Synopsis: Son Goku continues his training travel around the world with various training methods, such marching up a large mountain top in a rainstorm with a large boulder strapped to his back, and walking long distances on his hands while upside down. Goku's training eventually leads to him falling down a ravine – something he tries to prevent by grabbing a branch with his tail, showing that he has trained it somewhat now – and he soon runs into an old lady washing her laundry. He asks her if there are any strong people around, and she tells him that she's heard about a man in town named Chin Taiken who's said to be very strong. Goku gets directions to the town from her, and soon runs off to find Chin. In the town, Goku comes across a fight happening in the streets, where a group of three men are accusing a man's son of stealing their wallets. They insist that the boy did however, saying that the two are probably starving based on the state of their dojo. The man finally tells his son, Shoken, to stand back while he takes care of this, and he quickly takes out two of the accusers. He prepares to take on the third, only to be overcome by a coughing fit. Before the third can attack him, Goku finds his wallet on the ground, and the man grabs it from him and accuses him of being the actual thief. Goku says the man probably dropped it himself and says it's not good to accuse people, and the man says he's going to teach Goku a lesson for back-talking, attempting to attack him. Goku easily dodges the man's attacks and prepares to attack himself, but the fight is soon interrupted by the large man's older brother. The brother apologizes for his younger brother's rude actions, and tells his brother (Shao Long) that there's no need to cause such a ruckus – he's going to kill Taiken tomorrow at the Imperial Match anyway. The man asks Goku if he's okay, and Goku says he can tell the mans' really strong, with Shoken insisting that his dad is the strongest in the world. Goku asks the man if his name is Chin Taiken, and the man says he is. Goku asks him to fight him, and Shoken says there's no way Goku could stand a chance against him, but Taiken sees something in Goku's eyes that he likes and agrees to fight him. They go back to Taiken's dojo for the match, with Shoken continuing to tell Goku he doesn't stand a chance. The two prepare to begin their match, and they leap at each other in the air, but before the match can really get going, Taiken is again overcome by a coughing fit. Taiken lays down to take a rest, and it's revealed that Taiken did land a blow on Goku, one that Goku couldn't even see, with Shoken revealing it's their style's secret technique, the Gensei-ken (or Illusion Star Fist). Goku ponders if it's something like the zanzoken afterimage technique, confirming to Taiken that Goku is incredibly skilled after all. Taiken apologizes to Goku and reveals that he's quite ill, and though he's tried to take care of himself, he might not be able to perform well in the Imperial Match, a fight performed before their area's king where the winner is made the official martial arts instructor of the kingdom. Goku asks if his opponent is strong, and Taiken tells him it's the brother who intervened in the street fight earlier, Hyoga Ten Long of the Hyoga Style. Taiken says Ten Long's strength is incredible, but he must face him head on to restore the pride of their school. Goku offers to go get some medicine for Taiken, but Taiken warns him that the Longs are very vengeful and are sure to attack him again if they see him and he'd prefer not to start any trouble with them before the match, so Goku promises not to fight back no matter what they do to him. Goku runs through the village, having gotten some medicine, and is soon spotted by a drunk Shao Long, who tries to pick a fight with him, his brother allowing it so long as he doesn't kill him. Goku refuses and tries to leave, but Shao Long continually attacks him, and Goku dodges every blow without ever fighting back. Eventually, Goku's dodging causes Shao Long to fall into the river, prompting Ten Long to get involved. Ten Long is far faster and stronger and Goku is unable to dodge his attacks as readily, but in the end Goku is able to get the medicine back to Taiken. Back at Hyoga's dojo, Ten Long 'trains' his students by mercilessly beating them down even with his hands tied behind his back, while Goku has successfully gotten the medicine back to Taiken. Later that night, Shoken is practicing his martial arts on his own, intending to take on Ten Long himself if he has to. When morning arrives, Goku finds Taiken giving his son the bad news that he's pulling out of the match as it would be dishonorable to try and give a good fight in his current position. Shoken objects and says the position of instructor will fall to Ten Long in that case, something Taiken doesn't like either but doesn't see any way around it. Shoken says he'll fight in his father's place, but Taiken tells him he won't allow it before starting to cough again. Goku offers to fight for them since he wants to fight Ten Long anyway, and explains that he's on a journey to fight strong people anyway. Taiken accepts but warns Goku there's no guarantee he'll survive this. Shoken objects and says he's stronger than Goku, but Taiken tells his son the difference between himself and Goku is vast, prompting Shoken to leave angrily. Still upset, Shoken prepares breakfast for the three of