Synopsis: Gohan sleeps and dreams of his father, thinking back on the terrible events leading up to his father's death. The next morning, Gohan continues his survival ritual while coming to a decision – he's going to go back to his mother. In the afterlife, Goku continues running the Serpent Road, as his former master Roshi wonders if he's made it to Kaio-sama's yet. He and the turtle discuss whether or not Goku will become strong enough to stop the two incoming Saiyans, and neither can assure the other with certainty. Still flying through the skies, Bulma and Kuririn continue looking for Tenshinhan and Chaozu's location, with Kuririn worrying that Yamcha (who has left at some point) may have already gotten ahead of them and reached Kami's sanctuary. In the wilderness below, Tenshinhan and Chaozu are training at a gigantic waterfall, with Tenshinhan using his energy to stop the raging waters in place for a moment. Chaozu is pleased, but their training is soon interrupted by the sound of gunfire, with Lunch calling out to both of them to come down for some lunch, bemusing the fighters. They're both even more surprised to see the spread of food before them, with Lunch saying she 'hired' a group of chefs to make it for them with only the best ingredients. Chaozu thinks this all probably cost quite a bit of money, but Lunch says she just finished a 'job' so it's fine. Lunch asks what Tenshinhan is planning to do next, and when Chaozu says he's training until he gets strong enough to beat Goku, Lunch says there's no need for such things in peace time, and says that Tenshinhan is already plenty strong as it is. Tenshinhan is annoyed by this comment, and explains that he can't rest while others out there are still training and getting far stronger. Lunch suggests that Tenshinhan team up with her instead and they can go on a crime spree holding up every bank in the world, but Tenshinhan storms off, telling Chaozu to come with him as they still have more training to do. Back at the waterfall, Tenshinhan wonders just what kind of training Goku is getting up to without him nowadays. On the Serpent Road, Goku comes across a street cleaner driven by an Oni that was apparently asked to clean the road by Enma, and when Goku asks how much further there is to go, the oni remarks that Goku is maybe about halfway to the halfway point. When Goku sits down and says that he needs to take a break, the oni offers to take him further down the road as he rests, and Goku takes him up on his offer, taking a nap on the back of the street cleaner. Back on Earth, Piccolo meditates and lifts pyramids with only his mind so as to continue his own training while he waits for Gohan to be ready to train. Gohan meanwhile has completely turned the tables on the poor carnivorous dinosaur, chasing him down to cut another slice off of the dinosaur's quickly dwindling tail. Piccolo soon overdoes his own training, causing an earthquake that he fears will soon reach the nearby Gohan's location. Piccolo's fears are proven true, as a large fissure soon breaks open the ground around Gohan, who falls deep into the ravine. The earthquake even reaches Tenshinhan, Chaozu, and Lunch's location, with Lunch shown to be afraid of earthquakes and trying to rush to Tenshinhan's side. A training Tenshinhan spots a bigger threat in the form of the waterfall's water rushing towards them, and Tenshinhan grabs hold of Lunch and steadies them both against the torrent of water. This display of power finally raises Tenshinhan's power enough for Bulma's scouter to pick up on him again. As Gohan uses his sword to prevent himself from falling too deep into the ground, the ground itself begins to close in around him, and he has to quickly leap up out of the crevice to avoid being squashed. Having come to look for him, Piccolo scowls but seems to be pleased at the boy's survival. Back with the others, Lunch sneezes as a result of getting cold from the water, reverting to her blue haired form just as Bulma and Kuririn close in on their location. Lunch apologizes for causing so much trouble for Tenshinhan and Chaozu and says she'll return to Kame House for now, something that suits Tenshinhan fine. He thinks that they'll be able to devote themselves to their training fully now, but Lunch stops in a field of flowers on her way out, soon sneezing and turning back into her blonde form again. The blonde Lunch returns to bother Tenshinhan again, just as Kuririn and Bulma find them at last. Kuririn and Bulma explain everything that's going on to Tenshinhan and Chaozu, and invite them to come train at Kami-sama's alongside Yamcha and Yajirobe, and Tenshinhan and Chaozu think this is a great turn of events at least as far as their training goes, especially as it will get them away from 'her'. Lunch insists that she's going with them however, but Tenshinhan ignores her and vows to Goku that he's going to catch up with him. In the afterlife, Goku continues to nap on the back of the street cleaner, but when it hits a bump in the road, it shakes him off, causing him to plummet through the clouds, and fall straight through to Hell. Goku awakens upon landing, wondering if he's come to Kaio-sama's at last without even realizing it. He smells something tasty off ahead of him, so he starts walking towards a large fruit tree, but he's stopped from taking fruit by a sudden attack with a large club. Meanwhile, the Saiyans grow ever closer to the Earth. Review: This is one