Synopsis: As Gohan and Kuririn marvel at how pretty Planet Namek looks from space, Bulma warns them to buckle up as they're about to go in for a landing. The ship lands in an open area, with odd-colored trees and grass surrounding them. Bulma starts checking readings with the ship's console and mentions that she brought oxygen masks and tanks for them all just in case the air outside isn't fit for them to breathe, but much to her surprise, Gohan and Kuririn have already stepped outside. Gohan notes that the surrounding area looks a bit like where Piccolo trained him, and Kuririn recognizes it as similar to the area where they first fought the Saiyans. He wonders if maybe Piccolo felt more at ease in a place similar to his homeland? Bulma comes out of the ship and chews them both out for leaving before they knew for sure it was safe, and Gohan and Kuririn wonder why she's so upset. Bulma checks the Dragon Ball radar and sure enough, there are Dragon Balls on this planet. Bulma and Kuririn celebrate, but Gohan has noticed something odd – he can feel a lot of strong power levels in the distance. Kuririn wonders what could be going on, but Bulma isn't worried and says that it's probably just the Namekians, saying that Kami and Piccolo were both incredibly strong after all. Gohan and Kuririn aren't so sure however as the energy they sense feels evil somehow. Bulma still doesn't think there's anything to worry about however, and points out that the radar shows four Dragon Balls already gathered together in the direction they're looking in, so it has to be the Namekians. Kuririn tries to laugh and look on the bright side, but suddenly a familiar looking ship flies down out of the sky and crash lands in the distance – it's the Saiyan's space pod! The trio starts to freak out, and Kuririn tells Gohan to surpress his power lest Vegeta pick them up on his scouter, and they try to figure out what to do. Bulma thinks they need to head back to Earth immediately, but Kuririn thinks they can't let Vegeta get the Dragon Balls. He suggests that Bulma goes back to Earth on her own while he and Gohan remain behind with the radar and try to gather the Dragon Balls first. Bulma says she'll just call Roshi back on Earth first to give them a warning, and says she'll be back in about two months time with Goku to help them out. Kuririn and Gohan worry about if they'll be able to survive out here that long. A short distance away, Vegeta curses Freeza and states that the Dragon Balls are his and his alone. As he puts back on his scouter, he realizes Freeza must know about his betrayal, and while he doesn't fear anyone else, Freeza is another matter entirely – he has no choice but to get the Dragon Balls first and wish for immortality. Using the scouter, Vegeta picks up a reading for Freeza and his men and flies in that direction, saying that he must have brought Dodoria and Zarbon with him as well. On Earth, Roshi receives Bulma's call, as Bulma tells him to let everyone else know (well, everyone except for Chi Chi that is). As she finishes up her call, Gohan and Kuririn see something else in the sky – a second Saiyan space pod coming in for a landing! In a nearby Namekian village, an elderly Namekian lays dead on the ground as a group of aliens wearing Saiyan armor ransack his home. One of them steps out carrying a Dragon Ball – larger than the Earth's Dragon Balls – and shows it to Lord Freeza, a small alien with horns and a tail that floats in a chair flanked by two bigger, stronger looking subordinates. Freeza thanks his soldier and says they only have three Dragon Balls left to collect now. Freeza tells the soldier to give the Dragon Ball to Dodoria (the spiky pink alien on his right), and tells Dodoria to guard it carefully as he believes Vegeta is after them as well. The other subordinate with long hair, Zarbon, informs Freeza that Cui has just arrived on the planet in pursuit of Vegeta. There's also the matter of the two large power readings from earlier that appeared and suddenly disappeared and have yet to return. Zarbon says they're investigating the area where the powers disappeared and with any luck they'll soon know what's going on. Freeza casually accepts this and doesn't seem worried, saying that Vegeta is their main priority at this time. Zarbon thinks Cui will take care of Vegeta in short order, as the two have long hated each other and are roughly the same in power – if nothing else, Cui will keep Vegeta too busy to get in their way. Having stepped out of his pod that landed next to Vegeta's, Cui uses his scouter and says that Vegeta won't be able to hide from him. Review: At long last, our heroes have landed on Planet Namek, and the real Planet Namek at that! Unfortunately for them however, so have a host of various threats that are going to make their lives really hard for the foreseeable future. Them's the breaks sometimes, I'm afraid. As soon as they land, Bulma is hit with another round of exasperation at the hands of the much less critically thinking Gohan and