them but discreetly puts something in Goku's food before serving it to him, saying that he's going to be the one to fight. As they arrive at the Imperial Match, Shoken is on edge as he wonders why Goku doesn't seem affected by the medicine. The match between Ten Long and Goku is started, with Ten Long objecting at the last minute substitution of Goku, but seemingly ready to take his anger out on the boy. Goku and Ten Long's fight is fierce even from the very start, with Goku quickly having to resort to multiple afterimages to try to combat his opponent. As the fight continues to ramp up, Shoken s surprised that Goku is as strong as he is, but suddenly Goku is overcome wit the urge to go to the bathroom and tries to call a timeout, but the Imperial Match doesn't allow such things and if he leaves the ring, he loses. Ten Long takes advantage of this to continually beat down Goku, with Shoken shouting for Goku to get up and fight, inadvertently dropping the medicine bottle that he spiked Goku's food with, revealing his treachery to his father. Still needing to use the bathroom badly, Goku finally takes out Ten Long by using the Gensei-ken move that he observed only once, and quickly runs out of the arena to find a bathroom to use. With the match's conclusion, Ten Long realizes how arrogant he'd become in his own strength, and vows to re-train himself under Taiken's care, and says he wishes to fight Goku again someday. Taiken asks Goku if he's leaving now, and Goku says he still wants to find even stronger people to fight out there. Shoken tries to apologize to Goku for what he's done, but Goku says the food Shoken made earlier was really good, so Shoken tearfully sees Goku off with a gift of riceballs, wich Goku happily eats as he runs off to his next location. Review: This episode was better in some ways than the previous filler tale, but less compelling in other ways – though a large part of that is through no fault of it's own – so in the end I'd say they're about equal. Let's look into what this episode does right and what it does wrong though. The biggest improvement with this episode over the former one is that the characters Goku run into feel much more fleshed out even with about the same amount of time given to get to know them. Taiken and Shoken both feel much more interesting, especially Shoken with his deep care for his father intermingling with his desire to be seen as more than just a little boy. Likewise, Ten Long feels like a much more credible threat than either Ginkaku or Kinkaku did before, and he's shown to be incredibly skilled, enough so that even Goku has at least a little bit of trouble with him. It's also really neat to see Goku run into someone like Taiken, who seemingly isn't quite as strong as he really is, but can still get a leg up on him with a useful technique and can see how strong Goku is rather than just dismissing him due to his age and stature as so many that Goku encounters briefly do. It honestly reminds me a lot of a filler episode far later on in DBZ, and I can't help but wonder if the episodes shared writers or something. Where the episode starts to suffer somewhat is it's subject matter, as well as one brief moment at the very start of the episode, as both unfortunately kind of step on the toes of the storyline we're heading towards after this. The idea of Goku getting involved in a clash between two rival martial arts schools is a really good one, but here's the thing – spoilers, that's exactly what we're going to get in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai. The way it's handled in that arc is also way more satisfying than the one presented here (since Goku's actually involved in that one, rather than just happening across it like this one), so getting an episode like this so shortly before that storyline kind of steals it's thunder a little, or tries to. The worst part is it's basically damned from either direction – while this episode takes place before the tournament, it's production was almost definitely begun after the tournament had begun in the manga, so they were definitely stealing the idea from where they knew they were heading next, and that's just...disappointing. Also, while I know I called out the manga for not showing us a lot of his training, this episode sort of shows the one bit of training we probably shouldn't see yet, and that's that Goku has been training his tail. Jumping ahead of ourselves a little bit again, that's going to be an important factor of one of Goku's fights in the tournament, so to have the idea spoiled here before it's dramatic reveal there is also unfortunate. But again, for the most part, this is all not really the episode's fault, as if these elements had been in the same storyline but the episode had come far further in the anime – like, say, during Goku's various encounters with the Red Ribbon – I don't think it would feel as abrasive to the storyline following it. It's just too close to that content for it not to chafe a little. Until next time! Favorite Scene: Goku talking about how bad he needs to use the bathroom in the middle of the Imperial Match is pretty funny, proving that bathroom humor really can be kinda funny if done right. Next Time: An incredibly engaging idea and story, let's watch it go absolutely nowhere ever afterwards because it's filler.
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September 2022
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