon Ball Super Ep. 70 Thoughts

It is the third episode of stand-alone, slice-of-life/comedy episode of Dragon Ball Super. And this one I will give my seal of approval for funniest episode yet. It's essentially an episode that, for the most part, doesn't really make much sense. But the writers from Toei decided to say 'screw it' and just write whatever is going on in that episode and mess it up a notch.

The plot of this week's episode of Dragon Ball Super is Champa challenging Beerus to a Baseball game as part of strengthening relations between the two universes. In reality, Champa was plotting to use the Baseball game as a distraction while he steals all the food on Earth. This is in spite of the fact that there already IS an Earth on Champa's universe (see what I mean with the 'not making sense' part?). Beerus accepts because he wants to win it. More importantly, there is a huge feast by the game's end.

So it's a rematch of sorts between Team Beerus and Team Champa, with Vegeta and Trunks joining Team Champa to fill in for the now imprisoned Frost and the missing Hit (who will appear in the next episode). Yamcha fills in for the missing Monaka. Trunks, Krillin, and Gohan also join in Team Beerus. Unfortunately, it seems Yamcha is the only one besides Whis and Vados who know a thing or two about Baseball.

It's a common meme among Dragon Ball fans of using Yamcha as the weakest of the Z Fighters and getting the butt end of jokes. It seems Toei caught wind of this and used it to the fullest, as Yamcha takes the receiving end of all the shenanigans everyone is doing in the game, with hilarious results. Yamcha's 'sacrifice', also gave Team Beerus the win.

Now because this is an episode that will not be featured in the Toyotaro manga, the Toei staff was totally lax in terms of the animation and writing of the episode, which can be seen with the naked eye. But I honestly don't mind this as you're not supposed to take this episode seriously, anyways. Besides, I had such a good time watching this episode that I wish Bandai Namco capitalize on it by making a Baseball game featuring various characters from Shonen Jump, with elements of the Kunio-kun/River City Ransom games for comedic effect. Having Yamcha break the fourth wall is a nice touch, as it's something rarely seen in a Dragon Ball series.

The Baseball episode definitely trumps the Arale episode from last week and is just a whole bucket of fun and laughter, of which I enjoy a lot. I do saw some people hating on it because it's not a serious plot-based episode, which is a shame because those people think Dragon Ball is like Batman or something, when it does not forget its roots as a light-hearted adventure series. Nevertheless, next week's episode features the return of Hit and is on really serious business regarding Goku. So if you want your action back, you're gonna get it.