Synopsis: As Goku and Yajirobe continue on their way through the cavern, a mysterious figure watches them from the shadows. Yajirobe asks Goku if it's really worth going through all of this to avenge some dead friends, as a few mysterious balls of light float unseen before Goku and Yajirobe's faces. The pair split up, and Goku soon hears what sounds like footsteps approaching him. He punches at the intruder, but he's surprised when his fist is easily caught by...Kame-sennin? Goku is surprised but relieved to see his master alive, who cryptically says he would never die. Goku asks Roshi if he came looking for the Super Holy Water as well, but Roshi simply tells Goku to come with him. As Yajirobe chases a lizard to try and eat it, Roshi leads Goku deeper into the cave, eventually coming to what appears to be Kame House. Roshi takes Goku inside to the others (Yamcha, Bulma, Lunch, Oolong, Puar, and the turtle), who all seem overjoyed to see him, though Goku is still confused by everything that's happening. Bulma explains to Goku that it was too dangerous on the surface due to King Piccolo so they relocated Kame House to the cave, and Puar invites Goku to stay down there with all of them. Goku declines for the moment, saying first he needs to find the Super Holy Water so he can defeat Piccolo. Everyone laughs at this notion, and Yamcha and Roshi tell Goku to forget about Piccolo and just live down here in safety with them, while also explaining that so long as they're down here, they'll all have eternal life and never die. Oolong says they can always go back to the surface once Piccolo dies, and Yamcha assures Goku they can train as long and hard as they want and will be able to have an incredible fight with each other at the next Tenkaichi Budokai once everything settles down. Despite all of this, Goku insists that he's going to go look for the Super Holy Water so he can defeat Piccolo himself, and starts to leave despite their protests. As he steps outside, Goku is stopped by Roshi, who says Goku will have to defeat him first if he wants to continue pursuing the water. Roshi breaks the ground between them and flings large rocks in Goku's direction, saying he'll never let Goku get the water, saying that the water was placed in this cave by the gods and isn't meant for the likes of humans. Goku insists that he has to get stronger no matter what, and dodges the rocks as best he can, only to realize in the end that he has no choice but to fight after all. Goku and Roshi fight but are soon interrupted when Yajirobe, having stepped off of a cliff in his pursuit of the lizard, falls onto Goku, causing him to almost fall down a second cliff, as Roshi stares mercilessly down at the pair. Roshi steps on Goku's hand and tells him that if he lets go of Yajirobe, he'll help him up and tell him where the Super Holy Water is. Goku realizes that the “Roshi” before him isn't the real thing as the real Kame-sennin would never say such a thing, and refuses to do as he asks. “Roshi” kicks at Goku, trying to force him to either let go of Yajirobe or both to fall, but Goku stubbornly holds on despite the attacks, even when “Roshi” electrocutes him with energy. As Goku's resolve shines through, “Roshi” suddenly disappears, and the entire cavern shakes, seemingly causing Goku and Yajirobe to fall only for them to suddenly find themselves on solid ground in front of a lake. A large, dark being appears from the lake, and Goku prepares to fight Darkness, but Darkness speaks and says he'll give Goku the Super Holy Water. Yajirobe points out the water on a table that appeared out of nowhere, and Darkness explains to Goku about the water's ability to draw out a person's power if they have any hidden, but also warns him that it if he doesn't have any hidden powers, it will change nothing. It also cautions Goku that the water is also a poison that is likely to kill him either way, and when Darkness explains that nobody has yet survived drinking the water, Yajirobe urges Goku not to go through with it. Undaunted however, Goku drinks the cup down in one gulp, and is immediately stricken by the water's poisonous effects. As Darkness and Yajirobe watch, Goku suffers in pain for hours, before finally, Karin gets a sense of Goku's power awakening from afar just as Goku's eyes re-open. Review: The bulk of why I wanted to cover these two episodes is in this one, and I'm glad to say that by and large, it really held up to how I remembered it. As I've already said ad nauseum, my issues with the Super Holy Water stem chiefly from how cheap and easy it results in a power-up for Goku. Here however, Goku's mettle is truly put to the test, alleviating a good deal of my issues with the water. Seeing 'dark' versions of Goku's friends is already an eerie enough idea, but it's made even spookier by how overly jovial they're acting, their laughter ringing somehow becoming far more unnerving than anything the fake Roshi does while attacking Goku later on. I think part of it is the same thing that seemingly starts to tip Goku off that somethings not quite right here - they're all just way to quick to try and ride things out and ignore what Piccolo has done. They don't even seem to mind Kuririn's death. In fact, Kuririn isn't even brought up outside of Goku's mentioning of he and Kame-sennin's death at the start of the episode, which is...sort of weird, now that I think about it. The Darkness's mental game seems to be offering up Goku what it thinks would be his heaven on Earth, a place he can eat and train for all of eternity, endlessly getting stronger without a care in the world. Despite that, it doesn't think to offer him up a spectral version of his best friend? I'm not sure if this is an oversight, or if it's intentional on some level. Perhaps it's supposed to be another cue that not everything is as it seems, or maybe Darkness's mind games only work to a certain degree – Goku actually knows for a fact Kuririn is dead because he saw his body, but he only knows Roshi is dead through second-hand means, so his brain might be more accepting of him suddenly turning out to be alive as compared to Kuririn. Yajirobe's purpose in the episode seems rather minute at first, what with him abandoning Goku to go off on his own to find an exit and ending up chasing a lizard, but by the end of the episode, he actually does end up serving a purpose. I thought in the last episode that him coming along was needless, but I'm glad to be proven wrong here as he ends up being the lynchpin by which Goku proves his resolve ultimately. When the Darkness realizes that Goku is going to continue going after the water no matter what, he decides to flip the equation on the young boy, and offers it to him directly if he'll just let Yajirobe die. It's clear that the Darkness can read Goku's mind to some degree since it was able to channel up fairly accurate copies of his friends, so it already knows that Goku isn't anywhere near as close to Yajirobe as he is to them, putting him in the perfect place for the type of person that a lot of people would deem an 'acceptable' sacrifice in the name of a greater good...but Goku isn't like a lot of people. He refuses to intentionally sacrifice someone even to save someone else, even to better himself, and it's that act that wins the Darkness over in the end. From there, the rest of the episode largely follows a re-tooled version of Karin explaining the Super Holy Water's risks to Goku (though it also includes a few scenes that I'm skipping over for now because they'll come in the next chapter), before finally going through the same motions as the manga does...including Goku getting through the water's poisoning effects in mere moments that are explained to have actually been hours according to the words of characters. I still don't like how quickly that turn of events goes (and it's ironic that even the anime keeps it as that brief, when later events that are said to take only minutes take hours upon hours of runtime), but I still think that overall, Goku having to contend with the Darkness and it's test make for a much more compelling journey to this end. It's not perfect, but at least here Goku was definitely put through the wringer mentally first, and that counts for something. Until next time! Favorite Scene: The fakes of Goku's friends trying to convince him to stay with them is perfectly eerie and really sets the mood for the test Goku is being put through. Next Time: A world of terror, with a light at the end of the tunnel.
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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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