Synopsis: Goku and Kuririn continue their training under Kame-sennin, pushed onward by their desire to enter the Tenkaichi Budokai. With only five months to go, they continue to wonder if their master will ever teach them actual fighting moves, so much so that they don't even realize how routine and easy their insane training is becoming. Roshi notices however, and is very impressed with how far they've already come. Time continues to pass, and one day about a month before the tournament, Goku hurriedly grabs Roshi from back at the house and drags him back out to the giant boulder from before. He and Kuririn proudly push the rock enough to make it move, Goku managing to push it a little further than Kuririn can, shocking Roshi beyond belief. The boys are excited that they'll finally get to train for real with their master, but Roshi hadn't been counting on them actually getting strong enough to move a rock that size. With no other choice now, Roshi comes clean with the boys and admits that he doesn't have much else left that he can teach them. He explains that the basics of the Kame style are incorporated into the training, and they should already be able to see the results of it for themselves: they are so much stronger than they were when they started out. He warns them however not to focus on something like winning the tournament, and instead use it as an opportunity to test their abilities and grow even stronger than they already have. He finishes his guidance by saying that they'll continue what they've been doing for the final month of training, but now their turtle shells will be twice as heavy as the ones they were using already. The boys continue as they had been, but both can't help but wonder if this is really going to be enough for them to enter the Tenkaichi Budokai... The day before the tournament's start finally arrives, and a car is parked out front of the Kame House, prepared to be driven to the tournament grounds. Roshi tells Goku and Kuririn they can take off their shells now, and the boys are amazed at how light they feel without them on. When Roshi tells them to jump as high as they can, the boys are launched high into the sky, a feat that excites them greatly when they land. Roshi interrupts their playing around to have them change into suits, and then the trio bids farewell to Lunch as they head out. They board a plane, followed by a taxi, before eventually coming to the visually striking entrance area of the Tenkaichi Budokai arena. As Goku and Kuririn marvel at how crowded it is, Roshi assures the man at the registration desk that he really is signing up the two young boys with him as contestants for the tournament. Review: The training ends at last, and the tournament finally begins! Well, sort of. This chapter is more of a transition between the two different acts of this story arc, and therefore you'd expect that it wouldn't be full of content of it's own. And in a way, you'd be right – most of what we see here is things we've already seen. But for the most part, it's showing us those things in a slightly different light, to show how much has changed over the course of the better part of a year since they started training with the Turtle Hermit. Take the amount of energy the training is taking from Goku and Kuririn to pull off their tasks. Even in this chapter itself there's a marked difference from one page to the next when even more time has passed. In the first couple of panels, Goku is shown panting going up the stairs for milk delivery, followed by him stuttering from the effort needed to march his way through the desert's sand. But then on the next page, neither of them seem particularly worried about the hungry dinosaur chasing them. They pretty much ignore it outright and just keep running. By the time we see them digging up the ground with their bare hands again, Kuririn's only concern is that he's getting hungry. This is a drastic improvement over the toll it took on their bodies at the start, and it's not lost on Roshi either – especially not when it comes to the boulder. Poor old guy, he really should have pointed at something way more immovable, like a mountain or something. Even with how impressed he was with his students' gains, he wasn't prepared at all for them to pull a stunt like this one. I can't help but wonder if it was this exact moment that caused Roshi to begin his exact plans for the tournament, but once again, that's something I'll touch on a little bit further from now. The moment Roshi has to come clean is an interesting one as well, because at least for me, it almost feels like Toriyama himself is coming clean with us. There's not going to be anything super specific to the main fighting style he's going to show us with the Kame school. It's just going to be essentially whatever works best in the moment, and all this really did was make our characters that much stronger and capable of pulling off even more amazing feats of strength. On the one hand, this feels a little bit like a cop-out, especially since there are school specific techniques that we'll see over the course of the series (though those are largely outweighed by the fact that, given enough time, anyone can learn just about anything). On the other hand though, this allows Toriyama the freedom to do whatever he wants with the choreography. If he failed to pull this off, then it could definitely be considered a misstep. He doesn't however, as we'll see again and again, so I think it's okay, at least this many years after the fact, to let this one slide. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. Strength isn't the only thing that's changed for the two boys, at least in the case of Kuririn. Not once in this chapter do we see him try to get one up on Goku, or to put him down in any way. The only harsh words he has for him at all are when they're on the plane and Goku's amazed by it's ability to fly but underwhelmed at how slow it is. This is a marked difference compared to how the two interacted upon first meeting with each other. It just goes to show that you can't spend eight months running from sharks and hungry dinosaurs without bonding a little bit. On a much more minor note, I'm curious where the heck Roshi's car came from. We've never seen it before, and it's definitely an older looking vehicle, so...is it possible he had it all along, maybe stored inside a capsule? It's also worth noting the fact that Lunch does not come with them to the tournament. This seems a little weird in one way, considering we were just introduced to her so recently, but at the same time it's probably a good thing because...what will she really offer to the change of scenery? She's not knowledgeable about fighting, she won't be partaking in the tournament itself, and anything she could say about what's going to happen will already have been taken care of courtesy of a few returning faces, so ultimately, it makes perfect sense that she gets shelved here. I'm sure it'll just be a short stay and in no way something foretelling of her ultimate fate. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Goku and Kuririn strut their stuff!
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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
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