Synopsis: Continuing his search for the four-star Dragon Ball, sees many wonders as he sets out into the world on his own for the very first time. As he checks the Dragon Radar, he's disappointed to see that nothing turns up, prompting him to wonder if it's broken. As he adjusts it's range however, it eventually picks up a signal a good distance away. Elsewhere, Pilaf wakes up from a nightmare where he was reliving the night that Goku turned into a monster ape and his dream of world domination was taken away from him. He tries to play it off like he's fine, but Shu soon informs him that their radar has picked up a Dragon Ball signal again at long last, and Pilaf is overjoyed. Even though a year has passed, Pilaf still wants to rule the world, and this time he swears that he won't let anything stop him from getting his wish. Unfortunately, the window Pilaf opens up almost ends his rule before it even begins as he's almost pulled out into the open air outside of the air fortress he and the others are inside of. Back on the ground, a mysterious army is moving in the same direction as Pilaf and crew. A short distance away, a young homeless boy is trying to figure out some way to get food in his stomach when he comes across Goku taking a swim in a nearby pond. The boy seizes the opportunity to steal Goku's things so that he can sell them, and Goku realizes his things have been taken, he takes to the sky on kinto'un – even while completely naked – to search for the thief. Eventually, he calls out for nyoibo to extend, and when it pokes out of the trees, he finds the staff, his clothes, and his bag. Unfortunately, the boy still got away with the Dragon Radar around his neck. Goku finds a shoe the boy left behind in his panic, and uses it's scent to get back on his trail. In a small village nearby, Pilaf and Mai are searching for the Dragon Ball that their radar has picked up somewhere in it's vicinity. The mysterious military force continues it's path towards the village as well, and the young thief also runs into the village. The military force, lead by General Silver, storms into a family's home and demands they tell them anything they know about a Dragon Ball. The family insists that they have no idea what they're talking about, but Silver orders his men to ransack the home and search for it just to make sure. The young thief runs to a salesman he knows in the village and shows him the radar, though neither of them know what it is. The man wonders if it might be a watch, even as the radar shows a Dragon Ball right there somewhere. The boy asks the man how much he'll pay for it, and the man offers him 200 zeni, but the boy insists it should be worth way more than that since it works, whatever it is. The man says he probably just stole it anyway and if the boy doesn't want the money he can just keep it, and the boy eventually relents, and the boy leaves happily with his money. The man meanwhile returns to his shop to find Pilaf checking out a crown that he thinks looks good on him. He tries to sell Pilaf on the crown as truly being worthy of a ruler, but Pilaf isn't sure...the man convinces him to come looking at his other wares however, as he's sure they'll find something fit for someone so dignified, and the salesman leaves the radar on a table outside. Goku's nose eventually leads him to the young thief as he stuffs his face, and the boy makes a run for it only to be stopped by Goku throwing the nyoibo at him hard enough to scare him. Goku asks for the radar back, but the boy tells him that he sold it to the antique shop owner already. Back at the antique store, the salesman continues to butter up Pilaf to try and sell his wares to him, eventually saying that he has just the thing for someone of such clearly royal stock – a shining orb called a Dragon Ball that is said to grant the wish of whoever possesses it. To Pilaf's shock, the man pulls out a Dragon Ball, the four-star ball no less! Before the salesman can name a price, the Pilaf gang give him all of the money they have for the ball. Following the boy's directions, Goku finds his way to the antique shop and is happy to find the radar sitting on the table outside. To his surprise however, the radar detects a Dragon Ball right on top of him. To both parties surprise, Goku and Pilaf with Mai run into each other just outside, both instantly recognizing the other. Pilaf insists the Dragon Ball is his, and Mai shoots at Goku so that they can make their escape. As they flee, Goku asks how many stars the ball has. The salesman, still holding his pile of money, tells him it was the four-star ball, prompting Goku to chase after Pilaf and Mai. As Goku chases the duo down however, Pilaf's airship floats down from overhead and opens fire on Goku before picking up the other two. Goku jumps onto kinto'un to chase the ship back into the sky, much to Pilaf's horror. To make matters worse, Mai notices something strange on their radar – even though they have the Dragon Ball now, their radar is showing them moving away from the ball rather than it's signal moving with them. Back in the small village, Silver and the militia have found their way to the antique shop as well. The salesman tells them he does indeed have the Dragon Ball they're looking for, and he goes into the back to grab one of his many four-star replicas, as well as a hand-gun. He hands the “Dragon Ball” to Silver, but Silver promptly drops it on the floor, having realized he was being tricked, just as Pilaf and Mai have realized when they break their own glass orb. Silver