Synopsis: Piccolo curses Goku, vowing to repay him in full for making him taste fear. Goku wonders what to do now as Piccolo even withstood an attack he'd planned to use as his big finish. Piccolo lands back in the ring and says he can't rest until Goku is in shreds. As Goku's friends watch in horror, the announcer describes how amazing the match has been thus far, eventually noting that 'Demon Junior's' clothes have been damaged. Upon getting a better look at him, he and the crowd both start to think he looks...a little familiar... As Yamcha thinks that everything is about to be revealed and cause a panic, Lunch says what everyone else is thinking, that 'Demon Junior' looks exactly like King Piccolo. Hearing the crowd's mumbling, Piccolo shouts that he should look like him, given that he's the reincarnation of the Great Demon King. The crowd is stunned, and Piccolo laughs, telling them to let the whole world know that the moment Goku stops breathing, he'll become their king once more. The horrified crowd rushes away from the Tenkaichi Budokai grounds in a panic, leaving only the announcer and Goku's friends, as the announcer leaps back into the stands to continue his commentary to nobody in particular. Goku asks everyone to stand further back so he can fight more freely, and they cheer him on. Piccolo is ready to resume the match now that the 'trash' is gone, and Goku tells him that he won't let him take over the world. Piccolo thinks that such a line should have been saved for after his next move, and as Goku watches on, Piccolo suddenly grows in size, becoming easily ten times the size he was before. As he towers over everyone, Piccolo says the end is near and swings a might punch at Goku, who is barely able to dodge out of the way. Piccolo strikes twice more, and while Goku is able to dodge the second blow, the third hits him hard back into the ring's floor. As Goku lays on the ground, his friends are horrified, and Tenshinhan rushes forward to offer to help Goku fight. Goku turns him down as he gets back to his feet however, saying that if anyone helps him, he won't win the match fair and square. Review: With the fight being as over-the-top as it was, it was quickly becoming clear that this isn't the sort of fight that should really be contained in a tournament ring. Hell, Goku and Piccolo's previous matches up to this point have already shown that both of them are far stronger than any of the other tournament contestants and could easily use a much larger area to fight in. As such, this chapter basically brings the status of both this fight and this arc as a whole as a 'tournament' to a close...or at least, it would. Piccolo's secret is out now, and it's no longer just Goku's fighting group of friends that know the truth of who Piccolo is, the entire crowd in attendance of the tournament know now too. The result is exactly as everyone previously feared it would be, as everyone in the stands except for Bulma, Lunch, Oolong, and Puar all flee in fear. It's a completely understandable reaction, given how much damage Piccolo did to the world's peace in an extremely short amount of time before. It's easy to see why everyone would be scared by the idea of him coming back. What doesn't happen from here is what doesn't make a bit of sense however. If this were a series I wasn't already intimately familiar with, maybe I would speculate about what could come from this instead of talking about what doesn't, but this series being one I and most readers are already going to be very familiar with as it is...I don't think there's any harm in jumping the shark just this one time to talk about how basically nothing greatly changes in the world of Dragon Ball from this revelation. I mean, think about it – we just saw a LOT of people running and leaving the tournament ground's. Surely someone has some way to contact the rest of the world and announce that King Piccolo is back. If it was just one or two people, that would be one thing, but an entire stadium full of them, all making the same claim? That's the kind of thing that you'd think people would take seriously, particularly the King of the World and his military. We should be seeing them coming here to investigate or at the very least to ask what happened after everything's said and done, but spoiler warning – we see nothing of the sort. In fact, the world basically seems to just...keep on going, as if this horrifying return was never revealed to a large group of people. It just goes to show one thing that a fan of Dragon Ball has to quickly get used to, and it shows it in spades – the populace of the world is dumb. I mean, like, really, REALLY dumb. And forgetful. Far more so than the real world's population is, and given the past few years, that's really saying something. It's enough to make you wonder if that's not the biggest reason for much of the rest of the story being events that are relatively unknown to Earth's population at large – if they don't know about it, Toriyama doesn't have to have them completely forget about it, and things move on much more smoothly. It's a cop-out if ever there was one, but it is what it is. At any rate, everyone that left the tournament so quickly misses out on seeing Piccolo's new move, and this time around, it's actually brand new – we haven't seen him do anything like this at any point before now. Growing giant definitely seems to be an attack that would be hard to avoid, and it definitely does seem to take Goku off guard. That said, he's still in this to win this, which brings us right back around to how this is actually still a tournament match somehow. Remember how everyone in the crowd ran except for the announcer? That's because we need at least one official person there to call this match once it's done. Notice how even once he grows giant, Piccolo is still within the confines of the ring? That's because if he stepped outside of it, he'd lose by ring-out. And Goku rejecting Tenshinhan's offer of help? It's not because Tenshinhan wouldn't be of any help – though he probably wouldn't – it's because if Goku accepts outside help, then he'd forfeit the match. Goku himself calls it as such, referring to his bout with Piccolo not as a 'fight', but a 'match', one that he wants to win 'fair and square'. First off, that's hilarious coming from the guy who previously used kinto'un in one tournament, and then arguably left the ring enough to grab sunglasses in another. Second, it's a testament to who Goku is that he still wants to consider this a tournament match rather than a deathmatch. He's lost this tournament twice before, and it seems like it might just mean something to him to win it for once after all. There's also the fact that he continually doesn't want to kill Piccolo...but that's just because if he did, he'd lose the tournament (there's a no kill rule, don't forget) and he'd kill Kami too. There's nothing else to it, right? ...I'll get back to you on that one. 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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