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Dragon Ball Super
Episode 105

by Sam Leach,

How would you rate episode 105 of
Dragon Ball Super ?
Community score: 4.5

It's finally time for Dragon Ball Super to answer the question: "what are we going to do with Master Roshi?" Personally, I've never understood the demand for every character who's been introduced in a shonen series to continue to serve a purpose forever, but when Super put him on Universe 7's ten-man team and introduced his "training" to suppress his lecherous urges, it was clear that they had set themselves up to do something with the character.

Since the Tournament of Power arc is putting so much emphasis on its female fighters, there's a tightrope to walk when it comes to Roshi's perviness. I've been holding my breath, fearing the moment that Roshi's training undoes itself for the sake of a joke, and then it happens. Thankfully, it's blissfully reserved as the episode opens with Caway of Universe 4 using a seduction technique, but it's just barely not enough to ruin Roshi's focus in battle. Plus, that's only Roshi's first fight with a woman in this episode, and the follow-up has none of that baggage.

This is a themed episode, if you couldn't tell, focused on Roshi taking out three enemy opponents on his own. The biggest highlight is his use of the mafu-ba against Dercori, an illegal technique for the tournament considering it requires an object to trap its target into. Everybody sees him do it, but ZEN-Oh gives it a pass because it was, in their words, "neat." The ZEN-Ohs' scary, sunken-eyed expression as they bore down on the arguing Gods of Destruction was a riot. Anything goes as long as it makes for good entertainment.

This is a pleasant episode all around, though it tries to tug at the heartstrings in the later half to mixed results. After taking out an opponent with an extra strong Kamehameha, there's the possibility that he's drained himself of all his energy and has died as a result. The fake-out is pretty easy to see coming, but Goku and Krillin's cries are held on for just long enough to make me wonder. Are they really going to kill off Roshi? Even if they later brought him back to life with the Dragon Balls, it would be a breath of fresh air to know this show was capable of something like that. But no, of course not. Master Roshi is A-OK.

I rather like the mix they have going where there's an assortment of themed episodes focusing on specific opponents or team-ups, but also enough variety-focused episodes to keep it interesting. I was pleasantly surprised by how much mileage the show was able to get out of Roshi's place in the fight and found this week fairly satisfying. If you want to be heart-warmed by Goku's concern for his elderly teacher, there's some good stuff in here, though it suffers from the same lack of consequences as usual, and that part's starting to get a little old.

Rating: B

Dragon Ball Super is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Sam Leach records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw


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