Synopsis: Goku accuses Pilaf of not being that strong at all, while Shu and Mai desperately check on the well-being of their master. Pilaf curses his luck, not having expected Goku to be so strong either. He sees no other choice but to go with their emergency plan of grabbing Goku's tail immediately. The Pilaf trio quickly circles around a confused Goku, and Pilaf is just about to give the order when Shu shouts to Pilaf to wait – Goku's tail isn't visible, seemingly hidden away in Goku's pants. Pilaf is surprised by this turn of events and says they'll have to adapt the plan accordingly, and tells Goku to hold on a moment. Goku looks on in confusion as the trio huddle up together to discuss their new tactic.
With a new plan in mind, the Pilaf trio prepares again to fight Goku, with the boy eager to finally get this show on the road as well. The three Pilaf gang circle around Goku in their robot suits once more, and as Goku readies himself for their attack, Pilaf points dramatically behind Goku. The confused boy turns to look, and Mai takes this chance to grab Goku with her suit's arms. With Goku held in place and struggling to free himself, Shu uses a flamethrower from his suit to burn away Goku's pants. Pilaf leaps into action, ready to grab Goku's newly exposed tail...only to be met with the sight of Goku's naked, tailless butt instead. Goku begins to overpower the strength of the mechanical arms of Mai's robot suit, and she and Shu urge Pilaf to quickly grab the boy's tail, but Pilaf announces that Goku doesn't have one. The two react with horror as Goku finally breaks free, leaping away and landing before them. Goku angrily reacts to his clothes being destroyed, but Pilaf asks him what happened to his tail, with Goku responding that it got torn off. Shu and Mai ask Pilaf what their plan is now, and Pilaf says their only chance is to win through brute strength. The three robot suits combine into one bigger robot before Goku's eyes, and Pilaf loudly asks Goku what he thinks of their power now. Undeterred, Goku smiles and charges up a Kamehameha, blowing off one of the robot's arms with ease. As the trio stares in horror at the damage, Goku says that that was just a 'light' attack, prompting Pilaf to wonder what in the world Goku even is. Mai reports that her suit is totaled and won't move a bit, and Pilaf says they'll have to change tactics, and orders Shu and his own suits to abandon Mai's and combine into 'Swan' mode, with Mai landing on top of the much smaller combined robot. Pilaf then orders their next tactic – escape! Goku chases after the retreating trio, and Pilaf orders Shu to fire a missile at Goku so they can get away, but Goku easily catches the missile and throws it back, exploding the robot suits with the Pilaf gang inside. Goku walks up to the crumbled heap of metal and the battered trio and says that since he won, they have to give him the Dragon Ball, and Pilaf does so in a daze. Goku also says that he needs new clothes now, and Shu gives him his, which happen to fit perfectly. Review: I don't think anyone has ever gone into a fight less prepared for what they were getting themselves into than the Pilaf gang did here. Say what you will about how outmatched they were even in the beginning of the series, they at least were a credible threat on some level there. Here though? They don't stand a chance, and it's hilariously sad to witness them try and fail. I mean, think about it. Pilaf's group relies heavily on technology, it always has. And while the robot suits we see them with here are new for them, nothing about them functionally seems any more impressive than what they had the last time we saw them. And while their tech may have been impressive in it's first appearance, by this point in time we've seen even more incredible inventions from Bulma, and more importantly, from the Red Ribbon Army. In fact, the Pilaf gang's reliance on technology isn't that different from the Red Ribbon's at all, but whereas the Army was a force to be reckoned with and actually had technology to challenge Goku, Pilaf's gang just doesn't – not to mention, by this point, even the Red Ribbon's higher level of tech failed to take Goku down for good, so it was a pretty foregone conclusion how this encounter was going to go. That said, however? It almost wasn't. The Pilaf gang actually went into this fight with knowledge that the Red Ribbon, for all of their information gathering and power, never did, and that's the secret of Goku's weakness. It's only their bad luck that Goku just happened to lose his tail in the brief span of time since they overheard that secret and when they finally encountered him, but just imagine if that hadn't happened. They made the deal with Goku, who did agree to it, and had they been able to grab his tail, victory would've been theirs no matter how much stronger than them Goku normally is. Even with Goku being arguably the strongest character in the story now, he still could have lost a fight to arguably some of the weakest. This is all played for laughs, especially with it not working out in Pilaf's favor after all, but I think Toriyama might actually have been thinking ahead, even slightly, at this point. Goku's going to get stronger and stronger as the series goes on, and he's going to need to come up with other ways to showcase those new increases in power, and one of the easiest ways to do that is showing Goku overcoming one of his only weaknesses. Toriyama sets it up perfectly for that to be on our minds moving forward, and shows that no matter how strong you are, there's always a way for someone weaker to take advantage of any openings you give them, a fact that holds true even in modern day Dragon Ball material...for better or worse in some cases, depending on how you feel about certain implementations of this idea. So with all seven Dragon Balls in his possession at last, the time has come for us to see Shenlong once again, and see if he really can bring people back to life! That's a pretty tall order even for a dragon god, right? Until next time! Favorite Panel:
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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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