Synopsis: Kuririn is shocked by Mr. Popo's claim and asks him if there really is another spaceship, and Popo admits that he's not 100% sure, so he'll need someone to come with him to check it out and confirm it or not. Everyone immediately suggest Bulma go with him, as she's the only one among them who can probably tell if something is a spaceship or not. Bulma is reluctant to go along with Popo, who she deems to be 'shifty looking', but ultimately agrees. After Bulma climbs onto the carpet, Popo instantly teleports them away, leaving Kuririn to wonder whose spaceship it is he's seemingly found. Mr. Popo and Bulma reappear in the Yunzabit Highlands, a cold and windy mountain range far away from the hospital they were just at. Bulma is suspicious of Popo and accuses him of just taking her someplace where people won't be able to see what he does to her, but he ignores that and instead shows her a large, bizarre looking structure that he suspects might be a spaceship. Bulma begins investigating it and soon discovers that it's not made out of metal, and she can't really tell what it is made out of. She asks Popo what he knows about it, and Popo tells her about the one and only time Kami spoke to him about his past. Kami told him that he lived in Yunzabit as a child, which confused Popo as it was a wasteland. He asked Kami what a child would be doing there, and Kami had been confused as well, almost as if he couldn't remember how he came to be there. Popo had asked him about his parents, and Kami said that he didn't have any, only a note that read 'we will come for you later, wait for us'. Kami did as the note asked and waited for many, many years, but it quickly became hard to find food, and after twenty or thirty years of waiting, he left his 'house' behind. He would occasionally check in to see if any sign of someone looking for him could be found, but nothing ever changed at that spot. It was only after seeing other houses that Kami would come to realize how odd his own 'house' had been, in that it stood on four legs, had no door, and opened with a spoken word. Mr. Popo speaks the same word Kami told him, 'Piccolo', and the bottom of the strange structure drops down. Bulma and Popo climb on top of it and Popo repeats the word, causing it to raise up and bring them inside of the structure. As Bulma looks over the interior, Popo asks her again if this might be a spaceship, and it finally clicks in Bulma's head – Kami was an alien too, so this must be a spaceship, the same spaceship he came to Earth on himself centuries before! Mr. Popo explains that he heard Kaio-sama speaking as well and upon remembering the story Kami told him, Popo had thought it was worth seeking out the 'house' from it. Bulma starts looking around further and tries to figure out how to operate the ship, but soon finds that the controls don't seem to have any buttons. She soon realizes it must be voice operated, just as the entrance had been, so she tries to tell the ship to fly, but it doesn't recognize her voice. Slumping into the control seat in defeat, Bulma laments that it must only recognize the Namekian language, a language she's pretty sure she remembers hearing Kami and Piccolo speaking to each other in at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. Popo says that if that's Namekian than he can speak it as well, saying that it makes sense actually as 'Piccolo' means 'Different World' in that language. Bulma tells Popo to ask the ship to fly them to Jupiter as a test run, and Popo does so. The ship responds, flying them into space and hovering above Jupiter in a matter of seconds. Bulma is overjoyed, as is Mr. Popo – with this ship, they might just be able to go to Namek and revive Kami after all! Review: All things told, there's not a lot that happens in this chapter. It mostly builds off of what's happened in the past few chapters, but it does have a few moments worth talking about, as well as finally confirming the direction this new story arc is going to take the series in. With Mr. Popo's appearance in front of everyone, it's worth pointing out that for much of the extended cast, this is really their first time stepping into the 'Godly Realm' side of their world as it were. Sure, Roshi already knew Karin, but as he points out, he never met Popo before now, nor has the rest of the non-main fighting cast (who also would never have met Karin prior to now either). It's an interesting change compared to how these characters and their locales were treated prior to now – the Heavenly Realm was treated as a place that only those worthy would get to visit or really even know much about, but now that things have gotten so dire, it's becoming basically common knowledge for our heroes at the very least. While it makes sense as a bit of escalation and given the circumstances, it does kind of de-mystify everything about Kami and the sanctuary, but honestly, we're now at the point that God is an alien and has already been replaced by a more Godly God, so...eh. And speaking of Kami, it's made clear pretty quickly once Bulma and Popo get to the ship that not only is it a ship, but it's the ship Kami must have come here in as a child to boot. Basically, you could say everything about this arc is already shaping up to be about Namek – it's where the characters are wanting to go, and it's only thanks to the first Namekian to come to Earth that they're going to have the ability to do so as well. There's some neat tying together here as well, with the Namekian language revealed to be the same bizarre language we saw Kami and Piccolo speaking to each other in back at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, further cementing this twist as being one of the few things Toriyama has gone on record about having been pre-planned to some degree. It likewise feels like Toriyama has gone back to the origins of the species' design via King Piccolo to flesh out the Namekian heritage on display as well, as the ship looks like something we could have seen the late Great Demon King chilling in. Hell, the control chair in the ship looks a lot like Piccolo's throne actually, just without a skull motif to go along with it. The ship's capability is also proven quickly, as even a Namekian ship that's more than a few centuries old at the very least is already far more capable than any kind of engine that Bulma and her father could make with modern Earthling technology. This sort of 'space tech is more advanced than Earth tech' thing is pretty common in fiction (and really, it only makes sense if you're going to do a story with aliens traveling wherever they wish in space while we're still pretty limited in that regard ourselves), but it's made all the more hilarious when you stop and think about how ludicrously advanced the technology in Dragon Ball already is at times. Dragon Ball's Earthling scientists figured out a way to shove any kind of item you might want into a small capsule and then bring it back to full size with no problem, but interstellar travel was STILL a daunting task. With the end of the chapter, the direction of the new story arc is clear at last, as the idea of going to Namek is no longer an idea – it's what our character are going to do. After an entire story arc where space was bringing problems to Earth, it's our characters turn to take the initiative and head out into space themselves! I'm sure they won't run into any problems out there in the stars whatsoever. ...*cough* 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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