So, on September 21st of this year, Toei Animation decided to put out a celebration for some new Dragon Ball Legends units. For about 4 days, you were allowed to watch the entire English-dubbed movie Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13! along with a trailer for the new units, the androids from said movie. Since it’s free, and I want to flex my writing muscles, I decided to watch it & give a review of the movie.
The Japanese poster for Super Android 13, because the English one kinda sucks...
The movie’s only an hour long, so this shouldn't take too long. It opens with the death of Dr. Gero at the hands of Android 17, similar to what canonically happens in Dragon Ball Z. However, the narrator explains that Gero’s computer also shared his hatred of Goku, and continued to work on a secret weapon as 17 & 18 presumably went on their way (they don’t show up later or anything). We then cut to the Z Fighters as they shop at a mall, seeming Chi-Chi’s idea. As they’re having fun, the town is suddenly attacked by two Androids, 14 & 15, who want Goku dead, as usual. Future Trunks jumps into the fight with Goku (guess he was just bored and hung out in the present), and the two of them drag the Androids away from the city to avoid civilian casualties, with Gohan & Krillin following as back-up. Everyone ends up at what seems to be the Arctic, and the main antagonist shows up after being finished by Gero’s computer: Android 13.
"Number 13, that's your unlucky number. And I ain't talking about no silly superstition, city-boy. I'm talking about yours truly; Big 13!"
After introductions & insulting Trunk’s hair, the rest of the movie is your classic Dragon Ball fighting, with Vegeta & even Piccolo showing up & destroying 14 & 15. However, 13 can absorb their parts, and turns into the title of the movie before absolutely trouncing everyone present even harder than before. With no other choice, Goku makes a Spirit Bomb, absorbs it as a Super Saiyan, and mutilates Super 13 with one punch, saving the day and giving the Gero Computer such an aneurysm it shuts down.
Is it bad if the Spirit Bomb makes you really angry?
First things first, I think the movie looks pretty good. It’s got a nice color palette, and things like movement & hair are animated well (no awkward sliding or tweening). The best looking moments are probably the intro with Gero & 17, as well as the glacier fight once everyone went Super Saiyan. That intro especially, it had some gorgeous shading and animation for such a small sequence. I did notice, however, that there were a lot of times where characters were drawn rather strangely, and I don’t mean the bits you obviously weren’t meant to pause on. This probably should've gotten a passover or two.
To be fair, he was just in an explosion...
The writing, however, is pretty much on-point the entire movie. It’s an oddly comedic movie, where only Gohan and Vegeta are taking things seriously. Even when everything’s done and they’re in the hospital, everyone’s joking and laughing. That’s not even getting into when the Androids get involved; once they’re talking and fighting, half of the time it’s just pure slapstick. My personal favorites are the times Android 15 sinks into the snow during the glacier battle, 13 talking about the hypocrisy of humans having free will before calling Trunks’ hair garbage, and of course… Goku getting punched in the nuts so hard he voice cracks. Nothing but pure gold.
How he was able to still turn Super Saiyan after this is beyond me.
Unfortunately, I do have one major gripe with the movie… Why were Vegeta AND Piccolo at the glacier? I would understand only one of them being there to aura farm or train or whatever… but why both of them? Piccolo doesn’t get involved in the fight until Gohan jumps in, and that’s a few minutes after Vegeta. Did they plan that? Did they not even notice the other guy was at the glacier??? I get needing the 2 coolest DBZ guys in the movie, but they definitely felt out of place.
It seems Big 13 hasn't had the privilage of playing a good round of Dark Souls 2 NPC ganking.
Thankfully, that’s really my only issue with Super Android 13, it’s otherwise a pretty fun movie. If you have an hour to burn and like Dragon Ball Z, I’d recommend this one if you can find it. 30 dollah haircut out of 10.
Still waiting on that fish to jump...