Synopsis: The fourth and final match of the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai's first round is ready to start, but unfortunately, Goku has gone missing. With his opponent, the monstrous Giran, ready and raring to go, the remaining tournament fighters and staff search desperately for Goku, Ranfan eventually spotting him sleeping by a wall. Kuririn grabs him and drags him back to the arena, telling him to wake up since it's his turn to fight. The announcer tries to save face with an explanation about Goku being unavoidably detained, but Goku nonchalantly blurts out that he had a good nap, and Giran feels slighted.
As the match begins, Goku's friends cheer him on while Giran makes a threat that Goku ignores. Giran then say she has something in his hand to show Goku, causing the boy to approach him. Giran takes this opportunity to viciously swipe at him with his tail, sending the boy flying into one of the walls at the back of the arena, but still within the ring's space. The announcer wonders if they've just witnessed another one hit knockout, but Goku jumps back up with only a hurt cheek. Goku rushes Giran to attack him back, and the monster tries to block him, but leaves his stomach open for a powerful punch from the young boy. Goku then flips behind him and grabs him by the tail, flipping him through the air with the intention of ringing him out. Giran simply uses his wings to fly back into the arena however, and because he never touched anything other than the air, he's still in the fight. Goku resolves himself that he'll just have to make Giran give up, but Giran smirks and spits out a gum-like substance that wraps around Goku's body, pinning his arms and legs together. With Goku now unable to move due to Giran's gum, how can he possibly win this match? Review: An interesting note at the start of this chapter is that, apparently the previously defeated tournament competitors are allowed to stick around back-stage and watch the fights if they want to? It's not something that's ever explicitly stated, but considering it's Ranfan that finds Goku, it has to be the case. It's almost kind of weird that she sticks around too. In the case of Yamcha, of course he'd stay, he wants to see Goku fight. But Bacterian doesn't seem to be anywhere, so why'd Ranfan hang around? Our last tournament original character, Giran, finally makes himself properly known, and he's definitely a beast. He's huge, at least compared to the other fighters in the tournament – though it's hard to say if he's bigger than Bacterian, to be fair – and he's definitely one of the stronger competitors. His design is unique as well, looking something like a cross between a Pteranodon and a T-Rex or something, but with a nose horn and humanoid hands. He almost looks like he'd be more at home in Dragon Quest rather than Dragon Ball if I'm being honest, but it works well enough as a new, tough opponent for Goku to fight. This is especially true when you stop and think how long it's been since we've actually seen Goku fight. Off the top of my head, I think the last time was when he beat up the cops that were chasing Lunch – the tussle he and Kuririn had with each other over the Turtle stone was mostly off-panel, and the preliminary fights were also mostly unshown, with the ones that were being one-hit wonders. Goku's still been front and center at the story itself, but that's still a long time to go without showing our main character in action. The story needed to give Goku an appropriate challenge, and a monster guy is just about perfect for that. Toriyama uses this fight to show us just about every angle of Goku's personality up to this point as well. His lackadaisical ability to be sleeping just before it's his turn, his naivety for falling for a stupid trick, his resilience when getting hit into a stone wall, his outrage at such a cheap shot, and his strength when hitting back – these are all things we've seen from Goku before and we'll see from him again. The whole fight really serves as a reminder of who Goku really is and why we cared enough to watch him deliver milk. Speaking of that stone wall, this is where the tournament's rules start to get a little sloppy really. While it makes sense that it's not really ring out, why would you have the arena attached so that there's a wall where you CAN'T get knocked off the stage? That's just asking someone to use it as something to pin their opponent up against, as well as to slam them up against it, as Giran does here. There's also Giran's flight. Yes, he has wings as a part of his body, but you'd think that being sent a certain distance away from the ring would count as a ring-out whether you actually touched the ground or not. These rulings are all over the place, hopefully nothing else that technically should count as a disqualification happens. ...Oh. Right. Until next time! Favorite Panel:
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Synopsis: While Goku is still amazed that Yamcha lost and Kuririn worried that he has to fight Jackie next, Yamcha congratulates the elder on his victory, saying that he wasn't even in the same league as him. The old man comforts him, saying that he's still young and will only improve in time, and Jackie's overall fighting and nature is starting to remind Yamcha of someone... This thought is interrupted however as the next fighters, Namu and Ranfan, are called to the arena. Ranfan fixes up her make-up, and Jackie tries to playfully nudge Namu about how lucky he is to get to fight such a babe, but Namu remains silent and focused. Jackie can't understand how someone could be so serious at such a fun event, so he takes a moment to read Namu's mind, finding out that Namu has only come to the tournament in hopes of winning the prize money to spend on water for his village that is experiencing an intense drought. Jackie comments that he doesn't think they're going to get many gags out of this one. The match begins, and Ranfan immediately tries distracting Namu with her looks. It works, so she launches an attack that catches him off guard. When he finally starts to retaliate however, she screams feebly, causing him to pull his punch. She wails as if he's really hurt her however, and in his awkward apologetic-ness, she finds another chance to attack, striking him hard in the ribs. When she tries to hit him again however, he catches her fist and says he sees through her tactics now, and all he has to do to win is not view her as a woman. Ranfan tries her cutesy act again, but Namu attacks, proving that it's not going to work on him anymore. Left with no other choice, Ranfan uses her ultimate technique: stripping. She strips down to her underwear, and the shy Namu is too embarrassed to even look at her. From the sidelines however, Jackie is excitedly cheering her on, telling her to go even further, which causes Yamcha to to finally figure it out – Jackie Chun must be the Turtle Hermit in disguise! As Ranfan walks towards Namu, almost forcing him out of the ring, Namu thinks again of his village and how they're all counting on him. He squeezes his eyes shut as Ranfan goes in for the kill, dodging her attack and chopping her in the back of the neck, knocking her out cold. As Namu is declared the winner, Namu is concerned that he may have actually hurt her this time, and the announcer asks the 'doctor', Jackie, what he expects to learn from looking at her butt. Review: Alright, alright, everyone either get your wolf howls out of your system, or put them away for later. We're gonna talk about Namu first. Unless of course you're howling for Namu, in which