Synopsis: With Yajirobe's slaughtering of Cymbal, King Piccolo contacts his other 'son' Tambourine, interrupting his fight with Yamcha, to inform him of Cymbal's death, and to give him his new orders – seek out whoever killed Cymbal and destroy them! Elsewhere, a pirate ship on tank treads travels across a forest landscape. It's captain holds Roshi, Tenshinhan, and Chaozu at gunpoint while playing with the Dragon Ball in his possession. Roshi asks if there's any way to convince him to give it to them, but the large bear-man says it's his because he found it first. Tenshinhan says the captain doesn't need it in the first place, and the captain agrees that to him it's just a pretty ball, but one look at their faces tells him it must be worth more than that after all. The captain demands 1 million zeni from them if they want the ball, prompting Roshi to try to bribe him with a cabaret club coupon and a lottery ticket instead. The captain won't budge however, and when the pirate crew tries to rob them, the trio are left with no choice but to fight, and they quickly make short work of the entire crew, gaining the Dragon Ball for their trouble. In a nearby desert, Goku follows Yajirobe and warns him that another monster, likely the one that killed Kuririn, will soon come for him, but Yajirobe ignores him. Goku tries to convince him to lend him the Dragon Ball as well, but Yajirobe blows him off and tries to leave Goku behind. Meanwhile, on Pilaf's Airship, King Piccolo continues to fume about the death of Cymbal. Shu tries to convince Pilaf that this is the perfect chance for them to escape, but Pilaf thinks they're too close to getting their prize to duck out now. Tambourine contacts Piccolo to inform him that the area where Cymbal died is empty, and Pilaf checks the radar to see the Dragon Ball moving at great speed as Yajirobe continues trying to give Goku the slip. Following their instructions, Tambourine pursues the Dragon Ball's new direction. Pursuing another Dragon Ball themselves, Roshi, Tenshinhan, and Chaozu soon find themselves in an Old West style town, with the radar directing them towards one house in particular. As they approach the house, Tenshinhan is surprised and horrified to see that a man inside the house is someone he recognizes – a former fighter who is still suffering from a beating Tenshinhan once gave him, including a broken kneecap. The man reveals that the hospital stay from everything Tenshinhan did to him lasted two and a half years, distracting Tenshinhan as the man's wife goes to a back room with their baby and makes a telephone call while the radio talks about the strange deaths of martial artists happening right now. Tenshinhan apologizes to the man, saying that he was foolish back then, and asking if they could have the Dragon Ball the man currently possesses. The man claims not to know where it is even after Tenshinhan describes it, and asks Tenshinhan what he's planning, saying that even if he did know what or where the Dragon Ball was, he'd never give it to the likes of him. Waiting outside, Chaozu seems concerned for Tenshinhan, but Roshi tells him not to worry and leave it to him. Suddenly, a SWAT team arrives and surrounds the house, with guns drawn. Tenshinhan asks the man if there's any way to make him reconsider, and the man tells him to stop asking already. Tenshinhan starts to approach the man who quickly grabs a rifle from the wall, but Tenshinhan pleads with him that he's not trying to attack him. The SWAT team moves into the house and surround Tenshinhan, telling him he's under arrest for suspicion of murder. The man says he knew right away it must be Tenshinhan behind the murders, as he was the only one who could kill fighters of such high caliber. Tenshinhan says this is all a big misunderstanding, but the man doesn't want to hear it, and the police say they'll listen to whatever crazy story Tenshinhan has back at the station. As the police try to apprehend him, Tenshinhan knocks them back and readies himself to fight, but Roshi steps in and prevents further fighting from breaking out when the leader of the police squad recognizes who he is. Roshi says that Tenshinhan is innocent and gives them all his word that he's not who has been killing martial artists. The man Tenshinhan injured still isn't convinced, so when Tenshinhan asks him again for the Dragon Ball, the man tells him to ransack the house until he finds it, stating that that's his way of doing things after all. To his surprise however, Tenshinhan gets down on hands and knees, begging for the Dragon Ball and even offering the man his own arm or leg to break if it'll make him feel better about what he did to him before. The man is taken aback by Tenshinhan's earnest plea, and ultimately recognizes that the ball must be something very important after all for someone like Tenshinhan to go to such degrading lengths to get it. The man tells Tenshinhan the ball is in the next room for him to take, but warns him that the baby, currently sleeping while holding the ball, might start crying if he doesn't want him to take it. Elsewhere, Yajirobe – who had finally given Goku the slip – is caught up to and found by Tambourine, who comes looking for the Dragon Ball. Yajirobe suddenly realizes that everything Goku told him was the truth, just as Goku himself catches up to them as well, loudly declaring that he's the one who'll kill the monster that killed Kuririn and destroyed kinto'un. Review: I can already tell what you're thinking (“But wait, wasn't most of this episode filler that doesn't really add anything to the material it's fleshing out?”), and for the most part, you'd be right. Everything dealing with characters and actions we've already been seeing as of the last few chapters (Goku and Yajirobe's dealing with Cymbal, Piccolo's outrage at Cymbal's death, Tambourine being told to go after them instead, etc.) is all pretty by the numbers, and formulaic to the point of feeling pretty pointless really. It's all filler in the truest sense in that it just runs out the clock until the episode is done, and pretty much leaves us exactly where it last found us, ready for the next canon material to play out in it's stead. As such, there's not really much for me to comment on in regards to that material other than to say...eh. It's not the worst, and if you haven't already read the manga, you