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duhragonball · 11 months

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Dragon Ball Super manga Ch.68-70

It’s Granolah time.

Let me start off by saying I’ve only read the first six chapters of this arc, and I can already say that this one is leagues better than the Moro saga that came before it. I’m sure this story won’t be flawless, but seeing how much better Granolah is makes me realize just how crappy Moro was. I thought I was being too hard on the manga, but no, the Moro arc was just a hot mess.

Anyway, I’m digging this Granolah story, so I feel a lot better about liveblogging it. Let’s dive in.

We open with a moody flashback of Saiyan shock troops attacking Granolah’s home planet decades ago. Turns out this is a recurring nightmare he has.

Granolah’s been haunted by the invasion ever since, but there’s nothing he can do about it. Frieza wiped out the Saiyans a long time ago, and then Frieza got killed after that, so there’s no one left for Granolah to take revenge upon, even if he were powerful enough to take revenge. When I first heard about this guy, I was skeptical of the concept, since his vendetta would be forty or fifty years old by this time. But with Granolah, that’s the point. He’s been holding on to this grudge the whole time, and when he gets his chance to act, he grabs it with both hands.

Meanwhile, Goku and Vegeta are still training on Beerus’ planet. Goku learned to use Ultra Instinct at will during the Moro crisis, but Whis explains that this is only the beginning. Goku still can’t sustain UI for very long, while Merus could do it all the time. And Whis is even better at UI than Merus was, and the Grand Minister is even better still. So Goku has a long way to go, which is fine by him.

Vegeta, however, has no interest in learning Ultra Instinct, since he concluded some time ago that the ability doesn’t suit his tendency to overthink things. He wants to surpass Goku in some other way, and Beerus offers him a glimmer of hope, saying that there’s more than one godly technique that he can learn. The angels uses Ultra Instinct, but the Gods of Destruction follow a different path. Beerus says he’s not interested in teaching Vegeta, but then he teaches him anyway, because Beerus is tsundere. “I-it’s not like I want to teach you how to use destruction ki or anything, baka!”

Back to Granolah. At the end of the Moro arc, we met Granolah as he was stealing Seven Three’s remains from the aliens who built him. Seven Three was part of a whole series of similar androids, but he was the only one who spent any time in the field, so he’s a lot more powerful from the life experiences he had. Granolah’s client, Elec, could use Seven Three as the template for an army of unstoppable androids, but that’s not why he wanted the android. Elec’s what you might call an information broker, and he plans to mine Seven Three’s memory banks to find some useful data.

Granolah asks about his next assignment, but Elec doesn’t have any new work lined up, due to Frieza’s return to the galactic stage. We’ve only gotten glimpses of what Frieza’s been up to since Whis re-revived him at the end of the Tournament of Power. But apparently his activities have upset the status quo, and that’s hurting Elec’s business. That doesn’t matter to Granolah, though, and he immediately demands to know where Freiza is. Elec has his associates clobber him a little to get him back in line. He convinces Granolah that he doesn’t need to run off half-cocked, and Granolah backs down and heads home.

After he leaves, the rest of Elec’s group, the Heeters, ask Elec why he would tell Granolah about Frieza at all. They know how he feels about Frieza, so why stir the pot? Elec explains that Granolah’s getting too powerful, and if he ever surpassed the Heeters’ strongest member, Gas, then that might lead to trouble. The Heeters doubt that anyone could surpass Gas, but Elec still doesn’t want to take any chances.

So he wants Granolah good and riled up, so that when the time is right, he can manuever Granolah into a fight he can’t win, and Frieza will finish off Granolah for him.

Meanwhile, on the way home, Granolah gets ambushed by one of his fellow bounty-hunter guys, who wants to steal the big payday Granolah just scored. But Granolah has him completely outclassed. First he uses his eye-piece/computer, Oatmeel, as a decoy, and then Granolah picks off all of this guy’s allies with his sniper technique. Granolah’s species, the Cerealians, have a specialized right eye that gives them exceptional vision.

So Granolah’s powerful, sure, but he’s no match for Frieza, right? Well, Granolah plans to do something about that. As he schemes, the Oracle Fish on Beerus’ planet has a prophetic vision that the “strongest warrior in the universe will soon rise up.”

