Dragonball Z Episode 33 Review – “Hero in the Shadows”

 I love the title of this episode, because it’s a great summation of the best characters in this show. The ones who aren’t fighters who can push their bodies into the millions, the billions of trillions. No, there are also the unsung, unspoken heroes of this series, who aren’t “awesome” in any sense of the word but are nonetheless capable of doing awesome things. The ones who serve as a reminder to the world that you don’t need to be epically powerful to make a real difference. All you have to do is be brave and act, even if it isn’t always in your own self-interest.

  Yajirobe had every good reason to run away from this battlefield. As a fighter, he’s never been impactful. Even from his introduction, he’s been more of a joke and a clod than somebody you would want on your side when the going gets tough. In a world where the heroes congregate around each other, and Goku in particular, Yajirobe stays behind the curtain, often refusing to lend a hand because he’s aware of his limitations as a fighter and aware that he very much does not want to die.

  But even a man like Yajirobe can be pushed into doing great things when the lives of people he cares about are in danger, and for all of his bullshit and bluster, Yajirobe really does care about the rest of the Z-Fighters. It’s what makes him the “bean daddy” throughout the series, because he wants to make sure his friends are able to get back up after a tough fight. For better or worse, Yajirobe is a part of the good guys, and if his place wasn’t already solidified, it is now. Yajirobe does what Krillin, Gohan and Goku couldn’t do, just by virtue of employing stealth—though you may call it cowardice—over brute strength: he defeats Oozaru Vegeta. For good.

  Let us be perfectly clear here: before Yajirobe’s attack that leaves the Saiyan prince without his tail, Vegeta has won. Decisively. Krillin and Gohan can’t even hope to touch Vegeta in this form, Goku is practically a dead man breathing, and nobody else is coming to their rescue. All the other remotely useful fighters are dead, and the remaining ones are huddled around a crystal ball in Master Roshi’s living room, watching in helplessness as Vegeta crushes the universe’s greatest hope in both hands like he was just a stress ball. It’s just Vegeta, and his unmatched power, and he’s just leapt over Krillin’s own sneak attack, the Destructo Disk. Krillin, the poor bastard, hasn’t hit anybody with this technique for the entire series so far.

  And yet, just when Vegeta is ready to finish off the only other full-blooded Saiyan in the universe (to our knowledge), out of nowhere comes dumpy, cowardly Yajirobe, who is at least strong enough to cut the tail off a giant monkey when its back is turned. Yajirobe single-handedly gives the humans a fighting chance, even if it’s still slim as Vegeta proves to have a lot of power reserves remaining in his plain humanoid form. Yajirobe scurries back behind a rock as Vegeta shrinks into his old, evil self, and he wonders out loud what the hell he was thinking. He doesn’t recognize his own heroism when he performs it.

  But does this mean the fight is over? Absolutely not. In fact, we’re arguably just at the halfway point right now. Vegeta may not have his Oozaru form anymore, but he’s still individually much stronger than anyone else on the battlefield, and the other Z Fighters know it. Not only is he much stronger, they will come to find out how resilient and how fine-tuned his fighting instincts are, but we’ll get to those in a moment.

  Vegeta picks Gohan as the topper of his shit-list and goes for him, serving him a hard hit right in the gut. Krillin tries for a sneak attack, only for Vegeta to promptly sneak his boot right the fuck into Krillin’s face, resulting in a howler of a line that I remember from at least the Ocean dub but may have also been in this one, however since it’s not in my notes I don’t remember: “His bald head was bouncing like a cue-ball!” Oh, Vegeta. You’d be such a scamp if you weren’t, y’know, a maniac that wants to murder everybody, including his own partner.

  Meanwhile, we go back to Kame House to watch one of the weirdest moments in this entire saga: Chi-Chi taking complete leave of her senses and screaming at Gohan to just fight! At first, she seems to have left this realm of reality entirely, going into something of a trance. Then, I guess, whatever’s left of the fighter in her just screams to Gohan at the crystal ball to defend himself. Even Chi-Chi finally realizes at a certain point that it’s time to cut out that “my scholar, my baby boy” bullshit.

