Synopsis: As everyone tries to process Kuririn's death, Roshi confirms with the tournament announcer what he just said, that the monster that killed Kuririn stole both Goku's Dragon Ball and the tournament roster. The announcer says Kuririn tried his best to stop it but the creature was just too powerful. Enraged, Goku grabs his nyoibo and asks Bulma if she has the dragon radar with her. Roshi orders Goku to stop, but Goku ignores him and takes the radar from Bulma before calling down kinto'un and flying off into the sky. Checking the radar, Goku sees that there are two Dragon Balls nearby, but only one of them is moving – that must be the monster he's after. Back at the tournament grounds, Roshi curses Goku for acting foolishly, saying that if that monster really is strong enough to kill Kuririn easily, a tired Goku who just got done fighting an exhausting tournament match won't stand a chance. Tenshinhan carries Kuririn's body and remarks what a terrible turn of events this is, while Oolong finds a scrap of paper on the floor and asks if it could be related to what's going on. Bulma reads the symbol on the paper as the mark for 'Demon', causing a surprised Roshi to grab the paper from her to look at it. Much to his horror, it appears to be just as he feared – it's the mark of the Demon King Piccolo. While Lunch says that's a stupid name for some kind of 'demon king', Tenshinhan says he recalls hearing that name once before as a master of demons said to have plunged the world into darkness and terror a long, long time ago, but he thought... Roshi cuts him off and says what Tenshinhan heard is correct: Piccolo is a terror that should never have resurfaced in their lives. Roshi says that despite the innocent sounding name, Piccolo was a fearsome demon with an overwhelming power, able to conjure up further demons from inside of himself and strong enough to transform the world into a dark void of death in an instant. He further explains that even in his youth, Piccolo was too strong for him, Tsuru-sennin, or even their own master, Mutaito, to defeat. Unable to stand by and watch Piccolo's destruction however, Mutaito eventually devised a way to deal with the demon differently – he created the Mafuba, or 'Demon-Seal' technique, and using it was able to seal King Piccolo away inside of an electric rice-cooker with a talisman placed upon it. In doing so, Mutaito gave up his own life. Roshi is adamant that there's no way King Piccolo should have been able to return, as he buried the rice cooker in the ocean floor himself. Chaozu wonders if perhaps Tsuru-sennin could be behind this, but Roshi says that not even he would do something like this, being all too aware of the terror of Piccolo himself. Yamcha suddenly realizes that this means the monster that killed Kuririn is likely one of Piccolo's minions, and Roshi hopes that Goku doesn't get himself killed. Tenshinhan hopes that maybe Goku won't even find the creature, but Lunch says there's no way he won't since he has the radar. Tenshinhan still doesn't understand what they're talking about when they mention Dragon Balls and radars, but Roshi is more troubled by something else. The demon took both the Dragon Ball and the tournament roster...what in the world could they be planning? Elsewhere, inside of a large aircraft in the sky, a large, foreboding figure sits upon a demonic throne while his pterodactyl like attendant stands next to him. King Piccolo confirms what Pilaf, Shu, and Mai have just told him, that the seven Dragon Balls gathered together will grant any wish. Pilaf asks him if his wish would surely be for world domination, but Piccolo scoffs and says he has no need of such a wish. What he wants is eternal youth, and once that is granted to him, he can easily dominate the world via his own power. Pilaf blanches but praises him for his reasoning, but tries to casually remind Piccolo that it was he and his henchman that found the rice-cooker and freed him, as well as telling him about the Dragon Balls in the first place. Piccolo tells him to get to the point, and Pilaf requests that maybe, once Piccolo has conquered the world, he can give them half of it. Upon seeing Piccolo's stony glare, Pilaf quickly amends his request to a third or even a fourth of it, and Piccolo coldly says that he'll consider it. Scoffing about martial artists, Piccolo blows up the rice-cooker that was his prison with a mere glance, saying that he still can't believe he was sealed away by such a gutless spell. He vows to show all of this era's 'great' martial artists what real power is. Roshi suddenly realizes exactly what King Piccolo's plan must be – since it was the Mafuba that sealed him away, Piccolo must fear the chance that another martial artist will know it and use it against him. The announcer says that with that list, Piccolo will know who the best martial artists in the world are, and Tenshinhan says everyone on the list must be marked for murder. As Roshi fears that is indeed the case, up in the sky, Goku finally catches up with the winged creature that must be Kuririn's murderer. Review: Right at the very start, there's an incredible difference in how this arc hits the ground running as opposed to the more leisurely pace that the previous arcs have taken up until now. In the first search for the Dragon Balls, the entire story is pretty laid-back up until the finale where they finally meet someone else after the Dragon Balls. The 21st Tenkaichi Budokai arc starts off just being about Goku and Kuririn's training before it finally escalates by taking the action to a tournament. The Red Ribbon Army arc slowly builds up the threat of the army before only revealing their leader's true goals right before the closing of the arc. And even the last arc prior to this one, the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai arc only really starts getting the ball rolling when Goku's mentioning of Taopaipai gives