Deep Thoughts: The Red Ribbon Army Saga

[ABED]

This post will cover episodes 29-45. I know what you're thinking, 'The Red Ribbon Army arc is over 40 episodes.' I didn't say "arc", I said "saga". Yes, I'm going by FUNimation's saga breakdown. Bwahahaha. I don't know why they broke down the Sagas this way as there doesn't seem to be any consistency among what they deem to be sagas or arcs. I'll have more to write about this down the road.

As for the episodes themselves, my opinion of these episode have changed over the years. My first exposure to the Dragon Ball series was Curtis Hoffmann's manga summaries, which I still have. I recall finding that portion of the story uninteresting as Goku appeared to be running through enemies like a hot knife through butter. My first few times watching the anime didn't change that opinion. I don't think it was until the Manga Review of Awesomeness covering this portion of the story did I begin seeing how good it was. I've always enjoyed the Muscle Tower portion. The Ninja Murasaki episodes bring me no end an amount of joy. To this day, I still laugh out loud at two moments, Goku pouring piping hot water down the bamboo reed Murasaki is using as a snorkel (which was actually a clever trick that would've worked on anyone else), and the other is him landing butt first on Nyoibo. Goku defeating a bunch of ham and eggers may not be exciting but it allows the threats to escalate

Random thoughts:
The Red Ribbon Army arc begins and ends with that "cat" is a nice literary device. Is that the correct term I'm looking for?
If it were a more earnest story, I would ship Goku with Suno. I find her so charming.
I took notice of the sound of Sergeant Metallic's detached fist. The sound as it rolls gives it feeling of weight.
Pilaf and Shu's voice actors have incredible range. Shigeru Chiba voiced Pilaf and Raditz. Tessho Genda voiced Shu and on Yu Yu Hakusho, he voiced Younger Toguro.
I've always found Masako Nozawa's reaction to scene where the Red Ribbon soldiers shoot at Suno's bathroom to be adorable. Apparently she thought Goku was hurt or even killed. It's just so innocent and sweet of her to care so much about the character that she's concerned over such a moment.

Filler:
The first four episodes of this saga are the longest run of filler thus far. Some of it's good, like Namu delivering the water to his village, and some of it is not, like Yamcha, Bulma, Oolong, and Puar trying to leave, getting caught in a sandstorm and windng up right back where they started. There are no stakes. It's one of the best examples of superfluous filler. I have nothing against filler. I don't need it to do anything beyond be interesting. That was not. A lot of people claim the story about the origin of the Dragon Balls is contradicted. It wasn't. Roshi prefaced it by saying it was a legend he heard. I think it works well. It's a cool story and there is a bit of truth to it. In the legend, there used to be a single larger Dragon Ball, but because it wasn't being used as intended, instead it was used to gain power it was split up into seven. As we would find out, Kami was in fact disgusted by the use of the Dragon Balls which he had created in part to bring out the best in people but was disgusted when it mostly did the opposite. Hopefully I'm remembering that correctly. The other last bit of filler I really enjoyed was the amusement park. It's such a cool idea, the elevated amusement park, but I couldn't help thinking that even if it were structurally sound, that would be SOOOOO expensive. I'll have more to say on the subject of filler in later posts.

Home Video:
The Saga Set is the introduction of Clyde Mandelin as the translator. I don't know Japanese, and to this day I can't see the difference between his and Steven J. Simmons' translations. Would someone explain to me the difference in their styles? Is one better than the other or do they just have different styles, or are they not that different? Do you have a preference?

The next DB DVD released was King Piccolo Saga – Part 1. FUNi's home video had a tendency to release discs out of order. They usually released the episodes that had more action then looped around to fill in the gaps if they ever finished. With DBZ they stopped releasing Cell Games DVDs, finished up DBZ then looped back around to finish the Cell Games. GT began with the Planet M2/Baby episodes through the end then finished up with the "lost episodes". Dragon Ball released the Tournament and Red Ribbon Army sagas then went to the King Piccolo and Piccolo Jr. sagas then looped around to finish the rest of the series, minus the very first arc due to contractual reasons I'm guessing. For a completionist, this pattern was annoying.

