Synopsis: Goku follows the arrow on the ground that point sto the left, as a watching General Blue sneers at him before running to the right to continue pursuing Bulma and Kuririn. As Kuririn and Bulma continue running down a passageway, the ceiling continues to crumble faster and faster as a result of the pirate robot's explosion. The pair eventually comes to a dead end, but Kuririn notices a small well cut into the ground in front of them. He and Bulma ditch part of their clothing and dive in, eventually finding that the well leads to another passageway underwater. When Blue catches up to them, he's disgusted by the idea of having to get wet, noting that sea water is supposedly bad for your skin. Realizing he doesn't have any other choice however, Blue takes off his shirt as well and dives into the water. As Goku continues to run down the opposite hallway, he suddenly realizes that even though he's running as fast as he can, he still hasn't caught up to Bulma and Kuririn. He soon comes to a dead end, but before he can figure out what's going on, a trap door opens up in the floor and drops him on top of a giant octopus. Goku leaps off of the octopus's head and onto a nearby boulder, and the octopus remarks that Goku is it's first prey in ages. Goku calls the octopus a squid and is angrily corrected before the octopus grabs hold of him in one of it's tentacles and starts to smack him back and forth between two rocks. Goku is dazed, and the creature asks Goku if he's still alive. Goku asks the octopus if it wants Goku to give it something nice, and when the octopus asks what, Goku fires a Kamehameha straight into it's face. Bulma and Kuririn emerge into another area of the cave and find a large wooden chest, and upon opening it are delighted to see it's full of treasure – they've found the lost pirate treasure at last! As they celebrate, Blue emerges from the water behind them and says he'll be taking that treasure in the name of the Red Ribbon Army. Bulma and Kuririn are taken by surprise, but Bulma is even more taken by the handsome Blue. She starts to snuggle up against his arm, but to her shock, Blue becomes disgusted and tells her to get off of him. Bulma scoffs, figuring he must be gay, to which Kuririn remarks he didn't know there were gay bad guys. Blue becomes angry and asks how they could dare call him “that”, but Kuririn boldly tells him to step up if he wants to fight. With the octopus now killed and even cooked by his Kamehameha, Goku begins to eat one of it's tentacles, saying that he'd been getting hungry anyway so this works out nicely. Suddenly he hears screams from nearby, and he wonders if it's Bulma or Kuririn. Back in the other cavern, Blue gloats over a beaten and bruised Kuririn, asking him what happened to all of his confidence. A horrified Bulma comments that Blue's really good, but Kuririn gets back up saying it's time to get serious. Both fighters leap into the air, but Blue knocks Kuririn aside with an elbow strike, causing Bulma to scream once more. Back in the other cave, Goku recognizes Bulma's voice this time and dives into a nearby pull of water, saying he's on his way. Review: Until this point, General Blue has been a rather back-seat sort of opponent for our heroes. He's been more effective at ordering his men what to do than either Silver or White before him, but ultimately he hasn't fared any better than they have either. In his defense, he's been forced to deal with an entire group of people split in two rather than just Goku alone, but that still doesn't change the fact that his forces have rather quickly been reduced to just one person, himself. But see, that's where Blue starts to come into his own. We've seen how cruel he can be with his own men, and we've seen how much more cautious and smart he is compared to the previous two Red Ribbon leaders Goku has encountered, but now it's time for Blue to start showing what he himself can do. And Toriyama introduces us to this more active General Blue rather well, showing that he's still got his crafty and careful side, while also showing us that he is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to fighting as well. He's certainly making pretty quick work of Kuririn after all, and let's not forget that Kuririn was able to go toe-to-toe with his own master back in the tournament. Kuririn is effectively the third strongest character in the series at this point (discounting Android 8 at any rate), so Blue being able to take him on and actually be winning is a great indicator of how strong he is. That said, this is also the chapter where we start to get more of Blue's personality as well, and his personality is probably where he loses some people as fans. And I can certainly see why, even if I myself like the character. As it turns out, some of his previous quirks, as well as many introduced in this chapter itself, could be primarily coming from the fact that he's...well, gay, thus rendering him a bit of a walking, talking stereotype. He's far from the worst stereotype in anime and manga (or even this very series, unfortunately), but he still probably doesn't sit very well with a lot of people. All things told, the manga version of Blue actually makes it out of the stereotype situation fairly unscathed though, at least in my opinion (it should of course be noted that I'm straight, so I'm obviously not the most equipped to make this judgement call at the end of the day though). He doesn't like to get dirty and oh yeah, he doesn't like Bulma, a half naked teenage girl, clinging to his arm, you know, funny, haha...but he still comes across as an actual character despite those things, and he never loses any feeling of being a threat at this point from them either. Again, I'm hardly in the best position to make a final judgment call on Blue though, so I'd be curious to hear what LGBT fans, particularly other gay men, have to say about Blue. Uh, more specifically, about Blue just based on the manga itself, that is. There's at least one scene in the anime that I'll talk about later when we get to it's corresponding chapters in the near future that is uh...definitely NOT good...oof. We'll cross that incredibly unfortunate bridge when we get to it though. Other than everything with Blue, the other main set piece of this chapter is Goku's encounter with the giant octopus. There's not really a whole lot to say about it honestly other than it's nice to see another giant talking animal as it mostly exists to give Goku something to do while everything else is going on. Goku didn't outwardly show any signs of fatigue or hunger prior to this, so it's not like the scene was really required to get him back up to speed. It's innocent enough though and doesn't over-stay it's welcome, so it's inoffensive really. Unless you're an octopus, then it's probably pretty offensive, actually. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: The emerging Quirk of General Blue
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
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
Categories
All
|