Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods

Well it finally happened, after nearly two decades, we finally got a new DBZ film and it's in theaters. I enjoyed it, but honestly, all I could think of was a meme that showed a DBZ fan begging Akira Toriyama for more until he finally angrily sodomizes the fan screaming "There's more! Are you happy now?" and the fan smiling and replying, "Yes thank you sir!" That's what it felt like, there was a lot of ridiculousness, enough self parody that Team Four Star isn't necessary, and some characters even broke down enough it was like Akira Toriyama just didn't really care this time, but the fans do and we're so happy to see the gang we took it up the rear end with glee. Visually it was awesome, some computer graphics and special effects were used to make superior fight scenes. Unfortunately, leading up to that fight scene was an hour long joke of an exposition, which on the whole is actually par for the course for DBZ, and it managed to fit in everybody from the series who wasn't dead. Only in the DBZ universe can the God of Destruction crash a birthday party and threaten the fate of the planet because he didn't get pudding.

So the movie starts out with King Kai and the Supreme Kai discussing Goku and Lord Beerus after the latter had awoken from a three and a half decade long sleep. If you're not in the know, the hierarchy of deities is every planet having a kami, then the kamis in a quadrant answer to one of four Kai who in turn answers to one of four Supreme Kai. And then there's the Elder Kai, which is just a previous Supreme Kai, though there's only one left after Majin Buu ate the others, but more on that later. The Kais are worried about Goku and Beerus fighting each other, which they are sure will happen(of course they are right, there's no movie if it doesn't happen). Meanwhile everybody else is at Capsule Corp. celebrating Bulma's 38th birthday. And when I say everybody else, I mean literally everybody. Bulma invited Goku's whole family, which includes Gohan's wife Videl and her father Mr. Satan and his friend the now reformed Majin Buu. There's also the Z Fighters including Piccolo and Dende the Guardian of the Earth and reigning Kami, both of whom are green namekians. And in case you forgot, Krillin married Android 18 and they have a daughter who is playing with Goten and Trunks. Everybody is friendly enough, even the two green guys and the big pink glob of goo, so when the purple cat man shows up askign about a Super Saiyan God, everybody is cool about it. Then Emperor Pilaf shows up with his cronies Mai and Shu, we haven't seen them in years and now they have turned themselves into kids thanks to a botched wish for youth. They bump into Goten and have traumatic flashbacks, and also meet Trunks, who promptly claims Mai is his girlfriend. The trio tries to steal the dragon balls, but fail iserably thanks to intervention from the Great Saiyman(Gohan) which leads to an accidental shooting of Videl which is healed by Dende who also discovers she's pregnant with Pan. Beerus also gets hit and gets angry but Vegeta manages to distract him with song and dance leading to bingo. Beearus settles down until his partner Weiss suggests pudding and is denied by Majin Buu who licks all thpudding and eats it right in front of Beerus. This turns out to be the pivotal moment that causes him to try to destroy the planet. Everybody pulls out their best tricks, Goten and Trunks fuse into Gotenks, nobody does better than a single blow. Bulma gets mad at Beerus for ruining her birthday party an slaps him, he bitch slaps her back and Vegeta goes apeshit right back. Goku shows up finally and buys some time while they summon Shenron to find out about the Super Saiyan God and finally figure out that Goku can become one if five other Saiyans give him power, which conveniently is exactly the number of other Saiyans present including his unborn grandchild. It's enough to make Goku transform and fight Beerus which is an awesome battle for the last third of the movie(I won't bother describing it, it's purely visual). Of course Goku saves the world and everybody goes back to the party.

We had some laughs and an awesome battle, it's just another day for the DBZ crew. I give mad props to the gang at FUNimation who must have had a ball, especially Chris Sabat who played Vegeta, Piccolo and Shenron, meaning he was talking to himself at some points. However there were some inconsistencies, Goku feels bad about using the power of others to become Super Saiyan God, but never seemed to feel that way when he used others power for the Spirit Bomb or fusing with Vegeta to become Vegito, and Vegeta seemed to be very caring towards Bulma, even referring to her as his wife, which I don't remember happening in the series. Mostly though, it was just great to see everybody again, I hope they do another soon.