Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 4 - DB Episodes 16-20

[Robo4900]

Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 4 of the first Dragon Ball rewatch of the decade.
We're doing five episodes a week, and we'll be watching every single episode of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT. All 508 episodes. Plus the TV specials and the movies (more on that later, when we actually get there).
I encourage you all to watch in Japanese with subtitles, especially if you have never done so before, but watch along in whichever way brings you the most joy.

I've actually put together a template so I can more easily put these OPs together in future... I still ended up scrambling to get some trivia together for this week, though I think I found some interesting stuff. Anyway, I need to get a'studyin', so... Enjoy watching the episodes, friends! This arc we're in now may be my favourite of the lot.

Previous thread: Week 3 (DB 11-15)
Next thread: Week 5 (DB 21-25)

Anyway, without further ado...

Episode 16 - Training: The Stone Hunt
Dub title: Find That Stone! / The First Test
Originally aired 11th of June 1986

Moving to a large island, Kame-Sen’nin begins the training. First, in order to learn Goku and Kuririn’s ability, he measures how fast they can run 100 meters. The two look promising, and Kame-Sen’nin gives them some training before dinner. It’s a great trial where he throws a stone with the “kame” mark on it into the jungle, then tells the two to find it! The person who doesn’t manage to find it will go without dinner! Goku and Kuririn take this severe training in earnest!! The sly Kuririn seizes victory in this contest!

Anime-only/filler content: Both filler scenes where Roshi tries to grab Lunch's butt.

Episode 17 - With Life At Stake! Milk Delivery
Dub title: Milk Delivery / Training Begins Turtle Hermit Style
Originally aired 18th of June 1986

The basic training finally begins! To start off, Goku and Kuririn are given milk delivery as their early morning training! Carrying the milk boxes, they do things like skip and zig-zag around rows of trees!! Furthermore, they climb stone stairs that rise high into the air, cross over a valley on a large tree, cross through a desert of quicksand and a raging river while keeping their balance, and get chased by dinosaurs as a bonus! This is their ultra-hard milk delivery training that surpasses ordinary knowledge!!

Anime-only/filler content: Yamucha cleaning out the karate school as training.

Episode 18 - Kame-sen’s Method of Inte~nse Training
Dub title: The Turtle Hermit Way / Training Triumphs
Originally aired 25th of June 1986

With their early morning training over, they continue on to their morning training. In order to strengthen their arms and legs, they train by plowing a field barehanded! After breakfast it’s study time!! After lunch, they take an afternoon nap until 1:30. During the afternoon they help out with construction work. It’s training where they sweat, toughen their muscles, and even receive a part-time job salary! Furthermore, they carry themselves through rough training to toughen their reflexes, swimming ten laps around a lake while being chased by sharks and dodging the frenzied attacks of bees, to finally end a full day of training!

Anime-only/filler content: Kuririn's flashback to Orin Temple.

Episode 19 - The Tenka’ichi Budōkai Begins!
Dub title: The Tournament Begins / To The Tournament
Originally aired 2nd of July 1986

Goku and Kuririn continue their training by wearing 40 kg shells on their back! The two are aiming for the Tenka’ichi Budōkai, which opens in a month!! The day before the tournament, Kame-Sen’nin takes them to the island where it will be held! At the tournament registration area, Goku reunites with Yamcha, Bulma, Oolong, and Pu’er. Goku is delighted when he learns that Yamcha is also participating! The next day, the Tenka’ichi Budōkai is at last decided!!

Anime-only/filler content: Goku and Krillin eating tons of Lunch's cooking while Roshi tries to lift up her skirt from under the table, Yamucha training in the forest and reuniting with Bulma.

