Sean Marshall Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is the fourth animated film, from Dragon Ball Super, following 2018’s Dragon Ball Super: Broly.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero takes place long after the Broly film & the current Granola manga arc. The story mainly follows Commander Magenta, son of Commander Red from Dragon Ball, as he manipulates the grandson of Doctor Gero, Dr. Hedo, into building two androids to take down Capsule Corporation & its affiliates Piccolo & Gohan. Gohan’s daughter gets swept up into the mix, which causes Gohan to charge in to take down the Red Ribbon.
The story was a mess this time around & the irritating part about this is that it had so much potential, especially regarding Gohan’s growth. Out of all of the films in the Dragon Ball series, this one had an overpowering comedic tone which took away any sense of impending doom or overshadowing threat.
If I could sum this story up in a few words, I would say that it was mainly about Piccolo doing some underhand stuff to push Gohan back into his old ways of fighting. Toriyama took Piccolo out of his usual brooding image & turned him into this comedic light-toned character, while the villains weren’t a threat at all & felt more like Curly & Larry to Piccolo’s Moe.
As usual, Goten & Trunks were shoved to the side & were not to be taken seriously. This is indeed a disappointment as it seems after Dragon Ball Z’s Buu Saga that they’ve been kept under wraps or haven’t stepped into the spotlight to take on any significant threats.
Piccolo shined the most here because the film mainly followed him, but he contributed more to the story, especially when it came to his fights at the end. Gohan mostly got his moment to “shine” at the very end of the movie, but it came off as lackluster because he didn’t do much with his “shining” moment & it made his opponent seem like a waste as this was a match that most longtime fans wanted to see.
What worked great here was not having Goku & Vegeta come down to save the day, especially this they are overpowered by this point of the story. We got a hilarious scene between Beerus, Cheelai & Lemo that showed a new side of Beerurs.
The 3D animation that Toei Animation went with was welcoming & refreshing. There are two scenes in particular that this new animation style works perfectly with & they both consist of Piccolo.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is not a solid follow-up to Dragon Ball Super: Brolly & fails where its predecessor succeeded with great storytelling & well-paced character development.
