Dragon Ball Super Beerus Episode 1: New Goku Scene, Cuts and Changes Explained

Dragon Ball Super Beerus episode 1, titled God of Destruction, corrects a long-standing timeline mistake, adds roughly two minutes of brand new Goku animation, and cuts several subplots from the original Dragon Ball Super. The God of Destruction, Beerus, has awakened, and he wants an opponent to fight. Below, I compare this version with its predecessors and go through the major differences.

Dragon Ball Super Beerus is the fifth version of the Battle of Gods story

This is the fifth time we're seeing a version of this story. First there was Dragon Ball Z Battle of Gods, the 2013 film worked on by Yusuke Watanabe and Akira Toriyama himself. Then came the extended cut of Battle of Gods, which arrived a little bit later. After that came the Dragon Ball Super Battle of Gods arc from 2015, and then the manga version, which at the time was a promotional manga.

Akio Iyoku's plan, once his company's contract began with Toei Animation and Bandai, was to help enhance the Dragon Ball anime and video games. This project was among the first he commissioned, alongside the Moro arc, now known as Dragon Ball Super: Galactic Patrol, and of course Xenoverse 3.

The idea is to take the first three arcs of Dragon Ball Super and combine them into a single narrative, while also fixing many of the problems the original version had because of very bad preproduction, with visual touch-ups and animation fixes. This episode was just an appetizer for some of the things they're going to be doing.

Dragon Ball Super Beerus fixes the six-month timeline mistake

From the very first frame, this episode fixes a major problem that Dragon Ball Super introduced. I covered it back when it happened, and still to this day I see people get it wrong because of a mistranslation. The original Dragon Ball Super recapped the end of the Majin Buu battle, and because of that mistranslation, even with the official Toei subtitles, people were led to believe that Battle of Gods took place six months after the Buu arc.

That's objectively wrong. Battle of Gods takes place four years after the end of the fight with Majin Buu, and two years after the events of the 2008 special. That information used to be public on an official Toei Dragon Ball website, but that site has been taken down for years. Thankfully, none of that is discussed in Dragon Ball Super Beerus. It's still Age 778, and Beerus has been asleep for a very, very long time.

Goku the radish farmer and a new look with shifted contrast

After the title card, God of Destruction or The God Who Destroys (either translation works), we see Goku on Earth during peacetime as a radish farmer. That idea was first brought up in the 2008 special Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!!, but it was not in Akira Toriyama and Yusuke Watanabe's Battle of Gods script whatsoever. In that film, the first time we see Goku, he's training on King Kai's planet.

Right away in these early scenes, you can tell the contrast has been shifted, and so has the saturation. They've done this on purpose to give it a different look from the original Dragon Ball Super. I feel like in some instances it works, but in others it looks a little tiny bit too plastic. For the most part, though, it still looks clear, crisp, and enjoyable. Lighting is something Dragon Ball Super Beerus plays around with a lot: certain things are darker and certain things are lighter to give off a certain tone.

Goku's new mental image training is the first new animation in Dragon Ball Super Beerus

What I think is the best part of this episode, though that could also be recency bias, is our first ever piece of new animation for Dragon Ball Super Beerus. It's Goku's mental image training as he focuses on battling foes of the past: Frieza, Cell, and Buu. The sequence is beautifully animated and features actual references to those battles from the Dragon Ball Z era.

This is our first reference to Toyotarou's Dragon Ball Super manga, specifically chapter 1, where Goku does this very thing. As discussed before, elements from the manga will be incorporated into this version, and you have to remember that back then the manga was purely a promotional vehicle for the anime. I was always a huge fan of this scene, because it illustrates Goku's desire for more opponents. He misses fighting a lot, and he misses being challenged by these dangerous foes.

The sequence runs around two minutes, which is way longer than I thought it was going to be when I first heard about it. It's two full minutes of new material with no new dialogue, and you didn't need any, because the visuals told the story.

Beerus seems to sense Goku, and the Super Saiyan God was always Goku

One of the cool additions in this version is that it seems like Beerus, while he was asleep, was able to sense that Goku was out there. He was able to sense that the Super Saiyan God he dreamed about might actually be more than a dream.

