Synopsis: Piccolo asks Kuririn if he's prepared for this, and Kuririn tells him to bring it on already. Piccolo says there's no need for him to worry, as he's not planning to kill him, though he thinks to himself that will have to come later, as all of Goku's friends stand in the way of his plans for world conquest. Goku and the others watch with bated breath, and Tenshinhan wonders what a 'preview' of Piccolo's true strength will be like.
Raising his arm into the air, Piccolo then throws it forward, surprising everyone by stretching his arm out across the ring and grabbing Kuririn by the leg without even moving. Retracting his arm, he drags Kuririn closer, landing a powerful punch to the face that sends the smaller fighter hurtling towards the ring's wall. As Piccolo sneers, Kuririn rebounds off of it however, throwing himself back at his opponent once more. Piccolo is surprised, but flips upside down quickly, kicking Kuririn hard up into the air above the ring. Piccolo pursues Kuririn high into the air, cursing his persistence, as Kuririn tries to quickly regather himself. He realizes that he only has one more chance – putting all of his remaining energy into one big Kamehameha. As Kuririn readies the attack, Piccolo appears behind him, ready to punch him, but Kuririn turns around and fires the Kamehameha at point blank range. The blast seems to envelope Piccolo, but his form soon gives way, revealing itself as only an afterimage. As Goku shouts up to Kuririn to look out, Piccolo appears behind him, and slams his fists overhead into Kuririn, sending him rocketing back down into the ring's floor, hard. Everyone watches in horror, and Piccolo lands back in the ring, cursing himself for putting a little too much into that last attack, as Kuririn is surely dead now, bringing Piccolo's 'fun' to an end. To his surprise however, Kuririn gets back up onto his feet. The announcer starts to say that the fight isn't over yet after all, but Kuririn surprises everyone next by falling into a sitting position, and conceding the match. The announcer declares Piccolo the winner but highly praises Kuririn for the amazing match he just gave them, as Goku rushes into the ring to help his friend up. Goku also praises Kuririn for getting so strong, but Kuririn objects and says it doesn't really mean much when he can't get a win. From the audience, Roshi tells Kuririn to hush up, praising him for becoming such a fine martial artist. Seeing all of this, Piccolo thinks to himself that maybe conquering the world won't be as easy as he'd hoped. Review: It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I've been a fan of Dragon Ball as a whole for a long time now. It's also fairly well known that I'm a huge fan of the character of Kuririn, a sentiment I've likely also expressed here in the past. What might not be known however is that it was the very story covered in today's chapter that cemented the character as one of my absolute favorites in the series, as well as in anime and manga in general. As it was for so many others, I first got into the series via the 'Z' portion of the anime, and it would be years before I got to see a lot of this earlier material with my own eyes. I knew everything that happened of course, courtesy of various websites from back in the day, but reading about what happened and actually seeing it for yourself are two very different things. And when I saw the outcome of this match for the very first time, I was profoundly affected and impressed with how far Kuririn had come, and how he conducted himself in this storyline. Kuririn first entered this series as a bit of a braggard. He was cocky and arrogant, seemingly full of himself and completely dismissive towards Goku, someone he thought had to be far beneath him. Kuririn was the one serious enough to have already had martial arts training at a temple and to even shave his head for his cause, surely he would be the better of the two he thought, especially with Goku's laid-back attitude being what it was. Almost immediately however, Goku showed Kuririn up. At first, Kuririn lashed out further at him, but eventually, a combination of going through the same grueling training together (a training regiment that was tough even for Goku) and Goku's personality (the same personality that initially annoyed Kuririn) forged a bond of friendship between them. The old braggard Kuririn was gone, and in it's place was a good person who was, at times, unsure of himself. At the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai, Kuririn was able to easily defeat his old bullies, and even got to the second round, losing to the tournament's overall winner. Like Goku, he was inspired to keep training and get even better, and that's just what he did. He was featured less throughout the next larger portion of the series, but he was shown to have continued his training, but that uncertainty about himself continued to plague him, occasionally reviving that old cockiness, much to his detriment (such as when he lost against Dracula Man). The process repeated leading up to the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai, where Kuririn was once again able to get to the second round, this time losing against his best friend. Although Kuririn never stood a real chance against Goku, he showed that he was able to give it his all, and even hang tough in a fight that he was utterly outclassed in. Then, Kuririn died. He sat out the entirety of the King Piccolo arc as a result, and upon returning to life, he renewed his training harder than ever before, desperate to not get left behind. In this fight, we've seen exactly the kind of dividends that Kuririn's training has brought, making him an almost unrecognizably improved fighter who just went toe-to-toe with and surprised one of the strongest people in the world. Kuririn has more than earned the right to brag, but that's no longer who he is (for the most part, but hey, who