Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone between and beyond, and welcome to week 30 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.
The end of Goku's childhood is at hand. What once came as a shock to everyone, now is entirely unsurprising, because we all know how Goku looks and sounds as an adult.
But in any case, we're on the home stretch of the original Dragon Ball. In just three weeks, we'll be in the Z portion of the story. Of course, this split is entirely arbitrary, and will in fact take place in the middle of that week's viewing, but still.
Previous thread: Week 29 (DB movie 3)
Next thread: Week 31 (DB 136-140)
Anyway, without further ado...
Episode 131 - Each On His Own Path
Dub title: Walking Their Own Ways / Heading Out On Their Own
Originally aired 26th of October 1988
Episode director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Yukio Ebisawa
Goku trains by playing tag with Popo, but the blindfolded Popo catches Goku with extreme ease. This time Goku is “it,” but he can’t catch Popo at all. Popo tells him to search out his opponent using ki, but… As Tenshinhan and the others aim for the Karin Holy Land, they stop by a village that’s bustling with people due to a festival. But the mountain that the village reveres as a god erupts, and the magma endangers the village. Tenshinhan stands up to stop the magma in order to save the village, but…
Anime-only/filler content: All filler.
Episode 132 - Hotter Than Magma
Dub title: Hotter Than Lava / Hotter Than Magma!
Originally aired 2nd of November 1988
Episode director: Minoru Okazaki
Animation supervisor: Minoru Maeda
Goku continues his training of playing tag with Popo, but he is completely unable to catch Popo. It seems that Goku needs much more training on how to sense ki. Meanwhile, after setting out to face the magma, Tenshinhan and the others try to alter its course, but fail! Yamcha goes even further and destroys a lake, and the flowing water hardens the magma, but the eruption is constantly growing more and more intense. Tenshinhan and the others combine their power and fire their respective special attacks!! This somehow holds back the magma, and the village is protected.
Anime-only/filler content: Completely filler.
Episode 133 - The Reunion Before the Storm
Dub title: Changes / Reunion Before A Storm
Originally aired 9th of November 1988
Episode director: Yoshihiro Ueda
Animation supervisor: Katsumi Aoshima
Three years after Piccolo Daimaō was defeated, Kame-Sen’nin, Bulma, and the others wait for Goku’s arrival in front of the registration area for the 23rd Tenka’ichi Budōkai. Goku shows up there, having grown so much as to be unrecognizable! After arriving right before registration closes, Kuririn, Tenshinhan, and the others initially don’t recognize Goku either. Having shared a joyful reunion, they all spend the night in a hotel. The next day at the Tenka’ichi Budōkai preliminary grounds, Goku discovers Piccolo’s doppelganger, Ma Junior!!
Anime-only/filler content: The Dragon Ball Gang wondering where the other Z fighters are, the night filler at the hotel and Majunior saving the mother and child from the clocktower debris.
Episode 134 - Troubles at the Tenka’ichi Budōkai
Dub title: Preliminary Peril / The Tournament Begins
Originally aired 16th of November 1988
Episode director: Kazuhisa Takenōchi
Animation supervisor: Masayuki Uchiyama
At the preliminary grounds, a beautiful girl comes up to talk to Goku. It seems she knows Goku, but she gets angry at him when he doesn’t recognize her. The curtain finally rises on the preliminaries! Separated into different blocks through Chiaotzu’s psychic powers, Tenshinhan and the others advance along well. Goku also displays the fruit of his training by defeating King Chapa, who he fought at the previous tournament, with only a single karate chop! Amid all this, Chiaotzu is defeated. His opponent is Tao Pai-pai, who Goku previously defeated and who has now become a cyborg!!
Anime-only/filler content: Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu talking about Ma-Junior via telepathy, Oolong and Puar relaying news of the Dragon Ball Gang, yet another flashback to Goku defeating Tao.
Episode 135 - The Eight Chosen People
Dub title: Battle of the Eight / The Final Eight
Originally aired 23rd of November 1988
Episode director: Mitsuo Hashimoto
Animation supervisor: Mitsuo Shindō
The preliminaries result in Goku and the others, Ma Junior, and the mysterious girl all being selected to participate in the main tournament. The fight to determine the last participant is between a fat, masked man, and Shen, a man who gives the outward appearance of being unskilled. It looked like the masked man had the upper hand, but Shen’s head hits the man’s jaw as Shen turns around, and he wins!! The masked man was in fact Yajirobe, who had disguised himself. And thus the eight participants are finally decided!! The first match is between Tenshinhan and Cyborg Tao Pai-pai, the younger brother of Tenshinhan’s master Tsuru-Sen’nin!
Anime-only/filler content: The crowd trying to enter the gymnasium, the Gang discovering Chaiotzu is being taken to the hospital, Yajirobe fighting the fisticuffer, Shen almost missing his matching because he was in the bathroom, Roshi and Bulma stressing over Chaiotzu's injuries.
