Herms watches the show (update: DB 29)

[DNA]

Should you factor Yamcha> Daisuke Gori into the pecking order?

[ABED]

What is with Yamcha defeating all these anime-original characters voiced by Daisuke Gori?

I'm glad he got some love. All too often, he's the punching bag.

[RandomGuy96]

--Besides the extra bit of screen time Yamcha gets hanging out with Goku, the anime does him a real big favor by giving him a cool climatic preliminaries fight against a wolf guy. This wolf guy mocks Yamcha’s wolf-theme, saying he’ll show him the power of a real wolf. The fight ends with that standard anime thing where the two opponents rush at each other and attack, then end up standing with their backs too each other. This is quickly followed by that other standard anime thing where one guy wobbles a bit or something and everyone thinks he’s lost, but then the other guy totally falls over or dies or explodes or whatever. Surprisingly, in this case the not-falling over/dying/exploding guy is Yamcha, and the totally falling over/dying/exploding guy is the wolf. Who, if I remember right, was voiced by Daisuke Gori, though he was not a Requisite Big Guy.

The anime really loves Yamcha for whatever reason. I think they may have just felt bad for him. Or, at this time, they were making a mistaken assumption that Yamcha would be an important, relevant, and strong character. They must not have gotten the memo for what his role is: he's supposed to charge in, thinking he's hot shit, and get his ass kicked easily by someone else to give them some cred. This will continue up until the Saiyan arc, where there is no more cred to be gained from defeating him, and instead he gets one-shotted by a plant.

--There are 137 participants in the Tenkaichi Budokai preliminaries. That’s a surprisingly low number, considering this is supposed to be a world championship, and there appears to be absolutely no prior screening process. As we saw last episode, people just walk up off the streets and sign up. There must be an awful lot of self-selection, with only people who know they’re damn good bothering to make the trip over to South City. Of course, even the audience isn’t that big, especially compared to what we see with the revamped tournament in the Boo arc, and it doesn’t seem like it’s being televised or anything. I have the sneaking suspicion that, despite the fancy title, the Tenkaichi Budokai is pretty much just a small podunk martial arts tournament at this point.

If it got more popular after this, that may explain why stronger guys suddenly started showing up at the 22nd, all of whom could easily dominate the 21st.

Should you factor Yamcha> Daisuke Gori into the pecking order?

Considering who he later voices, it's clear Daisuke Gori >>>>>>> Yamcha.

Well, the last one we saw with superhumans ended up with Piccolo murdering most of them. I imagine that they figured that discretion was the greater part of valor, and just stayed away.

As if that weren't enough, the ones who WERE courageous enough to actually show up again got there just in time to see the devil get reincarnated and blow up an island. I imagine that they just decided to cut their losses and go home. Forever.

Or, more likely, it's bad writing and Toriyama forgot about the first half of the manga.

Gouri Daisuke voiced both the big guy, the thin Orinji monk, and the wolf in this episode. His next role, that I know of, is in Episode #23 walla.

...is that the same big guy from last time?

[Kid Buu]

Is there any reason Daisuke Gori voices so many characters? Toei's fill-in boy?

What is with Yamcha defeating all these anime-original characters voiced by Daisuke Gori?

I'm glad he got some love. All too often, he's the punching bag.

I always liked how the anime gives him his own theme song. I wonder how that came about? My conclusion was that it was Furuya's idea, given that he went off to make another theme for the character 20 years later.

[JulieYBM]

Check this YouTube channel I set up. It has all of Gouri Daisuke's Dragon Ball roles I was able to dig up. Gouri voices many different Nameless Big Guys, but I don't think he ever repeats. In fact, he voices two entirely different Orinji monks in two entirely different episodes. I guess Gouri was used a lot because he was close with the audio director or one of the series directors. Either way, it's always a lot of fun to hear him play those bit parts because he plays them so well.

[Kid Buu]

That is very cool Jacob! The guy from this video might be the tallest fighter I've ever seen in the series.

[Herms]

Episode 21
Watch Out!! Kuririn

--The dub title: “Smells Like Trouble”. This is clearly the best episode title.

--We finally get another actual last episode recap! I’m treating that as a good thing. For now. Ask me again sometime around DBZ episode 100.

