Dragon Ball Super: Broly is not a perfect film by any means- riddled with pacing issues and a second half that relies far too heavily on action over storytelling- but it is a massive step in the right direction for the series. Animation wise, it is the best Dragon Ball has ever looked, truly bringing the series into the modern era of animation and setting a new standard that’ll go on to define Son Goku’s adventures to come. Narrativ💛ely, it’s Toriyama experimenting with what Dragon Ball is and what it means to be a Saiyan, recontextualizing the scope of the story into a grand, almost൲ operatic, epic of sorts.
That’s going to be hit or miss for most fans, but the point is that Broly is a game changer. It’s also packed with content, to the point where Toriyama’s script was reportedly sliced in half. As a return, the movie goes by fast. Literally. This film is chalk full 🅰of blink and you miss it moments. Watching the film once just isn’t enough, but, considering the limited release, it might be all you get before its home release. If that’s the case, don’t worry: we watched extra hard so you wouldn’t have to.
30 Battle Power Versus Power L𒐪evel
Historically, the series’ dub has referred to the numbers that appear on Scouters as “Power Levels.” In Japan, however, said term would be more appropriately tr𝓡anslꦆated as “Battle Power.” Since Funimation is not at liberty to shift too much from their established early terminology, whether right or wrong, Power Level has remained the term.
Until now, i🐎t seems. In a twist of fate, the newest film actual♊ly does use Battle Power rather consistently. Paragus does indeed use the term “Power Level” at one point early on, but every other mention of the term uses the actual translation. It’s a minor step forward, but a step forward nonetheless.
29 Not Every Saiyan I♚s A Soldier
Considering how the Saiyans were initially introduced in the original series, we were lead to believe they were a completely barbaric r💞ace. The idea of a passive Saiyan was unrealistic let alone the idea that Saiyan culture would allow any single member to not be an active soldier.
Someone has to support the soldiers.
Coming into the new film, though, things have changed. It’s established right away, through Beets no less, that the Saiyan hierarchy does actively maintain perꦦsons who aren’t militaristic. This isn’t a matter of semantics defining a level of soldierdom, either. Beets explicitly says he’s never even turned into an Oozaru.
28 ﷽ Not All Of Minus Is Adapted
Interestingly, despite the prologue’s heavy focus on adapting Minus in its back half, not all of the manga chapter is adapted. For starterᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚs, the introduction depicting Bardock fighting oဣff an alien race is omitted. As the prologue is rather low key, it does make sense to cut back on the action.
More pressingly, the actual end of the chapter is cut entirely. Rather than showing Grandpa Gohan finding Goku, the prologue cuts ahead to where we currently are in the series’ timeline. Considering how the film focuses so intimately on Goku, Vegeta, and Broly as✅ byproducts of their fathers, it would have been nice to see Goku with his actual parental figure.
27 Not Every Saiyan Has Black Hair 𒊎
It’s revealed in the Cell arc that every pure bloode𒆙d Saiyan is born with black hair. While the anime did show Saiyans with different colored hair, (Toei even go꧅ing so far to give Vegeta brown highlight at times,) the manga consistently stood by the black hair rule. That may not be valid anymore, though
Early in the film, when King Vegeta is admiring his son and later admonishing Broly, a female Saiyan with light hair is among the group. Her mere existence🍨 is enough to suggest that Vegeta’s black hair claim is no longer genuine. It can be argued that this is just an animation error, but it’s also im🍌portant to remember the animated side is the main continuity now.
26 ღ Suction Cup Scouter
Even though Scouters have been a part of the series for ages now, we’ve n✨ever actually known how exactly they stayed onto one’s ears. Did they clip on? Mold on? According to the film, Scouters actually have a suctioning function where they suction around the ear and stick on. Considering their design, it’s very likely Akira Toriyama conceives this idea all along. If nothing else, this is the first time we see the suctioning in action, comical sound effect and all.
25 Scouter Colors Take After The Manga ജ
Although the anime seemingly colored Scouters bౠased off some sort of internal hierarchy (low ranking soldiers wearing green, mid ra𓆉nking soldiers wearing blue, and elite soldiers wearing red,) the manga- in its full color format- primarily used shades of green and blue for all Scouters.
A shame since red Scouters are undeniably the best.
Coming into the film, we see that Scouters do indeed take after their manga 𓆉selves. A more direct approach would have been to uniform each Scouter either light blue or green, but the movie does stick to a consistent color scheme more oftꦫen than not. Freeza never even dons his signature red Scouter!
24 Bardock’s Final Confrontation෴ May Not Have Been In The Script
In general, the film has a bit of a pacing problem. With so much content to wade through- and hundreds of pages cut from Toriyama’s final script- we end up jumping around quite a bit. One such jarring moment comes fr🍰om Bardock assaulting Freeza’s army pretty much out of nowhere before being vaporized.
Considering how slapped in the scene is, however, and the fact Toriyama’s take on the Bardock special did not actually include the assault, it’s entirely possible that Bardock’s con♈frontation against Freeza may not have been in the script and was instead a🍌dded by the animation staff at the last minute to appease fans.
23 The Bardock TV Special May Still Have Happened (To An Ext𝄹en🌼t)
That said, it’s just as likely that Bardock’s final confron༒tation was indeed in the original script and was just a casualty of the mass cutting. The prologue itself is already😼 quite long and, by the time we get to Bardock, it does seem as though the film is just trying to hit all the major beats.
Minus Bardock's cohorts, of course.
It’s worth keeping in mind, though, that this glimpse of a confrontation does suggest the TV special ⛄still happened to an extent. Naturally, it couldn’t have happened as is (Bardock loves his son and doesn’t wear a bandana,) but it’s still likely he fought off Freeza’s army, Dodoria, and tried to warn the Saiyans of Planet 𝔉Vegeta’s end to no avail.
22 Confirmatio🔯n That Nappa Actually Had Hair
While the Bardock TV special did show us a Nappa who had hair, this wasn’t a product written by Akira Toriyama and even though it didn’t contradict anything from the manga and was indeed suggested to be part of the manga’s continuity, this simply wasn’t enough to indicate that Nappa with hair was part of Toriyama’s vision. Thankfully, the new film clears⛎ this up by definitively giving us a Nappa with canonical hair. It just goes to show that even the burlies🏅t of Saiyans can go bald with time.
21 The Oozaru’s First Appearance🎐 Since The Saiyan Arc
The Oozaru transformation has been a staple of the series since the very first arc. Goku’s ability to turn into a Great Ape defined his early self to an extent and it was a trait that was revisited quite heavily in the Saiyan arc. ꦯAfter that, though, we never saw an Oozaru again.
Broly's not monkeying around this film.
The film not only acknowledges the Oozaru transformation, but shows Broly’s Ooz𒀰aru form more than once through flashbacks. His non-Super Saiyan transformation even taps into the power of the Oozaru without transforming. In many respects, it’s fairly evocative of Super Saiyan 4.