And what could be a more perfect name for this episode? The damn thing might as well just be called “Good vs. Evil.” I don’t know how familiar younger viewers are with early DBZ as opposed to the later stuff/Super, but take it from me, readers: this is probably the most iconic fight in the entire series. At the very least, it’s in the running for top 3. The show references back to it all the time, it drives much of Vegeta’s future characterization, it’s the first truly even fight in the series up to this point, it’s just an amazing fucking fight.
You really get an
idea of who Vegeta is over the course of these next few episodes. Up until this
point, no matter what dub you watch—hell, even the TFS version—Vegeta is
basically Nappa’s babysitter, the straight man to that character’s idiocy, to
different extents depending on what you’re watching. As different as Nappa
himself is in the TFS version of the show, the fundamental relationship between
himself and Vegeta during the former’s time on the show stays the same. Nappa’s
the bumbling idiot, Vegeta’s the guy who tries to reel him in. Now, for the
first time in the series, we get to see Vegeta unfiltered and unhindered.
Before the fight
even begins, Vegeta offers Goku a proposition he’s heard before and will hear
again: won’t you join me, and together we can rule the universe? Goku refuses,
and he has every good reason to, and the best reason is this one: he is a man
of peace. But also, there’s the niggling little fact that job security working
with Vegeta isn’t all that great. The man’s idea of a health insurance program
is he will ensure that you will die if your health does not meet his standards.
The dude fails every OSHA inspection by murdering the people who are sent to do
said inspection. Hell, who knows how sincere Vegeta was being with his offer?
It’s just as likely that he was waiting for a chance to lull Goku into a false
sense of security.
Speaking of false
sense of security, this is the last DBZ episode—indeed, the last instance
across the entire canon—where Launch shows up. I, for one, am perfectly fine
with seeing the character go. Akira Toriyama never seemed to know what the fuck
to do with her, even from the very beginning where she was introduced. She
always struck me as a comic relief character in a point in this series where
there was already plenty of comedy to go around. Sure, her gimmick was
interesting at the start, vacillating between her violent thug side and her
sweet-natured side, but it quickly became tiresome when all of the sneeze
situations became so contrived they were impossible to take seriously. Now,
being unable to take a character seriously in early Dragon Ball isn’t such a
big deal, but by the time King Piccolo shows up, it just isn’t welcome anymore.
Back to Vegeta. The
reason Launch shows up to begin with is she’s drinking in a bar when suddenly
the entire planet seems to quake at the power-up of Vegeta. Birds fly terrified
from the scene of the battle as Vegeta charges up an energy level of around
18,000, a number that would have been absurd at the end of the original series,
but here is only symptomatic of a power creep that goes on to become out of
control by the time things wrap up. As I noted while I was watching this
episode, from what I remember, this is the first time we things being destroyed
just from somebody’s ki rising. I doubt this is the case, I’d imagine Piccolo
was able to do that, yet this is the first instance in Z, and it doesn’t make
you feel too good for Goku’s future health.
We can feel right
away that Goku’s going to need the Kaioken, and not just to outspeed Vegeta. All
of that training at King Kai’s didn’t give him nearly the baseline power
necessary to compete with the Saiyan prince, as even at Kaioken x1, Vegeta is
able to maintain the upper hand, laughing off Goku’s attack as just like
something he had encountered before. What makes Vegeta such a dangerous fighter
throughout the entire series is his sheer battle experience. Not just any kind
of battle experience—Goku has battle experience, too, but he’s a fighter.
Vegeta is a motherfucking killer. He will beat you and blast you until you
cease to exist. Goku will only do that to someone he has to do it to, and even
then, reluctantly. It’s this willingness on Vegeta’s behalf to straight murder
the fuck out of whoever he fights that makes him scary to hero and villain
alike. Even as a heroic character, Vegeta does not hesitate to go for the kill
shot.
