Synopsis: With Goku and Kuririn all signed up for the competition, Roshi leaves them to head through to the waiting area, but not before giving them a parting gift – since it'd be hard for them to fight in their suits, he's brought a pair of dougi emblazoned with the Kame kanji for them to wear. Goku is excited to wear his, but Kuririn worries that he might not be worthy to wear it. Roshi tells them to do their best however, and if he gets to see them as two of the eight finalists, he'll have no complaints whatsoever. In the waiting area, Goku marvels at how many fighters have gathered, while Kuririn worries about how strong most of them look. A monk takes the stage and explains how things work: with 137 hopeful contestants, they'll first have to hold a series of preliminaries to whittle the numbers down. Everyone will fight on one of the four mats laid out in the room, and whoever falls off, loses consciousness, or says they give up, loses. Neither killing nor weapons are allowed however, and each match only lasts a minute, so if a winner hasn't been decided in that time, the judges will make that call. The fighters will draw lots to determine which block they're in, and at the end of the preliminaries, the two remaining fighters from each block will move on to the actual tournament. Goku and Kuririn draw 70 and 93 respectively, placing them in the same block but far enough apart that they shouldn't end up fighting each other before the actual tournament. Kuririn worries that he won't even make it to the actual tournament, seeing as how they were never taught any actual fighting by Roshi, but Goku tells him not to worry. Block 3's matches get started, and Goku is called to the mat for his first fight. The other competitors think Goku's opponent - a large mustachioed man in a leotard - got a lucky draw, but Goku quickly shows the opposite case to be true when he runs between his opponent's legs and takes him out, almost by accident, merely by tapping on his leg. The fighters watching this assume the large man must have lost his balance and fallen out of the ring, but Goku warns Kuririn not to use their full strength unless their opponent is really, really strong. A man's voice calls out to Kuririn, and two large men approach Goku and Kuririn. The pair are wearing the same clothing Kuririn had worn when he first arrived at Roshi's island, and have the same six dots on their foreheads. They are revealed to be members of the Orin temple that Kuririn trained at previously, and they used to bully him relentlessly, and now Kuririn's first preliminary match is against one of the pair. Kuririn thinks he should just head home and skip fighting, but Goku changes his mind, telling him to ignore what he'd just told him: go all out against this guy. Kuririn and his opponent are called into the ring, and Kuririn is still nervous and afraid. When the match starts however, he's able to quickly jump and dodge a punch from the bully, before landing and delivering a flying kick into his stomach that sends his opponent flying through one of the opposite walls. The crowd is confused by what they've just seen, but Goku explains it to Kuririn in simple terms – thanks to all of their training with Roshi, they've ended up super strong without even realizing it! Review: For the first time, I actually get to talk about something that I alluded to chapters and chapters ago! Let's hope my memory holds out when it comes time for me to address things that are even further away then this plot point was... A big running theme in this chapter is how nervous Kuririn is. He gets nervous at the sight of how many people are around that are going to potentially watch him fight; he gets nervous about whether or not he deserves to wear Roshi's insignia; he gets nervous over how strong all the fighters look; and he gets nervous when he sees the bullies from his old dojo. The poor little guy is basically one huge bundle of nerves at this point, and it's a completely different persona compared to the one he had when he first arrived on Roshi's island. Why is that, do you think? To me, I'd say the answer, or at least what I think of as the answer, is pretty clear – Kuririn's attitude during his introduction was all bravado. He was trying to act tougher and cooler than he actually was, all in the hopes of making people, especially the teacher he hoped to train under, take him more seriously. It's even pretty likely that he based his persona on the attitude of the two bullies seen here. Even though he hated them, they were bigger and stronger, so clearly they had to be doing something right. He even tried to treat Goku in a manner not too dissimilar to how he himself had been treated probably, it just didn't work because Goku was too 'Goku' to ever notice. As the two spent time together though, and the training got more and more insane, Kuririn's facade began to slip little by little, until he finally not only made friends with his rival and fellow pupil, he had finished the training to it's entirety. ...But now what? Despite all of that having happened to him, he's still the same person he was before on the inside. He's still the same bullied little kid who set out to learn cool martial arts techniques, and he hasn't done that. He doesn't yet realize how much he really has changed or how strong he's really become, so he's getting stage fright about being in front of all of those people, fighters and crowd alike, and he's deathly afraid of facing off with his old tormentors again. It's this story beat that made me fully fall in love with Kuririn as a character I think, because it makes him one of the must human and relatable people in the entire franchise's cast. None of us are going to have an older brother turn up out of nowhere and reveal our alien heritage. None of us are going to be the reincarnated demon king. But a lot of us are going to have experienced being put down by our peers and doing our best to pretend it doesn't get to us, or that we're actually one of the cool folk, you'll see, honest. That's Kuririn in a chestnut shell. So when we get to see him finally break out of that shell and easily kick the butt of his bullies? Ohhhh man is it cathartic. Thank you all for attending my Kuririn TED talk. I now return you to the rest of the chapter. Of probably greater importance to a lot of people, this chapter also marks the first appearance of the instantly recognizable Kame gi that becomes Goku's main attire, as well as recognizable clothing on at least four other major characters. There's no denying that Goku looks great in this outfit, and it's fairly simple design makes it pretty easy for Toriyama to draw in just about any kind of scene he feels like tossing Goku into. At the same time though, I'd be lying if I said the gi isn't something of a curse in a way too. It's gotten to the point that it feels like it may as well be part of Goku's skin with how rarely he changes it. There are minor changes to it over the course of the series which keeps it from getting as stale as it could, but it still gets fairly stale in the long run. This is why myself and others often get excited whenever we get to see him in any other kind of clothing at all, the bar for new looks for Goku is really, REALLY low. Despite how much Kuririn was worrying, it's Goku that's proven right in the end, that their training has made them incredibly strong. And really, why wouldn't it? It's part of the charm of these characters and this world that it's just zany enough for some of the feats of strength we've witnessed these two boys go through wasn't automatically proof in-of-itself that they'd become incredibly strong. No, they actually have to hit someone for it to become evident. Violence: It's the answer to everything! ...W-wait... Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Who's that Pokemon? It's YAMCHA!
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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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