--It’s pretty well known, but still: the Turtle School uniforms at this point are red compared to the orange they later become in DBZ, and the circle with the “turtle” kanji is colored in yellow as opposed to being left white. In the manga they’re…well, they look this red for the limited palette color pages, but the full color pages tend to be orange. The start of the Kanzenshuu color chapter collection has a perfect example from chapter 155. Goku and Kuririn’s first two appearances in the Turtle School uniform (chapters 33 and 40) are a mixture of partial palette pages and black and white, so maybe that’s how the anime ended up with the red uniforms? In retrospect it’s actually kind of amazing they bothered changing it after 153 episodes. It’s not like they ever did that with Bulma’s hair, outside of an odd anniversary movie or two.

--I love the gag where Goku stands on top of that guy’s head to get a good look around, but it probably works better in the manga where you can have one panel with Goku asking the guy for a favor and the next panel with Goku on top of his head. In the anime the transition to Goku on the guy’s head is really abrupt, and it wouldn’t have been quite as funny to actually show him climbing up anyway, so it’s a double bind.

--As mentioned previously, in the manga Goku doesn’t reunite with Bulma and co. until after the preliminaries, while in the anime he does that right when signing up for the tournament. The scene in this episode where Goku and Kuririn go see Bulma and co. to tell them they’ve passed the preliminaries is therefore a bit different than in the manga, since much of the original dialogue already happened two episodes ago. Perhaps because of this, the scene starts with a bit of filler where Kame-sennin gives Bulma some crappy tournament souvenirs in the hopes that she’ll let him do pervy things to her in return. She punches him about 20 feet straight up into the air (Oolong says she could have entered the tournament).

--“Kame-sennin does something perverted” really seems to have become the go-to filler scene for this period. I know there’s a ton of gender issues wrapped up in this kind of humor, and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’d still much rather sit through this than extended power-up sequences or stare-downs. For now. Ask me again sometime around DB episode 100.

--Anyways, during the Kame-sennin/Bulma bit there’s a guy in the background wearing a baseball cap that apparently just says “Kent” for some reason. Later on there’s a guy with a hat that just says “Off”. Also, it amuses me that the t-shirt Kame-sennin gives Bulma simply says “martial arts temple” rather than, say, “Tenkaichi Budokai” or anything specific like that. Or are we supposed to assume that the martial arts temple where the TB is held is literally named “Martial Arts Temple”?

--Like most of the episodes from this period, I’ve only ever watched the Funi dub version before, back in the Toonami days, so this is my first time hearing the Japanese voices for Namu, Ran-Fan, and Bacterian. They’re about what I expected.

--The tournament announcer, on the other hand, seems to sound very different from how he sounds in his later appearances. Or am I just imagining things?

--I remember being somewhat surprised when I found out that Jackie Chun and Bacterian were named that in the Japanese version too. It wasn’t really a conscious thought, but I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I just felt like they wouldn’t really name characters after Jackie Chan or the English word bacteria in Japan. Which in retrospect obviously makes no sense, since Toriyama’s a huge Jackie Chan fan and they name things after English words in Japan like it’s going out of style.

--In fact, “Bacterian” falls pretty neatly into the well-worn naming category of “taking a word and sticking an ‘n’ onto the end so that it’s not exactly the same”. And, if anyone’s wondering, “bacterium” would be written a bit differently in Japanese than this guy’s name (DB character : バクテリアン/ bakuterian, bacterium: バクティリアム/bakutiriamu or バクテーリウム/bakuteeriumu).

--For some reason, I love how even Giran can’t stand how Bacterian smells.

--The anime adds special backgrounds to all the tournament participants as the announcer calls their names for them to draw lots. Namu has images of Buddha for his background. Giran has a dark, ominous background. Bacterian has smell lines. Yamcha has…floating multi-colored balls. What the fuck?

--For the bit where the announcer misreads Goku’s name as “Mago Go-sora”, the anime adds in a little balloon with the kanji for “Son Goku” and furigana for “Mago Go-sora” to make it clear what’s going on. It’s a joke that’s based pretty heavily on how the name’s written, so in the manga it’s perfectly clear as-is, but the anime needed a bit of extra visual aid.

--Of course, handling a joke based on the intricacies of the Japanese writing system must be an absolute nightmare for the dub writers. They manage by having the announcer mispronounce Goku’s name as “Gah-kei-ah”, which doesn’t quite make sense, but what else could they do? Come to think of it, it probably makes at least as much sense as pronouncing Ryu as “Rye-ooh”, and people still do that all the time…Anyway, the Viz manga has the announcer say “Song Oku”, which is arguably better but might not have worked as well with an audio dub.

