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‘Dragon Ball Super’ Episode 98: ‘Oh, All In Vain! The Universes Despair!!’ Review

By Simon Alvarez
Published on: 14:14 PST, Jul 8, 2017

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Dragon Ball Super Episode 98, “Oh, All In Vain! The Universes Despair!!” ultimately proved that the rules of the Tournament of Power are absolute: Once the representative fighters of a participating universe are all eliminated, their universe will get destroyed. In the recently aired episode, this is exactly what happened, as Universe 9 — fighters, gods, and all — ultimately kicked the bucket after getting defeated by Goku and Vegeta (and Frieza, to a point).

The previous episode ended with Goku being boxed in by the U9 fighters. In DBS Episode 98, the Saiyan, who was still in his base form, quickly found himself on the ropes after getting triple-teamed by the Trio de Dangers, who are the ace fighters of Universe 9. Vegeta, annoyed at his fellow Saiyan for being unable to defeat the U9 fighters, opted to back up Goku, and things just became more interesting from there.

In a lot of ways, it was a joy to see Goku and Vegeta team up in order to battle practically all of Universe 9’s fighters. Apart from a U9 warrior who was getting slowly tortured by Frieza, the rest of the representative team quickly battled it out with the Saiyan duo. Needless to say, the anime quickly took a turn for the better at this point, with the episode showing some of the finest fighting sequences in the Universe Survival Arc to date.

One thing that Dragon Ball Super Episode 98 managed to truly do was deliver an intense episode that was both rife with action and incredibly satisfying to watch. As soon as Goku and Vegeta teamed up, Universe 9 was pushed back, but despite this, the U9 fighters, especially the Trio de Dangers, still attempted to do what they could in order to counter U7’s attack.

Despite their rather heroic final stand, however, Universe 9 ultimately bowed to Universe 7, after its last three fighters, Bergamo, Lavender, and Basil, were blasted out of the ring with Goku and Vegeta’s Final Kamehameha, as stated by noted DBS fan-translator Todd Blankenship. With this, Universe 9 was officially eliminated from the tournament.

The Grand Priest has always been transparent about the rules and consequences of the Tournament of Power. Despite all the warning, however, it was still shocking to see the entirety of Universe 9, from its gods, to its representative fighters, to its billions of inhabitants, get annihilated in an instant. Whis’ comment about the universe’s erasure all but confirmed that from this point in the ToP, Dragon Ball Super would never be the same.

While the erasure of Universe 9 was already disturbing on its own, the reaction of U9’s Angel was even more chilling. Immediately after his universe was annihilated, the Angel, who has practically shown no emotion since appearing on the show, smiled.

This, of course, has managed to get avid fans of the series extremely excited, with many stating in the official Dragon Ball Super subreddit that the Angels and the Grand Priest seem to be plotting something very sinister after the Tournament of Power. If any, the fact that the Grand Priest directly smiled at Goku after Universe 9’s destruction seemed to foreshadow that things are bound to get even more severe after the multiverse battle royale has concluded.

Overall, Dragon Ball Super Episode 98, “Oh, All In Vain! The Universes Despair!!” currently stands as one of the series’ strongest episodes yet, filled with impressive action sequences and a finale that could very well prove to be a turning point in the anime. Needless to say, it would be interesting to see what other surprises the Universe Survival Arc has in store for viewers in the next few weeks.

Dragon Ball Super airs every Sunday at 9 a.m. JST. The anime is available in the west through streaming services such as FunimationNow and Crunchyroll.

[Featured Image by Toei Animation]

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