Synopsis: After coming second in the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai, Goku borrows the Dragon Radar from Bulma and sets off on his own on kinto'un to search for his grandfather's memento, the four-star Dragon Ball. Meanwhile, Bulma, Yamcha, Oolong, and Puar start to drive back to the city due to Bulma having lost the plane's capsule, saying that “even beautiful people make mistakes sometimes”; and Kuririn and Roshi continue to poke around the city for a little while longer, with Roshi trying to figure out how to buy panties as a souvenir for Lunch. Roshi's attempts go too far when he tries to convince the saleslady to try them on for him, earning himself a slap across the face. Flying over a desert, Goku remarks that the first Dragon Ball is still a good distance away according to the radar. Elsewhere in the desert, Namu informs the villagers that although he lost the tournament, he's still managed to bring water for them all inside of a capsule that turns into a couple of massive water tanks. Namu gives thanks to Roshi for saving his village this way, but a problem still exists – even for a drought, it seems weird to Namu that the river has dried up as badly as it has. The village elder informs Namu that after he left it rained twice, but none of the water ever seemed to flow down to where they are for some reason. The elder wonders if something has happened upstream, and Namu offers to go investigate since even the water he's brought back will eventually run out. Seeing how worried Namu is for his people, the elder tells him the legend of the wandering lake, a magical body of water that is said to move from place to place in the desert, and even once resided near the village. The elder remembers being told the story as a child and how it saved the village many times, but perhaps it was just a dream. Namu however wonders if there might be some truth to it. Wandering the desert, Namu heads for the river's source but is attacked by a pterodactyl. Despite his best efforts, the able to grab hold of him and starts to take it back to it's nest for a meal. Nearby, Goku is still flying on kinto'un and starting to get thirsty from the heat, when he spots a pond in the distance. He dives in and swims around for a while until he sees the pterodactyl and Namu fly by overhead, and he hops back onto kinto'un and saves Namu by taking the pterodactyl out with his nyoibo before saving Namu from falling. After Goku figures out that Namu's a man by doing one of his pat-pat tests, he praises him for being the first man to be able to ride kinto'un. Elsewhere in the desert, Bulma and the others have broken down due to running out of gas and are trying to stay out of the desert's heat. Bulma asks Oolong to turn into an umbrella, and Oolong says he doesn't want to, but Puar challenges him, saying he bets he actually can't turn into one. The goading works, and after he turns into an umbrella, Puar turns into a fan so that Yamcha and Bulma can cool down for a while, with Yamcha even suggesting they stay that way until night falls. As he starts to sweat, Oolong realizes he's been tricked. As Goku and Namu continue flying towards the river's source, Namu having no doubt filled Goku in on what's going on, they start to come across greener and greener land, and the river bed actually has water in it. Eventually they come to a gigantic water basin that's been dammed up, keeping most of the water in just this one location. Goku spots several familiar looking creatures playing around in the water, and Namu asks him to land so that he can ask them to undo the dam. Despite Namu's pleading however, the creatures are unwilling to unstop the dam, saying that they of the Giran clan enjoy the water too much to give it up. Namu gets on his hands and knees to beg for even just a little bit of water, but one of the creatures cruelly kicks him away, forcing Namu and Goku into what seems like an inevitable conflict. Goku hops in to join the fight and introduces himself, and although one of the creatures thinks his name sounds familiar, they all jump in to try to attack him, only to get knocked back. Before they can try again, Giran flies in and reminds the rest of his people that Goku is the one who defeated him at the tournament. Giran tells Goku that they couldn't unstick the dam even if they wanted to due to it being held together by the gum from many of his people, so that not even they are unable to break it open. Namu despairs, but Goku asks Giran if he can give breaking it a try. Giran doubts he'll succeed, but he lets Goku give it a go. While Namu prays, Goku fires a Kamehameha at the dam, and he's successful in breaking it open, allowing the water to flow once more. Giran's people are amazed that Goku is so strong, but Giran just laughs, finding it most fitting of someone who was able to beat him. Namu takes Goku back to his village now that it's saved, but a dust storm kicks up – ruining where Bulma and Yamcha were relaxing – forcing everyone to flee it's fury. As night falls and the storm ends, the villagers despair to find that the river has once again dried up. Remembering