Synopsis: Goku orders White to let the mayor go or he's going to make him sorry, but White insists that he's never felt sorry before in his life. As the General takes off his sweater, he thinks that this fight might be easy after all, as surely Goku is running out of energy by now. He jabs a punch at Goku's head, but Goku dodges and kicks him lightly in the shin, causing White a great deal of pain. White then points behind Goku, distracting the boy so that he can land a punch right in his stomach, but much to White's dismay, Goku doesn't even move and just laughs. He tells White that the punch felt like a fly landing on him, and that a punch is supposed to feel 'like this!', before punching the man hard by way of example, ricocheting him off the ceiling and behind his computer terminal.
As White lifts himself back up, he realizes he has gravely underestimated Goku, as Goku asks him if he wants to keep fighting or not. Just then, White spots another gun that's been knocked to the floor, his 'hyper-gun'. He grabs it and hides it before standing back up, surrendering to Goku and saying he'll take him to the mayor now. White takes him over to another part of the room and hits a button on the wall, revealing the room the mayor has been kept locked up inside. He tells the mayor he's free to go now, and the mayor is surprised to see that such a small boy as Goku is apparently his savior. As Goku explains to the mayor that everything is safe now, White pulls the hyper-gun from his back pocket and takes the mayor hostage with the gun pointed at the old man's head as he explains that it's no ordinary weapon. Android 8 pleads with White to stop doing such bad things, but White scoffs and tells him he'll finish him off later for being a traitor. As Goku scowls, White asks him what he'll do now. The mayor pleads with Goku to do whatever he has to do to stop White even if it kills the mayor, but as Goku responds 'well, if you're sure', the mayor asks him if he could please find a way to save him as well, actually. White tells Goku that if he doesn't want the old man to die, he needs to show White his back. Goku isn't sure why White wants to see that, but he turns around anyway, and White fires the hyper-gun, a powerful shot catching Goku in the back of the head. 8 screams in horror as Goku falls to the ground face-first, seemingly dead. White laughs and says that even that monster of a kid couldn't stand up to the power of the hyper-gun, and trains it on Goku once more, intending to make sure the job really is finished. 8 rushes in however and takes the second shot, preventing it from hitting Goku. White is surprised and asks 8 if he's really willing to die defying his creators, but 8 isn't listening. In a blind fury, 8 tells White that he's bad, and as White tries to fire the hyper-gun right at 8's face, he finds that he's out of bullets. 8 punches White and sends him flying through the wall, and into the distance, far beyond a white snow-covered mountain. 8 quickly checks on Goku and finds that he's alive, though injured and out of breath. Goku asks 8 if he's alright and 8 says that as an Android he's really hard to hurt. 8 tucks Goku into his shirt and carries him back out of the tower with the mayor at his side. Goku thanks 8 for saving him, but 8 says Goku has already done far more than that for him. Goku tells 8 that the punch he threw was really impressive, way stronger than Goku's own, and that he could probably be a really good fighter if he wanted to, but 8 says he really just doesn't like fighting. Goku laments how hungry he is, and the mayor and 8 laugh as they leave Muscle Tower behind. Review: And so the Muscle Tower portion of the Red Ribbon Army story arc comes to a close. Something you might have noticed is that Goku's ascent up the tower is actually kind of inverted from how you might expect – rather than his toughest fights being at the top of the tower, they were mostly in the lower parts. The soldiers he took on at first were nothing of course, but Metallic was something that he only beat by fluke of it running out of batteries. Then you had Purple, who while not exactly challenging, lasted a good few chapters. Then you had 8, who didn't even want to fight Goku. Then you had Buyon who, while arguably just as tough as Metallic in some ways, only lasted two chapters. Then there's White who may actually be less of a threat than Colonel Silver was. By the time Goku makes it up to the top of the tower, he's basically already won the day, or at least would have if it wasn't for underhanded tricks. So why do I like this section of the story so much then? It seems like at every turn, there's something that doesn't live up to it's potential, or outstays it's welcome. The truth of the matter is that I enjoy this section in spite of those faults, as it's such a great showing of the 'adventure' feeling of early Dragon Ball that later arcs will start to neglect. Muscle Tower is basically a smaller representation of the Red Ribbon Army arc as a whole in a lot of ways, with Goku going from one location to the next and running into various types of foes, some more humor oriented but still threatening, and others actually proving to be a challenge even for the runner-up of the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai. Perhaps it explains why it seems like, for a lot of fans that don't care that much for the Red Ribbon Arc at all, this is one of the weaker portions of it for them. As said before, White really does prove to be an ineffective final villain for this section of the story. He's basically all the ineffectiveness underhandedness of Purple, but without the benefit of being hilarious. He's basically just here to show how evil the army really is, and to be the breaking point for poor Android 8. He also gets to show off the hyper-gun, a weapon I can only assume was made by Gero, but it doesn't really get him much further than the regular gun did at the end of the day. So much for innovation. Android 8 is the real star of this chapter, as he finally gets to show us what he's capable of and HOLY CRAP is it a lot. Even taking into account some of the other feats we've seen so far, it's pretty obvious that 8 sending White flying as far as he does with a single punch is pretty impressive. Frankly I'd say about the only thing to match this so far would be Roshi's Kamehameha destroying the mountain and then when he destroyed the moon, and I'd say this is almost as impressive as the first one at least. And yeah, White is dead-dead, there's no way he's walking that off. At the end of the day though, no matter how strong he is, 8 has absolutely no interest in fighting. While the series doesn't dwell on it too much, it really does put Goku's question from before into perspective: is it really better to not fight, even if you'd prefer not to, if it means yourself or others are going to get hurt? Granted, Goku's the last person to really think too much about these things as he's a battle maniac, but it is an interesting philosophical question that I'm sure a lot of people far smarter than me have talked about with references to things far more worthy than Dragon Ball. For my own two cents? I'd prefer people never had to fight (as far as actual fighting goes, martial arts and combat sports are another thing entirely), and I wish peace was more often the answer chosen in life; but at the end of the day, if someone is trying to hurt you or someone else you know or even someone you don't, be it physically or any other way, than it is absolutely the right thing to stand and fight for what's right and what you believe in. Live your life and let others live their lives however they want so long as they aren't harming people or impeding others' ability to do the same – the minute that's violated however, it's time to fight and be heard. Well, that's my deep thought for the day at any rate. I should really look into becoming a motivational speaker. 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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