Episode 9
Boss Rabbit’s Special Skill
--I’ve previously only seen the last few minutes of this episode, back when the Funi dub first aired on Toonami. I missed most of it due to having to get a haircut. “Seen once, dubbed on Toonami years ago” is my experience with most of this section of the anime, but it wasn’t too long after seeing these episodes that I started reading the Viz manga.
--The episode starts off showing Yamcha trailing Bulma and co. from about six feet behind them. How unobservant are they?
--Great moments in filler: Bulma’s cute voice causes Yamcha to foam at the mouth.
--The gibberish writing seen throughout the town this episode (and in the manga) looks suspiciously similar to Namekian. And Namekian looks suspiciously similar to the language of the Dr. Slump aliens who run over Turbo with their spaceship. And the robot who translates for those aliens in Dr. Slump looks suspiciously similar to the Big Gete Star guide robot in DBZ movie 6. My point? I forget.
--It’s probably not a coincidence that one of the buildings in town is called “Toriya Motors”.
--The Rabbit Gang (
Usagi Dan) has the same naming scheme as the various criminal “teams” from Pokemon (Rocket
Dan, Plasma
Dan, etc). Dan can refer to all sorts of groups or teams, or gangs when referring to these kinds of stock villains. Nintendo presumably thought “Team Rocket” sounded more family-friendly than “Rocket Gang”. On the flipside, “Team Rabbit” sounds a tad strange.
--One of the Rabbit Gang thugs introduce the group by saying that they “even make crying babies shut up”, which is a stock phrase thugs like this always use to hype up their ruthlessness in anime and whatnot. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume no actual Japanese gang member has ever said this to anybody.
--After the townspeople all flee when they hear Boss Rabbit’s coming, there’s an incredibly long pause leading into the eye-catch. I know they’re trying to emphasize the quietness of the deserted street, but it’s a bit over the top.
--The leader of the Rabbit Gang’s name is…well, this gets slightly complicated. It’s written 兎人参化, the characters for “rabbit”, “carrot”, and “change”. The idea being that he’s a rabbit who changes people into carrots. In the manga this is read as “To Ninjinka” (like most Japanese kids’ books, there’s little furigana script above the characters to indicate how they should be read). In the anime though, the 兎/rabbit character gets read as
usagi rather than
to, so he’s called “Usagi Ninjinka”. It’s not exactly wrong per se, since
usagi and
to are both possible readings of the character and either can be valid depending on context, but it goes against what the manga had established as how the guy’s name should be read.
--Anyway, the thing about “To Ninjinka/Usagi Ninjinka” is that it basically treats “To/Usagi” as if it were the guy’s surname and “Ninjinka” as his given name. So he’s Mr. Rabbit Who-Turns-People-Into-Carrots”. Or “Rabbit Carrot-Transformer” as the Funi subtitles put it. I kinda like to call him the “Carrotizer Bunny” as a joke on “Energizer Bunny” (is that guy still around?). Apparently the dub calls him “Monster Carrot”? I can understand them not wanting to bother with all the “Rabbit Carrot-Transformer” nonsense, but if I heard that a character was called “Monster Carrot” and he turned out to just be some rabbit, I’d be severely disappointed.
--In the anime, Puar turns the tables by shape-shifting into To Ninjinka and threating to turn him into a carrot. Can he really do that? Turn him into a carrot, that is. It’s eventually established that since Puar properly graduated from Shape-Shifting Kindergarten that he can take on not only the form but also the abilities of whatever he shape-shifts into. So he can turn into a magic carpet and cart Yamcha around. Contrast this with Oolong, who can turn into a motorbike but still can’t give Bulma a ride, since he’s no stronger than he was as a pig and so just collapses under her weight. But can Puar really get any power just by turning into the relevant person or thing? What happens if he shape-shifts into Vegetto?
--The joke at the end where Goku takes the Rabbit Gang to the moon is of course a reference to the “
rabbit in the moon” of Asian folklore. The Japanese see the moon rabbit as making
mochi, just as the Rabbit Gang start doing once on the moon. Cultural reference aside, it’s not really clear why the Rabbit Gang are doing that though. Did Goku make them as punishment? Also, you can see in the background that there are several rabbits already living on the moon.
And the jews will hate it. 