where he found the lake before however, Goku leads the villagers to it, and the the elder recognizes it as the wandering lake of legend. Bulma and the others push their way out of the dust storm to find that it's pushed them and their car all the way back to the Tenkaichi Budokai's location, while Goku sets out once more to continue his search for the four-star Dragon Ball. Review: Here at last, we've come to the first substantial bit of filler in the Dragon Ball franchise. That's right, despite the franchise's reputation for filler, it actually took a whole 28 episodes before the series had to take a breather by giving us an almost entirely anime original story. I say almost, because as you can see there is at least a little bit of material at the start of this episode that we had in some form in the manga, and like with a good bit of the first two movies, this episode also pulls some cues from the canon material. The smallest bit of filler material here, Roshi being perverted and getting his comeuppance for it, is the sort of thing you'll get a LOT of in Dragon Ball, even all of the way into Z. As I've said many times before, whether that sort of thing is your cup of tea is going to determine how palatable these kinds of scenes are for you. Even for me who generally finds these scenes amusing enough, this one isn't particularly worthwhile since it doesn't go anywhere whatsoever. That might be a fault that a lot of Roshi's anime only perversions have in common, actually. Bulma and Yamcha's adventures don't fare much better either. The crux of their story here is taken from the manga, which is nice, but having them just end up back where they started the episode after probably less than five minutes of screen time devoted to them just feels tiresome somehow. Seeing Yamcha and Bulma arguing is a nice setup for the trials and tribulations of their relationship admittedly. Poor Oolong and Puar are already being demoted to props rather than characters though, you hate to see it. The main plot of the episode however is the reuniting of Goku and Namu, as even Giran's last minute introduction doesn't bring a lot to the table, so naturally those two characters do a lot of the heavy lifting here. And thankfully, they work well enough. Goku's dynamic with Namu isn't as fun and robust as the rest of the cast, but Namu's nature is just too serious for Goku to really play off of any better than he does here. Namu's a good boy though, as seen in his ability to ride kinto'un - a feat that, as Goku remarks, we haven't seen out of any adult male in the series yet. As this doesn't happen in the manga, it's up to you if you want to believe he actually could or not, but I'd like to think he could. There's nothing in his personality to suggest otherwise really. The crux of the episode comes from the plight of Namu's people, a plot element that is taken right from his story in the manga. It's a logical enough thing to bring back up for filler though, since we never actually see Namu go back to his village in the manga. It also makes sense that, no matter how much water Namu was able to take, it's still eventually going to run out if they don't figure out something else – though really, if water really is free in the city like Roshi said, couldn't he just continually go back and re-fill the tank capsule? Regardless, having Goku, the kid who ruined Namu's initial plans, come back to help him out after the tournament is a bit of a nice touch thematically. It's a little bit of a shame that their meeting in this episode is taken almost shot-for-shot from Goku's saving Bulma from a pterodactyl in the first chapter – seriously, just replace Bulma's motorcycle with Goku's kinto'un and it's the same scene – but that's not enough to fully detract from it I don't feel. The two of them running into Giran again though? That feels a little bit forced if I'm being honest, because now Goku has run across both of his opponents from the tournament on the same day. It also doesn't help that Giran's personality here doesn't really gel with how he was presented before. He was an arrogant beast who had no problem hurting others for his own pleasure, something some anime padding earlier in the series drove in even further than the original manga did. Then when he was faced with someone far stronger than himself, rather than keep fighting, he gave up. Nothing we saw with him indicates a change of heart was very likely, so his weird, begrudging respect for Goku here feels really, really out of character for the guy. Overall though, the episode isn't terrible by any means, it just doesn't really do a ton to thrill a viewer either. It's fairly middle of the road, there's going to be filler a lot better – and filler a lot worse – further along in the franchise. Until next time! Favorite Scene: Goku giving Namu a pat-pat and being amazed that an adult man is finally able to ride kinto-un is as hilarious as it is disturbing. Next Time: Team Pilaf rises again!
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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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