I’m impressed at the speed with which the three space-travelers actually start to travel to space, and I probably shouldn’t be.
Krillin, Gohan and
Bulma become the dream-team this episode, and will remain as such for the next,
oh, a million or so episodes? I’m serious, these motherfuckers are hanging out
forever, especially the duo of Krillin and Gohan. Show of hands, and be honest,
how many of y’all didn’t even realize Krillin was a fully grown man and Gohan
was the only child in the group when you first caught the Namek saga of DBZ?
Provided it was the first time you ever watched it, of course. Maybe, if this
blog ever gets any readers, you can even leave a comment or two!
Gohan makes a full
recovery way before Goku does, for pretty obvious reasons. Gohan definitely did
not get manhandled and tortured by a giant ape in Saiyan armor, but of course,
Chi-Chi is still way more concerned with Gohan than she is with Goku. On one
hand, Gohan IS a child, and way less equipped to handle battle trauma than Goku
is. On the other hand, fuck you, Chi-Chi, you’re a terrible wife. There are
videos of YouTube of wives and girlfriends breaking into tears at the sight of
their husbands returning alive from military combat, and Goku comes back from
the literal fucking dead, only for Chi-Chi to act like he’s a shit that won’t
flush. Horrible human being.
But you know what?
That just makes the great scene where Gohan stands up to her and says, no, I’m
fucking going to Namek, that much more satisfying. Gohan knows that he’s the
reason Piccolo gave his life up, he knows that the only way that Piccolo is
ever going to be brought back from Other World is through the Namekian dragon
balls, and god damn it, nothing is going to stop him from going up there
himself to ensure that the task gets done. There’s something incredibly noble
about it, especially coming from a boy so young. He’d be completely justified
in staying on Earth and letting the older, experienced fighters take care of
business, but it runs so bone deep with him that perhaps even he doesn’t
realize it: he owes a debt.
It’s this debt that
not just he but, perhaps, the entire planet owes to Piccolo, and Tien, Yamcha,
and Chiaotzu. Even if they weren’t able to win, every second that they bought
mattered in the end. Remember, when Goku finally made it to the battlefield,
Nappa was a split second from beating Gohan to death. Nobody else was coming to
stop the Saiyan threat except for Goku, so everyone who got in their way, even
for a little bit, is owed a debt of gratitude for buying enough time. If they
hadn’t, who knows, Earth may not have made it. Even though everyone remembers
them now as fodder, in a situation as desperate as the latter half of the
Saiyan saga, even a little fodder deserves the honor of being revived via
dragon balls. I guess. I don’t know, there’s no historical precedent for it.
There was a bit of a
time-skip between this episode and the last, obviously, because the Namekian
ship is now ready for flight. Bulma and her dad spent a few days, or weeks, or
however long, beating it with wrenches until it was no longer covered in moss
and also understood English. Now it’s about to make a new trip into space, and
the irony is, the original evil Namekian who piloted the ship in the first
place is, in a familial way, a big part of the reason why these Earthlings are
now piloting the ship back to its home planet. See, much like all the way back
in episode 5, sometimes history rhymes, and a device from someone who started
as your enemy will become something you will use to bring that same enemy—now
turned into a friend—back to life.
The gang leaves at
the end of the episode, and I think the scene where they leave may be one of
the best scenes of the show up to this point. It’s got the perfect mix of
emotional resonance and comedic relief. We have Bulma in her weird space
outfit, we’ve got Gohan in his little penguin outfit and sporting that Moe
Howard haircut—hell, Krillin’s wearing a baseball hat with his own fucking name
printed on it! Where did he even get that?! Maybe it was a piece of merchandise
after one of the World Tournaments, it would make sense since Krillin was a
front-runner in each of the three that took place in Dragonball.
Yet, when Chi-Chi
begins to choke up as she watches her son board a ship to take him into space,
millions upon millions of miles away from her, I realize, well, shit, Chi-Chi
really gets a rough turn in DBZ, doesn’t she? Granted, her attitude never makes
her sympathetic, but you can probably count the years she has both Goku AND
Gohan at home on one hand over the duration of this thing. She definitely has
to watch Gohan leave to a potentially terrible fate a lot more than any mother
should have to do. You could make the case for her as one of the most
sympathetic characters in the show, if said show didn’t also go out of its way
to make her thick-headed to the point where even Vegeta seems reasonable by
comparison.
Hell, you can see
how much she cares about him just by the fact that she packed… apparently
everything in their entire house for him so he’ll be prepped for his trip. Which
is stupid, because Chi-Chi is acquainted with Bulma, the lady of the family who
invented putting very large amounts of things into very small capsules which can
be thrown to the ground and activated at will. I mean, fuck, that was a whole
plot point in the original show, that Bulma can just do that. How do you know a
woman who can carry a fucking airplane in her pocket and not saddle up to her
like, “hey, mind helping me pack?”
On a final note, Mr.
Popo is now guardian of the Earth, at least in the interim until they can get
Kami revived, or until the people of Earth rebel and demand a free and fair
election for the next guardian. Although, I have to be honest, maybe the people
of Earth shouldn’t have the ability to democratically elect their leaders,
considering the figurehead that is the President of the World is a weird blue
cat-person. Am I being racist? I’m being racist, I should stop. Then again, how
can I be racist if I voted for Mr. Popo? You know, there were people that
actually said that about Obama, like, “I voted for Obama, I can’t possibly be
racist, I have some weird anti-race card shield now!”
Okay, this is the
most off-topic I’ve ever gotten in one of these. So, to wrap up, our team of
Bulma (the tech/chick), the bald dude (Krillin), and the kid (Gohan) have gone
into space, leaving the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of Frieza. Are
they going to succeed? Well, if I were a betting man, I’d say one of them is
probably going to die…
Oh, and Gohan gets
back in his li’l Piccolo outfit. How cute.
(4/5)
A Few Final Thoughts:
--“I hope he doesn’t overexert himself!” Very next shot of Gohan
is him walking along a railing and then doing a super-cool jump and flip in
mid-air.
-- Yajirobe? You’re Bulma’s friend? You remember what she
said to you two episodes ago?
--“You mean you made yourself a spacesuit… just for
takeoff?”
--Gohan respects Piccolo as much as he does his Dad. That’s both sweet and kinda sad.
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