case, hey, you do you. Howl away. Namu is one of the first 'serious' characters we get in the series, in that he has an actual backstory and is fighting for a truly dire reason rather than for the fun of it. It's not quite to the point that I'd call him stoic by any means, but he's the closest thing we've come to it thus far. His backstory is appropriately sad, and given how thin the reasoning is for any of the other characters to deserve victory, you'd almost think Toriyama was building him up as the ultimate victor of the tournament. In fact, I think there might be something to that, but I'll touch on that at the end of the tournament. Overall, Nam is truly the first real fighter we've been exposed to in the Tenkaichi Budokai that wasn't one of our main characters. Oh, other than totally original character Jackie Chun, that is. Ranfan on the other hand is, well, eye candy personified. She's the first real sex joke the series has had in a while, and even then, it doesn't go quite as far as some of the gags in the first arc did. Part of that is, as I've said, how it's utilized – she's the one in charge of her situation here, she's the one deciding to strip down and “show off the goods” as it were. She's not doing it just for fun though, no, she's just as dirty of a fighter as Bacterian, just in a more visually pleasing manner. Unless of course, you find Bacterian visually appealing, at which point, you...you do you...I-I guess... The fact that we get as many good reactions out of Namu as we do both prevents him from being a truly stoic character, as well as proving Jackie's fourth-wall break wrong – we ARE getting some good gags out of Namu, he's just the butt of the joke, poor guy. And speaking of Jackie Chun, the dramatic reveal, or at least the first big 'wait, WHAT IF...' is finally spoken by Yamcha, who has used his peerless brilliance to finally figure out that maybe, just maybe, Jackie is Roshi in disguise. Man, that demotion from the front lines is already doing a number on the poor guy. I mean, really, Jackie Chun is Kame-sennin in disguise...what's next, vaccines turning people into magnets? Take off the tinfoil hat, Yamcha. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Oh no, there goes Pa-pa-ya, go go Giran-zilla! Synopsis: Kuririn and Goku happily celebrate the former's victory, while hoping that Roshi saw it. They soon discover however that they can't see him anywhere in the crowd, and Bulma says they haven't seen him since a little while before the matches started. Kuririn worries that maybe he went home without watching them fight, but Goku swears he can still smell him somewhere nearby...
The announcer sends Goku and Kuririn back to the waiting room and calls out the next pair of fighters, Yamcha and Jackie Chun. Bulma is at first excited with the idea that maybe this Jackie Chun guy might be even cuter than Yamcha, but is soon disappointed that it's an old man instead. Yamcha ponders on how this guy is apparently strong enough to qualify for the tournament, but he's never heard of him before. As the fight begins and Yamcha enters a fighting stance, Jackie Chun doesn't do the same. Yamcha thinks he must be really confident in himself, and notes that the old man did end all of his preliminary matches very quickly. Deciding there's no choice but to attack first and see how the old man responds, Yamcha launches an assault on Chun, but the old man simply dodges every attack. He tells Yamcha that he can tell the youth has been through a lot of fights, but he's still making too many wasted movements, annoying the younger fighter. From the sidelines, Goku comments that this old timer is a really great fighter. Kuririn asks him if Yamcha's really strong too, and Goku says that when they fought before, he could barely see Yamcha move. In the crowd, Bulma and Oolong aren't as convinced that Yamcha's going to win, but Puar isn't worried so long as he still has 'that'. Left with no choice but to bring out the big guns, Yamcha uses the Rogafufuken, but Jackie leaps out of the way, dodging it entirely. He flips back to stand beside Yamcha, and offers him a 'gift' of a relaxing breeze, before waving his arm in the air so fast that a gust of wind sends Yamcha flying off the stage, and ringing him out. Jackie Chun asks Yamcha if the wind was soothing, while Yamcha is at a loss for words as to how he could lose. Goku is disappointed as well, but Kuririn is more worried about the fact that this means HE'LL have to fight the old man next. Review: The mystery as to who Jackie Chun is deepens, whoever could it be? I'm giving a lot of flack to this part of the story, and I should probably lighten up at least a little bit to be fair. This is a story originally aimed at extremely young kids, and while it's still not handled well, it's at least utilized a hell of a lot better than the Lunch reveal was. It also serves a loftier purpose, so it's a good thing that it's in here, it's just that the mystery as to what's going on is so incredibly weak that it's...it's just bad. I guess the real mystery though is WHY he's doing what he's doing, which while still a pretty easy guess, is at least something unknown enough that I can see it keeping children's attention and have them guessing 'why' rather than 'who' at least. The real surprise of the chapter, at least for first time readers, perhaps is the loss of Yamcha. Granted, we haven't exactly seen him win very many fights prior to this, but he was always shown at least to be a strong fighter. In the previous arc, he was really only outdone by Goku himself. Here though, he's definitely the weakest of at least our core group of fighting characters, and it's a shame to see the mighty – or at least adequate – fall so far. Hell, the worst part is that Bulma's already looking for a possible upgrade, something Oolong even calls her out on. Their love affair sure didn't last long, huh? Unfortunately, all of this narrative misfortune is only the beginning, as what we're witnessing is Yamcha slipping into his new status quo. And what is that status quo? Being the guy who's just impressive enough to hang with the craziness that the story is going to start throwing at us, but still completely ineffective at doing a single thing to affect any of it in any way, shape, or form. Oh sure, for a little while longer now, he'll continue to be an occasional mouthpiece for spouting information about various martial arts things, but even that role is soon going to be taken away from him and given to Roshi, who admittedly does fit it better, but still. This, my friend, is the end of the line for you in more ways than you'll ever know. And you know the worst part of this? It didn't really have to be this way. Him losing to Chun, sure, but immediately following this arc, he should have started training with Roshi to try and catch up to relevancy as soon as possible. It might not have made a ton of difference in the long run, but showing him with more motivation could only have helped his character in the long run. But alas. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Synopsis: The tournament announcer reminds the crowd of the prize money of 500,000 zeni for the winner of the tournament, before handing the microphone over for a very brief word from the highest monk in charge of the arena's temple, who is of course a dog. Taking the microphone back, he calls out Kuririn and Bacterian for the first match, explaining the rules again before declaring the match can now begin! From the waiting area, Goku tells Kuririn he's rooting for him, while Bulma and the others wonder where Roshi has gotten off to.
