‘Dragon Ball Super’ Just Made An Unexpected Freeza Throwback

Warning! Spoilers for Episode 125 of Dragon Ball Super below!

Dragon Ball Super has went out of its way many times to pay homage to earlier scenes in the franchise. This has been especially true of the Universal Survival arc’s Tournament of Power, which has been a great showcase for characters to use moves they haven’t used in quite a while.

The latest unexpected bit of fanservice is during Freeza’s fight with Toppo. When Toppo is defeated by Freeza and Android 17, he becomes a new God of Destruction. And his first move? To launch a Hakai orb at Freeza, which mirrors when Goku used the Spirit Bomb on Freeza during their fight on Namek.

Freeza, even filled with the same amount of hubris that he had in his fight with Goku on Namek, tries to block Toppo’s Hakai. Instead, he’s shocked to find out that he can’t block it and it slowly absorbs. Reciting the same lines as he did back then, he’s overtaken with the Hakai as he was with the Spirit Bomb.

Taking this one step further is his recovery, which closely resembles how he recovered from the Spirit Bomb. Standing atop a rock while the battle damaged Freeza yells with one eye closed, his emotions and anger here play out in the exact same fashion.

Although Freeza was able to catch a Hakai blast in the past, clearly Toppo’s version of that is stronger. And also like in the fight with Goku, Toppo quickly overwhelmed Freeza with a physical assault before nearly eliminating him from the Tournament of Power.

But as he and Android 17 have survived Toppo’s godly assault for now, there is still a chance for victory in the tournament’s final five minutes.

Dragon Ball Super‘s “Universal Survival” arc is part of the recent simulcast agreement that sites like Crunchyroll and Funimation have scored. DragonBall 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.

There is also currently a new Dragon Ball film in the works for 2018. The film will focus on the Saiyans, the “origins of Goku‘s power,” and potentially the story of the very first Super Saiyan God. Not only does it aim to be the best film in the series, original creator Akira Toriyama will be contributing to the film’s script and new character designs.