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Manga Guide

Dragon Ball Chapter 012

Weekly Shōnen Jump Title Page
Weekly Shōnen Jump Title Page
Tankōbon Title Page
Tankōbon Title Page
Kanzenban Title Page
Kanzenban Title Page
Full Color Title Page
Full Color Title Page

亀仙人をたずねて

Kame-Sen’nin o Tazunete

In Search of Kame-Sen’nin

Chapter Information

Premiered: 19 February 1985 (Weekly Shōnen Jump 1985 #12)
Corresponding: Dragon Ball Episode 007, “Gyūmaō of Mount Frypan”

Availability:
  • Digital Monochrome Edition Volume 02 (12 October 2012)

Chapter Synopsis

Gyūmaō asks Goku where Muten Rōshi lives and Bulma says it’s probably off in the ocean from that beach. Gyūmaō is excited about going back into his castle, and then he spots Goku’s Nyoi-Bō and asks about it. Goku says he got it from his grandpa. Gyūmaō asks if his grandfather isn’t Son Gohan, and Goku says he is. Gyūmaō is excited to meet Gohan-san‘s grandson. Yamcha and Pu’er are watching from afar, where Yamcha notes that the kid has befriended Gyūmaō after all. Gyūmaō explains that Goku’s grandpa was Muten Rōshi’s #1 student, while he was #2. Bulma can’t believe that perverted Kame-Sen’nin is such an amazing person.

Gyūmaō has a favor to ask Goku. He says that the Bashō Fan, which Muten Rōshi possesses, can put out the mountain’s fire. So, he wants Goku to take Kinto-Un and go ask to borrow it. Goku asks for a Dragon Ball in turn, showing Gyūmaō the Four-Star Ball. Gyūmaō has seen one of those before, and will happily give it to Goku afterwards. This is Yamcha’s first viewing of a Dragon Ball, and is surprised at how small it is.

Goku prepares to leave on Kinto-Un, but Gyūmaō asks him to wait. Yesterday, he had sent his only daughter, Chi-Chi, off to find Muten Rōshi. Since she’ll probably be on the way, Gyūmaō asks Goku to find her and take her with. If Goku does that, she can be his bride. Goku doesn’t know what that means, and Oolong pictures Chi-Chi as a very ugly female version of her father. Gyūmaō takes out a photo of her, and Oolong thinks she’s really cute. Yamcha freaks out, as the girl in the picture is the one he’d knocked out earlier.

Yamcha and Pu’er then hop in their car and speed back to the girl. Chi-Chi wakes up and sees him, and prepares to use her helmet beam on him. But Yamcha tells Chi-Chi to wait, and she wonders how he knows her name. Yamcha says he’s sorry about knocking her out, and that he loves her. Chi-Chi’s very embarrassed, and she can’t believe this. Yamcha says to look into his serious face to prove he’s not lying, but she thinks he looks funny with that missing tooth, which strikes a nerve. Chi-Chi is very embarrassed about all of this love stuff. Yamcha and Pu’er notice Goku approaching, and take off.

Goku spots her and asks if she’s Chi-Chi. She wonders why a lot of people know her name today. He must also love her. Goku explains what Gyūmaō sent him to get the Bashō Fan, and tells her to get on Kinto-Un. Chi-Chi wonders how it’s possible to ride this cotton candy-looking thing. Goku says she needs a clean heart to ride it, and Chi-Chi says that’s no problem because her heart is as clean as a flushable toilet. She pulls on Goku’s tail to get leverage to climb up there, and he falls off in pain. Goku says his tail is his weak point, and Yamcha overhears this. Goku and Chi-Chi then fly off. Yamcha tells Pu’er that they’ll sit here, wait for them to get the sixth Dragon Ball, and then follow them on the way to the seventh. Once they’ve gathered all seven, he’ll use his Rōga Fū-Fū Ken again. Pu’er wonders if they shouldn’t go visit a dentist in the meantime, but Yamcha hates dentists, and gets even more annoyed at Goku.

Kinto-Un flies through the desert, where Goku decides to pat-pat Chi-Chi with his foot. “Yep, no weewee! You’re a girl!” Chi-Chi screams and knocks him off the cloud, but then she and Kinto-Un crash into some rocks. Meanwhile, Gyūmaō, Oolong, and Bulma wonder about them, with Bulma hoping he’s not pat-pating her. Once they’re both on Kinto-Un again, Goku wonders why she got so mad over nothing. Chi-Chi thinks that she must become his bride, having been kicked “there”. Over the ocean now, Goku decides to ask a dolphin about Kame-Sen’nin’s house, and it points them in the right direction. Kame-Sen’nin is pleasantly surprised to see him again as they arrive on his island.

Chapter Notes

Title Page

  • The title page illustration for this chapter, as published in Weekly Shōnen Jump, features Goku flying around on Kinto-Un, presumably in search of Chi-Chi. It is accompanied by the results of a contest to determine the most popular title page artwork from the first five chapters (Chapter 3 won with 4,290 votes).
  • Up until the Digest Edition was released in 2016, the original title page for this chapter had never been reprinted outside of Weekly Shōnen Jump, and was even omitted from the “10 Year History of Covers” section in Daizenshuu 7. The title page used in its place in all collected editions is the original title page for Chapter 13, conversely leaving that chapter without a title page. This change was probably made because this chapter was the first in Tankōbon Volume 2, but the title page was filled with contest results, making it less than ideal for such prominent placement in the book. (It also contains the name of one of the winners — a “Takashi Hayashida” of Miyazaki Prefecture — so privacy concerns may also have played a role.) Instead, the title page from Chapter 13 was moved forward to the front of the tankōbon, and unfortunately this change was carried over into the kanzenban and all subsequent releases, despite no longer being necessary.

General

  • Page 10 of this chapter is featured in Volume 17 of Dr. Slump as an illustration of Akira Toriyama’s drawing process, from the initial storyboard sketch to the final inked manuscript page. The volume came out on 08 March 1985, less than three weeks after this chapter was first published in Weekly Shōnen Jump.

Errata

  • Bulma’s tights are absent in the third and fifth panels of the third page.
  • Yamcha suddenly has a full set of teeth again for the entirety of the fifth page of this chapter, before the offending tooth vanishes once again.

Author’s Comment

  • Each issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump featured short comments from the various series’ authors, giving fans a brief insight into their current thoughts, ranging from series-related announcements to trivial happenings in their personal lives. Akira Toriyama’s comments from this issue were:
    寒い中、毎日犬と走り廻ってます。田尾選手も、寒いけど、東京でがんばって。<明>

    Every day I run around with my dog in the cold. I bet you’re cold too, [Yasushi] Tao, but hang in there over in Tokyo. <Akira>

    Toriyama is making reference to Yasushi Tao, a professional baseball player. Tao played for Nagoya’s Chunichi Dragons (Toriyama’s hometown team) from 1976 to 1984, before moving to the Seibu Lions in Saitama, just north of Tokyo, for the start of the 1985 season. The Seibu Lions happened to the favored team of Toriyama’s then-editor, Kazuhiko Torishima (as noted in the author comment for Chapter 200), so there may also have been something of a rivalry going on between Toriyama and his editor over Tao’s move.

Page Breakdown

The majority of the Dragon Ball series was drawn in black and white, but chapters were occasionally published with color pages. This breakdown notes how many full-color, limited-color, and black-and-white pages appeared in this chapter. As the tankōbon volumes were not released with these colors intact, any color pages shown are taken from the kanzenban release.