Is This 'Dragon Ball's Best Fight Ever?

Key Animator (原画): Naotoshi Shida (志田直俊)Source: Dragon Ball Super Episode 130 [...]

By Kofi Outlaw

The Dragon Ball franchise is all about fights and bouts between great powers of the world - and now universe. The iconic moments of those fights have helped carry the franchise's legacy to new generations of viewers over the course of decades. However, Dragon Ball Super has just pushed the bar of what a Dragon Ball fight can be, as you can see above.

So is this fight between a fully-powered Jiren and Complete Ultra Instinct Goku the best in Dragon Ball history? That may be a very subjective question, but there are some things about it that we can definitely say.

First of all: the animation style on this battle is the craziest, most colorful, and in a lot of ways surrealist that we've ever seen in Dragon Ball. It's something that we talked about for weeks leading up to this headlining bout in the Tournament of Power: Dragon Ball Super has pushed the power-ups of fighters like Goku, Jiren, and Vegeta to levels where the visual expressions of those powers has got to change. Dragon Ball is known for its signature fight mechanics and style, so that updating that to keep up with the likes of Ultra Instinct is quite a big evolution.

In that sense, Goku vs. Jiren (pt. 2) is the "best" fight in Dragon Ball history in terms of being a game-changer or novelty. However, as in terms of emotional impact, there are some other fights (particularly from the Dragon Ball Z era) that still rank. Goku's first Spirit Bomb attack against Vegeta in the first DBZ arc was a tense moment; Goku's first Super Saiyan transformation against Freeza is still one of the most iconic moments in the series, by far. Gohan's SSJ2 Transformation and destruction of Cell was perhaps the greatest long-term character arc payoff in the series - we could go on. Bottom line: Dragon Ball fights are remembered for deeper reasons than "best or worst" - as will the eye-melting fight between Goku and Jiren.

...And after seeing the new style in the first Dragon Ball Super movie trailer, it seems as though Dragon Ball's stylistic evolution is going to continue!

Dragon Ball Super airs on Crunchyroll Saturday evenings at 7:15 p.m. CST. Adult Swim airs the English dub during its Toonami block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m, and is now available to stream on FunimationNOW and Amazon Video.

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