SSS-Class Revival Hunter is a series that feels like it is taking some of the most interesting elements of other standard wish fulfillment series, and presenting them in one of the most obtuse ways possible. The story follows a young man named Gongja whose overwhelming character trait is that he is jealous of a jerk on TV who is blessed with incredible powers. That’s it, and if you think that I’m being too harsh on this guy, the show itself actually uses how pathetic he is as a legitimate plot point for why he deserves to get broken abilities that act as the inciting incident for the rest of the show. I’m not kidding when I say that there were audible gaps and groans when the camera pulled back, revealing just how much of a pathetic obsessive loser that this guy is. I can’t tell if this is supposed to be funny or if the show is really trying to relate to a very specific demographic.

But what is this broken ability that Gongja ends up unlocking for being a petty little weasel? Well, it’s the ability to copy the skill of anybody who kills him, but the trade-off is that the skill doesn’t actually bring him back to life, so it’s kind of useless. If only there were an ability that would allow him to circumvent this weakness? What’s that? The jerk that Gongja is obsessed with just happens to have an ability that lets him go back in time a full day every time he dies? Wow, that’s so incredibly convenient it might just work as the premise for an entire show.

There is a right way to do edgy and over-the-top power fantasies, but this definitely isn’t it. The problem with this premise is that it’s trying to get me to care about a character who I have no reason to think deserves any type of fulfillment. I don’t know anything about this guy outside of the fact that he is jealous of a talented individual who just happened to be one of the biggest jerks on the planet, but it’s not like said target of jealousy was hiding the fact that he was a terrible person either, so that doesn’t even work as some kind of reveal that completely shakes up Gongja’s worldview. He was just literally at the wrong place at the wrong time, but considering how well it works out for him, it’s just another convenience that eventually will build up to his ultimate power fantasy. There’s nothing here for me to really get attached to or engaged with. There’s no character that I want to follow, and the actual narrative progression feels so forced that it’s sending my critic brain into a drunken fury. Of all the premieres that I watched at New York Comic Con, this is the worst.

Dragon Ball is back… again! Dragon Ball Super: Beerus is very interesting, as it is basically a reanimated cut of the original Dragon Ball Super series, but this time it is recut with better animation. Despite the fact that the franchise is retreading very similar ground, that did not stop the premiere of the first episode at the New York Comic Con panel from being packed to capacity. The panel was hosted by Monica Rial, the current English voice of Bulma, with special guests Jason Douglas, the voice of Beerus, and Ian Sinclair, the voice of Whis. It was nice listening to the three of them talk about just how excited they were to return to the franchise that they have such a strong affection for. Probably the highlight of the panel outside of the episode premiere was Ian talking about how Sean Shimmel himself called everybody super excited when Dragon Ball Super: Beerus was first announced, even though it was apparently super late at night for Ian while he was sleeping.

The panel also featured some special videos featuring Masako Nozawa and Kōichi Yamadera, the Japanese voices of Goku and Beerus, respectively. Not only did they wish a lot of luck to the English dub cast, but they hoped that everybody at Comic-Con was ready to enjoy the excitement of the series. The cherry on top was Ian acting especially giddy over the fact that Nozawa referred to everybody on the stage by name. One big group Kamehameha sent off later, and it was time to enjoy the first episode of Dragon Ball Super: Beerus.

Even though it has been over ten years since Dragon Ball Super aired, I am still very aware of a lot of scenes and production issues that plagued the early arcs of the series. This led to a lot of random filler episodes and very off-looking animation. Right off the bat, I can say with absolute certainty that based on this first episode, both of those issues are drastically corrected, as the first couple of episodes from the original Dragon Ball Super‘s airing are completely condensed here. This episode starts with Beerus awakening and him immediately going on a destruction spree for the sake of trying to jog his memories about the dream he had of the Super Saiyan God. What’s interesting about the way that this episode is framed is that the series seems to be properly mirroring Beerus’s awakening with Goku’s resolve to get stronger.

On Goku’s end, the episode started with him already on his farm, taking a quick break to train while Goten took over his tractor. He did image training, imagining his past fights with Frieza, Cell, and Majin Buu, with Goku pointing out that he wouldn’t have been able to defeat the latter on his own without everybody’s help. The entire side story from the original Dragon Ball Super series regarding Goku trying to earn money to appease his wife, Chi-Chi, was immediately resolved here as Mr. Satan showed up to give him the money as a thank you for saving the world, as long as he kept quiet about Satan taking the credit.

While I miss a lot of the charming humor in the filler moments from the original series, I do love the shift in tone and tighter focus of this retelling. This episode immediately establishes one of the main prevailing themes of this arc, with Goku being unsatisfied that he wasn’t able to defeat Majin Buu and wanting to be strong enough to handle the next threat on his own, which will tie directly into the awakening of Super Saiyan God. While a lot of the scenes with Beerus were handled a little too quickly, Beerus does have more of a menacing presence. It’s incredible what a few tweaks to the style can do for establishing a stronger sense of tone.

Most of the scenes in this episode are from the original series, but they have all been heavily tweaked, redrawn, or drawn over for a stronger sense of stylistic consistency. Instead of all of the characters having this glossy shine like flat action figures, Dragon Ball Super: Beerus instead gives everybody intense-looking shadows. The animation is a lot more fluid, and there are even a couple of new scenes added to better bridge the leftover scenes. While this first episode is definitely here to establish that tone and setup, I could definitely feel the animators trying to flex that this is probably how they wanted the series to look when it was first conceived versus what we got. Overall, it is a very solid start, and if they can keep this level of consistency moving forward, then this might end up becoming one of the best ways for new fans to enjoy this story.