Synopsis: Goku continues to beat down Red Ribbon soldiers that get in his way, but a pair of them think they've finally beaten the boy by launching a rocket at him. Their joy is short-lived however as Goku reappears from the cloud of smoke and uses a nearby table to shove them hard into a wall. Seeing the boy survive a point-blank rocket, the remaining soldiers choose to flee rather than keep fighting. Seeing his men flee via a security screen, Red curses them as disgraces, saying that Goku is just one brat so this shouldn't be happening. Black tells Red it appears they were too late in realizing just how strong this brat was however, so they've been left with no choice but to abandon the balls and retreat themselves. Red defiantly says he doesn't want to give up the Dragon Balls, but Black asks him if he feels that strongly about it if it's between them and his own life. Red continues to grumble, saying that he was so close, and if he had just a little longer, he could have been “tall”. Black is taken aback by this, and asks Red that surely they weren't gathering the Dragon Balls just to make him taller. Red asks him if he has a problem with that. Black says he thought they were surely after world domination, and Red insists that they'd get to that in the fullness of time. Red claims that a conqueror has to be charismatic and impressive, and laments that 'no chick looks twice at a midget'. Black is mortified that it was for something as petty as that that he and the other soldiers have suffered, but Red scoffs and says that tall people has no idea how short people like him feel. Red says that ever since he was a kid, he's been ridiculed and laughed at for his height. Black says the only reason he's done so much and put up with so much was to advance the Army's mission of world conquest, but Red belligerently says that he's the Commander so he gets to say what they do. Black argues with him once more, asking him if he realizes how many soldiers have sacrificed their lives for as stupid a goal as making him taller, but Red doesn't care, saying that they only died because they weren't trained better and that he should think before talking back to his commander like that. Unable to take anymore, Black shoots Commander Red in the head, telling him that he's not competent to be the Commander anymore, and that he'll rebuild the army under a new command, that of Commander Black. Just then, Goku breaks through a nearby window, looking for the Dragon Balls that his radar says should be around there somewhere. Black speaks to Goku and Goku asks if he's the boss, with Black saying he is as of just a minute ago. Spotting the Dragon Balls on the table, Goku says he'll be taking them, but Black offers him a proposition first. He asks Goku to gather the Dragon Balls together with him, and together they'll be able to rule the world. Goku isn't interested, and says that he needs the balls to revive a friend's father that was killed by one of the Red Ribbon's men. Black alters his offer – he says he'll let Goku use the Dragon Balls to wish back his father's friend, and after that Goku can join him in conquering the world anyway, saying that with his strength, it'll be easy. Goku objects again, saying he has no interest in even being friends with bad people like him. Black sees that there's no choice left but to fight after all. Black warns Goku that it won't be as easy as before and goes on the offensive, but Goku is easily able to dodge all of Black's blows and lay him out with a single elbow strike. Black realizes that Goku is indeed far stronger than they thought, and Goku tells him to give up. Undeterred, Black pulls a capsule from his belt and tosses it out, leaping into the cockpit of the large robot suit that appears there. Piloting the suit, Black strikes Goku across the face with it's fist, sending the boy flying into the wall. Goku holds his head, seemingly actually hurt from this attack. Elsewhere, Yamcha and the others continue heading towards Red Ribbon HQ, desperately hoping that Goku's still alive when they get there. Review: If the previous chapter began my truly favorite section of this arc, then this chapter furthers it towards that conclusion. We get a little more of Goku just beating down soldiers, ultimately leading to them just giving up trying to fight him altogether, but it's Red's breakdown and Black's reaction to it that really make this chapter – and storyline – for me. We've been dealing with the Red Ribbon for some time now. This arc first started back in chapter 55, and it won't conclude until the next chapter, making for a storyline that has lasted 42 chapters in total. In comparison to that, the first arc in the series (the Search for the Dragon Balls) lasted 23 chapters, and the second (the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai) lasted 31. That makes this arc longer than either of them and really only a handful of chapters shorter than both of those combined. It's even longer when you consider that the Budokai didn't even really get started until 9 to 12 chapters into it's run. No matter how you slice it, this arc is the longest one in the series thus far, and it's definitely the longest one with one continuous goal (find the four-star Dragon Ball and then the rest of them) and one continuous foe (the Red Ribbon Army). As a result, the ensuing final conflict between Goku and the Red Ribbon Army has been one that's been building up for a long time by this point. That of course leaves the question of how exactly to resolve that conflict, which is where Toriyama could potentially have run into a problem. See, after Goku defeated General Blue, the Red Ribbon Army hit a wall and called in outside help in the form of Taopaipai. While this resulted in a great wall for Goku to overcome, it's also left the narrative with a problem – if the Army was already out of it's best men and had to call in the assistance of someone stronger, then that means that after Taopaipai's defeat, there's