Tenshinhan and Tsuru-sennin a reason to become actual villains rather than annoyances. Here though, we have a main character dead right from the very start, and in the course of the chapter we're already going to learn both the who and the why behind his death. So why the difference? I'd say part of the reason for that is so that it will feel different form the previous arcs right from the get-go – this is a clear moment of change for the series as a whole, one that it will never completely move away from. Since it's so different from everything that came before it, I think Toriyama wanted to let fans know from the very start what they were about to be in for, to some degree anyway. A bigger part of the reason though is probably because Toriyama himself is still learning – he's been primarily a gag manga artist up until this point, so this is all new ground for him as well as for the series itself. By front-loading most of the exposition for the arc at the front of it, Toriyama is free to get right to what he's really wanting to show in this new story afterwards, and that's some great action. The story's not the only thing different here either, as we've never before seen Goku quite like this. We've seen him angry before, but this is a rage that almost looks out of place on his face. The closest things I can think of prior to this were his rage at Murasaki for trying to blow up Android 8, and his rage at Taopaipai for the death of Bora. In both of these cases though, things got defused almost immediately afterwards – in the case of Murasaki, Goku stops him before he can do it, and in the case of Taopaipai, it's Goku himself who is put down. Here though, Goku doesn't have an immediate outlet for his anger, but he knows how to find one and he pursues it in such a blind rage that I'm not sure he ignores Roshi so much as he just doesn't hear him at all. Either way, this is a Goku on a mission for vengeance. Then we hit the first of two exposition dumps in the chapter, and admittedly I can see how this would make the chapter unenjoyable for some people. I can certainly see the argument that revealing parts of this over time rather than all at the front would have been more engaging. That said, I love everything that's brought to the table here, so it's hard for me to be too upset at it for blowing it's informational load too early. An ancient threat thought long dealt with rearing it's ugly head as the new problem for our heroes to deal with is an excellent chaser after the more modern threat the Red Ribbon Army portrayed, and it ends up feeling pretty organically tied to the introduction of Tsuru-sennin as a former rival of Roshi's. The idea that this is a problem dating back to their own youth, and one that resulted in the death of their own master, heightens the tension even further than just Kuririn's death would have. It's still Toriyama and it's still Dragon Ball however, so there has to be some levity here, and both Piccolo's name and the fact that he was sealed in an electric rice-cooker of all things help keep things from feeling TOO grim. It's pretty funny to hear a character named Lunch complain that Piccolo's name sounds stupid though – pot, meet kettle. Of course, even with the question of who King Piccolo is and how one of his minions could be strong enough to kill Kuririn answered, there's still the questions of how he was brought back and what his goals are now left to ponder...which is where the chapter's second information dump comes in. It's this second moment that I do have some issue with, no matter how much I love this story, as it probably would have been more interesting to let at least a few of these questions linger for a while, even if it was just one more chapter (therefore buying a week of theorizing and contemplating for fans when this series was first running). The most frustrating part is that the seeds to do just that are already here – Chaozu wonders if perhaps Tsuru-sennin could be behind this, a theory that Roshi shoots down immediately, but what if he didn't? He would seemingly be the most obvious suspect, being the only other person who might know where the rice-cooker is buried and having an axe to grind with our heroes, so what if they had to track him down quickly and confront him, only for it to turn out he has no idea what they're talking about and wants nothing to do with them, especially if they're going to be trying to combat someone like Piccolo. Granted, it's a little suspect that the Crane Hermit would have had time to go unleash Piccolo in the short amount of time between the 22nd Budokai's final match and this point, but let's be honest, it wouldn't be the first (nor the last) time this series has played fast and loose with the passage of time. Unfortunately, we don't get anything like that, and the answer of who released Piccolo (the Pilaf gang) and what his goals are (eternal youth, the death of all skilled martial artists, conquering the world by his own power) are pretty much just handed to us. Again, it's not really that different from us being just handed the explanation of who he is, but I would have liked to see this drawn out just a little bit more. Maybe we could have gotten some of Goku's fight with Kuririn's assassin this chapter, so that some of this could have been given to us in the midst of that? To make matters worse, it's not just us the audience that knows what's going on now, but Roshi himself correctly guesses that the roster is so that Piccolo can kill anyone who could potentially learn the Mafuba, so now the only thing of importance that they don't know and we do is that Piccolo wants to regain his youth. Cripes, leave SOME mystery here, wouldn't ya, Toriyama? Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Goku meets his match!
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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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