DRAGON BALL SUPER VOLUME 8

Story by: Akira Toriyama | Art by: Toyotarou

The eighth DRAGON BALL SUPER installments opens with a focus on Freeza battling Caulifla and Kale, two of the Saiyans from Universe 6. Caulifla, having learned from Cabba how to go Super Saiyan, puts up a strong showing against Freeza, until the villain changes to his ultimate form -- Golden Freeza. Interestingly, however the RESURRECTION "F" storyline went in the manga (remember, we have no idea since it was inexplicably skipped with the weak reason that readers should just go watch the movie instead), it's clear that it was at least partially different from the anime -- because while Freeza revealed his Golden form in both the movie and TV versions of that story, here everyone (including Goku) is surprised by it.

When Golden Freeza gains the upper hand on Caulifla, her friend Kale steps in, revealing a "new" Super Saiyan form no one has ever seen. This is, famously, the first canon version of the "Legendary Super Saiyan" power-up achieved by Broly in the 1990s DBZ movies -- all of which existed outside of the official continuity. Kale begins beating on Freeza to the point that Goku has to step in and save him, and the pair briefly battles her together until she zips away from the fight on a rampage.

Kale singel-handedly completes the elimnation of four universes, but her mindlessness takes a toll and Universe 11's Pride Troopers work together to subdue her. Caulifla, meanwhile, reveals that she stole the Potara earrings from her universe's Kaioshin. When Champa sees this from the stands, he orders Caulfila to put on one earring and get the other on Kale. With the help (and sacrifice) of Cabba, an earring is placed on Kale, and Caulifla dons the other. The pair fuses into a being called Kefla, who promptly wipes out the majority of the Pride Troopers -- then Gohan steps in to challenge her, resulting in a double knockout which eliminates Gohan and sees Universe 6 wiped out.

Gohan reveals during their fight that he no longer goes Super Saiyan, which seems to be a reference to his so-called "Mystic" form power-up from late in DRAGON BALL Z. Though interestingly, the manga has him state that he has stopped relying on his "Saiyan blood" and instead has chosen to "keep evolving as a human." I'm probably reading between the lines too much -- however he chooses to frame his evolution as a fighter, he is and always will be half-Saiyan and have the inherent benefits of that heritage -- but in any case, this feels like Toriyama and/or Toyotarou providing a "back door" for the human characters to continue to fight alongside the all-powerful Saiyans. Of course I doubt that will ever be the case, but you never know.

At any rate, there is a bit of good news for the humans, here. Master Roshi takes out one of the Pride Troopers, then goes into teacher mode, reminding Goku that it's not enough to simply be strong -- he must be fast, as well. Roshi then demonstrates by staging an attack on Jiren, much to everyone's surprise. Of course Jiren defeat's Roshi, knocking him out of the tournament, but not before he shows Goku that even an old-timer can evade a few of Jiren's attacks. Beerus and Whis briefly wonder if Roshi has mastered the fabled "Ultra Instinct" technique until he's defeated, but Roshi's example leads Goku to demonstrate Ultra Instinct himself, for just a moment.

This development leads Vegeta to reach a new plateau of power as well, and he engages Jiren while Goku recovers. Meanwhile, Freeza and Android 17 go up against the remaining Pride Troopers, Top and Dyspo. When Vegeta burns himself out, Goku pulls him away from Jiren, who heads off to his allies' aid. Jiren battles Freeza and 17, with 17 realizing there's only one way to win -- by self-destructing. But even this gesture isn't enough to scratch Jiren. Jiren then takes Top and Dyspo out of the fight himself, promising to win alone. Goke reattains the Ultra Instinct form, and the fight continues.

This volume also contains a short little backup story set just before the torunament's start, in which Goten, Trunks, and Krillin and 18's daughter, Marron, are sent to Android 17's island to fill in for him as park rangers until his return. No sooner are the three left alone, than they're attacked by a group of Cell Juniors! The Saiyan kids hold out long enough for the Juniors to recognize their ranger patches, which leads the creatures to depart. At the same time, as they fly away from the island, 17 explains to 18 and Krillin that he found the Cell Juniors on the island years ago and tamed them to respect rangers.

The story ends with a little text box explaining that the Cell Juniors are likely the original seven created by Cell years earlier, regenerated just as Cell did, from whatever genetic material was left when they were killed by Gohan. It's a funny little story and I like it. The Androids/Cell Saga is my favorite part of DRAGON BALL Z (though I tend to favor the earlier parts more than the Cell Games themselves), so as with callbacks to classic DRAGON BALL, any callbacks to that era are always appreciated too.

At this point we're going to delve a bit into SUPER volume 9, which features the end of the tournament before moving along to new content. To sum up, Goku loses Ultra Instinct again, then teams up with Freeza to get Jiren on the defensive. But even their combined power isn't enough to stop him, and Vegeta is knocked out of the fight. Then Freeza, having survived 17's self-destruct, dramatically reappears with his Death Ball attack. In a callback to the Saiyan Saga, as Goku keeps Jiren in a hold, Freeza blasts both of them -- but Jiren deflects the attack. Freeza isn't deterred, however, and rams both Jiren and Goku out of the ring. With all three defeated, Android 17 emerges, having faked the self-destruct and planned the entire thing with Freeza, and claims victory.

17 wishes for all the destroyed universes to come back, and then everyone is sent home. Freeza is resurrected as promised by Goku (though as a gift from Beerus rather than via the Dragon Balls), and heads off into space to begin plotting anew. Then we get a bit of text telling us that the BROLY movie (which I still haven't seen for some reason) comes next in continuity, but the manga will not be adapting it. After that, we skip ahead a bit in time to post-BROLY, and we'll cover that material next week.

Though I had some complaints about it, I really like certain aspects of the manga's version of the Tournament of Power. Roshi gets more of a spotlight, Jiren is better fleshed out, and certain moments, such as Freeza's reappearance, come across way more dramatic than in the TV version. Plus, the tournament is only six chapters long in the manga, while it ran for 55 episodes (!) of the anime. I do think six chapters is a bit short -- it takes up one-and-a-half volumes of the manga in total, where most of the tournaments in the original DB ran for two volumes, as best I can recall. I guess my ideal version of the Tournament would be some sort of hybrid of both.

Lastly, I want to add that I like the idea of Freeza as a recurring foe in DRAGON BALL. It's something the series never really had before. Villains would stick around, often for some time, but -- aside from Tien, Piccolo, and Vegeta, who all eventually became good guys -- they wouldn't last beyond their respective sagas, being defnitively killed at the end of their final battles with Goku. I just hope SUPER doesn't go that route with Freeza, because a reformation doesn't suit him. He should be that one recurring foe who is always able to keep pace with Goku. That said, I wouldn't want to see him overused. He needn't be in every arc or every other arc or anything like that -- but once in a while, it will be nice to have him return with some new evil scheme.

Next week, the SUPER manga journeys into uncharted territory, moving beyond where the TV series ended!