doesn't brag SOMETIMES?). He's now proven himself a warrior capable of fighting back against his own self-doubt and doing his best just to show that he can, and... …It's at the moment, when Kuririn has most shown that he's capable of far more than anyone ever gave him credit for, including himself, that he bows out. Faced with just how much stronger than himself 'Demon Junior' is, Kuririn instead opts to concede defeat and live to fight another day. Some would probably dismiss Kuririn or anyone else at this point, saying 'he gave up too easily' or 'yeah, he was never going to win that fight anyway'. Some would say that to real people in real situations similar to this as well. To those that do however, I think you're missing the bigger picture here that Kuririn's efforts and acceptance are showing. In many ways, life is a two way street of sorts. What's true for one person won't always be true for another. In general however, there's absolutely no shame in putting your all into something, especially if you're passionate about it as much as Kuririn is about martial arts (even if his original motives for learning them are, let's say, a little more selfish). If you truly enjoy something, and especially if you discover that you're even a little bit good at it, then do it. Keep doing it and getting even better at it as long as it brings you joy, and eventually, you might end up finding that you've become good enough at it to be recognized by others for, something that, even if we don't do something for that reason, just about always strokes our ego and makes us feel better about ourselves. Conversely however, there's no shame in realizing when you've gone as far as you want to go in a particular endeavor, and calling it quits, even if temporarily. Sometimes we can get lost in what matters most to us, and end up driven to pursue that goal to it's ends, and overdo it. While there's plenty to say and admire about pushing yourself to your limits and overcoming them, there's also plenty to say about self-preservation, and realizing when the will just isn't there enough to overcome the odds. This can be particularly hard for people plagued with self-doubt as Kuririn is, and it's something that I can more than empathize with as well. Giving up feels like losing, and it can feel like if we didn't make it far enough to win whatever prize we were after, than we haven't achieved anything. But let's look at it this way – if you go too far, push yourself beyond what you're able to do and you know it, and end up wrecking yourself in some way, then that can be it. It's over. Forever. But if you can figure out when the right time to step back is, for your own good? You can learn from where you went wrong, you might even be able to learn from what others did in that same situation, and push beyond your limits the next time an opportunity comes along. Kuririn has grown wise enough to know exactly when that's the better option, and he chooses it here, and it's that level of self-awareness that I love so much about this character, and that I try to emulate as much of in myself as I can. I know more than my fair share what it's like to be plagued by self-doubt and to feel like the challenges of life are constantly overwhelming me, but like Kuririn, I choose to try and take it in stride as much as I can, hoping that the next time around, I'll do better. Phew. Been a while since I've had to essentially write a thesis on 'Why Kuririn Is The Best', but hopefully I've made my point well enough. Before closing out the chapter, there were a few other, non-Kuririn related items in the chapter that I wanted to touch on briefly. I mentioned before that Piccolo would have no problem just upending the tournament and killing everyone there if he had to, and while that's still true, we see that he'd rather things not go that extreme, at least not at first. The reasoning is something we'll get straight from the horse's mouth later on, but it's already pretty easy to guess at – he wants a fairly large audience for when he takes down Goku in revenge for the original King Piccolo, to further inspire fear in the populace that he plans to conquer. There's also a moment where Piccolo shows off a strange new technique, the ability to stretch his arms out really long. It's something we'll see a fair bit from the character in the future (though I forget how much of that is anime-only), as well as something we never saw King Piccolo do. I'd assume he probably could have done the same, as could Kami, as it's something that's very likely due to the three's 'shared nature', but... I'd also assume it's something they could do with their legs for long-distance kicks as well, but I don't think that's ever shown anywhere. Finally, we also see Piccolo utilize the after-image technique. Much as Goku's air-pressure punch earlier was described as something that demons traditionally do, the after-image technique is something we've seen lots of characters on the good side do, but never a villain that I can think of. Much like the 'martial arts schools' mentality is being dissolved by the leaving of both Turtle and Crane schools, we're also seeing the story somewhat move away from basic techniques that only certain people can do. There will still be special moves unique to individual characters of course, and there will be some rather rudimentary skills that some groups of characters are unable to do that others are able to do easily, but by and large, we're entering an era of the story where basically any technique can be picked up and learned if someone observes it and really tries it for themselves – granted, there will still be people who pull that off absurdly fast, keeping the tradition of Goku's first Kamehameha use alive. Until next time! Favorite Panel:
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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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