Synopsis: As the announcer goes over how amazing Goku and Tenshinhan are to have made it this far, Roshi decides he wants to watch this match from closer up and leaps over the barrier to join Kuririn's side. Kuririn tells them the area is supposed to be off-limits to everyone except contestants, but Roshi says nobody will even know, and tells him to watch this match very closely, as they may never see a fight quite like this ever again. In the audience, Chaozu asks Tsuru-sennin if he thinks Tenshinhan will win, and the Crane Hermit tells him that Tenshinhan has no choice – to avenge Taopaipai's death and to defeat one of the Turtle School disciples, Tenshinhan has to win.
The match starts with Goku and Tenshinhan immediately rushing in and exchanging blows. Goku briefly gains the upper hand by wrapping his tail around the taller boy's legs to dodge and strike back with an uppercut, but Tenshinhan quickly evades a follow-up blow by rebounding into the air. Goku follows after by launching a kick towards him, but Tenshinhan quickly fires a Dodonpa, knocking Goku out of the air and sending him crashing back down into the ring. Tenshinhan lands with a smirk, but Goku recovers quickly, leaping out of the hole and rushing towards his opponent once more. This time however, Goku disappears like he did in his fight with Kuririn. Tenshinhan listens to the tapping noise of Goku's feet and watches carefully before striking to the side with a brutal chop that catches a reappearing Goku in the side of the head. Roshi watches in shock as Tenshinhan says such a childish trick would never work on him, and he mercilessly slams Goku into the ring's side-wall with an elbow strike before continuing to pummel him with rapid-fire blows. As Tsuru-sennin laughs, Roshi compares the speed of Tenshinhan's attacks to a machine gun's fire. Tenshinhan finishes his assault by knocking Goku over the head, but he grabs the front of Goku's shirt to keep him from falling to the ground. Holding him up in the air, Tenshinhan says the match is finished, and hopes that Goku enjoys the afterlife whether he ends up in heaven or hell. Review: The final match of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai doesn't waste any time getting to the really high-octane fighting we'd expect from it, and honestly it's pretty wise that Toriyama chose to just get right to it this way. As I said at the end of the last chapter, things have already been built up about as high as they can at this point, and we're well aware of the basics of what both fighters are capable of – there's no real reason to hold punches in regards to what we can expect to see. The fight even manages to throw at least one slight new thing at us by nonchalantly revealing that Tenshinhan does indeed know the Dodonpa, though that's far from surprising at this point. What does come off as at least slightly surprising is that Goku is already forced to resort to what he considered a last-ditch 'dirty trick' against Kuririn for doing something cheap as well, the difference here being however that Tenshinhan is not Kuririn and sees right through it. On the one hand, it's somewhat stupid of Goku to try the same trick right away and expect to have the same results, but on the other hand, I doubt he expected it to win the fight outright by any means. This also allows Toriyama to show that there's not going to be a cheap or easy victory this time around – it's going to come down to who can deal out the most damage and who can endure the fight the longest, and after having Goku ride high for the entirety of the tournament up to this point, it's finally him who's the underdog again, at least based on the initial conflict. And once again, I find myself recommending people check out the chapter for themselves as well, because Toriyama's action drawings just keep getting better and better, and leaving me less to comment on until the actual story around the fighting kicks in again. Which given the way things have been going lately, will probably be sooner rather than later. Until next time! Favorite Panel:
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
|