Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 32 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.
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.
We're getting up to the end of DB now!... Next week is not only the end of the 23rd Tenkaichi arc, but the beginning of the very short Wedding Dress arc; not anyone's favourite filler arc, but I quite like it.
You may notice I've started specifically noting which dub has which episode title. In the past, I just listed Funi's first, then Blue Water's. I believe in the earliest weeks I put BLT's first. But, now 7 months later, I've decided it's probably best that I specifically note where each title comes from, now that I've started porting the trivia we post here over to Reddit (they just started their own 5 episodes per week rewatch over on /r/Dragonball, so I'm posting the trivia from each of our weeks in the comments over there)... This will become useful later, as the Z episode titles sometimes changed between releases. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...
Previous thread: Week 31 (DB 136-140)
Next thread: Week 33 (DB 146-150)
Anyway, without further ado...
Episode 141 - Four Tenshinhans
Dub title: The Four Faces of Tien (Funimation) / Quadruplication (Blue Water)
Originally aired 18th of January 1989
Episode director: Osamu Kasai
Animation supervisor: Katsumi Aoshima
Tenshinhan somehow uses the Shishin no Ken to become four people! They spread to the four corners of the arena, and jointly attack Goku with energy waves!! Goku seems to be in an absolutely desperate pinch, but he says he has seen two weaknesses of the technique. Goku uses the Taiyō-Ken to hide himself with the first weakness, Tenshinhan’s overly good eyesight. He then uses lightning speed to knock the four Tenshinhans out of bounds as they wait for their eyes to recover!! It turns out that the second weakness was that by splitting into four people, Tenshinhan’s movement and power were reduced.
Anime-only/filler content: Filler where Tien fights Goku before he goes to the corners of the ring, Tien searching for Goku after firing the four beams.
Episode 142 - Which is Stronger?! God vs Demon King Piccolo
Dub title: Kami vs. Piccolo (Funimation) / Kami VS. Junior (Blue Water)
Originally aired 25th of January 1989
Episode director: Kazuhisa Takenōchi
Animation supervisor: Mitsuo Shindō
Before the second match of the semi-finals, Goku verifies that Shen is in fact God. Shen informs a concerned Goku that he has a good plan, and goes to deal with his fight. The fight between Shen and Ma Junior is a super battle that dumbfounds even Tenshinhan and the others!! After realizing that borrowing a human body has put him at a disadvantage, Shen fires a Mafūba! But Piccolo had predicted this, and he fires a Reverse-Mafūba, which draws God out from Shen and seals him within a small bottle!!
Anime-only/filler content: Pre-match Dragon Ball Gang chatter and after Shen and Piccolo first talk, a filler bout before the mind-reading scene.
Episode 143 - The Fate of the World at Stake!
Dub title: Battle for the Future (Funimation) / For The Fate Of The World (Blue Water)
Originally aired 1st of February 1989
Episode director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Tomekichi Takeuchi
Shen finally gets up after the 10 count and receives much fanfare, but he is totally confused, having lost his memory of everything up until now. Meanwhile, Ma Junior swallows the bottle that God is sealed inside! Kame-Sen’nin and the others realize that something is amiss, and at their questioning Goku reveals that Ma Junior is Piccolo Daimaō’s doppelganger. And thus the finals begin!! After being nailed with Ma Junior’s energy bullets at the end of a terrific round of offense and defense, Goku falls to the arena, completely motionless…!!
Anime-only/filler content: The flashback to Goku defeating Daimao.
Episode 144 - Unleashed! The Ultimate Super Kamehameha
Dub title: Super Kamehameha (Funimation) / The Ultimate Kamehameha Wave! (Blue Water)
Originally aired 8th of February 1989
Episode director: Daisuke Nishio
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama
In truth, Goku had taken no damage. The fierce battle reconvenes, and Ma Junior fires a tremendous energy wave!! But Goku flies into the air, and it goes far off into the horizon. Goku is about to counter with a gigantic Kamehameha, but he stops from firing when Kame-Sen’nin reminds him that God would also die if he were to kill Ma Junior. Ma Junior again prepares to fire an energy wave, but when Goku hears from Kuririn that they can revive God with the Dragon Balls, he fires a Kamehameha!!
