So much for Goku showing up to save everybody. His decision to use the Nimbus as transport instead of just flying to the battlefield may have just caused the death of the only being on Earth who could keep the dragon balls live just by existing. Goku surely must realize this, and the (literally lesser lmao) fact that his son is also on this very battlefield. I suppose Goku has the same amount of faith that we would normally have in a real protagonist as TV watchers. That division is pretty scary.
Anyway, we approach
the end of Piccolo’s redemption arc here. Ever since the very first episode,
the Saiyans have proven themselves much greater adversaries than him, for Goku
and for the rest of the planet alike. Piccolo’s team-up with Goku was borne out
of sheer necessity. Both of them had tried to take a Saiyan on by themselves,
both of them got nowhere, so Piccolo chose the pragmatic path, and it set him
down the long, winding road to redemption, whether he knew it at the time or
much later as he was training Gohan. Piccolo’s evil has been weathered and withered,
and by the end of this episode he will lay down his life for a friend, the
first truly selfless act he has ever done.
How do we get there?
Well, it’s simple. In the time-honored tradition of filler, the main bad guy has
the upper hand the entire episode, but is consistently stopped from killing the
fighters because one of the other fighters will get the drop on him and save
their friend. At the beginning, when the three-hour timer runs out for Goku, Nappa
gets ready to take down the remaining B-team, but Piccolo has an idea to grab
Nappa’s tail. What he didn’t count on was the fact that he and Vegeta have
evolved beyond that ridiculous little weakness, and Piccolo’s folly is rewarded
with a painful-looking elbow right to the noggin. Gohan, who was actually
charging after Nappa with the intention of finishing him off like he was
supposed to do episodes ago, is shocked.
It feels a little
arbitrary to me that there’s a cut-off point for the tail weakness, but I
suppose it would be too predictable and too easy if they could still weaken
these Saiyans by grabbing their tails. Besides, Goku has gotten used to life
without a tail by this point, so it stands to reason that these Saiyans wouldn’t
have a problem with their tails being grabbed or removed. Still, it sure as
hell isn’t convenient for Gohan, because he’s the one Nappa goes after next,
until Krillin jumps into action and almost kills Nappa with the Destructo Disk.
Vegeta actually has to tell dumbass Nappa to dodge the disk, because he's under
the impression that he can just tank it like he’s Younger Toguro or something. He’s
way stronger than Younger Toguro, but still.
This is another example
of the gap between Nappa and Vegeta. It isn’t just about the power, it’s about
the warrior instincts. Nappa has repeatedly allowed these weaker fighters to
get the drop on him and only because he dodged or defended at the last minute—or,
in one case, one of the people trying to kill him flaked out—did he manage to
survive. Vegeta, we get the impression at least, won’t be so easily taken off-guard.
Nor, unlike Nappa, will he have his BEAUTIFUL FACE scarred.
Of course, just as
Nappa’s about to do something about the scarification of his glorious visage,
he is shot in the back by the coward Robert Ford—I mean, Piccolo, who offers
the perfectly decent excuse that he thought it was his face. At least, Vegeta
thought it was a decent excuse, he laughed his ass off at that. You sometimes
get to feeling a little bad for Nappa, it feels like he tries his best to maintain
Vegeta’s respect, but the other Saiyan is so dismissive of him. It would make
you feel bad, at least, if Nappa wasn’t deserving of every bit of the scorn he
gets from Vegeta.
In any case, this is
around the point where we get the news that Goku is close enough to the
battlefield that he can now be sensed. Vegeta can sense it with his scouter—over
5,000!—and the other fighters, save for Nappa, can sense it with their natural
ability to sense power levels. Vegeta is not having this shit. He reasons that
they need to kill the other fighters as quick as possible so that they can’t combine
their powers with this new fighter, who he isn’t fully convinced is Goku since
that same fighter was killed by Raditz just one year ago.
And that brings us to
the situation with Piccolo. With him still very wounded by Nappa’s initial
elbow attack, Gohan defends him, knocking Nappa right into a small rock
formation. Nappa has been getting punked over and over, and this is his breaking
point. He charges up a massive attack and aims it right for Gohan, who is out
of anger mode and thus no longer poses a threat. Gohan is most certainly
doomed, because who would expect the brutish Piccolo, with his plans for world
domination and his penchant for treating Gohan like a ragdoll or a side of beef
to punch, to jump in front of the bullet and die for the son of his worst enemy?
I don’t mean to
spoil anything for you, but obviously, he does. Also, I told you at the
beginning of the review, so yeah.
We don’t know at the
end of the episode whether Piccolo survived or not, but the ending of the episode
makes it plenty enough obvious that he didn’t. Kami’s morbid intonation that it’s
his time to go, the fact we’ve established that Piccolo doesn’t need to be
alive for us to use a set of dragon balls, the fact that Piccolo isn’t the main
character, and the character arc that he’s been on in general, it would feel
incredibly cheap with all of those things in consideration if he DIDN’T die
here.
Nevertheless, this
is a hard death to take. It’s always sad to see a character who has pretty much
completed a Heel-Face Turn go out right after it, but it happens all the time
and that’s why we’re conditioned to not just accept it, but see it coming.
Thankfully, the DBZ universe is so chock-full of mulligans that nobody who is
watching this with any knowledge of the series believes that Piccolo will stay
dead. This is a huge relief to me, as Piccolo is one of my top five favorite
characters on this show, and if you want to know who the other four are, well,
I guess you will just have to read this blog more in the future to find out!
(lol no one will)
But in all seriousness,
this is the most important episode of the Saiyan arc yet. Seeds that were planted
at the end of Dragonball and the beginning of DBZ come to bear fruit here. Gohan
tells Piccolo at one point that he will take on the Saiyans himself if Piccolo
needs to go, just to protect the dragon balls. Piccolo rightfully laughs him
off, but it’s a demonstration of Gohan’s huge character growth just in this one
fight. Gohan went from not even being able to stomach attacking the Saiyan careening
toward him to being able to knock that same Saiyan through a mountain with a single
kick. Gohan earns his stripes in these episodes, and it is a goddamn sight to
behold. We are seeing shades of the boy who will save the world in just a few…
hundred more episodes—look, this series is very long, okay?
And what of our bald
Earthling friend, Krillin? You have to admire the diversity of the Z Fighters,
by the way, an Earthling, a half-Earthling plus half-Saiyan, and a Namekian. It’s
like the intergalactic UN up in this bitch. But anyway, Krillin gets to debut
his signature attack in this episode, the Destructo Disk. To tell you the
truth, I’m having a hard time conjuring up a moment in the series where that
attack is actually used to kill an opponent. I think the most it’s ever done is
cut off the tip of Frieza’s tail. It makes me wonder if the attack just sucks
(it doesn’t), or if Krillin is just terrible at using the move (it does). Krillin
is another bald bastard you get to feeling bad for in this episode. The poor
little dude is easily the least important character on the battlefield, and
that never changes. He’s pretty much there to react to how strong all the other
characters are. He might as well be there with some wet towels and a big keg of
Gatorade for how much he actually contributes. Fuck, I think he’s pretty much
the senzu bean bitch for the rest of the series after this. Shame, shame.
(5/5)
A Few Final Thoughts:
--“You can’t sense power levels without some sort of
device!” Oh, Nappa.
--“I don’t know how much more of this guy I can take!”
That’s what she said
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