The fight begins, and Bacterian's stench is so extreme that everyone in the area, including the audience, is constantly covering their noses. Bacterian throws a punch at Kuririn, but Kuririn dodges, forcing Bacterian to resort to chemical warfare by burping on him. Kuririn is dazed, and Bacterian goes to an even further extreme by rubbing his finger around in his crotch and then jabbing the smelly finger in Kuririn's face. The announcer (now sporting a gas mask) wonders if the match might already be over as Kuririn falls to the ground, but Bacterian's not through with him just yet. He unleashes a mighty fart right in the downed boy's face! With Kuririn completely out of it and unable to defend himself, Bacterian begins to mercilessly stomp on the boy. The announcer begins the countdown for Kuririn's defeat, but Goku shouts at him to get up, that he can't lose to someone like that. He then realizes something that Kuririn seems to have forgotten himself: Kuririn can't actually be smelling any of this, because he doesn't have a nose! Upon hearing this, Kuririn snaps out of it and jumps back to his feet. He's prepared to fight back now, but Bacterian says he knows more than just 'stink fu'. He begins hocking up a loogie, spitting a bunch of them out at Kuririn, but Kuririn deftly dodges them all, and lands a powerful kick to the side of Bacterian's head. Once he's knocked down, Kuririn quickly runs up and farts in the man's face in revenge, and the kick and the smell combined are enough for Bacterian to throw in the towel and give up. Kuririn wins the first match of the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai! Review: The throwaway gag about the head monk of the temple being a dog guy, who of course just 'woofs' as his speech, is pretty forgettable and honestly not really one of Toriyama's best gags, but considering what we later get for the king of the world, he must've been pretty fond of his own wit here I'm guessing. Equally not given much time this chapter is the mystery of where in the world Roshi has disappeared to. Surely he'd want to watch his students fight, right? For shame, old-timer! For. Shame. No, the real focus of this chapter is on Bacterian, and just how all around disgusting he is. We already had it stated that he's a dirty fighter (in more than one way) who supposedly has never bathed in his life, but holy crap is that barely the tip of the iceberg. A bad case of BO is one thing, I'm even willing to overlook the burps and the farts, but what kind of person hocks loogies at someone? Or rubs their finger in their crotch and then shoves it in their face! To quote Cleveland Brown, that's naaaassstttyyy. Which of course means it's absolutely hysterical. Sort of. If you're into that kind of thing. The gag-centric nature of the character does make it sort of hard to gauge exactly how strong he really is. He must be at least fairly strong to have been able to take out other opponents and get this far, but considering his stench is as bad as it is, it's really hard to say. The true level of his power is a mystery I'm sure we've all been wondering for decades. The gag that ultimately wins Kuririn the match, his lack of a nose, is probably the funniest part of the chapter to me. It's been something unsaid up until now, but something just about everyone notices when they look at the character, but without this moment his noseless-ness could almost have been taken as a weird character design quirk. Like he did have a nose, just an incredibly small and unnoticeable one. With this confirmation though, we're now left to wonder how well he breathes, how his sense of taste is effected, and all sorts of super nerdy minutia that I'm sure nobody but me has actually considered for more than five seconds, but I am what I am. And what I am is glad that even at my stinkiest, I don't hold a candle to Bacterian. Nobody else should either, those stench fumes are probably flammable. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Synopsis: Goku and Kuririn rush out of the preliminary area to find Roshi and Goku's friends, but the crowd is so thick that they have trouble locating them until Goku stands atop someone's head to get a better look around the area. With the others, Roshi asks Bulma how she's been doing, but Bulma wants to know where in the world he's been – they went to his island to visit Goku a while ago but found the whole place deserted. Roshi explains that they had to move to a larger island to train properly, but then asks for some 'puff-puff' for old time's sake, a request that earns him a mallet hit from Bulma. Goku rushes over and happily reunites with his old friends, introducing them to his new friend Kuririn, and confirms that both of them qualified for the tournament, as did Yamcha. Everyone congratulates them, but a voice over the intercom interrupts to ask all competitors to assemble in the main hall. Goku and Kuririn rush off, and when nobody is looking, Roshi disappears as well. The eight participants are gathered, and Yamcha and Goku are chatting when a large, incredibly smelly man crosses their path. Yamcha says that he's heard of this guy before: he's a legend in the martial arts community, equally as strong as he is stinky, and when your hand instinctively covers your nose, he goes on the offensive. He's so smelly in fact that when the tournament announcer asks everyone to step forward, the man is asked to instead step back a few feet. The announcer explains how the tournament is set up. The eight fighters will draw lots to decide their placement in one of four matches, and the winner of each match will progress onwards to the next round of the tournament, until ultimately there is only one left standing and that person is declared the victor. Each of our three heroes, plus the other five fighters we've seen briefly are named as their lots are drawn. The announcer further explains that each match has no time limit, and you lose if you fall out of the ring or give up. He further explains that hitting the eyes or below the belt are both considered violations, and Goku has to have what 'below the belt' means explained to him. With all of the preparation out of the way, the announcer asks everyone to wait there until their names are called for their match, but Goku wants lunch first. The announcer confusedly has one of the monks on staff prepare lunch for the boy, while he goes out and announces that the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai is just about to begin! He then reveals the match-ups: Match 1 features Kuririn V.S. Bacterian (the smelly man from before); Match 2 features Jackie Chun (a mysterious old man who seemed very interested in the tournament's only female fighter) V.S. Yamcha; Match 3 features Namu (a thin man wearing a turban) V.S. Ranfan (a beautiful and alluring woman); and Match 4 feature Goku V.S. Giran (a monster that looks somewhat like a dinosaur). Review: We've had a few looks at the tournament grounds thus far, but it's here that we really get our first good look at the main attraction, that being the ring itself and it's immediate surroundings. The Budokai arena is easily one of the other most recognizable locations in the entire franchise. While the ring itself is fairly plain, the background behind it is intricately detailed to the extreme, and it all comes together to look great aesthetically. It's little wonder that this is one of the select few locations in the series that we'll revisit fairly