Episode 20 - Will it Appear?! The Power of Training
Dub title: Elimination Round
Originally aired 9th of July 1986

The Tenka’ichi Budōkai is held once every five years! A mere eight people are able to participate in the tournament’s main event! The preliminaries to select those eight people are divided up into four blocks!! Goku and Kuririn fully display the results of the harsh training that they received from Kame-Sen’nin!! Tossing a veteran to his defeat, Goku splendidly gains the right to participate in the main event! What’s more, Yamcha also advances well, and wins his ticket to the Tenka’ichi Budōkai main event!!

Anime-only/filler content: All scenes involving Bulma trying to see into the building, including using Oolong as a stool, Oolong and a crowd peeking at Bulma's panties, and using the hole in the wall caused by Kuririn's fight.

-

Interesting trivia:

• As with last week, we get another thing GT threw back to; Kuririn reminisces about the events of episode 16 in the last episode of GT.
• On a personal note, episode 16 may be the first episode of OG Dragon Ball I ever saw. I saw the Blue Water dub of this episode on Toonami during the original run, though I don't remember when I saw it, or if I even saw the whole thing.
• Arale appears on Roshi's TV screen briefly in episode 16.
• Allegedly, the initial American broadcast of Dragon Ball episode 17 was interrupted half-way through for a live CNN news broadcast, on the episode's initial airdate of the 11th of September 2001. The episode was shown again, this time in full, the next day.
• Before its famous appearance in episode 28, the insert song Mezase Tenkaichi appears in episode 19, though only briefly. Interestingly, while Funimation cut the song from episode 28, leaving only silence in its place, they kept it in episode 19, and would later keep it when it showed up in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai. Meanwhile, Blue Water replaced its appearances in the show with some of their library music (the same music that most of Ocean's DBZ dub used for its score) in all instances except in episode 19.
• In episode 19, Kuririn reads a newspaper entitled "USA news".
• While Goku's gi had been orange since partway through chapter 1 in the manga (Toriyama coloured it orange in all the limited-colour pages, and the next full-colour page, in chapter 3, kept the orange colour), it's only in episode 19 of the anime that he switches to the iconic orange gi. The initial anime colouring of the gi is a very reddy orange; it would become a far lighter, more yellow orange in Z, presumably due to the change in animation staff and overall series director between DB and Z.

Episode summaries, airdates, and titles courtesy of Kanzenshuu's episode guide. Filler breakdowns and Dragon Ball logo courtesy of KBABZ.

[MasenkoHA]

[*]Before its famous appearance in episode 28, the insert song Mezase Tenkaichi appears in episode 19, though only briefly. Interestingly, while Funimation cut the song from episode 28, they kept it in episode 19, and would later keep it when it showed up in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai. Meanwhile, Blue Water replaced it with some of their library music (the same music that most of Ocean's DBZ dub used for its score) in all instances.

More than likely Funimation didn’t cut the song but the masters Toei gave them lacked the insert song. The Spanish dub also lacked Mezase Tenkaichi in episode 28. And to my understanding most international dubs didn’t get all the insert songs.



Anyways I dug episode 1-18 but for me when Goku and Kuririn arrive at the Budokai that’s when the series really started. Goku’s friendship with Kuririn and how they went from rivals to buddies and each other’s biggest supporter in the tournament was really well done. Kuririn is a great character and it’s not surprising he managed to stay relevant far longer than Yamucha, Tenshinhan, and Chaozu even when he got sidelined as a fighter.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

[*]Before its famous appearance in episode 28, the insert song Mezase Tenkaichi appears in episode 19, though only briefly. Interestingly, while Funimation cut the song from episode 28, they kept it in episode 19, and would later keep it when it showed up in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai. Meanwhile, Blue Water replaced it with some of their library music (the same music that most of Ocean's DBZ dub used for its score) in all instances.

More than likely Funimation didn’t cut the song but the masters Toei gave them lacked the insert song. The Spanish dub also lacked Mezase Tenkaichi in episode 28. And to my understanding most international dubs didn’t get all the insert songs.



