Synopsis: With the last Dragon Ball retrieved at last, Goku quickly flies back to his friends waiting at Baba's palace. Kuririn notices right away that Goku's clothes are different now, but Goku simply laughs it off. He asks Upa if he's ready to go back to Karin, and then calls kinto'un back down for one more trip. Goku helps Upa climb back onto the cloud and tells him to hang on as they'll be going fast this time, and Goku tells his friends he'll be back as soon as they've brought Upa's dad back to life. Upa thanks Goku's friends for all of their help, and the two fly off, heading towards Karin.
Roshi is amused by his student's impetuous nature, while Kuririn laments that he didn't get to go see what Shenlong looks like. Yamcha says that collecting the Dragon Balls was even harder this time than the first, and says it shows how remarkable Goku is that he was able to do it. Baba interjects at this point and says that Goku is even more remarkable than any of them now, as one day he'll even save the world. Everyone is surprised to hear something like that, but Baba reminds them that she is gifted with the power of prophecy, so something along those lines will definitely happen...someday. Goku and Upa soon arrive back at the land of Karin, and Upa points out the mound of dirt where he buried his father. Goku brings out the seven Dragon Balls, and proceeds to call out Shenlong. Much to his surprise, the sky turns dark first, but then the dragon emerges from the balls, floating in the sky before them. Goku marvels that Shenlong is just as amazing as last time, and when the dragon asks to hear their wish, Goku tells Upa to speak. Upa wishes for his father to be returned to life, and when Goku asks Shenlong if he can do that, Shenlong says that there's no wish that he cannot grant. As if to prove this point, the mound of dirt above his body begins to stir, and Bora emerges from beneath it, alive. Review: While this chapter was fairly short in terms of content covered and story advanced, this is one of those times where I think that's perfectly okay, because even though the content is brief, the ideas presented are big and/or new enough that they benefit from the breathing room. Goku's return to his friends here is brief, but it leads to the first big surprise of the chapter in the form of Baba's prediction that Goku will one day save the world. While things have certainly gotten a lot more serious since the beginning of the series, a statement like this still carries a lot of weight because, frankly? Nothing in it has been anywhere near that dire yet. Sure, Goku stopped an evil army that said it was bent on world domination, but we haven't really seen enough of the world they all live in yet to really say for sure how close to that goal they truly were. While world domination may have been their ultimate goal, for all we can really tell, Goku may have stopped them before they'd even taken control of the particular continent they were based on. They weren't quite at the precipice of achieving their goal yet either, what with most of the Dragon Balls being in Goku's possession for most of their arc, and that fact coupled with Commander Red's true desire being to grow taller, it's hard to really say for sure that Goku defeating them 'saved the world'. It was certainly no small feat however, so the idea that there's something even grander than that on the horizon for Goku? It basically can't NOT get you hyped to see where the story's going to go next. The latter two surprises come once Goku returns to the land of Karin and summons Shenlong. When Shenlong was summoned last time, it was already night time, so nothing strange seemed to happen other than a big dragon appearing in the sky. This time however, it's still daylight, so it's here that we're introduced to the concept of the sky turning dark whenever the dragon is summoned. It's an interesting bit of lore to add here when it seemingly doesn't really change much other than perhaps set the mood even more that something mystical is happening, which might be all that Toriyama had in mind at the time, but it later on becomes a way for our heroes to be able to tell if the Dragon Balls are being used even if they're not glued to a radar to see them all in one place. It's a small thing, but ingenious in it's own way. The biggest game changer of all however is Upa's wish being granted and Bora being brought back to life as a result of it. It's at this point that we learn just how powerful the Dragon Balls truly are. Don't forget that at this point in time, we've only seen the balls used once, and that result was a pair of panties. Other wishes we've seen contemplated by people trying to gather the Dragon Balls include a lifetime supply of strawberries, the perfect boyfriend, and various forms of world domination (and we do know that at least one wish a long, long time before the series began, did make someone a king), but this is the first time we've seen or heard of the Dragon Balls doing something that would be otherwise impossible, and that changes the world Goku and his friends live in quite a bit. Now, even death isn't something irreversible, which means the stakes of the story will be allowed to get higher and higher...or will they? There's been many debates over the course of my years in the fandom, and I'm sure they pre-date it as well, over the idea that the Dragon Balls remove any tension in the series because they'll always be there to fall back on, so no death in the series is ever actually a problem. While this is definitely true on some levels, and I can't argue that over time the series greatly reduces the inherent drama around characters dying, I can't say that I agree that they alleviate ALL tension in the series. I'll go more in-depth on these various occasions as they come up, but give Toriyama at least the credit he's due here – I think he knew the problem that this reveal introduced to the story. While he certainly takes advantage of that as a crutch to fall back upon (and there are certainly times in the story where that crutch is leaned on far too heavily), he also takes on the responsibility of finding ways to make tense situations still feel like they have the weight needed to hit at the time that they were being introduced to readers. Again, I'll go into more detail as I come to those events, but I want longtime fans to sit back and think for a moment of one of the many, many times where a character's death occurs, and try to remove your knowledge of how things ultimately work out in the end. In most situations, Toriyama introduces some reason or another as to why things might not work out after all, whether that's through the Dragon Balls being unavailable for some reason, or another rule getting tacked onto the Dragon Balls themselves (because Shenlong's boast about being able to grant any wish? That isn't without it's own caveat). In the moments that the tense situations occur, things are almost always presented as being dire for an external reason around the Dragon Balls or in spite of them, and I think too often fans look at the whole picture now that the series is many decades finished, rather than thinking about how things would have looked if they were coming to the series for the very first time like many readers were when the series was still running in Japan. This is one of those things where, ultimately, looking at the bigger picture is actually a disservice to the story – in this case, it's far better to look at the individual parts I think. But that's all getting way, way, way ahead of the point of the story we're at. 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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