often, at least for a good while. The introductions are kept to a minimum, but there is something charming about seeing Goku introducing his new friend Kuririn to his old group of friends. Prior to this, they've all known each other at least in passing, so Kuririn's really the only new face to the group, something that I'm sure isn't lost on the little guy. They seem to accept him readily enough though, and Bulma at least I'm sure would rather hang out with him than with Roshi. She seems to have psychically picked up a few pointers from Lunch on how to deal with the old man's perversion though, which is nice to see. Still not exactly sure where that mallet came from though... The main purpose of this chapter though is to introduce us to the eight competitors in the tournament, at least in passing. For the most part, you won't really get to know what any of these new faces are about until we get to see them fight, but it's still valuable to be able to put a name to a face when we're supposed to be getting excited to see them fight each other. The new fighters that get the most to go on are definitely Bacterian and Jackie Chun. In the case of Bacterian, that's because he's going to be around for the least amount of time since his fight's up first, and for Jackie Chun...well, let's just say the secret about him is probably incredibly obvious to just about everyone even upon first laying eyes on him. Good lord Toriyama's not very good at weaving a mystery at this point, is he? The chapter reviews seem to be getting shorter and shorter for the most part, but that's sadly going to be the case outside of more plot or character important ones as the series begins to focus more and more on the fighting elements. Thankfully there's still tons to dig into regardless though, it'll just come as we come to it. Until next time! Favorite Panel Synopsis: Goku and Kuririn continue to make short work of the competition as they blaze their way through the preliminaries, with Kuririn in particular having some fun at the expense of his opponents now that he's realized how strong he is. In almost no time at all, the pair have reached their last matches, and if they both win, they'll both secure a spot in the real tournament. As Goku prepares to take on his final opponent, a somewhat familiar looking man joins Kuririn in watching the fight. The man smirks and says he figured it had to be Goku when he heard a commotion about a kid way stronger than he looked fighting over here, and he's not surprised at all to see that his hunch was correct. Despite his opponent's best efforts and skills, Goku quickly takes him out, securing his entrance into the tournament. As Kuririn steps up into the ring to fight as well, the mysterious man calls out to Goku and congratulates him. Goku doesn't recognize the man, but when he goes into the Rogafufuken fighting pose, he figures out that it's Yamcha. Goku says he didn't recognize him because of his much shorter hair, and Yamcha explains that Bulma told him he needed to get it cut if he was going to fit in in the city. Goku asks Yamcha if he's entered the tournament as well, which Yamcha confirms, saying he'd been training for this tournament for a long time. Yamcha doesn't think he has much of a chance against Goku though, especially not now that he's gotten even stronger thanks to training from Roshi. As Kuririn wins his match, Yamcha asks if he's with Goku, and Goku confirms that Kuririn trained alongside him under Roshi. Yamcha frets that even second place might be too much to hope for in that case. He then tells Goku that it's not just him here for the tournament either, as Bulma, Oolong, and Puar are all in the audience to watch, a fact Roshi has already discovered by running across them in the crowd. Review: Compared to the last chapter, this one doesn't offer quite as much to talk about. That's not to say it's not entertaining, it's got a lot of great action panels from Toriyama's pen, as well as the return of some long lost friends – it just doesn't have a whole lot of meat to tear into this time around. Mostly, this chapter is basically wrapping up the preliminaries and showing that, now that they know how good they really are, Goku and Kuririn can make quick work of just about anyone. It's not too surprising to see Kuririn especially enjoying this after what he went through last chapter, but even his playing around isn't really malicious in nature – he's just enjoying finally not being the weak link for a change. Oh, buddy...enjoy it while it lasts. You have to feel a little bad for Goku's final opponent though. The guy is clearly a skilled martial artist, and probably someone who would have made the final cut if it wasn't for the existence of our main characters and their plot-induced super strength. It actually becomes sort of a running thing that Goku faces off with a more realistic, traditionally powerful martial artist in the preliminary rounds of the tournaments, only for him to show them up just to prove how beyond human strength he's grown time and again. It's a rough existence to be an NPC fighter in the Dragon world. The return of Yamcha (and the rest, though they're only shown in the last panel of the chapter) is a welcome one, since we haven't seen them since the end of the previous arc. It's great to see their faces again, though admittedly their plot relevancy is tenuous at best. Yamcha's in the tournament, and claims he's been training for it for a long time – like, how long? Just since they left, or was that part of what lead him to his living in the desert? - but the rest are just here for the cheering gallery. They don't really have any goals of their own anymore, so for now they're literally just window dressing. That's not too surprising for Oolong, and definitely not for Puar, but that's definitely a bit of a downgrade in importance for the likes of Bulma. At the same time though, I can't imagine what she'd really bring to this story arc, and it makes sense that she'd want to come see her boyfriend fight, so it is what it is. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Old friends and new foes! Synopsis: With Goku and Kuririn all signed up for the competition, Roshi leaves them to head through to the waiting area, but not before giving them a parting gift – since it'd be hard for them to fight in their suits, he's brought a pair of dougi emblazoned with the Kame kanji for them to wear. Goku is excited to wear his, but Kuririn worries that he might not be worthy to wear it. Roshi tells them to do their best however, and if he gets to see them as two of the eight finalists, he'll have no complaints whatsoever. In the waiting area, Goku marvels at how many fighters have gathered, while Kuririn worries about how strong most of them look. A monk takes the stage and explains how things work: with 137 hopeful contestants, they'll first have to hold a series of preliminaries to whittle the numbers down. Everyone will fight on one of the four mats laid out in the room, and whoever falls off, loses consciousness, or says they give up, loses. Neither killing nor weapons are allowed however, and each match only lasts a minute, so if a winner hasn't been decided in that time, the judges will make that call. The fighters will draw lots to determine which block they're in, and at the end of the preliminaries, the two remaining fighters from each block will move on to the actual tournament. Goku and Kuririn draw 70 and 93 respectively, placing