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Interesting trivia:
- Mint refers to the village elder as her grandfather in the official subtitles, whereas she only refers to him as the village elder in the dubs. I'm no expert, but I don't think this is necessarily an error in the dubs; I think this might just be a case of different translators interpreting certain words a little differently in ways that are perfectly acceptable. Sounds like a pretty huge difference, just looking at the dialogue in English, but as I'm given to understand it, the word she uses to refer to him can either mean a wise elder, or your grandfather... Again, I'm not totally sure, but I thought I should make a note of it. Presumably MyVisionity will have some further insights into this.
- Speaking of dub differences, Blue Water's dub handled the festival in episode 131 quite interestingly... The old man says "Come, sit, today is a day of feasting and drinking!" Which is fairly accurate, then Yamucha says "Okay" and Kuririn says "I'm thirsty", just about getting the "Drinking" crap past the radar... Then, in the next scene, the subs has a guy offers Kuririn a drink, but he says he's underage; the guy says it's just juice, so Kuririn drinks it up... And the implication is that, in fact, it was far more than just juice... In the Blue Water dub, the guy says that the people of the village made this drink, Kuririn asks if he's sure it won't make him sick, and the guy clarifies "It's kinda like a homemade energy drink. Just drink it fast!" Kuririn approves, and drinks it... Then goes red for some reason. Not the worst censorship the Blue Water dub would try, but certainly not the best. Funimation's dub, meanwhile, removes the references do drinking in the scene with the elder, then essentially follows the Japanese quite closely with the scene between Kuririn and the guy offering him a drink; Kuririn says he's too young, the guy then says "It's my own homemade root beer", Kuririn takes the drink, then turns red.
- Because Yamucha, Kuririn, Ten, and Chiaotzu is a lot to type out, we'll refer to the fighting characters as the Dragon Team for convenience. "Dragon Ball Gang" is used for the non-martial arts characters like Bulma, Puar and Launch, but this does encompass the Dragon Team if they're present, such as in the finals of this tournament.
- Ten suggesting Kuririn and Yamucha learn flight is an allusion to Kuririn's match against Ma-Junior where he demonstrates knowing how to use it. That event had long since happened in the manga, which by this point was up to Goku and Piccolo fighting Raditz.
- The 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai could be considered the earliest point the Dragon Team have properly assembled as a group. The fight against Daimao was only really Goku and Ten as a duo, and the Red Ribbon Army was mainly Goku. At the 23rd TB, the full fighting cast of Goku, Kuririn, Yamucha, Tenshinhan, and Chaiotzu have finally come together (the only previous time was after the 22nd TB).
- KBABZ had initially suggested we use "Z Fighters" to refer to the Dragon Team. The term "Z Fighters" is never used within the manga itself, nor do any characters use it in the anime, although Funi's dubs often called them the "Z Warriors". In the Japanese manga and anime, there are episode titles and narration that use "Dragon Team" in similar places to where Funi use "Z Warriors", however.
- As you might guess, the storyline of the Dragon Team trying to reach Karin's Tower is never actually resolved in the filler. We find out they made it when Kuririn reveals they all have Senzu Beans in Episode 135, proving they did it off-screen.
- From Episode 133 on, Goku will never have a tail again, until the anime-only GT storyline, where he has one pulled out by the Kaioshins to help achieve Super Saiyan 4.
- For dub-viewers, this is the last time until GT that you'll hear Goku voiced by Stephanie Nadolny in the Funi dub, or Zoe Slusar in the Blue Water/Ocean dubs; replaced by Sean Schemmel in Funi, and Jeffrey Watson in Blue Water. Interestingly, while this is also true in release order in the Funi dub (that is, Stephanie Nadolny voiced Goku in DB first, then the role ended, then she later played Goku again in GT), Zoe Slusar had already recorded all of GT before playing Goku in DB, so anyone who watches the Blue Water dub of GT when we get there will find Slusar sounds quite different in the early episodes to how she sounded in DB, as she's still finding the voice at first. Additionally, while Funimation used the same voice as their adult Goku, Schemmel, Blue Water actually chose to not have Jeremiah Yurk reprise his role as adult/Super Saiyan 4 Goku that he'd played in GT, instead choosing to cast Jeffrey Watson. Given how odd Schemmel sounds in these episodes, perhaps Funimation should have made a similar choice.
- After this timeskip, seven years have passed since Goku first met Bulma. Goku is now 18 and Bulma is 23.
- This is the first time Bulma has been visibly aged through her character design. Bulma is the only character in the franchise who appears to age progressively throughout the story; all other characters such as Goku, Kuririn, Chichi, and Trunks have "age jumps".
- Although Bulma would suddenly age backwards, visually, by a huge amount in Super.
