Dragon Ball Super Episode 6 Review: Don’t Anger the God of Destruction! The Nerve-Wrecking Birthday Party

This Dragon Ball Super review contains spoilers.

Dragon Ball Super Episode 6

For the die-hard Vegeta apologists out there, the idea of Vegeta not only being afraid of something, but outright terrified of it, might be hard for them to swallow. That concept is largely the driving force of this entire episode. With Goku not satiating Beerus’ Super Saiyan God cravings, he heads to Earth to continue his search. This leaves Vegeta pretty much in charge of the fate of the Earth and ensuring that Beerus doesn’t lose his cool and get destruction happy all of a sudden. As an audience we of course know that Beerus isn’t going to destroy the Earth (although, Majin Buu did, so you never know…), but that’s still a relatively appealing premise to have some fun with. Vegeta is so often choosing to opt out of social gatherings, so it’s a great idea to engineer a situation where he’s scrambling over others to be the one involved.

Part of Vegeta’s crippling fear towards Beerus stems from him not only being aware of this God of Destruction’s reputation, but also witnessing it first hand. We’ve heard already that Beerus—not Frieza—was the one responsible for blowing up Planet Vegeta, but this episode treats everyone to a flashback from Vegeta’s youth. It might not be that lengthy of a scene, but in it Beerus is victimizing Vegeta’s father in front of the young Saiyan prince. This image alone is enough to explain Vegeta’s issues with the God. In his head, Beerus is this invincible deity that put down his perfect father.

While Vegeta might be aware of Beerus and Whis and where they come from, the rest of Bulma’s party is in ignorant bliss regarding “Vegeta’s friends.” This leads to a number of set pieces where guests come dangerously close to acting rude or offending Beerus, with Vegeta bending over backwards to cover for them as well as absorbing any collateral damage. There is some really silly stuff in this one and some people might end up thinking that this is getting too broad and comical with this serious of a character. There might be some truth in that, but this episode is just a lot of fun. It’s probably the only time that Vegeta has actually been worried over Yamcha before. Where else are you going to get moments like Vegeta nearly having a heart attack over Beerus’ reaction to trying wasabi for the first time? It’s literally the beat of suspense that the act break goes out on!

These extended bits of Vegeta thinking (poorly) on his feet and radically ad-libbing to avoid destruction work so well because he isn’t usually a comedic character. Sorry if this episode reeks of character assassination to you, but sometimes you just need to laugh at the ridiculous visual of something like Vegeta frantically preparing octopus balls. It’s the perfect chaser to last week’s episode which was literally only a battle. With the threat of danger still being so imminent and possible with Beerus and Whis around, this lighter birthday material still holds tension, too.

This episode also does much to continue the trend of Beerus and Whis being tremendous foodies. Their staunch appreciation of Earth cuisine and its many nuances gets plenty of time to shine here, as well as Buu’s reluctance to share his pudding with Beerus leading to a major plot point within the episode. On that note, there’s also a totally unnecessary scene of Pilaf, Mai, and Shu all commenting on the fact of how full they are and that they really killed that feast they were treated to. At this point in the series, a four-course meal with a mean dessert holds more weight than the Dragon Balls! And on the topic of the Dragon Balls themselves, there is a rather cryptic shot of them amidst the other high-end prizes in Bulma’s Birthday Bingo, implying a return to them probably won’t be too far away.

Ultimately this episode might fall in the position of being a placeholder until the big fight that breaks out in the following entry, but this is a pretty damn enjoyable way to kill some time. Besides, the Vegeta freak out material manages to ground itself when you think about the deeply dire reasons that he’s acting in this way. Things are about to get real, with this certainly being the only time in history that some hoarding of pudding leads to drastic fatalities.

It looks like next week marks the return of Gotenks. Hopefully his aim is a little better than Trunks and Goten with a super soaker.