them in the same block but far enough apart that they shouldn't end up fighting each other before the actual tournament. Kuririn worries that he won't even make it to the actual tournament, seeing as how they were never taught any actual fighting by Roshi, but Goku tells him not to worry. Block 3's matches get started, and Goku is called to the mat for his first fight. The other competitors think Goku's opponent - a large mustachioed man in a leotard - got a lucky draw, but Goku quickly shows the opposite case to be true when he runs between his opponent's legs and takes him out, almost by accident, merely by tapping on his leg. The fighters watching this assume the large man must have lost his balance and fallen out of the ring, but Goku warns Kuririn not to use their full strength unless their opponent is really, really strong. A man's voice calls out to Kuririn, and two large men approach Goku and Kuririn. The pair are wearing the same clothing Kuririn had worn when he first arrived at Roshi's island, and have the same six dots on their foreheads. They are revealed to be members of the Orin temple that Kuririn trained at previously, and they used to bully him relentlessly, and now Kuririn's first preliminary match is against one of the pair. Kuririn thinks he should just head home and skip fighting, but Goku changes his mind, telling him to ignore what he'd just told him: go all out against this guy. Kuririn and his opponent are called into the ring, and Kuririn is still nervous and afraid. When the match starts however, he's able to quickly jump and dodge a punch from the bully, before landing and delivering a flying kick into his stomach that sends his opponent flying through one of the opposite walls. The crowd is confused by what they've just seen, but Goku explains it to Kuririn in simple terms – thanks to all of their training with Roshi, they've ended up super strong without even realizing it! Review: For the first time, I actually get to talk about something that I alluded to chapters and chapters ago! Let's hope my memory holds out when it comes time for me to address things that are even further away then this plot point was... A big running theme in this chapter is how nervous Kuririn is. He gets nervous at the sight of how many people are around that are going to potentially watch him fight; he gets nervous about whether or not he deserves to wear Roshi's insignia; he gets nervous over how strong all the fighters look; and he gets nervous when he sees the bullies from his old dojo. The poor little guy is basically one huge bundle of nerves at this point, and it's a completely different persona compared to the one he had when he first arrived on Roshi's island. Why is that, do you think? To me, I'd say the answer, or at least what I think of as the answer, is pretty clear – Kuririn's attitude during his introduction was all bravado. He was trying to act tougher and cooler than he actually was, all in the hopes of making people, especially the teacher he hoped to train under, take him more seriously. It's even pretty likely that he based his persona on the attitude of the two bullies seen here. Even though he hated them, they were bigger and stronger, so clearly they had to be doing something right. He even tried to treat Goku in a manner not too dissimilar to how he himself had been treated probably, it just didn't work because Goku was too 'Goku' to ever notice. As the two spent time together though, and the training got more and more insane, Kuririn's facade began to slip little by little, until he finally not only made friends with his rival and fellow pupil, he had finished the training to it's entirety. ...But now what? Despite all of that having happened to him, he's still the same person he was before on the inside. He's still the same bullied little kid who set out to learn cool martial arts techniques, and he hasn't done that. He doesn't yet realize how much he really has changed or how strong he's really become, so he's getting stage fright about being in front of all of those people, fighters and crowd alike, and he's deathly afraid of facing off with his old tormentors again. It's this story beat that made me fully fall in love with Kuririn as a character I think, because it makes him one of the must human and relatable people in the entire franchise's cast. None of us are going to have an older brother turn up out of nowhere and reveal our alien heritage. None of us are going to be the reincarnated demon king. But a lot of us are going to have experienced being put down by our peers and doing our best to pretend it doesn't get to us, or that we're actually one of the cool folk, you'll see, honest. That's Kuririn in a chestnut shell. So when we get to see him finally break out of that shell and easily kick the butt of his bullies? Ohhhh man is it cathartic. Thank you all for attending my Kuririn TED talk. I now return you to the rest of the chapter. Of probably greater importance to a lot of people, this chapter also marks the first appearance of the instantly recognizable Kame gi that becomes Goku's main attire, as well as recognizable clothing on at least four other major characters. There's no denying that Goku looks great in this outfit, and it's fairly simple design makes it pretty easy for Toriyama to draw in just about any kind of scene he feels like tossing Goku into. At the same time though, I'd be lying if I said the gi isn't something of a curse in a way too. It's gotten to the point that it feels like it may as well be part of Goku's skin with how rarely he changes it. There are minor changes to it over the course of the series which keeps it from getting as stale as it could, but it still gets fairly stale in the long run. This is why myself and others often get excited whenever we get to see him in any other kind of clothing at all, the bar for new looks for Goku is really, REALLY low. Despite how much Kuririn was worrying, it's Goku that's proven right in the end, that their training has made them incredibly strong. And really, why wouldn't it? It's part of the charm of these characters and this world that it's just zany enough for some of the feats of strength we've witnessed these two boys go through wasn't automatically proof in-of-itself that they'd become incredibly strong. No, they actually have to hit someone for it to become evident. Violence: It's the answer to everything! ...W-wait... Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Who's that Pokemon? It's YAMCHA! Synopsis: Goku and Kuririn continue their training under Kame-sennin, pushed onward by their desire to enter the Tenkaichi Budokai. With only five months to go, they continue to wonder if their master will ever teach them actual fighting moves, so much so that they don't even realize how routine and easy their insane training is becoming. Roshi notices however, and is very impressed with how far they've already come. Time continues to pass, and one day about a month before the tournament, Goku hurriedly grabs Roshi from back at the house and drags him back out to the giant boulder from before. He and Kuririn proudly push the rock enough to make it move, Goku managing to push it a little further than Kuririn can, shocking Roshi beyond belief. The boys are excited that they'll finally get to train for real with their master, but Roshi hadn't been counting on them actually getting strong enough to move a rock that size. With no other choice now, Roshi comes clean with the boys and admits that he doesn't have much else left that he can teach them. He explains that the basics of the Kame style are incorporated into the training, and they should already be able to see the results of it for themselves: they are so much stronger than they were when they started out. He warns them however not to focus on something like winning the tournament, and instead use it as an opportunity to test their abilities and grow even stronger than they already have. He finishes his guidance by saying that they'll continue what they've been doing for the final month of training, but now their turtle shells will be twice as heavy as the ones they were using already. The boys continue as they had been, but both can't help but wonder if this is really going to be enough for them to enter the Tenkaichi Budokai... The day before the tournament's start finally arrives, and a car is parked out front of the Kame House, prepared to be driven to the tournament grounds. Roshi tells Goku and Kuririn they can take off their shells now, and the boys are amazed at how light they feel without them on. When Roshi tells them to jump as high as they can, the boys are launched high into the sky, a feat that excites them greatly when they land. Roshi interrupts their playing around to have them change into suits, and then the trio bids farewell to Lunch as they head out. They board a plane, followed by a taxi, before eventually coming to the visually striking entrance area of the Tenkaichi Budokai arena. As Goku and Kuririn marvel at how crowded it is, Roshi assures the man at the registration desk that he really is signing up the two young boys with him as contestants for the tournament. Review: The training ends at last, and the tournament finally begins! Well, sort of. This chapter is more of a transition between the two different acts of this story arc, and therefore you'd expect that it wouldn't be full of content of it's own. And in a way, you'd be right – most of what we see here is things we've already seen. But for the most part, it's showing us those things in a slightly different light, to show how much has changed over the course of the better part of a year since they started training with the Turtle Hermit. Take the amount of energy the training is taking from Goku and Kuririn to pull off their tasks. Even in this chapter itself there's a marked difference from one page to the next when even more time has passed. In the first couple of panels, Goku is shown panting going up the stairs for milk delivery, followed by him stuttering from the effort needed to march his way through the desert's sand. But then on the next page, neither of them seem particularly worried about the hungry dinosaur chasing them. They pretty much ignore it outright and just keep running. By the time we see them digging up the ground with their bare hands again, Kuririn's only concern is that he's getting hungry. This is a drastic improvement over the toll it took on their bodies at the start, and it's not lost on Roshi either – especially not when it comes to the boulder. Poor old guy, he really should have pointed at something way more immovable, like a mountain or something. Even with how impressed he was with his students' gains, he wasn't prepared at all for them to pull a stunt like this one. I can't help but wonder if it was this exact moment that caused Roshi to begin his exact plans for the tournament, but once again, that's something I'll touch on a little bit further from now. The moment Roshi has to come clean is an interesting one as well, because at least for me, it almost feels like Toriyama himself is coming clean with us. There's not going to be anything super specific to the main fighting style he's going to show us with the Kame school. It's just going to be essentially whatever works best in the moment, and all this really did was make our characters that much stronger and capable of pulling off even more amazing feats of strength. On the one hand, this feels a little bit like a cop-out, especially since there are school specific techniques that we'll see over the course of the series (though those are largely outweighed by the fact that, given enough time, anyone can learn just about anything). On the other hand though, this allows Toriyama the freedom to do whatever he wants with the choreography. If he failed to pull this off, then it could definitely be considered a misstep. He doesn't however, as we'll see again and again, so I think it's okay, at least this many years after the fact, to let this one slide. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. Strength isn't the only thing that's changed for the two boys, at least in the case of Kuririn. Not once in this chapter do we see him try to get one up on Goku, or to put him down in any way. The only harsh words he has for him at all are when they're on the plane and Goku's amazed by it's ability to fly but underwhelmed at how slow it is. This is a marked difference compared to how the two interacted upon first meeting with each other. It just goes to show that you can't spend eight months running from sharks and hungry dinosaurs without bonding a little bit. On a much more minor note, I'm curious where the heck Roshi's car came from. We've never seen it before, and it's definitely an older looking vehicle, so...is it possible he had it all along, maybe stored inside a capsule? It's also worth noting the fact that Lunch does not come with them to the tournament. This seems a little weird in one way, considering we were just introduced to her so recently, but at the same time it's probably a good thing because...what will she really offer to the change of scenery? She's not knowledgeable about fighting, she won't be partaking in the tournament itself, and anything she could say about what's going to happen will already have been taken care of courtesy of a few returning faces, so ultimately, it makes perfect sense that she gets shelved here. I'm sure it'll just be a short stay and in no way something foretelling of her ultimate fate. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Goku and Kuririn strut their stuff! Synopsis: As Velou vows to take down Dodou for good this time, the werewolf struggles to find a way out of the smokescreen that Grimm caught him in. He ends up relying on his impressive hearing, the one sense the cloud couldn't take from him, to find her on top of a nearby rooftop. Dodou attacks, but Grimm dodges by jumping to another rooftop. Dodou mocks her for not taking his level of hearing into account, bragging about being able to hear anything and everything that happens in the village – including hearing the sound of Velou pulling the trigger on the gun! Dodou turns around in time to block the shot with his massive arms, and though it claims it hurts, it doesn't seem to do any real damage to him. He mocks them for using Grimm, the bigger and stronger of the pair, as the decoy for the smaller Velou, and says he's the real hunter, they are but his prey. Grimm responds by telling him to come kill her then, though he should try healing his wounds first. Much to Dodou's surprise, the gunshot on his arms isn't healing. Seeing that he's confused, Grimm decides to explain. Due to a werewolf's high healing abilities, there are but two sure ways to kill them: the first is to burn them, which prevents their regeneration; and the second is to injure them with a particular kind of metal. Dodou guesses