--Kuririn’s background: sort of a cartoony “surprise line” pattern. Goku: orange and blue stripes. Ran-Fan: flowers. Jackie Chun: light shining down from the upper right corner.

--In the anime the announcer starts to call Goku “Mago Go-sora” again when announcing the first set of matches to the audience, but corrects himself halfway through. I don’t think he does this in the manga, but I can’t check right now.

--The announcer mentions that the prize money for the tournament champ is 500,000 zenny, which I’m pretty sure is the first time DB Earth’s standard currency is mentioned. Toriyama says one zenny is about as much as one yen, so that’s…well, roughly 4,765 US dollars at today’s exchange rate. Hardly seems worth it. OK, the exchange rate was different at the time, but probably not too different (DB volume 3 went for 360 yen on first release). If Toriyama’s thinking of the zenny as about the same as a yen (which is how he would think about it if he weren’t thinking too much about it, which is as much thought as I think he thought), then one zenny is going to always be much closer to one penny than one dollar.

--On the flipside of the “Goku standing on guy’s head” joke, the gag with the dog who runs the martial arts temple giving a “speech” is probably funnier in the anime. The extra-long build-up really helps.

--Not a whole lot to say about the actual Kuririn vs. Bacterian fight. I think it had some pretty nice animation, and I love the colors Kuririn turns when Bacterian chokes him. I could have used maybe a little less of Bacterian repetitively kicking Kuririn, but other than that it didn’t seem very drawn-out.

--Manga-wise, the episode ends at the exact same point as DB volume 3, in the original tankoubon release.

[Gaffer Tape]

About the announcer, you're right. Utsumi Kenji (Shenlong, Commander Red... Senbei!) plays the announcer through all of the tournament arcs, but he doesn't reprise the role in Z, which I think is a huge loss because his announcer is absolutely amazing.

[Valerius Dover]

That's odd...You'd think the original would have a consistent cast all the way through. Even the dub has Eric Vale doing the announcer in both DB and DBZ. Is this the only weird voice inconsistency?

[ABED]

the announcer say “Song Oku”, which is arguably better but might not have worked as well with an audio dub.

Still would've worked better than the joke we got, plus you could chalk it up to bad handwriting as to why he made that mistake.

[Gaffer Tape]

RE: Valerius Dover

Well, ten+ years is a long time to work on anything. Some people move on, leave the business, take other roles, have scheduling conflicts. Who knows? There are a few others I can think of off the top of my head:

Sho Mayumi voiced Chichi from the beginning of Dragon Ball through mid-Freeza saga. She apparently retired from voice acting, and the role was taken over by Watanabe Naoko (Pu'erh), and she's done the role ever since.

Takiguchi Junpei voiced Uranai Baba from her debut through the Saiyan arc but left the series at some point during the Freeza arc (see below). In the Boo arc (and all subsequent appearances) Tanaka Mayumi (Kuririn) took over the role.

Takiguchi also played the role of the Grand Elder up until his original death but then left the series, so that when the Grand Elder briefly returns to life, he has an entirely different voice.

And that's not even getting into the differences between the original run and Kai, or even within Kai itself, such as the passing of Gouri Daisuke (Gyumao and who would have been Mr. Satan) and Aono Takeshi (Kami-sama) during Kai's airing.

[SaiyaJedi]

--It’s pretty well known, but still: the Turtle School uniforms at this point are red compared to the orange they later become in DBZ, and the circle with the “turtle” kanji is colored in yellow as opposed to being left white. In the manga they’re…well, they look this red for the limited palette color pages, but the full color pages tend to be orange. The start of the Kanzenshuu color chapter collection has a perfect example from chapter 155. Goku and Kuririn’s first two appearances in the Turtle School uniform (chapters 33 and 40) are a mixture of partial palette pages and black and white, so maybe that’s how the anime ended up with the red uniforms? In retrospect it’s actually kind of amazing they bothered changing it after 153 episodes. It’s not like they ever did that with Bulma’s hair, outside of an odd anniversary movie or two.