29. Goku begins searching for the 4-star DB; breaks Giran's gang's dam; a sandstorm buries the river; Goku finds the magical lake; saves Namu's village
30. Goku, Pilaf, and the Red Ribbon Army search for the Dragon Balls; a drifter steals Goku's belongings; Goku retrieves his possessions; chases after Pilaf
31. Shuu imitates Goku to get a DB from Gyumao, who's having a feast for Goku and Chichi; the RRA attacks Gyumao's village; Pilaf finds the DB and flees
32. Pilaf retreats in his flying fortress; Goku and the RRA chase him into the desert; the RRA destroys Pilaf's flying fortress and captures him, Mai, and Shuu
33. Goku befriends a group of monkeys; stops the RRA from destroying a forest; Roshi tells Lunch a possible origin of the DBs; the 5-star ball falls into a river
34. Goku finds the 5-star ball; Colonel Silver blows up Kinto Un; Goku defeats Silver; his plane freezes over and crashes; Suno drags him from the wreckage
35. Suno saves Goku from the cold; the Red Ribbon Army terrorizes her village; Goku sets out save Jingle Village and the village chief; enters Muscle Tower
36. Goku easily defeats four Red Ribbon soldiers on the second floor; fights Sergeant Metallic on the third floor; blasts off his head; Metallic's batteries run out
37. Goku faces Master Sergeant Murasaki on the 4th floor; beats each of Murasaki's techniques and humiliates him; Murasaki's boomerang shuriken hits Goku
38. Goku continues to fight Master Sergeant Murasaki, Murasaki summons his four identical brothers; all of them attack Goku; Goku defeats all four with ease
39. Murasaki releases Cyborg #8; Goku saves #8; #8 helps him with 4th floor maze; Goku renames him Ha-chan; they reach the top; fall through a trap door
40. Goku and Ha-chan hit the 5th floor; Buyon's body absorbs Goku's attacks; Goku freezes then shatters him; returns to the 6th floor; confronts General White
41. Goku beats up White; White uses the village chief as a hostage; injures Goku with his high power gun; Ha-chan kills White; destroys Muscle Tower
42. Ha-chan gives Goku the 2-star Dragon Ball; Goku and Suno get Professor Frappe to remove Ha-chan's bomb; the bomb detonates and kills Murasaki
43. Goku leaves for Metro West on Kinto Un to get the dragon radar fixed; wins 100,000 zeni in a martial arts contest; a policeman escorts him to Capsule Corp.
44. Goku reunites with Bulma; meets her father and mother; the Red Ribbon Army hires Husky to deal with Goku; Goku reunites with Yamcha, Oolong and Puar
45. Goku and his friends go to the mid-air amusement park; Goku saves the park from the thief Husky's bomb; leaves with Bulma to gather the Dragon Balls

[MasenkoHA]

I could probably forgive Funimation for breaking up the Red Ribbon Army arc into 3 sagas if they didnt call the first part Red Ribbon Army saga. That's just dumb and confusing.

The out of order saga set released was annoying but if I had to hazard a guess by the time they started releasing the dvds Toonami had aired the first 101 episodes. The King Piccolo and Piccolo Junior DVDS were released before the episodes aired on TV and Funimation probably thought consumers were more likely to buy episodes they couldn't see on tv (yet)

This portion of the Red Ribbon arc was okay to me. I agree the stuff with Goku and Murasaki is top tier though.

One notable thing to me is how many damn times Dragon Ball Densetsu plays in this portion of the show. Episode 30, episode 33, and 34. Was there a contractual obligation for that song?

A lot of people claim the story about the origin of the Dragon Balls is contradicted. It wasn't. Roshi prefaced it by saying it was a legend he heard

To me the contradictory element isn't Roshi's story, like you said he claimed it was only a legend he heard. It's the fact he even knew of a legend associated with the dragon ball. He had no clue what a dragon ball was when he first met Bulma and Goku and later refers to it as a "whatever ball" when he reminds Bulma she needs his help in the Mount Frypan episode. But now he's familiar enough with the dragon balls to have heard a legend from a long time ago?

