Oh, hey, I was just talking last week about Nappa being on a rampage, and now here’s a title for an episode that reflects that!
This is definitely a
filler episode within a non-filler arc. I haven’t watched DBKai yet, but I can
imagine that most of this shit was cut from the Saiyan saga in that series,
because it’s mostly just Nappa playing around with the Earth’s military like
they were a bunch of Lego toys. Yes, this is the episode where Goku makes it
back to Earth and starts his way towards the battlefield, but that’s why I figured
MOST of it would be cut from Kai. Don’t get me wrong, there is still some action
in this episode, but it’s a lot of inconsequential nonsense that just helps us
with the realization that, hey, this Nappa fella is kind of a jerk.
The titular rampage
that Nappa goes on is one where Vegeta allows him to go out and fight a bunch
of Earthling military and police shit. The Earthlings are, of course, more than
aware of the Saiyans by now, and all of the journalists and innocent civilians
they have killed in their wake. As usual in the DBZ universe, and for that
matter the late DB universe, the military is no match for the might of Nappa,
who punches through their steel planes like they were tinfoil and expresses
disappointment that the Earthlings’ idea of a military is just a bunch of dudes
using a bunch of fancy toys. Nevertheless, Nappa does break a sweat during his
final attack. He hopes Vegeta doesn’t notice.
So, while Nappa fulfills
every remotely educated person’s prediction of how a fight between a Saiyan and
an Earth military would go, the people over at Kame House are sitting in a
suspense that I would assume does not equal the suspense of people at home,
because, y’know, they actually know the people that are dying out here. At one
point, Bulma makes the ludicrous proclamation that Goku has never lost a fight.
I guess that’s why he’s dead, then. But even if we discount his self-sacrifice
during the Raditz battle, we still have the first Tao fight, the first
Tambourine fight, the first King Piccolo fight—hell, the first fights against
both Jackie Chun and Tien at the first two World Martial Tournaments,
respectively. Goku is by no means unstoppable, which is what makes DBZ a little
bit interesting. Goku is just BARELY below unstoppable, but there are fights he
has no capacity to win, and we see our share of those during the course of this
series.
Piccolo remains
frustrated with Gohan, and he says a line that reverberates through the rest of
the series, especially when it’s Gohan’s neck on the line: “Facing your fears
would have been much less painful.” I can’t say I’ve ever had a super-powerful
Saiyan hurdling toward me and been the only person who could kill them before
they recover, but I nonetheless thing there’s some good life advice to that
line. It’s more painful to leave the fear where it is, so it can continue to
haunt and overpower you whenever it wants, than it is to just face it and at least
possibly neutralize it. Yeah, that fear may turn out to be much stronger than
you, but you’ve conquered it in your own special way just by confronting it and
not letting it rule you anymore. That line later gets repeated to Gohan after
Majin Buu absorbs Piccolo and starts to psychologically dominate him, but that’s
for another time.
In lighter news,
Nappa can’t outdo a five-year-old in the time-honored tradition of shit-talking
your opponent. Gohan tells Nappa he smells and Nappa is deeply offended, but
Vegeta laughs in agreement with the young half-ling. It’s possible that Vegeta
is so sick of Nappa at this point, he’ll take any opportunity he can get to
laugh at the bastard. Much like in the TFS version of this show, Vegeta spends
his entire time during Nappa’s tenure on DBZ babysitting him. It’s only when
Nappa is gone that we see Vegeta’s personality truly shine through.
At the end of the
episode, once the 3-hour arbitrary timer has run out, Piccolo has formulated a
plan that involves Krillin distracting Nappa, Piccolo grabbing Nappa’s tail,
and Gohan attacking Nappa for the final blow. I feel like Krillin and Gohan
should be switched around for this exercise, given Gohan’s track record with
dealing final blows to Saiyans, but hey, this is the reason why Piccolo is the
great warrior and I’m just some idiot writing a review about what he’s doing.
We know this is going to fail, right? I mean, we know because Goku’s on his way,
and he’s the hero, he’s not going to show up to a battlefield where the other
heroes are like, “hey, yeah, it turns out we didn’t even need you that bad.
Could you go and pacify your wife? She’s vacillating her time between fainting
and complaining. I can’t decide which one is worse.”
I will say, though,
my favorite moment in the episode is Piccolo finally giving Gohan some
encouragement. I feel like this is the center of the teetering fulcrum where
Gohan goes completely from being the frozen, scared boy he was at the start of
the saga to being the child-Saiyanish warrior that is able to survive almost
the entire series. I have a good feeling about this Gohan kid. I think he’s
gonna go far.
(3/5)
A Few Final Thoughts:
--Oolong is the worst. The total worst. Or, as Bulma puts it,
“Your selfishness produces a chemical in your brain that causes extreme fear!”
--Chi-Chi continues her fainting practice in this episode. I’m
not a mother, and I never will be, but I still feel like this show is
under-selling Chi-Chi. She used to be a pretty damned strong fighter. Now she’s
just another of the many, many observers, just like what happens to the other
lady fighters introduced in this series.
--Goku eats one of the senzu beans that Korin gives him, and
I have to wonder: does he think his friends have had an easy time up to this
point?
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