5 Point Discussions: Dragon Ball Super Episode 113

The battle between Saiyans heats up, as Goku goes head to head with Caulifa…and Kale?!  But can the exhausted warrior really defeat two Super Saiyans?  Let’s find out!  Remember, if you like this article and 5 Point Discussions, please be sure to share it on Facebook and Twitter, and if you have any questions or comments, hit me up @SageShinigami!
1. The majority of this episode is spent trying to hype up the Missing Link of Saiyan transformations, Super Saiyan 3. Caulifla challenges Goku in the hopes of becoming Super Saiyan 3, but the whole thing is set up really weirdly. For one, all of them saw Goku battle Jiren–it’s obvious he’s got zero ability to fight back right now, and yet she complains that he spends half the episode fighting her in base form.  Even she had to rely on Cabba distracting an opponent so she could rest up, but somehow she thinks Goku can just power up whenever to take her on?
Even more ridiculous is that she keeps talking about she’ll “beat Goku and become a Super Saiyan 3”, as if that’s the process. Beat a stronger Super Saiyan than you, and you’re automatically able to transform into SSJ3. Although come to think of it, we never actually saw Goku’s first time going Super Saiyan 3. When he came back from the afterlife, he just had the ability without ever saying how he got it, and initially they made this big deal that his body could only stand the strain because it wasn’t “alive”, and Gotenks could only do it because he was a fused being. That made the form feel “special” compared to the rest, but of course that went out the window when they did GT and now even Super, because who needs consistency?  Speaking of…
2. This episode starts with Goku fighting off a Super Saiyan 2 Caulifla with relative ease, and for a brief moment, Dragon Ball becomes a different, cooler show–one in which actual martial arts ability matters, and someone like Caulifla who’s clearly been a brawler her entire life simply can’t compete with a person like Goku who’s been training under martial arts masters across his universe for literally decades. From Roshi to Korin to King Kai all the way to Whis–his life hasn’t just been intense fights, but equally intense training, and so it makes sense that he’s simply tactically superior to Caulifla and…oh wait, nevermind. It’s Dragon Ball Super, so she adapted in a matter of seconds and started punching Goku in the face again.
The saddest thing is they knew exactly what they were doing. Whis starts off narrating the differences in their skill levels and how it can be attributed to what type of fighters they were, only to immediately backpedal with a “Did I say that?”  Sigh.
3. There was quite a bit of talk this episode about how there’s only half the time left in the tournament, and so now it’s a matter of who has the most people left in the tournament when the time runs out. That was first brought up an episode or so ago, where the rule was actually cited and explained, but now I’m guessing it’s going to be the strategies of a few universes going forward, especially considering there are still six universes competing, twenty-eight fighters remaining and seven of them are from Universe 7. It’s only a matter of time before someone picks up on that and starts trying to change it.
4. Call me one of “those” people, but it’s episodes like this that make me miss power levels. In most other shonen, power-ups are defeated by simply being above said power-up to begin with, or having a specific strategy in place to take that person with the power up down, because they aren’t common and are far more noteworthy. But in Dragon Ball’s world, nearly everyone has some form of transformation. Normally that works out fine, but this episode inexplicably has Goku fight off both Caulifla and Kale with nothing other than Super Saiyan 2. My working theory is that Goku’s superior fighting experience and skill plus simply having lived with Super Saiyan 2 much longer has made his version of the form superior to theirs, but that’s no confirmation. In reality, they’re simply losing because it’s never going to be Goku.  At least if there were power levels there would be some sort of internal story cohesion they’d have to stick to.
5. Next Episode: Kale has transformed into her berserker form, but she seems to have gained control of it!  What does this mean for a weakened Goku, who has to fight both her and Caulifla at the same time? And, in the middle of the tournament a new warrior takes the field?  What does this mean for our hero?  And who is this mysterious new warrior?
Yeah, that’d be a good mystery if it hadn’t been spoiled this past week: Seemingly, Caulifla and Kale learn the fusion dance (which like everything else in Universe 6 is likely much easier to do) and combine in order to beat Goku. The odds are continuing to mount against him, because the only way he’ll ever be able to take on Jiren is if he beats everyone else relevant, I guess…
Dragon Ball Super is available for streaming on Crunchyroll.