Anyways I dug episode 1-18 but for me when Goku and Kuririn arrive at the Budokai that’s when the series really started. Goku’s friendship with Kuririn and how they went from rivals to buddies and each other’s biggest supporter in the tournament was really well done. Kuririn is a great character and it’s not surprising he managed to stay relevant far longer than Yamucha, Tenshinhan, and Chaozu even when he got sidelined as a fighter.

That's what i figured as well, that the digibeta tape masters FUNi has of the series simply just don't have all the inset songs although they did for some episodes here and there.

[KBABZ]

On the Goku's gi trivia, it's worth noting that the red colour is most likely because that's the colour Toriyama used in the ink-colours he did.

While it isn't how Goku was designed as such, I feel using blue for the early gi went really well with the bow, which helps make the switch to the Turtle School gi feel more natural and more of an "event". It also means that contextually, Goku is repping the Turtle School even when he's replaced the symbol with the Kaio and Go symbols.

[ABED]

Episodes 16-19 are maybe my favorite episodes of the entire series. Dunno why, they're just fun. I have nothing else to add about them.

On the dub side, I love Laurie Steele as Kuririn.

[MasenkoHA]

On the dub side, I love Laurie Steele as Kuririn.

Not a huge fan (I kinda dug the Blue Water dude who sounded like a 13-year old boy and the Japanese voice actress is very pleasant sounding) but I will say Laurie Steele’s Krillin sounds exactly like someone who will grow up to be Sonny Strait’s Krillin

[Robo4900]

Episodes 16-19 are maybe my favorite episodes of the entire series. Dunno why, they're just fun. I have nothing else to add about them.

I always look forward to seeing this stuff when I watch the show. Never fails to lighten my day watching these episodes.

On the dub side, I love Laurie Steele as Kuririn.

Not a huge fan (I kinda dug the Blue Water dude who sounded like a 13-year old boy and the Japanese voice actress is very pleasant sounding) but I will say Laurie Steele’s Krillin sounds exactly like someone who will grow up to be Sonny Strait’s Krillin

Agreed on all counts. In fact, as a kid, I thought Funi's dub just used the same actor for both.

[MyVisionity]

I find it interesting just how many of the perverted moments in this arc (and the entire series really) were actually anime-only. I wonder how Toriyama would feel about that.

Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 2 of the first Dragon Ball rewatch of the decade.

Just so you know, I think it's been "Week 2" for the last three weeks...

[Robo4900]

I find it interesting just how many of the perverted moments in this arc (and the entire series really) were actually anime-only. I wonder how Toriyama would feel about that.

Probably he'd say something like "Well, I always liked Roshi's perverted antics you know, so if Toei's staff can add more of that, that makes me very happy. (laughs)"

Just so you know, I think it's been "Week 2" for the last three weeks...

... You didn't see nothin'!

[Danfun64]

[*]Before its famous appearance in episode 28, the insert song Mezase Tenkaichi appears in episode 19, though only briefly. Interestingly, while Funimation cut the song from episode 28, they kept it in episode 19, and would later keep it when it showed up in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai. Meanwhile, Blue Water replaced it with some of their library music (the same music that most of Ocean's DBZ dub used for its score) in all instances.

All instances? Pretty sure it was kept in ep 19. "Didn't see nothing" indeed.

[Robo4900]

[*]Before its famous appearance in episode 28, the insert song Mezase Tenkaichi appears in episode 19, though only briefly. Interestingly, while Funimation cut the song from episode 28, they kept it in episode 19, and would later keep it when it showed up in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai. Meanwhile, Blue Water replaced it with some of their library music (the same music that most of Ocean's DBZ dub used for its score) in all instances.

All instances? Pretty sure it was kept in ep 19. "Didn't see nothing" indeed.

lol.

I was sure Blue Water replaced it in episode 19 too. Maybe I'm thinking of a different instance; I'm sure there is one case of a song Funi had at least a snippet of, which BW replaced.

[Robo4900]

Here we go!

Episode 16 - Training-- The Rock Hunt

Roshi once again using an English phrase here, "Let's go!"

