Super Dragon Ball Heroes Big Bang Mission ep 2: is it worth it?

Episode 2 of Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Big Bang Mission is a showcase for Beerus. It is also another letdown. The rematch it teased between Goku and Beerus amounts to a few seconds of action. Fu's Universe Tree is an ambitious concept that I don't expect Heroes to do justice.

If you're a Beerus fan, you'll love this episode. He performs well and dominates his opponents. That's about where the good news ends.

Super Dragon Ball Heroes exists to sell arcade cards, including the new Beerus card

I've said it many times in these reviews. The Super Dragon Ball Heroes promotional anime was made to promote the arcade game in Japan. There you can buy physical cards and use them in the machines. If you've played the Switch version, you know it's a scaled-down version of the arcade games with fully digital cards. The arcade machines use actual cards.

The episode promotes a new Beerus card. There is also an amazing card of Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Super Saiyan 4 Goku teaming up. It looks so good it makes you wonder. Wouldn't it be great to get an official film, not a promotional anime, that brings together the Goku from Super and the Goku from GT? That would be incredibly cool. I know we'll be seeing more of Goku, but seeing that would be amazing.

Beerus toys with Goku, Vegeta and Trunks in Big Bang Mission Episode 2

The episode picks up where the last one ended. Beerus and the Gods of Destruction are on Earth searching for a bird that is supposed to cause chaos in the universe. They assume the bird is Toki Toki. Trunks of the Time Patrol has to protect Toki Toki and make sure the Gods of Destruction, led by Beerus, don't harm or destroy it.

Early in the episode, Goku and Vegeta attack in Super Saiyan Blue alongside Trunks. Beerus toys with them with ease. Remember two things here. First, we have never seen Beerus at full power. Supposedly this isn't his peak, because he was toying with all of them at once.

Second, and I repeat this constantly, power levels in Dragon Ball Heroes make no sense. To me, Ultra Instinct Goku is stronger than Beerus based on what we've seen of that form. I'm not saying Goku is in that state now. But if they end up fighting and Beerus wins, don't think it means anything. Nothing in Heroes carries real meaning. It's entertainment and a way to push the story forward.

The people writing Dragon Ball scenarios at Bandai or elsewhere don't care about power scaling. All they care about is releasing the next card. That's the heart of it. I've been saying this for months, and I keep repeating it because some people are confused about Heroes. That worries me, because I don't want people getting mixed up.

Xeno Goku and Xeno Vegeta arrive as the evil tree's roots spread

Goku and Vegeta's Xeno versions, the Time Patrol versions, make a very cool entrance. I've always liked Xeno Goku's look with his long red coat. I love that look on him, and I wish Goku would adopt it in the series at some point.

Vegeta points out that while they were fighting, nobody noticed the roots of this evil tree. That is part of Fu's plan. The roots appear in some fairly creepy scenes, and they're well done.

The animation still won't be at the level we want. It won't reach the standard of Super, because the top creatives from Super aren't currently involved. They contribute to some episodes here and there, but not on a monthly or regular basis. So don't expect it to be spectacular. There are still some interesting visual moments, and for me the roots are one of them.

The Universe Tree echoes the Dragon Ball Z film The Tree of Might

We're shown planets being eaten away by the tree. It's very similar to the third Dragon Ball Z film, The Tree of Might, where the tree drains all of Earth's energy and leaves it withered. It also resembles what Moro does in many ways. I see some parallels between Moro and the Tree of Might.

The image here isn't identical, though. In The Tree of Might, many animals wandered around homeless. People were still living for a while, I think, and Goku saved the day. Here, the planet rots into a bare space rock with nothing left, whether living creatures or plants. It vanishes entirely. It looks like a piece of candy that has been chewed and sucked dry.

Then the Gods of Destruction suddenly glow yellow and disappear. Only Beerus remains.

The Goku vs Beerus rematch lasts about 10 seconds

We got played again. The Goku and Beerus rematch hinted at in the last episode came to nothing. The same happened with Goku against Goku in the first episode. It was three moves and done, and two of them were against Vegeta and Trunks. Beerus blocked one move and they traded a few punches. It lasted about 10 seconds at most.

I hate this. I can't stand it when Heroes does this. I wish they would devote a full episode to a proper fight, the way they did with the Hearts fight in the previous Heroes anime series. I feel we'll never get a truly good fight. They'll build these battles up, but outside of one or two in the whole story we won't get them.

Because of that, I honestly feel this promotional anime is a waste of time. I cover it. I don't hate myself for watching, because the episodes are only 10 minutes long. When this episode came out, many of us were looking for entertainment while in quarantine, or at least social isolation. But it isn't entertaining, and it always disappoints.

If you're going to watch Heroes, lower your expectations a lot. It isn't good to get too excited about it. I won't be a hype man for these episodes. Others might, but I won't, because there's nothing to get excited about. It has let us down every time. Until something truly amazing happens in Heroes, it's better to keep expectations low and watch to see what happens. Don't expect the classic Dragon Ball fights we saw in Z and Super, and certainly nothing of Z's quality.

Fu reveals his plan to grow the Universe Seed into the Universe Tree

The Gods of Destruction left to investigate what was happening in their own universes. Then Fu appears with the bird of calamity, the real bird Beerus had heard would bring an end to the universe's existence. Fu explains what is going on. It turns out he was the mastermind behind Hearts and the Universe Seed.

His plan is for the Universe Seed, which Hearts was showing off in the previous Heroes series, to grow into the Universe Tree. Put simply, the Universe Tree is a stronger version of the Tree of Might. The two aren't truly connected, but you can tell they drew inspiration from the Tree of Might concept.

The Universe Tree absorbs the energy of universes. It's the Tree of Might at double strength, and it grows bigger and stronger as it feeds, on a far wider scale. The story centers on Fu wanting to create a new universe and restart life from scratch. That's reminiscent of what Thanos said in Avengers: Endgame.

Beerus can only hold the tree back for so long

Beerus uses his powers to suppress the tree and stop it growing. He sits there trying to restrain it and tells Goku and the others, "I can only maintain this for a limited time." He ends up telling them they have to do something about it, because he can't stop it forever.

So Vegeta, Goku and their allies set out to find a way to stop the tree, get rid of it and defeat Fu. That's roughly how the episode ends.

This is another great idea wasted in Dragon Ball Heroes. It could have been a great story for a film, a television arc or even the manga. It's a great concept, with everything tied to the seed and every universe involved. It's far bigger and more ambitious than the Moro story. Yet because of the limitations of Heroes and what it's for, we'll never get a good story from it, or at least we probably won't. I hope it happens, but my expectations are low.