Synopsis: King Piccolo and Tenshinhan both watch on in horror at Goku's defeat of Drum as the latter's body falls lifelessly to the ground. Tenshinhan can't believe that Goku has grown strong enough to defeat with one kick someone that he couldn't defeat going all out, and realizes Goku is completely unlike when he faced him. Piccolo scowls and tells Goku that it's foolish to anger him so after narrowly avoiding death the last time they met, but Goku says he won't stop until he's taken Piccolo down. Elsewhere, Yamcha, Bulma, and Lunch board a plane to go help Tenshinhan face Piccolo, instructing Oolong and Puar to take a second plane to go pick up Roshi and Chaozu's bodies. Lunch in particular is ready to fight Piccolo if he harms Tenshinhan in any way, and Yamcha says it's times like these that they're glad to have her blonde form around...only for Lunch to sneeze and revert back to her mild-mannered blue-haired form, who wonders if they're all heading out for a picnic.
Piccolo laughs at the idea that Goku can beat him, and cautions Goku that he's far stronger than he was last time, prompting Goku to say that the same is true of him. Piccolo says he has no time to waste on Goku as he has to go destroy West City, and says he'll kill Goku in five seconds. Wasting no more time, Piccolo launches a hand chop aimed at Goku's neck, but Goku stops it with a forearm. Piccolo and a watching Tenshinhan and Piccolo's attendant are shocked, and Piccolo tries again to hit Goku with a punch, but Goku catches that blow as well. Goku then tosses Piccolo over his shoulder, sending him crashing into a nearby building. As the building collapses, Piccolo pulls himself out of the rubble, enraged even further when Goku taunts him by saying five seconds have passed. Angrier than he's ever been before, Piccolo leaps into the air and makes a beeline straight for Goku, launching an energy blast at him that forces the boy to leap out of the way to dodge. Piccolo lands and immediately fires a second blast, and Goku takes this one head-on, blocking it with his crossed arms. No worse for wear from the attack, Goku grabs hold of another building's spire and uses it to flip himself back to standing before King Piccolo, perfectly fine. Aghast, Piccolo asks Goku what he even is. Review: For all my complaints about the Super Holy Water, I do have to at least give it this – it definitely gives the results it promises (though that in-of-itself is part of the problem). Goku is capably shown off in this chapter as being far, far stronger than he was the last time we saw him. It was all he could do to try and keep up with Piccolo before, but now he's giving as good as he's getting, and this is against a much stronger Piccolo than before. The choreography of the fight so far isn't quite as exciting as some of what we got in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai, but it's getting there, and does still manage to instill a feeling of the characters being far stronger than they were then. Which, admittedly, is pretty funny to think about. Goku has gotten way stronger in the course of a few days than he got during three whole years of training before the 22nd tournament. It thankfully doesn't happen all of the time, but Toriyama is definitely learning a bad habit here before our eyes. There's really not a lot else for me to touch on in this chapter since it's primarily showing off the beginning of Goku and Piccolo's rematch, but there were a couple of small moments I wanted to touch on before closing. First up, Toriyama once again gives a pretty good joke to Lunch, and this time it's actually to blue-haired Lunch. For a long time now, the character has been becoming more and more obscured to the background, and with good reason – as I stated with the character's introduction, Toriyama never really quite got a handle on how to use her effectively. I think he realized that himself, because she began being used more and more sparingly, and more often than not, her appearances were in her blonde form, which at least gave a little more to work with. In the last chapter, he even gave her a pretty great joke that fit with both the character as well as fitting with what was happening on the rest of the page. Here, he likewise pulls the rug out from under things by having a time where blonde Lunch would, at least in theory, be helpful to have around, only for that version of her to go away entirely. It's too little too late as we'll see, but it's nice to see Toriyama finally start to figure out how to use her a little better. The second thing I wanted to touch on was something I hadn't yet mentioned and this seemed like the best time to do so. If you've ever read the manga (at least the original run, I can't honestly remember if the Super manga has kept this or not), you might have noticed Piccolo and other characters connected to him share a curious feature that their anime counterparts do not. Sure, there's still the green skin, the pointy ears, the sharp teeth and fingernails, and those weird turtle-shell things that run up and down their arms. There is one striking difference however when it comes to the hands – in the manga, Piccolo has four fingers, but in the anime he has five like a normal human hand does. For the manga, this is a trait that helps further set apart Piccolo as something different from what we've seen before (though it does force Toriyama to give him a regular hand for one panel to illustrate the point of five seconds, to humorous effect). So why the change? From what I understand, it has something to do with the yakuza and their tendencies to cut off a finger as retribution, therefore giving a hand with only four fingers a somewhat more criminal look than it would otherwise. Apparently censors of the 80's didn't think that would be appropriate for a kid's anime – despite it apparently being okay in the manga – thus the increase in Piccolo's digits. Again, I'm drawing entirely from memory here, but it really isn't that surprising when you stop and think about it and compare it to some other censorships children's properties have faced when going from one country to the next. Dragon Ball itself is certainly no stranger to such things, as anyone that lived through the original release of DBZ here can attest to. 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
|