And now that I think about it this sort of thing happened twice in these episodes; where Toei does their version of events to follow up on plot points left open by Toriyama but done in a way they can be discarded if Toriyama decides to follow up on them. Which he did. They have Roshi gave an explanation for the dragon balls but clarifying its only a legend he heard just in case Toriyama decides to give a proper origin to the dragon balls and we have the wedding episode for Goku and Chi Chi which seemed to be Toei's attempt to follow up on Chi Chi asking Goku to make him her bride but they leave it off in a way for Toriyama to go back to it just in case.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Red Ribbon Army is a great arc, plenty of action for those who watched Z first, a sense of adventure throughout and lays the groundwork for future storylines like the artificial humans, Cell, and more recently Super Hero.

The legend of the Dragon Balls was really interesting, particularly because the idea was kind of revisited in Dragon Ball Super with the Super Dragon Balls, which were massive balls the 7 Dragon Balls we know were created from.

I like how the Red Ribbon officers are modelled after real dictators, it gives them a very realist feel that comes across as more inspired than your average saturday morning cartoon villain, they are also the first real major threat in the series, and truly and utterly put the more comic relief Pilaf gang to shame, particularly in episode 32. On the other hand the little bits of comedy here and there, like the straight-out-of-Hanna-Barbera Murasaki stuff.

I never thought of Goku and Suno as a possible ship, I just see Suno as more of a caring elderly sister type, seeing the hospitality Goku got from herself and her mother was nice and very sweet though.

I always loved the Muscle Tower episodes, it feels like an appetizer for later on when Goku storms and wreacks havoc upon the Red Ribbon Army Headquarters, both exemplify how dangerous Goku can be if anyone tries to mess with him, although he does later mellow out by having his reservations about killing. The setting is also really neat, because sunshine is often associated with good times, the more wintery setting gives an appropriate feeling of hopelessness and makes Goku's victories all the more satisfying and rewarding. The surprises in there like Metallic's batteries running out and Buyon being shattered by Goku's frozen body are great too.

I don't know Japanese, and to this day I can't see the difference between his and Steven J. Simmons' translations. Would someone explain to me the difference in their styles? Is one better than the other or do they just have different styles, or are they not that different?

The main differences between Simmons and Mandelin is that often the former goes for super literal renditions of what is said in the Japanese version, whereas the latter gives priority to more natural sounding speech and mannerisms. Mandelin rendered all uses of "Kami-sama" as "God" until the first appearance of said character, and uses "Cyborg" for "Jinzoningen" when Android 8 is introduced. Conversely Simmons used "Artificial Human". Then you have the spoken subs, Mr Popo uses broken English in Simmons' subs but not in Mandelins. Conversely, Simmons also captures Goku's country bumpkin speech patterns better, so they each have their pros and cons.

Also, bit of an inconsistency with the Blue Water dub in these episodes. Episode 33 uses Anitunes library music in place of the Dragon Ball Densetsu, although in episode 35 its muted much like the Funimation dub for both episodes. Episode 45 is when Blue Water, rather than rewriting and re-adapting Funimation's existing scripts disregard them entirely and base their dialogue off original translations of the Japanese version, possibly by Rob Gerein, as he is credited for episodes 25-53.

These episodes also mark the point in the series where Manga UK's Season 2 DVD set (which contained episodes 29-57) began. It was released on July 7, 2014, a little over 10 years since the Red Ribbon Army arc aired on Toonami UK, and to this day the only kind of release these episodes (or original Dragon Ball in general) since in the UK and Ireland, but at least its a home release, so it's available to anyone who wants to watch these episodes legally.

[MasenkoHA]

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Also, bit of an inconsistency with the Blue Water dub in these episodes. Episode 33 uses Anitunes library music in place of the Dragon Ball Densetsu, although in episode 35 its muted much like the Funimation dub for both episodes.

