Synopsis: Cymbal again asks Goku and the fat warrior if they've seen a Dragon Ball anywhere around here, prompting the fat newcomer to call him out for acting high and mighty. Cymbal spots the ball hanging from the man's heck and orders him to hand it over, causing Goku to realize this new creature must be working with the one that killed Kuririn and took his Dragon Ball. The man asks Cymbal why he should give him the ball, and Cymbal asks him if he's really planning to defy him. If so, Cymbal doesn't mind giving him an early death and taking the Dragon Ball from his lifeless hands, and the man challenges him to try it. Goku says he wants to fight Cymbal himself, but the man objects and says that he's his prey. When Goku continues to argue, the man says they have no choice but to play rock-paper-scissors for it. Cymbal says they're insulting him with this display, revealing that he serves the great Demon King Piccolo...but neither boy seems to care. The fat warrior wins the game and gets to fight first, though he says he doesn't think Cymbal looks that tasty at all. Cymbal tells the man one last time that he'll regret this, but the fighter says Cymbal's the one who's going to regret fighting him. The man rushes Cymbal only to get knocked back by a swipe of the monster's tail, followed by a kick and a punch that knock him to the ground. Cymbal laughs and thinks he died too quickly to even feel regret, but to his surprise, the man gets back onto his feet. The man thinks it's weird that he ran into two people this strong in one day, but Cymbal compliments his toughness. The man surmises that Cymbal's too tough to eat raw, so he'll have to cook him after all. Cymbal is surprised the man still wants to fight him, but is even more surprised when he manages to land a powerful punch into his face. Annoyed now, Cymbal decides to stop playing around, and shoots a lightning-like blast of energy from his hand that the man is just barely able to dodge. The man continues to dodge blast after blast, resulting in Goku asking if he needs any help. The man scoffs and says he's just getting in his exercise. Cymbal asks the man what's wrong, and as the fighter leaps in again, he laughs and says he still hasn't learned his lesson after all. Cymbal tries blasting him one more time, but the man dodges forward, catching Cymbal by surprise and cutting him in half with one swipe of his sword. As Goku marvels at the display of strength from his new 'friend', in the Pilaf aircraft, King Piccolo feels a sudden pain at the death of his 'son'. As his attendant questions what's wrong, Piccolo reveals the sudden news, and remarks that it seems there's someone out there capable of resisting the demon clan after all. With Cymbal's death, the fat warrior doesn't let his body go to waste and immediately begins cooking it over a fire. He tells Goku he's not getting any, and Goku bemusedly says he doesn't want any anyway. The man sniffs the meat cautiously, but much to his surprise, it turns out to be pretty good, causing him to tell Goku once more that he doesn't get any. Once the man has eaten Cymbal entirely, Goku asks him for his name. The man says he has to tell him his first, and when Goku does the man remarks that he's got a weird name before telling Goku to call him 'Lord' Yajirobe. Review: As longtime fans would have already known, the fat fighter was indeed Yajirobe. What they might not have known though was just how strong of a fighter he really was. Coming into the franchise at the start of DBZ as a lot of English-speaking fans did, you wouldn't really think much of Yajirobe at all. Of the fighters brought in to train for the impending threat there, he's easily the least impressive, not taking the training seriously or even ending up on the frontlines immediately, both things that even Chaozu of all people manages to do. He gets a pretty impressive moment towards the end of Z's introductory arc, but after that, he largely exists in the background of the series, mainly serving as an attendant in his own right. You'd certainly never peg him for a fighter of any real merit, especially not someone who was capable of taking on people capable of using ki, or being anywhere near Goku's level, but those are both things he's just shown in this chapter to be capable of doing. So then, why does Yajirobe exist in such obscurity? If he's so strong, why doesn't he do anything to get stronger or seem to have any ambition to compete against other fighters? It's just down to his personality, frankly. As shown in both chapters serving as his introduction, Yajirobe as a character is really only concerned with two things in life – food, and his own comfort which usually means having food. He's arguably the most selfish 'good guy' the series ever gets, easily putting even Bulma to shame, and that's no easy feat. Even Oolong has already been shown to grow to care about Goku and his other friends even if he's still more concerned about himself at the end of the day, but Yajirobe? He's not really going to soften up any further from where he is now, with the only real change to his character coming when we see how he reacts to dangers too strong for him to deal with, namely wanting absolutely nothing to do with them. He's a character that exists completely and utterly for himself, and he's perfectly okay with that fact about himself. So really, when you think about it, it's almost a shame he's here in Dragon Ball and thus relegated to obscurity, because his mean-spirited attitude really makes him kind of perfect for a Toriyama series of it's own. Tell me you wouldn't read a gag manga from him following a self-serving fat samurai who only wants to eat all the food he can? It'd be great! Hell, I kind of wish he'd gotten to meet Arale at some point too. Yajirobe's introduction and personality aside, his fight with Cymbal isn't the most impressive we've seen, though it does manage to be at least more engaging than his clash with Goku, even if most of that is on the part of Cymbal rather than himself. Cymbal's lighting blasts are the first time in the series we've seen ki just fired out without being part of some sort of named technique, almost foreshadowing what's to come soon in the series. It's also interesting to see Piccolo's reaction to his creation's death. It could be that he just senses his brood's demise, but his reaction actually seems physically pained, suggesting that there's some sort of life-link between them. It's entirely possible this is the case given what we'll later learn about Piccolo himself and a different character, though it's clear that if this life-link does exist, it's not to the same level of extremes as that. It does sort of explain how the demon minions mature so fast though. Piccolo barely had to explain anything to Cymbal about what he wanted him to do, and Cymbal already pretty much knew exactly what to look for in terms of the Dragon Balls, suggesting some level of consciousness link as well (at least, up to the point that Piccolo spits one of them out anyway). Cymbal's dead body might also be the first time we've seen Goku not want to eat something too, proving that even he has some standards compared to Yajirobe at least. Sort of makes you wonder, if he'd actually been capable of killing them, what other later threats Yajirobe would have totally been willing to eat...guess the future timeline's lucky he's weak in more ways than one. Until next time! Favorite Panel:
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