Synopsis: Goku finally reaches West City and is immediately taken aback by how loud and crowded it is as he flies kinto'un into it. He gets off of the cloud and starts walking around, trying to find where Bulma's house could be. When he walks into a road, a driver yells at him to get out of the way. When Goku asks the man where Bulma's place is, the driver tells him he has no idea and to move or he's going to get run over. Goku wonders why everyone in the city seems to be in such a hurry. Spotting a lady pushing her baby in a stroller, Goku goes to ask her where Bulma's place is, and she doesn't know either. Goku thinks it's strange that so many people live in the same place and they don't know where Bulma is. He calls out to a car that's driving by to ask them as well, but the taxi pulls over and tells him to get in instead. Goku thinks they're giving him a ride and is happy to have met someone nice in the city at last. The driver asks Goku where he's going, and Goku says to Bulma's. The driver asks him where that is, but Goku doesn't know, causing the driver to pull over and ask if Goku has money. When Goku says he doesn't, the driver angrily kicks him back out of the taxi and drives off. Goku surmises that it must take money to find someone in the city. Hearing a ruckus nearby, Goku walks into a crowd and sees a man with boxing gloves standing in front of the crowd. The man says he'll give one hundred thousand zeni to whoever can defeat him in a fight and make him say mercy. The crowd chats up the idea, with one man turning it down due to how good the fighter is, but Goku jumps at the chance, being reminded of the Tenkaichi Budokai. The man assumes he's joking at first, but Goku says he really wants to fight him if winning means he'll get the money. The man sighs and says that if Goku really wants to, then he'll even cut the kid a break – normally there's a ten thousand zeni entrance fee, but he'll wave it for him this one time. Goku thanks the man, while the crowd laughs at him for how stupid he's being. The man goes into position and tells Goku to start, and Goku launches a punch into his stomach that leaves the man gasping for air. Goku asks him if he gives up, and the man says no and asks Goku if he has any martial arts experience. When Goku says he's been training, the man starts to say that this will be easy now that he knows that, only to be caught off guard by Goku kicking him in the chin. As the man recoils in pain, Goku tells him he should probably say mercy soon, but the man angrily starts to swing at Goku, attacking him mercilessly. Goku evades every one of the man's blows however, and eventually launches a flying kick at the man, all while warning him to watch out. The man barely manages to dodge, and Goku's kick connects with the wall behind him, breaking a large hole in it. The man immediately begs mercy and gives Goku the money. With lots of money now in hand, Goku walks through the city, thinking it'll be easy to find Bulma's house now. As he wonders who he should ask, a pair of thieves in an alleyway spot him and his money. The human thief of the pair calls out to Goku and leads him into the alleyway, where he pulls a gun and his boar-man partner pulls a knife. The thieves tell Goku to give them his money, and Goku asks if they'll tell him where Bulma's house is if he does. When the pair threatens him again, Goku says he doesn't think they want to help him at all. The boar threatens him with the knife, but Goku hits him with a headbutt that sends him flying into a wall, knocked out cold. The human thief then nervously tells Goku that he should ask a policeman for help if he sees one. Back on the streets, Goku asks a nearby lady where he can find a policeman, and she points out one nearby. Goku thanks her by giving her the money he won before, and runs over to ask the policeman for help. The cop says finding Bulma will be difficult if Goku doesn't have an address or ID number for her, and Goku tries to help by drawing a pictur eof her, but the cop says that won't help at all. He decides to do a computer search even though he's not really supposed to, and says that since Bulma's a rather uncommon name, it shouldn't be too hard to find her. His computer gets three results, with the first not being who Goku is looking for at all, but the second one is her. The cop is surprised as the ID says that she's the daughter of the founder of Capsule Corporation. When Goku asks him where she is, the officer decides he should probably take Goku there himself. On the ride over, he asks Goku if Bulma really knows him, and Goku insists that she does. Once they arrive in front of the large building, Goku marvels at the size of the house for a moment before loudly yelling out Bulma's name. Review: Up until now, every place this story has taken us has been a rather rural looking location. We've seen Goku in one wilderness locale or another; we've seen him at solitary houses such as Kame House, Pilaf's castle, or most recently Muscle Tower; and we've seen him in small towns such as the mushroom area where he fought the Rabbit Gang and the village surrounding Muscle Tower. For the most part, we've never seen him surrounded by a truly large group of people and buildings – even the Tenkaichi Budokai, while extravagant, was largely one location with a really large crowd around it. That all changes here however as the story sees fit to throw Goku right into the heart of what would be the Dragon Ball world's equivalent of the Big Apple. West City is the main city we see rather often throughout the course of the series as it remains Bulma's home all the way throughout the rest of the franchise. I mean, her family's absolutely loaded and has a big house there – would YOU be in a hurry to move? Didn't think so. Regardless, it's here that we first get to see even more that Goku has absolutely no common sense when it comes to interacting with a more 'normal' world or surroundings as he tries to talk to a lot of people to find out where Bulma's place is. Things could have gone worse though, at least he wasn't pat-patting everyone. Even without that, it's clear Toriyama was getting a lot of mileage out of this new situation, and considering what a self-professed country bumpkin he himself is, I'd imagine a lot of this is also him poking fun at big cities as well. If you pay close attention to the backgrounds, you'll see a lot of world-building going on just in the types of characters and the like that you'll see wandering around as well. We've seen animal people plenty of times before, but we see quite a few of them in the city here as well. Just about every car we see is of the floating or flying variety; hell, even the lady's baby carriage is floating. My personal favorite though has to be this one lady we can see walking a tiny T. Rex on a leash. Come to think of it, I wonder what the leash laws in West City are for dinosaurs? The street fighter that Goku challenges is somewhat of a Bruce Lee spoof in design, mannerisms, and even a little bit in personality – Bruce definitely could have a cocky side at times – but he definitely lacks the man's skills, at least in comparison to what Goku can do. It's a bit ironic that Goku almost takes advantage of the poor guy (not intentionally of course) only to be immediately taken advantage of himself by the pair of thieves. In both situations, it's Goku's absurd level of strength that gets him out of those situations with money to boot. You might want to keep those thieves in mind though. No reason, really. When Goku finally finds someone who can help him in the form of the kindly policeman, you can almost sense this feeling of wrapping up. There's been plenty of fun to be had from Goku wandering around somewhere he's completely unfamiliar with so it's time to get the story back on track to move forward with the next chapter. I have to say though, this cop is almost woefully ineffective as an enforcer of the law when you think about it. Not only doesn't he bat an eye at a young child wandering a city that big all on his own, he also looks people up by name and even shows Goku the screen's read-out for two of them, complete with their ID numbers. That's gotta be basically their social security number, what the hell man! I can't help but be curious about the other two Bulma's though, especially the one we don't even get to see a picture of. What sort of lives are they living in this world, do you think? 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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