demands the shopkeeper tell him where the real one is, and the salesman tells him he's only heard of Dragon Balls in old fairy tales and that he's never actually seen a real one – however, in a bird's nest above his shop, a pair of birds sits with their baby right next to the six-star ball. Thinking the shopkeeper is lying to them, Silver orders his men to take him in, but when the man tries to shoot him instead, Silver shoots him first, causing the birds to flee in fear, taking their child and the Dragon Ball with them. As the bird flies off into the sky with the real Dragon Ball, Silver has his mean search through the store and Goku continues to pursue the deceived Pilaf. Review: We now come to the reason I decided to wait and cover these first handful of filler episodes after Goku's encounter with Silver in the manga rather than before, and that's so that we can compare and contrast the different ways that this arc opens in the anime rather than how it does in the manga. Unlike most of the filler I'll usually cover, this opening act for the Red Ribbon arc does things just differently enough that I wanted to talk about it a little bit rather than just keep rolling on with the manga's version of events. For starters, you might notice immediately how much more intimidating Silver is in the anime's version of events. He's leading a much bigger group of soldiers complete with tanks, he's storming into people's homes and wrecking the place looking for what he wants, and he's straight up killing anyone that happens to get in his way. It goes without saying that this anime version of Silver and our first introduction to the Red Ribbon Army comes across a LOT more intimidating than their manga counterparts, and I can only assume that's because the staff at Toei also felt that the manga was a little underwhelming in this regard. Between the two, I can easily say I much prefer the anime's take here, it's much more effective at demonstrating how terrifying the Red Ribbon Army can be and showing just how big a challenge Goku is going to be facing on his new adventure. As for the rest of it...well, the rest of it is pretty inconsequential, but hey, it's entertaining none-the-less, so I'm okay with it. Yes, things are being drug out a bit further so that rather than the first Dragon Ball being found right away there's some misdirection going on before it eventually gets to where it needs to be, but that's okay. Honestly, I'll take just about any excuse to bring the Pilaf gang back. Yes, unlike in the manga, we get the Pilaf gang here at the start of this arc, and they're going to be sticking around for the next handful of episodes before gracefully bowing out until the next time we see them, which won't be for some time. Again, their appearances in the original manga is far more sporadic and less than their appearances in the anime that sort of treats them like Dragon Ball's answer to Team Rocket. Given how driven Pilaf was to get his wish – especially in the anime version where we saw him from the very first episode and not just at the end of the first arc – it makes a lot of sense that he'd already be searching for the balls again. Hell, even in the manga's version of events, it's the tail end of this arc (or the end of next one, depending on your arc division preferences) that we see him doing just that again. So for characters for Goku to run into again on his new adventure, him and his minions make the most logical sense to appear again. That said, I'm not entirely sure why Pilaf knows it was Goku that turned into a giant monster and wrecked everything...going off of just the manga anyway, they didn't really have much opportunity to figure out what was going on, so you'd think he'd just assume a random giant monster suddenly appeared and started to attack them. Maybe he's smarter than I give him credit for. The sub-plot with the boy thief is really just there to get Goku moving in the same direction as Pilaf and the army so they'll all eventually collide, but seeing as how Goku would have already been on his way to that location courtesy of the Dragon Radar, I'm not entirely sure it was really needed. I suppose it could actually have been done to delay Goku though, since he probably would have been just savvy enough to start looking all around the shop for the Dragon Ball, or have realized when he left with a fake one that it wasn't real. This way he instead gets to go on a chase with Pilaf that will end up taking a few more episodes, allowing them to stretch out this section even more and let the manga get further ahead. They're crafty, those anime writers. Honestly the best part of this delay, other than everything with Pilaf and Silver, is the antique salesman ripping everyone off with fake Dragon Balls. It's unclear why he picked the four-star ball of all of them to trick people with, but the idea of a con man hearing the same legend that Bulma did and using it to sell fakes is brilliant. I'm honestly surprised Toriyama himself didn't think of this, and it's almost a shame that this idea is used and over with in the same episode – though I'm not really sure how you could have naturally drug it out any further than this either, so maybe that's for the best. Until next time! Favorite Scene: The antique shop owner sweet-talking Pilaf is a sight to behold. Next Time: Someone that looks like Goku but isn't? What a novelty!
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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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