- By this point, Goku has acquired his full, most iconic outfit design, though slightly differently-coloured. He now has a black undershirt with big boots, aquired by training with God (naturally, in the Saiyan arc, the gi itself will become more orange, and the black undershirt will become blue to match the shoes and armbands). Kuririn and Yamucha do not gain these additions, even after they also train with God in the Saiyan Arc: They stick with no undershirt and shoes. The change of undershirt colour (as well as the symbol changing a few times), Goku's outfit here is what he'll wear throughout most of the rest of the original run, all the way up until Z episode 287 (though we'll see him wear it one more time after this, in Z movie 13. Spoilers for where I'm putting that movie in the viewing order, I guess).
- Goku never wears his turbaned outfit ever again, nor is it explained why exactly he's dressed like that; it's only to reveal to the characters that he's grown into a man. It's implied however that his last part of training with God was to do so in the world and travel, like Roshi ordered him to at the end of the RRA Arc.
- Yamucha's scars are also never explained, but again it's implied he gained them while training out in the world. It's possible they were added along with Goku's boots and undershirt to help the two look more distinctive in the black-and-white manga, where they have similar heights and would otherwise look very similar.
- Yamucha also regains his long hair in episode 133, not seen since it was cut short in episode 19. He will keep his long hair until the Artificial Humans arc begins.
- Episode 133 marks the final change in ending credits visuals in OG Dragon Ball. Unlike the previous changes in ED visuals, this time not a single shot from the previous endings is kept. Sadly, this set of ending visuals only lasts for 21 episodes. (Probably the Toei staff weren't expecting the shuffle-around of staff and the big rebrand to Z at this point, so they expected these visuals to at least mostly last into the next arc)
- As with all the OP and ED changes, Funimation's version ignores it and just sticks with the original, even if you watch in Japanese with subs. For the dub track, this is somewhat understandable, as Toei never provided them with textless versions of the other OPs/EDs. (Though textless versions almost certainly do still exist; Toei are just pretty bad at keeping track of this kind of material)
- Episode 133 also marks the first time music from DB movie 3 would be used in the series.
- As implied by Kuririn's reaction, this is the first time he's seen Goku since he left to retrieve his Dragon Ball and Nyoi-Bo at the end of the 22nd TB.
- Roshi telling Ten that he has no intention of fighting as Jackie Chun could be considered the true point at which he's retired from practicing martial arts.
- The short scene of Ma-Junior saving the mother and child from the falling debris may be alluding to his turn after Raditz; by this point in the manga he defeated Raditz and had taken Gohan with him, the first point he decides not to be explicitly evil.
- Yamucha and Kuririn don't react to Ma-Junior in the gymnasium because they never actually laid eyes on Daimao (young or old), and thus have no idea what he looks like. One wonders how they never managed to see him in the news on TV in the aftermath of his defeat; perhaps they were too busy training?
- Sadly, Chichi has now gained her hair-trigger temper. -_-
- There are 72 competitors for the 23rd TB, meaning 64 of them will be knocked out by the time the Finals get under way.
- Chiaotzu rigs the tournament draw numbers for the second time. The next tournament we see will actually have a fair numbers draw, but the one following it will not, meaning that the majority of tournament draws we see in the original run are rigged (though we don't actually see the numbers draw in the GT tournament episode).
- Goku's fight with Chapa-o is the earliest point ki suppression is demonstrated, which will of course become a major factor when Scouters are introduced in the Saiyan and Namek arcs. This also implies that Kuririn, Yamucha and Tenshinhan have also mastered detecting ki (possibly through Karin), something Goku didn't learn until training with God and Mr. Popo.
- It is never actually revealed how Tao Pai-Pai was revived and turned into a cyborg. In his death, we see a flash of light and a fiery cloud with heavy implications that he was disintegrated. Cyborg Tao's only visibly organic part is his mouth and jaw.
- Cyborg Tao is also the correct terminology for what he is: Cyborg is a contraction of "Cybernetic organism." This should be the term used for #8, #17, #18, and #20 considering they are part robot and part organic; the dubs and manga tend to instead use the term Android, which is used for full robots that look like humans (which applies to Sergeant Mettallic, #16, and #19). The original Japanese word used to refer to all of Dr Gero's creations (including Cell) roughly translates to "Artificial People". The Simmons subs use "Artificial Humans", though how well this applies given Cell isn't exactly human is up for debate. We will meet cyborgs a couple more times in addition to this, when we meet mecha-Freeza and metal Coola.
- Goku smiling while assessing the strength of Ma-Junior is the first time he's shown to be visibly excited about fighting a strong villain.
- The 23rd TB is the only one in which the finalists all know Goku in some fashion (although this wasn't known considering Shen's secret isn't revealed until later).
- The World Tournament Announcer has now gained a moustache, which he will keep for his next three appearances.
- Bulma forcing Lunch to change from Blue to Yellow is final Lunch transformation in the manga.
) with only laying that one single scratch on his chest then gets soundly thrashed afterward. That said, it was good to see him finally beating one of the guys (along with Crane Hermit by extension) both morally and physically who had set him on the wrong path all those years ago when he was younger before Roshi ultimately set him straight during the last Budokai.