Dragon Ball Super Episode 65 Review: Final Judgment?! The Ultimate Power of an Absolute God

This Dragon Ball Super review contains spoilers

Dragon Ball Super Episode 65

“Zamasu, don’t underestimate the potential of Saiyans…Or mortals!”

Looks like it’s time to finally take off the kid gloves and get real here!

In Dragon Ball it’s inherently a whole lot of fun when a villain advances onto their next form or a new stage gets unveiled. At the same time, there’s also often a period that follows this event where the heroes get their asses kicked and nothing gets accomplished because the show needs to prove just how powerful the villain’s new form is. Dragon Ball always has an “all is lost” moment, but at least you get to revel in a new powerful foe at the same time. “The Ultimate Power of an Absolute God” does succumb to these usual pitfalls, but it still manages to rise above them and feature plenty of thrilling set pieces, too. 

The tag team of Zamasu and Goku Black were an incredibly strong duo, but Fused Zamasu’s strength is stupidly high. This fused character’s power is even more ridiculous now because he has Zamasu’s immortality and Goku Black’s capacity to infinitely increase his strength. He unlocks such insurmountable levels of power that he literally develops a halo that looks like an AT Field from out of Evangelion. 

Zamasu finally feels vindication and like all of the work that he’s done has finally been worthwhile. This is the Godly takedown of humanity that the tyrant has had in mind! There’s a small exchange between Supreme Kai and Gowasu where they discuss how theycan’t even begin to comprehend the full extent of Fused Zamasu’s powers and these guys are all-knowing deities! It’s a tiny aside, but it goes a long ways to illustrate how dire things are right now.

Fused Zamasu’s new strength almost destroys what’s left of this timeline’s world and Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks are left to quickly figure out what to do. So much for the Evil Containment Wave saving the day and being the kick-ass solution that everyone thought that it would be! The fight scenes here are all brief, but they’re as satisfying as something like this should be (as are Vegeta’s casual potshots at Goku as he compliments him). 

Fused Zamasu basically just continues to drop impressive new abilities on Goku and Vegeta as they scramble to survive and figure out how to retaliate. Zamasu has already shown off some cool techniques throughout the series, but abilities like Blades of Justice and Lightning of Absolution are just awesome. It’s a relief that these moves are packed into the recent addition of Fused Zamasu in Dragon Ball FighterZ otherwise fans everywhere would weep.

All of this action plays quite well, but Goku and Vegeta’s plans here are pretty sad. Vegeta’s strategy is simply to fight because he doesn’t have any better ideas and Goku just wants to beat him because he won’t be satisfied otherwise. It would be generous to refer to these approaches as “strategies,” but it’s also why the two almost immediately lose here. It’s quite disheartening to see Goku and Vegeta get so sufficiently destroyed by Fused Zamasu, but it’s necessary to show off the villain’s new strength. During all of this emasculating defeat, Bulma and Future Mai toil away on the time machine, but it remains to be seen if there will be anyone left standing to get into it.

Future Trunks once again temporarily proves his worth in battle, but he doesn’t last much longer than Goku and Vegeta do against this uber threat. However, it does make for a few solid moments of killer sword fighting. Our heroes are bloodied and broken and this new fused warrior is just too much to handle. On top of all of this, each of Fused Zamasu’s attacks have an extra amount of weight as he actively resents Goku and Vegeta for the mere aspect of “trying to touch a God.” He considers himself on a whole other level—and he is—but every defense maneuver against his attacks only makes Zamasu more enraged. 

Fused Zamasu temporarily plays around with his victims, but he quickly cuts to the chase and prepares an ultimate attack called Holy Wrath that will destroy the planet if it goes uninterrupted (somewhere Beerus just got a chill as his God of Destruction status gets infringed upon). In a supremely awesome moment—and one that long-time Dragon Ball fans have fantasized about for some time now—Fused Zamasu’s attack gets thwarted courtesy of a father-son Galick Gun from Future Trunks and Vegeta. There have been plenty of generational Kamehamehas throughout Dragon Ball’s run, but this is a first that Vegeta’s signature move gets this sort of touching treatment. Even though it doesn’t seem like this attack should take down the Holy Wrath, it does, and the moment is great enough that it’s easy to look past any logic leaps here. Besides, it doesn’t change the fact that a completely unhurt Fused Zamasu is still afloat and he probably has plenty of other moves like Holy Wrath up his fused sleeves.

The episode’s final moments continue to focus on the bond between Vegeta and his (future) son. Vegeta saves Future Trunks from a dangerous blow, but it unfortunately looks like it takes him out of commission in the process. Goku finally remembers that he can help and so he responds with an intimidating Kamehameha that’s meant to defend all of their lives. While it seems unlikely that Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks all get fried in the opening moments of next week’s episode, it also seems farfetched that Goku’s defensive blast will end this fight. There’s still one final trump card that the gang hasn’t turned to yet, but it looks like it might finally be time. If Zamasu can play with fusion, then Goku and Vegeta can too… 

One of the episode’s strengths is how effectively it nails its bleak tone. Right after Zamasu’s fusion is complete the atmosphere completely changes and matters suddenly feel hopeless. “The Ultimate Power of an Absolute God”embraces this despair as this longstanding battle moves into its final stage. 

There’s a particularly dark moment where the children in the resistance question whether a God would act so callously and destroy the world. Meanwhile the grownups whine about how hopeless everything is and that they should value the time that they have left. It’s not like these kids had a fun life to begin with, but they shouldn’t have to grapple with existential questions like if it’s worth living in a world where your God tries to kill you.

“The Ultimate Power of an Absolute God” gets hurts a little by the fact that this isn’t the payoff portion of the fight. This material delivers, but it’s pretty obvious that the next episode or two are going to be the really satisfying ones. “The Ultimate Power of an Absolute God”nicely sets up what’s to come and the final piece of this climactic battle. Fused Zamasu says it best, “This truly is justice.”

Oh, and Android 8 makes a long overdue, albeit unexpected, appearance to assure the viewers that he’s okay during this Zamasu debacle. Phew.