I know some folks were hoping for Yamoshi, but honestly, Toriyama discussed Yamoshi once in 2017, and I don't know if we're ever going to see him actually appear in any Dragon Ball product. I hope we see something about Yamoshi someday, but there's no denying that the Super Saiyan God Beerus dreamed of was Goku. It wasn't Goku Black or anybody else. Yes, there were fan theories that it was someone else, but it's always been Goku, which was a prediction from the Oracle Fish.

The Oracle Fish is nowhere to be found in episode 1 of DBS Beerus. In the Battle of Gods movie, there was a whole scene with Beerus, Whis, and the Oracle Fish that has not been ported over to this version.

The radish joke, a behind-the-scenes clip and a new Gohan wedding moment

One last thing about Goku being a radish farmer: the idea Toriyama introduced in 2008 was just a big gag, because Goku's brother's name is Raditz, a pun on radish. That has always been an Easter egg that hardcore fans will remember.

There's also a behind-the-scenes look at the production of the new scene that was being passed around last year. People were trying to work out where it came from and what it was, and it turns out it was from this episode.

The scene near the end of episode 1 of the original Super, where Mr. Satan comes to Goku to give him money for helping him at the end of the Buu arc of Dragon Ball Z, has been changed. They've added a new moment where Goku thanks Mr. Satan for building a giant house for Gohan, and we see a new interpretation of Gohan's wedding. It's only a couple of frames, so it's nothing that spectacular, but it's cool that they did it. Let's not forget that Gohan and Videl are nowhere to be found in Dragon Ball Daima.

Goten and Trunks' water subplot and other Super scenes are cut

Since that scene happens at the end of the original Dragon Ball Super episode 1, a number of scenes from that version have been left on the cutting room floor. The entire subplot of Goten and Trunks getting water for Videl and fighting a snake is gone. The extra scenes with Mr. Satan and Majin Buu dealing with the press are gone. The introduction of Gohan and Videl, when he's got that book, is gone too.

Honestly, I'm fine with it, because those scenes didn't really add anything to the story. The Goten and Trunks water plot was never that interesting to me, and it felt like Toei's writers were just giving the kids something to do.

I love that Goten points out to Goku that Chi-Chi getting all this money will let Goku go train and get away from everybody, which is what Goku really wants. The sunset in this scene is beautiful, and they did a great job with it. And the 100 million zeni note still has Tori-bot's face on it. If you're new, Tori-bot is one of Akira Toriyama's forms, and it appears in various Toriyama materials, including Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, and even some animation-only sequences and Easter eggs. I always love this Easter egg, and I'm glad they kept it.

Beerus' planet tour pulls from Super episodes 1 and 2

A shot of Beerus and Whis flying through the cosmos with planets going by is also new, and I love this kind of thing. Shots like this are usually done so they can glue together scenes from different sections of the old episodes to make up this one.

Most of the rest of the episode focuses on Beerus. They're taking material from Super episodes 1 and 2 of Beerus going to different planets and trying their food, and when the food isn't satisfying, or someone tries something behind his back, he ends up showing who he really is. Here's a good example of the contrast work: the lower half of the screen around Beerus gets darker as it goes down. That's supposed to make Beerus intimidating, and he should be, because this does not go well.

We also get a quick scene with King Kai, voiced by the late and legendary Joji Yanami. In the original Dragon Ball Super he was also the narrator, and unfortunately he passed away after being sick for a while, which is why he left after episode 12. Hearing his voice again is very nice. He was the first voice we ever heard, all the way back in 1986, in the first episode of Dragon Ball.

Questions over new voice recordings for Dragon Ball Super Beerus

I want to address the talk about there being no new audio recordings. That's not what I heard, but apparently the voice actor for Beerus said they're reusing old assets and old audio from the first run of Super. That is true, and he's not lying about it. But there are going to be new scenes that may require audio, and I wonder where they'll get it, because there's definitely material where they'll need new audio. Perhaps he meant just for the Beerus character, but time will tell.

