Synopsis: The newly transformed ape Goku stomps his way free from the holding cell of Pilaf's castle, and Yamcha and the others have to quickly rush out of the way lest they get stepped on just like Goku's grandpa Gohan. Yamcha tries to yell to Goku that he can change back now, but Goku doesn't seem to hear him and continues his rampage. Finally breaking through the roof where the Pilaf gang is sleeping, the villains are forced to flee from the monster's assault with no idea what in the heck's going on. While Yamcha leads Bulma and the others out of harm's way upon realizing Goku's not listening to them, the Pilaf crew make for a getaway plane. As soon as the plane gets into the air however, the ape Goku spots it and tosses part of the castle at it, knocking it out of the air and sending it crashing to the ground. The plane crashes, and the Pilaf gang are seen one final time, completely at a loss for how their luck has taken such a poor turn. The castle piece that Goku tossed almost crushed Yamcha and the others too, and traps Bulma beneath it. Yamcha tries to free her but they're soon spotted by the ape monster on the attack. It looks like they'll have to either flee and leave Bulma or all be smashed together, when Puar reminds Yamcha about Goku's weakness: his tail! Thinking quickly, Yamcha runs around behind the monster and grabs his tail, though he does wonder if it will work the same way now that he's gigantic. Thankfully, grabbing hold of the tail does freeze the monster Goku in place. Acting on the spur of the moment, Yamcha tells Puar to turn into a giant pair of scissors and cut off Goku's tail. As soon as he does so, the monster reverts instantly back into the boy they all know, naked and asleep. Review: Once again, we're hit with a chapter that really doesn't have a lot of different moving pieces to it, it's mostly about continuing to wrap up this storyline. And really, with the next chapter acting more like an epilogue than anything else, this is basically the end of the series' first story arc. That might account for the somewhat cramped feeling of it all, because while there's really only two sections to this chapter, it's short span somehow feels overloaded. The first part of the chapter is Goku's ensuing rampage, and both groups trying to evade his assault. While we get multiple shots of our heroes trying to run from him, the main focus should probably be on the defeat and attempted escape of the Pilaf crew. While they were only introduced a few chapters prior, their defeat here feels like a natural end point for them: after all, they only wanted the Dragon Balls, and those are gone now. Then their focus switched to revenge, but how do you really get revenge on a giant monkey monster that's destroying your home? No, fleeing was the smart answer here, they just ended up not being particularly good at it. The second part of the chapter focuses entirely on Goku's continued rampage and how his friends try to survive through it and ultimately put an end to it. The interspersed shots of them all running in the earlier part of the chapter help set up this section, picking up right where the cathedral Goku threw at the Pilaf gang's plane crashes down and traps Bulma. It's a little questionable how in the heck she's stuck under it rather than dead, especially with the way it's drawn, but it's the sort of thing you really just have to hand-wave, especially when there's a bigger problem to tackle. Going all the way back to the Gyu-mao storyline, Yamcha learning and using Goku's weakness against him was being teased, but due to the course of the plot he never got a chance to use it. Now that he finally does get to use it, it's ultimately to help Goku just as much as it is to stop him. That part of this, I actually like quite a bit. It's the sort of reversal of expectations that Toriyama excels at. Right after that though, it sort of falls apart in my personal opinion. Yamcha has Goku by the tail, and it's stopped him...and he has Puar cut the only thing stopping Goku off? There's NOTHING to indicate that that's going to stop him, at all. For all they know, now ape-Goku is going to just go back to rampaging and they'll have no way to stop him at all. It just doesn't make any sense. To be fair, I can understand why Yamcha would think of something so crazy. For all they know, holding on to the tail won't last forever, or maybe Yamcha's not even sure he can keep hold of it all night long. At the same time though, outlasting the monster through the night is the only proven way to take it out – such a thing is the only explanation for how much Gohan knew about the monster, as I mentioned last chapter. And Yamcha and the others heard that story, so since they have that knowledge, they may as well use that along with the knowledge of Goku's weakness to just hold him in place all night. There could even have been a joke with Goku coming to to find Yamcha completely dead with exhaustion. Instead, we get this fairly illogical plan. Not your best work, Yamcha. Even with that glaring issue however, the chapter still brings a pretty fun end to this whole storyline that brought all of these different characters together. All that's left now is to put a bow on the package, and send them all on their way. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: No tail, no balls, what's a boy to do?
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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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