I just love the main cast of Goku, Kuririn, Roshi, and Lunch.
Though I can't help but notice at this point that so far, each of our two main casts has been built of a bunch of guys and one girl. And I can't recall a single other woman in a main cast of Dragon Ball until Videl. (One could argue Chichi, but she was always a tersiary presence, really)
I don't imagine this is any real revelation for anyone, but when I used to watch Dragon Ball as a kid -- and even as a teenager -- this never bothered me, but now I can't help but notice that not only is Toryiama not great at writing women, he tends to just... Not write them.
Though I notice he has got a little better at this these days; half the destruction gods & angels are women, two of the three new Saiyans in Super are women, Cheelai was a major presence in the Broly movie, etc... Shame he's not got the spark nowadays that he used to have back then.

On a more fun note, I love the idea that Kame House goes into a capsule. I suppose he wouldn't exactly get good plumbing on an island, so the way it functions would have to be similar to Capsule houses, but y'know, still a fun thing.

I love that Goku's flyaround shows us loads of places they'll be going over the next couple of episodes in their training.

"Yes! I studied for eight years at the Orinji Temple before this"
Orinji temple? Is that supposed to be a pun on orange?
Let's check Herms' name guide...!

Kuririn
There are a few things going on with Kuririn’s name, though Toriyama doesn’t really explain any of it (see below). First, kuri-kuri bouzu means a clean-shaven head, which certainly fits him. Second, 栗/kuri is Japanese for “chestnut”, which besides tying back into his “smooth head” image, is carried over into the name of his daughter (and in the anime, his early girlfriend). One of the title pages also shows Kuririn riding an air bike with the栗/kuri kanji on the front. Finally, the “rin” on the end of his name may be a reference to the Shaolin monks (少林/Shourin in Japanese), a staple of martial arts films. “Shaolin” more or less translates to “little forest”, and the temple where Kuririn trained prior to become Kame-sennin’s pupil was called the Oorin Temple (多林寺/Oorin-ji), “big forest temple”, an obvious play on the name Shaolin. The Oorin uniform worn by Kuririn and his formal seniors at Oorin Temple are also clearly based on the Shaolin uniform.
Toriyama Explanation: “This is a name that I decided completely based on just the ambience from the character’s image. At that point, I didn’t think this was going to be a character that would continue to appear for a long time afterwards, so I used this half-baked naming.” [DBF]
Source Spelling: くりくり/kuri-kuri 栗/kuri, 少林/Shourin
Name Spelling: クリリン/Kuririn

Interesting. Not at all what I thought. Anyway...

I wonder if Roshi trains all his students on this island? The distance between that rock and that tree being "Exactly 100 metres" certainly speaks to that, and he does later on mention that Goku's grandpa trained here too.
... I wonder how many students Roshi trained in his lifetime. And how many of them did he train on this very island?

I love how casually Roshi says they have to surpass human level.

Roshi asks Kuririn to fetch him a beer. I'm pretty sure he asks him for "a soda" or something in the dub.

I suppose it's natural that Goku would have an advantage here. Very interesting that Kuririn uses his own advantage of his deceptive ways here.

Roshi trying to grab Lunch's butt is filler. Dammit Toei, why? Why add that?... -_-

lol at Kuririn's epic sleight of hand simulating throwing a rock.

Goku having the last laugh, from the other two getting food poisoning is excellent.

Y'know what, I'm watching another. Just one other.

Episode 17 - With Life At Stake! Milk Delivery

Hah. I love the overly-dramatic, cinematic shot of Lunch drawing the gun on Goku. And the rather hilarious contrast between that and the hilarious, goofy pose she takes after he knocks her out from shooting him.

I LOVE Roshi's speech to Goku and Kuririn about what martial arts are for.

Roshi's training regimen sounds cartoonishly harsh, but from what I've heard of real personal trainers, the exercise routines they put on you can often feel utterly insane, and just when you think you've had the workout of your life, you get told "Okay, that was a pretty okay warmup, now onto the real stuff."

