Dragon Ball fan animation: the Grand Priest powers up

A fan animation imagines what the Grand Priest, Daishinkan, might look like if he ever transformed in Dragon Ball, and I enjoyed it. It runs only about a minute, and it was my first time seeing anything from this animator. I'd heard the name around for a few years but had never checked out the work.

The Grand Priest has been hyped up for years. Anybody who messes with him is going to be in trouble. As far as a transformation goes, though, we've never seen any of the angels transform. Either they're hiding their true forms, which is possible even though I doubt it, or they don't have any transformations. That's what makes a hypothetical one fun to look at.

The purple and blue aura fits the Grand Priest's look

I like the rocks coming up, the effects and the colors. The purple and blue looks fantastic, and the aura colors fit the way he dresses. I also love the effect of the earth feeling his power, even though, with the way this guy has been hyped in both the anime and the manga, I feel like the whole multiverse would feel it if he were powering up.

Then he gets his shirt off. Normally I consider this kind of thing cringe, but I like it here. The animation looks good, he's ripped, and he has that godly symbol on his back. Zamasu has it too, so it fits for a god of that power.

The explosion has a late 90s feel

The explosion gives me a late 90s vibe, like an old MTV animation along the lines of Liquid Television. It also reminds me, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way, of the old PS1 cutscenes from games like Xenogears. The colors go hard, and the music is good. Imagine this on the big screen.

The smile has been done before; I think Frieza did that. I don't know whether the animation is traced, and I know some people in the community hate that, but from here it looks solid and "very Toriyama-esque."

It plays more like a Master Roshi power up than a full transformation

It isn't a transformation where he changes his entire look. He gets buff, rips off his shirt and gains the symbols, more like a Master Roshi power up. I've never treated Roshi bulking up as a transformation; it's more like going into battle mode at full power. This one has more of a transmutation aspect because his hair changes too, so it sits somewhere between a Super Saiyan transformation and what Roshi does.

The space setting is what I wanted from Dragon Ball Super

I always love the space nebula backgrounds, and "we haven't seen enough Dragon Ball battles in space." In Battle of Gods, Goku fought Beerus in space, and I was hoping Super would give us more of that. The setting of the Goku versus Jiren fight was similar, I guess, but I wanted something in the deep regions of space. I love how the manga has that Beerus versus Champa fight that wasn't in the anime, and that was cool, but I really wanted to see something more space-like, and that's why I appreciate this.

Traced or not, it doesn't matter to me. I liked it. It's a fun little animation that doesn't hurt anybody.