nobody else left for Goku to be challenged by in this storyline. If the Army had someone else stronger than Taopaipai left, they wouldn't have needed to call him in at all. As such, the story was bound to go out with a bit of a low after it's previous highs (and my own bias towards it aside, it could certainly be argued that it does just that). Even the foreseen threat of Goku being overwhelmed by there being just too many soldiers with guns to contend with turned out to be a moot point, so how in the world does Toriyama wrap this storyline up without it feeling like a big letdown? He does it of course by going back to his roots and one of his greatest strengths: he plays it for laughs, and in pure Dragon Ball fashion, it's laughs based around some decidedly darker material. The reveal of Red's true ambitions haven't really been hinted at prior to this, but the build-up for the joke has definitely been laid in prior chapters. The Red Ribbon Army has been described by every character that was already familiar with them as an evil, destructive entity bent on world domination and one willing to stop at nothing to achieve that goal. It's also been mentioned at least once prior that nobody in the army, not even the higher level generals like Blue, truly know what it is Red wants to wish for once he gets the Dragon Balls. The natural assumption anyone would make with all of this information is that he must be planning to wish to rule the world, same as Pilaf before him. As it turns out however, Red is something of an inverted Pilaf – whereas Pilaf was a goofy character with a rather dire goal in mind, Red is a serious character with a really stupid wish in mind. Seriously, just think about everything we've seen the Army do, all of the terrible things they've done and been behind, how many times they've tried to kill our heroes...and in the end, it wasn't even for anything you'd expect the Army to be after, no, it's all been because Red hates that he's short and wants to use the powers of a wish-granting Dragon to give himself a few inches (no, not that way, you filthy people). That's just utterly hilarious in a really, really dark way, and I think it's what Toriyama had planned all along due to the previous build-up, rather than it being something he came up with on the spur of the moment when realizing he'd written himself into a wall. Of course, it's only darkly hilarious for us because it's fiction and we're looking in from the outside. For Black, it's horrifying, and rightly so. We have no idea what this character's backstory is prior to joining the Red Ribbon Army – even Red's belated reveal here gives us some idea of what he's been like for some time now – but his reaction indicates someone who has dedicated their entire life to a cause. For better or worse (and likely worse given, you know, world domination and all), Black was all in on what the Army was doing and what he perceived their goals to be, and Red betrays all of that in a moment of outraged weakness. He's whining about not getting to be taller and telling Black how good they've all had it, and completely dismissing the pain and even the deaths of his men that this entire ordeal has caused. Red was the type of leader that killed soldiers for failing him, and even though Black doesn't seem to have batted much of an eye at that, he seemingly at least believed those deaths were always for something greater. Now that he finds out it's all been for nothing, and that Red doesn't even care about what those men sacrificed in pursuit of is own petty gains? Black's had enough and puts an immediate end to Red's madness. It's this twist of fate at the hands of a punchline that makes Black a memorable character in my opinion. His design and frankly his name both give some cause for concern, but ultimately, he elevates himself from a background attendant character of almost no note, into the final villain of this entire arc, in only a few pages. And don't get me wrong, he's as evil as anyone else in the Red Ribbon Army was, but he at least believes in their goals rather than putting up a front as Red had done. Sort of similar to a certain mad scientist survivor from this arc that we'll be learning about way, way down the line...he must have tuned out by this point, or it's almost surprising he doesn't just put Black Ribbon logos on his creations instead. Black also makes for an interesting opponent for Goku as he's the first of only a handful to try to coax Goku over to his side rather than fighting him. In most latter cases it's more of a recognition of Goku's skill and thinking he'd be of some use however, whereas here it's because Black already suspects that he's not going to have an easy time against the kid. That and, well, the Army's pretty much decimated at this point, so Black has just proclaimed himself the Commander of nothing really, so having a force like Goku on his side would certainly be a good starting point to rebuild from. Unfortunately for him Goku's not the type to be interested, so Black decides to fight...despite earlier having planned to just leave and survive. ...Huh. Look, I said he was interesting, not smart. Let's chalk it up to how rattled he was by everything he just found out from Red. It's hard to really say how good of a fighter Black is, but it's pretty unlikely that he's anywhere near as good as Taopaipai, and even if he was, Goku's already beaten that far stronger assassin, so as stated earlier, this arc is somewhat set to go out on a whimper. Toriyama seemingly knows that too, and has tried to bolster it a little by giving Black a giant robot suit that we haven't seen before, one that actually seems capable of hurting Goku a little bit. Will that be enough to salvage this final fight? Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Black's promotion is short-lived.
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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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