Dragon Ball Super – Part 10 Review

Dragon Ball Super – Part 10 contains Episodes 118 to 131, the final 14 episodes of the series, and boy, it doesn’t slow down. In fact there is no epilogue episode of peaceful living this time, Episode 131 itself is crammed with just as much action as 118.

So for a quick sum up then, for the final time, this story arc centres on the “Tournament of Power”, which features eight universes contributing teams of 10, all fighting in an 80-person battle royal complete with elimination if thrown out of the (very large) arena. Now as we enter the climax there are only a handful of universes left, and it’s becoming clear to everyone that Jiren from Universe 11 is the one to beat, being stupidly strong and seemingly invincible, like all good Dragon Ball antagonists should be. Now it’s obviously hard to talk about 14 episodes that wrap up a crazy arc without going into spoilers, but I will point out two important things while trying to be as vague as possible:

The first one is Vegeta actually gets a moment to shine here, defeating a super-powerful enemy by himself, without the help of Goku. This is a literal first-time event, in any of the four TV series… or movies, for that matter. The second point is sort of a spoiler, but one that’s plastered all over the cover for this set: Goku masters the teased transformation known as “Ultra Instinct”, complete with silver hair, glittery aura and a very cool background soundtrack. It’s a great moment, one only heightened by the extremely polished and fluid animation throughout most of these final episodes.

I also have to point out that, almost at the last minute, they throw in some backstory for Jiren, almost as if someone realised that this whole arc has just been one long multi-person punch-up, and they needed to actually put a bit of story in it. It’s… fine, I guess. In the end it wasn’t needed though, it was pretty easy to guess where Jiren got his tendency to prefer loneliness and power from and didn’t make the final battle any better, or worse to be fair.

Throw in some great scenes with Frieza and Android 17 of all people (still weird to talk about these characters in a newly released thing, especially in 2020!) and there you go. 14 episodes of pretty much non-stop fighting, with only Episodes 120 and 121 feeling like a waste of time, plus they were the only episodes with any real obvious downgrade in animation quality, so I guess Toei thought the same as I did when creating them.

“Limit-Break x Survivor” by Kiyoshi Hikawa continues its run as our opening, while “By a 70cm Square Window” by RottenGraffty is your ending up to Episode 121, with Episode 122 to the final episode being “Lagrima” by OnePixcel, featuring all the competitors from the tournament, which is odd given how the majority of them have been erased and/or eliminated by that point… Anyway, in terms of extras we have your textless opening and endings, plus a sitdown interview with Patrick Seitz (US voice of Jiren) and Kyle Hebert (US voice of Gohan).

So, should you buy Dragon Ball Super – Part 10? Well, I mean, it’s a bit of redundant question really. If you’re buying Part 10 it’s because you’ve bought and enjoyed the previous sets, and with this being the full-on action heavy finale, you’ll obviously be picking it up. As a long… long time Dragon Ball fan, I give this a solid thumbs up. There may not be much story, even by Dragon Ball standards, but the animation and soundtrack are so perfect that it’s quite the fun adrenaline rush to watch the final battle unfold.