Synopsis: Kuririn is certain that the match is his now that he's managed to grab Goku's tail, a sentiment that Roshi agrees with though finds a little disappointing that their match has to end in such a manner. Goku falls to the floor of the ring as his energy drains away, and Tenshinhan smirks while watching and realizing that even someone like Goku has an Achilles Heel. Realizing the championship match will be between him and Kuririn now instead, Tenshinhan thinks how easy his win is going to be, but to everyone's surprise, Goku leaps back onto his feet just before the ten count finishes. Kuririn watches in confusion as Goku stands back up, and is unable to prevent himself from being flipped onto the ground by the tail. As Kuririn gets back up, he says he was sure that Goku lost all his strength when his tail was squeezed, but Goku explains that he'd spent the last three years training his tail as well as himself after Roshi said he should, so now he can handle his tail being squeezed no problem. Roshi vaguely remembers mentioning that to Goku, but he's astonished that the boy was able to do it in such a short period of time and so effectively to boot. He thinks that Goku might not have any weaknesses left at this point. In the ring, Kuririn pretends to see something in the distance, distracting Goku and allowing him to quickly strike him in the face with his elbow, causing Roshi to surmise that Goku still has at least one weakness – he's way too honest and trusting. Goku accuses Kuririn of using a cheap move, but Kuririn insists that there are no cheap moves in battle. Goku smirks and says okay, and before Kuririn can ask him what he means by that, Goku disappears. Kuririn looks to the air, but Goku is nowhere to be seen. The announcer and the crowd look around as well, unable to locate Goku, until a faint tapping sound can suddenly be heard from within the ring. Roshi says he can't see Goku either, but he can still feel his presence. Tenshinhan says Goku hasn't vanished however – he simply can't be seen by anyone except him with his third eye, and even then he can just barely make out what Goku is doing, leaping back and forth in front of Kuririn at an incredible speed, slowly but surely approaching him. Goku reappears just in front of Kuririn's face suddenly, making a face and saying 'Boo!'. This shocks Kuririn into being off-guard, and Goku swiftly strikes his friend, knocking him into the air and out of the ring. The announcer declares Gou the winner by ring-out, and the crowd bemoans what a lame ending the match has, while Tenshinhan notes that none of them could see the carefully controlled blows Goku used to expend just enough force to knock his friend out of the ring. Tsuru-sennin is loathe to admit it, but he thinks to himself that he can easily see now how this boy may have been strong enough to defeat his brother, while Roshi thinks that there's a good chance that Goku has truly surpassed him by a wide margin at this point. Goku hops out of the ring and apologizes to Kuririn for beating him, but Kuririn just wants to know how in the heck Goku manages to disappear and reappear like that, so Goku promises to show him later. The announcer says the next match is the championship one and asks Goku if he'd like to rest first, but Goku says he's ready to go whenever. The announcer calls for the final match of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai to begin and the crowd goes wild for the fight they're about to see. Kuririn tells Goku not to lose to that jerk, and Tenshinhan thinks to himself that he might just get an enjoyable fight out of this tournament after all. Review: And just as foretold, this match ultimately went the way we all knew it was going to. That said though, I'm probably being a little too presumptuous when I say that. While there are a lot of moments where I use the gift of knowing where the series is ultimately going to pinpoint certain moments in the plot that are of interest, a lot of what I try to do when reviewing these chapters is to try and put myself in the mind of someone who is only coming to this series for the very first time. In particular, I try to imagine what a young reader in Japan may have been feeling or thinking when a chapter first came out originally, and there WERE no further chapters or episodes to go off of. In the vein of that, while I still think most people were probably pretty sure Goku was going to win this match, I can't say with certainty that the end of the previous chapter and the start of this one didn't leave at least a little bit of wiggle room for surprises. Yes, it would have ultimately been disappointing to see Goku not get to the final round when he managed to do so the first time around. But keep in mind, Goku losing that first tournament at all was a fairly surprising choice for Toriyama to make – who's to say he wouldn't make another surprising choice here, and have Goku lose even earlier than he had before, just to prove a point about how he still had more room to grow, in regards particularly to his weak point? It would have been possible to have Kuririn go to the finals, most likely lose to Tenshinhan, and then Goku and Tenshinhan's ultimate match not even be a tournament fight at all, but something that happens after the tournament is said and done. There were ample possibilities for something like that to happen here and surprise us, so in all fairness, I'm probably letting my knowledge of where everything goes seep in a little too much in regards to this tournament. Such a route may have been unpopular however, and as we can see, Toriyama elected to go the more obvious route this particular time, and Goku's tail issue is already a non-entity. It's not too surprising to see Goku take the lesson about his weakness to heart either, given that it was a lesson driven in by his grandpa and reitterated to him after the fact by his master. It does pretty much take care of any physical weaknesses left for his character as well, which is a good thing from Goku's prespective, but potentially a bad one from a writer's one – Toriyama is quick to remedy that by assuring us that Goku is still Goku however, and thus pretty gullible and apt to fall for tricks. There's also always the possibility of someone just flat-out being stronger than him too, so it's not like Goku's set up as being completely invincible either. Removing the weak point of Goku's tail also fully gets rid of any reason for the character to need to be tailless as well. With no moon, he won't ever be able to transform into an Oozaru again; and with no weakness from it being grabbed, it won't ever be an issue in battle for him ever again either, if anything it'll be an asset by giving him one more opposable limb to use compared to his opponents. No, the most iconic part of Goku's design other than his hair should now be safe from ever having to be removed from him ever again...which is of course highly ironic to anyone that like me knows where things are going after this point. With his final gamble removed however, Kuririn is left with no choice but to play a little dirty, and it's fittingly that moment that leads to his loss here, as him doing so leaves Goku not feeling the need to hold back from using his own tricks against him. The idea of characters moving faster than others can see is one we've seen before (as well as one we'll see plenty of times after this too), and while there is the added benefit of other strong characters being unable to see them, plus the three-eyed Tenshinhan almost being unable to as well, it is a little easy to sympathize with the audience about this being an underwhelming ending to the fight. We've even seen Goku striking faster than can be seen before too, and recently to boot with King Chappa. As good as this fight is, it does come to a rather abrupt end, and I'm not really sure what could be done to make it any better while also still fitting with the characters involved. For better or worse, Toriyama got everything he could out of this fight, so he simply ended it so he could move on to the next, even better one. And it's definitely being hyped up as a match we're supposed to be excited to see. We've seen how strong both Goku and Tenshinhan are; we've stoked rivalry between the two rival schools on a grand scale, based both in the past between Kame-sennin and Tsuru-sennin, and more in the present and personally with Goku's outrage at Tenshinhan breaking Yamcha's leg; and we've seen a little bit of Roshi's hopes for Tenshinhan clashing with Tenshinhan's own beliefs and ideals about himself – the drama couldn't be any higher if it tried, so it's time to finally let it loose before the dam breaks. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: The finals at last – Goku V.S. Tenshinhan!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
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
Categories
All
|