For what it's worth, the red parts in the limited-color pages were more of an orangey shade in Weekly Shōnen Jump (or at least, they are now, so I suppose they could have been different 29 years ago, but it seems pretty universally the same shade). However, the official explanation for the red shade in the TV show is that, at the time, cel paint in the correct shade wasn't yet available. They did, after all, have full-color illustrations of Goku in his turtle school dōgi by the time the anime got underway, and they didn't reach the Budōkai for some months after that. It seems that the anime dōgi's shade was made more orange at the beginning of Z, then an even more closely-matching shade by the time of the Buu arc. But then for some odd reason, they reused the Dragon Ball anime practice of coloring the white parts yellow for the opening of Budokai 2 in 2003. *shrug*

--Anyways, during the Kame-sennin/Bulma bit there’s a guy in the background wearing a baseball cap that apparently just says “Kent” for some reason.

Kent paper. Around this part of the manga, there's also a guy walking around with LUMA plastered on his shirt, which is the brand of color ink Toriyama used.

While we're on the subject of hidden easter-eggs, in addition to Wayan-kun making a cameo in the tournament chapters, there's this guy with 1980s Japan hair, glasses, and a shirt with "OZIZI" written on it. I'm convinced that this is meant to be a caricature of someone, but I'm not sure who, exactly. This would presumably be around the time of Toriyama having talks with Toei Animation about a Dragon Ball TV show (the anime itself being properly announced during the finals), so perhaps Kōzō Morishita? Minoru Okazaki? ...Someone else who happens to look similar? I have no idea.

Oh, and finally, at least in the manga, there are these two dudes (one in a ballcap, and one with sunglasses and a mustache) who are present in the background throughout most of the tournament; in the fight between Kuririn and Bacterian in particular, they don gas masks along with the rest of the crowd, which makes me think it's a very sneaky cameo for Toriyama and his assistant (Akira Toriyama in the cap, Takashi Matsuyama in the shades). I've been meaning to email Matsuyama and ask if he knows or even remembers (the crowd faces in general in this arc are very much his style, which makes me think he probably drew a lot of the easter eggs), but I keep forgetting.

--The tournament announcer, on the other hand, seems to sound very different from how he sounds in his later appearances. Or am I just imagining things?

Early on, he was voiced by Kenji Utsumi (Shenlong, Red, Senbei Norimaki, et al.). But when he showed up again in Z, he was voiced by Hirotaka Suzuoki (Tenshinhan) instead. (Incidentally, the Anoyo'ichi Budōkai announcer is also Suzuoki... doing falsetto. He really regretted that once he realized he'd be doing it for more than a single episode.)

[JulieYBM]

Utsumi also stopped voice Shen Long and ReaCoom after the Namek arc, so my guess is he wanted more pay but the series could not afford it. This would explain why Takiguchi and Nagai Ichirou did not return for the Majin Buu arc, either.

[Valerius Dover]

RE: Gaffer Tape

Whoa, I didn't expect such major things....I guess the 11 year thing makes sense, though.

-In the dub we got two voices for Chi-Chi....Laura Bailey as a kid, and Cynthia Cranz as an adult.
-The Baba thing IS unintentionally mirrored in the dub. We have Linda Young for DB and the Vegeta Saga of DBZ, but Laurie Steele voices her upon her return in the Cell Games and in the Buu arc.
-We got Chris Sabat as Guru all the way

[Gyt Kaliba]

--The tournament announcer, on the other hand, seems to sound very different from how he sounds in his later appearances. Or am I just imagining things?

Early on, he was voiced by Kenji Utsumi (Shenlong, Red, Senbei Norimaki, et al.). But when he showed up again in Z, he was voiced by Hirotaka Suzuoki (Tenshinhan) instead. (Incidentally, the Anoyo'ichi Budōkai announcer is also Suzuoki... doing falsetto. He really regretted that once he realized he'd be doing it for more than a single episode.)

I know it's just an additional side note, but that bit about regretting doing the falsetto really cracked me up as a voice-over fan in general. I've heard many times via Rob Paulsen's podcast that it's never a good idea to get cast with a voice that you're not gonna be able to easily keep up for hours at a time, heh.

[linkdude20002001]

--The announcer mentions that the prize money for the tournament champ is 500,000 zenny, which I’m pretty sure is the first time DB Earth’s standard currency is mentioned. Toriyama says one zenny is about as much as one yen, so that’s…well, roughly 4,765 US dollars at today’s exchange rate. Hardly seems worth it. OK, the exchange rate was different at the time, but probably not too different (DB volume 3 went for 360 yen on first release). If Toriyama’s thinking of the zenny as about the same as a yen (which is how he would think about it if he weren’t thinking too much about it, which is as much thought as I think he thought), then one zenny is going to always be much closer to one penny than one dollar.