I like Roshi's threat to Kuririn: "It doesn't matter to me if you drop out..."
Not a direct "cut that shit out", it's a passive-aggressive "Oh, so you've given up?" Which of course, to someone like Kuririn who's gone through all this effort to train under Roshi, is just as bad, if not worse.

And then that's immediately contrasted with a kind, encouraging pointing-out to Goku that his grandpa did this too.
Roshi can be harsh, but he can also be very kind. He knows exactly what each of his students needs at any given moment.

Abbot: "My, my, this is a job well done!"
Goku: "Hey there!" [Roshi hits him on the head]
Roshi: "It's not 'Hey there!', it's 'Good morning.'"
As I recall, Funi's dub changed this to...
Abbot: "Who wants some milk?"
Goku: "I do!" [Roshi hits him on the head]
Roshi: "We're here to deliver milk, not drink it."

I like to think that every character voiced by Joji Yanami -- such as this Abbot guy Roshi's talking to on the hill -- is the narrator self-inserting into the story.

I love the little preview of what the Tenkaichi Budoukai is like.

Roshi: "Your objective is not to become Tenkaichi. Real life isn't that easy."
FYI Tenkaichi means "Greatest in the world"
Honestly, that's one thing I would say the dubs did better than the subs; every now and then, for god-knows-what-reason, the subs leave a term in Japanese that just makes certain lines incomprehensible (such as "Kami-sama" instead of "God"). And they'd really lose nothing by translating it; Funi's "Number-One Under The Sun World Martial Arts Tournament" is a bit excessive in length, but works quite nicely.
... Though you don't even need to translate "Tenkaichi Budoukai" really... Just changing this particular line to be something more like "Your objective is not to win the title of greatest martial artist in the world. Real life isn't that easy." would work.
Apologies to Clyde Mandelin and Steve Simmons, if either of you happen to be reading this -- you guys do great work.

I seem to recall that this cutaway to Yamucha isn't in the manga? And it kinda ignores that he, Bulma, Pu'er, and Oolong were very stuck last time we saw them... But I still love this. It's nice to see what the others are up to.
Plus, this little scene also does set up the precedent of Bulma, Oolong, and Pu'er standing on boxes and such to look in while the others fight, as they'll do in another filler scene during the Tenkaichi elimination round.

Oh hey, Yamucha used that piece of stock footage again for his Rogafufuken. That makes 3 reuses of it so far.

Also... Bulma is pulling some very expressive faces here, making some very expressive movements overall... They all are, really... I didn't really notice while it was happening these past few episodes slowly, but I think there has been a clear increase in the animation quality over the first arc. In fact, I think this episode's animation is an improvement on the last, even. Whoever was the lead animatior/director for this episode did great work.

Where did all that sand come from? I didn't see sand on this island earlier, when Goku did his flyaround. It looked like quite a small island... Does it really have that much variety of environment?

Great pair of episodes. I do love all these training episodes, to be honest. Roshi's antics like trying to grab Lunch's butt are annoying and tiresome, but thankfully they're quite sparse. That stuff aside, I think this run of three episodes, 16-18, might be my favourite little run of episodes in the whole run.

[MasenkoHA]

Roshi asks Kuririn to fetch him a beer. I'm pretty sure he asks him for "a soda" or something in the dub.

It was brewski in the dub. I’m should it was edited to root beer or soda something for the Toonami version

Funi's "Number-One Under The Sun World Martial Arts Tournament" is a bit excessive in length, but works quite nicely.

It is excessive. They all never called it that. It was always the generic “World Martial Arts tournament” I kind of wish they would have gone with “Strongest under the Heavens” tournament.