However, what Vegeta
lacks and will lack for a very long time is the advantage Goku has over him:
the fact that he fights for people he cares about, not just for the sport, or
for revenge. When the fate of the world rests on Goku’s shoulders, it doesn’t weigh
him down—it makes him stronger. It’s what makes him exceedingly dangerous to
somebody like Vegeta, even more dangerous than Vegeta is to him, because Vegeta’s
consequence for losing is himself dying, and that’s the worst case scenario.
Goku’s only scenario in this fight, if he loses, is that himself and everyone
he cares about will die. Goku’s motivation clashes with Vegeta’s
bloodthirstiness in a way that makes for one of the most compelling fights in
all of Dragonball.
In all of the excitement,
Yajirobe shows up. Now, this is usually the point where I would make a joke
about what a useless piece of shit he is, trying to take all the credit for himself
even as he sits at the sidelines and eats pork buns or whatever the fuck. But
to be honest, here, he reminds me of my favorite character in all of Dragonball
Z, and I’m not sure about getting too far ahead of myself here, but let’s just
say Yajirobe is here for a little more than just comic relief. Some of the most
awesome moments in all of Dragonball Z come from characters finding bravery in
themselves who normally don’t go to the battlefield. Under layers of their
greed, their selfishness, their cowardice, lies the capacity for greatness, and
sometimes even the shittiest characters in the entire show will be placed in
situations where they have to start digging for the best of themselves.
Eventually, Goku has
to push his Kaioken attack to x3, even more than he was trained to handle, an
act that triggers the first of many of King Kai’s remote temper tantrums as he
watches his star pupil do something he explicitly asked him not to do and succeeding
at it anyway. And it is during this particular attack that one of the great new
characters of DBZ is killed: the scouter. Yes, Raditz’s leftover scouter is
ironically enough destroyed by his own brother’s power-up, making it all the
way to 21,000 before blowing up right on Bulma’s face. You remember all the way
back at Gohan’s Rage where I talked all about how Shakespearian that episode
was? Seems like it’s continuing to pay some dividends, eh? Ehhhh? Probably not.
The episode ends
right at Goku’s attack, so of course we have a great cliffhanger to work with
here. Is Goku’s Kaioken x3 going to be the thing that takes down Vegeta, or is
Vegeta still able to overcome even the more advanced techniques of the great
King Kai? The answer may surprise you, if you’re somebody from the 1990s who
has just started watching this show for the very first time and didn’t happen
to catch any episode from the Namek saga while channel surfing to find that
Vegeta is very much still alive in that arc. Of course, to be fair, for all you
know that could be from earlier in the series, so maybe I’m just being an
asshole again. That’s pretty much what I do.
So, rating? This
warrants another 5 out of 5, and it doesn’t have so much to do with the quality
of the episode—which is high, don’t misunderstand me on that—as it does with the
importance of the episode. We finally get to see Vegeta operating by himself,
something we’re going to get the delight of seeing more throughout the series,
and it’s damned entertaining. The guy knows how to be a villain and then an
anti-hero with some style. That smirk, that confidence, most of all, that sheer
ruthlessness. You know every time Vegeta is in an encounter with another
fighter, that other fighter is fucked unless they are way stronger than him,
because mercy is a trait Vegeta doesn’t share with Goku or the other Z fighters,
even when he’s basically a member of the crew. It really whets my appetite and
makes me look forward to more shenanigans from this crafty little bastard.
(5/5)
A Few Final Thoughts:
-- I need to read a Vegeta/Launch fanfic. Now there’s a man
who could tame Blonde Launch, and horrify the total hell out of Blue Launch. I
bet Vegeta would vastly prefer the Blue model.
-- Vegeta remembers that Goku has lost his tail. If they
still had a home planet, Goku would be a laughing stock.
-- Vegeta: “This staring contest is starting to irritate
me.” Yeah, welcome to DBZ.
--Even though Vegeta and Goku are so different in their
priorities, they’re both Saiyans. Even when he feels completely outmatched,
Goku notes that the challenge is exciting to him rather than frightening.
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