King Gourmeth

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King Gourmeth
グルメス王 (Gurumesu-ō)
English Name(s)	King Gurumes
Name Pun	Gourmet
Appears in	Dragon Ball Movie 1
Created by	Akira Toriyama
Japanese VA	Shūichirō Moriyama
Canadian VA	Garry Chalk
Funimation VA	Jeremy Inman
Personal Data
Title	King

King Gourmeth is a fictional character created for the first Dragon Ball film, Dragon Ball: The Legend of Shenlong. The film premiered at Toei Manga Matsuri on 20 December 1986.

Biography

Gourmeth is a regional king who has turned his kingdom upside-down in his quest to find ever more succulent delicacies to please his palate; his hunger can never be sated unless he eats food that is more delicious than his last meal.

Gourmeth's servants Vongo and Pasta oversee the destruction of a local village's flower fields to dig up the rich-stones in the ground, raising the ire of the residents, including a young girl named Pansy. However their main goal is to locate the Dragon Balls so that Gourmeth can wish for food to satisfy his hunger, since he has already pushed the world's best chefs to their limits.

Vongo and Pasta steal the Four-Star Ball from Son Goku, setting off a chain of events that would lead to Gourmeth's downfall.

Name

King Gourmeth's name is derived from the French word "gourmet" (グルメ gurume).

The name of Movie 1's enemy, King Gourmeth, is a pun on the word gourmet, meaning fine dining or a connoisseur of good food. At the time, there was a gourmet boom, with numerous collections of TV shows and magazines. King Gourmeth was a character who adopted and embraced that trend.
— Daizenshuu 6

Gourmeth's servants Pasta and Vongo are both named for Italian food: pasta and Spaghetti alle vongole.

Production

Minoru Maeda's design.

King Gourmeth was designed by Akira Toriyama, along with several other key characters in the film. His design was then adapted by Minoru Maeda for animation.

Music

King Gourmeth has a leitmotif composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi that is used in his scenes and in scenes involving his servants Vongo and Pasta. Most of the background music (BGM) tracks with this theme were never officially released. All of them are in the key of F Minor.

^† reference

Gourmeth's Theme
Debut	Kanzenshuu Catalogue	Official Catalogue	Release
Dragon Ball Movie 1	K-203	K-203	Unreleased
	K-204	K-204
	K-205	K-205
	K-209	K-209
	K-231	K-231†
	K-235	K-235
	K-244	M247	Daizenshuu 2:23(b)
	K-248	K-248	Unreleased
	K-249	K-249
	K-250	K-250
	K-251	K-251
	K-254	K-254
	K-255	K-255
	K-256	K-256
	K-257	K-257
	K-260	K-260
Dragon Ball Z Episode 19	K-XX	K-XX

Gourmeth's theme is introduced in K-203, the first piece following "Mystical Adventure!" in Dragon Ball Movie 1. The theme is fully stated in the bassoon in the second half of the piece.

Gourmeth's theme is stated in full by the bassoon in K-203.

The full theme, always in F Minor, centers on its dominant (C) and ends in a half-cadence (V⁷ or C⁷). This hanging dominant is not resolved in K-203, which ends on the dominant, and no particular resolution is repeated.