Anime-only/filler content: No significant filler scenes!
Episode 145 - Demon King Piccolo’s Super Giant-Form Technique
Dub title: Junior No More (Funimation) / King Piccolo's Gigantic Technique! (Blue Water)
Originally aired 15th of February 1989
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa
When the crowd sees Ma Junior after his clothes have been reduced to tatters by the gigantic Kamehameha, they realize that he is the doppelganger of Piccolo Daimaō, and flee as fast as they can. With that, Ma Junior turns into a giant and attacks Goku!! But Goku grabs onto Ma Junior’s fingers and sends him flying. When Goku says that he’d be in trouble were Ma Junior to become even bigger, Ma Junior grows far more gigantic!!
Anime-only/filler content: Piccolo attempting to crush Goku under his foot while he's giant.
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Interesting trivia:
- At this period in time, the following events transpired in the manga: Gohan starts his survival training and accidentally turns into an Oozaru, Chichi learns what happened to Goku and Gohan, the rest of the Dragon Team (and Yajirobe) are summoned to God's Lookout for training, Gohan's survival training and the Dragon Team's Heavenly Training concludes, Goku arrives at Kaio's place after six months, and eventually he catches Bubbles after 40 days.
- Goku using weighted clothes is acknowledged in-universe as the same idea as Roshi's use of weighted turtle shells. Goku's next master, Kaio, uses the same idea with ten times gravity, and gravity training is an important part of Vegeta's training on Earth and Goku's in the afterlife.
- In total, Goku is carrying 200 pounds, or one ton, of weights. Things that weigh that much include fridges, a spinet piano, a large dog, a panda, and 36,287 pennies.
- This is the only one of two times Goku is an adult and wears no shirt under his Turtle School gi, as well as being barefoot; the other is the very next major fight in the series, against Raditz.
- In the anime, Goku swiping Ten's belt is reflected in continuity; you can see it disappear between cuts part-way into the bout (in the manga, you don't see below Ten's chest before the reveal).
- Before using the Shishin "Four Bodies" move, Ten says that he isn't going to use the Kikoho, saying that Goku may be able to dodge it with his new speed. Goku was able to dodge this move in their last match, though Ten warned him to do so at that point.
- In the manga, every drawing of Ten and his copies is unique, rather than being a duplicated drawings.
- The Shishin is one of the moves Cell copied in the Cell Games. Piccolo and Kuririn also use it in the Saiyan arc. (Though I think this might be filler; I'm not sure)
- It's notable that Goku is able to dodge the Shishin without the use of flight which, as revealed at the end of the arc, is something he knows how to do. In addition to using the Kamehameha with his feet to propel himself upwards against Ma-Junior, this is evidence that he was intentionally not using it to surprise Majunior in their match.
- After being defeated, Ten says that he didn't have time to use Bukujutsu. This may be Toriyama reminding the audience that the move exists, since the last time it was referred to was in the 22nd Tournament, published about a year prior to these events.
- Goku could also have avoided Ten's attack by jumping onto the side of the arena wall, which does not count as out of bounds.
- In the Funimation dub, after beating Ten, the Announcer says "Goku wins the last match of the semifinals, and now goes on to face Junior in the champtionship round, where the 23rd master of martial arts will be determined!"... In fact, that was only the first round, and Ma-Junior had yet to fight Shen, so the Announcer was getting quite ahead of himself in Funi's version. The line is then repeated (though slightly shortened) in the recap for the next episode. For reference, the Japanese dialogue here is "The intense battle has ended with Son Goku beating his way past Tenshinhan, and into the finals!" The Blue Water dialogue, meanwhile, is "Goku is our first finalist, and will meet the winner of the next semifinal!"
- Also probably should have pointed this out earlier, but Majunior's pauldrons are smaller than they'll be in later arcs.