Back to Granolah, we find that he’s still living on Planet Cereal, even after the rest of his people were wiped out by the Saiyans. Since then, the planet has been re-populated by another species, the Sugurians, who lost their own homeworld at some point. The Heeters brokered a deal to settle them on Cereal, and their domed cities are built right next to the ruins of the Cerealian cities. I really like this imagery. Like I said, I was kind of wary of the idea of an alien seeking revenge after so many decades, but this story really uses that passage of time to full effect.

Meanwhile, Beerus talks to Vegeta about the Saiyans, and Vegeta admits that their destructive tendencies led to their downfall. Frieza accelerated the process, but his own father, King Vegeta III, is the one Vegeta holds responsible.

I’ve often noted this, but I find Vegeta to be an unreliable narrator for Saiyan history. In most stories, he’s literally the only one who remembers the Saiyan race, so his perspective is treated as gospel simply because there’s no one else to dispute it. In this case, I think Vegeta’s putting too much blame on his dad. I’m sure Vegeta I and Vegeta II bear their own responsibility, and it probably goes back even further than that. But Vegeta III is the leader he remembers, so it makes sense he would see it that way.

But he’s still wrong. Remember the Super Saiyan God legend from the Battle of Gods movie. The hero of the tale was trying to wipe out the wicked Saiyans, and he failed. That story was so ancient that Vegeta didn’t even know about it, which just goes to show that the Saiyans’ problems are far older than his dynasty.

And I guess this is what sets off Beerus’ bullshit-meter, since he dismisses Vegeta’s answer as ridiculous. He accuses Vegeta of putting the sins of his people on his own shoulders, and even if he were responsible, why do those old crimes have anything to do with his life now? He then reveals that he was the one who gave Frieza the idea to destroy Planet Vegeta all those years ago. Vegeta flies into a rage, but he can’t beat Beerus any more now than he could when they first fought on Earth.

Beerus’ point is that Vegeta will have to let go of the past if he hopes to master the style of the Gods of Destruction. This is kind of like what Toppo had to do when he transformed into a Destroyer in the Tournament of Power. He had been trying to avoid that step for a long time, but when he got desperate enough, he finally crossed the threshold, and Vegeta mocked him for it.

And now Beerus is mocking Vegeta for failing to understand this. Toppo got stronger because he put aside the irrelevancies and focused on what mattered. Beerus says he only focuses on destruction, which keeps him sharp. His advice to Vegeta is that he’ll have to destroy his own stray thoughts to build himself into something better.

Meanwhile, the Heeters go through Seven Three’s memory records and learn what they wanted to know: the location of Zuno, the galaxy’s greatest information broker. But they also learn about Moro and the Dragon Balls, since Seven Three was involved with that business before he got captured. Elec realizes that the Dragon Balls might explain how Frieza came back to life, and Macki recalls that there used to be Namekians on Planet Cereal before they got wiped out. But Elec knows that there’s one left: Granolah’s housemate, Monaito.

Back on Cereal, Granolah discusses his latest job with Monaito, and informs him of Frieza’s return. The two of them live in this remote house, far from the Cerealian ruins and the Sugurian cities. Even though they’re on friendly terms with the Sugurians, they prefer to be removed from their tragic past. I find it off that their house doesn’t look much like the Cerealian or Namekian architecture. Maybe the Sugurians built it for them.

Anyway, Granolah considers using the Dragon Balls to become powerful enough to defeat Frieza, but Monaito warns him that the Dragon Balls aren’t meant for revenge. Besides, they don’t have a complete set on planet Cereal. One is in Monaito’s house, but the other was lost a long time ago. Wait, what?

To explain how Monaito has his own set of Dragon Balls, we cut to a lesson on New Namek, where Moori explains how Namekians have settled on other planets. Those communities would have their own elders, just as Moori is the elder of New Namek. And those elders would be empowered to create and maintain Dragon Balls.

