Synopsis: Fully charged and ready for battle now, Nappa looks over the Earthlings and tries to decide who to kill first. As he charges in, Nappa heads towards Tenshinhan, and although Piccolo warns him to dodge, Tenshinhan tries to block Nappa's punch with his forearm...and his forearm is punched clean off. Tenshinhan screams in pain as Chaozu is horrified, and Vegeta chuckles as he realizes just how breakable these Earthlings really are. Nappa prepares to finish Tenshinhan off with another strike, but Tenshinhan leaps into the air, preparing to fire an attack of his own. Before he can however, Nappa flies into the air above him, kicking him hard back down to the ground. Tenshinhan tries to struggle back up to his feet but can't, and Nappa laughs at how stubborn he is. Outraged, Kuririn starts to run over to Tenshinhan to help him up, and Piccolo tries to stop him. Spotting this, Nappa laughs and swipes his fingers through the air, causing an explosion that rips the ground apart between Kuririn and Tenshinhan. As Kuririn and Piccolo notice how deep the hole is – so deep that they can't see the bottom – Kuririn notices that Chaozu is nowhere to be found, worrying that he was caught in that blast. As everyone looks around for Chaozu, Vegeta shouts to Nappa to look behind him, but Chaozu manages to fly up behind Nappa and grab his back before the large Saiyan can stop him. Nappa struggles to try and grab Chaozu but can't quite reach him, and Tenshinhan yells for his friend to get out of there. Chaozu contacts Tenshinhan telepathically however, telling him goodbye and to save himself. Without another word, Chaozu blows himself up much like the Saibamen did with Yamcha. Everyone is amazed that Chaozu would go that far, and even Piccolo says that Chaozu has won his respect. Tenshinhan mourns his friend, but the moment quickly passes, as the smoke clears and Nappa is shown to barely have taken any damage at all. Laughing, Nappa asks if they've started to get it now. Review: I think it's safe to say that the situation against the Saiyans has escalated quickly, no matter how you slice it, right? Our heroes did their absolute best to prepare for these guys, and by and large it looks like everyone got themselves to a level stronger than Raditz (with the only potential exceptions there being Chaozu and Yajirobe I'd wager). Hell, look no further than Kuririn for a perfect example of how much they've all improved. Before their training, Kuririn was slapped away by Raditz with no effort whatsoever by his tail. Now? Now Kuririn can blow away three Raditz-level opponents at once, and would have taken four if one Saibamen hadn't been able to dodge. It winded him for a moment, but he had energy to spare as well – two of the blasts from that attack hit the Saiyans as well don't forget, and Kuririn is still here kicking. And that's to say nothing of the other characters' efforts, particularly the two that we have every reason to assume are even stronger than that – if Kuririn can beat multiple Raditz level opponents, what the hell can we expect Piccolo and Gohan to be capable of? Unfortunately for our heroes, all of that effort is very quickly being shown up. What has it gotten them so far? A dead friend, and an opponent so much stronger than they expected that it's laughable, with another opponent waiting in the wings that they can assume is even stronger than that. And make no mistake, Nappa's power is IMMENSELY more potent than they feared, as poor Tenshinhan is the first to discover. I've always found Nappa's attack on Tenshinhan here to be even more brutal than it looks at first glance. I'm no expert on how these sort of things would work, but here's how my logic follows – Nappa PUNCHES his arm off. He doesn't swipe it off, with an open hand, where you could maybe assume the ki around his hand cut it off. No cutting. Only PUNCHING. He PUNCHES an arm OFF. How in the hell does that even work? It's insanely mind-boggling and horrifying all at once. It's made all the more effective when you remember Tenshinhan's placement in the power rankings prior to this arc, where he was probably the third strongest person on Earth after Goku and Piccolo, not counting non-combatants like Kami and Popo. There's reason to suspect that he's fallen behind Kuririn by this point, but even so, Tenshinhan is absolutely no slacker, and he's not a weakling – but against Nappa, it's still not enough. And speaking of Kuririn, you can tell how much he's bonded with everyone, because while his reaction to Tenshinhan's near death isn't quite as volatile as seeing Yamcha die was, he's still absolutely pissed at what he's witnessing. Nappa's attack to keep him away from his prey however shows, once again, how perilous the situation is. Nappa could probably kill any one of them instantly if he pleased, but he's enjoying playing with his food first. And then we come to Chaozu and his biggest moment, arguably his only big moment in the series period. I've made no secret that I'm not a big fan of Chaozu, that as a character he has never lived up to his potential. That hasn't changed moving into this arc either. Tenshinhan told him to stay out of the fight even after all the training he did, suggesting that Chaozu hasn't improved quite as much as everyone else has. We also see that his psychic powers aren't going to be any help either, which is pretty disappointing given it's his own angle into being different than how everyone else fights – if those aren't getting an upgrade, then the writing is on the wall: Chaozu's not getting an upgrade either. I've also said that the only reason Chaozu doesn't get made fun of as much as Yamcha or Kuririn is because he gets less plot focus than either of them, and I think that holds true. His moment here would be just as meme-able as Yamcha's death pose and the crater, but because Chaozu has far less character or relevance, his moment ends up not having near the lasting effect or the ability to stick in readers' memories quite the same way. All of that said however? I think we should give Chaozu at least the respect he's due for his decision in this chapter. I think he knows he's the weakest link of the group (at least of the group that showed up to fight anyway). We have no way of knowing how he would've fared against one of the Saibamen, but there's definitely no way he's standing a chance against Nappa. And he's in the same boat as Kuririn – he's died once before, so if he dies again? There's no way for him to get brought back to life. Faced with insurmountable odds and his death being permanent this time, what does Chaozu do? He leaps onto the opponent's back in a moment of distraction, and BLOWS HIMSELF UP. He uses every ounce of his energy to try to take out one of their foes, or at the very least to hurt him, so that maybe Tenshinhan will have a chance to escape and live. If that's not worthy of at least a moment of respect, than I don't know what is. Hell, even Piccolo of all people has to hand it to him here. Chaozu might not be a good character. He certainly might not be anyone's favorite. But what he absolutely is is a goddamn hero. Unfortunately however...it's still not enough. His suicide attack doesn't do more than kick up dust around the big brute that is Nappa, and now our heroes are down two fighters and a third is gravely injured. At this point, there's really no way to sugarcoat it – despite everyone's best efforts, they were absolutely not prepared for the Saiyans. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: The losses just keep on coming...
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
|