Synopsis: Silver again asks Goku to tell him why he's after the Dragon Balls and how he's able to find them so easily, but Goku refuses to tell him anything unless he apologizes. He then turns to leave, but Silver dashes past him and grabs his bag, assuming that the radar must be inside there. Goku rushes and grabs it back from him, asking if the man is trying to make him mad. Silver is surprised, but smirks, saying his men were right when they told him Goku wasn't just any old kid. He decides that he'll have to physically force the information out of Goku, and swings a punch at him, but Goku kicks him hard in the gut. Silver continues to try to attack Goku, but Goku easily takes him out with a swipe of his tail, knocking him to the ground, unconscious.
Goku realizes he doesn't have kinto'un to travel with anymore and wonders what he's going to do since it's too far to walk to the next Dragon Ball. He checks out the soldiers' house to see if they have any of those capsule things Bulma had, and he finds a case of them. Tossing one out, he activates a robot. After a quick but confused conversation, the robot tells Goku to throw the capsule labeled #3, and out pops a plane that the robot then says it will fly to where Goku wants to go, though Goku laments that it moves a lot slower than kinto'un did. At the Red Ribbon Army HQ, a short eye-patched man named Commander Red frets about how long it's taking his forces to find the Dragon Balls. His assistant, a tall black man, tries to calm him down, reminding him that their radar is far from exact. A large bear man soldier comes to inform them that there's been a disturbance with Silver's Dragon Ball search and takes them both to the command room, where their radar is picking up that Silver's Dragon Ball is now on the move heading straight for the area where General White is searching for another ball. Red furiously asks what's going on and demands that they get Silver on the radio immediately. Hearing the radio going off, Silver stumbles his way towards it and informs Red of what's been going on, while Goku notes to the robot that it's starting to get cold as they head to their destination. Red sentences Silver to death, and then commands his assistant to contact General White and tell him to kill this kid as soon as they find him and take the Dragon Ball back from him. He then frets, noticing that his much taller assistant is standing too close to him, and tells him to step back as he doesn't like feeling short. In the plane, Goku is freezing due to the plummeting temperatures as they head northward. He checks the Dragon Radar and realizes he's close enough to the ball now, so he asks the robot to land. Unfortunately, the robot is now frozen as well, and the plane crashes into a snowy hillside. Nearby soldiers hear the crash and decide to check it out. At White base, General White receives word of the crash and that it's one of their own planes. He orders his men to find the kid that was supposed to be on board and retrieve that Dragon Ball at all cost. He then laughs, thinking that whatever this kid is, he's finished now. Too cold to move on his own, Goku is shown to be unconsciously holding on to his bag, as a young girl in snow clothes drags him through the snow. Review: General Silver might be our first taste of what the Red Ribbon Army can throw at Goku, but it's certainly not a very good indicator of what's to come, sadly. As we'll see over the course of the story, the Red Ribbon is absolutely not a foe to be trifled with. Here at the start though, they're kind of being built up while not having a lot to back them up. A big part of this problem is with Silver himself. Outside of blowing up kinto'un, a task he accomplished by using a rocket launcher meaning even Puar could have done it, he doesn't get to do a single thing to actually come off as threatening. Sure, the soldiers under his command are scared of him, but he barely lasts any longer against Goku than they do. Hell, I realize Goku is super strong now, but even Monster Carrot put up more of a fight – there's starting things off gradually, and then there's the complete ineffectiveness that is Silver's crew. Ah well. At least the robot Goku steals from them is super entertaining. Silver himself aside, the chapter does give us a bit more of a taste of the Red Ribbon Army itself, though it still doesn't do much to fully illustrate what a threat they are, especially after Silver's poor showing. They are shown to be a much more spread out and organized force than any of the villainous groups Goku has tangled with so far however, so there's a lot of potential here that Toriyama will start taking more full advantage of shortly hereafter. Of particular interest is the naming scheme of this entire organization – Red, Silver, Brown, White. He hasn't been named yet, but even Red's assistant falls under this naming scheme, as he's named...Black. That's, um...hmm. Moving on. Pun based names are hardly a new thing for Dragon Ball (though these are certainly more on the nose than previous ones, at least to an English-speaking audience), but what's interesting about these ones is what they potentially imply. Either Red gathered specifically people with color based puns to join his organization, these are all code names to hide the characters' real names, or everyone that joined up just happened to fit the name pun theme. There's not really a satisfactory answer to this question either as nothing is ever suggested one way or another in the story itself, and I don't recall anything being said in the years since outside of it either. Personally I like to think they're all code names, save for perhaps Red himself, but that's just me. For his failure, Silver is sentenced to execution, but unlike a later failed member of the army, we don't actually see this one get carried out, so it's entirely possible that Silver is still out there somewhere, continuing to fail at everything he tries to do. Really warms your heart, doesn't it? I might be sounding kind of sour, but I promise I'm not. This arc is still one of my favorite portions of the series, especially the pre-Z material, but there's just no denying that it's opening act just isn't as eventful or impressive as one might expect it to be given everything that came before it. At least not here in the manga. If only there were another take on this material somewhere. ...Wait... Until next time! Favorite Panel:
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September 2022
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