that she's talking about silver, but Grimm says that's not the real answer. While silver does slow a werewolf's regeneration, it's far too light to pierce a werewolf's hide. So instead, they use a special metal called wolfonium, which has the same properties as silver but is heavier and harder than lead. She continues explaining that this also required a special gun to fire such a bullet, and pulls out her own Chekov series rifle, only for Dodou to reach out and bend it's barrel, rendering it useless. Dodou thanks her for rambling long enough for him to think things out. If all that's special about the bullets is that they're made of wolfonium, then all he has to do is not get hit by any more of them. He thinks Grimm will be more fun to kill, so he decides to turn his attention to the kid first. To his surprise however, Velou has left a decoy at his original position, and Dodou can't smell where he's run off too even though his nose is clearing up. Grimm says there aren't any kids here, and shoots Dodou in the leg with another gun she pulls from her case, though regrets it as she remembers she wasn't supposed to shoot. In a flashback to their previous conversation, Grimm explains to Velou how wolfonium works, while also cautioning him that due to Dodou's large size, it'll be hard to inflict a killing blow on him even with the material. Velou thinks and asks if the gas in her gas shells is flammable. She says it is, though it will sink out of the air very quickly. That's all Velou needed to know to come up with a plan however. Grimm reveals that everything about the plan was designed to distract Dodou from their real plan, and maneuver him over onto the chimneyed roof they're now on. Inside the house, Velou has picked back up his musket, and when he fires it into the gas shell filled chimney, a torrent of fire erupts out of it and engulfs Dodou, burning him alive and even splitting his body in two from the force. Stepping to the ground, Grimm finds Velou lying on the ground, somewhat burned himself, and congratulates him on his plan of using the gas shells to turn the chimney into a cannon. It was a rough plan that almost killed him, but it got the job done without shedding any tears or blood from the villagers. Speaking of, the villagers then arrive and ask Velou if he killed the werewolf. Velou confirms it and apologizes for destroying one of the houses and damaging the others around it, but one of the villagers grabs him in a hug and thanks him profusely. Various other villagers all speak up, thanking him for his warning and his fighting, and apologize for thinking of him as just a kid when he's definitely grown up. Suddenly, two smoky portals appear in the air just above the village. A witch on her broomstick floats out from one, while a gigantic werewolf, far bigger than any of the three so far, steps out from the second. The witch comments that Kasoka Village is way more in the boonies than she thought, but the wolf seems pleased with how fresh the air is. As the witch brandishes her wand and comments about all the bumpkins watching them, narration (presumably of Velou's) comments that they'll never forget what happened that day, when everything they knew was turned to ash and many lives were lost...and the day that they became a Hunter. Review: If I hadn't already been impressed enough with first chapter a few weeks ago to feel like I wanted to review this series, then this would have been the chapter that would have convinced me in the end that I had to. The previous two chapters set the stage for this final encounter perfectly, and it's absolutely paid off in the end. Once again, I have to give Dodou some credit. He's not nearly as dumb as I previously thought he was based on our first meeting with him. He's still not particularly smart, but he does know how to use his werewolf abilities to their greatest potential, whether that's the ability to heal, or even just his god-level hearing. You'd almost wonder if his hearing is that good though, why didn't he overhear them talking and making the plan on the roof – they weren't even that far away from him! I guess the idea is that he's easily enough distracted to not always be paying attention to what he's hearing though, a fact supported by how easily Velou is able to escape from him while Grimm has his attention. Again, he's just LESS stupid than I initially thought. I don't know if burning a werewolf is traditionally one of the ways you can deal with them, but it's believable enough that that would work considering burning anything alive is liable to kill it, so sure, that checks out. I was admittedly caught off guard by the wolfonium reveal though! Ever since chapter one, I've been expecting a big reveal that silver is a werewolf's weakness, but now this chapter comes up with it's own new element to somewhat discredit silver. I feel played, but in the best way possible. It's likely Kawaguchi knew everyone was expecting silver, so he went against our expectations while also broaching the matter of silver itself in the same explanation. It might feel needless, but it shows off what sort of tricks they might have up their sleeves as a writer, so for that I give them kudos. I suppose there is something to the notion of 'was wolfonium needed when silver bullets are already a classic staple?' though. Just because the misdirection works well for me, I can see it not meriting the creation of a brand new element to do basically the same thing for others. I'd be willing to bet another reason it was done is probably because the description of silver as too light and weak to be used as a weapon is somewhat accurate, but I'm not a scientist, so I wouldn't know for sure. Someone call Senku, we need his expertise here. Misdirection really is the main theme of this chapter when I break it down. Immediately following Grimm's wolfonium exposition dump, things turn right back around to looking like they're still in danger, and that it was all for nothing. And in a way, it sort of is – the wolfonium, despite having all of the focus in the explanation, isn't what's going to save the day here. It's the other method, of burning, and to be more precise, it's exactly what Grimm told Velou their greatest weapon against the werewolves were, their minds. At the end of the day, it's Velou's brain that kills the beast. I'm definitely getting the feeling that this is going to be a major theme for his character moving forward. There is one thing I have to kind of criticize the chapter for though - Velou's brains are all well and good, but we're treated to yet another flashback scene, this time to something that had JUST happened moments prior. While narratively it works better to show us it this way so we're just as surprised as Dodou when it's explanation time, it doesn't change the fact that this is at least the third chapter to give us a flashback like this. Hell, the first chapter may have had one too and I'm forgetting it at the moment. Now with the chapter's end implicating that this entire story may itself be a flashback, it's looking like the author might be relying on them just a little too much. Hopefully they don't become distracting over time. Going back to the silver/wolfonium debacle briefly though? We still don't know if one of those is what the axe is made out of and that's why it's special. We also still don't know what was up with Grimm's child form in the first chapter, a form we haven't seen her in since. Given the extended amount