Synopsis: With Taopaipai defeated and four of the seven Dragon Balls back in his possession, Goku checks his radar and discovers that there are two balls together some distance away. He realizes that since the Red Ribbon Army has been trying to gather the Dragon Balls as well and they were all scattered before that that must be their main base, and he prepares to go beat them all up and get their two Dragon Balls at the same time. Upa insists that it's too dangerous even for Goku, but Goku says he'll be fine and calls down kinto'un. At Red Ribbon HQ, Black informs Red that Colonel Violet has just returned with a Dragon Ball. Violet hands the ball to her Commander and apologizes for it taking so long, but Red is overjoyed to now have two Dragon Balls, with four more on the way courtesy of Taopaipai. Violet praises the enemy's radar that they'd given her for it's precision in detecting the Dragon Ball, so Red tells Black to give the radar to General Copper and order him to find the last Dragon Ball immediately. Another soldier alerts Red to the fact that the four Dragon Balls on the radar are on the move, and Red thinks it must be Taopaipai. Flying through the air on kinto'un, Goku is soon caught by surprise when a small aircraft appears and starts to fly alongside him. The small ship soon sends a rough video of Goku back down to Bulma on Roshi's island, where she appears to have built an antenna receiver as well. Roshi and Lunch (in her blonde form) come to the TV as well and are pleased to see that Goku is alive, with Roshi asking if he's coming back here now. Bulma messes with her device and brings a map to the screen that shows Goku is heading towards the location of two more Dragon Balls. As Roshi scoffs and asks why Goku can't stop by and say hi first at least, Lunch seems to think the location of the two Dragon Balls seems familiar – she's pretty certain it's the Red Ribbon HQ. Roshi says that not even Goku would be that foolish, but Bulma sends her visual aircraft away from Goku and over to where Goku is heading, receiving back footage that shows Lunch was right. Roshi wonders if Goku really is planning to invade a place like that, when the aircraft is suddenly shot down by a patrolling Red Ribbon aircraft. The Red Ribbon soldier radios in to HQ that he's just engaged a UFO, and HQ tells him not to attack as it should be Taopaipai, but the soldier says it was just a miniature recon unit of some sort and he's already taken care of it. Red and Black watch the radar screen eagerly as the four Dragon Balls get closer and closer, still under the impression that it's Taopaipai. Goku sees the Red Ribbon base at last, and pulls out nyoibo, eager to get started. As the Red Ribbon soldier that shot down Bulma's aircraft spots Goku, he responds in horror that it's not Taopaipai. Bulma asks Roshi what they're going to do as not even Goku is strong enough to handle the whole Red Ribbon Army and will surely be killed. Lunch says Goku must be insane, but Roshi says he's just stupid, and they have no choice but to go help him. Turtle asks how they can leave with no vehicles however, and Bulma angrily wishes she had some way to contact Yamcha. Turtle asks why she doesn't call him on the phone, but Bulma says she can't do that since there's not a phone here. Turtle reasons that if she could build an aircraft and a visual receiver from scratch, then surely a phone should be no problem, and Bulma happily calls him a genius before starting to build one, with Roshi commenting that there's a thin line between idiocy and genius. Once the phone is built, Bulma calls home and tells her dad to put Yamcha on the line. Yamcha is horrified at what Goku is doing, but also eager to fight some worthy opponents after all this time spent in the city, so he tells Puar and Oolong (who had been trying to sneak away) that they're heading out to help Goku fight the Red Ribbon Army, a notion that horrifies Oolong. As Goku promptly destroys the Red Ribbon soldier's aircraft, HQ tries to raise him on the radio again but receive no answer. They turn on their monitor to see what's going on outside, and an image of Goku fills the screen. A soldier quickly reports to Red that it's not Taopaipai coming here with the four Dragon Balls, it's that brat, Son Goku. Red and Black watch on, aghast. Review: This chapter begins what is probably my favorite or second favorite section of the Red Ribbon storyline, as it's really hard to choose between this ending portion of the story or the earlier adventures with General Blue (though the Taopaipai section we just wrapped up is insanely good as well). It's fairly short and really only exists to resolve this storyline while moving into the next one that further ties up this arc's loose ends, but man if it's not an enjoyable climax. The very start of this chapter did throw me for a bit of a loop though, as we see both Goku and the Red Ribbon in possession of the small radar that Bulma built. Since I momentarily forgot myself, a quick refresher for anyone else who may have had a brain fart as well – the radar the Red Ribbon has is Bulma's original Dragon Radar that they got when Arale sent General Blue flying away, and the radar Goku has is the one that Turbo built from plane parts, and is the radar that our heroes will have for the rest of the series moving forward. Who'd have thought a short crossover with Dr. Slump would lead to such a small but confusing detail? As much as I love this final part of the arc however, it's not without it's misses as well. We're introduced to Colonel Violet in this chapter, the only female member of the Red Ribbon Army we ever get to meet (even the random soldiers we see throughout the course of the series are all male), and...well, let's just say she's not going to amount to very much in her screen time, and that's a shame. It would have been interesting to have a female opponent for Goku for a change, but that's not something Toriyama is ever very eager to give us seemingly. Alas, poor Violet, you're just a cameo really – though at least that's better than only being name-dropped like General Copper, I guess. The story arc started off with Goku all on his own, so when he ran into the Red Ribbon Army for the first time, he didn't have anyone around to tell him what a big, terrifying deal they truly were. Little by little though, the other parts of the core cast have been made aware of Goku tangling with them, leading to them realizing that Goku is just stupid enough to charge head-first into their home base after all. It's hard to say for sure if their reactions would have been exactly the same if they were only now learning of Goku's involvement with the Army, but I think things would have ultimately played out about the same, though their knowledge does add an even bigger sense of urgency for them. It's interesting to note that Lunch seems to know exactly where Goku's headed too, just based on the map. It doesn't seem like knowledge of where the Red Ribbon home base is would be very common knowledge, so her knowing that is more than a little suspect. I'm pulling from memory here, but I believe the anime adds a line about them having tried to bring her into the organization at one point (though this could have been a dub line added by FUNimation, perhaps?) - it'd certainly make sense though, as the Army would have been very interested in someone of blonde Lunch's ability. Wonder if they would had made her change her name to a color though? Colonel Blonde, perhaps? I also love the bit with Turtle pointing out that if Bulma can build a surveillance drone as quickly as she did, then a phone should be easy. We see this sort of thing come up a few times with Bulma over the course of the franchise, where something super obvious occurs to someone other than her but then she's the only one smart enough to know how to make said obvious thing a reality. Roshi's right, the line between smart and dumb truly is a thin one. And hey, Yamcha's here! Keep in mind that, barring the filler I reviewed a while back, this is the first time he, Puar, or Oolong have been seen since the end of the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai. What have they been doing in all that time? Well...nothing. Nothing that we're made aware of anyway. Even the bit with Bulma being angry at Yamcha has seemingly been forgotten by now, with nary a mention of it nor any hesitation from Bulma in calling him. The only indication we get of what Yamcha's been doing is his readiness to get into a good fight, seemingly showing he hasn't had much luck in finding any worthwhile opponents in the big city. This would certainly explain why he's lagged so far behind Kuririn and especially Goku by this point in time, as this would seem to indicate he hasn't really gotten much chance to progress past where he was during the Budokai. Heck, even Kuririn at least got to fight Blue earlier – it didn't go well, but he probably gained SOMETHING from the experience. Yamcha doesn't even get that, he just gets to appear at the end because hey, it's about that time where we should be seeing everyone again. Poor guy. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Assault on Red Ribbon HQ!
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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
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