Synopsis: Struggling to walk over to our exhausted heroes, an equally tired Vegeta curses them all for pushing him to his limits and hurting his pride. Vegeta calls them scum and tells them all to die, and with no time to prepare, everyone – including Yajirobe – is blown away when Vegeta crosses his arms in front of him and throws them upwards and causing a massive explosion of energy.
As the dust clears, Vegeta looks around the battlefield, but much to his disappointment, everyone is shown to have survived the attack. Vegeta can't figure out how they survived but soon realizes that he's far more weakened than even he realized. Flying weakly over to Gohan's body, Vegeta prepares to kill him but makes a horrifying discovery – Gohan's tail has grown back. Kuririn remembers that Goku's used to grow back all the time too, and as Vegeta glances up at the sky and sees the fake moon power ball he created is still there, he tries to kill Gohan before the boy can spot it. Vegeta's attention is drawn away by a feral yell, and he turns his head just in time to see Yajirobe descending upon him. Yajirobe quickly slashes his sword, cutting through Vegeta's armor and his back. Both Vegeta and Yajirobe fall to the ground, and as Yajirobe gets back up, he yells jubilantly for his victory. Vegeta gets back up however, and although Yajirobe tries to cut him again, Vegeta dodges. Dropping his sword, Yajirobe tries to sweet talk Vegeta, saying that he was just kidding around and even offering to join him. Vegeta rejects Yajirobe's offer however, kicking him away before punching him viciously in the face, sending Yajirobe crashing into a pile of rocks. Turning his attention back towards Gohan, Vegeta walks back towards him with murder in his eyes. Goku yells at Gohan to look at the sky, and Gohan opens his eyes to do so. Vegeta yells at the boy to stop and hurries over to stomp him dead, but it's too late – Gohan's body has already begun to transform into an Oozaru. Review: After everything the characters have been through since Vegeta and Nappa arrived, it's probably not too surprising to see them all running on fumes by this point. Gohan and Kuririn may have gotten part of a senzu bean earlier, but they've never gotten to rest and have only gotten hit that much harder since healing. Goku and Vegeta have likewise never stopped since their fight started either, and both are definitely worse for wear after putting their bodies through the wringer. As such, don't expect anything quite as exciting as the fights we've seen before now. This isn't the part of the fight that you should expect our heroes or their foes to go above and beyond – this is a struggle to get to the finish line for both groups. Which, in of itself, is a little different and refreshing. We haven't really seen a fight just refuse to end before in quite this same way. That said, I'm not entirely sure I feel as enthused about this last portion of the Saiyan arc as most people are. That's not to say there's not still some interesting things left though. Speaking purely on the art itself, Toriyama brings his A-game to making the characters look as rough as possible – hell, just look at Vegeta's hair in a few of the far shots. It's almost lost all of it's iconic shape, he's just as frazzled as any of the our heroes are. There's also the almost casual way that Gohan's tail comes back – you can spot it in a panel before it's even brought up in dialogue, a rewarding little tidbit for fans really paying attention to what they're looking at in the panels. It is a little coincidental that his tail chooses now of all times to grow back, but to be fair Goku's tail did the same thing back when he was a kid. Actually, perhaps there's something to that...maybe a Saiyan's tail is generally meant to grow back in a moment of peril to give them that last burst of strength needed to overcome a really tough fight? Given what we'll be learning about Saiyan biology soon enough, that actually seems pretty possible. With Vegeta in particular so down and out, Yajirobe finally feels brave enough to jump back into the fray again. Unlike his previous attempt at being heroic however, this one doesn't end quite so well for the portly samurai – which is probably a good thing, considering what happened to the last guy Yajirobe actually killed. Vegeta gets his sweet revenge on the cowardly Earthling for cutting off his tail, but speaking of tails, he probably shouldn't have gotten distracted as long as he did, because it's that distraction that gives Goku enough time to figure out what's going on and to shout for Gohan to look at the sky. That said, will an Oozaru Gohan actually be a saving grace...or another threat to the Earth? 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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