Not an inconsistency as much as what they were given. Toei was the one that removed a bunch of their insert songs at random for the music track they provided licensees. Cloverway, for example, had only the same 4 insert song Funimation had. Blue Water replaced Japanese vocal songs with music from Anitunes library because...they didnt want kids to be confused by Japanese singing? They were worried they didn't have the license to the songs? So they replaced them. It was "mute" in episode 35 because as far as what Blue Water had to work with there was no Japanese song to replace.

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Someone made a guide of different foreign dubs and what songs they received. Since Blue Water probably had the same music track as the French, Hungarian, and Polish dub they probably a received a version with Makafushigi Adventure playing in episode 33 and elected to replace it with their stock music. I'm only guessing though since it seemed the Blue Water dub was "based" off the French dub

[Super Sonic]

This post will cover episodes 29-45. I know what you're thinking, 'The Red Ribbon Army arc is over 40 episodes.' I didn't say "arc", I said "saga". Yes, I'm going by FUNimation's saga breakdown. Bwahahaha. I don't know why they broke down the Sagas this way as there doesn't seem to be any consistency among what they deem to be sagas or arcs. I'll have more to write about this down the road.

Marketing is the reason they did. Yeah RRA parts 1-3 would've been more on there, but that's how they were selling the sets back then. Something similar is how Thundercats had 4 seasons, but the dvd sets bunched 2-4 together as "Season 2 parts 1 and 2".

[ABED]

This post will cover episodes 29-45. I know what you're thinking, 'The Red Ribbon Army arc is over 40 episodes.' I didn't say "arc", I said "saga". Yes, I'm going by FUNimation's saga breakdown. Bwahahaha. I don't know why they broke down the Sagas this way as there doesn't seem to be any consistency among what they deem to be sagas or arcs. I'll have more to write about this down the road.

Marketing is the reason they did. Yeah RRA parts 1-3 would've been more on there, but that's how they were selling the sets back then. Something similar is how Thundercats had 4 seasons, but the dvd sets bunched 2-4 together as "Season 2 parts 1 and 2".

I was talking about in essence, not this particular case. This practice predates OG Dragon Ball. The first 7 episodes of season 3 were called the Captain Ginyu Saga, The first 14 episodes after Trunks were called the Android Saga despite not being an arc or a saga. How is this a case of marketing to separate the entire arc, especially when they aren't arcs much less sagas?

[Koitsukai]

I think this journey is my fav. Followed by the initial journey of the first arc.
So many cool people met on the way. Goku having hot chocolate at Suno's, and wearing their coat to fight in the snow. That's forever. It felt like a game, too, he had to beat all this mini-bosses to get to the final boss. Who ended up being hardly an inconvenience.

To this day, the encounter with Murasaki is unmatched to me in terms of laughter. I also loved the reaction of the gang when Goku tells them he took out the entire army on his own. They were all geared up, ready to fight, shit scared IIRC, and Goku is like "yeah".

[Super Sonic]

This post will cover episodes 29-45. I know what you're thinking, 'The Red Ribbon Army arc is over 40 episodes.' I didn't say "arc", I said "saga". Yes, I'm going by FUNimation's saga breakdown. Bwahahaha. I don't know why they broke down the Sagas this way as there doesn't seem to be any consistency among what they deem to be sagas or arcs. I'll have more to write about this down the road.

Marketing is the reason they did. Yeah RRA parts 1-3 would've been more on there, but that's how they were selling the sets back then. Something similar is how Thundercats had 4 seasons, but the dvd sets bunched 2-4 together as "Season 2 parts 1 and 2".

I was talking about in essence, not this particular case. This practice predates OG Dragon Ball. The first 7 episodes of season 3 were called the Captain Ginyu Saga, The first 14 episodes after Trunks were called the Android Saga despite not being an arc or a saga. How is this a case of marketing to separate the entire arc, especially when they aren't arcs much less sagas?

It probably sounded cool to them to put as such. Another example is there was a dvd of the 90s Spider-Man cartoon called "The Venom Saga" that only includes five episodes. Or how Avengers Infinity War takes more from "The Infinity Gauntlet" storyline than "The Infinity War".