of time she's seemingly spent in her adult form rather than reverting, I'm beginning to think the adult body really is her true form. If that's the case though, what was the point of the child form? There has to be something. The villagers finally accepting that Velou's grown up now is a nice sentimental moment, but once again that misdirection rears it's ugly head, and HOW. The series' opening narration told us that witches existed, but I didn't think we'd be seeing one so soon. I also didn't figure we'd be seeing a werewolf that towers over buildings. This thing is MASSIVE folks, we're talking something straight out of Attack on Titan or something. I'm almost more interested in it than I am the witch, between it's size, the scar it has over one eye, and the fact that it's wearing clothes (where do you find a tailor willing to make clothes that big?). The witch definitely changes things the most though as there's nothing in Velou's arsenal that Grimm has introduced him to so far that will help him combat a threat like this. Based on that narration though? I don't think they're winning this fight either way. Talk about a time for Shonen Jump to go on break for a week, huh? Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Chapter 5 Synopsis: With their early morning training of milk delivery finished, Roshi moves the boys on to the rest of their first day of training. First, he sets them to plowing fields alongside a farmer, but unlike the farmer, Roshi forbids the boys from using any tools – they must till the soil with just their bare hands! Once that task is done, Roshi chastises them for taking so long and thus delaying their breakfasts, and warns them that they'll have to be faster the following day as the field they'll be working on will be that much bigger. With their first pre-breakfast training completed, Roshi treats the boys to a hearty breakfast at a restaurant before taking them back home where an easier part of their daily training begins next. Roshi says that a martial artist must strengthen their mind as well as their body, so he begins giving them school work in the form of literature, which turns out to be reading a passage from a rather naughty sounding book... After the reading is done, it's a little past noon, so Roshi has them all take a nap to rest their weary bodies for a while first before moving on to the next stage of training. After their naps, Roshi takes the boys to a construction site and puts them to work alongside the workers, allowing them to use the tools this time as well as to earn some money. After that's done, Roshi takes them to a nearby lake to do some swimming. Kuririn is horrified that they're still not done for the day yet, and Goku asks if Roshi can't teach them some moves instead of having them do all of this other stuff. Roshi scoffs, saying that they've barely begun to lay down the foundations of their training, it's far too early to be showing them any moves. He says that as soon as they can move a nearby boulder, they might be ready to be taught techniques. Kuririn says nobody could move a boulder that size, so Roshi pushes it to show him that it can be done. While Roshi considers the matter settled, Goku decides to try his own hand at pushing it and ends up pushing it even further than Roshi did. Roshi quickly tries to save face by saying he pointed at the wrong rock, and points at a much, much larger one next. Goku tries and fails to push it, “proving” Roshi's point about them being too green, but when the boys try to get him to move it, he quickly changes the subject back to swimming. Once the boys are in the water, what they thought at first would be a fairly peaceful 10 laps turns out to be much more dangerous when a shark starts chasing them. After their swim, Roshi ties the boys to one end of a rope and the other ends to a large tree, and tells them it's time to start practicing how to dodge an enemy's attack. To illustrate this, he knocks a beehive with his staff before quickly retreating behind some rocks, leaving the boys to deal with the bees, saying if they dodge quickly enough, they'll get stung less. After that, with both boys covered in stings, Roshi declares the day's training finished at last. They're relieved, but Kuririn asks Roshi if they'll really be doing such harsh training every day. Roshi scoffs and says that today was just a warm-up: starting tomorrow and lasting through the eight months before the tournament, they'll be doing the same training every day, now with the addition of having to wear 20-kilo turtle shells on their back the whole time! Review: This chapter manages to feel both really short and yet full of content all at the same time. I think this is because, while there's not a lot of story to this chapter really, there's tons of new content in terms of what we're seeing, and man is it going to be a rough eight months worth of training for Goku and Kuririn. Much like the milk delivery test, each of these training exercises Roshi is putting the boys through feels like something that, while hard work, wouldn't really qualify as martial arts training and probably not as strength building either, at least not in the terms of what we're expecting to see happen here. When taken to the point of ludicrousness that the training takes it though, it's both hilarious and a showing of just how extreme the Kame-style training really is. There is a pretty nice variety of activities shown too, even some down-time ones about midday. While education and resting might seem silly as martial arts training, it is true that a smarter person will be able to make more out of their physical skills, and it doesn't do anyone any good to overwork their bodies, so there's enough logic to everything going on for it to work in the long run. My personal favorite bit of training probably has to be the schooling bit too, with Roshi having them read passages from a dirty book, because of course he does. Jokes aside, Goku and Kuririn might have just received more sex education than most of us in the US ever did in school, now that I think about it... The scene with the boulders is about the only section where the story takes a breather for a moment, with both Goku and Kuririn questioning if everything they're doing really counts as training at all. It makes sense that Goku in particular would want to learn some techniques, since he's the only one of the two who's already picked up one just from seeing it before. There's more to it the scene than that though, as it's setting the seeds for where the arc is ultimately going, but I'll touch on that more when it happens. Ultimately, this chapter as well as the previous one exists to give us a day in the life of Goku and Kuririn's training, so that we can better envision what it's going to be like for them for eight months. Training will remain an important part of the story moving forward from here, but as time goes on, actually getting to see said training will start to fall to the wayside a bit unfortunately, and that's a shame. As this chapter shows, it's often some of the most interesting content the series has to offer, so to see it get glazed over later on just seems off somehow. Timeskips though? Those aren't going away anytime soon. Until next time! Favorite Panel: |
About the AuthorAspiring author and big anime/manga fan, just trying to do my best in the world. For more details, go to About Me. Archives
September 2022
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