Dragon Ball Super Gives Gohan His Best Battle Yet

Dragon Ball Super‘s latest manga chapter continues setting up the final act of the “Galactic Patrol Prisoner” story arc, by growing the threat to Earth from new series villain, Planet-Eater Moro. The ancient evil sorcerer has set his sights on Earth as his next meal while Goku and Vegeta are away, and has dispatched a squad of killer escaped convicts to scout the planet. Well, those crooks arrived on Earth expecting to easily roll over any resistance in their way, but they did not count on the remaining Z-Fighters serving as Earth’s defense, and the certainly did not count on the might of Gohan!

Warning – Dragon Ball Super manga Chapter 54 SPOILERS Follow!

The group of Moro’s henchman that arrive on Earth included Dragon Ball Super‘s new evil alien Android, Seventhree, who has he ability to copy the powers of his opponents. Seventhree got ahold of Piccolo’s powers and nearly slaughtered the Namekian warrior, if not from a save from Gohan. Gohan steps onto the battlefield to take on Seventhree after Piccolo is exhausted, and it easily the best moment of battle that we’ve seen from Gohan yet in Dragon Ball Super!

Gohan arrives in his civilian clothes, but has no problem putting the smackdown on Seventhree. In fact, after the first round of battle sees Seventhree try some of Piccolo’s sneakier tricks, only to end up getting thrashed, Piccolo remarks that Gohan’s power is embarrassingly greater than his own:

“Well done Gohan!… I’ve got mixed feelings about you beating a copy of me that easily. Now get out there and end this.”

Piccolo gives his ‘son’ a nice wardrobe change, bringing back Gohan’s iconic purple keikogi look. It’s a welcome change, as Seventhree comes to the second round of battle with a new power in tow: growing to giant size. However, between the untapped potential of a half-Saiyan warrior, and Piccolo’s training, Gohan beats him down again. Seventhree’s attempt to trap Gohan and steal his abilities doesn’t work, and for a moment it looked like Gohan would add a much-needed victory to his battle record. However, Seventhree has one last secret weapon: Moro lifeforce-draining power, which shut down Goku and Vegeta when they battled Moro, and allows Seventhree to siphon Gohan’s power, as well.

In the end, Gohan is saved only because Moro calls back his henchman, wanting to wait until Gohan and Vegeta break their current limits, so he can consume even more of their power. Still, this chapter certainly makes the further case for why a Gohan and the Z-Fighters spinoff series would be a great addition to Dragon Ball.

The Japanese-language and English dub releases of Dragon Ball Super are now complete and available to stream with FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. Viz Media is releasing new chapters of the manga at a monthly rate that can be read entirely for free through the Shonen Jump digital library, and Dragon Ball Super’s big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. Fans in Japan are also able to enjoy fresh non-canon adventures from the franchises with new episodes of Super Dragon Ball Heroes‘ promotional anime series.