The exchange rate at the time was ¥500,000 = $2,100. But adjusted for inflation, that's $4,649.86. So, like you said, it's pretty much just a $5,000 prize.

[UltimateHammerBro]

This seems to fit with the practice that some anime I don't remember now (could it be Sailor Moon) used when it was translated into English: erase two zeroes from the yen amount and call it "dollars", so a 500,000 yen prize would turn into a 5,000 dollar prize.

[Herms]

Episode 22
Yamcha vs. Jackie Chun

--The last episode recap is a rather extensive playback of scenes from Kuririn and Bacterian’s fight offered with absolutely no narration except at the very end. Belated thoughts on the fight: Bacterian crushing Kuririn under his fat ass is pretty similar to what Boo later does to Kaioshin.

--The Japanese title totally glosses over how half the episode is about Namu vs. Ran-Fan. Even the first half of the episode is devoted pretty heavily to building up Namu. The Funi dub episode title is “Quarterfinals Begin”, which seems geared towards covering both fights, though I’m not really sure that’s a proper use of the word “quarterfinals”. If this three-round tournament has a quarterfinals at all, surely it began back with Kuririn and Bacterian’s match, right?

--A probably belated observation: Goku’s up on the tournament board as “Son Goku” and Jackie as “Jackie Chun”, while Kuririn is just “Kuririn”, Yamcha is just “Yamcha”, etc. Is this the first really good indication that people on DB Earth typically have no surnames? It’s never explicitly stated until Videl spells it out in the Boo arc, but even so, I think most people long before then had probably gotten used to the idea that (for instance) Yamcha is simply “Yamcha”, and would become “Dr. Yamcha” if he ever completed his doctorate.

--Of course, the whole “Jackie Chun” case just proves that the tournament officials will write down literally anything you tell them and not try to fact-check or be thorough in any way. See also: “Ma Junior”, “Shen”, “Anonymous”, “Great Saiyaman”, “Shin”…”Mister Satan” too, I suppose, and arguably “No.18”. I’d also assume “Mighty Mask” and “Captain Chicken” are not those people’s real names.

--In the manga, we don’t learn about Namu’s dreadfully serious backstory until Jackie Chun reads his mind right before the Namu/Ran-Fan match. In this episode though, Jackie Chun comments on Namu’s serious resolve right before his own match with Yamcha, and this leads to a flashback showing Namu’s backstory. But, though this flashback is presented as Namu’s thoughts, Jackie Chun is not yet reading his thoughts, and so won’t learn Namu’s backstory until virtually the same “hey, that guy’s serious. What’s his deal?” sequence happens in the second half of the episode. Also, Namu’s flashback is split up into two halves: the first here, and the second during another filler scene shortly after.

--In the manga, the women in Namu’s village wear black burkas, while in the anime they wear white ones, perhaps due to the extreme heat.

--There’s a little kid in Namu’s flashback who calls him “big brother”, and later Namu puts his hand on this kid’s head when he vows to get water and save the village. According to the Adventure Special and later guides, Namu actually has two little brothers named “Amu” and “Dabu”; the joke is that all three of them are named after the same Buddhist chant. Presumably this kid in the flashback is one of them, though in Japanese young men can get called “big brother” even by people not related to them. There’s no word on who the man and woman who talk to Namu in the flashback are; it’s tempting to assume they’re his mom and dad, but I guess we’ll never know. Unless this comes up in that Namu-centric filler episode down the road.

--Before the Yamcha/Jackie Chun fight, there’s a filler scene with Giran and Namu hanging out in one of the rooms backstage waiting for their matches. Giran is eating off a huge plate stacked with meat (that anime type of meat that’s sort of like a huge chicken leg but not really), while Namu quietly meditates in the corner and thinks about his poor thirsty village. In the anime this is where we get the rest of Namu’s flashback. Goku and Kuririn walk in after the announcer has to shepherd them off the stage, and Goku immediately starts helping himself to Giran’s meat. Giran is annoyed, and starts gulping down meat at a faster pace to compete with Goku. Eventually though, Goku hears Namu’s stomach growl and offers the entire plate of meat to him. Giran really can’t stand that, and is about to start a fight when they all hear the announcer declaring the start of the next match.

