Bardock, Future Gohan and Ultra Instinct Goku Team Up Against Demigra in Super Dragon Ball Heroes Ultra God Mission Episode 9

Super Dragon Ball Heroes Ultra God Mission episode 9 aired in Japan as the newest installment of the ongoing promotional web anime, and I have to keep reminding people going into these reviews that this is not meant to be a full length anime. For better or worse, and usually for worse, things often feel rushed and nothing really gets a chance to breathe. Episode 8 was good by Heroes standards, so the question going into episode 9, titled Unleashing Power Beyond Limits, was whether it could follow that up.

Vegito Blue opens against Demigra with a callback to an old fight from Z

The episode opens with Vegito Blue against Demigra, and there is an actual reference to an old fight from Z where Vegito's opponent tries a kick, Vegito blocks it, and uses the leg to flip him down into a mountain. They recreated that exact move here as an homage, and right after it Vegito Blue fires off the final Kamehameha. It has been a long time coming to see a callback like that in Heroes.

Demigra survives the attack thanks to his dark power, and the energy used causes Vegito Blue to defuse back into Goku and Vegeta. Demigra then transforms again and threatens to eradicate everyone there beyond time and space, which raises a question I could not shake: does that mean anyone hit by this move would not just die but evaporate from existence the way Beerus does with the Hakai, or am I overthinking that? I genuinely do not know, but Demigra gets serious here.

Demigra's dark magic mind control throws the entire tournament out of whack

What Demigra is actually doing when he powers up is using a form of dark magic mind control, and all the villains fighting in the tournament, Chilled included, end up getting huge power ups while he orders them to finish off all the good guys. That turns the whole tournament completely out of whack, since Demigra showing up gives every villain carte blanche to do whatever they want. Things get real serious from there.

Demigra fires a giant purple ball of energy, and Goku has to try to deflect it, going back into Super Saiyan Blue and firing a Kamehameha to push the ball back. Future Gohan, the alternate timeline version I mentioned in an earlier review, is teaming up with Trunks, and both of them sense how serious the situation is and power up, Gohan into Super Saiyan and Trunks into Super Saiyan God. It is interesting how the episode shows this, because I do not think people really understand the power gap here: God Trunks is way, way stronger than Future Gohan at Super Saiyan 1.

Demigra taunts the Supreme Kais about the tournament's own manipulation

While Goku struggles with the ball, Demigra starts talking trash to the Supreme Kais, since they are basically calling him out for not caring if he kills even his own allies. Demigra's counter is to ask whether the Supreme Kais are not doing something similar by creating this tournament to have mortals fight each other for entertainment. It is not quite the same thing, but there is truth to it. They were kind of manipulating the situation to entertain themselves, or at least one of them was.

Now the situation has shifted to Demigra having far worse intentions than whoever set up the tournament. When this arc started I thought that character was going to be the main villain and the main pushing point of the story, but Demigra has taken that role instead.

The animation leans heavily on Yamamuro's stiff, Super-style designs

The episode looked very colorful and reminded me a lot of how Dragon Ball Super looks, because Tadayoshi Yamamuro is all over this episode. If anyone is expecting a burst of especially dynamic animation, that is not what you get here. Instead you get the stiffer, more plastic Yamamuro style designs that a lot of Dragon Ball fans do not like and are sick of. He is the guy who has been working on Heroes, it is his project, and he is not going anywhere, so that is something to accept, even though I remember one episode of Heroes where Goku fought Hearts and got that kind of dynamic animation, and it was excellent work. Overall the animation here did not bother me, even with some stiff moments here and there.

A massive multi-fighter Kamehameha scene reinforces that everything in Heroes is canon

Future Gohan shows up and fires a Kamehameha for his father and for his future, leading into an awesome scene with a huge number of Kamehamehas. Every fighter involved gets shown watching the beam struggle, including Paikuhan, Olibu, Uub fighting Perfect Cell, another version of Future Gohan alongside regular adult Gohan and a GT version of Gohan, plus Yamcha and Android 16 among many others.

That moment reinforces something I have said before about Dragon Ball Heroes: everything is canon, every movie, every manga, every anime. That is honestly the best approach they could take, similar to the multiverse approach Sony is doing with Spider-Verse, Disney is doing with Marvel, and Warner Brothers is doing with DC right now. Dragon Ball has been doing this for a while even though those comic book multiverse ideas are older, and Dragon Ball has a genuinely rich multiverse that I think does not get explored as much as it should.

Bardock joins the beam struggle for a three generation Kamehameha with Gohan and Goku

Goku turns on Kaio-Ken, giving him a Kaio-Ken Blue boost to push the ball back toward Demigra, but it is still not easy, and Demigra powers up and shoots it right back. Then, in what I can only describe as the biggest piece of fan service possibly ever in Heroes, Bardock goes Super Saiyan 3 and steps in for his son and grandson, joining the beam struggle alongside Goku and Gohan for a father, grandfather and son Kamehameha we have never seen before in Dragon Ball.

We have seen a family Kamehameha at the end of the second Broly movie, and the Turtle School Kamehameha in the second movie, The World's Strongest, but never one with Bardock included. That is exactly the kind of moment that makes me say Super could have done something like this and never did. It is very fan service heavy, but as I put it, "Yes, it is very fan service-y, but I'm a fan. Go ahead and service me even if I don't agree with everything." This is the kind of good idea that gets wasted in Heroes like many others.

Goku pushes into Ultra Instinct while Bardock jumps to Super Saiyan 4

Goku snaps, says he is going to use all his power, and goes into Ultra Instinct, finally pushing the ball back toward Demigra. This sequence with Goku, Gohan and Bardock is, in my view, probably one of the best sequences in all of Dragon Ball Heroes. It is not perfect and the rest of the episode cannot hold up to it, but it is a real moment, especially for fans of those three characters.

As if that was not fan service enough, Bardock then goes from Super Saiyan 3 to Super Saiyan 4. Picture it: Ultra Instinct Goku from Super, Super Saiyan 4 Bardock using the GT transformation inside Heroes, and Future Gohan from Heroes all in the same beam struggle. They did not even need to send Bardock to Super Saiyan 4, and they did it anyway.

The episode ends on a cliffhanger heading into the next chapter of the arc

The episode closes on a cliffhanger, with the next one titled To Raise a Hope That Erase Despair and a Miraculous Showdown, which should bring the conclusion to this Ultra God Mission arc. Overall this episode was not as good as the previous one, but for fans of Bardock, Future Gohan and Goku, it delivers a moment that is highly unlikely to ever show up in the main Dragon Ball story.

What did you make of this three generation Kamehameha and Bardock's surprise leap to Super Saiyan 4?