  Then again, the kid’s, what, five years old? Doesn’t exactly fit the motherly instinct to tell the boy to defend himself when he’s being accosted by a grown man, especially if that grown man is a super-powerful space warrior. Eh, anyway.

  Vegeta gets done pounding Gohan for a second and tosses his broken body next to Goku’s. Goku wakes up and tells Gohan pretty much exactly what Chi-Chi just got done screaming in the scene prior, which is that he has no choice now but to fight. Goku tells him that Piccolo gave his life to save him because he believed in him, although I would argue that it’s more because Piccolo grew to love Gohan and see him as a friend who needed to be protected rather than a warrior to be saved for future potential combat situations, but what the fuck do I know, I’m not the boy’s father.

  What makes Gohan finally get up off his ass and do something is when, right as Goku and Gohan are joining hands in solidarity, Vegeta—prick that he is—flies into Goku, kneeing him very hard in the gut. A classic sadistic Vegeta move. This character has no qualms about attacking somebody who is vulnerable and unable to fight back. “Being a good fiend is like being a photographer,” he says, “you have to wait for the right moment!” If there’s one thing we’ve already learned about Gohan, it’s this: you can beat the shit out of him all you want to, and chances are he won’t muster up much of a fight back, because it isn’t in his nature to thirst for battle the way the full-blooded Saiyans do. But God fucking help you if you attack one of his friends, or his family, or basically any innocent person who happens to be in Gohan’s line of sight. Gohan may not be the natural warrior his father is, but he inherited his father’s willingness to go to bat for someone he cares about—or even just some stranger who’s being victimized.

  So Gohan gets up and starts actually putting some effort into fighting Vegeta, and it turns out the two of them are more evenly matched than you’d think. It’s probably a combination of the aforementioned boost Gohan always gets from righteous anger and a Zenkai boost from the earlier beating he took. I’m not sure if that particular plot point has been introduced yet, but if you look at the original DB, you can see a lot of times where Goku loses a fight, then goes and gets some Sacred Water or does some kind of training to get stronger, then comes back and whoops all kinds of ass. I like to think the Zenkai boost—which Goku never knew about in the original, of course—was also playing a role in that. I find it hard to believe that Goku came back and whooped Mercenary Tao the way he did just from a little chasing of Korin. Some of that was his near-death first fight.

  Oh, and I almost forgot to even talk about this, but Krillin is entrusted with the remains of the Spirit Bomb that Goku failed to throw in the previous episode. Goku was able to hold on to some of the energy, and essentially gives him the energy, which takes the form of a white fire-y aura on Krillin’s arm. I believe this marks the only time in the show where somebody other than Goku throws a Spirit Bomb.

  Anyway, episode good. Episode definitely good. We have the epic Yajirobe tail-cutting, we have the second-to-last instance of an Oozaru in the entire series, we have the Spirit Bomb being wielded by the most unlikely of fighters, and of course, we have more Chi-Chi freaking out. It’s like I mailed Akira Toriyama a wish list and he hit every mark. Okay, maybe I’m being a little facetious, but this really is a great episode. We’re at a point in the series where the pacing is brisk and it feels like something important happens every episode. Enjoy it while it lasts.

(5/5)

A Few Final Thoughts:

--“That kid hurt me!” Vegeta’s eye just can’t catch a goddamn break.

--The last useful things Yajirobe will ever do in this series will involve bringing Senzu beans. Oh, unless you count the little bit of babysitting he did for Bulma early on in the Android saga.

--Gohan: “You’d better not hurt him!” Vegeta: “It’s a little too late for that!”

--The scene where Yajirobe starts driving away and then stops, that moment where he stops is probably just as badass as him actually cutting Vegeta’s tail. It shows that he has a conscience, however buried under cowardice it may be.