- Before using the Taiyo-ken, Goku apologizes for borrowing one of Ten's moves. Kuririn would do the same before using it against Dodoria on Namek.
- After Goku uses the Taiyo-ken, the Announcer says he's glad he brought his sunglasses, which of course were what helped Goku learn a way to avoid the Taiyo-ken in the previous tournament.
- Goku being able to tell what the Tenshinhans behind him are doing is alluded to by the filler where Goku trained with Mr. Popo to fight while blindfolded. Here, Goku sums it up as "'cuz I've trained a lot".
- The manga never shows the four Tenshinhans merging together; one of them simply pops up over the edge of the arena after they've been knocked out of bounds.
- When Goku first meets God, he explains that he "has his reasons" why he cannot kill Piccolo. While this arc seemingly contradicts that idea, God has learnt of the Mafuba after Master Roshi used it (one wonders why didn't even notice Mutaito using it the first time, though perhaps he simply didn't get a good enough look to learn to use it until he saw Roshi and Ten try to use it).
- The scene where Ma-Junior and God speak to each other in a foreign language is one of the few confirmed instances of foreshadowing by Toriyama. When he introduced God at the end of the previous arc, he decided that they both were aliens, but would not reveal it until later. This scene alludes to that future reveal.
- Outside of this scene, using the Namekian ship from Yunzabit, and talking to Porunga, Namekians don't use their native language at all.
- It could be debated whether God using the jar counts as using an outside tool to assist his fight and whether that would disqualify him. Considering the fate of the world is at stake, I (KBABZ) doubt he'd mind being disqualified had it worked, although that would throw the final match into disarray as there'd be nobody to defeat Goku!
- The shot of Ma-Junior having caught Shen in the spiral of the Mafuba is a direct reference to the same shot of Roshi using the move on Daimao.
- This Tenkaichi Budokai takes place over the course of a single day, unlike the 22nd TB, which -- in the anime -- took place over several days.
- After Goku reveals that Ma-Junior is Piccolo Daimao, Chichi realizes that the mysterious stranger who defeated him was Goku. This contradicts the anime filler where Goku bumped into Chichi on the way to the capital, meaning in the anime she should have already known it was him.
- The opening of the Goku and Ma-Junior fight is the first time both characters call out the other for deliberately holding back.
- Ma-Junior destroying the wall by elbowing Goku into it removes the added continuity from the Ten fight where part of the wall was destroyed fighting against Goku.
- Ma-Junior destorying part of the distance landscape after Goku dodges it is the first time this has been done in the series; this will become a recurring trope in the series.
- In the Funimation dub of Episode 145, several lines in the recap of Episode 144 differ from the actual episode. Notably, here Piccolo mocks Goku's loyalty to God rather than saying he must wish he was the bad guy. Kuririn also says that the Dragon Balls can bring God back to life rather than "heal his wounds", hinting that Episode 144 is using dialogue adjusted for censorship. The flashback script is more accurate to the manga.
- After Goku uses the Super Kamehameha, we can see Ma-Juinor's exposed legs, including "pink fleshy bits" for his thigh, calf, shin and knee. This is the only time they're drawn; in later arcs, they've disappeared.
- The beam clash between Goku and Ma-Junior, while also being similar to Goku and Vegeta's later, damages the building next to the arena, although this happens off-screen.
- When Ma-Junior increases his size, so do his clothes. Either that's part of the technique's magic, or he and the Hulk have the same tailor.
- The period after the spectators flee the arena is the only time it's seen with nobody watching.
- The title page of Chapter 187 depicts Chi-Chi's hair in blue, the first time it's shown in full-colour. The anime sticks with her hair being black, of course.
- When Ma-Junior becomes giant for the first time, he's on the opposite of the arena from Goku. However when Goku throws Ma-Junior over by his finger, he somehow lands completely in the arena without a single part of him falling outside of it for a disqualification.
It alongside Goku's fight with Vegeta and Freeza are my top 3.