of those strange filler episodes that, when taken fully on it's own merits, really...doesn't have much of a story in-of-itself. It's mostly here to flesh out things that we know are happening in the manga but aren't otherwise privy to seeing, while also setting up for it's own unique filler story line to come. Case in point – we get a ton of focus on Tenshinhan and Chaozu in this episode. So much so in fact that really, the title of the episode should be something reflecting their part in the episode rather than a tease of something that only happens at the very end and is largely just setup for the following episode. But I guess having Goku's name in the title gets more eyes on the screen or something, so Toei titled it thus. It really is Tenshinhan's (and to a lesser extent Chaozu's) time to shine however, as this is the most time we've spent with just them since...well, ever, actually. And it fits perfectly with both Tenshinhan's character as well as what was said about them in the opening chapters of the arc. Tenshinhan is still training like a mad man, trying to catch up to the likes of Goku and Piccolo, who have both left him effectively in the dust after the previous arcs. Given Tenshinhan was very briefly considered the strongest person in the world, it's easy enough to see why he'd take this all so personally, but I don't think it's really about the bragging rights at all. He just wants to better himself, and if he can use others, particularly Goku, as a measuring post to do that, then that's just what he's going to do. Other than Goku, and arguably even more than Goku, nobody fits the martial arts mentality more than Tenshinhan. And hey, Chaozu's here too because he's everywhere Tenshinhan goes. Neat. The episode also shows us some more of Lunch, building both off of her scene in the last episode while also working with what was said about her at the start of this arc as well. In the manga, we never see her, suggesting that she never quite caught up with Tenshinhan, but in the anime here, we do get a good handful of scenes showing how ardently she's pursuing him. It's interesting to see someone like her become so obsessive, and especially to see the lengths she's willing to go to get his attention, but...honestly, I'm beginning to think there's a good reason they don't work out as a couple. Not that they ever really were one in the first place really. Don't get me wrong, it's a cute pairing idea, and I used to be quite behind the idea myself. Looking at the pair of them nowadays though, they couldn't be more different, and I don't think it's one of those 'opposites attract' sort of deals either. Lunch very much wants to be with Tenshinhan, but she wants it to be the kind of life she's always been living up until now too, with him joining her on her crime sprees. Given Tenshinhan's reformed nature from his time training to be an assassin, it's probably a pretty safe bet that he's not that interested in breaking any kind of laws nowadays if he can avoid it, especially not when doing so would get in the way of his real goal of training. Lunch can't see that he doesn't have any interest in that though, so I think any attraction he may have felt towards her initially has long since passed. Complicating matters further is the fact that the blue-haired Lunch barely seems to know who Tenshinhan is, much less feeling any attraction to him, so...yeah. Their relationship was basically a no-go from the beginning the more you look at it. There's a few other scenes in the episode that basically show us what we already know must have happened at some point prior to everyone getting to Kami's – Kuririn and Bulma finding the pair of them to explain everything, and Piccolo doing his own training while waiting for Gohan to be ready – but they're fairly short and just exist to hit the episode's needed runtime. The main other thing this episode brings to the table and even names itself after is Goku's part in it. The idea of a street cleaner oni cleaning the insanely long Serpent Road is pretty funny – seriously, with how slow that thing's moving, how long ago was it that Enma asked him to clean it? - but the idea of Goku taking a break on the thing is a little off-putting to be honest. I mean, this is Goku, a character that loves training and giving it his all. We've also already seen before that he doesn't like cheating and taking the easy way out, as seen when he didn't take the fake holy water from Karin while the latter slept. Sure, he flew part of the road at the start, but that's still moving under his own power – you can call it cheating to a degree, but I don't think that's anywhere near the same thing as him just riding on a vehicle and taking a nap. It feels like a pretty weird way to have him accidentally fall off of the Road and end up in Hell. Especially when there were basically limitless other ways for them to achieve that same end. I dunno, I'm just not really a fan of the execution here. What I am a fan of is anytime we get to see Dragon Ball's Hell though, so the next episode should hopefully prove pretty fun. Until next time! Favorite Scene: Lunch trying to get Tenshinhan to enjoy having her around and to team up with her on a crime spree is awkwardly hilarious. Next Time: Yeah, I'm not so sure eating a fruit grown in Hell is such a great idea either.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
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
Categories
All
|