--You can see the Tinman, Cowardly Lion, and Scarecrow in the audience to Yamcha’s left right as the fight starts, and in a shot or two thereafter. Dorothy’s nowhere in sight, unless she’s supposed to be the blonde chick behind them. The group makes several cameos during the tournament in the manga as well. There's also a guy standing next to Bulma wearing a horned hat with "Lights" written on it, for less than obvious reasons.

--In the manga Yamcha comments that Jackie Chun seemed to win his matches pretty quickly in the preliminaries. The anime adds to this with a quick flashback to Jackie Chun fighting an absurdly huge Shaolin monk-type fighter, who he effortlessly sends flying from the ring (overall the whole thing is pretty reminiscent of Kuririn vs. the Oorin Temple senior). Huge monk guy seems to shrink about three sizes between when he stands menacingly over Jackie and when he goes flying. Oddly, the tournament announcer is shown declaring Jackie winner, even though he wasn’t really around during the preliminaries.

--The anime shows Jackie’s hand as glowing blue when he swings it to send Yamcha flying out of bounds, almost making it seem like a charged ki attack or something. It kind of diminishes the apparent level of effortlessness to his win, compared to the manga where it’s an ordinary-looking swing of his arm (although obviously a fast and powerful one).

--After Yamcha loses, there’s a bit of filler where Goku tries to talk to him, but Kuririn stops him, thinking Yamcha probably isn’t in the mood right now. This leads to a bit from the manga where Yamcha compliments Jackie on his perfect win, and Jackie consuls him by saying that he’s still young and will get a lot stronger. Then Yamcha starts wondering if Jackie could perhaps actually be…but in the anime he’s directly cut off by the announcer declaring the start of the next match (in the manga he just sort of trails off). Next is another little bit of filler as Jackie runs over to harass Ran-Fan some more; she seems a lot more tolerant of him than in the manga (or last episode, for that matter). Meanwhile, Yamcha asks Goku and Kuririn where Muten Roshi is, and they say he’s disappeared, confirming his suspicions.

--This leads back to manga material as Jackie Chun comments on how gosh darn serious Namu is. Except in the manga he says Namu is like something out of a “story manga” (ie a more serious/dramatic manga where the story is central, as opposed to a gag manga, which DB was still seen as at this point), while in the anime he says Namu is like something out of a “serious drama”. Then he reads Namu’s mind and learns his backstory. Except the anime showed this already, so we’re presented with a wordless, sped-up version of the exact same flashback from before. Afterwards, in the manga Jackie remarks that it’s no wonder Namu doesn’t fit in to this gag manga, while predictably the anime changes this to “gag anime” instead.

--Long story short, the anime has pretty much the same thing happen in both halves of the episode. This sort of recapping would make a lot more sense from episode to episode; I doubt anyone forgot Namu’s origins in the course of ten minutes. Still, the Namu/Ran-Fan match is one of the few times in the series we get a major fight between two unestablished characters, so they were probably trying to really make sure the audience was properly invested in Namu.

--Ran-Fan’s name actually comes from “lingerie” and “foundation” (ランジェリー/ranjerii, ファンデーション/fandeshon; that’s “foundation” as in “foundation garments”), as Toriyama explains in DB Forever. Which means I probably ought to start spelling her name “Lin-Foun”, but somehow that seems really weird. Maybe “Lan-Fan” at the very least. The Funi subtitles call her “Lanfang”, which isn’t helping matters.

--Similar to Jackie Chun’s blue hand from before, the anime has Ran-Fan’s hand glow red when she sucker-punches Namu; it even makes a scorching sound and gives off steam when it comes in contact with his body, as if it were red-hot.

--And then, when Namu remembers how everyone in the village is depending on him, the anime pads this out with another replay of his backstory flashback. Yeesh, enough is enough.

--Ran-Fan/Lan-Fan/Lanfang/Lin-Foun is very reminiscent of the Dr. Slump character Renault Citroën (cleverly named after a French auto maker and another French auto maker). She’s a world woman wrestling champion from France who participates in the Strongest in the World Tournament, fighting in only a bikini and boots. After defeating Senbei as easily as you might expect, her feminine charms prove ineffective on Arale, and she surrenders after Arale demonstrates her trademark “Earth-splitter” punch.

[Kid Buu]

Yamcha should have beaten Ran Fan in this tournament. His entire character arc in the first saga was overcoming his fear of women, and thus Ran Fan would have been the perfect match-up for him.

He got worfed far too quickly.

[Valerius Dover]

Is the episode title really Quarterfinals Begin? I could've sworn it was Quarterfinals Continue...