Synopsis: Goku screams as Oozaru Vegeta crushes him in his massive hands, causing Yajirobe to lament that it's all over, apologizing to Goku from afar that he'd help if there was even a chance he'd make a difference, honest. As Vegeta continues to squeeze, the sound of Goku's bones breaking echoes through the air along with his screams, a dual sound that Yajirobe covers his ears to try to escape. Gohan and Kuririn continue to hurry back to the battlefield, with Kuririn still feeling curious about that big energy ball in the sky that reminds him of the sun. As they get close enough to see the fight, Kuririn suddenly shouts for Gohan to get down, and as they descend to the ground – their arrival being noticed by Yajirobe – Kuririn remembers that Saiyans can transform like this and recognizes the Oozaru as Vegeta. Vegeta laughs and says he can feel Goku's bones starting to break, and Kuririn leads Gohan to try to sneak along on the ground. Yajirobe stops them and tries to warn them about what the monster really is, and Kuririn says he already knows and that they can stop him by cutting off his tail. Kuririn tells Gohan and Yajirobe to attack Vegeta from the front to distract him while Kuririn moves behind him to take care of the tail, but while Gohan listens, Yajirobe blows him off and says that Vegeta's still stronger than all of them put together even if he does revert to normal. Gohan mentally pleads with his father not to die as Kuririn senses that Goku's energy has almost run out. Just then, Vegeta picks up on the presence of others on the battlefield, and Gohan shouts at him to let go of his father. Vegeta laughs and tells Goku that his son has come to watch him to die, while Kuririn appears behind him and creates a Kienzan. As Vegeta focuses on killing Goku, Kuririn throws the Kienzan towards his tail...and Vegeta dodges it by leaping into the air, the Kienzan slicing through the rock Gohan is standing on instead. Kuririn is shocked, but Vegeta laughs and says he knew that Gohan wouldn't have come to face him alone so he knew that Kuririn had to be there somewhere. Vegeta counts himself lucky, saying that as soon as he's killed Goku, he can move on to them next. Kuririn curses their own luck, unable to believe that Vegeta has kept his wits while transformed, entirely different from how Goku was as a kid. He mentally apologizes to Goku for not being able to save him, and as Vegeta laughs and goes back to crushing Goku, Gohan screams for the Saiyan to stop. Suddenly, a look of pain comes over Vegeta's face, as Yajirobe is shown having cut off Vegeta's tail in one slice of his sword. Vegeta's tail falls to the ground before a shocked Kuririn's eyes and Yajirobe quickly hides himself behind some rocks. Vegeta curses, saying he never anticipated there was still someone else here he hadn't accounted for, and drops Goku as he reverts back to his humanoid form. Gohan looks on with concern at his father's limp body, as Yajirobe says that whatever happens next isn't his problem. Review: While much of this chapter shows the more major characters and what's happening with them – Goku getting crushed by Vegeta, & Gohan and Kuririn coming to save him – the real focus of this chapter is put on a rather surprising character here: Yajirobe. Before I talk further about him however, let's talk about that rest of the cast featured here. As soon as they get back, Kuririn sees what's happening and immediately goes into action. He may have only been around an Oozaru once before, but he still knows how destructive they can be just from that one encounter – it's not exactly the sort of thing you forget about. It's also why he so quickly comes up with the one plan of action they can do to help stop the beast – cutting off it's tail. Hey, at least he's not thinking about blowing up the moon, which would have gotten difficult considering it's already gone by this point (though couldn't they try blowing away Vegeta's power ball?), so Kuririn was clearly paying attention to what the others talked about on how they stopped Goku's Oozaru rampage the first time. At any rate, Kuririn's plan is a decent one, but it's failing comes in the form of Vegeta being much smarter than he'd anticipated, especially while in this ape form. Actually, if you look through the pages here carefully, Kuririn is never shown close enough to Vegeta for us to say for sure he's hearing him talking (though one panel has Vegeta dialogue while Kuririn is preparing to make the Kienzan, so you'd think that would imply Vegeta's voice is booming loudly enough for him to hear it) – he's clearly under the impression that Vegeta's just a big dumb rampaging beast just like Goku transformed was. It's just his bad luck that Vegeta isn't, and that Vegeta is wily enough to realize that if Gohan has come back, then Kuririn likely has as well. But Vegeta didn't count on Yajirobe, and normally neither would anyone else. Yajirobe's involvement in this arc has been extremely minimal. He first appeared to tell everyone that they're due for training at Kami's sanctuary along with himself, and once we saw said training, it was rather clear that he wasn't as invested in it as everyone else was. Once it came time to fight the Saiyans, he straight up didn't even come along to help fight. Nobody ever mentioned that fact either, so I don't think any of them were remotely surprised even – they just spent the better part of a year with the guy, so they definitely knew what he was like. Even when he finally did pop back into the story, it was only because Goku had moved the fight closer to where Yajirobe was hiding and despite his cowardice, Yajirobe does like to watch these fights on occasion – it's something we've seen from him twice before after all. He only talked to Goku directly once he thought it was safe to do so, and the minute he found out that it wasn't, he went back to hiding. Yajirobe is so dead-set on not getting involved here that he won't even try to save Goku as he's hearing his friend's screams of pain echo out around him. That said, in a curious way, you can tell that it's actually kind of bothering Yajirobe a bit here – he insists that if he actually thought there was a chance he'd make a difference, he'd try to save Goku, and even covers his ears as the screams get to be too much. In a lot of ways, Yajirobe and Kuririn's basic, default reactions to meeting overwhelming odds are similar – they both show fear because they know that they're in over their heads. The difference between the two comes immediately after that initial moment of hesitation however. Whereas Kuririn swallows his fear and does his best to fight, to help in any way possible even if he knows he's not going to be able to make much of a difference, Yajirobe stays back and refuses to risk his own life for anyone else. His own life and comfort are his own priority every time, which usually makes for a pretty shitty friend – it would be enough to make you wonder why anyone bothers with him at all beyond this point, truth be told. But then, Yajirobe does something surprising, even to himself – he DOES help. In Vegeta's biggest moment of distraction, when he seemingly cannot be stopped and already knows who he's facing or thinks that he knows who he's facing, Yajirobe takes center point and cuts off his tail. Granted, this is a far safer option for his involvement than what Kuririn had originally proposed to him, so maybe there's a chance he would have more willingly gotten involved if Kuririn had proposed that he and Gohan distract Vegeta while Yajirobe did what he did...but I'm not so sure about that. While I do think the only reason Yajirobe ultimately decided to help is because it was finally a moment he deemed safe enough to do so in, I don't think he'd quite reached his breaking point at the time of Kuririn's plan going into motion. It was a split second decision, a realization that they were all going to die probably, that pushed Yajirobe to do something completely unlike him, and act. He probably wasn't even conscious of deciding to do it, his body probably 'moved on it's own' as it was. I can't praise Yajirobe as a hero the same way I do Chaozu (which is funny considering I actually like Yajirobe as a character, far more than I do Chaozu), but this moment proves that there's at least a flicker of courage inside him that could make him into something more if he ever got over his own selfish nature. I just uh, wouldn't count on that in the long run. It does however make for one of the most exciting and surprising moments of this entire arc. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Last Ditch Efforts to Stop Vegeta!
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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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