Kuririn. Honestly, this time the joke lands at least, as she raises a valid point this time – they can't really know for sure that the air outside is going to be breathable for humans such as themselves, so they probably should have let her check things out first with the ship. That said, since Namekians such as Kami and Piccolo could breath on Earth just fine, it's...probably a pretty safe bet that the air on both planets are similar? I'm not a scientist though, so what do I know. There's also an interesting comment about how the terrain of Namek looks similar to the wastelands that Piccolo trained Gohan in and that perhaps being some inherent feeling of home he had when being in such a place. While not impossible, I'm not entirely sure how much I buy into this theory honestly, though to be fair that's mostly because I know the real world reasoning behind it – big open space backgrounds are a lot easier to draw, especially when their backgrounds are fairly repetitive, as opposed to more detail oriented locations such as cities or, you know, tournaments full of people. And if you haven't figured it out by now, that's one thing Toriyama absolutely excels at is trying to find the easiest way to get the job done. Let's be completely fair here though – by this point in time, he'd already been drawing a weekly manga for a long, long time, especially when you count all of Dr. Slump prior to Dragon Ball. It's pretty understandable that he'd want to try to find a way to make his job easier. That said, I hope you like the look of Namek, because you're gonna be looking at it for a long, long time. While I acknowledge and empathize with Toriyama's reasoning for these locales being where most of the fighting ends up happening, this might be the one time that Toriyama pushes that excuse a little too far for my books. It's not just where our heroes have landed that look like this – it's the entire planet. Every single bit of Namek looks like this. Every. Single. Bit. It doesn't take long for this backdrop to get old to stare at, especially in the anime which makes the arc even longer. Needless to say, while I'm a pretty big fan of this arc from a story perspective, it might be one of my absolute least favorite locations in the entire franchise as a result of how drab and repetitive it all is to look at. Gohan and Kuririn immediately pick up on some ki signatures not too far away from where they landed, and despite Bulma's assurances that it's probably just the Namekians, the two of them both feel like what they're sensing feels evil. It's not the first time we've had evil ki described as feeling different from the calmer kind, so it's probably a pretty safe bet that they're right. This fact gets proven correct pretty quickly as, once Vegeta arrives, it's not long after that we're introduced to our new big bads of this arc. Before getting to them though, you might have noticed that Vegeta has his scouter again here. In the last manga chapter, he left the scouter behind with the alien that looked over his healing, but the anime added a scene of him grabbing the scouter again on his way off of the planet. This was a pretty clever short fix since, as you can see, here he has his scouter again like he never left it behind at all. It's a small error, but one easily accounted for by just assuming the same thing happened in the manga that happened in the anime and we just weren't shown it. It's always nice when the anime can fix small details like this though. As we're introduced to Freeza and his forces, it's made immediately clear that they are extremely bad news. They've killed an elderly Namekian, they're gathering the Dragon Balls for their own purposes – and already have four of them to boot – and Freeza himself is someone that even Vegeta is seemingly scared of. Freeza might not appear like he's much to worry about at first glance however. He seems far shorter than the rest of his forces, he's just casually floating around in a floating chair (seriously, where do I buy one of those?), and he's even polite to his foot soldiers. Don't let any of that fool you though – this guy is absolutely bad news. Case in point, Vegeta is scared of him as I already said. Remember how strong Vegeta was? Now think about how powerful Freeza can already be assumed to be if Vegeta doesn't think he can take him on without wishing for immortality first. There's also the fact that Cui is said to be just as strong as Vegeta is. Neither of them are kept at Freeza's side the same way Dodoria and Zarbon seem to be here, so it's also a safe assumption that those two are likely far stronger than Vegeta and Cui too, and they're also still listening to Freeza's orders. We've only just been introduced to the character, and things are already pointing in a very definite direction – Freeza's power is nightmarish. As the story goes along too, we're going to see just how accurate that first assumption is. 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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