won't even notice it's there (again, it's so tied to the actual canon material that it's difficult to divorce the two without directly comparing them). So why talk about this episode at all then? Because the last act of it is one of those few times that we really get anywhere close to a character study in all of Dragon Ball, and it's the perfect chance to check in on how Tenshinhan is faring post his “victory” at the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai. While the opening scene of Roshi, Tenshinhan, and Chaozu is a fun one, especially with Chaozu being the one that takes down most of the crew in one go via his psychic powers stopping their bullets, it's after that when they're on their way to the next Dragon Ball's location that things really get interesting. The idea that there's someone out there that Tenshinhan beat the living daylights out of and might still hold a grudge against him for it is one that makes perfect sense, and I'm glad Toei made use of it since Toriyama won't - well, mostly. Of the two other grudge seekers I can think of off the top of my head, the first is really after vengeance against the entire group not just Tenshinhan specifically, and the latter is in Super and thus so far removed so as to not carry the same weight at all. Either way, this guy is someone that very much got the same treatment as Yamcha, except worse as his hospital stay lasted an entire two and a half years, and he STILL has a busted leg to show for his troubles. It's unclear if he and his wife already knew each other prior to that timeframe, or exactly how long it's been since Tenshinhan wiped the floor with him, but it's clear either way that he's not forgiving or forgetting what Tenshinhan did as easily as Yamcha did. And when you think about it, why should he? For all he knows, Mr. Three-Eyes is only here to finish the job, especially since it's made clear that the man and his family are well aware of murder of martial artists going on right now. Tenshinhan being mistaken as the culprit, even if only briefly, is another brilliant idea that I'm glad Toei came up with and used here, though I would've liked to see more done with that or someone else also coming under suspicion for it. There probably wouldn't have been room for it in the manga, but it's something the anime definitely could've played around with a little more if it had wanted to. It's made radically clear from the beginning of their interactions how much his sins are weighing on Tenshinhan's mind as well. This is a guy who, until very recently, had convinced himself that his dearest desire was to become an assassin the likes of Taopaipai, and had even convinced himself that he enjoyed causing pain. On one level, that being the level of proving his strength, I think he DID enjoy it, he liked proving that he was stronger than anyone else. After coming into contact with Goku and Roshi during the tournament however, he's become a changed man...but that doesn't erase everything that he did before that, something that this nameless victim from the past almost proves with a bullet. Tenshinhan can do better things now, he can spend the rest of his life making up for the way he used to be, and that's a good thing, but it doesn't mean anything to the people he's harmed if they don't know about it, and if he doesn't prove it with his actions rather than his words. It's that very choice, action and not words, that finally wins the man over in the end too. Rather than continuing to try to convince him by talking to him, but also choosing not to fight and overpower as is expected of him, Tenshinhan instead chooses the path of humility and bows his head before the man, pleading with him to help him as if he were the one with all the power in the situation, not Tenshinhan. Seeing someone that he knows used to value power and victory over anything else do something like that is what finally breaks through the man's hatred of the man that injured him and allows him to fully move on at last as well, and both are proven with the sight of his child holding the Dragon Ball – now, he has something more valuable than his past to motivate him, and in allowing Tenshinhan to come anywhere near his child, he shows that he no longer holds any ill will towards him in his heart. It's doubtful the two ever meet again after this point, but that's okay – their issues are now resolved, and at least one portion of the weight still weighing down Tenshinhan's soul has been lifted off of it. It's not much, and frankly the episode would have been better served to focus more on this portion of it rather than the rest of it (something FUNimation must have agreed with, as their title for the episode, Tien's Atonement, focuses on this portion over everything else), but it's nice to see something in the way of a moment of growth and remorse for a character in the series, especially one that started off very much on the villain side of things. Would later bad-guys-turned-good have been better served if they had gotten similar redemption episodes? Well...maybe. As bad as the things Tenshinhan did are, he's still a far cry from the likes of some of our later redemption stories, so doing this sort of thing too often could have rung a little too hollow, and likewise might have come across more forced with their changes of heart – especially for one spiky-haired prince in particular. And if you're wondering why I chose to cover this episode, but not the previous one that, as teased in the 'previously on Dragon Ball' beginning of the episode, featured Yamcha and Tambourine's fight? Well...while Tenshinhan's drama in this episode gives quite a bit to talk about, Yamcha's fight with Tambourine was probably best left as a near miss like in the manga rather than something we needed to actually see, because it was always a foregone conclusion how it was going to turn out, so in this case, less is more. Sorry Yamcha, maybe next time...but no promises considering...well...yeah. Until next time! Favorite Scene: Tenshinhan's prostration of himself in front of the man he assaulted before is a powerful showing of just how far he's willing to go to change from who he used to be. Next Time: Rematch with Tambourine!
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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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