This isn’t exactly news, since this is exactly how we have Dragon Balls on Earth. The Son of Katas came to Earth as a refugee, then eventually ascended to the role of Kami and created a set of Dragon Balls without remembering where he learned to do it. Monaito’s basically the same deal, except he had a whole group of Namekians with him on Cereal, and he’s the only one who survived the invasion. This story just confirms that there could be other Namekian communities in the universe, and any of them could have their own sets of Dragon Balls.

What I find more troubling is that Monaito’s set of Dragon Balls is just a pair. I guess there’s no rule that their must be seven, but it’s kind of weird how we’ve always seen them in groups of seven before, and yet this one is just two.

Anyway, as fate would have it, Granolah turns on the local news and learns that some Sugarian kid just happened to find the lost ball and took it to a lab for study. And maybe this is why they went with just two balls, in order to simplify this moment, but they could have just as easily put six Dragon Balls on Monaito’s shelf.

So Granolah immediately makes his move, stealing the second Dragon Ball and sneaking off to make his wish. I like the design for Cereal’s Shenron, or whatever he’s called. The dragon is willing to grant Granolah’s wish to become the greatest warrior in the universe, but Granolah’s body isn’t sturdy enough for that kind of power. However, the Dragon can make it possible, if Granolah is willing to accept a compromise in exchange. Granolah doesn’t even wait to find out what it is.

Meanwhile, Vegeta has finally achieved some success in using the Hakai technique. He can only destroy little grains of sand, but he can destroy them, which is a big accomplishment. And he’s not going to rest on his laurels.

Satisfied that his wish has been granted, Granolah immediately heads back to the Heeter’s HQ and demands to know where he can find Frieza. The Heeters don’t understand what’s happened to him, but Granolah quickly defeats Oil and Macki in combat, and Elec realizes that Granolah’s not just blowing smoke. Maybe he really can defeat Frieza, but he can’t just tell him where to find Frieza, because if he loses, Frieza might take revenge on the Heeters. So Elec asks for some information on how Granolah got this strong, and Granolah explains the Dragon Balls and the condition he had to agree to. Normally, Cerealians live for two hundred hears, and Granolah’s 50 now, but in order to get his wish, he had to let the Dragon shorten his lifespan. Granolah now has only three years left to live.

Elec convinces Granolah to wait on Planet Cereal while they track down Frieza’s position. In reality, Elec hatches a scheme to neutralize Granolah first. Elec wants Frieza out of the picture, but he’s worried that if Granolah does the job, he might wipe out Frieza’s goon squad, and Elec wants to take them over for his own organization. Wait, why didn’t the Heeters take over the Frieza Force before, when Frieza was dead? I mean, it’s just as well that they didn’t do this, since Frieza would have returned and killed them, but they didn’t know that at the time.

So how can Elec stop Granolah from wrecking his plans? Simple, he’s going to get Goku and Vegeta to do it for him. Having studied Seven Three’s records, Elec knows that the Saiyans fought Moro, and they should be powerful enough to defeat Granolah, and Granolah won’t turn down a chance to fight Saiyans, since he wants revenge against those guys too. Elec is confident that Goku and Vegeta would win that fight, but what if he’s wrong? Well, I guess he’s got nothing to lose by trying...

So yeah, to repeat what I said at the top, this is way, way better than the Moro arc. There’s a lot fewer characters, and their motive are more complex, and their plans aren’t nearly as convoluted. We’re not sending Goku and Vegeta on a wild goose chase to like five different planets for this one. No dead-end subplots about Majin Buu or those space crooks who tried to rob that space train.

I also really like the way this story uses Frieza without featuring him in the plot. The problem I’ve always had with bringing back Frieza is that he just does all the same stuff he did the first time around. The only novelty to Frieza these days is less about what he’s up to, but how everyone else reacts to his return. The Heeters, Granolah, Monaito, and the Sugarians have been trying to build a life for themselves in a post-Frieza universe, but now he’s back, and that upsets everything.

Also, it’s refreshing to see Goku and Vegeta actually learning something on Beerus’ planet, as opposed to just sparring there as an establishing scene. I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super manga #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #goku #vegeta #beerus #whis #granolah #elec #oil #gas #macki #monaito #moori

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