[Danfun64]

Honestly, that's one thing I would say the dubs did better than the subs; every now and then, for god-knows-what-reason, the subs leave a term in Japanese that just makes certain lines incomprehensible (such as "Kami-sama" instead of "God"). And they'd really lose nothing by translating it; Funi's "Number-One Under The Sun World Martial Arts Tournament" is a bit excessive in length, but works quite nicely.

IIRC Funi only called it the "World Martial Arts Tournament", nothing more. The closest Funi came to referencing the translation of Tenkaichi is the episode where Goku goes Oozaru in the tournament, with the dub episode title of "Number One Under the Moon".

Funi's "Number-One Under The Sun World Martial Arts Tournament" is a bit excessive in length, but works quite nicely.

It is excessive. They all never called it that. It was always the generic “World Martial Arts tournament” I kind of wish they would have gone with “Strongest under the Heavens” tournament.

Aaaand ninja'd. Point stands though.

[ABED]

It is excessive. They all never called it that. It was always the generic “World Martial Arts tournament” I kind of wish they would have gone with “Strongest under the Heavens” tournament.

If they didn't, I wish once they had someone like the tournament announcer say something like "the winner of the tournament will be number one under the heavens".

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

A lot of fun to be had in these episodes for sure.

Love how we get to see the wise mentor side of Roshi.

[MasenkoHA]

A lot of fun to be had in these episodes for sure.

Love how we get to see the wise mentor side of Roshi.

Getting ahead but his speech to Nam about how he needed to make sure Goku and Kuririn lost the tournament so they would keep working at getting stronger and better was one of the best scenes of early Dragon Ball. The 21st Budokai and Piccolo Daimao arcs were probably Roshi’s best showcasing and showed he can be a lot more than the undocumented sex offender.

[MyVisionity]

Tenka'ichi is a Japanese expression meaning "the best there is" or "the greatest". It doesn't necessarily need to be broken down into its literal parts.

If I recall, the Funimation dub did in fact refer to it as "Number One Under the Sun" at least once, probably by the narrator.

Roshi: "Your objective is not to become Tenkaichi. Real life isn't that easy."
FYI Tenkaichi means "Greatest in the world"
Honestly, that's one thing I would say the dubs did better than the subs; every now and then, for god-knows-what-reason, the subs leave a term in Japanese that just makes certain lines incomprehensible (such as "Kami-sama" instead of "God"). And they'd really lose nothing by translating it; Funi's "Number-One Under The Sun World Martial Arts Tournament" is a bit excessive in length, but works quite nicely.

Before Roshi says this line, Kuririn tells Goku what the tournament is all about and the subtitles add in an explanation that "Tenkaichi" means "the best under the heavens". I don't see this as being a case of incomprehensible dialogue. Especially when the subtitles choose to refer to the tournament itself as the "Tenkaichi Tournament" in all future instances.

Leaving in untranslated Japanese terms can be a good way to retain the cultural underpinnings of the series, something that is lost when you try and translate every single thing. Unlike kamisama, many Japanese terms do not translate completely or exactly into English. Additionally, subbing and dubbing are two different things. I would probably expect to hear more translating within an English dub than I would reading the subs. Especially if a dub tends to be more localized than not.

[ABED]

For subtitles, I'm all for leaving proper nouns untranslated, but I wish that more would make a habit of putting a note underneath translating what it means, at least for the first time a name is used.

[MyVisionity]

For subtitles, I'm all for leaving proper nouns untranslated, but I wish that more would make a habit of putting a note underneath translating what it means, at least for the first time a name is used.

I agree that notes work really well. Or sometimes it won't be a note specifically, but added dialogue by the subber that explains a term. That's something that the DB/DBZ subs do well.

Love how we get to see the wise mentor side of Roshi.

The 21st Budokai and Piccolo Daimao arcs were probably Roshi’s best showcasing and showed he can be a lot more than the undocumented sex offender.

While I'm glad that Roshi has different sides to him, I don't think that you can really leave the perverted aspect of the character out without sacrificing something. To me Roshi is incomplete without it, and Dragon Ball would be too.