If there’s anything you get to learn in this episode, it’s that Namek’s titular defense is nowhere near good enough to deal with the threats they face.
I absolutely love
this episode, I think it’s one of the greatest episodes to this point, and the
reason it’s so great comes down to the tension created in all the scenes between
the Namekian villagers and Frieza’s organization. You get a feel for Frieza
this episode that none of the previous ones where he appeared have been able to
create. Frieza is essentially the negotiator who holds all the cards and is
merely humoring you by negotiating at all. Because let’s be clear, by the end
of this episode, you know damn well that Frieza’s strongest goons can just
slaughter all of these people on sight and destroy shit until they find the
ball, assuming there is one to find. But why do that, when they can just coerce
it out of the elder and then murder him anyway?
But let it not be
said that the Namekians, or at least some of them, don’t have the brains to
ameliorate their situation. The elder Namekian of the village Frieza’s goons are
attacking just happens to notice that the villains are wearing these
devices—the scouters—that allow them to read power levels, and deduces that
these same devices are what the villains are using to quickly find and kill
whole villages full of Namekians. So he, of course, takes it upon himself to
zap the scouters—every last one of them, dealing a significant blow to the
Frieza gang because it basically blinds them until they’re able to get some
more scouters delivered.
It should be noted
that, while this entire attack is going on, Krillin and Gohan are observing
from behind some rocks, and Gohan is finding it increasingly difficult to mask
his rage at what the Frieza gang is up to. We get enough insight into Gohan’s
character this episode to determine, yep, he’s basically his father except a
lot more mild-mannered and serious-minded, preferring not to fight unless
pushed and being studious in a way that his father never was, both traits I
presume come from his mother’s side of the family.
Don’t get me wrong,
Goku has his own kind of smarts, but said smarts mostly manifest themselves
when he’s fighting or in otherwise some kind of ridiculous danger. You wouldn’t
put Goku on a fucking Nobel Prize panel, is what I’m saying, although if he
were real and all of the things he battled against were also real, he would 100
percent be the winner of every Nobel Prize imaginable. The point is, Gohan is
equally as angered by injustices being perpetrated against innocent people, and
has a very difficult time suppressing his anger at the sight of said
injustices.
Krillin, of course,
is the moderating influence to Gohan’s more action-oriented instincts. Krillin,
perhaps more than any other character on the entire show, is deftly aware of
his own shortcomings and is not afraid to admit when he’s way out of his
league. That’s not even just because he’s a human while Goku and Gohan have
Saiyan blood—Krillin straight-up knows this shit. Sometimes the best fighter
you have is the one who knows the fights he can’t win, and in Krillin’s case,
he has this in spades. Everyone makes fun of the poor bald bastard because he’s
not a hero like Goku or (much later in the series) Vegeta (spoiler alert lol),
but what makes him heroic is his ability to recognize, unlike even some of the human
fighters in the series, that he’s out of his depth and he needs to only do what
he absolutely needs to do and flee when the gettin’s good.
We don’t have much
time left to spend with Dodoria, so I guess we better talk about the fat, pink
bastard while we can. After all, there are going to be so few other
opportunities to talk about a fat, pink bastard in this series, you guys
seriously have no idea. Anyway, Dodoria and his spiky head are going to be
facing a lot of resistance in the next few episodes, and he does not take it
well. I mean, to be fair, none of the other villains in the series take being
overwhelmed well, but Dodoria’s right in front of our face right now, so
y’know, we ain’t got much choice. He’s basically a dumb grunt, just smarter than
Cui because he at least does a better job of talking down Vegeta during their
inevitable confrontation.
Meanwhile, in space,
Goku’s exercising in some of that good 20g shit. He apparently decided against
jiggering it down to 11, and is instead taking it as the challenge it is. By
the end of the episode, he’s done over 10,000 sit-ups. What I find interesting
about Goku’s training in space is that it’s nothing at all like King Kai’s
training. He’s not actually being taught or teaching himself anything, he’s not
trying to master techniques he already knows how to use. This is all about beefing
up in the harshest conditions he can muster, so that by the time he hits Namek,
he can just completely out-speed and out-power his enemies without the need for
special moves like the Kaioken and the Spirit Bomb.
Because, when you
think about it, Goku did get stronger with King Kai’s training, but at his base
Goku was only just shy of 10,000. And yes, I am going out of my way not to
describe Goku’s power level at that time as “over 9,000,” and I do it so that
poor meme can finally just die a peaceful death. Anyway, Goku had to rely on
Kaioken and the Spirit Bomb to overwhelm Vegeta back on Earth during their
first fight, and even with those at his disposal, it became a team effort in
the end. So Goku settling for just pure “get stronger” style training is the
best move for him, and we’re going to see several episodes from now that it
pays off in spades.
As for the titular
Namek’s Defense, in this episode it manifests itself as a trio of Namekians who
are able to mask their power levels. The three of them register as 1,000 apiece
on the scouters, so they are left to the nameless grunts to take care of. These
grunts pretty much exist as fodder for stronger, more important characters, and
of course the Namekian warriors completely outclass and defeat them with ease.
Not like Frieza and his lieutenants give a shit, one of the grunts is even sent
careening toward Zarbon, and instead of Zarbon catching him he just kicks him
the fuck away, like, “bitch, you already know you failed.”
These poor Namekians
are 100% outclassed, and we already know this, but just how badly they’re going
to get their asses kicked is left to our imagination as the episode ends on
Dodoria heading for the village elder after said elder just destroyed all of
their scouters. This and the next several episodes after it are going to be
bloodbaths for the fledgling Namekian race, but for now we can at least take
solace in the fact that Frieza and his cohorts have been crippled by their
ineptness at sensing energy.
(4/5)
A Few Final Thoughts:
--“Who am I? I suppose you can say I’m an aspiring dragon
ball collector!”
--“You underestimate our powers of persuasion.”
--“Aww, hell! You guys are way out of your league!”
--Even after they’ve gotten good and warmed up, the Namekian
warriors clock in at only about 3,000 each. So, y’know, not a good sign for
them.
--One more great one from Frieza: “All the horrible stories
you’ve heard are true.”
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