Remember, when this was announced on the official Dragon Ball Super website, they said outright that there would be newly recorded dubbing with an added score. So either Yamadera doesn't do any more voices, or they're taking assets from other recordings like video games, or they might be using AI. I don't think it's AI, though, because Toei's use of AI is supposed to be only for visual work, and it would set a bad precedent. Time will tell on this one.

Upgraded Vegeta training and a menacing alien transformation

As expected, and just like in the original, Beerus destroys the planet, wipes everyone out, and doesn't care. All of that was in the original episode. Meanwhile, Goku finally makes it to King Kai's place, and what is he doing besides fighting? Eating.

They took snippets of Vegeta's training from the original Super and put them in here, but it's way, way better, with more detail on the face and better overall effects. He's of course trying to surpass Kakarot, and I really like the way Vegeta's model looks in this enhanced version. Then we get a scene brought in from Dragon Ball Super episode 2, which is not good news for anyone who liked the Vegeta family vacation. The trip where Vegeta took Trunks and Bulma to the amusement park has been left on the cutting room floor.

The scene of Beerus fighting the yellow alien creature has been touched up, not just with detail in the creature's face, but with lots of effects when he transforms. I think the transformation looks really menacing. I love the black and red lightning strikes around him, which is a really neat effect. But nothing scares Lord Beerus except maybe Zeno. This is also the scene where Beerus first brings up his prophetic dream about the Super Saiyan God, and the alien's aura is a little tiny bit like Super Saiyan God. It's not quite the same shade of red, but it's similar. I'm not sure if they did this for foreshadowing.

Episode 1 shows Beerus and Goku both want competition

What this episode tries to do, as subtext, is teach the audience that Beerus and Goku are very similar in some ways. The thing they both enjoy more than anything is combat. We see Goku daydreaming about fighting his past opponents, and meanwhile we see Beerus fighting random aliens and dreaming about fighting the Super Saiyan God.

Both of these characters want competition, and that's what the story is. Beerus might be a little bit lazier than Goku, but he wants to throw down just as badly.

The fused Supreme Kai and the Dragon Ball Daima canon debate

After Beerus destroys the planet, we see a very concerned Old Kai and the fused Supreme Kai and Kibito worried about the coming of the God of Destruction. Yes, they're fused again, while in Dragon Ball Daima, which takes place three years before this, they're unfused. That has led some people to say that Daima isn't canon, that Dragon Ball Super isn't canon to Daima, or that it's an alternate timeline.

I'll get into that another time, because I can't begin to tell you how big a misunderstanding people have over canon and how Dragon Ball actually works. I didn't think they were going to change this. I know some folks hoped they would, but I didn't think they actually would. If this has you wondering whether we won't see Super Saiyan 4 in the next episode, I think I'll wait until next week to explain more about what's really going on with this and its relation to Daima.

Episode 1 adapts Super episodes 1 and 2 plus manga chapter 1

I'm introducing a new feature for these Beerus breakdowns called the reconfiguration, to track where Dragon Ball Super Beerus gets its content and what it adapts. Episode 1 of DBS Beerus adapts episodes 1 and 2 of the 2015 Dragon Ball Super, as well as chapter 1 of the Dragon Ball Super manga, or at least a couple of pages from it. We'll see next week what else they keep and cut.

The episode was meant to show how menacing Beerus is. It ends with the destruction of the planet and Beerus saying he no longer wants the dinosaur meat he went there for. All he wants is food and fighting, and what he's really thinking about now is challenging this mysterious Super Saiyan God. That's very similar to the ending of episode 2 of the 2015 series. Before Beerus goes to Earth, he heads to King Kai's planet where Goku is, and in episode 2 of Dragon Ball Super Beerus we're going to see the first clash between Goku and Beerus.

I still prefer the Battle of Gods movie for these events, but this version is much easier to watch if I'm going to watch any TV version of the story. So far I like the cuts they made, and I think it was a good idea to tighten up the story. Really, they could have cut more. I'm sure there will be cuts we won't like, too. The episode has no eye catches, but during the credits there's a moving graphic of the Eternal Dragon with scenes from the next episode behind it. If you want the next episode preview, it's in the credits, which is something really creative and something we've never seen Dragon Ball do before.

Which change in Dragon Ball Super Beerus episode 1 stood out most to you?